Programme Co-ordinator

Dr Peter Field


Dr Peter Field
Room 317, History Building
Phone : +64 3 364 2097
peter.field@canterbury.ac.nz
Administrator
Judy Robertson


Judy Robertson
Room 318, History Building
Phone : +64 3 364 2104 or ext 6104
judy.robertson@canterbury.ac.nz

The music business in the past has been dominated by major labels, with an independent fringe.

Indie labels are currently finding success in the industry environment.

There are compelling reason for major labels and independent labels to cooperate.

For this reason, it can be difficult to differentiate between major and independent labels e.g. Sub pop

Concept &Treatment

I plan to write an extended article on the Trials at Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany at which 21 elite Nazi officers were condemned to execution or lifetime prison sentences for war crimes committed under Adolf Hitler’s Chancellorship. I will also explore this trial and judgement to contemporary events (acts committed by those such as Gadafi in Libya and American Presidents) that are considered to be war crimes and the condemnation people involved may or may not have faced.
The purpose of this article is to discuss the relevancy of human nature to judge and punish those considered criminals, whether the judgement is conditional, that acts of punishment are driven by fear and hatred rather than a supposed ‘justice’ and to inform the audience of an important historical event in relation to contemporary events.
My initial intention for the target audience are cashmere students and parents, especially those who study history and are interested in human nature. However, I plan to locate a more a scholarly journal online for publication if this is not an option.
Conventions I plan to use are interviews, facts and figures, primary and secondary source information and illustrations.
I will arrange an interview with a professional such as a Cashmere High history teacher or a Canterbury University professor to gain a valuable opinion on the topic of focus, establishing a link between the article and the audience with its local and professional value.
The inclusion of quotes, facts, figures and information from primary sources, such as the official documentation at the trials, and secondary sources, documentaries, books and articles on Nuremberg Trials for example. This contributes a factual solidity and a sense of truth to the article as well as a wide coverage of the topic.
Illustrations of the trials and aspects surrounding it will be included in the layout, giving a visual aspect to the article for readers to understand the topic on another level.
I aim to create an informative and thought-provoking tone, discussing information and creating ideas about it. The layout will be basic, containing illustrations, rule of thirds and an effective design that suits the topic.
Justification
The topic and purpose hold relevancy in that they will refer to contemporary events in relation to a historical event that is a microcosm of the human condition. It is educational, which to a school audience is always relevant. They will be able to relate the historical event to events currently occurring and be provoked to think about human nature.
It is an informative, thought-provoking topic which suits well the type of educational, school-based publication of the Cashmere Circuit, which aims to inform and entertain. The target audience includes a variety of students with many interests in both history (there are many history students at cashmere) and what is currently going worldwide. An interview with a history teacher from cashmere high also creates a strong link between the article and the Cashmere Circuit audience, as they have a direct, everyday relationship with such teachers.
Upon finding images relevant to the trials I may encounter copyright issues when looking on the internet. In order solve this problem I will have to find images that are not copyright and/or scan images from relevant books.
Also I need to ensure an interview with a professional by making a time and date, and designing useful questions for them to answer in the interview to avoid problems in communication etc.
The concept I have chosen allows for a thorough amount of research, comparisons between past and present important events concerning humanity and the use of interviews, images and facts. I will also spend a suitable amount of time drafting and rewriting the article, as well as editing the interviews to fit well into the main article. I will use professional software such as indesign and photoshop, as well as reliable hardware such as a scanner and sound recorder for the interview. Going through these processes I believe I will create a polished and integrated media product.
The article will be reader-friendly and designed in an accessible way, such as previous articles in the Cashmere Circuit. I will use images in order for the reader to have a visual understanding, facts and figures to represent the reality behind what I write, interviews to create an interpersonal and professional link to the article and the use of professional software to create a reliable article, following the style sheet of the Cashmere Circuit.

The name Harriet is of a Germanic origin, the name Heimiric specifically, or more noticeably, Heinrich. The masculine equivalent is Harry. More appropriately used are the two variants Henriette and Henry, both coined by Norman emigrants in England.

Literally, Harriet means "ruler of the home", a rather patriarchal meaning if I choose to gather superficially, but perhaps the meaning stems to somewhat of a kind, firm spirit who, when in top form, rules wisely with undeniability and love, if we look at 'home' as meaning 'heart' as meaning 'love'.

