EUROPEAN HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY

Bachelor program of information and communication ВА Media and communication

Spec. Visual culture and creative industries: audiovisual media (television and cinema)

NASTASSIA YEREMENKO2-year student, group 9

ESSAY

A Journey to “Normality” (A Manual Guide: How to Deal with Unhappiness,

Freedom and Solitude)

WRITTEN PAPERON SUBJECT “CAPITALISM AND CULTURE”

Revised by:Dzmitry Boichanka

Vilnius, 2014

It all started years ago, but the realization of the fact

struck me during the course of introduction to critical theory –

globalization1 makes me unhappy. That is exactly how I have

written it down into my notebook on one of those days we were

discussing the order of society we live in. I am aware of our

human nature that always inclines us towards blaming someone or

something else for our own unhappiness.

Nevertheless, I came to realize that my sincere unhappiness is

somehow linked to the social processes one way or another

influencing my life and my perception of it. And having been

inspired by Marcuse’s liveliest idea that we are all

practitioners of social theory; and the only difference that

professionals make lies in their ability of objectifying

themselves – I would have made an extraordinary professional.

Giving it up on superfluous talking I am passing on to my first

thesis.

Unhappiness is a natural consequence of societal development we came up to

be having. By the result of this development I mainly have in

mind capitalist structure of society. It seems to be a good idea

to prove such an argument of mine and I will do it step by step.

Firstly, according to Marx I am perceived as an agent in the

whole organism called “society”. This means that a human being

is no longer perceived as an individual or a personality, but

rather as an instrument or an organism that exists in order to

perform an arranged or prescribed number of actions according to

the needs of the societal structure he or she is a part of

1 Understanding the process in accordance to Giddens [see Societal Concept of Globalization].

2

[10.]. Taking into account theoretical character of Marxist

ideology, I would like to point out another adherent of “agency”

philosophy - Pierre Bourdieu. Characterizing fields the author

could not but name their manifestations through active people as

agents. According to the author an individual represents a

societal structure, or habitus, that comes to life only through

people’s actions [16.]. A person acts – system works.

Such an order of things does not appeal to me at all. But

thanks to Louis Althusser and his reference to an individual as

a “subject” at least adds to Marxist theory a bit of humaneness.

The most interesting turn that becomes possible because of the

usage of the term is conveyed in the French language. As an

adjective French “subject” stands for “dependent” or “inclined”,

while as a noun – it has a philosophic and juristic meaning that

lies in manifestations of oneness. It also corresponds to the

meaning of center and origin of act of thought and very often is

linked to the notion of “freedom” [2.]. As a result, we have a

personality that even under the obligation of producing

performance remains able to feel, think and to a certain degree

- reflect.

I guess that is where the problem of unhappiness starts to

shine through the smooth-on-the-surface plan towards a better

communist society. An individual faces systematic challenges

that are unnatural to him as a human being. To put a simple

example, time and space that we used to know collapse in a blink

of the eye. From now on time becomes a rationalizer of our day-

to-day activities. As Georg Simmel puts it: clocks dictate us

the rhythm of life we should live. We have to set on an alarm

clock to be on time for a meeting, we have to catch the last3

train to get home, we have to submit assignment by 23:55 – not

later. Even though, Simmel left some space to free-use of time,

as if when treated properly one can manage to organize time the

way he desires [6.].

Manuel Castells took the concept of societal time even further

suggesting its timeless form [18.]. The thing that makes this idea

tempting but yet hardly possible is the potential chance of an

individual to construct his own time-flow or become a part of an

already existing flow. Looking at the point from a network

perspective, I guess, it could be legit. Still, going back to

day-to-day reality, even being able to keep in touch with people

from a different time-zone, one will nevertheless have to be

wide-awake at 8 a.m. in the University. I would say that the

opportunity of timeless time opens yet another door to be unhappy or

at least left wandering what it is like to be able to go to bed

in Australia when you are attending an exam.

