作者： Kathleen Li

Music

The Devel…

I. Introduction

The origin of word “music” can be dated back to ancient Greece (Wikipedia, Muse). In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Muses are several inspirational goddesses of literature, science and the arts. Muses were considered as the origin of poetry, lyric songs and myths for centuries. However, the origin of music may be earlier – at the time sounds were made, music was born.

People have been considering all kinds of methods to improve music for thousands of years. Although music is always considered as a form of art and a cultural activity related to pure art and society, music cannot develop without science and engineering. This is why music technology matters in music development.

Different cultures have their own music styles, however, since the western music has formed a well-established system of music theory and music education, in this paper, I will focus on western music rather than other music.

Music technology is the study or the use of any device, mechanism, machine or tool by a musician or composer to make or perform music; to compose, notate, play back or record songs or pieces; or to analyze or edit music. Music technology has a great impact on music instruments, music theory, music performance, music recording and so on. With the development of information technology, music technology is more and more combined with computers and electrical devices nowadays. However, music technology has a much longer history.

II. The origin and the history of music technology

The first music instrument was invented based on the knowledge of music technology, and it was also the first practical application of music technology.

According to Physics, sounds are generated by vibration of all kinds of objects. The biggest difference between music and other sounds are the pitches, which are measured by Hertz (Hz). By using the vibrations of objects, people invented the first wind instruments, which was the antetype of flutes.

The first instrument may not be considered as an instrument according our standard today, because it cannot produce standard pitches. However, it’s a great breakthrough which helps people to perform music without singing (Winternitz, 1967).

Scientists discovered that besides air vibration, string vibrations and even hitting the objects can also make music. Music instruments were then classified into three categories in Greece and Rome: Greek named string instruments as enchordon or entata, wind instruments as pneumatempneusta and percussions as kroustukon; Roman named string instruments as tencile, wind instruments as inflaile and percussions as pulsatile (Campbell, 2009).

Apart from music instruments, music theory has also made great progress with music technology.

Physicists discovered that two strings with a length ratio of 1:2 can produce a very coordinated sound when plucked at the same time, but the sound constructed by only using the string length of twice the relationship is too monotonous. Therefore, people tried to use other string length ratios to make proper sound, and this is the origin of Equal Temperament Theory. Different string length ratios will make different vibration frequencies, which will lead to different pitches. Classical music theory categories the frequencies in octaves and in an octave, frequencies are divided into 12 pitches, C, #C, D, #D, E, F, #F, G, #G, A, #A, B.

When electricity was invented and utilized, people started to record the music. In the early age, musicians have to performance in quiet environment to prevent recording the noises. However, with the application of noise reduction technology, audio becomes clearer and clearer. Audio processing and signals processing has become an important field in electrical engineering, which allows the music to be recorded clear enough even in a noisy environment.

Electricity also changes music instruments. The appearance of electric pianos, electric guitars and other electric instruments made the music more colorful. There are more and more music styles and more and more bands which allow people appreciate different kinds of music.

In 1946, the first computer was invented in University of Pennsylvania. Computer music, a new style of music, appears in people’s lives (Holmes, 2002). Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. By using artificial intelligence, computer can produce fantastic music. The exploration of music technology is endless. At the present time, we still don’t know how much surprise it will bring us in the future.

III. The Connection between Music Technology and Chinese Music Market

With the continuous development of computer technology and the improvement of related software, computer music has gradually taken shape as a new generation of art, penetrating into all fields of music creation, production, instrument performance, commercial music, education, and entertainment. At present, music has extended from specialization and professional music to socialization and popular music. However, the rapid development of computer music has also brought many drawbacks accordingly. One of the most serious problem was the more and more music with low quality.

According to a user preference analysis report in Kuwo Music, Tencent Music Entertainment, 72% professional musicians are not satisfied with the top 10% music on the leaderboard of Kuwo Music APP. However, oppositely, the top 10% music on the leaderboard has nearly 10 times that of the music ranked from top 10% to top 20%, which indicates that audience has a totally different taste with professional music. There are two reasons lead to the current situation.

The first reason is that only few APP users have received professional music education. Lack of professional education prevents them from assessing the quality of music, they tend to listen “popular” music which are recommended by friends and their idols.

The second reason is that there only a few song writers in China can be regarded as professional musicians. Most of them are amateur musicians who don’t even know basic music theory. A questionnaire shows that 87% song writers registered in Kuwo APP don’t know the difference between major triad chords and minor triad chords. The high cost of music education prevents song writers to produce high-quality music. Usually, professional composers need to be talent enough and learn music for at least fifteen years in average. Lots of families cannot afford the cost. Moreover, music recording and song arrangement needs professional music which is still a high cost.