Such is a list of variants:
* Drika (Dutch)
* Endika (Basque)
* Enrica (Italian)
* Enriqueta (Spanish)
* Etta (English)
* Etti (English)
* Ettie (English)
* Etty (English)
* Haliaka (Hawaiian)
* Halle (English)
* Hallie (English)
* Hariala (Hawaiian)
* Hariata (Hawaiian)
* Harrieta (English)
* Harriet (English)
* Harriett (English)
* Harrietta (English)
* Harriette (English)
* Harriot (English)
* Harriott (English)
* Hat (English)
* Hatsy (English)
* Hatti (English)
* Hattie (English)
* Hatty (English)
* Heike (Dutch), (Frisian, German)
* Heinrike (German)
* Heintje (Dutch)
* Hendrika (Dutch)
* Hendrikje (Dutch)
* Henka (Polish)
* Henna (Finnish)
* Hennie (Dutch), (English)
* Henny (Dutch), (English)
* Henrieta (Polish)
* Henrietta (English)
* Henriette (Danish, Dutch, French, German, Norwegian)
* Henriikka (Finnish)
* Henrika (Swedish)
* Henrike (German), (Scandinavian)
* Henriqueta (Portuguese)
* Henryka (Polish)
* Hetta (English)
* Hetti (English)
* Hettie (English)
* Hetty (English)
* Jetje (Dutch)
* Riette (English)
* Rika (Dutch, Swedish)
* Rike (German)
* Rikka (Finnish)
* Yetta (English)
* Yettie (English)
* Yetty (English)

Of those, the second to last, Yettie, is the most odd, in my opinion.
As we know, the Yeti is a Himalayan beast with dimensions twice that of an ape, but with a more human gate in its totality. Now, the home of the Yeti is a wide expanse of snow, mountains and just plain, lifeless, dreary rock. With the original meaning, it would be fear to say, that of this wide, lifeless habitat, the Yeti would quite naturally be the "Ruler of the Home", with perhaps only the odd Buddhist monk for a friendly companion who can see eye to eye with his peaceful nature with an illusory first-impression.
I suppose the only Yeti's in either England or Normandy are humans with the name Yettie, which, let's not deny, would be a more common nickname than anything, which are in themselves not taken too seriously.

Another type of 'beast' is the Harriet tortoise, a long-living, large beast of the beach.

Question One: element: visual.
Use of one type of shot motion:

In the extract I have been studying of Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder (the scene in which the femme fatale, Phyllis Diedrichson, wife of Mr. Diedrichson, drives her husband into a dark, lifeless street while her lover, Walter Neff, crouches prepared behind the front seat with a piece of cord to commit a murder that could land both of them (or just one of them) in riches, hell or the local gaol for insurance fraud), there occurs a slightly high-angled tracking shot from across the opposite corner of the street they are entering, following the smooth movement of the automobile as it careens into the abysses alleyway. “This isn’t the right street” snarls M. Diedrichson as the darkness engulfs his vainly spoken fears, as this particular camera movement of fantastically smoothed and polished tracking reveals the brilliant, well-worked and undeniably fatal cunning of Phyllis. As she is the woman behind the wheel, not Mr. Man and certainly not Mr. Neff, the movement is purely complimenting her genius in the art of murder; that every speculation she has come into on her own fancy goes swimmingly, or at least had for a little while longer after her murderous commission lands her face down in a pool of her own blood—when shot to death by Walter Neff in the later scenes of the film, after she deviously planned to kill him first, which she eventually did with one badly aimed bullet, so not being alive herself to enjoy it.
The movement itself also shows the strawberry-sweet scrutiny of the three involved continuously descending down the path of their cold, solitaire deaths— the expected punishments for all three of the murderous or bitterly cruel scoundrels. From the glaring headlights and lamps, the tracker leads us into—at a distance and angle perfectly placed so as to instil a sense both of objectivity and anxious clinging to the occurrences in the audience—into a dingy, black void that one can only pass through after entering the amoral world of crime—as the previous acts of Phyllis and Walter (such as the murder we are convinced to believe Phyllis committed of Mr. Died’s previous wife, who she was nursing when very “sick” and “only got worse”, and her love transgressions with Walter in his high-rise apartment, and Walter’s deception of his own company and state) have shown us—they are involved in, and are going deeper and deeper into, as the motion shows, until they come to the far-down bridge they’ll be mercilessly prodded over until they reach their awaiting Hell.
Now, although Walter is absolutely instrumental in Phyllis’ whole plan, and is himself responsible for some of the brilliantly mediated murder in this sequence, it is with this singular tracking movement that the clear line is drawn to illustrate Phyllis’ almost absolute control, knowledge and power in the way of occurrences in this and all sequences she is involved in—such as when she turns up at Walter’s apartment after he’d stormed out of hers and slyly brought him to the brink of his decision to help her, and ignorantly be her gun, her brain, her man, her tool, and a similar tracking shot as she tangos fatally in through the lowly-lit doorway, into the begging arms of Walter, again another example of her smooth, killing ability--, ultimately depicting her as the mastermind and deviant of the entire film, which is also back up by her ‘European/German appearance’, according to one Mr. James, who suggests it relates to the war time propaganda, and the general American derisive hate towards Germans and the likes.
The use of camera movement to signal a climactic scene in this way is very common in noir, as it is stripped down, open to interpretation and generally gives a foreboding impression, a necessary element in film noir as a whole.