The last argument perfectly brings me to the next point –

space. The Marxist idea of space being framed by our activities

doesn’t leave a lot of place to an individual part in it, while

Castells’, the one which operates with flows, on the contrary,

washes individuality out due to its overwhelming character. I am

once again in favour of Bourdieu’s concept of fields. He

understands societal space as multidimensional which is

altogether contributed by 4 practices: economic, social, cultural

and political. Even though connected with practices they give a

person a possibility to combine different habituses in the frame

of one consciousness. And yet even this concept can make a

person unhappy, or at least sad, due to the fact that those 4

fields are straightly linked with the corresponding form of4

capital, and the latter is the one to be built, strived for,

fought for and being unhappy about [17.].

Another outstanding explanation of today’s organization of

space and time, and consequently a human being, is a city. The

idea of Richard Sennett is particularly interesting in the means

of the split in human nature, namely in his identity. As the

city becomes multicultural, densely populated and

public/communicative, the man acknowledges the importance of his

or her public self. This (public self) can be compared to a third

dimension of society, the very dimension which makes democracy,

freedom, politics and comprehensible communication between

individuals possible [7.]. But the disturbing thing of

contemporary city is that public man fall in the fact of

individualization.

There are many ways that have lead a modern citizen to such a

state of his identity, but the main problem lies in the fact of

vagueness and uncertainty of the line between private and

public, or individual and social. It can be the result of the

so-called diffusion of responsibility, but I believe that it is

a consequence of societal norms that got sideways from

cherishing “the public”. If we look around we will see that the

space we live in literally cries that each and every one of us

is a separate individual, a remarkable personality, a “one-of-a-

kind” human being; hence we tend to see ourselves as detached,

and more importantly, obliged to be out-standing, at least by

choosing our clothes and products from a great variety of

capitalistic commodities – constructing our own selves, as suggested by

5

Wagner2. Subsequently we are prone to judging or estimating the

societal reality from a subjective point of view which is a

damaging experience owing to the initial necessity of “public”

self in order to be able to interact with society.

According to Sennett, the man becomes lost both within space,

and within self, for the reason which can be stated as follows:

the dividing borders between public and private, in and out,

become blurry, if not disappear completely [20.]. Under the

incapability of the man to realize it, they find themselves

running from these harsh consequences of “the fall of the public

man” by moving to the outskirts of the city, by looking for a

shelter outside the overwhelming city, yet not being able to re-

construct themselves, because their private self has already

been equaled to public. These societal practices are very vivid

in such examples as giving names to phenomena which used to be

very private. For instance, the inability to deliver a speech in

front of people used to be a private characteristic of

shininess, while today it has a name of logophobia. The same

thing works for depression which has become a mainstream excuse

for any private trouble3.

Another interesting example, the blurring of space limitations

can cause so-called and to a certain degree mainstream

frustration of not being somewhere else and instead being

obliged to be where you are at the moment. A very alike reason2 WAGNER, P. Modernity and self-identity. In.: A sociology of Modernity. Liberty and discipline. Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003, 267 pp. P.157 3 The problem which seems crucial to me here is the fact that no one seems to care for the actual phenomenon, for instance, of depression. People keep talking from the wide screens, in cafes, at works, everyone is depressed, every second person knows about anti-depressants, every third teenager in America has his or her private psychologist – the whole society works on the bases of combating depression. But one hardly knows what depression actually is. And hardly one cares to find out.

6

can lie behind “wanderlust”. Romantic at first, and not that much

later, wanderlust works as drug that corrupts the whole

existence of a person. Being moved by constant desire of

travelling, seeing new places, meeting new people, a person

becomes a slave to a dynamic change of the surrounding picture –

which pretty much describes the whole idea of capitalism. The

danger behind a praised by hipsters wanderlust lies in the fact

that Earth has its limits, as does the very individual.

