Coherence: Pragmatics, Logic, and Text

Why study coherence? In an age of scattered minds, we can learn to make our individual experience of a collective reality coherent. Is not the coherence of our experiences our character, and the coherence of our perspectives meaning? What could be more meaningful than self-awareness? It is true that ambiguity is one of the major characteristics of natural languages, because rhetoric is one of the sublimities of humanity. Could it be that the art of persuasion can be learnt? Is learning only imitation, or is it the acknowledgement of impermanence within us and without us? So, why study coherence when everything changes? Though it is true that rationality is bound and limited to empirical knowledge, what good is humanity if the gift of rationality is not channelled into intellectual pursuits? 

It may be harsh to say that a life lived in the rumination of the transcendence of reason for the sake of dwelling in the here and the now and all that lies within is bullshit; the universal and fundamental values of humanity cannot be identified without logic. 

Like language, it may be the case that the location of the fundamental and universal values of humanity is also innate. We can apply a variety of logical functions to what lies within and sketch out distinct propositions about our relationship with our surrounding environment or reality. When humanity lies within us, what do you think will arise out of it if the environment collapses? Will reality remain?

Still, the paradox of the Gestalt remains: though the partless component parts, such as conjunctions or cohesive devices and logical symbols, may unite to give the whole its shape, the meaning of the visible shape thus formed is something entirely different from the meaning embedded within all these partless parts. 

How necessary then is it to awaken the mind to the fundamentals of humanity that are universal? With that being said, such an education of the mind does not always have to be related to morality or ethics alone. We can always ask ourselves how our environment affects our conception of reality and the meaning of our existence within reality. Reciprocally, we must also awaken to what the human intellect can create that is coherent and of meaning to the stability of the environment, or the collapse thereof.

I have found that thoughts are a consequence of reality. When reality is incoherent, thoughts are incoherent. In Chinese thought, these ideas have immense significance in organising human life and even government (see Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianist Dualism of Li & Qi). In my opinion, this approach is one way of coming to terms with the disorder of the world. Sometimes, it is okay to be unaware, and knowing that we do not know is also meaningful because it brings us peace. But, all this is beyond the point I am trying to make right now. What was once arrogance can turn to ignorance.

Coming back to from where we digressed, we make use of linguistic artefacts to mindfully note down these fundamental universals of humanity. We can call such linguistic artefacts texts, even when certain ideas are not manifested in writing. Storytelling or narrative is a vital component of literature in language education because language is the medium of instruction irrespective of the discipline. When we take account of the whole process, besides didactics, interpretation and evaluation of learning are equally as important because the level of understanding showcased by the alien entity, or student, determines the pedagogy of the teacher and the economy of the institution/organisation. It is needless to say that one does not only learn through institutions, for life is the greatest of all teachers.

Here, to find coherence in reality, we first identify different component parts of the text or narrative and then attempt to induct our interpretation of the relativity between these partless parts into the narrative of the text to shape the discourse on reality. Can the narrative be the text, yet still the text have narrative? Maybe there is such a thing as subtext or metanarrative. Maybe. Another approach may be to first notice the invisible relativity between partless parts and then deduce what these component partless parts may be. There may be other approaches to name, but I am out of my depth. However, here I can reiterate from my earlier essay on Hegel that the existence of partless parts is logical, but the cohesive devices that keep them together are non-logical, which means they have been created and applied between partless parts to serve predetermined functions only. 

The way natural languages use cohesive devices (words or phrases) to make sentences meaningful, logic uses symbols to make meaningful sentences about the environment and about reality. Now, it must be said that not every sentence is true and meaningful, just as not every human being applies their fundamental and universal humanity to leave the world a better place. So, where does the fallacy lie? What might be the source of all this mysterious evil? How can the distortion of reality be the enemy?

Plato was afraid that rhetoric distorts truth and the pursuit of truth. So, how can text achieve meaning? When meaning is governed by grammar, how can different societies and cultures interpret the same text differently? Though the text might exist, does meaning exist, or does it not? 

A guided orientation to the text or narrative significantly influences our interpretation of the text and our responses to it. This is why linguistic artefacts in the domain of language education are such an integral portion of our human experience. Even a fictional dream of what we are yet to discover can direct us towards the discovery. A coherent text makes our interpretation coherent. While interpreting the text, we might recognise that certain patterns are governing as rules or laws. In language, it may be recognised and organised as the grammar of that language, and merely with prior knowledge of their grammar, we can learn to create and appreciate the aesthetics of the narratives, and imagination thereof, at work in keeping alien societies and cultures alive and thriving. 

So, it is of utmost importance to apply the pre-existing knowledge of logical symbols (in non-natural languages) and cohesive devices (in natural languages) to decipher the narrative and analyse the discourse which is the text, because context gives rise to meaning and removes the arbitrariness of signs and symbols.

The way there are cognitive poetics to reading and listening, there are linguistic aesthetics to writing and speaking. The narrative is text, and the text is a grammatical composition that can be ornamented with style and rhetoric to influence or distort reality. 

It can now be concluded with confidence that linguistic creativity can influence the world, and coherence is an important aspect of it, a Trojan horse, so to speak.

So, is it even possible to interpret what the meaning of the entire text is? Can there be a single interpretation of the text? Can there be a human existence without the narrative as text?

This means that when a claim is true, it will have a logical consequence that will give rise to another statement that is true. In this way, many statements can be strung together with logical coherence. With the use of different types of conjunctions or logical functions, the claim a statement makes can be played around with. Textual coherence is the meaning of the text, and it is achieved through language usage. In any given text, there is knowledge about the quality and the journey of an object in the world. The quality and the journey are believed to have originated from the rules governing scientific and fictional worlds. Sentences in a text exist and function within the environment of the text. The text is shaped by the world in which it exists. Each word in a sentence has grammatical attributes, and each sentence in a text has semantic attributes. In the context of other words within the sentence, certain words gain their particular meaning, becoming subjects or predicates. If the predicates follow the rules of the world in which the subject exists, it may be said that the sentence is meaningful or in a way true. However, if the predicate fails to follow the rules of the world in which the subject exists, then it may be said that the sentence is meaningless, or in a way false. Therefore, meaning is largely dependent on the context (reality?). Therefore, the creation of meaning is inherently a world-building exercise within which subjects and objects can exist meaningfully, with logical coherence and grammatical cohesion. In case of an error in building, the world would have to be resolved before the end of the text. This is primarily the task the writer has at hand.

Text or narrative can be interpreted along linguistic lines or socio-cultural lines; each has its theoretical frameworks. Where language is primarily objective, society and culture are subjective. Is meaning a reader's response to the text, or is it the author's intention? Isn't that the question? Anyway, A I Richard categorised the functions of language into four types of meaning, namely, sense, feeling, tone and intention. The school influenced by Richard is called New Criticism. The relevance of this school to this essay is that it creates a distinction between what is literature and what is its lower form, such as a blog. 

