Understanding Nation and Empire: Understanding the Literary Studies

Let me step fully the layer of superstructure: Fictional world, a layer where understanding taking its place. In the very beginning of critical theory class, the question being asked continuously is,” what is the use of literary studies? What is the function of discussing the fictional novel in this very world? Where is humanist place within the society?” All the questions suddenly came forth when I was trying to understand the issue related with Nation and Empire.

If the economy subjects being concerned in my previous post, the understanding on nation and empire will take my time during the history class. National pride as the crucial element in building the nation may appear when the people recall the past. It is parallel with the issue I judge as the ridicule one within the society. It was written in my textbook that the problem that usually occurs after the colonialism or after the independence day was drowning in all the mighty the people had ever had in the past: drowning in the past discourse. Thus, Said’s argument points out that if the exceptionalism is the base of the nationhood as well as colonialism, then the post-colonialism empire will only become a rerun of the previous colonialism by the difference of the hero and the villain.

What I understand now from those recall of the past, the recall of my history class literary, and Said’s arguments about the worldly text is the understanding of the questions on being an English Department student, on learning literary studies. By studying fictional novel, fictional works, I expect to learn how to filter the “make sense” plot, to indicate the logic sequences, to realize the odd within the story, and the character, then finally identify how all those effect being produced. Only by doing these processes we would realize the myths that have been integrated within our society that own the huge political, economical, and biological risk. Moreover we should be able to overcome, to resist, this myth by learning literary studies: by doing demythification. Literary studies help each of the students become immune to ignorance. As the contrary, we, as the scholars, will be able to, as Pary says, “show[s] [more] suspicion about the craft of representation” and structure the massive superstructure within the full consideration of its base.

Infrastructure as the Supporter of Superstructure: How the Myth of My High Schools years Turns Upside Down.

I used to think that in critical theory, we would have a certain issue for each meeting. Thus, since the issue in each meeting is different, I needed to grasp eleven issues during fourteen meetings of the course. I thought it would be such a waste to focus on all of them because the issues that seemed to resemble to my final project might be only a few. However, I am now getting confused by how each of the issues works to build my comprehension towards literature. Not until the class discussed on class and economic was I aware of this relation, to which definitely objected my previous thought on the separation amongst the issues being discussed within the class.

I finally realize that it would be possible for me to understand the discourse of the class and economy without having a context of Aristotelian which have been built most of the myth on nowadays daily life, a problem of representation, a matter of structure and an awareness of desire and self o forming text. I am still amazed on the fact that the further discussion on literature basically builds my comprehension about the surface of the society where I belong. Infrastructure and superstructure that Marx explained were the instances of it.

I had studied economy for 6 years and I felt that I only understand a few simple things like there were Marxist as an opposing party of liberalist view in conducting the economic activities, or the price depended on the scarcity of the commodity. Talking about economy was only about the money flowing from one hand to another throughout the market.

Nevertheless, those simple things I saw as the simple things in the surface of the economy were actually the fundamental elements, if this economy is considered as the structure, which build culture and society. My comprehension becomes upside down. What actually viewed as the surface of the economy is actually the infrastructure of the society, and the society, which I assumed to be the founder of the economy, is the superstructure: the structure produced by the support of the infrastructure or base structure. Thus, Marxist critic on humanist as the ones taking the infrastructure for granted is reasonable by this sense.

It comes to my mind that when we define the infrastructure, we will penetrate to superstructure layer since any movements towards understanding is in superstructure. It will be troublesome since I have mentioned earlier that the infrastructure is the support system of the superstructure while I define this support in the superstructure: I specify the relation as the supporting and the supported.

Eventually, at the end, the myth of seeing the economy surface only has been banished. It is a must for me to be aware of the society and the culture is built up from the matter of the lack of self, the desire of self that turn into exchange activities as we are aware that the text is constructed by a lot of discourse as its infrastructure. After all, the society, the culture, and the text are all in superstructure, which will always be parallel with the level I am on when I try to understand the base structure.

The Law of Scarcity in Irigaray’s Woman on The Market

Irigaray’s “Women on the Market” somehow reminds me of the scarcity law in economy subject I have ever taken. The more rare the commodity is, the more it will be valued. It is an ancient myth that is last up till now. How each woman “[is] not [be] equally desirable”, as Irigiray argues, indicates how women as commodities have varied level of being desired.

My teacher taught me that the scarcity is the one, which rises up the value of the commodities. The scarcity is commonly caused by natural source(s), such as how gold being precious since one must dig or do other efforts to find it. Another example is gas. When the process of obtaining the commodity is longer, it possibly increases the scarcity as well.

Yet, there is also the scarcity which is unnatural since it can be obtained but in different results, such as skills in a service.  All designers have same skills, which are to make the fabric into the clothes, for example. Despite the same skill, they actually have their own styles and techniques. The different execution towards the fabric that decreases the possibility of imitation will definitely increase the value of such designers.

Now, if I look back into what Irigaray has stated, then in economy, including the women, will have these elements: the lack of self, the different desire, and the scare commodity. The lack of self-making one will exchange what one has more to gain what one has less. If the fulfillment of this type of lack encounters a lack, maybe what my senior high school teacher stated as basic needs, then, the society needs other motive to do another exchange activity to which is the fulfillment of desire.

This desire emerges when the basic needs have been filled. This desire will come up in various to individuals. The desire will follow the law of scarcity. The desire, the price or value, will rapidly decrease if the level of imitation is increase.