Less professional works were produced and audiences’ appreciations would trend to unicity, the two phenomena now lead to a vicious circle in Chinese music market. Therefore, music technology based on computers and electrical engineering is especially meaningful. By using music technology, the cost to produce a song will be reduced and the songs can be produced at a high efficiency.

IV. The Future Development and Application of Music Technology

In 21 century, music technology has gradually become the key research direction of many universities and there are three major research fields of music technology: electrical engineering emphasis, computer science emphasis and music emphasis. The potential areas of study include technologically assisted composition, technologically augmented performance, computer music systems and technology, music signal processing, music information retrieval, acoustics, sound recording, music instrument design, music cognition and perception and so on.

Till now, the most important field is still computer assisted composition. The artificial intelligence composer is quite mature that it can even pass the Turing test. Another important field is music recognition. Lots of music APP in the market has the function of music recognition, which enables users to search songs by playing a piece of song. However, the function is not well-developed now because it cannot recognize songs which changes their keys. Also, there are essential differences between audio recognition and speech recognition, which lead to great difficulty in distinguishing lyrics and melodies.

In the future, perhaps there may be a revolution of music instruments and music devices with the development of high technology. With the help of music technology, the future of music market is bright and worth expecting.

V. Conclusion

With the development of information technology, music technology has improved a lot. It is worth noticing that music also keeps pace with the rapid advancement of technology. Music technology is not the opposite of traditional western music. On the contrary, it combines traditional western music theories to create new era music. There have been many successful examples showing that electronic music is widely welcomed by the public, and some of the music composed by artificial intelligence is even better than the music composed by human beings. We have enough confidence that, in the future, music technology will occupy a greater proportion and inject fresh blood into the music market.

References

Winternitz, E. (1967). Musical Instruments and Their Symbolism in Western Art: Studies in Musical Iconology.

Campbell, M., Greated, C. A., & Myers, A. (2009). Musical instruments: History, technology and performance of instruments of Western music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Winternitz, E. (1979). Musical instruments and their symbolism in western art. New Haven (Connecticut): New Haven, Yale University Press.

Holmes, T. (2002). Electronic and Experimental Music. New York: Routledge.

Wikipedia – Lyre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyre

Wikipedia – Music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music

Wikipedia – Muse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse

Wikipedia – String instruments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_instrument

Data Sources: Provided by Kuwo Music, Tencent Music Entertainment

Music

Review

Work: Ah Vous Dirai-je Maman (I shall Tell You, Mother) K. 265 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezvj-De6bxY

Ah Vous Dirai-je Maman (I shall Tell You, Mother) K. 265 is an anonymous pastoral song written in 1740 and was set to different lyrics in different languages, and the most famous English version is twinkle twinkle litte stars. Born in Salzburg in 1756, Mozart is considered as the representative of Classism. His creation involves almost all fields of music, including opera, concertos, symphonies, sonatas, chamber music, etc. Ah Vous Dirai-je Maman (I shall Tell You, Mother) K. 265 is one of his most successful variations written in 1778. Mozart set twelve different variations for the original song.

The song begins with the basic theme with quarter notes. Ornaments are used to make a more colorful melody. Then, after repeated the basic theme twice, the variations appeared. The rhythm, harmony and texture changes in different variations, and my favorite variations are VAR. VII, VAR. VIII. and VAR. XI.

VAR.V. is a section returns to tranquility, with few notes, and rests appear in the theme melody. The melody is played alternately with the left and right hands, briskly mixed with some semitones in the notes. Canon is used in VAR. V., and we may find that the repeated melodies of right and left hands fill in the blank of the rests, and reinforce the audience’s memory for the melody. VAR. V. is the most difficult part for me when practicing piano. Although it seems very easy to play, it needs a lot of effort to deal with the key-touching and rhythm. The notes should not be played to be too sticky or speedy, they need to connect to each other naturally but sounds very clean. VAR. V. is a beautiful and light variation, and I can almost feel like flying in the sky when listening to this piece of music.

Fig 1 VAR. V.

In VAR. VIII., C major key is changed to C minor key. Compared to major keys, minor keys always provide an upset or gloomy feeling. Canon is used in composing – apart from two bars, there is sequence in righthand-side melody. By creating a continuous effect, it sounds like an endless starring sky in a rainy day. However, there are still stars shining, and the Staccato and Stagato notations make the notes brief but heavy. It sounds like a glimmer of hope in hard situation, which impresses me a lot.