Question Two: element: aural.
Use of music:

The music in this same Double Indemnity extract is perhaps the most effective element in interacting with the audience who, because they cannot identify with colour because it is a monochromatic film from the 1940s, are always greatly affected by the music in the film, as it portrays the overall mood wanted to be discoursed by the directors and producers.
As the soon-to-be-murdered M. Diedrichson, Phyllis and her hidden lover, Neff, leave from the Diedrichson estate, a deep, foreboding music of orchestral consistency—mostly brass instruments such as trumpets and a backing of screeching violins—begins to play, to accompany the all-seated auditory systems of the naive audiences, and send us anxiously along the darkly and dimly set journey towards the cruel death of a man loved only by his daughter. Every few metres progressed by the heaving, 1940s oil-guzzling wagon-of-a-car seems to cause an up-rise in the intensity of the orchestra’s instrument plucking, banging and blowing, each time lift up our vulnerable heart’s further into our gaping mouths. Louder and louder, harsher and harsher: M. Diedrichson’s angry questioning becomes more fearful, “what are you honking the horn for!!??” shouts his poor, trembling lips, and the music reacts in cruel mocking and violence to his pleas. A shadowed male body and two gloved hands appear from behind the upholstered leather, and the choking of one 50 year-old without a lifeline is beaten against loudly by the violent piano’s, drums, violins and trumpets, until all Diedrichson breath has left, and the music dies down into a devious rumble of descending succession and hate, complimenting sinisterly upon their destructive actions.
The audience hearts are racing like horses under threat of being sent to a glue factory, the mood is intense, dark and deadly, and no member of the theatre can help but realise the upcoming death in this humanly sickening scene. Walter and his widow, engulfed by the orchestral mob—who would more suitably be baring American rifles, grenades and missiles instead of wood and brass—are becoming trapped in their own deeds, and the inevitability of their actions is ever so present, as their enthused darkness finally cuts short (probably by only ten lonely years anyway...) the life of an old man.
This particular type of music adheres strongly to the film noir genre, being orchestral, violent and foreboding. Most noir films, such as The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon share this type of music, for the same affect on the audience, defining the genre.

Question Three: element: what’s in the scene.
Actor’s jolly-good show:

The body movement and facial expressions of the three constituents in the sequence have great importance in aiding viewers to understand the individual characters, the situations they are found to be in and the overall humour.
Careening into the alleyway, in the wagon we have frequent close-ups mainly of M. Diedrich in shotgun on our left, and Phyllis behind the wheel on our right, with the occasional slighted vision of the dark, crouching, suited figure of Neff. Phyllis’ face, posture and movement all suggest a femme fatale nature—a type of state in which the evil, deceitful and murderous side of a woman comes out in full parade, with a heavy perfume of seduction, and a slight reduction from their mate whom they are about to devour. With cold eyes, slightly pouted, yet masculine lips, raised shoulders and a pushed out breast, Phyllis expresses the femme fatale that she so happily is. As we realise the sociopathic ability she has to take delight in death, and not interrupt it, no matter its cruelty, her acting becomes more apparent, and her character’s disposition is clear to us. Also, her unfailing gaze into the endless existence that is the camera, staring towards the audience, but almost through it, gives us a firsthand experience of what a black widow, turned woman really is, which is enforced in the later sequences, when we again see her evil, seductive nature, when she tricks Neff and sends a bullet into his stomach, not even flinching, she stands, calm, pointing the gun at him, but ironically, she cannot fire a second shot, and so her end comes—telling us that a femme fatale is no longer a femme fatale when she succumbs to love, and can’t finish the job she began, which is typical of the film noir genre of which this film is clearly a part.
Mr. Diedrichson’s expressions and reactions are absolutely counterpart and essential to the scene as a whole. They are mostly of worry, uncertainty, fear, anger and melancholia, and reflect the very sadness and vulnerability of the normal American psyche in relation to death, which was very present in American society at this time, as WWII had just ended, and the full force of lost loved-ones was beginning to be felt by all. As they descend, he asks more and more questions, his eyes popping from his skull, trembling, his voice breaks, his head shakes, he chokes and he becomes lifeless. The very look in his eyes alone, combined with his fearful questioning, preaches to the audience his fear of death, his old age, his vulnerability and his lack of satisfaction in a materialistic life. We get the message that murder is truly horrible to be subject to, and we must ask ourselves: how can we send our brothers and fathers to die in a muddy battleground? Are we all totally barbaric? And what has racism to do with it all? We are all human.
And lastly, Phyllis’ satisfied expression of a climactic fulfilment, shown in her glaring eyes and forward stare, as well as her slight smile, at her husband’s last breath, truly climax the situation for the audience, in a horrible way, which almost compliments that death is the final sexual climax a human will have, as the noises M. Diedrich makes are clearly oriented to be sexual and orgasmic.

