CCO 101 (Exam)

In our last three lessons, we were introduced to various thinkers. In lesson 4, we were taught about how the 2 thinkers; Edward Bernay and Noam Chomsky views propaganda. Propaganda, as negative sounding as it seems is just a medium to spread information. How it is determine to be good or bad should be dependent on the purpose of using these information.  From what I know, Bernay sees propaganda as a tool to educate the people since the average individual usually get their information from sources without verifying the authenticity and reliability of the source. Thus, by spreading propaganda, Bernay think of it as a way to education the public by making information controversial while Chomsky thinks that the government use propaganda as a way to control the thoughts of individual to mitigate any risk of having resistance to the current governmental control. The purpose of controlling the people's thought is just so to control the people's actions since Chomsky thinks that by controlling the thoughts of people, it would effectively mean to control the actions of people since all actions are a manifestation of thoughts. Using a more detailed argument map, this would be how it can be explained clearer.

In a fuller detail of the whole of lesson 4 which depicts how the 2 thinkers viewed on the idea of propaganda. What this lesson has thought us is to let us understand that we should question the information presented to us. Although some information might be presented as biased, one should think deeper to understand the purpose behind the information so we understand why such information is carried out in such a way.

For lesson 5, we were taught about hegemony and counter-hegemony. The thinker for this topic would mainly be Antonio Gramsci. What he think of hegemony would be the act of a superior group, known as the hegemon, having dominance over a inferior group through their consent of being dominated. Thus, by being dominated, these inferior group will either stand to gain incentive or avoid being disincentive to withhold their consent which resulted in them allowing these hegemon to dominate them. By agreeing to be dominated, these inferior groups has to spread the ideologies of the hegemon in order to create a successful hegemony. How these ideologies are spread would mainly be from the use of civil society or political society. As complicated as it sounds, civil society would plainly mean organisations without forceful control such as schools, churches, etc and political society would mainly be institutions that controls the groups using direct force such as the army, police, etc. As for counter-hegemony, it would mean the act of rebellion over the current hegemony system when inferior groups unite against the current hegemon to bring a new ideology that these inferior group think is better than the current one. How this is done would be through the use of a revolution. In this revolution, some of the tools used could either be cultural jamming or political jamming. To determine if a popular revolution is successful or not, 4 criteria must be met. These are the current hegemonic system having a crisis of authority, a hegemonic bloc, a conscious leadership and the need to transform the existing structure through the use of war of manoeuvre, war of position or both. I am going to skip the in depth details as all the more detailed explanation can be found in the argument map below. 

This lesson has taught me much about how the current leadership system works and why people follow such systems. I have learnt how and why some people would follow certain leaders can retain their control over these inferior groups even though their ideologies are not condone by most. For instance, the reason why the leader of North Korea, can still retain their control over their people was due to the strong political society to prevent their people from rebelling. 

For lesson 6, we have learnt about the theory of justice. The thinkers we have learnt would be John Rawls and Robert Nozick. I would say this lesson would be my favourite one amongst the three as it allowed me to develop a sense of empathy towards how different people think. Another key lesson that I have picked up was how these two thinkers would prioritise differently about what is important in their justice system. For Rawls, his theory would heavily emphasise about how liberty is important whereas Nozick would prioritise rights as vital component in justice. These respective thinkers would also have rules as to how a justice system is fair. However, both system would also present their flaws. In a more detailed explanation, a more comprehensive chart is shown below.

What I have picked up from this lesson not what justice is defined as what these thinkers defined but more about understanding that there is no definite right or wrong in every actions done by people. In a way, this lesson would be more on understanding the rationale of  why and how people are doing things as such rather than being a closed-minded individual being obsessed with a definite right or wrong.

In conclusion, each lesson present to us a different aspect of how we see and understand the world.