From indersalim at gmail.com  Sun Jul  1 13:40:42 2007
From: indersalim at gmail.com (inder salim)
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 13:40:42 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Personal as pre-private,pre-public!!!
In-Reply-To: <111152.37002.qm@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com>
References: <111152.37002.qm@web8506.mail.in.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <47e122a70707010110o7770df62s9eb0e1216272c46f@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks dear Chatterjee,
i am delighted to read this heavy text piece on personal-private.
i must write that the quote of Marx by Geras moistened my eyes.
and that led me to discover his blog http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/

Assume man to be man and his relationship to
> the world to be a human one: then you         can
> exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc...
> if you want to exercise influence over other people,
> you must be a person with a stimulating and
> encouraging effect on other people. ...If you love
> without evoking love in return that is, if your loving
> does not produce reciprocal love; if    through a living
> expression of yourself as a living person you do        not
> make yourself a beloved one then your love is impotent
> -- a misfortune" ( cited in Geras 1990, 14).

Here, i take a little liberty to mix things... imagine how Harat
Sarmad Shaheed sahib must have looked. He must have looked like Marx.

The nudity of the saint was a radical step from private to personal,
and for sheer political reasons he was murdered by the King Aurangzeb.
As ur text  lucidly explains that how ' the state' exists on this
difference between private and personal, and hence the violence and
ungliness...

This way 'the poet' has no choice but to   confront 'the state', and
stand for the real freedom of human being. The only universal form
available to us is indeed  'love'. We have Kabir, Nanak, Meera,Sarmad,
Lad Ded, Rumi, and all that who repeatedly talked about 'love'  No
wonder that lot of Left leaning poets have written love poems....
Faiz, Pablo, Azad and other whole lot generation of poets must be into
that deep profound thing which we lightly call 'love' The word love is
perhaps deeper than word love, may be it is existentially placed
within us.  Dont we know that how J.P. Sartre was charmed by women, in
spite of his committment to Simone and Marx. To label this all as
romanticism, is of course wrong, since we know many Indian-Left
(netas) who lived a hidden private life and a masked personal life.

There are no immediate answers.... but debates like these have a
potential to push things...