Fig 2 VAR. VIII.

As shown in the music score, it’s an Adagio, which indicates that music should be played slowly, or a composition intended to be played in this manner. Therefore, the piece is really soft and soothing. The melody makes me feel a noble tranquility and peace. The righthand-side melody should be reinforced, but still quiet because of the “p” notation.

Fig 3 VAR. XI.

The beginning of VAR. XI. may sound like the song “红旗飘飘” in China. Mozart uses lots of major third chords and seventh chords, therefore, this piece of music sounds a little bit more dignified and rigorous. Compared to the variations before, VAR. XI. is more lyric and gentler. Besides, VAR. XI. is the second last variations. After hearing lots of fast paced variations, people may need to slow down and enjoy some slower piece of music. When listening to VAR. XI., I always feel like that after storms, lightnings and thunders, the sun shines again, and clouds float on the sky leisurely. It’s an excellent arrangement because VAR. XII., which is the last variation, is again an Allergo, which means the music should be played fast, quickly and bright.

As I mentioned before, Mozart is one of the most important masters in Classism, however, born in 1756, there are still some influences of Baroque style in his work. There are lots of composition skills which are used a lot in Baroque but not commonly used in Classism. Although with the existence of Baroque features, compared to Baroque music, Ah Vous Dirai-je Maman (I shall Tell You, Mother) K. 265 is obviously symmetry with rigorous structures, which shows a clear Classism style. Recomposed from a pastoral song, it is euphonic and easy to remember.

The link provided in the lecture is the music played by a young Czech pianist, Natalie Schwamova. Compared to several versions, included music played by Lang Lang and Fazil Say, I think her performance is very technical. Schwamova is absolutely a very talented pianist, and she plays really great in faster pieces, but I think the slower pieces are not so good. I think this is because her control of fingers is inferior to other pianists, so her key-touching is not as exquisite as other pianists. The quiet notes she played was quiet but not light, and she always plays the notes so clean that correlations between notes are weakened. I love Lang Lang’s version best. His timbre is well controlled, and his music is most fluent and beautiful, it feels like he plays with ease, not with fantastic skills or techniques.

Electronic Information Engineering

Simulatio…

I. Introduction

With the development of techniques and the growing demand for Internet multimedia services, high-quality video transmission attracts more and more network researchers [1-3]. In order to achieve video transmission through wireless network, video should be coded and packetized. During the transmission, packet loss always happens. Packet loss is a kind of data loss, and the loss rate will influence the video transmission quality. Therefore, a question is purposed by researchers: how do the packet losses impact the video quality?

In this report, models and simulations are used to evaluate packet loss effect on video transmission in wireless networks. Due to the renovation of Internet multimedia services, we will focus on various types of video transmission on different network.

II. Literature Review

The literatures are divided into two parts: before 2018 and after 2018. Techniques develop every day, by comparing the literatures, we may find the enhancement of multimedia techniques.

A. Literature before 2018

As we mentioned before, videos need to packetized before transmission. Generally, video is segmented and packetized in two ways: fixed-size packets or a variable sized packet can contain one or more slices. Typical scenarios for fixed-size packetization are:

a) a packet contains part of one slice;

b) a packet contains the end of one slice and the beginning of another;

c) a packet contains a frame header.

And these will cause the loss of:

a) one slice;

b) two slices;

c) an entire frame [4].

A method to retrieve data to model the visibility of video transmission is subjective test. After getting the subjective evaluation of packet loss, statistical methods are used to model the visibility of video transmission. The first goal is to classify packet losses as visible or invisible, and the second goal is to predict the probability of packet loss visibility, which can be converted to a regression problem. Researchers mainly use CART and GLM to achieve the goal.

B. Literature after 2018

Since on the real network, it is impossible to quantitatively simulate the different degrees of network damage, researchers propose an advanced simulation tool-set which integrates EvalVid framework into NS-2 and simulate different level of network damage by changing the parameter QoS (Quality of Service) in the simulation experiment [5-6]. With the enhancements, the tool-set allows network-related researchers to evaluate real video streams using their proposed network designs or protocols as well as evaluate video quality of their designed video coding mechanisms using a more realistic network. The model is based on PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) value. The main factors affecting the quality of MPEG2 video are encoding rate and packet loss [7].

