Philsophers and political thinkers ideas on individuality

[karenolone]

Need some help. Doing a 90% eng essay in my final year in uni. Module title is politics and the literature of modernity. The question is on individuality and the texts i am looking at are forsters howards end, lawrence women in love orwell 1984 and kafka's the trial. If anyone has any suggestions on how to approach it id really appreciate it.

[Joakim]

If you are looking for a philosophical sollution to a political problem I can only say one thing.

"There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers are kings in this world... Political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands"
- Plato, Republic

Seek comfort in those who live, share with others the burden of life during their path to perfection.
Die in complete trust that death shall find you annihilated.
Carry no burden of not leting go

Always remeber that this might not be the answer that you are looking for, for who knows what You will find?

[yanni]

Good subject.
Is individuality an antidote to socialism, are they both perhaps the two extremeties of the same, not so old, stick, rarely labelled "for export only"?

[Joakim]

Yes.

As hinduism was exported to china as buddhism
Buddhism is exported to europe as politics and philosophy.

If we claim to have all the answers, what will the next generation be dreaming of?

[starrwriter]

As hinduism was exported to china as buddhism
Buddhism is exported to europe as politics and philosophy.
No European country ever based its politics on the principles of Buddhism.

[The Unnamable]

The best way to approach the texts you mention would be to explore the nature of and reasons for the conflict between society and the individual. We all have at least two selves – a public and a private. The former enables us to function in the context of other people; the latter is necessary for us to exist at all.

[Joakim]

No European country ever based its politics on the principles of Buddhism.

Nor did Asia

[Virgil]

Need some help. Doing a 90% eng essay in my final year in uni. Module title is politics and the literature of modernity. The question is on individuality and the texts i am looking at are forsters howards end, lawrence women in love orwell 1984 and kafka's the trial. If anyone has any suggestions on how to approach it id really appreciate it.

By the way, that's a great reading list. I hope you enjoy it. I think Unnamable has given you good advice. Only thing that I would add is to focus it on an element that all the works share. Perhaps an individual's relationship with someone they love and how that's affected by the conflict between society and indiviuality. I'm not sure if you can do that with Kafka.

[The Unnamable]

I'm not sure if you can do that with Kafka.

Good point – but that can be a virtue, in that differences can reveal as much as similarities. Joseph K is the victim of two menacing strangers who invade his private world with accusations of unspecified crimes against humanity, society and, possibly, the state. Kafka's diaries show an anxiety about problems of definition, the tendency of words to take on a life and significance independent of the writer's intentions, and about the spurious authority granted to author's comments on their own works. In this sense, his approach/emphasis can be explored profitably as a comparison with the other authors.
'What meaning have yesterday's conclusions today?' wrote Kafka (Diaries, 1964, p. 400). In The Trial and The Castle Kafka's characters try to grapple with an elusive but implacable machinery of government or bureaucracy which confuses, frustrates and undoes them.