thanks once again
love
inder salim


On 6/30/07, ARNAB CHATTERJEE <apnawritings at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>  Dear Readers,
>                      Sorry for being a bit late but
> for reasons even you would surely recognize and
> consider my apology with sentimental biology that's
> needed.
>                 You'll remember  where we parted: the
> promise was to begin with the history of the personal.
>  I had made a short detour charting this history in
> telegraphic terms-from the monarch to the dictator --
> taking Gandhi's desire as drive. And now after so much
> of empirical historical lesson I think the choices are
> pretty clear : people wanting to interpret the world
> would go for so called democracy, liberalism and so
> forth; people  wanting to change the world   would go
> for either Fascism or revolutionary Communism—there is
> no other way, perhaps. And my version of pure politics
> will inform as a  rider over this  that any person or
> programme can cheat or made to deceive: morality does
> not come with a warranty. And this failure being
> irreducible, it was illuminated by Hegel when he said
> that there are two ways to achieve a  moral world :
> utopia or terror. Even such a grand 'deontologist'
> philosopher as Kant uses a phrase like "moral
> terrorism" and proposes a "terroristic" conception of
> "history"; but Hegel's copula is more illuminating.
> Terror rejects an immediate place; utopia regulates a
> non-place—they can never, never be estranged. And with
> Fascism and communism it is more futile to undertake
> such an exercise. But you might have noticed  a sharp
> difference : while in Fascism you have dictatorship in
> the person-al form, in Marx you have dictatorship of a
> whole class –even if universal or not. Now, if it is a
> collective whole embodied in the one person of the
> monarch -- which is the dictatorial example of the
> first, it is basically the group personality of the
> class that could act as the dictatorial unity,
> reflective of a single will, in the second case. Now,
> my intention this time is to refer the reader  to an
> extension of my argument stated previously.  First is
> the person taken as a singular-collective; the second
> is a collective-singular. First is the spontaneous
> natural personality; the second is an artificial
> personality masquerading as a legal fiction whose
> origins have been traced back to the Roman Law.
>    I'll come to the second when I deal with the
> Hiralal Haldar -- Mactaggart debate. In this post I'll
> address only the first part—that too a bit
> cryptically.
>
>
>
>
> (1)
>
> RECEIVED HISTORY
>
> The public/private binary -whose historical roots have
> been traced to classical Greece acquired its modern
> meaning through the mediations of medieval Roman Law
> and 18th century Europe. Aristotle made a distinction
> between household (oikos) and the space of the city
> state (polis) where through deliberation (lexis) and
> common action (praxis) a shared, common and in a loose
> sense "public" life beyond bare essentials or
> necessities was sustained. The private realm of
> necessities (subsistence, reproduction) was the
> household. Therefore property, "and the art of
> acquiring property" was considered a part of "managing
> the household" (Aristotle, 1988: 5) and  participation
> in the polis was restricted by one's status or rank as
> a master of oikos.
> In the medieval age in Roman Law one encounters terms
> like publicus and privatus but without the standard
> usage (Habermas, 1996:5) because everything
> public/private ultimately resided in the  person of
> the monarch (more on this latter.) However, in Roman
> Law-the first systematic legal document-- the privacy
> of the home (domus) was sanctioned ( Black, 1988: 593)
> and Roman Law itself was "private law" in that it
> would have application only for individuals or
> relations of coordination. Public law would administer
> affairs of the state or relations of domination. But
> similar to the Greek city state, it was the status of
> the individuals that determined their participation in
> the medieval public sphere. We enter modernity when
> men entered the realm of contract from that of
> status, from duties  to that of rights ( 18th century
> enlightenment and the French revolution remain the
> canonical examples).  Formal equality of persons was a
> prerequisite of such a contract. Particularly, at the
> break of the medieval age, in the wake of civil or
> commercial law in 18th century Europe, a democratic
> climate was created where apparent equality of all
> before the law and the market was preempted. And the
> public sphere was thus -in a sense-- opened to all.
> This meant the formation of public opinion through the
> media ( enabled at that time by the advent of print
> capitalism) and institutionalization of state
> sovereignty which would rest, henceforth, with the
> people or the public. A new category of legitimacy was
> created. This also engendered the rise of civil
> society  where the subjects would fulfill two roles at
> the same time: as a property owner or bourgeois he
> would  pursue his  private interests and as a citizen
> in the public sphere he would bear equal rights
> granted by the state. This also-- as a part of the
> public sphere, ensured the separation of society
> (family) from the state and that the state would not
> intervene in societal matters and expectedly, privacy
> would be located in the societal realm hence forth.
> (Separated from the state, classically, the church was
> the first private to have imparted  the secular colour
> so characteristic of modernity.) The state would
> ensure privacy, but would not intervene; its closest
> analogy was the market: the state would ensure a free
> market by  itself not intervening in it and the free
> market was not only of commodities but a great market
> place of ideas and exchange of opinion  in which,
> irrespective of birthmarks and the stink of status
> anybody could participate. The modern public sphere
> had arrived. It was just a step further when Marx
> would denounce universal suffrage and invoke  the
> proletariat as the class with "universal suffering"
> (Marx, 1983:320) and would mock this artificial
> equality of publics before the law and the market
> (alleging that they  masked real inequalities) and
> thought of smashing the private /public divide by
> abolishing private property- which he thought was at
> the core of this suffering. The rest is history and
> its repetition. No wonder that the public/private
> divide has been considered as the core of  our modern
> existence.
>
>
> ONE OR TWO WORDS ON HOW THE PERSONAL LOST ITSELF IN
> THE PRIVATE
>
>  An interesting part of recent academic discussions is
> while there is a growing interest in the public and
> the private, critical discourse on the personal nearly
> draws a blank. (The state of the personal is somewhat
> dubious and absent in all classic European discussions
> --even in Jurgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt .)
>       Although Habermas does cursorily refer to the
> process through which the "modern state apparatus
> became independent from the monarch's personal
> sphere", he rarely engages with it (Habermas 1996,
> 29). For instance here goes this recognition in the
> form of a footnote to one of his famous articles: "The
> important thing to understand is that the medieval
> public sphere, if it even deserves this recognition,
> is tied to the personal. The feudal lord and estates
> create the public sphere by means of their very
> presence." (Habermas 1974, 51)  But the personal
> sphere of the monarch-and what it means in the western
> tradition is somewhat available in G.H Mead from the
> standpoint of a social behaviorist. Mead meticulously
> charts the components of this personal sphere where
> the people within the same state " can identify
> themselves with each other only through being subjects
> of a common monarch…." (Mead 1972, p.311) Mead traces
> the phenomenon to the ancient empires of Mesopotamia
> and observes, "It is possible through personal
> relationships between a sovereign and subject to
> constitute a community which could not otherwise be so
> constituted…." In the Roman Empire through the
> mediation of Roman law, Mead notes, while the
> emperor-subject relationship was "defined in legal
> terms", through sacrificial offerings made to the
> emperor-the subject was "putting himself into personal
> relationship with him, and because of that he could
> feel his connection with all the members in the
> community". … "It was the setting up of a personal
> relationship which in a certain sense went beyond the
> purely legal relations involved in the development of
> Roman law." (312) In India considering the King's
> person as sacred, it was assumed that he had influence
> over crops, cattle, rain and general prosperity. So
> again, the subjects, in order to relate to cattle, the
> mediation of the King was involved in a metonymic
> gesture-through whose presence, people could relate
> and be present to themselves. (Hocart 1927, 9)
> Personal is that which predates both the public and
> the private and what is historically interesting is to
> discover when and why the collapsing of the personal
> and the private began. For this last instance - we can
> borrow from Max Weber the diffused origins of the
> Public Law-Private Law distinction, which as Weber
> shows was "once not made at all. Such was the case
> when all law, all jurisdictions, and particularly all
> powers of exercising authority were personal
> privileges, such as especially, the "prerogatives" of
> the head of the state." …[Who was]  "Not different
> from the head of the household." (Weber 1978, 643).
> This world of the personal or as Weber calls it
> "patrimonial monarchy" forms the prehistory of the
> private /public distinction and again I repeat that
> what is historically interesting is to discover when
> and why the collapsing of the personal and the private
> began to which today's feminists are but victims.
> Habermas therefore does away with a vast repertoire.
> So far Arendt is concerned, commentators have tried to
> make a case out of the feminist energy generated by
> the latter's 'personal' -previously having been at
> pains to argue that the 'political' and the 'personal'
> during Arendt's celebration of feminist moments later
> had become the 'public' and the 'private'.
>  "With the emergence of women's liberation a decade or
> so after The Human Condition appeared, the relation
> between the " political" and the "personal" moved to
> the forefront of politics, and this eventually took
> the form of the public and the private" (Zaretsky
> 1997, 214) with their corresponding emphasis on
> 'personal life' becoming a "third challenge to the
> liberal dichotomy" (214) (ref. endnote 1)  : really a
> queer mix up in history. The reason perhaps is that we
> tend to have a mix up between the private and the
> personal and this is its contemporary moment(Nothing
> could be more explicit an affirmation than from a
> feminist superstar: Catherine Mackinnon, "The private
> is the public for those for whom the personal is the
> political." (Mackinnon 1992, 359). This easy and
> historic conflation of personal as private is perhaps
> not the end of the story.
>
>
> In the western history itself there is also a
> suppressed narrative (suppressed because it does not
> suit the liberal project) where the two are not the
> same; in fact they two cannot be the same. But first
> I'll take the opportunity to  narrate how the
> personal/private coalescence occurs and then I shall
> try to excavate if the personal could be recuperated.
>
>                   Then is it possible to appreciate
> the fact that the appearance of the personal through
> the sieve of the private is basically an historical
> maneuver ?
>                This major point then needs mention:
> the qualitative leap when personal came to be
> identified with the private. Now, private property is
> as old as Greek antiquity: Aristotle had argued in
> favour of  and Plato had wanted to abolish private
> property. That is not the point; the first signs were
> available in the natural law (or natural rights)
> tradition and despite a lot of caveats, one of its
> representative voice still remains John Locke. In this
> tradition property, for the first time, is placed in
> the person :
> "Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be
> common to all men, yet every man has a "property" in
> his own "person". This no body has any right to but
> himself. The "labour" of his body, and the "work" of
> his hands, we may say are properly his. Whatsoever…he
> hath mixed his "labour" with, and joined it to
> something that is his own, and thereby makes it his
> "property"…that excludes the common right of other
> men" (Locke, (1690) 1982 : [Sec. 27.]130).
> "His property" or private property when derives from
> personal capacities of labour, the first motivated mix
> up between the personal and the private occurs. And
> then having had its eighteenth century initiation, it
> became a cornerstone of liberal theory where property
> becomes an attribute of personality. If you take away
> property from me, I become a non-person because
> (private) property is in my person. Here there is
> natural ownership before there is a legal ownership.
> Here is a classical example in Hegel, " Not until he
> has property does the person exist as reason" (Hegel,
> (1820) 1991: 73). Hegel goes at length to show how
> property is required to supersede  "the mere
> subjectivity of personality"(73). In fact this is the
> personal in Hegel invested with some kind of immediacy
> but lacks in content i.e. Hegel's  "abstract
> personality" in order to become concrete and objective
> awaits a trick:
>  " Since my will, as personal and hence as the will of
> an individual [des Einzelnen], becomes objective in
> property, the latter takes on the character of private
> property…" (77).
>
> This would be picked up by liberal capitalism and now
> onwards property being in person and that which makes
> objective, tangible  personality possible, private
> becomes the realm of liberty, reprieve and freedom.
> Marx would fall heavily on all of this and in fact
> this discourse finds its final resolution in Marx
> only. His argument was just the reverse: in a society
> without private property, the personal selves of men
> freely blossom to enter the true realm of freedom.
> Therefore this hyphenation between the private and the
> personal is more an ideological investment  necessary
> for liberal history than a structurally indispensable
> relation.
>
>
> RECOVERING THE PERSONAL IN LOCKE, HEGEL, MARX AND OUR
> TIMES
>
> Now, having presented the anatomical, bare rudiments
> of how the personal looses itself in the private, here
> I'll extrapolate how it could be recovered and allowed
> to have a safe passage. Given the force of history, it
> would be wise to start with Locke.
>
> LOCKE
>
> For Lockes' allergy towards  communal or collective
> ownership, (see Macpherson, C.B. 1972, 197-221.) But
> even in  Locke it is possible to find an other
> discourse of the personal besides property and the
> private dominion. While discussing property as an
> extension of the person,  and particularly Adam's
> property as "private dominion" which is supposed to