Researchers presented three methods to estimate Mean Squared Error (MSE) due to packet losses directly from the video bitstream. No Parse uses only network level measurements (like packet loss rate), Quick Parse extracts the spatio-temporal extent of the impact of the loss, and Full Parse extracts sequence-specific information including spatio-temporal activity and the effects of error propagation [8]. They finally come to a conclusion that the most accurate method is Full Parse and the No Parse is the least accurate of our methods, which treats all losses identically and only estimates the MSE on the same time scale as the PLR (packet loss rate) [8].

According to the scatter plot of the relationship between the packet loss rate and the PSNR value, it is found that there is a cubic relationship between the packet loss rate and the PSNR value after linear, square, mixed, logarithmic, power, and cubic model matching [5].

III. Analysis

A. Literature before 2018

According to Kanumuri, Cosman and Reibman, the initial error caused by a packet loss propagates in space and time as a result of the video decoding algorithm. The exact error due to the packet loss can be completely described by:

a) the initial error for each macroblock in the lost packet;

b) the macroblock type;

c) motion information for subsequently received macroblocks.

The latter two control the temporal duration and spatial spread of the error. They apply Logistic Regression, a type of GLM, to the problem of estimating the probability that a packet loss is visible to an average viewer. Software R is used for the GLM model fitting. Notice that p-value is calculated during the experiment: if the p-value is less than 0.05, then the factor is significant at the 95% level.

B. Literature after 2018

The mean squared error (MSE) is used as a rough measure of video quality. The methodology the researchers apply is general for any motion-compensated video compression algorithm, although the specific application that need to be considered is the transport of MPEG-2 video when Transport Packets may be lost.

Network-specific factors include delay, delay variation, bit-rate, packet loss rate, and the latter two are most important [5].

During the simulation, after fitting the curve, it is found that the packet loss rate and the user experience quality QoE do show a univariate nonlinear relationship.

Comparing the two figures, it can be found that under the same packet loss rate, the user experience quality is different. This is because the content complexity of the two videos is different. Therefore, the video content complexity has an impact on the user experience quality. Observing the two result graphs in Figure 3 and Figure 4, it is found that in both graphs, as the packet loss rate increases, the QoE first increases, then decreases, and finally increases again, and there are two inflection points. And comparing the two figures, we can know that the less complex the video content, the worse the QoE will be. The x-axis of the two figures is the packet loss rate, and the y-axis is the PSNR value.

C. Comparison

We may easily find that in 2004, researchers mostly use “visibility” to estimate the simulation model of video transmission with packet loss, while “QoE” and “QoS” are used after 2018. GLM model is used in 2004, and researchers need to use software R to calculate p-value to determine whether the model is correct. However, model based on PSNR is used in “Mathematics Mapping Model of Network Video Packet Loss Rate and the Quality of Experience under the Internet of Things”, and cygwin + NS2 network simulation built on Windows system can provide better simulation. However, we need to notice that packet loss is one of the factors affects video transmission quality, up till now, all researches only discuss ideal conditions.

IV. Reference List

[1] C. H. Lin, C. H. Ke, C. K. Shieh, & N. K. Chilamkurti. “The Packet Loss Effect on MPEG Video Transmission in Wireless Networks”, Proceedings – 20th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications, Pages 565-570, May 2006.

[2] P. Seeling, M. Reisslein, and B. Kulapala. “Network Performance Evaluation Using Frame Size and Quality Traces of Single-Layer and Two-Layer Video: A Tutorial”, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, Vol. 6, No. 2, Pages 58-78, Third Quarter, 2004.

[3] O. Rose. “Statistical properties of MPEG video traffic and their impact on traffic modeling in ATM systems”, Report No. 101, Institute of Computer Science, University of Wurzberg, February 1995.

[4] S. Kanumuri & P. Cosman & A. Reibman & Vinay A. Vaishampayan. “Modeling Packet-Loss Visibility in MPEG-2 Video”, IEEE transactions on multimedia, Vol. 8, no. 2, April 2006.

[5] Y. B. Hou. “Mathematics Mapping Model of Network Video Packet Loss Rate and the Quality of Experience under the Internet of Things”, Software Engineering and Applications, Vol 08, Pages 131-140, June 2019.

[6] M. Siller & J. Woods. “QoE Improvement of Multimedia Transmission”, Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference, Vol 2, Pages 821-825, May 2014.