Definitely, there cannot be any one absolute answer to something so subjective as literature, especially from the point of view of its construction. Needless to say, realism is one such literary trend whose aspiration is to imitate reality as it is; thus it must be the most meaningful of all literary trends till the end of time. To avoid any confusion that individual thoughts and emotional experiences too are real, this opinion of mine on realism for the sake of research here on earth can be narrowed down to socio-realism. The meaning we tend to give a text is psychological. So, when we create grammatically correct and meaningful sentences by putting them together in a paragraph, we continuously give the subjects and predicates an invisible and fictional context underneath all that is real and meaningful. Paragraphs put together must make the context coherent with reality. In this way, the text is an imitation of reality, with or without rhetoric.

Though this is not the time to linger long on what reality is, coherence in the narrative of a text must be a fundamental universal aspect of the humanity we may find within us as we perceive the varying phenomena of reality. Meaning must be infinite in dimension; that is why the greatest philosophers found relief in asserting that life is inherently meaningless, when it is in fact coherence that makes life meaningful.

Essay on Theatre

Theatre as Visual Language; medium

Theatre as Process for Experience; actor

Theatre as Resistance; politics

Theatre 

Style and Cohesive Devices: An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics and Semantics

The nature of the mind is such that thoughts arise irrespective of any conscious effort from an individual and remain present in the mind at all times if the mind is conscious. Through language, human beings decrease the emotional burden of thoughts by effectively expressing these thoughts and communicating them with the rest of the world. 

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens) represents cognitive linguistics as an approach to the analysis of natural language focusing on language as an instrument for organizing, processing, and conveying information. This kind of study originated in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the work of George Lakoff, Ron Langacker, and Len Talmy. Cognitive linguistics is interested in knowledge through language. 

The development of cognitive abilities also enable human beings to better understand complicated structures of natural language. Cognitivists compare their approach to language teaching with that of generativists who consider language to be wholly a set of rules formulated to generate an infinite number of possible sentences. The contrast is that cognitivism gives primacy to semantics. For cognitive linguists, our interactions with the world are mediated by structures of information in the mind. Isn't that fascinating? 

Language is the foundation of literature. Meaning is an important philosophical problem in literary theory. According to Geoffery Leech, there are seven types of meaning, namely conceptual, connotative, collocative, reflective, affective, social, and thematic. But how does language help human beings derive that sense of meaning? The study of meaning is commonly known as semantics and is an essential aspect of studying language. It can be said that human beings use language to derive meaning. So, what is the relationship between language and meaning? Is meaning created in thought or in text? To be able to create meaning a language has to consist ultimately of logical words, which function as subjects, verbs, and objects, and non-logical words, which give logical words either particular or universal reference. But, what happens to the nature of meaning when language is used to construct discourse around phenomena? What is the relevance of reference in the analysis of discourse? 

Discourse is different from speech acts of language in that discourse interprets and contextualizes knowledge through processes of socialization. A trait of word formation processes or derivational morphology is that words of a language can have their roots in another language. Some English words have Greek or Latin roots. Similarly, some English words have Arabic, French, German, or Japanese roots because these languages once came in contact. Semantics is considered to be the foremost component of cognitive linguistics. Semantics is also one of the main ingredients of studying text. As globalization unfolds, the effects of inter-cultural interactions are becoming central to educationists who believe that through teaching foreign languages better inter-cultural communication can be established. Undoubtedly, world literatures also play an important role in the development of this socio-cultural competence at educational institutions.

Inflection is the linguistic process through which words change their form according to constructs of time, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy (how alive the referent of a noun is), and definiteness. These linguistic categories ensure words change their form to function according to the needs of the discourse which eventually aspires to refer to something meaningful.  

That is to say, sociocultural contexts hold meaning and natural language refers to meaning by making use of non-logical words. Logical words derive their meaning based on the rhetoric non-logical words create. Willem A Devries in the paper Hegel on Reference and Knowledge writes about Russell, who "between 1905 and 1913 (or later) never shook the idea that for non-logical terms meaning was, in the last analysis, reference."  

So, how does a discourse obtain cohesion of meaning if the structures of language are continuously changing according to the needs of the context? The theory in grammatical cohesion devices (see below) categorizes non-logical words according to their usage and their contribution to the intended meaning of the discourse. 

(Source: EFLU, Hyderabad)

Lexical cohesion devices or grammatical cohesion devices are indicators of the meaning intended by a discourse. Cohesion devices are dependent on context. The reason why the meaning of a text changes when read by different readers, even if the non-logical words, that refer to a meaning, remain unchanged, is because sociocultural contexts change. While reading our brains continuously attempt to make meaning. Our brains make meaning by first noticing and then understanding the relations between cohesive devices and the sentences where they appear. Our brain deconstructs the meaning of a text by studying the coherence of patterns and the rhetoric given to a text by concepts such as non-logical words or cohesive devices. Cohesive devices are an important part of the study of meaning in the field of language.

So, the dichotomy remains whether it is the internal structures of language that help human beings derive meaning, or, is it the experience of living in a society and the study of sociocultural processes that help human beings refer to and develop meaning through language. 

In the paper titled Style, Peter Verdonk emphasizes that "tropes and schemes, and figures of thought, are no rhetorical byproducts of a process of objective thinking of an independent mind; rather, they are a reflection of how people construe their knowledge and experience of the world around them." Verdonk's understanding of this concept is classical in nature and Aristotelian to be exact. From this point of view, the audience plays no role in the process of meaning production. Verdonk explains that throughout history rhetoric has changed with changes in government, politics, law, education, and the production and reception of the arts – in brief, with the changes in the overall social, ideological, and cultural situation. Style is one among the five canons of rhetoric. The five divisions are invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Verdonk also writes that even for Aristotle "the main virtues of style are clarity and appropriateness (III.II.2; the latter is repeated in III.VII.2–11)" and that, "In later chapters of his book, Aristotle adds, among others, the requirements of purity or grammatical correctness (III.V.5–7), rhythm (III.VIII), and ornamentation (III.X–XI). Thinking, imagination, learning, memory, perception, attention, emotion, reasoning, and problem-solving are cognitive abilities associated with human consciousness and cognitive linguists hold that there is a close interactive and meaningful relationship between them and linguistic ability. "One of the valuable spinoffs from cognitive linguistic research is cognitive stylistics, also called cognitive poetics. It is an interdisciplinary study of how readers process literary texts, or perhaps better still, of what happens when a reader reads a literary text’ (Stockwell, 2002: 5)" (Verdonk, Style: 2006)

It is becoming clearer that language serves the function of creating signs that are socially accepted. However, the foremost trait of structural linguistics is that signs are arbitrary, and only signified in society with mutual agreement between individuals. "Discourse is then no longer the mere application of grammatical rules, but the grammatical rules themselves are motivated by the discourse functions that the grammar has to fulfill." (Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens, The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics)

Now, it has to be said that with the use of literary techniques and rhetoric, writers arrive at a style that can be identified as their own. By knowing what makes their style unique they can further give their text the meaning they really intend. Different linguistic items modify the structure and meaning of a text differently. To understand the grammatical use of linguistic items it is essential to first know the science of categorization of linguistic items even though the study of language is shrouded with a dichotomy between 'form' and 'function'.