> have arisen from God's "grant" or "donation" and that
> of  fatherhood from the act of begetting Locke
> meditates on  how this divine donation was made
> "personally" to Adam to which his heir could have no
> right by it. (Locke1982, 60-61) Locke argues  that
> even if it belongs to the   parents "personally",
> after their death, their property does not go to the
> common stock of mankind but is inherited by their
> children as heirs because human have a natural
> propensity to continue their creed (62). This power of
> begetting in  another form—and that what roots
> continuity- founds inheritance. The point relevant to
> our case, is,  this "personal" belongingness  is a
> middle-term that appears with some autonomy and
> mediates person and property—seen as an extension of
> each other in Locke. And the mutual-extension argument
>  because, I guess, in itself cannot explain
> inheritance,  Locke is taking recourse to a different
> premise; the "personal" appears to give a language to
> this premise.
>
> HEGEL
> As established earlier, the reading that entails Hegel
> as a canonical case where the personal private mix up
> receives the force of an argument, is not wrong and as
> rendered by Marx, it carries an  immense sway with it.
>  But it is as well possible to discover in Hegel a
> curious personal impatient not to be suppressed by the
> interested world  of the private. Take for instance
> the distinction between real property and personal
> property that could be traced to the Roman Law from
> which Kant  borrowed his interesting theory of rights
> and  where we find personal  appearing with a rider
> "personal rights of a real kind". Hegel made a
> critique of Kant's  formulation; drawing on that
> critique,  let me here try to illuminate the
> distinction which I think was unconsciously made by
> Hegel himself.
> Deriving from the Justinian Roman legal division of
> right into rights of persons, things, and actions,
> Kant  in 1797 had proposed, taking into account the
> "form" of the  rights, a threefold division, "a right
> to a thing; a right against a person; a right to a
> person akin to a right to a thing ." (Kant 1999, 412).
> The first is a property right, the second is a
> contract right, and the third is a "personal right of
> a real kind" (Hegel 1991, 71); in other words, it is a
>  right about " what is mine or yours domestically, and
> the relation of persons in the domestic condition…"
> [including] "…possession of a person." (Kant 1999,
> 426) like the rights of spouses over one another, the
> rights of  parents over their children etc. The third
> is the most interesting because it resembles what
> today we call Personal Laws supposed to distribute
> "private" affairs within a household. And this is what
> Hegel attacks; Hegel thinks that the division is a
> confusing one; secondly, while family relationships
> form the content of "personal rights of a real kind" ,
> in actuality family relationships are based on the
> "surrender of personality." (Hegel 1991, 72) Hegel
> further notes that
>
> "For Kant personal rights are those rights which arise
> out of a contract whereby I give something or perform
> a service…Admittedly, only a person is obliged  to
> implement  the provisions of a contract, just as it is
>  only a person  who acquires the right to have them
> implemented. But such a right cannot therefore be
> called a personal right; rights of every kind can
> belong only to a person…" (73)
>
> What is interesting in Hegel's engagement -relevant to
> our project is the way he   extricates the personal
> from being stamped with the badge of household rights
> or  the power to accomplish a  civil contract ( See
> Endnote 2)  in brief personal right not masquerading
> as a private right. In brief, what Hegel may have
> argued here could be  that  there are no "personal
> rights of a real kind." But let us underline this
> binary: Personal vs./ and  real, which is  significant
> and  requires of us to reiterate that a distinction
> between real property and personal property was
> strongly a feature of English Law. Real property was
> that which had  "some degree of geographical
> fixity".[Reeve, 1986, 80-81] In order to examine this
> distinction in the form that it is found in a 1827
> tract I think the notions of the personal still could
> be recovered in a very different sense. In personal
> property "the general rule is, that possession
> constitutes the criterion of title;…hence the vendor
> of personal chattels is never expected to show the
> origin of his right. … [but] real property like land
> is held not by possession but by title requiring "the
> production of documents." (Mathews 1827, 27). Please
> note the somewhat loose coverage that personal
> property requires compared to real property. Now if it
> is pointed out that personal property does have
> property as a signified even if in a loose sense, it
> may be rebutted by saying that  in the same text
> Mathews  goes on to mention  "peculiarities personal"
> or as to how "personal disability" may be enough to
> "repel the presumption of a grant". (14) Does  this
> personal  call for documents or is a means to
> establishing a title? No, in fact these are blatant
> uses appropriate to our cause   existing in a legal
> tract meant to discuss  property personal or real.
>
> MARX
>
> The common knowledge now that the key to understanding
> modernity is the public/private divide and a
> corresponding failure to find a way beyond the binary
> would find—if considered carefully—an approval with
> dignity in Marx because Marx curiously is a symptom of
>  both: he said for the first--"the state is founded
> upon the contradiction between public and private
> life" (Marx, 1961, p.222) and for the second : "if the
> modern State wished to end the impotence of its
> administration it would be obliged  to abolish the
> present conditions of private life. And if the State
> wished to abolish these conditions of private life it
> would have also to put an end to its own existence,
> for it exists only  in relation to them." (p.223) Now,
> throwing in the fact that private property is just a
> singular and an isolated moment in the discourse of
> private life, Marx's agenda --I guess- looks readily
> defamiliarised here.
> Marx would fall heavily on all of this and in fact
> this discourse finds its final resolution in Marx
> only. It is not a fact that in a system without
> private property and a sanction against  'unlimited
> appropriation' all are non persons and there would be
> nothing personal. Therefore this hyphenation between
> the private and the personal is more an ideological
> investment necessary for liberal history than a
> structurally indispensable relation. Let us document a
> few discursive  fragments where this collapsing has
> been done away with. Now, notwithstanding the will to
> go beyond private/public divide, it may rightly be
> asked, could Marx be used to endorse the personal that
> I'm proposing? Yes! And  choosing only one instance --
> love , we may document this flower unfolding in Marx.
>
>         "Assume man to be man and his relationship to
> the world to be a human one: then you         can
> exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc...
> if you want to exercise influence over other people,
> you must be a person with a stimulating and
> encouraging effect on other people. ...If you love
> without evoking love in return that is, if your loving
> does not produce reciprocal love; if    through a living
> expression of yourself as a living person you do        not
> make yourself a beloved one then your love is impotent
> -- a misfortune" ( cited in Geras 1990, 14).
>
> Isn't this the personal in Marx -- which --I'm sure
> --he would willingly exclude from the domain of
> private life   he wanted to abolish for history? I
> think the reader agrees.
>
> A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE
>
>       Marx apart, curiously, the Human Rights
> discourse does have, it may be pointed out, a phrase
> like 'personal property'. What does it qualify? In
> fact it endorses the distinction that we are making
> between the personal and the private. A theorist of
> such rights comments, " By personal property" I mean
> individual ownership and control of possessions such
> as clothing, furniture, food, writing materials,
> books, and artistic and religious objects.
> Considerations of personal freedom provide strong
> reasons for instituting and protecting personal
> property. These reasons are related not to production
> but to the requirements of developing and expressing
> one's own personality. Ownership of personal property
> is a matter of personal liberty, not a
> production-related right ( see endnote 3) ."(Nickel
> 1987, 152)
>   Therefore it is possible to attempt a historical
> reconstruction  of the personal where the personal
> could be said to have filtered through the monarchical
> metonymy right down to human rights discourses via
> Roman Law, Kant, Hegel and English Common law. While
> the prehistorical personal comes to be contaminated by
> the private, the human rights discourse is significant
> in its attempt to do away with this conflation. While
> it tries to do away with the infiltration,
> genealogically it perhaps proves the point that there
> was this contamination or over determination.
>
>           CONCLUSION
> I conclude with a sense of disgust. I could share 1/6
> th of the material I've amassed. This is not
> surprising since there are whole books on each of the
> strands to which I've referred. Consider Roman Law :
> Read Duff's Personality in Roman Private Law or
> Richard Tuck's path breaking works on Natural Rights
> and Natural Law debates on themes surrounding that
> what I'm trying to pursue. A further limitation is
> I've bound myself to narrating bits of western history
> of the personal and left out our own cultural
> cognitive histories of the personal. Let that be some
> time else. Nevertheless,with this our narrative of
> historical recovery or historical demystification of
> the personal reaches a benchmark and awaits if the
> personal-private distinction can be theoretically
> grounded as well.  We'll pursue that in the next
> post—early next month. Thank you.
>
> ENDNOTES
> 1.      For consideration of  the failure of this appraisal
> in its true light and that the personal-private
> distinction could be read unto Arendt, judge the
> following comments of Craig Calhoun, "Arendt would
> never endorse social engineering and, against such
> threats, certainly would protect privacy. Even more,
> she would protect the personal and the distinctive
> from absorption into the impersonal. But she would not
>  assimilate the notion of the personal to that of the
> private as Zaretsky does." (Calhoun 1997, 237). The
> point is if it could be correct for Arendt, it could
> be correct for Habermas as well.
> 2.      Carole Pateman does not agree that Hegel is
> successful in his attempt and according to her he is
> rather limited to transcending just one part of the
> Kantian argument which saw personal right, among
> others, in the manifest act of pointing out "this is
> my wife" where a "thing" is, accidentally, a person. (
> Pateman1996, 212-213). But I disagree with Pateman and
> reiterate that there is a  moment of personal in Hegel
> which precedes the contamination of property.
> 3.      The ownership of means of production is called in
> this discourse 'private productive property' (Nickel
> 1987, 152).
>
>
>
> BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
>
> Aristotle, 1988: The Politics, Transl. Benjamin
> Jowett, Cambridge: Cambridge         University Press.
>
> Black, A., 1988    : The Individual and Society. In
> J.H Burns (Ed.), The Cambridge  History of Medieval
> Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University
> Pres, 588-606.
>
> Calhoun, Craig. 1997.  'Plurality, promises, and
> Public Spaces' In Calhoun and Mc Growan. eds. 1997.
> 232-259.
>
> Calhoun, Craig, and John Mc Growan. eds. 1997. Hannah
> Arendt and the Meaning of Politics, Minneapolis,
> London: University of Minnesota Press.
>
> Geras, Norman, 1990 : 'Seven types of Obloquy:
> Travesties of Marxism' in Socialist register, Eds.
> Ralph Miliband, Leo Panitch & John Saville, pp.1-34,
> The Merlin Press : London.
>
>
>
> Habermas, J.     1974.   : The Public Sphere: An
> Encyclopedia article. In  New German    Critique, 3(
> 51.), 49-55.
>
>    ------------------1996       : The Structural
> Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a
>
> category  of Bourgeois Society, T. Berger (Trans.),
> Great Britain: Blackwell
> Publishers & Polity Press.
>
> Hegel, G.W.F. ,1991: Elements of the Philosophy of
> Right,. Trans. H.B. Nisbet. U.K:   Cambridge
> University Press.
>
> Hobbes, T.,1997   : Leviathan,  New York : W.W. Norton
> & Company.
>
> Hocart, A.M. ,1927 : Kingship,  London: Oxford
> University Press.
>
> Kant, Immanuel. 1999. Practical Philosophy. UK:
> Cambridge University Press.
>
> Locke, John. (1924)1982. Two Treatises Of  Government.
> J.M Dent & Son's Ltd. (Everyman's Library): London.
>
> Mackinnon, Catharine A. 1992. " Privacy v. Equality:
> Beyond Roe V. wade" In Ethics: A Feminist Reader.eds.
> Elizabeth Frazer, Jennifer Hornsby and Sabina
> Lovibond. 351—363. Oxford: Blackwell.
>
> Macpherson, C.B. 1972. "The Theory of Property Right",
> in his The Political Theory of Possessive
> Individualism, Hobbes to Locke. 197—221.London: Oxford
> University Press.
>
> Marx, Karl, 1961. Selected Writings in Sociology and
> Social Philosophy, Eds. T.B. Bottomore and M.Rubel,
> Penguin Books: Harmondsworth.
>
> ------------------------1983  : A Contribution to the
> Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' (1843) In
> L.S.Stepelevich (Ed.) The Young Hegelians: An
> Anthology.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
> 310-322.
>
> Mathews, John H. 1827. Treatise On The Doctrine of
> Presumption and Presumptive Evidence As Affecting The
> Title To Real and Personal Property. London: Joseph
> Butterworth and Son, Law Booksellers.
>
> Mead, George H. (1934) 1972. Mind, Self, and Society,
> >From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. ed.
> Charles W. Morris. Chicago: The University of Chicago
> Press.
>
> Monahan, Arthur. 1994. From Personal Duties towards
> Personal Rights: Late Medieval and Early Modern
> Political thought, 1300-1600. Montreal: McGill Queens
> University Press.
>
> Nickel, James W. 1987.  Making Sense of Human Rights
> :Philosophical Reflections on the Universal
> declaration of Human Rights. Berkeley: University Of
> California Press.
>
> Pateman, Carole.1996. 'Hegel, Marriage, and the
> Standpoint of Contract' in Feminist Interpretations of
> G.W. F. Hegel. Ed. Patricia Jagentowicz Mills.
> 209-223. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State
> University Press.
>
> Reeve, Andrew. 1986. Property, London : Macmillan.
>
>
> Weber, M. , 1978        : Economy And Society :An Outline of
> Interpretive Sociology. Vol.II. Guenther Roth and
> Claus Wittich, (Eds.), Berkeley : University of
> California Press.
>
> Zaretsky, Eli. 1997. "Hannah Arendt and the Meaning of
> the Public/Private distinction" In Calhoun and Mc
> Growan  1997. 207-231.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new
> http://in.answers.yahoo.com/
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>