[7] M. Volk & J. Guna & A. Kos & J. Bester. “IPTV Systems, Standards and Archi-Tectures: Part II-Quality-Assured Provisioning of IPTV Services within the NGN Environment”, IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol 46, Pages 118-126, May 2008. 

[8] A.R. Reibman & V.A. Vaishampayan & Y. Sermadevi. “Quality Monitoring of Video over a Packet Network”, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Vol 6, Pages 327-334, April 2004.

Music Generator

Codes

Aggregate Ranking

Matlab Code:

n=7;
m=1140;

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];

cvx_clear
cvx_begin
    variable r(n)
    expression v(m)
    for i = 1:m
        v(i) = r(preferences(i,2)) - r(preferences(i,1));
    end
    minimize(sum(square_pos(max(v,0))))
cvx_end

hist(v)
viol2 = sum(v>0.001)

cvx_clear
cvx_begin
    variable r2(n)
    expression v2(m)
    for i = 1:m
        v2(i) = r2(preferences(i,2)) - r2(preferences(i,1));
    end
    minimize(sum((max(v2,0))))
cvx_end

hist(v2)
viol1 = sum(v2>0.001)

Philosophy

Essay

Plato and Aristotle Views of Politics – Comparison of Plato and Aristotle

Plato is Aristotle’s teacher, but they have lots of difference in politics. Plato advocated that the rule under a philosopher king is the best while Aristotle argues that the rule of law should be better than the rule of one person, but their views both have their limitations. A rule which combines their views together should be the best rule.

In order to claim their view points, I’ll list the differences between their views in two parts: different states of a country and their ideal governance of a country.

1. Different states of a country

Plato believes that individuals are different, and their lives should be also different, so people should be divided according to their talent. From the human nature, three social classifications will be generated. The men who focused on pursing truth and nuture rationality is a kind of performance of wisdom, thus it’s their duty to take response of govern and manage; the men who seek for honor and achievements is the embodiment of spiritedness and courage, so it’s better for them to be guardians and responsible for warding; and the men who prefer the satisfaction of enjoyment should be the working class of a city. In Plato’s theory, the three class of the society is made by gold, silver and bronze and they are immutable. This has led to inequality and insurmountability of human nature. If a worker wants to get to the guardian status or the auxiliary, or an auxiliary wants to get to the guardian status, then the city will be in a mess. If the three classes change their status with each other, in Plato’s words, “The city will be ruined if it ever has an iron or a bronze guardian.” (Republics, III, 415c)

Aristotle resolutely criticized Plato’s idea of ​​classifying human nature to form three classes. In Politics, he says: “A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors.” (Politics, 1253a19-125a39) His definition of a state is: “Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good.” (Politics, 1252a1-1252a8). At the same time, the state is the ultimate realization of good and the greatest happiness of mankind. Therefore, the establishment of a state must be aimed at achieving the happiness and harmony of the people of the state. Aristotle divides people into rich, poor, and middle classes based on their citizenship, saying that “In the first place we see that all states are made up of families, and in the multitude of citizens there must be some rich and some poor, and some in a middle condition; the rich possess heavy armour, and the poor not.” (Politics, 1289b28-1290a12)

2. Ideal governance of a country

Plato analyzed and criticized the Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny in Greek society at the time. (Republics, 8, D) He pointed out that the ideal government model should be Aristocracy, which is the under the rule of philosophy king. In Plato’s view, human beings are born unequal, and are destined to be ruled by the fewest people. The fewest people are the philosophers. Plato affirmed, “Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities, will have no rest from evils, Glaucon, nor, I think, will the human race.” (Republics, 437 D) Plato thinks that the philosophical king has the highest knowledge, the ability to understand the origin of things, and the ability to understand the virtues. He placed great emphasis on the rule of individuals. Plato believes that once a competent ruler appears, humans no longer need to be ruled by law.

Aristotle argues that the best regime should be the republic regime ruled by middle class. In his word, “There only can the government ever be stable where the middle class exceeds one or both of the others, and in that case there will be no fear that the rich will unite with the poor against the rulers.” (Politics, 1296b35-1297a14) Aristotle advocated to form a republican system, and the rule of law becomes a logically necessity of this ideal government. Aristotle pointed out that the rule of law should be better than the rule of one person. To implement the rule of law, there must be a good and sound complete system, and universal obedience is the key to implementing the rule of law. He also pointed out that the law is effective because of the obedience of the people, and the custom of obeying the law must be cultivated for a long time. At the same time, the law must be consistent.