A music video “Wanderlust” by Wild Beasts comes to my mind

that perfectly depicts the idea [28.]. The thief, the good

woman, the quarterback, the girl, anyone, captured by time,

having to run either to be on time or to get away, going places

– does not matter. Carrying money, goods, a football ball or

memories – nothing makes sense in the end, everything is gone.

It is not the money, the goods, the ball or the experiences – it

is the moment, the unbearable desire to feel, to feel at least

something. That is what capitalism deprives us from. It makes us

porous, multiple, we lack whole-ness. In the end all is left is

limited you with your wandering expectations. The most

outrageous thing for me in such a case is that with time you, as

an individual, are prone to developing stamina for this way of

life. As a result, we see 4 people so different, and so alike,

so alive, and so dead.

Another interesting and hopeful idea of space and time belongs

to Peter Shtompka who states them as universal context of social

life. As I understand it these both are used and obviously

overrated because they lie in the basis of society as it is. The

thing that Shtompka makes clear is that both time and space, as

specific form of resources, can be consumed, saved and spent7

[13.]. On the one hand, it gives one freedom, on the other – it

brings him back to society of consumption.

As in the music video mentioned above, capitalist society

makes us replaceable. This becomes possible because of the

specific treatment of a person – as an instrument. I could

understand such an approach when seen from a body-related

perspective. I mean I have seen myself as an instrument, or more

precisely, I have treated my body as an instrument when I was a

dancer. It is quite reasonable because your principle activity,

the one that help you make the living, depends on your body. The

same situation takes place in such spheres as sports, theater,

opera, etc. Those professions require bodies that way, and

people consciously devote themselves to that cause. But what

happens on a not-body-based professional positions? I mean those

that imply offices. The distinctive feature of modern society is

that it treats people as instruments with no difference between

their posts. Michel Foucault makes it very clear in “Discipline

and Punish”, speaking about a body as manifestation of the

regime [22.]. As a result, a person himself perceives his body

as something he depends on and has to take care in all possible

ways.

At first, the idea of taking care of your body seems legit,

but it does not have to seem legit – it is natural to take care

of your body. As soon as this idea transitions to a societal

level, hence enters societal discourse, it becomes inflicted.

And nothing else but ideology goes any better along with the

inflicted character. In my understanding, taking into

consideration both Marxist and Althusser’s points on ideology,

it talks about obviousness [1.]. And as soon as we start pay8

more attention to obviousness than we ever did, we consequently

start objectifying.

All would be well if we were in a laboratory, wore a white

robe and had a degree certificate hanging on the wall, in that

case objectifying would be the thing to go for. But when I go to

Humanities University, when I have to cook for myself and keep

in touch with latest trends on Tumblr, objectifying doesn’t seem

like a very good idea. Because as soon as I start to see my

stable health condition as a tool for good marks (which it is

according to Marx), as soon as I start musing upon saying “you

are what you eat” and comparing the amount of followers to

another person’s blog, I am losing it.

I do, I really do that, I mean, objectification. But I used to

do it because I felt like it, because I was prone to it

personally. As soon as capitalism explained it to me, I’ve lost

it. I objectified my objectification. And all was left – the

empty “me” alienated from my “identity”. I am starting to

suspect that capitalism simply used the lucky opportunity to

describe the objective societal order of existence. Who does

that? When there is nothing left to wander, there is no point to

even bother. That is what happens to a personality suffering

from alienation – unhappiness.

On the one hand, in this emptiness, we become absolutely free,

because we lose everything. Such a discovery was made by Chuck

Palahniuk. In his book “Fight Club” he wrote “It's only after

we've lost everything that we're free to do anything” [12.]. And

all would be well, but then we see that hardly one really wished

to lose everything, hardly anyone wanted to be free. But that is

9

exactly what we have become. It may seem ridiculous in the

context of highly organized society with its structure,

manipulative principles and illusional unpredictability. But

that is true; the only thing that makes it so veiled and unclear

is that we tend to run from it.