-- 

http://indersalim.livejournal.com


From krviaevents at gmail.com  Sun Jul  1 18:51:58 2007
From: krviaevents at gmail.com (KRVIA Director)
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 18:51:58 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] KRVIA Exhibition_Make/Shift Mumbai
	Readings, Imaginations and Propositions
In-Reply-To: <81aac3110706282302q598adcd4p70a6a57ec2b5ca98@mail.gmail.com>
References: <81aac3110706230152h26fc0e83t363eb34c6e992088@mail.gmail.com>
	<81aac3110706282302q598adcd4p70a6a57ec2b5ca98@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <81aac3110707010621p375fb462x77966787811734d3@mail.gmail.com>

Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental
Studies,

a part of Upanagar Shikshan Mandal,

is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of the Institute's Work
on the City sponsored by Kamla Raheja Foundation.
The exhibition will be inaugurated by
Chief Guest Dr. (Smt.) Snehalata Deshmukh, Ex. Vice Chancellor, University
of Mumbai

on Monday 9th July 2007, at 5:30 p.m.



Venue:

Coomaraswamy Hall, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, (Formerly
Prince of Wales Museum of Western India)

159-61, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Mumbai 400-023.



The exhibition will be on display until Thursday 12thth July 2007 from. 11
a.m.- 7:00 p.m.







*Make/ Shift Mumbai **Readings, Imaginations and Propositions *



Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental studies
(KRVIA) is exhibiting its work on the city of Mumbai from Monday July
9 thuptill Thursday, 12
th in the Coomaraswamy hall of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalay,
formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum.