According the comparison above, in short, we find that Plato admire the politics of the wisdom men and Aristotle recommends the republican government ruled by law. From the present point of view, we know that the development of history and the reality of society made it impossible for Plato’s sage politics with philosophy as the main to be achieved or Aristotle’s rule of the middle class, so Plato had to reaffirm the importance of law in Laws, and Aristotle’s idea didn’t solve the problem in Greece at all. The problem is that Aristotle and Plato both construct an “ideal” state, which is not practical at all.

The first limitation is that they didn’t treat the citizens equally. Plato’s view of the governing advocates that the philosophical king is the supreme ruler. The abolition of the law means that one person is above the others, so it’s hard to have individual freedom of will, nor can there be mutual communication among various classes. In Plato’s opinion, he equates the fate of the entire state with the fate of the ruling class. Aristotle’s advocacy of the authority of the law means the unity of democracy and the rule of law, every class in society is treated fair and justice, but he still treats people unequally. In Politics (1254a20-1254a23) he points out, “For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.”

It can be seen that Plato divides the class based on human nature as the basis of social division of labor, and then divides social division of labor as the basis for distinguishing social classes. Finally, the mysterious “oracle” will define the classes of the individuals. The hierarchy is so strict and unchangeable that once the three classes change their status, it might be a disaster. The purpose of Plato’s class division is to demonstrate a “justice” state, which guarantees that each class perform their own duty and the city will reach in harmony. As he says, “doing what is one’ own and not interfering or meddling in many things”. Obviously, Aristotle classifies society based on practicality and wealth. In practice, he acknowledges the variability of status between classes. Unlike Plato, Aristotle’s purpose of classifying is the proof towards his definition of state that “every state is a community of some kind”, and people always acts in order to obtain that which they think good.

Plato and Aristotle think that the fate is destined from the birth, which is obviously wrong. Plato uses wisdom to measure the ability of a person, while Aristotle uses wealth to class the citizens. A baby knows nothing when he comes to the world, and his wisdom depends on his postnatally education. Knowledge can be accumulated, so there doesn’t exist a person who knows everything. The ruler should keep learning to avoid make mistakes. As for classing citizens according to their wealth, it’s ridiculous to tell a person that he should be the ruler because he is in the middle class. Treating their citizens unequally according to the absurd classing methods is their limitation. Everyone should be treated the same in the country.

The second limitation is that both Plato and Aristotle only consider one mode of the governing. There is neither perfect “philosophical king” in the reality, nor perfect law. Therefore, the ruler should be talented enough and bound hand and foot by the law. Nobody can make sure that they won’t make any mistake in their whole life, and the restriction of the law will ensure that once the ruler did something wrong, he will be punished. As Aristotle suggested, the ruler should be elected in turn. Once the law comes into force, it must not be easily abolished. As everyone obeys the rule of law, the ruler should not be a tenure, but should be campaignable by everyone, says, people serve as rulers and ruled in turn, as he says, “Thus the one party rules and the others are ruled in turn, as if they were no longer the same persons.” (Politics, 1261a10-1261b16)

Plato thinks that the wise man governs the country by relying on philosophical insights, that is, individual wisdom, and not law. He is partially right. Exactly, there is no perfect law, and sometimes the law is actually so bad that it will hinder the rule of the wise man. Law is made by human beings, if this happens, the law should be modified, not abolished directly. It’s a good idea because the ruler cannot accumulate strong power during the short period, the lure of power will be reduced. Of course, although the country is ruled relying on the law, the ruler should be wise so that his decision won’t ruin a country.

Aristotle thinks that the middle class is the democratic force and the best governor, and the country will be pluralistic. However, Plato thinks nothing will be worse than splitting up and turning one into more, and nothing be better than unity. Exactly, there will be no confliction when all people listen to one person’s opinion, but if the ruler makes mistakes, nobody will correct him. A country has lots of social division, military, factory, schools and so on. If we narrow the concepts of “ruler” into the leader of a department, we will find that things are easier. In some departments, ruler can make things into unity, for example, soldiers have to obey their superiors. However, in some areas, plurality is important. People have to use the wisdom of the community. Thus, a country needs both unity and plurality, in another word, the combination of the views of Aristotle and Plato.

Plato and Aristotle both purposed different views about Greek politics. Their views are like the two sides of a coin, although their opinions seem like opposite and different, if we combine them together, we will get the complete idea towards an ideal politics, which is practical and perfect.

