The Fred Perry Subculture Films - Don Letts

Reasoning

I saw the above video in a lecture last year and remembered a particular line about a mod making one of the commentators feel small, and thought this would be a good place to look for information about the origins of modernism. The link to where I found it is here.

What I Gained

The second of the chapters, 'This Is A Modern World' was the one I was interested in watching, and starts about 11 minutes into the video. Some points it raised were:

1. Modernism started out as trying to be stylish, not trying to be transparent.
2. Often living like a mod is making the best out of bad circumstances.
3. The last truly definable subculture was BritPop, which even then, borrowed heavily from previous ones, most notably modernism.

Potentially useful quotes:

Next Steps

I've not actually looked at the First Things First Manifesto yet, so doing some analysis of that would definitely be useful.

Good: An Introduction to Ethics in Graphic Design - Lucienne Roberts

Reasoning

Having looked back on last year, I found that this was the book that compared Kierkegaard to Nietzsche, and I hoped that it would prove useful in terms of establishing that society is built on Christian values. Whilst I don't know if the author is Christian or not, I do know that she was a signatory of the 2000 First Things First Manifesto, which is just as useful. 

What I Gained

This book was really useful, it reiterated many points I'd already touched upon, brought up a couple of new ones, as well as hinting at some of the reasons behind the First Things First Manifesto, such as: 

1. Money can distract a designer from their responsibilities.
2. Having creative freedom makes designers happy.
3. Historically, the church has defined what is good and bad.
4. Consumerism isn't necessarily bad from a Christian point of view.
5. Helping others is a basic part of Christianity.
6. Envy is the worst of all sins as all other sins are goodness gone wrong.
7. It's possible that capitalism is fuelling creativity, rather than the other way around.
8. Capitalism works by encouraging individual success.
9. If we accept the freedom of speech, does that mean we should be able to accept any work from any client?
10. Communication is a 2 way thing, so modernist graphic design is flawed.
11. Nietzsche's thoughts of self-empowerment relate perfectly to graphic design because any brief is a resistance to creativity that can be overcome.
12. Modernist design is founded on logic and belief in absolute rights and wrongs.
13. Garland acknowledges that not all people are in a position where accepting the directions of FTF is feasible.

Potentially useful quotes:

Next Steps

Given some of Roberts' comments on Modernism, it's something I want to look into a bit deeper, and finding the video from this lecture last year would really help me with this.

Reinhold Niebuhr's Interview with Mike Wallace

Reason

When I was looking into whether or not Niebuhr was a Christian I came across this interview, and thought that watching it could do no harm. The transcript can be found here.

What I Gained

Watching this interview was really useful, and I found it quite reassuring because he suggested things that backed up various parts of my research up to now, including:

1. Catholicism has contributed to a free and democratic society more than it is given credit for by the general American population.
2. People stick with traditional religion because it is something that has proven successful over a long period of time, whereas Marxism etc broke down.
3. The idea of individual freedom transcends the freedom of society.
4. His use of the phrase 'we Protestants' confirms that he's a Christian.

Potentially useful quotes:

Next Steps

Whilst this has provided me with some backing to the idea that societies ideas of morally good come from Christianity, a second opinion will probably be useful to further support this.