Erich Fromm states the whole concept of “escape from freedom”

as a basic instinct of a modern man. I am prone to accepting

most of the ideas of the author, but will refer to the principle

ones as far as my theses are concerned. According to Fromm we

came from nature. Historically we were linked to mother-Earth

both spiritually and physically, but as the New Age came we

faced the fault in this perception. As a result, we lost the

important connection of security, the unity with cosmos. Instead

we went even further by opposing ourselves to the surrounding

world, by separating human from nature and connecting ourselves

to technology much more eagerly than to nature [21.]. By doing

so for dozens of decades it became our standard taken for

granted by each and every one. The thing that should bother one

is the fact that by continuous objectification of the

surrounding world one has nothing left to do but follow the

instinct and objectify oneself. And the fact that bothers me

most if the gap within ourselves that grows almost immediately

when we get detached from our mothers straight after having been

born, the only link to nature that connected us with secure

feeling of existence – a mother’s womb.

According to Jacques Lacan’s “mirror stage” the principal

separation or the beginning of distancing oneself from oneself

starts with the very first experience of looking at one self’s

mirror reflection [23.]. Not only an infant experiences the10

first steps of objectifying oneself, he or she starts to get or

build up the idea of “imagined other” in his or her

consciousness. This is the beginning of societal existence in a

pure form. From now on one will become a Marxist agent, from the

moment he or she attends a kindergarten for the first time; or

more hopefully – a subject, who at least will be able to see

oneself in the opposition of the other.

This ability is priceless in the terms of modern society as

one tries to create oneself with the means of self-leftovers

that ricochet from the image of “the other”. In such a case “the

other” is indispensable for the one to realize who he or she is.

The only problem behind the final variant of identity is the

amount of true self. And the moment when one comes to reflect

upon his identity and sees the questionable amount or quality of

it, he or she chooses to never do that again and stays in favour

of perceiving oneself as a subject. Because in the opposite case

we witness rejected by society practices of self-harm, drug-

abuse and deviation of different forms.

In other words, one, being overwhelmed with proclaimed freedom

to choose and create oneself, finds himself in the dead end of

existence, and hence chooses to escape from the unbearable

freedom by passing his right for freedom, at least partially, to

societal institutions or organs that promise one to save him

form this nightmare. Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor proves that a

person being endowed with freedom becomes unhappy, because in a

single moment the weight of responsibility collapses onto his

shoulders [5.]. And realization of unlimited responsibility,

inability of its diffusion, leaves a modern individual no choice

11

but to pass on the reclaimed in long struggle freedom to someone

else. And societal structure seems not so bad after all.

Speaking of societal structure, money seems to be the escape

to take, as it serves the needs of self-construction. I guess it

goes back to the practices of exchange that were mentioned by

Marx. And would be well if those practices remained the same as

they were back then before the capitalistic age. People used to

really care about the ritual of exchange: they traded “things”

that contained a piece of human’s personality, his actual

labour, his effort and soul in a form final thing. It was a fair

trade, a thing for a thing. Capitalistic money destroyed the

concept by simply bringing the symbolic equivalent to the thing

which converted the latter into an empty, elienated commodity.

And money became just another way to escape freedom. In

accordance to Baudelaire, it started with “flâneurs” who for the

first time found themselves window-shopping for one simple

reason – to find themselves in the reflexions of these shops, to

construct there shattered by money selves with the help of it

[25.]. But that is not even a “thing”i, that’s a fetish.

From my point of view, those “flâneurs” represent the prototypes

of a modern man: shattered, wandering, free and dependent at the

same time. On the one hand, money gave a m freedom – to choose,

not to work that hard, to have spare time, to window-shop. On

the other – they took away the most important value of a man –

the dependence on his own vocation. As it was stated by Weber,

historically a man defined himself with the means of his “Beruf”

[27., 506]. It was his calling, his vocation, something that

defined oneself in the face of the whole existence. He could not

but perform his activity, and by doing so, he became a man.12

Money didn’t take away vocation, but it contributed to

alienation which made the man deaf and unable to see or hear his

calling. In the end, having been left without “Beruf”, empty and

hopeless, the man lingers on making more and more money in

strive to fill himself up [which doesn’t happen for the pure

unnatural form of money itself]. But one still finds a grand

escape from freedom in the artificial form of money.