Works Cited:

Cooper, John M. (ed.), 1997, Plato: Complete Works, Indianapolis: Hackett. Barnes, J., ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volumes I and II, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Philosophy

Notes

Nietzsche

Background:

We will focus on the first book of his famous Genealogy of Morality, where he discusses the concepts of good, bad, and evil.

He says we need to perform a genealogy of our moral values.

Start with an etymological, linguistic analysis of the words “good” and “bad” in Indo-European languages.

Interestingly, turns out that “good” develops from the following seemingly unrelated concepts: “noble,” “aristocratic,” “a high soul,” “warrior,” “man of war,” “brave” . . . 

And “bad” is developed in parallel with “good,” and is connected to the following: “common,” “low,” “plebian” . . .

He gives us an interesting story: a story of how our moral concepts of good, bad and evil come into being.

The Masters

The story:

A socio-political explanation of how the ruling class in early human societies came into power: usually through conquest, war, violence, destruction and brute force.

Perhaps: the relationship between peaceful agrarian societies versus herding-nomadic-hunting societies.

Violent, aggressive, war-like groups of people come to dominate peaceful communities. These war-like groups become the social nobility, the ruling class, the “masters.”

These conquerors or masters have the following characteristics and values:

Physically powerful, violent, strong, healthy, love of health-promoting activities [like sports, exercise, hunting, war, etc.], physically beautiful (or vigorous, more probably), active, love of war and adventure, honest, naïve, straightforward, cheerful, having healthy instincts (“killer animal instincts”), bold and courageous, emotionally impulsive, desire to overcome challenges and become master of all things, love of victory, love of strong enemies and opponents, destructive, cruel.

We will see that the masters’ value-system is based on their own qualities, by looking inwardly at themselves.

These masters rule over the “slaves,” i.e., the people the masters have conquered and dominate [not just slaves, but includes mostly the farmers and ordinary common people].

The “slaves” have the following qualities:

Weak, poor, powerless, harmless, low [social status], passive & reactive, sickly, suffering, ugly (in the sense of not physically vigorous), peaceful, patient, humble, meek, docile, indirect, secretive and hidden, unforgetting, unforgiving and forever vengeful against others (esp. the masters).

The masters are strong, powerful, beautiful, full of energy (especially creative energy). And they are the social/political rulers: they are in positions of power and dominance.

The masters, because they are overflowing with this energy and power, create new values and names for these values: “good” and “bad.”

They feel and establish themselves and their actions to be “good.” What is “good” is valuable.

“Bad” is created as an “afterthought,” as the opposite of “good,” and designates the opposite qualities, i.e., the qualities of the slaves. What is “bad” is not valuable.

Master Value System

Why do the masters do this? Why do they create “good” and “bad”?

Simply because they can do it, and they have the natural impulse to do this (from their very nature); because they have the creative power and ability to do so, they do it.

This is what it means to be a strong and powerful human being, according to Nietzsche: to create new values. 

NOTE: recall that Nietzsche was actually physically very weak and sickly!

So, in the master value-system:

“Good” = refer to qualities of masters = valuable.

“Bad” = refer to opposite qualities of masters, i.e. slave qualities = not valuable.

So the masters rule and dominate society, under their own value system which they create.

BUT: eventually, something very interesting happens: a group called the “priests” come into the story . . .

The Priests

These “priests” are the first religious men (and women) in society.

NOTE: recall that Nietzsche’s father was a pastor (a Christian religious leader).

They emerge among the slave class in society.

And because they are slaves, they are impotent, weak, and powerless.

They hate the masters passionately and deeply, and desire to overthrow them.

But they cannot, since they are too weak and can’t physically compete with the masters to overthrow them.

But these priests are very clever, and they find a very interesting way to overthrow the masters – as Nietzsche says, things become very interesting when this priestly class comes into being:

They conquer the masters by something called “ressentiment.”

What is ressentiment?

It’s not ordinary resentment. It is ressentiment (in the French sense)!

The priestly class is very unhealthy in the mind, according to Nietzsche: they have an aversion to action, and instead prefer to brood and have over-active emotions, they are reactive rather than active.

They are oppressed and repressed, to a poisonous degree.

They cannot act against the masters because the masters are too powerful, so instead the priests brood, and grow more and more resentful, more and more hateful, more and more vengeful.

This is ressentiment! An extreme degree of pent-up resentment and vengeance that has been stewing inside for a very long time!

This hatred and vengeance for the masters keeps building and building, until finally . . . Boom!!!

A great creative explosion occurs in the form of an “imaginary revenge” or “spiritual revenge.” 