Question Cinq: relevance: Hays Code:
Framing and Editing:

The Hays Code was a film document created in Hollywood at the early flourishing of 20th century film, to restrict what the producers and directors could put and show in their films, so as only to expose society to morally appropriate material, which focused mostly in on the stars in the films, rather than the actual happenings that are being shown with artistry. The code itself was on its way out, or at least succumbing to the pressure of directors wanting to show more, at the time this film was made, but, nevertheless, Double Indemnity’s making was greatly affected by the code, especially the restrictions of not being allowed to show murder or death directly on film, not being able to show or refer to sexual conduct or misconduct nor methods of murder.
As the code dictates murder or its methods are not to be shown directly, Walter’s climactic murder of Diedrichson is only vaguely referred to, with Walter creeping up with something between his parted hands, and the camera cuts to Phyllis’ face as his hands reach over the top of the seat. The film is edited to skip straight from crawling hands to a facial close-up, showing nothing more of Diedrichson in a close format for the entire rest of the film, as he is considered dead, but not truly allowed to be shown so, certainly not like we do in modern cinema, with mangled corpses hanging from tree branches in various teen horror flicks, such as Rob Zombie’s remake of Carpenter’s Halloween. The only signs that Diedrich is really being killed are the expression of Phyllis’ face and the moans and choking of her husband.
And because the Hays Code clearly states that “methods of crime were not to be explicitly presented”, all films of this time had to find ways around the rules in order to the same impression upon the audience with a murder as if it was being directly shown i.e. recreate the important scenes to get across the same intentions, usually done with intense music such as in this sequence, as well as low-key lighting and contrast, that reflects the horror in the scene, anyway not visual in other words.
This scene would give the audience an entirely different perspective if the direct brutality of the murder was shown, not being edited because of a film code, Hays or otherwise.
Although this film still followed the code partly, it denied it in slight ways, in that in many other scenes, methods of crime were shown, specifically how one would conduct insurance fraud. In words Walter’s fraud plan is clearly described to the audience, and in the turning point sequence when Walter finally gets Mr. Diedrichson to sign the paper for insurance, he tells him his automobile insurance paper has two copies to be signed, when really the second one is a “Double Indemnity clause life insurance policy”, ultimately tricking the old man into moving the narrative forward; the plans for his murder.

Question Six: characterisation: Mr. Diedrichson
Type of man? How conveyed?

From what we have already heard spoken about him and how we have seen him behave, we can gather Mr. Diedrichson to be an all round hard-working, dedicated man with a love for his oil-field managing and hands-on job, with trauma from a deceased wife, a deep care and worry for his teen daughter, but with a hard edged facade aimed at keeping people away from his emotions, which comes off as a cruel and cold.
We get this from the way Phyllis speaks about him to Neff, often saying things like “he hates me” and locks her up in that house all day and gets angry if she buys anything, to paraphrase. He is tight with his money, and careful around dangerous broads like Phyllis, who he keeps around to tidy the house more than anything else.
As the scene unfolds, Diedrichson is plainly chaperoned into the passengers’ seat by his seemingly kind wife. She opens the door for him, calls him “honey”, but he gives no thanks. He acts coldly, treating her like a possession that couldn’t hurt a fly, giving her real psychological motive to kill him. In the care she tells him “the doctor said you could end up with a shorter leg if you’re not careful”, as he had sustained a broken leg the week earlier, to which he replies “so what!? I can break the other one and match ‘em up again”, laughing sardonically with a horrible smile and a cackling expression, like an old warlock, which shows him to be cold, careless, enjoying of pain, and generally quite sardonic in his cruelty. The close up shot of his face shows him shaking with his teeth bared as he cackles, specifically shoving his hateful, sardonic nature in the face of the audience.
His face is shown throughout the film to be mostly without emotional expression, especially in the initial stages of this sequence, until the point where Phyllis has drifted down the street and a look of intense, instinctual fear comes into his eyes and his face, just before his climactic death. This final show of emotion of the femme fatale’s subject is classic of noir; the hard man boiling under his own sweater because of the state she puts him in. This characterises the femme fatale’s patron in noir.
Through the close-ups of his face and sounds of his raspy voice, he is shown to be a cold-hearted, cruel, harsh old man on the surface, which is enforced by his job as an oil worker, but in truth he is a vulnerable, suspecting, fearful old man with a lot of trauma, possibly from world war one, and his anger drives him, as well as his melancholia.

Question Seven: lighting: chiaroscuro & low-key.
Relevance to moral point:

The first time Mr. Diedrichson asks “why did you turn here?” there is a very important key shot to the scene, using low-key lighting (the technique of using only two key lights at the back so that the face is illumined by highly shadowed with plenty of chiaroscuro (light-dark) effects) Phyllis’ keen-eyed face is show to be looking around the setting with scrutiny to check if there is any witnesses before she honks the horn violently three times to signal Walter’s murderous attack. The short itself encapsulates Phyllis’ shoulder width, from the top of her chest up to the top of her head, showing the back window of the car, the poorly lit street behind her, and it is just close enough to her face for us to see her head and glinting eyes move from side to side, checking for perfect murder conditions.
The is clearly no light coming from the front of the shot, where the camera is placed, instead, there are two low-key lights behind her, creating enough visually recognisable features for the audience to see her expressions. This use of low-key light ads to the whole dark, devious, criminal mood of the scene, and the film as a whole, creating barely discernable forms in the background, an influx of shadows, and very clear effects of chiaroscuro. The chiaroscuro in this shot is absolutely perfect, brilliant enough to define the almost demonic form of her face and jaw, with black shadows pushing in her cheeks to make her seem almost corpse-like, which purely signals the morals she lacks and the morals that murder is evil, which has an affect on the largely Christian society of America at this time, who would identify all “bad” things with Satan, including alcohol (of which both Walter and Phyllis partake before having love transgressions at his apartment) , giving enough evidence for the audience to morally condemn these two outrageous killers; these sons of Satan, per se. The top of her head is also completely black, which could be considered the opposite of a halo, a very prominent object in Christian iconography, driving the church-goers at their disgrace. The golden, white locks of her Germanic appearance can be made out with the chiaroscuro, reflecting her foreign nature; her wicked temperament.