Works Cited: 

"Hegel on Reference and Knowledge," Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. XXVI, No. 2 (April 1988),

pp. 297-307

Cognitive Stylistics (Verdonk 2006) Cognitive linguistic approach to the role of genre in language and style (Steen 2002: 183-209) Steen G (2002a). ‘Metaphor in Bob Dylan’s ‘‘Hurricane’’: genre, language, and style.’ In Semino E & Culpeper J (eds.) Cognitive stylistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 183–209.

---. “Introducing Cognitive Linguistics.” Oxford University Press eBooks, 2010, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199738632.013.0001.

A Reflection on Fantasy

Mind is like a mirror and fantasy stems in the mind alone. I was able to reflect on fantasy because I began my search for its meaning at its root through the process of abstinence. Then the nature of fantasy came to me in the form of a revelation. 

I've tried to define and understand the meaning and the nature of fantasy for long and finally understanding it is to see it disrobe itself before my two eyes. This thing called fantasy which was hidden behind a veil had deluded me completely. I did not know what it was before, but now it is clear that the cause for my madness was fantasy alone. 

Before I think of a way in which to channel this powerful world of hidden meanings called fantasy, for the sake of physical and mental satisfaction I must acknowledge that to wish to control its nature is utterly arrogant and egoistic. 

Fantasy has its roots in imagination. It is that world where the thinker is the ruler. To put imagination to good use is concerned at core with idealism. Fantasy is the process of drawing imagination further from the dots where it claims its end. Though fantasy can mirror illogic, to communicate what elements fantasy contains one needs logic.

Fantasy is an alterable intangible world which exists solely in the mind. It is both affecting and affected by emotional states. To conciously move around and arrange neatly the images, timelines and phenomena gives fantasy its capability to impregnate a barren life with meaning. 

Does fantasy allow for duality? Is there such a thing as multidimensional realities? Words get their definition from how we conceive actions. I have tried to limit the infinite meanings fantasy can have. Fantasy is the word I'm choosing to give to my own intentions behind arousing the desires already universal to the human mind. Fantasy is that process through which imagination grows into fiction and poetry. To unfold the world of fantasy is a purposeful act.

Knowledge expands fantasy after mind reasons with memories. Fantasy is all that which is never manifested. If fantasy manifests into event, it is no longer fantasy. Imagination can be the source of such an event and fantasy can be the inspiration for its purposeful actualization, but what is mirrored in the mind alone can never get manifested in its pure and natural structure into its eventual fruition. Reality has no provisions for this. However, imagination is that reservoir from which fantasy can inspire art.

Is fantasy merely the escape route at the end of which art is born from what the mind once imagined? To get one glimpse of the reflection of reality independent of its sociological construction mind employs an intellectual process called fantasy. Why does fantasy transcend the fabric of the real world to make a world of its own in the mind? Mind desires a treasure chest for its own reasons, for its own perceptions, for its balance. This desire to give itself time to rationalize knowledge independent of society needn't be confused with pleasure. 

Memory plays its part in giving the mind a space and time in a fantastical world of its own, to construct its own perspective of ongoing reality. 

The elements of fantasy are eternal. They have the spiritual quality of being a universal consciousness. Art immortalizes these elements of fantasy. My objective has been to give the elements of fantasy a distinction as I think essential to human experience. To embed memories in fantasy is to give its elements distinction. 

It may take a lifetime to achieve lucidity on what are all the elements of fantasy, however, I think they are divided by the lure of sexuality on the princliples of reproduction for the sake of survival. It cannot be forgotten that fantasy has an uncontrollable power over what mind mirrors of the imagination at a given point in space and time. What fantasy can force a mind to do, thus, is an exceptionally grey area. To draw from the world of fantasy and adhere to a philosophy is perhaps the great postmodern challenge faced by the human being. The mind wills which experiences will define the fantasy.              

Mind reasons to place the elements of fantasy nearer to, or further apart from each other, and thus building some fantasies is easier than others. 

An important function of art, alongside soothe and educate the mind, is to knit together the elements of fantasy in such a way that the psychology of the fantasy is sustainable even within an alien mind. The intangible world of fantasy has to remain intangible. Its intangibility is of utmost importance for its sustenance. Social elements which affect human perception of itself can intervene and disrupt the sustenace of a fantasy. Fantasy is fragile, just as the mirror in the mind of man is fragile. 

To conclude, I should confess that fantasy, a concept, though does not naturally die, can be absolutely corrupted, immoral and absurdly cruel. Therefore, any instinctual interventions to nurture fantasy must first fill the emptiness of the mind.                   

Fiction & Phenomenology

context: an idea represented in post structuralist theories, nothing is absolute and what needs focus is the fact that things are constructed and provisional.

Poetics of the novel: p 221-269 STRUCTURAL POETICS

Being and time: Introduction: p 21-63 PHENOMENONOLOGY. UNDERSTANDING OF IDENTITY, EXISTENCE, BEING.

On speculating that Individualism is the most valued novelty of our time we will draw from HEIDEGGER'S BEING AND TIME. To understand the difference between (Phenomenology) and Individualism. WHY? Understanding Phenomenology might help us better utilize its various aspects into CONTEMPORARY Fiction. WHAT IS THE NEED OF DOING THAT? We will also read Derrida's deconstruction AS READ BY CULLER alongside Heidegger's Being and Time. TO UNDERSTAND REALISM THROUGH THAT LENS CREATED BY THE HYBRIDITY OF HEIDEGGER AND DERRIDA. WIKI HEIDEGGER (INFLUENCE ON DERRIDA). Our objective will be to theorize the creation of Fiction OF REALISM. FROM WHERE ARE WE LOOKING AT THE MOVEMENT IN REALISM? PLEASURES OF THE SUBLIME. IS THIS IN OPPOSITION TO THE SUBLIME?HOW IS THE UNDERSTANDING OF HEIDEGGER'S BEING CONNECTED TO REALISM AND DECONSTRUCTION? 

CREATION. The objective here is to elaborate the fiction experience, slide it into the ability of an artist to covert REALITY AND IMAGINATION into FICTION. THUS WE ASK WHAT IS FICTION AND WHAT IS REAL. 

To shape world views or perceptions, to theorize for the masses BOTH sociologically AND psychologically, and compare the fiction experience with the experience of observing REALITY in its totality as fiction. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? ELABORATE.

Undoubtedly, even today the ideology of unity (ARISTOTLE'S POETICS?) reigns supreme. In all art forms, societies, even in ECONOMIC/INDUSTRY forces that HOLD monopoly OVER TRENDS need theorizing for the sake of embrace by the lay person. In other words the Ideology (MARXISM) should be unified till the extent it is possible to unify IDENTITY/EXISTENCE/BEING. HEIDEGGER'S BEING AND TIME ON UNITY, SIGNS OF THE TIME, IDEOLOGY, AND CREATION.

