Blog post 4) Peer review
Lynn Nwosu – themes reflection reviewed by Luke Gooden,
For my final blog post, I will be reviewing Blog post 2 by Lynn Nwosu (available at https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/05/11/blog-2-themes-reflection-23/).
The second blog post by Lynn Nwosu is one that I had found particularly appealing as it investigates the importance of knowledge which she describes the inextricable link between knowledge and power in the sense of maturing as both a mind and person. This seems to go beyond the scope of the three factors sustainability, social responsibility and diversity and instead looks at the archetype in which they all inevitably convulse and this is the importance of knowledge. Without the knowledge of this world, we are mere spectators of shadows on a cave wall as proposed by Plato in his book Republic.
To look at this I will briefly analyse two contrasting systems in which the epistemic and transcendental ideologies synthesise themselves into a system of which their aspects are seen as institutions, though not tangible. Existentialism and essentialism both believe in different things. The existentialists believe that it is for us to assign our meaning and assimilate our actions and convictions towards becoming what we want to be and this works for us in a way which allows the accumulation of knowledge to assist us in becoming. Essentialism is the belief that we are born with an essence, a certain “Luke-ness” and thus I believe (in relation to essentialism) knowledge acts only to confirm who we are and expand on our ideas. We are all born of free will, Tabula rasa if you will, and on this, we must create our own future.
Knowledge allows for mass introspection and thus allows us to compare and contrast concepts which plague the mind for better or for worse. We must know of hot to know cold, sadness for happiness and good for bad. Lynn speaks of how the lectures we are given help us to assign our own moral convictions to concepts, past and present, and progress as people in a subjective and unified manner. The contemplative internal dialogue in unison with the space we are in (regarding contemporary fashion and its physical and mental properties) allows us as fashion practitioners to become active members in activism and create new material for people to build ideas from.
I hold in high respect the position of which Lynn holds when she talks of the following “It still amazes when I realise that the people that I sit within in class and I are next up in the industry”. Not only is she using the knowledge of her practice for herself, but the ideas are also in the minds of others, though they may not be aware. This level of observation is one that we should strive for. To be something we must be knowledgeable of all of the good and the bad. All of this for a better future, not as an industry but as a movement one that is human all too human.
In conclusion, although the issues of sustainability, social responsibility and diversity were not directly addressed the blog post latched its self to something that these existing concepts cannot be without nor can they progress without and that is knowledge and more specifically subjectivity of information interpretation for the mind of one and that of others.
Waterfeild, R., (2008) Republic translated from the Greek by Plato. Oxford: Oxford university press
Crowell, S., (2017) “Existentialism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available athttps://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/existentialism/
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Essentialism. (No date) Retrieved May 11, 2020, Available at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/essentialism