The shot after she honks the horn, and takes pleasure in the torment of her husband who is clutching onto the window frame in abject fear, shows her glaring at the quickly approaching death of her bastard husband. The lighting perfectly frames her oval face in this shot, she makes a slight, orgasmic twitch in her body, and her lips pout, slightly apart, with her crimson lipstick and ivory teeth being clearly shown. The shadow on her nose is very clear, defining her European features, and adding to her mystery and foreign nature. Her hair again is show, but brighter, almost glowing with her whole face at the experience of being next to a dying man. Her glaring eyes, slightly wet and staring sociopathically into and through the audience in a dark spacious realm of pleasure, from which she gains all the wealth she needs in that one moment, and would be happy to feel that way forever, as that is the real thrill of a true noir femme fatale, not the money or the men; only the manipulation, deceit and death, common conventions and themes for the whole noir genre, which reflects the general state of society at that time period, dwindling as the memory of WWII dwindled, as the deaths became forgotten, and the wave of melancholy that swept through the heart of America dissipated, but still leaving the expressive scars of that post-war time, such as this film in itself.

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers)
By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Is mankind heading toward self-destruction?

As the various exploits man is engulfed in today (such as oil drilling, banking, politics on the one hand and alcoholism, abuse and war on the other) show, our direction as a western society in particular is centred towards hell on earth. Driven by desire for money and egocentric ideologies, we are choosing to form a basis for man’s self-demise, as well as the destruction of our planet as we continue to carve it to pieces in search of black gold and the likes. Man is passionate about not only his continued preservation, but his ability to thrive like a god upon this earth. By this egocentric behaviour he is driven to kill and plunder to the point where there is nothing left but himself to destroy, which is the point we have reached as a group of animals today. However, if mankind centres his desire and passion in the creation of art, he can reveal his subjective temperament to himself and prevent his self-destruction, whilst being expressive in a compassionate way, ultimately refining mankind into a genteel and loving being of nature. So this brings us to a severely important decision: will we use our abundance of free will to save ourselves and this earth? Or will our selfish nature override our compassion and lead us to the destruction of heaven itself?

Through the liberally willed irrigation of passionate and romantic desires, or desires of any kind, we, as a human race, could send ourselves into an abysmal state with close affinities to self-destruction. The age in history we have built ourselves up to over millennia is now; this moment presents to us all what we have worked towards: an abundance of freedom and free will, a large amount of sophisticated technology, the means to create, destroy and funnel whatever we see fit, to practically become gods in our earthly existence, and so forth. It is scientifically shown that we can act in any way we choose at any point in time, despite our emotional states. This reality is becoming more and more a part of our natural existence, as suggests the evidence discovered by the Belgian Unit of Societal Science, who stated that human beings can act in any of number of ways they have readily available, for any intellectual purpose they are absorbed by, whether their emotions should naturally dictate other specific actions and responses. An example of this is the case of a young man from a small suburb in Brussels, the capital of Belgium: after a night of clubbing with a few friends, this man, in a complete state of happiness, “joyful and light hearted” say his friends, without “any opioid or drug substance” found in his blood, killed two elderly people without any remorse and continued partying in the next few hours. So even though this man had no emotion typically linked with committing murder, he found within himself the ability to destroy the lives of two human beings based purely on his direction of will. There have been many other cases similar to this recorded by the Belgian Unit of Societal Science. If such ability is readily developing within society, are we not all liable to become psychopaths? Our moral ability is seemingly becoming disjointed from our ability to act, and free will is becoming more a part of our momentary action. In the novel I have studied, The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, we are presented with a more typical case relating to emotion and action. The protagonist, Werther, falls in love with a woman (Lotte) who is unattainable as his lover. As he becomes more filled, driven and engulfed by his illusory emotions and thoughts that he can’t have her, he becomes more anxious and depressed, and commits suicide. It is clearly visible that Werther’s emotional state suited to the exact details his worldly action, and he is just one of hundreds of recorded cases of love-lost = suicide. I have stated that the majority of humanity is becoming freer to commit acts of destruction, while in the past all of our actions were logical and suited our emotions, unless in states of madness, but this is very rare. So although it could be mass psychopathy that we are choosing to develop to destroy ourselves with, our wilful irrigation of passionate desire also contributes heavily, but more so in the past than the present, as is recorded more often in older literature then in today’s world.