Things that we have thought of as constant, including the notion of our own identity (gender identity, national identity, for example), are not stable and fixed, but rather are fluid, changing, and unstable. Rather than being innate essences, these qualities of identity are ‘socially constructed’ – and a lot of the theories we’ll look at are concerned with how such identities are constructed so that they feel as though they are constant. (Klages, Mary: LITERARY THEORY: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED, p 50)

[So for example if in a work, let's say NAMDEO DHASAL'S SELECT POEMS, A unity OF TROPES REPRESENT/REVEAL the most obvious SOCIO-CULTURAL FORMS/forces, THE TEXT remains united BY A PLAY BETWEEN ALL OF THEM.] EACH UNIT COMPRISING THE POEM IS SUBJECT TO INTERPRETATION. 

This question of (how) needs answering to peek into the nature of a resolve OF CREATION (STRUCTURAL POETICS) than DECONSTRUCTION. Each category WITHIN THE STRUCTURE OF THE POEM, A LITERARY FORM, IS A STRUCTURE IN ITSELF FOR EXAMPLE, WITH A LANGUAGE OF ITS OWN. SO FORMS EXIST THRIVING FOR A LANGUAGE SO THAT THEY CAN make THEMSELVES worthy representatives of IN the greater cause. 

CAN WE FOLLOW THE SAME approach to understand CREATING FICTION? We will look towards Heidegger's BEING AND TIME for advice ON ARTICULATING THE IMAGINARY. IS IT ANYTHING DIFFERENT FROM IDENTITY, EXISTENCE AND BEING? IS IT THE LANGUAGE OF INTERPRETING THE VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF A FORM OR A STRUCTURE?

Nature AND the sublime AND the surreal (TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE OR SOMETHING ELSE?). WHILE EXPERIENCING GRIEF AND LOSS OF LOVED ONE I ESCAPED TO NATURE AND FOUND the highest elation I ever come across. Sadly, life, BECAUSE OF EMOTIONS, IS cocooned with the dread and despair of desires FOR HOPE NOT PESSIMISM. IS THAT the truth about the 21st century? INDIVIDUALS STRIVE FOR meaning, AND SO BEGINS THE ACT OF CREATION. AND THEY ASSERT THEMSELVES AS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COMPONENTS OF A FORM/STRUCTURE FOR THE REALIZATION OF THEIR PLACE IN THE STRUCTURE AS WELL AS FOR THE STRUCTURE ITSELF.

REALISM. ROMANTICISM. NOT SURREALISM.

context: an idea represented in post structuralist theories, nothing is absolute and what needs focus is the fact that things are constructed and provisional. WHAT IS THIS IDEA CALLED? HOW DOES THIS IDEA IMPACT OUR STUDY?

Against binary oppositions. It helps understand the opposites, but compares them against a center. Deconstructionism.

Where does fiction stem from? Reality? A staged reality with the use of power? Too subjective and unstable, speculative, fiction, even if we are not being objective in our perspective that is not headed towards a SUSTAININABLE MEANING. 'CENTER CANNOT HOLD PHILOSOPHY'. A STORY, A NARRATIVE, A REALITY DISCLOSE REALITY WHERE fiction DISCLOSES IMAGINATION. 

Contemporary fiction. Characteristics? (A CITATION THAT SUPPORTS THE ARGUMENT)

Characters are different shades in the same point of view within Identity, Existence and Being. ARE THEY? WHY ARE WE RESORTING TO THE IDEA OF CHARACTERS? GREEK ETHOS. 

What lies beyond Identity, Existence and Being in creation? THE STRUCTURE WAITING TO BE DECONSTRUCTED BY THE ACT OF READING AND INTERPRETING? Meaning making? CREATIVITY? (INDIAN AESTHETIC THEORY OF APPRECIATION). 

CONCLUSION: The being fiction of writing depends on THE COMPONENTS OF A TEXT (IDENTIFYING, EXISTING AND BEING) WITHIN THE DERIVED MEANING of the text BY THOSE READING/INTERPRETING THE WHOLE.

IN THIS PROCESS, THE READER AND THE AUDIENCE IS OF COURSE INTERPRETING, BUT DURING THIS ACT OF CREATION, WHAT IS THE WRITER DOING? MAKING A SUSTAINABLE MEANING, WHICH DESTABALIZES AS COMPONENTS PASS ONE AFTER THE OTHER. AND THAT IS HOW THE ACT OF CREATION IS ABLE TO CARRY A CONTINUOUS MEANING, WHICH LATER BECOMES THE STORY? (IS THERE A BETTER WORD FOR THIS?) CAN WE UNDERSTAND IT AS ETHOS? OR IS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PAST? 

Audience response is the aesthetic appeal of the work of art. The aesthetic appeal decides the value of art. It is then handpicked and curated by the audience for the sake its own understanding. The ability of a work of art to shelf itself is novelty. WHAT DOES EXHIBITIONISM DO TO ART? WHAT IS THE ROLE OF EXHIBITIONISM IN THE STATE OF THE ART. 

Title: Exploring phenomenology and reader-response through select prose of Forsyth.

The primary aim of this study is to re-investigate the definition of phenomenology and explore its influence on reader-response theory. The study will attempt to trace the intersection of these two concepts in the select prose writings of an author of British origin, Fredrick Forsyth. Within its scope this research will answer why phenomenology and reader response theory asserts the dominance of the reader as audience over the world within the text and meaning intended by the author through the medium of the text.

Distinguishing between the offshoots of phenomenology in both deconstruction reader response criticism, this study will elaborate and add to the ongoing discourse in the latter. In conclusion, keeping creative work at the center, this research will describe Fredrick Forsyth’s writing as it is exhibited under the lens of phenomenology and reader-response criticism.

 

 

Apocalypse Cigarette

Untitled 342

 running out of bookmarks leads to the confusions of arguments

Deodar Trees of Kalatop

Despite being at the heart of the beautiful Kalatop forest, a loud psychological chatter perplexed me. I would get visions of the fast-operating city life and of the people I see everyday in office. There was an unrest within both body and mind which even a fourteen-hour bus ride did not shake off. From day dreaming about the final solutions to life’s serious problems to planning how to make the most out of the next four days inside an isolated forest reserve, I was possessed by an anxiety similar to times my life took its usual course.

The first opportunity I got to write the chaos down upon the plainness and simplicity innate to a piece of paper I could only recreate the essence of the Kalatop forest in fragments out of memory. My eyes wandered about me with fear of having lost the sharpness of my words, my thoughts and therefore above all my actions. I assumed I would spend a few dull days staring at the vast scenic view of the barren snow-capped mountains, only to eventually get bored of the landscape and find nothing interesting in it.

Some singing small birds were seated at the thin needle like branches of the immensely tall and vast Deodar trees of the Kalatop forest, breaking my concentration, as if to be singing songs only of invitation. Long winged big birds cut through the icy winds over the dry mountains of the Chamba valley calling out to me. I wished to answer to their calls from the ruins of the voids of urban life underneath which my lust for life remained buried.

