This study examines the failures in decolonization and its political outcomes leading to a phenomenon called 'totalitarianism' in a transitional post-colonial context, as characterized in the works of V.S. Naipaul. It attempts to articulate how the postcolonial nations, once 'abandoned' by their Colonial Masters and then taken over by unsuccessful indigenous rulers, have encountered symptomatic political development within themselves 'as finite limitations of their existence' as they have emerged and are ideologically embedded in a historically affected consciousness (Gadamer 2006). To escape from the humiliation, dislocation, anxiety, jealousies and alienation generated by modern secularism and rationalism transmitted through colonialism itself, they seem to 'return' (Amin 2014: 81) to an ideology largely borrowed from history and tradition as 'retrogressive nostalgia' for today's and tomorrow's problems, which ultimately results in nothing but violent totalitarianism. In such transitional contexts where societies still struggle to come to terms with modernity, though the material conditions of life improved, the shift in mentality (Miao 2000) from one condition to a completely unprepared and unexpected phase remains crucial. The destructive energy that is often used against the universal civilizing force is seen here as a 'compensation for the pain suffered through the disintegration of traditional forms of live ' (Habermas 2007: 102). This study, with the support of contemporary philosophical, political, literary and psychoanalytical interventions, dialectically examines how such symptomatic developments are empirically explored in the fictional and biographical works by V.S. Naipaul.
Velvet Underground (referred as Velvets from here on in this essay) is one of the most authentic, influential but least talked rock bands in the history of rock music, whose contribution is greatly forgotten in presence of the high popularity of the commercial form of rock. Started in 1966, the Velvets successfully articulated the avant-garde movement in 1950s and the European eliticism to create an independent, nihilistic and subversive form of rock which was later known as punk. Their style was the most self-expressive and pessimistic rock structure to go in between the hippie psychedelia influenced by existentialism and German expressionism; the two most influential ideological reactions which dominated the intellectual and literary tradition for decades in the post-war Europe. Without identifying with both hegemonic strands, the Velvets pertinently invented their own independent way to express the most profound and authentic feelings of their generation. They were later celebrated for their intellectual and artistic use of rock with great amount of experiments along side avant-gardism. In their poignantly arranged, de-aesthetic songs, though inspired by the use of heroin, have shown an imagination for the need of a better world. This paper will research how their self-expressive, nihilistic and notorious dreams which actually meant to get rid of the era's desperation can be literary re-articulated to vision a futuristic better world. Though this situation of nihilism and futuristic hope is paradoxical, it is the very dilemma of the era and of modernity. The visualization of Velvet's fantasy is, if psychoanalytically contextualized, in the form of a nihilistic delirium made through drugs and, resulted as, in Freudian terms, a catharsis to release the masculine libido; the sexual energy in the Id and sometimes as thanatos; the death instinct: both the animal within us. Their death instinct is also illuminated by the fact that they denied the 'pleasure principle', or in other words, the entertainment aspect in rock music. In this case, they are studied here as the first rock band with taboo adult fantasies in their songs which were mainly not for kids. This discussion will also observe their deliberate and positive use of deviant social attitudes, sexual perversion, underground metropolistic and seductive urbanistic hyper -realism in their songs in fantasizing the future better world against the contemporary monotonous, de-humanized socio-34 political structures. Their attempt to go beyond the political reactionism of that era towards a political radicalism, which was not the usual case in the time, will be paid attention to, while discussing their style and lyrics. Velvets' contribution to rock music will historically be restructured in the first part, and the content will be literarily evaluated through some of their renowned lyrics in the second part of this dialogue to prove the hypothesis.
This paper argues that the animosity and violence theorized in the movie Inglorious Basterds (Tarantino 2009) can be interpreted as a paradoxical by-product of the Enlightened humanity. If the world is a carefully calculated phenomenon of the enlightened man and the reason is the fundamental driving force, it is paradoxical how evil becomes a by-product in modern post-enlightenment humanity. The bourgeois humanity of the Enlightenment project, therefore, carries the characteristic that educated, cultured, mannered and charming men are fully capable of metamorphosing into monstrous beasts and the 'dialectic totality' of both good and evil is the 'true history' of the modern world. To exemplify that dual existence, the above movie can be considered as an example, where the aestheticized violence portrayed in the movie displays how the 'decent' political space has been taken over by the 'diabolic evil' of obscene underground. The paper also investigates how the people who immerse in 'cultivated academic environments' are capable of justifying violence over fellow human beings, despite whatever said about their conscience.
This paper investigates the philosophical applicability of the Kantian notion of teacher to interpret the short story, The Morning Clouds by Yasunari Kawabata. Though the role of teacher has broadly been discussed in various pedagogical contexts, in a postmodern time like today the teacher's role as a moral guide is often discouraged and his/her intervention is reduced to a facilitator, while his/her existence is often believed to be duplicated by a computer. However, the teacher is still treated as an entity of reference and role model, because s/he is believed to be capable of transmitting the message of 'universal good' and implanting moral values in students; the future of any society. A moral agent as 'a rational and free being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong' is perceived through the social role of a teacher who guides students to a final moral destination. Such action must be based on a 'priori', a Kantian social essential created in the human mind for universal good, as an act of faith for the preservation of ultimate human values. Teacher as a personal identity may be of little importance as far as a 'priori' functions as a signifier in students' minds, but the teacher's obligation to the moral entity and exemplification seems the most important aspect since students, especially when they grow into adulthood, take him/herself as a role model. Therefore, as a teacher, one should place him/herself beyond personal interests because of the unconditional and universal responsibility towards 'the other' (his/her pupils). In this respect, this paper examines how the teacher in the short story, The Morning Clouds, sets a unique example as to how a teacher should act before students as an idealised moral guide, and attempts to justify the legitimacy of teacher as a universal moral guide who could design the destiny of future generation.
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