From an early age it is common for most of us as human beings to experience some unrest, discomfort and angst in this frightful and rushing waterfall-world of ours, an unrest that forces us to make one of the first critical decisions in our lives: will we opt for an artistic outlet to grow and express these emotions in creative and loving ways, or will we choose to act against people and the world in destructive and fear-driving ways? If our parents are good enough to us, we will usually have many artistic outlets available to us - in the way of paint and instruments- which will lead us through our initial restless phase into a grounded production of something expressive and enjoyable to our young selves. Those of us who get the displeasure and detriment of ignorant parents will not have these artistic outlets, and our angst will usually become focused destructively, causing our young minds to be permanently damaged and traumatised from a young age. The works of psychologists such as Anna Freud have shown us that people are at their most vulnerable and sponge-like at an early child-hood age, and that whatever we were exposed to as children defines many of the decisions we make as we grow older. As this is a key idea of Anna’s child-psychology, it is easily applicable to every human being, and evidence such as her observations of the growing up and lives of her patients, Anna discovered the simple rule that children who have little outlet and are exposed to self-destructive natures such as heavy smoking and drinking will grown into states in which they are self-destructive, and children who are exposed to a lot of artistic and creative behaviour will become very creative, as we can see in various artistic families who create successive generations of artists (such as the Collier Family) or in poverty stricken, abusive families who create successive generations of destructive and poor people with little ambition. In Goethe’s novel, Werther is an extremely artistic character who, as Goethe suggests, comes from parents who showered him with opportunity and freedom to create as a child, without censorship. "I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be." – In reference to his artistry Werther comments how it has released him from his angst. Now I have already said that Werther committed the most self-destructive act that any human being can do, suicide. And so should this not suggest that artistic expression in itself holds nothing for man’s relinquishment from self-destruction? Not in truth, because although Werther commits a grave and self-destructive act despite his artistic growth, he had stopped expressing himself in art several months before his suicide, at the belief Lotte (the girl he so ardently loved) was the perfect expression of creation, and he need no longer create. Werther also had the disposition of a very philosophic and potentially gravely dwelling mind: "No doubt you are right, my best of friends, there would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men -- and God knows why they are so fashioned -- did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.", such as is shown in his more philosophic thoughts, and this way of thinking in itself leaves any man vulnerable to the torture of his demons and the resulting self-destruction. Now from the information we have discussed, it is visible to me that although artistic expression from a young age, continued as one grows older, will lead us away and distract us from self-destruction, it can be overcome by various other human ailments, such as a simple decision or ones disposition in life, although, as is seen in the likes of Picasso and Monet, fervent and lengthened artistic expression will surely destroy ones daimonic drive (the drive that takes the fearful human into dangerous realms of destruction) and instil a great amount of compassion for life and humanly genteel behaviour.

Despite all the chaos and the opposing efforts of good will for selfless and selfish gain rushing through the world contemporarily, on the pure face that reaches to the core of existence, humanity knows that it always at every moment has the ability to redirect its path, whether towards total self-destruction and destruction of everything we have created and worked up to, or towards the refinement and growth of spiritual qualities such as empathy and compassion that will lead all humanity to complete enlightenment and peace. Since the beginning of humanity in this earth period, we have acted to both create and destruct, like the Neanderthals who were both destructive of animals for consummation and creative with earthly substances in the invention of cave art and tools. But at this initial stage of human development, little choice was bestowed upon us. Our Neolithic ancestors had no free will in their worldly disposition. They had to hunt, compete and be adventurous in order to simply survive. They were not a race that thrived at all upon this earth; survival was their only game for millennia. And even as humanity progressed into some of the first stages of civilisation, free will was still very limited. The Indus Valley Civilisation, for example, contained some of the first human beings to build a communal city that involved the congregation of intelligent, conscientious people. But even their choice was limited in that their jobs were all chosen for them, they had to all live the same routine and regiment, and they all had to live the same lives to survive, and begin to thrive. Many civilisations developed quickly after the Indus, such as the Egyptian and Minoan civilisations, who the majority of, although they had more free will, were limited in their choice of life value and role in the greater society. It was only the singular kings that reigned that had the complete luxury of constant decision and free will, though they also were greatly limited in the mind. As we reach through history to the present age, pure human free will has been constantly increasing in the hands of both the individual and the greater masses. With more free will came more inspiration. Technology has been advancing extremely rapidly in the last two hundred years. The simple conduction of electricity was unheard of 300 years ago, but now we have it in the smallest piece of plastic. Not only has technology increased, but the broadness of social decision, scientific discovery, military ability and the likes have all flourished with this abundance of free will we have lent ourselves. But with all this free will we now have; this ability to create and destroy at will whatever we can conceive, have we chosen to develop the responsibility and maturity to keep our creations from killing us along with it? It seems not. We are at a point where we can either remove our focus from science and technology to centre all of our energy as an animal species on developing our inner maturity and spirituality, to create high levels of developed empathy and compassion upon the earth, or we can continue along this external and malignant path which will inevitably lead us to self-destruction. The level of free will Werther has in The Sorrows fits in exactly with that of humanity in the late 18th century, when the book was written. Although his feelings and emotions have great bearing on his actions, he still has the ability to make each final decision in conscience and focus the direction of his life based on those actions. But despite his free will his emotional thoughts such as “Alas! the void the fearful void, which I feel in my bosom! Sometimes I think, if I could only once but once, press her to my heart, this dreadful void would be filled.” eventually control his ultimate decision to blow his brains away. It is only in this day and age that we can choose not to let our emotions affect our actions.