Only after staring back blankly at the black shadows of the distant Deodar trees moving over the naked brown folds of the mountains as the sun changed its places for hours did I realize that Omaid, my dear friend and fellow traveller, had fallen into the dark lap of sleep. I didn’t wish to wake him up. So, I left the pen inside my blank notebook and stepped inside the bathroom of our room at the Smart Hill Hotel. The water was cold. It cleansed my tiredness in an instant. Although I hadn’t checked what the weather was like in Dalhousie, my estimates about the cold were pretty accurate and I had brought with me ample warm clothes. It was the first month of winter in the Chamba District of Himachal Pradesh.

With a set intention I sat in the sun to observe the serene nest of the natural wonders before me. I knew I wanted my burnt-out mind refreshed. The soothing air of the forest was like a balm working its magic on my soul. Brooding on thoughts I sat there staring out of the balcony at the big blue sky expanding over the many layers of rock and earth.

I was stuck in a labyrinth and my intention was to escape. I was fidgeting. I was extremely anxious out of habit. To my rescue, Omaid woke up singing his favourite songs in many different funny voices.

He told me he wanted to explore the trail. Before walking to the mouth of the twelve-kilometre-long trail from Kalatop to Khajjiar Omaid and I had tea and pakoras at the nearby family run stall. The track began behind the souvenir shop at the main gate of the reserve. I was surprised to see that the trail was barely a meter and a half wide. In some spots it wasn’t even thirty centimetres. To the right of the narrow road were unkempt, wild trees and plants full of thorns and to the left was a steep fall of over a hundred, perhaps two hundred meters. A straight fall into the dark pits of the mountains with only the bare backs of the massive Deodar trees to break the fall if one were to slip and fall. The wet black soil of the mountain forest made the possibility of a fall imaginable. That’s how the place gets its name, Kala meaning black and top meaning the top most layer of the earth.

We went approximately two kilometres deep inside the dense forest on the first day. I was utterly consumed thinking what the remainder of the trail had to offer, but, for Omaid the forest was ‘Instagram worthy’ and remained to be an object to be captured inside the lens of a camera and shared online. The difference our views were not alien to any of us. We spoke sitting on a rock the size of a big black bear native to the Kalatop forest and decided that it would be best to go back for now to the safety and warmth of our hotel room. At the time for sunset, we sat on the roof of the food stall and stared once again at the vast blank scenery of the clouds and the mountains. A bluish grey hue had laid its thick blanket over the ranges.    

After dark, I sat down to drink beer before a pen and paper and tried describing the silence which possessed the lives of the people who lived there. Despite all my efforts I could not depict the way these naked mountains extended northwards into a cold dry desert.  To add to my embarrassment, I could only piece together some fragments of thoughts with utterly weak descriptions of the wild elements of the forest. My attempt at capturing the landscape in words didn’t do justice to its vast expanse, it’s bright blue skies and the elegant folds in its naked mountains. My skill seemed inefficient and incorrect.

I slept contemplating a possible run on the motorable pass between the nearest local settlement called Lakkadmandi and the hotel. The sleep was full of nightmares.

When I woke up, Omaid’s singing washed over my anxiety and I felt like I could do with a little relaxing myself, so I spent the morning sunbathing myself and read The Afghan, an English novel by the famous British writer-journalist Fredrick Forthsyth. The twelve-kilometre trail with all its dense darkness and its eerie silence kept flashing in my mind. Around 11:00 that morning I felt the chaos within me collide with the wild of the open field and I started for a walk in the woods alone.

There stood a small stone gate shrouded with dead grass and moss. It looked like it led to a Christian cemetery. Through here I found a steep climb of about a hundred meters, maybe two. After walking for fifteen minutes, I had to take off my jacket and my cap. The was warm. At one point, near a colourful bench beneath a big umbrella, where the soft to sit on, I found intense tranquillity. I had no real intentions of going any further but I was curious. Deodar trees surrounded me. Wishing to explore the wilderness hidden behind the veil I walked into their shade and found a tiny red temple in the dark. On the temple were the many trishools and scarves that pilgrims had left there. Further down a trail caught my eye. Unknowingly I went in that direction. The trail was drawn inside the shadows of the tall trees. Not a ray of sunshine reached the ground on which I walked. Not a bird was awake here to sing their sweet songs of invitations. Not even ravens to give the decadent soul company. Not one human sound. Only darkness and silence.

The walk on the steep slope was almost like an effortless run. I gave a quick look to my wrist watch. It was past noon. I realized I just couldn’t go any deeper into the forest without the help of a native who knew their way around here.

I traced my steps back to the tiny red temple and then back to the hotel room. Omaid was taking his morning tea at the snack stall. We were both ready to start for yet another scenic peak eight kilometres away. The day was ahead of us. The sun was not going to set till about six. We had enough time to go and just sit on the hills till the silent darkness of night chewed them up.

Omaid and I left for the Dainkund Peaks by van. The ride was awful at first, but once the wheels hit the gravel outside the forest reserve the body stopped beating around inside the vehicle and the clean air could make way into the lungs. It was this freshness which pushed onto me the realization that I simply couldn’t go back to my regular life without experiencing the adventure of the entire twelve kilometres from Kalatop to Khajjiar.

I had only ever gone on two trails before this. My first was an overnight trek from Kasol valley to village Rasol and back. The second was from Dharamshala to Triund and back. Both had been pretty easy and took roughly six hours each in total.

I had become extremely determined now. The trails at Dainkund were a good opportunity to acclimatize myself. There is another temple decorated with trishools and scarves at Dainkund. I saw a site next to the temple overflowing with grease and oil suggesting that perhaps it was one ground for ritual sacrifice of man or animal. Tourists visit Dainkund to catch a glimplse of the sacred Kailash parbat. We were lucky that the sky was clear. The picturesque Kailash could be easily identified from a series of mountain ranges. The snow-capped peaks of the bare back mountains stood tall, arms in arms against the clear blue sky. I felt my grand ambitions were being mocked by these immortal beings of nature.   

Omaid has had a history with nausea. The year I met him in college he would get sick often and suffered with awful pains. At Dainkund he told me that wouldn’t be able to walk that much that fast, and I should go ahead without him. I had really wanted to have this opportunity to bond with him once again. It’s been over three years now that college has ended and we don’t see each other that often. He is a huge part of the reason why I think differently about nature now from before. I tried telling him this along with the fact that my view of nature has been heavily influenced by his ability to connect with it even in surrounding city life. But he felt that I was bullying him into walking with me, so I left him a kilometre away from the stalls near the temple and went to the backside of the mountains. That act of mine and to see my figure slowly diminish in size as I disappeared into the path that cut the two hills must have left a deep imprint in his mind. As I paced away from him he found ‘the problem’ disappear and the silence of the landscape take over him.

Dainkund peaks are situated adjacent to an Indian air force base. After walking about two kilometres came a bunker and some houses so alien in their appearance that I wished to turn around immediately. I was feeling a little tired and didn’t wish to tire myself any further. I was then sure that I was ready to walk to whole of twelve kilometres from Kalatop to Khajjiar without Omaid.