The only question that remains with no answer is – why? Why a

person flees from freedom after fighting for it so desperately?

The answer can be found, in my view, in Fromm’s concept of

individualization that anyhow takes place in modern world. The

point Fromm makes is that individualization breeds solitude

[21., 27]. At once we catch ourselves feeling ambivalent towards

this phenomenon – solitude. I can understand that in the context

of hectic changes and rapidly developing world one can strive

for a moment of solitude, when no one can have a bash on it. But

when we look further, we catch ourselves understanding the

burden of it, the heavy weight of loneliness that is always here

when we drive home from work and cannot help but listen to the

radio, or when we wait for a meeting to start and cannot help

checking on the phone – all in attempt to avoid always present

within us solitude. Society does not save us from it, on the

contrary, it breeds on it, it is fueled by human’s fear of it.

Consequently, one desires to reject his individuality so that

to conquer the feeling of loneliness by blending with the

environment, dissolving in it. However the new bonds arising

from this attempt are not identical to the primary links that

were broken off in the process of growing individualization. We

cannot go back to a mother’s womb so that to avoid the feeling13

of insecurity, as well as we cannot reverse the mental process

of individualization. These attempts will inevitably take on the

form of submission, in which, however, the contradictions

between society and individual will never fade. One will always

feel wrong obeying the power, even though consciously one may

feel satisfied. But subconsciously one feels that he’s paying

for a sense of security by the means of personal usefulness and

individual identity. Ultimately this kind of submission leads to

a drastic result: the uncertainty increases and grows into

hostility and rebellion, which may lead an individual into

despair of self-harm or drug-abuse or into deviant behavior

against the ones he depends on, and even more, becomes addicted

to.

This kind of despair, in case of not “going with the flow”

inevitably leads to solitude of misunderstanding and not-

acceptance by societal peers. Any kind of deviation that

manifests in distinctive type of looks, behavior, way of talking

or thinking, anything can make you a drop-out. It sounds very

contradictive due to actually fluid type of modern society: it

means that it is not stable. Despite the suppositions against

natural instability of societal structure, I believe that

historically it has always been the same: everything changes.

The change covers all levels of society, be it base or

superstructure. The only difference we face today is the rate of

it. Along with the rapid change we are challenged by norm’s

limitations or local standards shared in this very region,

country, continent, or whatever space it may take. I mean that

what is considered normal in one state is not publically

accepted in the other one. The knowledge of this gap also

14

contributes to one’s wandering, or opposing oneself to “the

other” which may be closer in distance for the individual but

further in “norm” perspective.

I can make myself clearer by referring to a ridiculously

profane example of one of the cartoons of Sponge Bob Square

Pants series which is called “Not Normal” [30.]. Let’s have a

look at journey to normality taken by the main character in

principal quotes.

“There are two types of people: normal and you”. That’s how it

starts when one sees the difference between oneself and a norm

accepted in the society. From that moment there are two ways to

solve the unveiled dissonance: staying true to oneself or trying

to fit the norm. The latter decision is taken by Sponge Bob.

Gradually, but persistently, he becomes normal, it does not hurt

even a bit, it feels natural to become a part of massively

proclaimed image of normality.

“It’s okay to be a little different” says Squidward, who

represents the type of person who didn’t chose at all, he kind

of stayed true to himself, but his self is so introvert that it

fits into normality without any harm to any of the sides. In

modern society the same quote may be heard from here and there

quite often, but no one defines “a little” in it. That’s when

ideology starts to work, because you can only feel or discover

what actual norm is when you go “a little” out of it.