Man’s current free willed direction and path is one that most clearly heads towards self-destruction, as the information as well as all the selfish transgressions mankind makes tell us. With the level of damage we are putting on the earth it almost seems hopeless that we can change our direction as living beings, but the abundance of free will we currently have dictates otherwise. It is clear that at every and any moment with or without inspiration all of humanity can direct its free will to change the currently inevitable destructive outcome of what we have created. The Sorrows of Young Werther shows a time in which humanity was quite far off of complete self-destruction, but that emotions often overtook the reality of many young people and their free will was cut short in the act of self-murder, which shows a temperament that encourages the self-destructivism we are currently involved in. So it comes to one final decision for every one of us as human beings to either realise and take responsibility for the horror we are ensuing and shift our focus to the development of inner maturity, discovery, empathy, compassion and peace, or we can ignorantly continue along the path we are currently on and suffer with truth the pains, sufferings and nightmares we have created for ourselves.

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers)
By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Is mankind heading toward self-destruction?

As the various exploits man is engulfed in today (such as oil drilling, banking, politics on the one hand and alcoholism, abuse and war on the other) show, our direction as a western society in particular is centred towards hell on earth. Driven by desire for money and egocentric ideologies, we are choosing to form a bases for mans self-demise, as well as the destruction of our planet as we continue to carve it to pieces in search of black gold and the likes. Man is passionate about not only his continued preservation, but his ability to thrive like a god upon this earth. By this egocentric behaviour he is driven to kill and plunder to the point where there is nothing left but himself to destroy, which is the point we have reached as a group of animals. However, if mankind centres his desire and passion in the creation of art, he can reveal his subjective temperament to himself and prevent his self-destruction, while being expressive in a compassionate way, ultimately refining mankind into a genteel and loving being of nature. So this brings us to a severely important decision: will we use our abundance of free will to save ourselves and this earth? Or will our selfish nature override our compassion and lead us to the destruction of heaven itself?

Through the liberally willed irrigation of passionate and romantic desires, or desires of any kind, we, as a human race, could send ourselves into an abysmal state with close affinities to self-destruction. The age in history we have built ourselves up to over millennia is now; this moment presents to us all what we have worked towards: an abundance of freedom and free will, a large amount of sophisticated technology, the means to create, destroy and funnel whatever we see fit, to practically become gods in our earthly existence, and so forth. It is scientifically shown that we can act in any way we choose at any point in time, despite our emotional states. This reality is becoming more and more a part of our natural existence, as suggests the evidence discovered by the Belgian Unit of Societal Science, who stated that human beings can act in any of number of ways they have readily available, for any intellectual purpose they are absorbed by, whether their emotions should naturally dictate other specific actions and responses. An example of this is the case of a young man from a small suburb in Brussels, the capital of Belgium: after a night of clubbing with a few friends, this man, in a complete state of happiness, “joyful and light hearted” say his friends, without “any opioid or drug substance” found in his blood, killed two elderly people without any remorse and continued partying in the next few hours. So even though this man had no emotion typically linked with committing murder, he found within himself the ability to destroy the lives of two human beings based purely on his direction of will. There have been many other cases similar to this recorded by the Belgian Unit of Societal Science. If such ability is readily developing within society, are we not all liable to become psychopaths? Our moral ability is seemingly becoming disjointed from our ability to act, and free will is becoming more a part of our momentary action. In the novel I have studied, The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, we are presented with a more typical case relating to emotion and action. The protagonist, Werther, falls in love with a woman (Lotte) who is unattainable as his lover. As he becomes more filled, driven and engulfed by his illusory emotions and thoughts that he can’t have her, he becomes more anxious and depressed, and commits suicide. It is clearly visible that Werther’s emotional state suited to the exact details his worldly action, and he is just one of hundreds of recorded cases of love-lost = suicide. I have stated that the majority of humanity is becoming freer to commit acts of destruction, while in the past all of our actions were logical and suited our emotions, unless in states of madness, but this is very rare. So although it could be mass psychopathy that we are choosing to develop to destroy ourselves, our wilful irrigation of passionate desire also contributes heavily, but more so in the past, as is recorded more often in older literature then in today’s world.