Back inside the hotel I spoke to a guide who agreed to go with me. As night fell, I tried once again to write down what the dried grass looked like, what the naked mountains looked like and the rounded stones of the earth upon which we stood as mountains cast their own shadows over the homes and the lives of the natives at a distance.

This time I felt that language failed me or perhaps I just wasn’t good enough with a pen, or as a human being.

To my surprise I slept well, but when I woke up, I was nervous. The bathe didn’t feel as cold and everything else wasn’t as lively either. I felt as if nothing affected me anymore. I ordered two parathas and back coffee. I saved half of a paratha for that day’s lunch, though I wasn’t sure where I’ll be having it. That was part of the adventure and the mystery innate to life, but we forget to remind ourselves of the simpler things. In my bag I put chana dal namkeen, water, a jacket and the novel I was reading.

To my surprise, early in the morning I learnt that the guide I had spoken to the previous night will not be able to come with me due to some permit issues and that I would have to go with someone much younger than him. My guide, Rohit, was my age and was coming on bike from Banikhet, eighteen kilometres away. He took up much of the early hours of daylight and when arrived expressed his wishes to have breakfast first. Omaid and I took our morning tea together and he told me that he had spoken to the van driver and would join me at Khajjiar.

Rohit and I went five hundred metres down the slope towards Lakkadmandi on his bike. From there a trail began and the first few kilometres were wide and easy to walk on. The trail crossed the tiny red temple near the colourful bench. From this point on, the forest was dark, dense and magical.

Rohit offered me a stick to hold and kept swinging his own as we marched forward cutting through the wild plants. To his surprise the trail hadn’t been looked after by the forest department at all. He confessed that it might even get sealed off in the coming days due to snow. He was afraid that once the snow melted the trail might become totally inaccessible.

We went fast and I began sweating heavily. We had to make up for the lost time. Till about half way the wild seemed conquerable by man, but beyond that came a stretch of the forest where thorns, weeds, uprooted Deodar trees hanging upside down from hundreds of metres above made the steep rise and fall of the mountains appear unconquerable. In places, the feet would sink deep inside the wet black soil of Kalatop.

Around the six-kilometre mark, we stopped in front of the roots of a fallen Deodar tree. By the feet of this fallen giant we took our lunch while sitting at a corner stone. All around us for several kilometres the tall Deodar trees stretched skywards leaving merely a square of the sky to see. The sun was bright.

We ventured deeper down towards the foot of the mountain where a small waterfall flows. The locals had built a metal bridge connecting the two sides and we went over it. From here, there is a one-and-a-half-kilometre steep climb. I had to stop twice while climbing through here. Rohit offered to carry my bag for me and I happily accepted. At our first stop the Deodar trees on the mountains in front of us, though immensely tall in reality, appeared no taller than a match stick’s length. Between us and them was a big empty space where if humans fell, they would certainly die, if sound dropped it would echo and if light fell it disappeared.

Where we stopped the second time the ground was level. There I had stopped to tie my laces but then felt that it might be better if I rested and stretched out a while. The sun managed to reach us through the greenery covering us and, in the shade, cast upon us by the green light the flat earth appeared to stretch outwards forever.

Up till here I had slipped once but regained my balance without any injuries and had found myself totally horizontal on the wet bark of a dead Deodar tree with nowhere to keep my step. My guide was helping me through these obstacles as best as he could and I didn’t have the time anymore to be doubting his abilities as a guide. He told me stories of a woman who once fell down on this trail and had to be carried away by some villagers living nearby and of two men from Gujarat who he was meant to guide through some Himalayan ranges who died due to shortage of oxygen. I couldn’t be unnerved and if anything fastened my pace. Closer to the end, I felt a bit burnt out, and my mind weary. The call of langoors playing on the trees brought me back to myself. To my surprise once again, my cell phone began to ring. Omaid was calling to say that he was leaving the hotel with the driver and will reach Khajjiar in about forty minutes. When I told my guide this, he phoned the driver to find out if this were true.

The last two kilometres seemed impenetrable but in my mind, I had practically run through the path and couldn’t have possibly let the thought of defeat come to me now. I needed to be patient and maybe get some more rest but I insisted we keep going. Rohit went ahead at the same pace and I had slowed down a fair bit. My hopes for seeing the end to this path in the forest soared sky high when I heard the sound of traffic on the highway.

Rohit was too far ahead, I think. It must have been the last one kilometre, I remember. My senses were swinging between heightened and dulled and I acted purely out of adrenaline. It must have been around four thirty in the evening. I’d left a lot behind me deep in the dense wild of the Kalatop forest with the Deodar trees and the black soil from which life grew.

Pushing my stick into the soil I was crossing all the wet patched carefully, when suddenly on my right, on the side of the rising mountain my stick kept going deeper and deeper as if the mountain was opening its mouth to swallow me whole. At one moment it was a feeling of fear which threw me off balance and the very next moment I went three four metres down into the valley on my left side.

I grabbed onto some roots in the earth to save my life. The ground was falling steeply but not enough to take me all the way down instantly. I wished to scream for help but not a sound left my throat. Rohit must have heard the fall and came back to get me. As he extended his arm towards me, I could feel the hand of life itself extending as if I had been granted a second chance. He pulled me back onto the trail and asked me if I was alright. I looked and found my shin was bleeding. It was nothing serious. Another five hundred metres and the road would have greeted us.

After dusting the dead leaves and twigs off of our clothes and waiting less than five minutes I saw Omaid’s van on the road. I’d never been more relieved to see the sight of a van on a road before. The shock from the fall was still fresh in memory and I told Rohit as I caught my breath that I’d never again think of walking on this particular trail again. But I had walked through it. It was all behind me now. I wouldn’t be able to erase it even if I tried.

There’s a certain comfort in the company of human beings, certain convenience in living the modern urban life. Nature which appears tranquil from a distance, in its vast spectrum of wild forces, kills the definition we give to the word ‘human’.

 

 

    

Freedom of Thought

Freedom of thought
(understanding art through the lens of postmodernism)

“All  the  fundamental  presuppositions  of postmodern  social  and  economic  analyses  refer  to  the  structures  of advanced  capitalism.” (On Post Modernism: Aijaz Ahmad)

Art with clear ideology is art with interpretable design. The primary pursuit of art is knowledge, thus this pursuit is a philosophical one. Art is conceived in the thoughts of a mind which is working with utmost freedom where matters of truth and reality are concerned. Art continuously differentiates itself from reports scribed on truth and reality. Do these unreal thoughts possessing creative individuals possess any real significance in the postmodern world?

The postmodern world is a highly mechanized entity sewn together by complicated structures. Each component of the postmodern society is severely damaged due to a conflict between autonomy and obligation.

Knowledge exists in habitable environment. This means no matter what individuals within functioning structures do, existing knowledge continues to transform the postmodern world into one where it can sustain itself. The capitalist model has begun to resemble an unsustainable structure.