The exhibition titled "Make/ *Shift *Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and
Propositions" will showcase its large repertoire of work on the city
completed over the last 15 years. Since the institute's inception in 1992, a
group of educationists, professionals and artists became involved in
envisioning the direction of the school. Discussions on cities have been
central to its academic investigations. Through its varied research and
consultancy projects and through its undergraduate courses and its
extra-curricular programmes the institute has actively engaged with the city
and provided an important platform for debate and discussion. Espousing an
interdisciplinary approach, its initiatives have ranged from mapping/reading
the metropolis in multiple ways; to providing new spatial imaginations for
the city through its academic work; to its advocacy work, which proposes
alternative futures to the city's development. The college is now starting a
Postgraduate programme in Urban Studies, offered as an Master of
Architecture ( M.Arch) degree with a specialization in Urban Design and
Urban Conservation. The intention is to take its earlier initiatives forward
by providing a platform for structured research and design at the
postgraduate level.



The Exhibition, "Make/ *Shift *Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and
Propositions" is both a retrospective of the institute's work and an
introduction to its Post Graduate programme. While the three categories
Reading, Imaginations and Propositions are in many ways interconnected, they
form an important structure through which to see the institute's work on the
city. The work displayed through these above conceptual categories has been
done through the institute's Design and Research Cell, its Urban Studies
courses conducted in the fourth year of the B.Arch programme, its Humanities
courses, the Final year thesis projects, and the Design projects undertaken
from the first to the fourth year of the undergraduate programme, which
engage in readings and interventions in the city at various scales and
through multiple approaches.







*KAMLA RAHEJA VIDYANIDHI INSTITUTE FOR ARCHITECTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
STUDIES *

Vidyanidhi Marg, JVPD Scheme, Mumbai 400 049.    Tel: +91 22 26700918
Fax: +91 22 26208547

Email: krviaevents at gmail.com Website: www.krvia.ac.in
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070701/87245b0a/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
announcements mailing list
announcements at sarai.net
https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements

From surya_rajan21 at yahoo.com  Mon Jul  2 15:18:10 2007
From: surya_rajan21 at yahoo.com (surya upadhyay)
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:48:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Reader-list] Guru on the Air: 4th Posting
Message-ID: <640565.61703.qm@web32115.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Dear All,

Sorry for late posting. 

The work has progressed and now a days I am collecting
data so that we could establish about the recent
changes in religious sphere especially in the context
of Hinduism.

Once again I want to mention that this particular guru
started collecting leity at around early 1990's but
his sphere enlarged once he got his satsang and
preachings aired on various cable channels. This
particular development took around 1998. 
This was an advantage over records and audio cassette,
that  and it facilitated people to lsiten satsang in
different ways. In cassette or record, there is no
such advantage to get the variety. Also, cable cost
cheeper than purchasing a record or cassette. However,
there are lesser chances to record these satsangs but
but these  satsang records could be purchased from any
of the ashram spread all across North India. 

I have talked at around 90 people in three different
cities and have found that 80% of his 
devotees of my sample came to know him through airing
of satsang program. The remaining has joined when they
came across his magazine.

The nature of religious sphere is changing. Is it a
new process? I think that change is always going on,
it is a continuous process and ever occuring process,
but the thing is that the nature of change may itselk
be changing. The atmosphere in which something exist,
is changing and the same is happening in the relgiouis
sphere. Because of the enhancement in informatioin
technology, the nature of whole process has changed. 

During the first phase of information revolution, when
printing press came in prominence, the oral texts were
printed and recorded. However, with the advent of
digital era or information technology, now again these
printed material is being converted into oral form but
now this kind of oral records are more stable and easy
to convey and carry forward. 

This is whole for this month and hope that  I would
give you all more information as I will proceed with
my fieldwork.

Thanks 

Surya Prakash
I-Fellow 2007 Sarai



       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Get the Yahoo! toolbar and be alerted to new email wherever you're surfing.
http://new.toolbar.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/index.php


From rakesh at sarai.net  Mon Jul  2 17:26:33 2007
From: rakesh at sarai.net (Rakesh)
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:26:33 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Underbelly of poorvanchal - 2
In-Reply-To: <187666.61794.qm@web32402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <187666.61794.qm@web32402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4688E7F1.7090408@sarai.net>

Hi Shubhra

Thank you very much for this detailed narrative, especially in a way of 
an interview. I don't thing any exaggeration in the story. This is true. 
True for other part of Eastern UP and Bihar.

I have to comment on your last paragraph, where you suspect that the 
Upper caste alliance with Mayawati and BSP perhaps will not be helpful 
for the emancipation of dalits. I slightly differ from your position. It 
is true that upper caste landlords, goons, mafias and all kinds of anti 
social elements are coming in vidhan sabhas and parliament but i think, 
the composition of Mayawati led UP vidhan sabha is going other way 
round. Now the upper caste part of BSP will have to be responsible to 
their voters (say the people) at the grass root level, otherwise, she 
already had given enough indication of her follow up actions. And 
finally, Mayawati's rule in itself is a new beginning in the direction 
of dalit emancipation.

best wishes
rakesh
>
> The paradox of this ‘reserved constituency’ is that
> these upper caste criminals are the ones who always
> win pradhani elections in panchayat elections. These
> very people have joined hands with Mayawati, the
> leader of dalit party (BSP) and now chief minister of
> Uttar Pradesh to keep their dominating power
> consolidated. How empowered will dalits be with such a
> political alliance will be clear enough in the coming
> months and years. Needless to say, this ground
> education into the real caste configurations informs
> much of the relationship between members of these
> castes despite opportunist political alliances for
> short term electoral gains at the top.      
>   
>         
>
>
>
>  
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. 
> Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta.
> http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/features_spam.html
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list 
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>   


-- 
Rakesh Kumar Singh
Sarai-CSDS
29, Rajpur Road
Delhi-110054
Ph: 91 11 23960040
Fax: 91 11 2394 3450
web site: www.sarai.net
web blog: http://blog.sarai.net/users/rakesh



From renee75 at gmail.com  Tue Jul  3 21:59:14 2007
From: renee75 at gmail.com (Renee Lulam)
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 21:59:14 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Renee on Shilong
In-Reply-To: <4677DAB5.1040103@sarai.net>
References: <4677DAB5.1040103@sarai.net>
Message-ID: <f065614a0707030929g374d30e3v690326862c86aeed@mail.gmail.com>

Dear   Sa d a n ,
  t h a n k s   f o r   t h e   r e s p o n s e   t o   o u r   p o s t s .
w e ' v e   b o t h   b e e n   d o w n   w i t h   a   n a s t y   v i r a
l   cas e ,   h e n c e   t h i s   d e l a y .   i n   a n s w e r   t o   y
o u r   o b s e r v a t i o n   a b o u t   b e l o n g i n g n e s s ,   y
e s   and   n o .   t h e   q u e s t i o n   i s n ' t    a b o u t   w h o
                 b e l o n g s   a n d   w h o   d o e s   n o t   r e a l l
y ,   b u t   t o   a s s e r t   t h a t   i n   t h e   c o n t e x t   o
f   a   p l a c e   l i k e   s h i l l o n g ,   g i v e n   i t s   s o c
i o - p o l i t i c a l  h i s t o ry,   e v e r y o n e   b e l o n g s .
W i t h   t h i s   a s   a   b a s e l i n e ,  o u r  p r o j e c t   i s
a b o u t   d i f f e r e n t                c o m m u n i t i e s   w h o
h a v e   c o n v e r g e d   t o   b u i l d   s h i l l o n g   i n t o   t
h e i r  h o m e   a n d   t h o s e   c o m m u n i t i e s   w h o s e   h
o m e   s h i l l o n g   a l r e a d y   w a s   a   p a r t   o f .   a l
l   o u r   q u e s t i o n s   h a v e   b e e n   w i t h   t h e s e   i
n   m i n d .   o u r   u s a g e   o f     t h e   w o r d s   i n d i g e
n o u s   a n d   c o s m o p o l i t a n   i s  d e l i b e r a t e l y   l
o o s e ,   a n d   o n l y   i n   t h e i r   b r o a d e s t
                                c o n n o t a t i o n s .   e v e n   i n   t
h e   c a s e   o f     ' i n d i g e n o u s '   f a m i l i e s ,   e l e
m e n t s   o f   t h e   ' c o s m o p o l i t a n '   a r e   f o u n d .
w i t h i n   a n   i n d i g e n o u s   f a m i l y ,   o n e   m a y  c o
m e   a c r o s s   i n d i v i d u a l s   f r o m   a s   m a n y   a s   f
i v e  d i f f e r e n t                  c o m m u n i t i e s .



 i f   o b l i g e d   t o   g i v e   t h i s   r e s e a r c h   a n   a c
a d e m i c   c a t e g o r y ,   w e   w o u l d   b e   m o s t   c o m f
o r t a b l e   w i t h   c a l l i n g   i t   i n t e r d i s c i p l i n
a r y .   t h i s   c o n s c i o u s   e f f o r t   t o   d i s e n g a g
e  f r o m   any   a c a d e m i c   o r  t h e o r e t i c a l   f r a m e
w o r k     i s   s i m p l y   a n   a t t e m p t   t o  p e r s u a d e  t
h e    p e o p l e   of   S h i l l o n g   t o   r e m e m b e r   i n     t
h e i r   o w n   w o r d s   a n d   t o           v a l i d a t e   t h o
s e  r e m e m b r a n c e s   o n   t h e i r   o w n   t e r m s .   i t
i s   a b o u t   t h e i r   r e l a t i o n s h i p   w i t h   t h e   s
p a c e s,   b o t h   a b s t r a c t   a n d   p h y s i c a l .   i t   i
s   a b o u t   t h e i r   r e l a t i o n s h i p   w i t h     e a c h   o
t h e r   b o t h   a s   c o m m u n i t i e s   a n d                    i
n d i v i d u a l s .   i t   i s   a n   e x p l o r a t i o n   o f   c o
n t i n u i t i e s   a n d   t  r a n s i t i o n s ,   t h e   ' w a s '
a n d   t h e   ' i s ' .   i t   i s   a b o u t            e v o l v i n g
t h e i r   o w n   t h e o r i e s   a n d   d e f i n i t i o n s  t h r o
u g h   t h e s e   m e m o r i e s   a n d   n a r r a t i v e s ,   a w a
y   f r o m             e x i s t e n t   o n e s .   f i n a l l y,   a t
t h e   c o r e   i s   o u r   e f f o r t   t o   k e e p   t h i s   p r
o c e s s   a s   u n c o m p l i c a t e d   a n d   s i m p l e   a s   p
o s s i b l e .