What do we see in the story line: the main character undergoes

the smooth change in to “normal” by sacrificing his personal

identity. In the end he loses not only his self, but he also

finds himself alone. “I have to re-weird myself”, he says to

15

himself and has to go “to professional” to get the appropriate

consultation. It turns out that the journey back to “normal” is

way tougher than to normality. “We have to push boundaries. We

we’ve got to get stranger”, says Patrick in the attempts to

bring Sponge Bob back to his self. “Those are undesirables. We

only talk to normal people”, say fish who become witnesses to

this madness. The main thing we should understand about trying

to rehabilitate oneself from having become normal, is that it is

painful and almost impossible. Most people give up half-way. But

thanks to Paul Tibbit and his company the main character manages

to re-obtain his personality, but how – by seeing another normal

person. I assume such a turn in the story proves the fact that

post-modern society needs one simple action – to reflect upon

itself.

Ulrich Beck manifests his thoughts on risks we are dealing with

living in the age of globalization [15.]. He is also the one to

call for our reflexive attitude towards the societal processes

we are a part of. “Nobody said it’d be easy4”, but using critical

approach towards our own day-to-day activities can actually help

us to remain sane in the time of growing risks and constant

doubt and uncertainty in the future. Nonetheless, no one says

that reflecting will bring us happiness, on the contrary, it

will hurt, it will disappoint, it will make us unhappy. I guess

there is some kind of romance in this reflective unhappiness

though. At least it satisfies your mind with the ugly truth of

dependence and inescapable solitude.

But returning to Fromm’s ways of escaping freedom, he states

one very interesting method which seems to solve the pain – it4 As sung in the song “Scientist” by Coldplay

16

is the way of spontaneous alliances with people and nature. By

this way he means the relationships which reconnect a person

with the world without destroying his individual identity. These

connections manifest themselves in the forms of love and

creativity [21., 27]. Different on the surface, “art and love

are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in

things that are not you.”5 They breed on individual wholeness and

hence do not limit him, instead they facilitate personal growth

and maintenance. This idea of Fromm’s brings me to belief that

unavoidable attributes of modern society – freedom and solitude

– can be overcome and even used for good as driving forces of

creativity.

I guess that there is a necessity for me to state the meaning

of the latter. In philosophy of life the most full-dress concept

of creativity belongs to Henry Bergson, who ascribes it, in the

form of constant creation of the “new”, to the essence of life

itself [3.]. It is something that objectively takes place

anywhere – in nature, in consciousness, opposed to the

subjective technical activity of constructing “new” from “old”

remains. The second “creativity” becomes over-popularized in

modern culture with creative industries who work for profit

rather than content of their creation.

Looking at creativity from cultural and historic perspective

Wilhelm Dilthey and José Ortega y Gasset underline its unique

character [11.]. In existentialism personal identity represents

the carrier of creativity, and this identity must be understood

as existence, i.e. as some irrational spring of freedom,

ecstatic breakthrough of natural necessity and reasonable5 Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

17

expediency, going beyond the natural and social, and overall -

beyond “worldly” world. Creative ecstasy, according to Berdyaev,

is the most adequate form of existence [4.]. I guess the point

that I am trying to state here goes to the plea of “the Devil is

not so black as he is painted”. I believe it is natural AND

worthy for the sake of personal identity. As it has been stated

by Irving Yalom, existential isolation – is a valley of solitude

where many ways meet; confrontation with death and freedom will

inevitably lead you there [14.].

Anyways, I assume that it is up for everyone to choose whether

to be alone, to escape freedom or to fight for it, the argument

that I am giving is that it is worth and natural to let yourself

be a person. There are many ways to reconnect yourself with the

world even living in capitalist society. For instance, my

experience was based on the principle of enlargement of comfort

zone. Pretty much like in Sponge Bob series, I was performing

ridiculous actions throughout a period of a couple of months. My

whole life was organized in accordance to three rules:

1. Use your head;

2. Don’t think, act;

3. Do at least one thing a day that you have never done

before.

