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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Bataille say about a man who knows his neighbors?
(a) He replaces his life with the life of the community.
(b) He is a particle connected by instability to an entangled whole.
(c) He is larger than himself in his connection with an organic whole.
(d) He maintains his place in society by a network of lies and half-truths.

2. Which of the following does Bataille NOT use as an example of unproductive expenditure without value beyond itself?
(a) Public gardens.
(b) War.
(c) Art.
(d) Luxuries.

3. What does Bataille say Nietzsche questions?
(a) How an ideology can be invented.
(b) How a people's spirit can be expressed.
(c) How an ideal can be discovered in the past.
(d) How a people's technology can be fulfilled.

4. What is the significance of the image of the labyrinth in the "The Labyrinth"?
(a) It represents the deadly stakes in self-knowledge.
(b) It is a metaphor for being.
(c) It is a metaphor for social existence.
(d) It is a symbol of man's inner state.

5. What does homogeneity depend on?
(a) Owners keeping the workers down.
(b) Workers owning the means of production.
(c) A productive system.
(d) Continual revolution.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who developed the theory of conspicuous consumption?

2. What does Bataille define as a way to humiliate, defy, or obligate a poorer person as a show of destruction of wealth?

3. What did professor Hartmann dispute about the treatment of the Marx/Hegel dialectic?

4. What does Bataille say Nietzschean pride comes from?

5. Under what conditions can a state be democratic, in Bataille's opinion?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does a man find himself in "The Labyrinth"?

2. What is the essence of Bataille's essay "The Practice of Joy before Death"?

3. Briefly describe the theory of conspicuous consumption.

4. What pattern for self-discovery does Bataille offer in "The Sacred"?

5. What is Bataille's theme in "The Labyrinth"?

6. How does Alfred Rosenberg clarify the issue of Nietzsche's relationship with the Fascists?

7. How does the artist give meaning in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"?

8. Summarize Nicolai Hartmann's interpretation of Hegel.

9. What is Bataille's interpretation of Veblen's theory of conspicuous consumption?

10. What does Bataille say is the only true liberating act, in "Propositions"?

(see the answer keys)

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