GAMAO, LIEZEL B.

BA LITERATURE 1-A OCTOBER 13, 2019

AS139 LIT-C113 INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL THEORY 1ST SEMESTER AY 2019-2020
DR. WILSON SAYABOC

I. ALTERITY
In reading this chapter, I really find a way to understand the concept of
Alterity. In the dialect of self and other by Jean Baudrillard, I found a short
paragraph that would support this concept. “What the infant learns at the mirror
stage, therefore, is to recognize a differentiation between itself and the world –
including the world of other people—which surrounds it. However, in the process
of separation described there, the infant is also opened up to the desire as the
desire to be for the other. That is, to be recognized by the other not only as
worthy of recognition, but also as the ego-ideal imagined at the moment of
identification”. In relating it to our reality and from what I understand, a person in
its entire human race should recognize the distinction of itself and to the other,
distinction of self from the world and distinction of it from other people. But in that
process of knowing the distinction between self and the other, the self has
developed his/her ideal self ‘Ideal self’. And for me, this formed through the
narcissistic traits of us. And that ‘Ideal self’ is what we want to be recognized
more than the ‘real self’. As a result, here comes alterity in the sense of
misrecognition.
In defining Alterity, one of the instances that caused it is the Cultural
difference. One of the instances cited are assimilation and multiculturalism.
Assimilation prioritizes dominance of ‘self’ to the ‘other’. Let us put ‘self’ here as
the French Republic and the ‘other’ as the Muslims. Muslims must become
French by relinquishing markers of difference which is the hijab. In Britain,
operates towards a model of multiculturalism. To uphold its diversity, they
created ‘British Citizenship Test’ which will test your English proficiency,
knowledge of historical fact, understanding the roles of women and loyalty to the
crown and parliament. Perhaps if you would pass this test, then you could
possibly be accepted as a citizen. With this concepts, gives rise to hybridity
presented by Homi K. Bhabha. Bhabha argues that hybridized identities
experienced ambivalence. Ambivalence here opens the possibility of the subject
to question, doubt and above all, denaturalization. As Bhabha defines it, it rely to
a notion that in the first place, identity is fixed but made by culture and society
into something multiple. Lacan then suggested the displacement of difference
from inside to the outside in the sense of estrangement.
In the concept of infinity and exhalation, it presented the possibilities of
treating the ‘other’ as absolute alterity. The ‘other’ according to Husserl is the
alter-ego. It said that the ‘other’ has the capacity to expose the limits that the
‘self’ might not able to see. And this could draw greater truths and could open
permanent critique from the place of the ‘other’. As a result, alterity could be
perceived in the sense of unpredictability and transformation.
II. THE REAL
In this chapter, it questioned the concept of the real that persist in cultural
theory and the cultural criticism produced there. Baudrillard presented the
concept of real as simulation. Simulation means to give or assume the
appearance or effect of often with the intent to deceive. He outlines the theory of
simulacra and cited an example of a pilgrim who bought a bone of Christ that
stand directly for the thing it is understood to represent. For him, the relation
between the real and representation is always imaginary which somehow I think
contradicts on the stand of us Catholics. We Catholics believed on statues of
saints and pictures of Jesus Christ as a representation. There lies the issue of
the concept of real. Some religion contest that the depiction of our ‘Black
Nazarene’ is wrong and even I could ask the question if the picture I am looking
whenever I pray is the real face of God. But then, I realized also that each
religion has counterparts of these arguments and all have something to say on
what is real. Does this mean that real here have the possibility of being imaginary
which I know Baudrillard did not say? But then again, it is religion we are talking
about. And it could be that religion itself is a simulation to uphold world peace
and prevent the capability of a person to brutality. According also to Baudrillard,
simulation is self-referential and just an idea and has nothing to do with the real.
Žižek also presented the idea of the real as void where he argued that
subject is constituted in a system which cannot support it. In this sense, because
of the absence of real, ideology works to protect the subject by maintaining a
fantasmatic screen which I infer that real in Žižek’s concept merely exist for the
sake that something real exist but the truth is, it is empty. In reflecting this on
reality, I somehow remember the phrase “everything is meant to happen and
there be greater things to come”. I found this mantra as a defence mechanism of
people to their failure or in short, “pa-consuelo”. Though I know that failure in our
lives is normal, I found that some people use this phrase to deny mistakes and
inadequacy. I think that people really prefer to believe something that exist just
ease things.
On the last concept in this chapter, Lyotard presented the concept of the
real as real. He cited the example of sun if it did not exist and its consequences.
And also contest that even if we perceived real as an idea, we will be obliterate
because science has presented also set of knowledge. He also stated that real is
crucial as a model of critical thinking. I somehow agree also knowing that there
are really real things that you can’t question because it is there and it is
happening.
Among all these concepts, I also learned that the concept of real is really
important in cultural criticism. Because according to Lacan, the real marks as a
limit. It marks the impossibility of cultural systems of meanings and the values
generated there to be real or absolute in the sense of being there.
III. THE INHUMAN
In this chapter, it presented the idea of inhuman. On the first concept of
the ‘proper’ human, it serves as the mark of all that the human is not. The proper
human here is stable, full to itself rather than ambivalent. It is also valuable
because it is real and being human has the duty of depending cultural values.
Here comes what at stake. It is said that human is ideology. As I infer on what
has stated, these cultural values serves as a foundation of being what we are.
And having the fear that these cultural values will be altered or gone, it means
that human was never itself.
In being inhuman, it is stated that ‘being’ will always be open for change.
And though it makes human a possible category of thought, it is unstable. As
what I infer in this concept, inhuman here means being able to accumulate ideas
coming from different source and thus, could draw out both possibilities and
simultaneous impossibilities from the values that emerged. In this concept, the
human could be enhanced to an imagined point of perfection. Being inhuman
also could be assailed from the outside such as on the issue of capitalism,
technology or the alienating system of language and culture.
In the concept of the improper human, it said to exceeds the conservative
limits of humanism’s human by staking its ‘badly behaving human’ to the terrain
of the inhuman. The being here is not something which is alienated in culture, but
rather a something which always escapes any constitution as such. The improper
human here is not driven by need, demand or desire.
Therefore, inhuman in the field of cultural criticism was not based on its
definition but rather the capability of inhuman in formulating different attempts to
conceptualize and function on cultural analysis.