Now, one may ask, where is the room for freedom of thought if something so determined as knowledge is busy sustaining itself in the postmodern world? Needless to say, there is still significance of thoughts constructed by artists since they latch them onto not one but various centers of any structure. Understanding postmodern structures without studying its various centers is like working individually to maintain the whole. Do these centers mirror contributions made by art to the postmodern world?

By being pseudo individuals have little effect on the structure. Art signifies a state of having no effect at all on reality. Then why is it taken so seriously and what is to become of art? It’s a big problem. Art without ethical life and morality cannot be of aesthetic value. Art owes aesthetic to the sustainability of knowledge from which it is born.

Individuals are unable to think ‘outside the box’, beyond the unhidden, because the study of postmodern systems show it is predetermined what ‘the individual’ is expected to see. Thus it is further important to question whether it matters what ‘the individual’ thinks independently of the rules and disciplines of a system, even if it is doing so freely and not due to an obligation towards the structure. That is to say the individual is cultivating an ideology in the system because of autonomy.

Various interpretations come up during a discourse on the different centers of a functioning postmodern structure. Here, individuals are considered necessary components of all functioning structures. The humanist approach is adopted because it continually trains the microcosm in becoming better at being ‘individuals’. Today, there is immense value of thoughts specifically designed to influence the understanding of the world at large (including history and contemporary). These thinking minds are nurtured in institutes and corporations to meet the many requirements of the power structures. Systems running on creativity, like literature for example, on the other hand, encourage disunity in the people as to disintegrate discourse into different parts, so that in a society subjective interpretation can result in the agreement of a much larger population when conclusions of analysis are being drawn.

Needless to say, thoughts conceived with autonomy help individuals make sense of a greater number of ideas. A study on the subject of thinking freedom adds immensely to cultural knowledge.

Knowledge induces in the thoughts of an artist an essential will to choose. The unjust mechanics of postmodern systems seem to hardly matter to artists so long as their voices are heard and they earn from their art things they did not earlier possess. Values of science in postmodern structures remodel knowledge. Art still holds a great aesthetic value in the postmodern world.

One can be an artist today without an education. Their works can be insightful and mature but what about knowledge? How important is knowledge for art to become significant? Not all knowledge is scientifically legitimized. Postmodernism unfolds a high degree of difference in subjective opinions as an aftermath of this illegitimacy. In practice, legitimate knowledge channelizes actions performed by free will into self sustaining processes of production.

Modes of production matter in art because art takes manifestation within the boundaries of the existing structures. While appreciating art conceived in reaction to modernism we cannot today forego the postmodern analysis because we see through this lens the struggles of identity. We see art in its uprootedness and its aggression asserting an influence on us. Postmodern art invites the postmodern audience to sympathize with the artist as compared to traditional art meant for sympathizing with the audience. The future of art lies in something unreal, always. Transformations like this set up a new modernity.

In the pursuit to understand structure, centers exceed their limits, and sometimes, uproot other centers while assuming their functions trying to attribute the whole system onto itself. Modes of production change as centers shift their inclination.

The study of art suggests that it cannot be conceived in totality. An individual cannot assume the role of the whole. Autonomy is freedom but freedom is more than just autonomy. Study of freedom as a concept of absolute philosophy and the study of society as self regulating is of foremost priority to define the lens of postmodernism.

Postmodernism isn’t a consequence of liberalism alone. It is a consequence nonetheless of the existing and functioning components of modernity. Ethical life played a vital role in keeping some modern values still alive for the good of society. Apart from this, freedom of thought with individuals and collectives, in my study, shows itself to be at the root of radicalization of action. Cultures and societies still hold traditions in high regard thereby valuing knowledge possessed by them as ‘the center’ of the postmodern world.

Rise in the tendency to assign greater value to verified research as compared to amateur knowledge has polarized educated minds against each other and against reason, thereby limiting free thinking to predetermined rules and principles. 

An artist crafts together pieces of art and still another mechanism is needed to bring that work to consumers. According to me, a critic of postmodernism primarily criticizes non-functioning systems in the legitimization of knowledge in arts, architecture, economics, broadcasting, advance technology etc. Since the postmodern plunge in terms of accessibility of these systems to the individuals, utopianism too has lost out on its audience. Postmodernism has begun to resemble dystopianism perhaps because the audience chooses to show sympathy rather than receive it.

Therefore voices in postmodern culture have also limited themselves to ‘reactionism’. Recent trend in reaction videos on the internet for example, made by individuals, suggest that a large audience is participating in analysis and review instead of original work. The limitation of resources might be what’s causing this. Even highly mechanized process like imitation has failed audiences because there just aren’t enough resources with the people to keep the modes of production running. 

While plagiarizing one must investigate whether freedom of thought is to be sacrificed so that postmodern systems, here the internet, continues to function according to a very specific grand design? Freedom is not absolute independence. An important characteristic of freedom is the limitation imposed on it by logic. Philosophizing freedom isn’t subjective, it is purely logical. Logical imitation of what is known is sometimes born of necessity.

In ‘On Post Modernism’ Ahmad emphasizes that post modern critiques cannot be applied to societies that are predominantly agrarian. He is suggesting here the implausibility of postmodernism, a capitalist perspective on culture and human psychology, in logical structures such as India (a union). His Marxist views stand true to a feeling I also get that postmodernism is a movement centered mainly on the proletariat. It is often thought suitable to keep postmodern systems functioning according to the needs of the working class to avoid any strikes and rebellions. Often these systems are damaging to those who use it. Ahmad also explains Foucault’s perspective which denies that social systems center on only one component. For Foucault every system has many complex centers which can be studied individually to understand the structure as a whole.

The peculiarity of the postmodern lens is that it is not in place to be imitated within the second and the third world counties because there simply isn’t enough. Still, schools of thought and modes of production given to us by postmodernism are used to excel at entrepreneurship, to gain from a global capitalist model. On the bright side while these systems will not punish drawing of immense wealth or surplus they will allow the benefit of regional languages, cultures, identities and ethnicities. The consolidation of neo-liberalism allows for it to happen but the beneficiaries of this approach must be the respective indigenous states. Needless to say, states do not easily refuse to be part of a capitalist system. By seducing people with visions of the fruits of labor postmodernism sows the seeds of consumerism. These systems take and they take but seldom do they return, in practice, the resources needed to set up a model of one’s own.

Art, which is rich in cultural wealth, helps these systems exploit indigenous people marginalizing and stereotyping the lower and the middle classes.

Resources used in postmodern systems, cutting-edge technology for example, should be the first to be made more readily available to everyone so that there is freedom of thought and not just mechanized imitation. But new technology cannot be handed out to random persons due to the risk of its misuse. Technology cannot be shared openly but knowledge can and should be shared with the people. The knowledge needed to invent systems should be made accessible to the people given that the social system doesn’t just point at structural patterns demanding their imitation for consumption. Internet, for example, is exploding today with all kinds of things. We are witnessing a tsunami of opinions and businesses.

Our role, as individuals in the postmodern structure, our desires are to do somethings privately. Consequently, our obligation towards the ruling class does not matter much. By resigning from social obligation how will resources be made readily available for designing a self sustaining model? Knowledge is the foremost important resource for the people. It allows them to employ themselves in systems that have declared them an insignificant minority.