 r e g a r d s ,



 r e n e e   a n d   j u l e s
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070703/d970ad5b/attachment.html 

From susangita50 at gmail.com  Wed Jul  4 09:41:51 2007
From: susangita50 at gmail.com (Susan Abraham)
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 09:41:51 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Invitation to Public Meeting against Narco-analysis
	and other forms of torture
Message-ID: <008401c7bdf1$74dce4b0$0301a8c0@abc91d5116c3c1>




Invitation
 
Uphold the right to organize, safeguard the right to protest ! 
On 8th May, 2007 Arun Ferreira (ex-st xaviers, mumbai), Ashok Reddy (originally from AP), Dhanendra Bhurle (journalist from Gondia) and Naresh Bansod (president, Andha Shraddha Nirmulan Samiti, Gondia) were arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), successor to notorious earlier laws like TADA and POTA. After severe torture at the hands of the police they were forced to submit to narco-analysis. A month later another court has ordered a second round of narco-analysis, which is nothing but a coercive interrogation practice that falls within the United Nations' definition of torture
 
According to the police, these are supposedly dreaded terrorists out to create trouble on a host of issues. They were supposedly found in possession of anti-government material on . SEZs, the Ramabai Nagar firing, the massacres at Khairlanji, farmers' suicides...
 
When civil liberties activists and others protested these arrests and the subsequent torture methods, the Nagpur Commissioner of Police was reported by the press to have warned that he is ready to arrest anyone who spoke in support of those arrested.  
 
That this is no idle threat can be seen from the recent arrest of Dr. Binayak Sen, the renowned doctor of Chattisgarh, who has spent most of his life as a health activist among the workers and tribals of the state. As secretary of the Chhattisgarh People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and its all-India vice-president, he has also been vocal against the atrocities committed by the Salwa Judum, a government-sponsored anti-Maoist programme which involves forced displacement of tribals into camps.
 
Both these arrests send out a clear message that anyone who speaks out against the government and the status quo will be targeted by the state. Activists organizing the people to change the desperate conditions in which they live and fight the vested interests that maintain such conditions are labeled "terrorists' by the state.  Those who question unjust laws and protest illegal actions on the part of the police are threatened to remain silent. Undertrials, and now increasingly, social activists are being subjected to dubious invasive procedures like narco-analysis which involves coercion and amounts to torture.
 
Come lend your voice against these increasingly undemocratic practices along with other concerned citizens.
 
Public Meeting on Saturday, July 7th 2007, 5:30 pm onwards
at Rama Watumull Auditorium, K C College
Dinshaw Vachha Road, Churchgate
Speakers:
  1.. Dr. Amar Jesani on the medical and ethical aspects of narco-analysis 
  2.. Nandita Haksar, Supreme Court lawyer, on 'terrorist' organizations, and why organizations working with people's issues are labeled terrorists. 
  3.. Gautam Navlakha, journalist and activist, on the assault on the civil liberties and democratic rights movement, and the state's aversion to any form of dissent, case in point- Binayak Sen 
 
FORUM AGAINST NARCO-ANALYSIS AND OTHER FORMS OF TORTURE 
Supported by Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Lokshahi Hakk Sangathana, India Centre for Human Rights and the Law, Justice and Peace Commission, Forum for Medical Ethics, and other concerned citizens.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copy addresses and emails from any email account to Yahoo! Mail - quick, easy and free. Do it now...
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070704/66e22798/attachment.html 

From avinashcold at gmail.com  Tue Jul  3 10:39:03 2007
From: avinashcold at gmail.com (Avinash Kumar)
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 10:39:03 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] message from NBA
Message-ID: <a7391af10707022209o1063f1cdr169ec28746a0b8db@mail.gmail.com>

From: medha at narmada.org <medha at narmada.org>

*       FLASH FLOODS IN NIMAD, 80 HOUSES AFFECTED
*       MASS RALLY ON JULY 4TH IN BADWANI (DISTRICT HEAD QUARTERS)


It was a shocking view as we reached the villages of Khaparkheda,
Bajrikheda
and Karmal. The water level rose and took away as many as 80
houses.Families have lost their houses, grains, clothes and other household
items.

A big drain that flows between Khaparkheda and Bajrikheda has led to  such
a severe impact without the Narmada waters entering inside the villages.
The water has reached the Reservoir Water Level mark.

Hence, it is very clear to the villagers that the official inserted stone
marks are not going to be the real indicators of what could be the  impact
of this flash flood. And when the dam height reaches the final mark of
138.68metres, one can only imagine the amount of destruction it will bring.

A large chunk of land in Khaparkheda is left out of acquisition while  the
Government claimed that the same would not be submerged. The people  living
have continuously complained over the years. The scenario in the  villages
today confirms the people's fears to be real and the Government's  claims
to
be false.

The flood came and one by one, houses started collapsing. The volunteering
farmers and youths from the village saved life and some of the  property,
while the rest flowed with the water. A few cattle also flowed along  with
the water. This makes clear that the Government has no machinery to inform
the  flooded villages whether dam-related or otherwise. The Government is
almost  absent
in the relief work. Andolan activists informed the police at 2 a.m. and
they reached the site with the Tehsildar only around 11 a.m. No relief
material has reached the villages yet, while the NBA could
provide some plastic sheets and the food arrangements were made by the
villagers. While the loss incurred, is mostly of the dalits, adivasis and a
few  other farmer families. The rest of the villagers made arrangements in
their  houses for the affected families and in public school premises. One
can only imagine some financial assistance that too a meager sum, which the
affected families can claim under the ongoing scheme.

The real question is - 'Should this years experience be taken as a  warning
against the unpredictable drought and flood cycle which the valley is
bound to face as a result of the cascade of dams with Sardar Sarovar at the
tail?' It is clear that due to displacement without rehabilitation and the
struggle under NBA and court orders, the upstream dams especially Indira
Sagar  and Omkareshwar cannot be fully filled and hence the reservoir water
will  be released from time and again to flood the villages and lands
underneath. The unpredictability of the impact is for sure going to result
to a
torturous situation, which no one can avoid. This seems to be just the
beginning. People in Sardar Sarovar region will have a Mass Protest  Rally
in Badwani (District Head Quarter) on the 4th of July.

Ashish Mandloi        Kamla Yadav            Medha Patkar

NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN
62 Gandhi Marg, Badwani, M.P.  Ph. 07290-222464 nba.badwani at gmail.com
Maitri Niwas, Tembewadi, Dhadgaon, Nandurbar, Maharashtra. Ph:
02595-220620
C/o B-13, Shivam Flats, Ellora Park, Vadodara -390023
Ph: 0265-2282232 nba.baroda at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20070703/fd36aa00/attachment.html 

From J.Dow at leeds.ac.uk  Wed Jul  4 21:10:29 2007
From: J.Dow at leeds.ac.uk (Jamie Dow)
Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2007 16:40:29 +0100
Subject: [Reader-list] Privacy / Confidentiality
Message-ID: <15FE54BCBF6D1748BDD7415BF525C6CF152A1D@HERMES6.ds.leeds.ac.uk>

This is perhaps slightly tangential to the subject matter and approach
of the recent thread on the history of "the private".
But it's near enough to make me think the question worth asking.
 
I'm looking for a couple of things, and wondered if list members could
help me.
I'm looking for recent published academic work on privacy and
confidentiality, particularly on the nature and scope of ethical
claims/requirements/entitlements arising from privacy and/or
confidentiality.
And I'm looking to identify any philosophers or subject specialists
(perhaps medics or IT specialists or security specialists) based in
South Asia who are working on privacy and/or confidentiality.
 
If anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd be really grateful.
Jamie
 
____________________________________________
Jamie Dow 
Research Fellow 
IDEA CETL <http://www2.idea.leeds.ac.uk/>  
Tel: +44 113 343 7887 
Email: J.Dow at leeds.ac.uk <mailto:J.Dow at leeds.ac.uk>  
Web: http://www.philosophy.leeds.ac.uk/Staff/JD/index.html
<http://www.philosophy.leeds.ac.uk/Staff/JD/index.html> 	


From apnawritings at yahoo.co.in  Thu Jul  5 18:45:28 2007
From: apnawritings at yahoo.co.in (ARNAB CHATTERJEE)
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 14:15:28 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Reader-list] Inder, your answer
In-Reply-To: <47e122a70707010110o7770df62s9eb0e1216272c46f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <620800.35811.qm@web8509.mail.in.yahoo.com>

Dear Inder,
                Thank you for your passionate response
and I shall also remain too grateful all the more for
that Geras blog u've given; I never knew it.
               And I feel obliged that my piece has
provoked such "mixed feelings" in you and u've
catalogued a number of heterogenous,conceptual objects
of which I know least: for instance Mira or Kabir. I
have attended a few seminars on Sufi here at Kolkata 
but  I was never fit for that good mystic stuff.
             So even as  I acknowledge  my absolute
incompetence in that force field, let me, as an
exchange of electronic gift paste two URL here for you
as love's prosody and campaign
:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-2xttUqIuA      
(or/and)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1JDKyW_eag 
             Hope you get back to me with  a new 
definition of love this time inspired not by Mira but
Mattu--Daljit Mattu, enjoy.
thanks again
yours in discourse & defeat 
arnab 

--- inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks dear Chatterjee,
> i am delighted to read this heavy text piece on
> personal-private.
> i must write that the quote of Marx by Geras
> moistened my eyes.
> and that led me to discover his blog
> http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/
> 
> Assume man to be man and his relationship to
> > the world to be a human one: then you         can
> > exchange love only for love, trust for trust,
> etc...
> > if you want to exercise influence over other
> people,
> > you must be a person with a stimulating and
> > encouraging effect on other people. ...If you love
> > without evoking love in return that is, if your
> loving
> > does not produce reciprocal love; if    through a
> living
> > expression of yourself as a living person you do  
>      not
> > make yourself a beloved one then your love is
> impotent
> > -- a misfortune" ( cited in Geras 1990, 14).
> 
> Here, i take a little liberty to mix things...
> imagine how Harat
> Sarmad Shaheed sahib must have looked. He must have
> looked like Marx.
> 
> The nudity of the saint was a radical step from
> private to personal,
> and for sheer political reasons he was murdered by
> the King Aurangzeb.
> As ur text  lucidly explains that how ' the state'
> exists on this
> difference between private and personal, and hence
> the violence and
> ungliness...
> 
> This way 'the poet' has no choice but to   confront
> 'the state', and
> stand for the real freedom of human being. The only
> universal form
> available to us is indeed  'love'. We have Kabir,
> Nanak, Meera,Sarmad,
> Lad Ded, Rumi, and all that who repeatedly talked
> about 'love'  No
> wonder that lot of Left leaning poets have written
> love poems....
> Faiz, Pablo, Azad and other whole lot generation of
> poets must be into
> that deep profound thing which we lightly call
> 'love' The word love is
> perhaps deeper than word love, may be it is
> existentially placed
> within us.  Dont we know that how J.P. Sartre was
> charmed by women, in
> spite of his committment to Simone and Marx. To
> label this all as
> romanticism, is of course wrong, since we know many
> Indian-Left
> (netas) who lived a hidden private life and a masked
> personal life.
> 
> There are no immediate answers.... but debates like
> these have a
> potential to push things...
> 
> thanks once again
> love
> inder salim
> 
> 
> On 6/30/07, ARNAB CHATTERJEE
> <apnawritings at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
> >  Dear Readers,
> >                      Sorry for being a bit late
> but
> > for reasons even you would surely recognize and
> > consider my apology with sentimental biology
> that's
> > needed.
> >                 You'll remember  where we parted:
> the
> > promise was to begin with the history of the
> personal.
> >  I had made a short detour charting this history
> in
> > telegraphic terms-from the monarch to the dictator
> --
> > taking Gandhi's desire as drive. And now after so
> much
> > of empirical historical lesson I think the choices
> are
> > pretty clear : people wanting to interpret the
> world
> > would go for so called democracy, liberalism and
> so
> > forth; people  wanting to change the world   would
> go
> > for either Fascism or revolutionary
> Communism—there is
> > no other way, perhaps. And my version of pure
> politics
> > will inform as a  rider over this  that any person
> or
> > programme can cheat or made to deceive: morality
> does
> > not come with a warranty. And this failure being
> > irreducible, it was illuminated by Hegel when he
> said
> > that there are two ways to achieve a  moral world
> :
> > utopia or terror. Even such a grand 'deontologist'
> > philosopher as Kant uses a phrase like "moral
> > terrorism" and proposes a "terroristic" conception
> of
> > "history"; but Hegel's copula is more
> illuminating.
> > Terror rejects an immediate place; utopia
> regulates a
> > non-place—they can never, never be estranged. And
> with
> > Fascism and communism it is more futile to
> undertake
> > such an exercise. But you might have noticed  a
> sharp
> > difference : while in Fascism you have
> dictatorship in
> > the person-al form, in Marx you have dictatorship
> of a
> > whole class –even if universal or not. Now, if it
> is a
> > collective whole embodied in the one person of the
> > monarch -- which is the dictatorial example of the
> > first, it is basically the group personality of
> the
> > class that could act as the dictatorial unity,
> > reflective of a single will, in the second case.
> Now,
> > my intention this time is to refer the reader  to
> an
> > extension of my argument stated previously.  First
> is
> > the person taken as a singular-collective; the
> second
> > is a collective-singular. First is the spontaneous
> > natural personality; the second is an artificial
> > personality masquerading as a legal fiction whose
> > origins have been traced back to the Roman Law.
> >    I'll come to the second when I deal with the
> > Hiralal Haldar -- Mactaggart debate. In this post
> I'll
> > address only the first part—that too a bit
> > cryptically.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > (1)
> >
> > RECEIVED HISTORY
> >
> > The public/private binary -whose historical roots
> have
> > been traced to classical Greece acquired its
> modern
> > meaning through the mediations of medieval Roman
> Law
> > and 18th century Europe. Aristotle made a
> distinction
> > between household (oikos) and the space of the
> city
> > state (polis) where through deliberation (lexis)
> and
> > common action (praxis) a shared, common and in a
> loose
> > sense "public" life beyond bare essentials or
> > necessities was sustained. The private realm of
> > necessities (subsistence, reproduction) was the
> > household. Therefore property, "and the art of
> > acquiring property" was considered a part of
> "managing
> > the household" (Aristotle, 1988: 5) and 
> participation
> > in the polis was restricted by one's status or
> rank as
> > a master of oikos.
> > In the medieval age in Roman Law one encounters
> terms
> > like publicus and privatus but without the
> standard
> > usage (Habermas, 1996:5) because everything
> > public/private ultimately resided in the  person
> of
> > the monarch (more on this latter.) However, in
> Roman
> > Law-the first systematic legal document-- the
> privacy
> > of the home (domus) was sanctioned ( Black, 1988:
> 593)
> > and Roman Law itself was "private law" in that it
> > would have application only for individuals or
> > relations of coordination. Public law would
> administer
> > affairs of the state or relations of domination.
> But
> > similar to the Greek city state, it was the status
> of
> > the individuals that determined their
> participation in
> > the medieval public sphere. We enter modernity
> when
> > men entered the realm of contract from that of
> > status, from duties  to that of rights ( 18th
> century
> > enlightenment and the French revolution remain the
> > canonical examples).  Formal equality of persons
> was a
> > prerequisite of such a contract. Particularly, at
> the
> > break of the medieval age, in the wake of civil or
> > commercial law in 18th century Europe, a
> democratic
> > climate was created where apparent equality of all
> > before the law and the market was preempted. And
> the
> > public sphere was thus -in a sense-- opened to
> all.
> > This meant the formation of public opinion through
> the
> > media ( enabled at that time by the advent of
> print
> > capitalism) and institutionalization of state
> > sovereignty which would rest, henceforth, with the
> > people or the public. A new category of legitimacy
> was
> > created. This also engendered the rise of civil
> > society  where the subjects would fulfill two
> roles at
> > the same time: as a property owner or bourgeois he
> > would  pursue his  private interests and as a
> citizen
> > in the public sphere he would bear equal rights
> > granted by the state. This also-- as a part of the
> > public sphere, ensured the separation of society
> > (family) from the state and that the state would
> not
> > intervene in societal matters and expectedly,
> privacy
> > would be located in the societal realm hence
> forth.
> > (Separated from the state, classically, the church
> was
> > the first private to have imparted  the secular
> colour
> > so characteristic of modernity.) The state would
> > ensure privacy, but would not intervene; its
> closest
> > analogy was the market: the state would ensure a
> free
> > market by  itself not intervening in it and the
> free
> > market was not only of commodities but a great
> market
> > place of ideas and exchange of opinion  in which,
> > irrespective of birthmarks and the stink of status
> > anybody could participate. The modern public
> sphere
> > had arrived. It was just a step further when Marx
> > would denounce universal suffrage and invoke  the
> > proletariat as the class with "universal
> suffering"
> > (Marx, 1983:320) and would mock this artificial
> > equality of publics before the law and the market
> > (alleging that they  masked real inequalities) and
> > thought of smashing the private /public divide by
> > abolishing private property- which he thought was
> at
> > the core of this suffering. The rest is history
> and
> > its repetition. No wonder that the public/private
> > divide has been considered as the core of  our
> modern
> > existence.
> >
> >
> > ONE OR TWO WORDS ON HOW THE PERSONAL LOST ITSELF
> IN
> > THE PRIVATE
> >
> >  An interesting part of recent academic
> discussions is
> > while there is a growing interest in the public
> and
> > the private, critical discourse on the personal
> nearly
> > draws a blank. (The state of the personal is
> somewhat
> > dubious and absent in all classic European
> discussions
> > --even in Jurgen Habermas and Hannah Arendt .)
> >       Although Habermas does cursorily refer to
> the
> > process through which the "modern state apparatus
> > became independent from the monarch's personal
> > sphere", he rarely engages with it (Habermas 1996,
> > 29). For instance here goes this recognition in
> the
> > form of a footnote to one of his famous articles:
> "The
> > important thing to understand is that the medieval
> > public sphere, if it even deserves this
> recognition,
> > is tied to the personal. The feudal lord and
> estates
> > create the public sphere by means of their very
> > presence." (Habermas 1974, 51)  But the personal
> > sphere of the monarch-and what it means in the
> western
> > tradition is somewhat available in G.H Mead from
> the
> > standpoint of a social behaviorist. Mead
> meticulously
> > charts the components of this personal sphere
> where
> > the people within the same state " can identify
> > themselves with each other only through being
> subjects
> > of a common monarch
." (Mead 1972, p.311) Mead
> traces
> > the phenomenon to the ancient empires of
> Mesopotamia
> > and observes, "It is possible through personal
> > relationships between a sovereign and subject to
> > constitute a community which could not otherwise
> be so
> > constituted
." In the Roman Empire through the
> > mediation of Roman law, Mead notes, while the
> > emperor-subject relationship was "defined in legal
> > terms", through sacrificial offerings made to the
> > emperor-the subject was "putting himself into
> personal
> > relationship with him, and because of that he
> could
> > feel his connection with all the members in the
> > community". 
 "It was the setting up of a personal
> > relationship which in a certain sense went beyond
> the
> > purely legal relations involved in the development
> of
> > Roman law." (312) In India considering the King's
> > person as sacred, it was assumed that he had
> influence
> > over crops, cattle, rain and general prosperity.
> So
> > again, the subjects, in order to relate to cattle,
> the
> > mediation of the King was involved in a metonymic
> > gesture-through whose presence, people could
> relate
> > and be present to themselves. (Hocart 1927, 9)
> > Personal is that which predates both the public
> and
> > the private and what is historically interesting
> is to
> > discover when and why the collapsing of the
> personal
> > and the private began. For this last instance - we
> can
> > borrow from Max Weber the diffused origins of the
> > Public Law-Private Law distinction, which as Weber
> > shows was "once not made at all. Such was the case
> > when all law, all jurisdictions, and particularly
> all
> > powers of exercising authority were personal
> > privileges, such as especially, the "prerogatives"
> of
> > the head of the state." 
[Who was]  "Not different
> > from the head of the household." (Weber 1978,
> 643).
> > This world of the personal or as Weber calls it
> > "patrimonial monarchy" forms the prehistory of the
> > private /public distinction and again I repeat
> that
> > what is historically interesting is to discover
> when
> > and why the collapsing of the personal and the
> private
> > began to which today's feminists are but victims.
> > Habermas therefore does away with a vast
> repertoire.
> > So far Arendt is concerned, commentators have
> tried to
> > make a case out of the feminist energy generated
> by
> > the latter's 'personal' -previously having been at
> > pains to argue that the 'political' and the
> 'personal'
> > during Arendt's celebration of feminist moments
> later
> > had become the 'public' and the 'private'.
> >  "With the emergence of women's liberation a
> decade or
> > so after The Human Condition appeared, the
> relation
> > between the " political" and the "personal" moved
> to
> > the forefront of politics, and this eventually
> took
> > the form of the public and the private" (Zaretsky
> > 1997, 214) with their corresponding emphasis on
> > 'personal life' becoming a "third challenge to the
> > liberal dichotomy" (214) (ref. endnote 1)  :
> really a
> > queer mix up in history. The reason perhaps is
> that we
> > tend to have a mix up between the private and the
> > personal and this is its contemporary
> moment(Nothing
> > could be more explicit an affirmation than from a
> > feminist superstar: Catherine Mackinnon, "The
> private
> > is the public for those for whom the personal is
> the
> > political." (Mackinnon 1992, 359). This easy and
> > historic conflation of personal as private is
> perhaps
> > not the end of the story.
> >
> >
> > In the western history itself there is also a
> > suppressed narrative (suppressed because it does
> not
> > suit the liberal project) where the two are not
> the
> > same; in fact they two cannot be the same. But
> first
> > I'll take the opportunity to  narrate how the
> > personal/private coalescence occurs and then I
> shall
> > try to excavate if the personal could be
> recuperated.
> >
> >                   Then is it possible to
> appreciate
> > the fact that the appearance of the personal
> through
> > the sieve of the private is basically an
> historical
> > maneuver ?
> >                This major point then needs
> mention:
> > the qualitative leap when personal came to be
> > identified with the private. Now, private property
> is
> > as old as Greek antiquity: Aristotle had argued in
> > favour of  and Plato had wanted to abolish private
> > property. That is not the point; the first signs
> were
> > available in the natural law (or natural rights)
> > tradition and despite a lot of caveats, one of its
> > representative voice still remains John Locke. In
> this
> > tradition property, for the first time, is placed
> in
> > the person :
> > "Though the earth, and all inferior creatures be
> > common to all men, yet every man has a "property"
> in
> > his own "person". This no body has any right to
> but
> > himself. The "labour" of his body, and the "work"
> of
> > his hands, we may say are properly his.
> Whatsoever
he
> > hath mixed his "labour" with, and joined it to
> > something that is his own, and thereby makes it
> his
> > "property"
that excludes the common right of other
> > men" (Locke, (1690) 1982 : [Sec. 27.]130).
> > "His property" or private property when derives
> from
> > personal capacities of labour, the first motivated
> mix
> > up between the personal and the private occurs.
> And
> > then having had its eighteenth century initiation,
> it
> > became a cornerstone of liberal theory where
> property
> > becomes an attribute of personality. If you take
> away
> > property from me, I become a non-person because
> > (private) property is in my person. Here there is