The results were incredible, because by the end of 4-5 month

period, I lost almost all my “friends”, got detached from my

family, but at the same time found freedom. It is never easy, it

is much more like a burden, but a worth burden that you carry

along being yourself, even if it implies sadness, loneliness or

over-all unhappiness. I came to supposing that those feelings –

18

happiness and unhappiness, as well as, freedom and solitude – go

hand by hand, and no one can tell where the one finishes and the

other begins.

Capitalism tells you that you have no right to be unhappy,

that you have to satisfy your wishes and desires and it gives

you means for that in forms of products and positions in the

process of production. But it lacks one simple truth: constant

satisfaction doesn’t bring one happiness, instead, by preventing

us from getting sad, hurt or unhappy; it consequently prevents

us from experiencing happiness in its pure form that can only

happen after the overwhelming opposite of its own. It’s doing

the same with the concept of death, rejecting its actual

existence. At the same time, I am in favor of the opinion that

recently death has been used by media flows quite obviously,

when trending “YOLO”6 tag or once again the idea of normality of

wanderlust.

In the end, I guess my journey to “normality” is far from

finish, as I came to see that “normal” meaning acceptable,

satisfied, understood doesn’t imply into natural normality of

the world. To make myself clearer I would like to state the main

differences between norms based on accepted principles of

society and natural ones.

6 Abbreviation for: you only live once19

I suppose the main difference lies in the last dichotomy of

wandering and wondering. Wandering places, faces, products,

goods, whatever fills your life with experience, emotions,

stories to tell, but takes you further from your self; while

wondering takes you places, faces, memories, ideas within your

self. Ideally, we should talk about balance of both.

I am not saying that it is absolutely necessary to reject the

idea of society, on the contrary, I consider it important for

the one to realize what it is like to be a person, and not a

citizen, a professional or someone everyone else is eager to

call him. It is crucial to understand that there is still

“human” point in societal structure and there is still a way and

possibility to refer to it through different practices, be it my

example or Sponge Bob’s. For instance, to realize whether it’s

you making a decision to travel the country or “subject” in you,

a simple question “would you still want to travel the country if20

alienatedsatisfied

ever-lasting

wandering

Societal "normal"

relatedfreedead

wondering

Natural "normal"

you were not supposed to take a camera with you?7” will solve the

dilemma.

All in all, it turns out that my essay has become a desperate

attempt to prove that “not normal” can be normal under certain

circumstances. Under pressure of social theories and necessity

to explain one’s existence in accordance with them, I got lost

in the meantime. Even though writing a paper for the subject

related to sociology, I could not help myself referring to

authors hardly related to the discipline. But these attempts

once again prove the idea of Anaïs Nin, who has said that “we do

not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art - we go there to

restore our shattered selves into whole ones”8. That is what this

course has done to me, or at least what it made clear, my

shattered-ness. And by this work I tried my best to shed hope

onto the future that still remains unclear according Beck.

In conclusion, I guess it is essential to understand the

urgency of reflexion, and hence personal wondering in strive to

go with the times. Being a citizen, the knowledge of the fact

that after all, having taken off societal labels, there is still

a human there. And not just a human, but a personality, whole or

shattered, but the personality one is aware of.

7 The suggestion based on the idea of Walter Benjamin’s “A short history of photography”.8 Anaïs Nin, In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays

21

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25

i Understanding the concept of a “thing” in accordance to Heidegger, I agree on the idea of a “thing” that exists only in relation of its purposed usage. I meanthe commodity that we tend to but in a super-market, be it a condensed milk or av-shirt, it doesn’t truly correspond to the concept of a “thing”. In the first case we do not realize the whole process of this milk being produced, in the second case, there’s nothing behind this shirt- no visible labour effort, no soul of its creator. I even bet it’s a product of mass production. These are not“things”, compared to milk you buy from a farm or v-shirt that has been also manufactured but in a slum in India.