“A technical apparatus requires an investment; but since it optimizes the efficiency of the task to which it is applied, it also optimizes the surplus-value derived from this improved performance. All that is needed is for the surplus-value to be realized, in other words, for the product of the task performed to be sold. And the system can be sealed in the following way: a portion of the sale is recycled into a research fund dedicated to further performance improvement. It is at this precise moment that science becomes a force of production, in other words, a moment in the circulation of capital.” (The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard)

The knowledge art communicates to the people becomes primary principle on which art earns its aesthetic value. The problem is that rigid structures such as knowledge do not leave much room for the freedom of thought. It is still a good question, what is to become of art in the coming time? Postmodernism proves that social systems now affect individuals in ways that are now measurable. Here, the objective of analysis is to invent a design that will definitely shape the perception of the audience/consumer. It is imperative that we acknowledge today, that a restriction is in place on thoughts we are allowed. Only those thoughts appear in popular/successful art that is to us not forbidden by society.

So what may be the possible impacts of such restrictions on the human thought? Why do people normally behave similarly and why is there in place a system run by the people to manipulate society into accepting uniformity as a virtue on par with evolution when it is in fact dystopian.

For Lyotard, postmodern science is theorizing its own evolution as discontinuous, catastrophic, non-rectifiable, and paradoxical. It is redefining the word knowledge. In his study the term scientist is used to describe a storyteller who tells a story only after thoroughly verifying it, when perhaps art is telling the ongoing story of experimenting with truth and reality.

Now, if the problem has been acknowledged and the resolve traced in making memory and data banks freely available to people, the microcosm of categories in which art fits inevitably become fields to become structures next. One asks what happens to art. Of course one is free to choose what becomes of it.

“Freedom is as essential to art as it is to the rest of the world. The concept of freedom is thus one of the most important points of intersection between the traditional branches of theoretical and practical philosophy. Freedom is of theoretical interest because we can wonder what freedom is, and whether or not we are capable of being free. And it is of practical interest because, given that we are capable of being free, and that being free is desirable, we can wonder how to live in such a way that this capability is most fully realized.” (Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy – Thinking Freedom: Dudley)

Dudley explains that it is the will of the individual which allows them to break from this obligation to serve the needs of the structure and act with freedom. He adds that the individual is free only if the compulsion to act with free will isn’t due to the conditioning of the outside world. In his study of Hegel’s works he reduces ‘freedom’ in art, as a philosophy of free beings utilizing infinity as means to reach an ideology. I think about the various centers of a social system despite feeling a pressure that without one center a philosophy cannot survive. Within me, perhaps, is an industry of thought. I am attempting to launch an inquiry into academics, a force which monitors and standardizes thoughts for the sake of acceptable knowledge. Because of freedom I miraculously begin again to conceive ideas with my own will to choose what will suit my writing best. The prospect of freedom of thought in a highly determined world begins to seem like a very real possibility.

Modern industrialism resulted in class struggle. Naturally, with changing societies such cases of cause and effect as minimum wage and class have overtime resulted in various unique social issues. Consumer culture in capitalist systems is perhaps the best example of this cause and effect.

In the era of globalization, this divide in the way we perceive knowledge has made us blind to the barbarianism of late capitalism in the third world. The human condition has polarized over time and resources have become scarce. In such a context, where the mind no longer consciously controls what it thinks, how important is the freedom of being able to think without any restriction? While on one hand the lack of proper structures has societies running clueless, on the other restrictions on accessibility of utmost essential resources has limited human thought to imitation and unscientific analysis. Limited modes of production have turned final commodities into consumer’s only possessions. The production process does not however end with consumption of highly mechanized resources and the consumer can choose to actively also be a producer. This failure of the postmodern world in managing resources proves that an irreversible mechanization has already taken place long before consumers can even begin with their intended original work.

This is to say just for example, that Indian literature has over the years acquired certain traits because the Indian readers have somethings in common among them and so a writer cannot help but fit into the classification judged under those traits. Today, we speculate about a reality visible only to the eyes of a proletariat that is growingly becoming insecure about its thoughts. These insecurities arise whenever the proletariat is questioned on the ground of logical philosophy. Together these insecure individuals corrupt the system. As system regulators their unethical lives determine patterns of accessibility of resources. As system regulators they obstruct freedom by corrupting structures during their interaction with the structure because of their unethical prejudice towards their obligations.

We associate freedom of thought to various facets of existence while still struggling to truly understand the entire phenomenon behind it. Should freedom of thought only be rooted in political affairs or scientific knowledge? As thinkers we always wish to explore the design of any creative work. As an observer of reality we become so fascinated with structuralism that in a post-structural world we cannot help but feel physically chained to the upright pillars of the structure. We cannot see ourselves breaking easily from the torments of what has been determined. But it isn’t always like that. The reason we feel trapped within structures is because there is an incredible pull between its various centers. We are caught the gravity, living with fear that if we were to do something unusual one of those centers might lose normality. We fear traditional knowledge at some point or the other in our lives. Yes, it is fear.

The postmodern world over burdens us with the weight of history to the point where we will feel accomplished if we construct a thought countering what’s accepted. Frankly, it becomes a movement if it is popularized. But from the point of view of an artist art has its own restrictions on free thinking.

Here, the point is that we are growingly becoming uncertain of our mastery over knowledge, even in knowing we have to ask ourselves how credible is our knowledge? Secondly, we have become weary of narratives. Whenever there is conflict of terms instead of launching an investigation into the nature of the conflict we turn the other way and look for an alternative which will be better suited to our needs and our intellectual thirst.

It can be said that being aware of the psychology behind certain acts of the individual in maintaining social bonds too is somewhat postmodern. But now we have grown out of this recognition of psychological elements and started focusing on our relationship with the centers of any given well functioning structure. Education has helped us do that. I cannot stop thinking about my inability to change the way my mind will react to all that is constant in this world around me. Death, sickness, politics and sexuality all draw out the same response from me every time and that has a severe stagnating effect on my creativity and the way I perceive art and artists. In writing my own opinion I am free to say whatever I feel, but in writing on a topic shared by a large number of people my opinions will have to be thoroughly verified under the postmodern lens. Knowledge is of no use if it is not readily and freely accessible to the individual outside of the structure built on that system of knowledge. Without the awareness of using knowledge individuals are unable to conceive the new ‘reality’ at the onset of modernity and as a result they are exhausted with nihilism. The restriction in fact is so severe that what an entire generation investigates understanding it to be a concept of immense depth, can be coined into a single word, into numerous syllables, for the understanding of the future generations thereby converting an expansive study into history.

Art as a product of the artist’s intellect when compared to a mechanized or an imitated product for the consumption of the people, without any doubt, dehumanizes the artist’s effort to make the invisible visible.

The artists’ thoughts are manifestation of the world through lenses of varying ideologies. These ideologies give meaningful narration to the otherwise vague interpretation of life.  Ideologies are also key components of the intelligence unique to human beings.