From an early age it is common for most of us as human beings to experience some unrest, discomfort and angst in this frightful and rushing waterfall-world of ours, an unrest that forces us to make one of the first critical decisions in our lives: will we opt for an artistic outlet to grow and express these emotions in creative and loving ways, or will we choose to act against people and the world in destructive and fear-driving ways? If our parents are good enough to us, we will usually have many artistic outlets available to us - in the way of paint and instruments- which will lead us through our initial restless phase into a grounded production of something expressive and enjoyable to our young selves. Those of us who get the displeasure and detriment of ignorant parents will not have these artistic outlets, and our angst will usually become focused destructively, causing our young minds to be permanently damaged and traumatised from a young age. The works of psychologists such as Anna Freud have shown us that people are at their most vulnerable and sponge-like at an early child-hood age, and that whatever we were exposed to as children defines many of the decisions we make as we grow older. As this is a key idea of Anna’s child-psychology, it is easily applicable to every human being, and evidence such as her observations of the growing up and lives of her patients, Anna discovered the simple rule that children who have little outlet and are exposed to self-destructive natures such as heavy smoking and drinking will grown into states in which they are self-destructive, and children who are exposed to a lot of artistic and creative behaviour will become very creative, as we can see in various artistic families who create successive generations of artists (such as the Collier Family) or in poverty stricken, abusive families who create successive generations of destructive and poor people with little ambition. In Goethe’s novel, Werther is an extremely artistic character who, as Goethe suggests, comes from parents who showered him with opportunity and freedom to create as a child, with censorship. "I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be." – In reference to his artistry Werther comments how it has released him from his angst. Now I have already said that Werther committed the most self-destructive act that any human being can do, suicide. And so should this not suggest that artistic expression in itself holds nothing for man’s relinquishment from self-destruction? Not in truth, because although Werther commits a grave and self-destructive act despite his artistic growth, he had stopped expressing himself in art several months before his suicide, at the belief Lotte (the girl he so ardently loved) was the perfect expression of creation, and he need no longer create. Werther also had the disposition of a very philosophic and potentially gravely dwelling mind: "No doubt you are right, my best of friends, there would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men -- and God knows why they are so fashioned -- did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.", such as is shown in his more philosophic thoughts, and this way of thinking in itself leaves any man vulnerable to the torture of his demons and the resulting self-destruction. Now from the information we have discussed, it is visible to me that although artistic expression from a young age, continued as one grows older, will lead us away and distract us from self-destruction, it can be overcome by various other human ailments, such as a simple decision or ones disposition in life, although, as is seen in the likes of Picasso and Monet, fervent and lengthened artistic expression will surely destroy ones daimonic drive (the drive that takes the fearful human into dangerous realms of destruction) and instil a great amount of compassion for life and humanly genteel behaviour.

Despite all the chaos and the opposing efforts of good will for selfless and selfish gain rushing through the world contemporarily, on the pure face that reaches to the core of existence, humanity knows that it always at every moment has the ability to redirect its path, whether towards total self-destruction and destruction of everything we have created and worked up to, or towards the refinement and growth of spiritual qualities such as empathy and compassion that will lead all humanity to complete enlightenment and peace. Since the beginning of humanity in this earth period, we have acted to both create and destruct, like the Neanderthals who were both destructive of animals for consummation and creative with earthly substances in the invention of cave art and tools. But at this initial stage of human development, little choice was bestowed upon us. Our Neolithic ancestors had no free will in their worldly disposition. They had to hunt, compete and be adventurous in order to simply survive. They were not a race that thrived at all upon this earth; survival was their only game for millennia. And even as humanity progressed into some of the first stages of civilisation, free will was still very limited. The Indus Valley Civilisation, for example, contained some of the first human beings to build a communal city that involved the congregation of intelligent, conscientious people. But even their choice was limited in that their jobs were all chosen for them, they had to all live the same routine and regiment, and they all had to live the same lives to survive, and begin to thrive. Many civilisations developed quickly after the Indus, such as the Egyptian and Minoan civilisations, who the majority of, although they had more free will, were limited in their choice of life value and role in the greater society. It was only the singular kings that rained that had the complete luxury of constant decision and free will, though they also were greatly limited in the mind. As we reach through history to the present age, pure human free will has been constantly increasing in the hands of both the individual and the greater masses. With more free will came more inspiration. Technology has been advancing extremely rapidly in the last two hundred years. The simple conduction of electricity was unheard of 300 years ago, but now we have it in the smallest piece of plastic. Not only has technology increased, but the broadness of social decision, scientific discovery, military ability and the likes have all flourished with this abundance of free will we have lent ourselves. But with all this free will we now have; this ability to create and destroy at will whatever we can conceive, have we chosen to develop the responsibility and maturity to keep our creations from killing us along with it? It seems not. We are at a point where we can either remove our focus from science and technology to centre all of our energy as an animal species on developing our inner maturity and spirituality, to create high levels of developed empathy and compassion upon the earth, or we can continue along this external and malignant path which will inevitably lead us to self-destruction. The level of free will Werther has in The Sorrows fits in exactly with that of humanity in the late 18th century, when the book was written. Although his feelings and emotions have great bearing on his actions, he still has the ability to make each final decision in conscience and focus the direction of his life based on those actions. But despite his free will his emotional thoughts such as “Alas! the void the fearful void, which I feel in my bosom! Sometimes I think, if I could only once but once, press her to my heart, this dreadful void would be filled.” eventually control his ultimate decision to blow his brains away. It is only in this day and age that we can choose not to let our emotions affect our actions.