Because they cannot physically overthrow the masters, the priests carry out the revenge in their minds instead!

I.e., they invert the master value-equation …

Now the priests carry out a radical “revaluation of moral values,” they invert this master value-system:

“Bad” = opposite qualities of masters, i.e. slave qualities = valuable.

“Good” = qualities of masters = not valuable.

And then they simply transform “Bad” into “Good,” and “Good” into “Evil”:

“Good” = now refers to opposite qualities of masters, i.e. slave qualities = valuable.

“Evil” = now refers to qualities of masters = not valuable.

This is how the priests (and thus the slaves, through the priests) create their new values.

Creating the concept “evil” is their original, creative act.

Thus, the priests create and institute (eventually and gradually, not instantly) the slave value-system (“slave morality”).

Slave Morality

For the slave value-system, the key distinction is not good vs. bad, but rather: good vs. evil.

What fuels this creation of a new moral value-system is: ressentiment.

This ressentiment, Nietzsche wants to say, is very unhealthy!

YET the priests, because they can create a new value-system, are ALSO very strong people (have creative energy)!

The priests, with their creation, initiate the “slave revolt” in morality.

Today, this slave revolt has been completely successful all over the world.

We are all living in a slave moral value-system!!!

We are all thus living under a value-system generated by a deep ressentiment, and this, Nietzsche wants to say, is very unhealthy to human beings!!!

RECAP:

Qualities of the masters:

Physically powerful, violent, strong, healthy, love of health-promoting activities [like sports, hunting, war, etc.], physically beautiful, active, love of war and adventure, honest, naïve, straightforward, cheerful, has healthy instincts (“killer animal instincts”), bold and courageous, emotionally impulsive, desire to overcome challenges and become master of things, love of victory, love of strong enemies and opponents, destructive, cruel.

Qualities of the slaves (the people that the masters rule over):

Weak, poor, powerless, harmless, low [social status], passive & reactive, sickly, suffering, ugly, peaceful, patient, humble, meek, docile, indirect, secretive and hidden, unforgetting, unforgiving and forever vengeful.

Masters create a value system: master morality.

The priests (slaves) invert this value system [inversion of value-equation], through ressentiment.

Ressentiment is unhealthy, poison to human beings!

They create a new value system: slave morality.

From [master morality]:

“Good” = qualities of masters = valuable.

“Bad” = opposite qualities of masters, i.e. slave qualities = not valuable.

To [slave morality]:

“Good” = opposite qualities of masters, i.e. slave qualities = valuable.

“Evil” = qualities of masters = not valuable.

Today we are all living under the slave moral value system.

So we are all unhealthy, poisoned and sick!

Important Differences Between MM and SM

(1) Looking Inward vs. Looking Outward

Master morality (MM):

Starts by self-affirmation and spontaneous creation. Self-affirming, self-valuing.

Full of life and filled with passion for life.

Creates the concept “good” by reflecting on themselves – looking inward. They define themselves by looking inward.

 “Bad” is simply created as an afterthought – not important. “Good” is the important concept.

Seeks the other only to affirm itself more.

Lack of ressentiment: they can exhaust their  hatred and vengefulness through action.

Slave morality (SM):

Starts by denying the outside, the other, needs the other to exist.

Defines themselves by looking outward at the other (the masters).

Creates the concept “evil” by looking outside, at the other.

Slave morality is essentially reactive: its  “action is fundamentally reaction.”

(2) Happiness

MM: masters are happy with themselves; they are self-sufficient.

Thus, no need to look to the other to define their happiness.

Their happiness cannot be separated from their actions and deeds.

SM: priests and slaves need to define their happiness by looking at the other (the masters).

BUT: since they do NOT have what the masters have, they are not happy.

In fact, they are miserable and suffering.

They are inactive – too weak to express themselves through action and deed.

(3) Enemies and Love –

MM: the masters truly love not only themselves, but their enemies also (at least worthy ones)! They have a healthy respect and admiration for worthy enemies.

They need worthy enemies that they can respect and honor, in order to prove themselves and become great.

True-enemies are a mark of self-achievement and self-worth.

Thus, masters are full of love (for themselves and even their enemies).

Master morality starts from love.

SM: slaves have no love for their enemies.

They truly hate their enemies at a spiritual level.

Secretly hate themselves also – hate what they really are (i.e., slaves).

Thus, slaves are full of hate (for their enemies, and full of self-hate).

Slave morality starts from hate.