> > natural ownership before there is a legal
> ownership.
> > Here is a classical example in Hegel, " Not until
> he
> > has property does the person exist as reason"
> (Hegel,
> > (1820) 1991: 73). Hegel goes at length to show how
> > property is required to supersede  "the mere
> > subjectivity of personality"(73). In fact this is
> the
> > personal in Hegel invested with some kind of
> immediacy
> > but lacks in content i.e. Hegel's  "abstract
> > personality" in order to become concrete and
> objective
> > awaits a trick:
> >  " Since my will, as personal and hence as the
> will of
> > an individual [des Einzelnen], becomes objective
> in
> > property, the latter takes on the character of
> private
> > property
" (77).
> >
> > This would be picked up by liberal capitalism and
> now
> > onwards property being in person and that which
> makes
> > objective, tangible  personality possible, private
> > becomes the realm of liberty, reprieve and
> freedom.
> > Marx would fall heavily on all of this and in fact
> > this discourse finds its final resolution in Marx
> > only. His argument was just the reverse: in a
> society
> > without private property, the personal selves of
> men
> > freely blossom to enter the true realm of freedom.
> > Therefore this hyphenation between the private and
> the
> > personal is more an ideological investment 
> necessary
> > for liberal history than a structurally
> indispensable
> > relation.
> >
> >
> > RECOVERING THE PERSONAL IN LOCKE, HEGEL, MARX AND
> OUR
> > TIMES
> >
> > Now, having presented the anatomical, bare
> rudiments
> > of how the personal looses itself in the private,
> here
> > I'll extrapolate how it could be recovered and
> allowed
> > to have a safe passage. Given the force of
> history, it
> > would be wise to start with Locke.
> >
> > LOCKE
> >
> > For Lockes' allergy towards  communal or
> collective
> > ownership, (see Macpherson, C.B. 1972, 197-221.)
> But
> > even in  Locke it is possible to find an other
> > discourse of the personal besides property and the
> > private dominion. While discussing property as an
> > extension of the person,  and particularly Adam's
> > property as "private dominion" which is supposed
> to
> > have arisen from God's "grant" or "donation" and
> that
> > of  fatherhood from the act of begetting Locke
> > meditates on  how this divine donation was made
> > "personally" to Adam to which his heir could have
> no
> > right by it. (Locke1982, 60-61) Locke argues  that
> > even if it belongs to the   parents "personally",
> > after their death, their property does not go to
> the
> > common stock of mankind but is inherited by their
> > children as heirs because human have a natural
> > propensity to continue their creed (62). This
> power of
> > begetting in  another form—and that what roots
> > continuity- founds inheritance. The point relevant
> to
> > our case, is,  this "personal" belongingness  is a
> > middle-term that appears with some autonomy and
> > mediates person and property—seen as an extension
> of
> > each other in Locke. And the mutual-extension
> argument
> >  because, I guess, in itself cannot explain
> > inheritance,  Locke is taking recourse to a
> different
> > premise; the "personal" appears to give a language
> to
> > this premise.
> >
> > HEGEL
> > As established earlier, the reading that entails
> Hegel
> > as a canonical case where the personal private mix
> up
> > receives the force of an argument, is not wrong
> and as
> > rendered by Marx, it carries an  immense sway with
> it.
> >  But it is as well possible to discover in Hegel a
> > curious personal impatient not to be suppressed by
> the
> > interested world  of the private. Take for
> instance
> > the distinction between real property and personal
> > property that could be traced to the Roman Law
> from
> > which Kant  borrowed his interesting theory of
> rights
> > and  where we find personal  appearing with a
> rider
> > "personal rights of a real kind". Hegel made a
> > critique of Kant's  formulation; drawing on that
> > critique,  let me here try to illuminate the
> > distinction which I think was unconsciously made
> by
> > Hegel himself.
> > Deriving from the Justinian Roman legal division
> of
> > right into rights of persons, things, and actions,
> > Kant  in 1797 had proposed, taking into account
> the
> > "form" of the  rights, a threefold division, "a
> right
> > to a thing; a right against a person; a right to a
> > person akin to a right to a thing ." (Kant 1999,
> 412).
> > The first is a property right, the second is a
> > contract right, and the third is a "personal right
> of
> > a real kind" (Hegel 1991, 71); in other words, it
> is a
> >  right about " what is mine or yours domestically,
> and
> > the relation of persons in the domestic
> condition
"
> > [including] "
possession of a person." (Kant 1999,
> > 426) like the rights of spouses over one another,
> the
> > rights of  parents over their children etc. The
> third
> > is the most interesting because it resembles what
> > today we call Personal Laws supposed to distribute
> > "private" affairs within a household. And this is
> what
> > Hegel attacks; Hegel thinks that the division is a
> > confusing one; secondly, while family
> relationships
> > form the content of "personal rights of a real
> kind" ,
> > in actuality family relationships are based on the
> > "surrender of personality." (Hegel 1991, 72) Hegel
> > further notes that
> >
> > "For Kant personal rights are those rights which
> arise
> > out of a contract whereby I give something or
> perform
> > a service
Admittedly, only a person is obliged  to
> > implement  the provisions of a contract, just as
> it is
> >  only a person  who acquires the right to have
> them
> > implemented. But such a right cannot therefore be
> > called a personal right; rights of every kind can
> > belong only to a person
" (73)
> >
> > What is interesting in Hegel's engagement
> -relevant to
> > our project is the way he   extricates the
> personal
> > from being stamped with the badge of household
> rights
> > or  the power to accomplish a  civil contract (
> See
> > Endnote 2)  in brief personal right not
> masquerading
> > as a private right. In brief, what Hegel may have
> > argued here could be  that  there are no "personal
> > rights of a real kind." But let us underline this
> > binary: Personal vs./ and  real, which is 
> significant
> > and  requires of us to reiterate that a
> distinction
> > between real property and personal property was
> > strongly a feature of English Law. Real property
> was
> > that which had  "some degree of geographical
> > fixity".[Reeve, 1986, 80-81] In order to examine
> this
> > distinction in the form that it is found in a 1827
> > tract I think the notions of the personal still
> could
> > be recovered in a very different sense. In
> personal
> > property "the general rule is, that possession
> > constitutes the criterion of title;
hence the
> vendor
> > of personal chattels is never expected to show the
> > origin of his right. 
 [but] real property like
> land
> > is held not by possession but by title requiring
> "the
> > production of documents." (Mathews 1827, 27).
> Please
> > note the somewhat loose coverage that personal
> > property requires compared to real property. Now
> if it
> > is pointed out that personal property does have
> > property as a signified even if in a loose sense,
> it
> > may be rebutted by saying that  in the same text
> > Mathews  goes on to mention  "peculiarities
> personal"
> > or as to how "personal disability" may be enough
> to
> > "repel the presumption of a grant". (14) Does 
> this
> > personal  call for documents or is a means to
> > establishing a title? No, in fact these are
> blatant
> > uses appropriate to our cause   existing in a
> legal
> > tract meant to discuss  property personal or real.
> >
> > MARX
> >
> > The common knowledge now that the key to
> understanding
> > modernity is the public/private divide and a
> > corresponding failure to find a way beyond the
> binary
> > would find—if considered carefully—an approval
> with
> > dignity in Marx because Marx curiously is a
> symptom of
> >  both: he said for the first--"the state is
> founded
> > upon the contradiction between public and private
> > life" (Marx, 1961, p.222) and for the second : "if
> the
> > modern State wished to end the impotence of its
> > administration it would be obliged  to abolish the
> > present conditions of private life. And if the
> State
> > wished to abolish these conditions of private life
> it
> > would have also to put an end to its own
> existence,
> > for it exists only  in relation to them." (p.223)
> Now,
> > throwing in the fact that private property is just
> a
> > singular and an isolated moment in the discourse
> of
> > private life, Marx's agenda --I guess- looks
> readily
> > defamiliarised here.
> > Marx would fall heavily on all of this and in fact
> > this discourse finds its final resolution in Marx
> > only. It is not a fact that in a system without
> > private property and a sanction against 
> 'unlimited
> > appropriation' all are non persons and there would
> be
> > nothing personal. Therefore this hyphenation
> between
> > the private and the personal is more an
> ideological
> > investment necessary for liberal history than a
> > structurally indispensable relation. Let us
> document a
> > few discursive  fragments where this collapsing
> has
> > been done away with. Now, notwithstanding the will
> to
> > go beyond private/public divide, it may rightly be
> > asked, could Marx be used to endorse the personal
> that
> > I'm proposing? Yes! And  choosing only one
> instance --
> > love , we may document this flower unfolding in
> Marx.
> >
> >         "Assume man to be man and his relationship
> to
> > the world to be a human one: then you         can
> > exchange love only for love, trust for trust,
> etc...
> > if you want to exercise influence over other
> people,
> > you must be a person with a stimulating and
> > encouraging effect on other people. ...If you love
> > without evoking love in return that is, if your
> loving
> > does not produce reciprocal love; if    through a
> living
> > expression of yourself as a living person you do  
>      not
> > make yourself a beloved one then your love is
> impotent
> > -- a misfortune" ( cited in Geras 1990, 14).
> >
> > Isn't this the personal in Marx -- which --I'm
> sure
> > --he would willingly exclude from the domain of
> > private life   he wanted to abolish for history? I
> > think the reader agrees.
> >
> > A CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE
> >
> >       Marx apart, curiously, the Human Rights
> > discourse does have, it may be pointed out, a
> phrase
> > like 'personal property'. What does it qualify? In
> > fact it endorses the distinction that we are
> making
> > between the personal and the private. A theorist
> of
> > such rights comments, " By personal property" I
> mean
> > individual ownership and control of possessions
> such
> > as clothing, furniture, food, writing materials,
> > books, and artistic and religious objects.
> > Considerations of personal freedom provide strong
> > reasons for instituting and protecting personal
> > property. These reasons are related not to
> production
> > but to the requirements of developing and
> expressing
> > one's own personality. Ownership of personal
> property
> > is a matter of personal liberty, not a
> > production-related right ( see endnote 3)
> ."(Nickel
> > 1987, 152)
> >   Therefore it is possible to attempt a historical
> > reconstruction  of the personal where the personal
> > could be said to have filtered through the
> monarchical
> > metonymy right down to human rights discourses via
> > Roman Law, Kant, Hegel and English Common law.
> While
> > the prehistorical personal comes to be
> contaminated by
> > the private, the human rights discourse is
> significant
> > in its attempt to do away with this conflation.
> While
> > it tries to do away with the infiltration,
> > genealogically it perhaps proves the point that
> there
> > was this contamination or over determination.
> >
> >           CONCLUSION
> > I conclude with a sense of disgust. I could share
> 1/6
> > th of the material I've amassed. This is not
> > surprising since there are whole books on each of
> the
> > strands to which I've referred. Consider Roman Law
> :
> > Read Duff's Personality in Roman Private Law or
> > Richard Tuck's path breaking works on Natural
> Rights
> > and Natural Law debates on themes surrounding that
> > what I'm trying to pursue. A further limitation is
> > I've bound myself to narrating bits of western
> history
> > of the personal and left out our own cultural
> > cognitive histories of the personal. Let that be
> some
> > time else. Nevertheless,with this our narrative of
> > historical recovery or historical demystification
> of
> > the personal reaches a benchmark and awaits if the
> > personal-private distinction can be theoretically
> > grounded as well.  We'll pursue that in the next
> > post—early next month. Thank you.
> >
> > ENDNOTES
> > 1.      For consideration of  the failure of this
> appraisal
> > in its true light and that the personal-private
> > distinction could be read unto Arendt, judge the
> > following comments of Craig Calhoun, "Arendt would
> > never endorse social engineering and, against such
> > threats, certainly would protect privacy. Even
> more,
> > she would protect the personal and the distinctive
> > from absorption into the impersonal. But she would
> not
> >  assimilate the notion of the personal to that of
> the
> > private as Zaretsky does." (Calhoun 1997, 237).
> The
> > point is if it could be correct for Arendt, it
> could
> > be correct for Habermas as well.
> > 2.      Carole Pateman does not agree that Hegel
> is
> > successful in his attempt and according to her he
> is
> > rather limited to transcending just one part of
> the
> > Kantian argument which saw personal right, among
> > others, in the manifest act of pointing out "this
> is
> > my wife" where a "thing" is, accidentally, a
> person. (
> > Pateman1996, 212-213). But I disagree with Pateman
> and
> > reiterate that there is a  moment of personal in
> Hegel
> > which precedes the contamination of property.
> > 3.      The ownership of means of production is
> called in
> > this discourse 'private productive property'
> (Nickel
> > 1987, 152).
> >
> >
> >
> > BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
> >
> > Aristotle, 1988: The Politics, Transl. Benjamin
> > Jowett, Cambridge: Cambridge         University
> Press.
> >
> > Black, A., 1988    : The Individual and Society.
> In
> > J.H Burns (Ed.), The Cambridge  History of
> Medieval
> > Political Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University
> > Pres, 588-606.
> >
> > Calhoun, Craig. 1997.  'Plurality, promises, and
> > Public Spaces' In Calhoun and Mc Growan. eds.
> 1997.
> > 232-259.
> >
> > Calhoun, Craig, and John Mc Growan. eds. 1997.
> Hannah
> > Arendt and the Meaning of Politics, Minneapolis,
> > London: University of Minnesota Press.
> >
> > Geras, Norman, 1990 : 'Seven types of Obloquy:
> > Travesties of Marxism' in Socialist register, Eds.
> > Ralph Miliband, Leo Panitch & John Saville,
> pp.1-34,
> > The Merlin Press : London.
> >
> >
> >
> > Habermas, J.     1974.   : The Public Sphere: An
> > Encyclopedia article. In  New German    Critique,
> 3(
> > 51.), 49-55.
> >
> >    ------------------1996       : The Structural
> > Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry
> into a
> >
> > category  of Bourgeois Society, T. Berger
> (Trans.),
> > Great Britain: Blackwell
> > Publishers & Polity Press.
> >
> > Hegel, G.W.F. ,1991: Elements of the Philosophy of
> > Right,. Trans. H.B. Nisbet. U.K:   Cambridge
> > University Press.
> >
> > Hobbes, T.,1997   : Leviathan,  New York : W.W.
> Norton
> > & Company.
> >
> > Hocart, A.M. ,1927 : Kingship,  London: Oxford
> > University Press.
> >
> > Kant, Immanuel. 1999. Practical Philosophy. UK:
> > Cambridge University Press.
> >
> > Locke, John. (1924)1982. Two Treatises Of 
> Government.
> > J.M Dent & Son's Ltd. (Everyman's Library):
> London.
> >
> > Mackinnon, Catharine A. 1992. " Privacy v.
> Equality:
> > Beyond Roe V. wade" In Ethics: A Feminist
> Reader.eds.
> > Elizabeth Frazer, Jennifer Hornsby and Sabina
> > Lovibond. 351—363. Oxford: Blackwell.
> >
> > Macpherson, C.B. 1972. "The Theory of Property
> Right",
> > in his The Political Theory of Possessive
> > Individualism, Hobbes to Locke. 197—221.London:
> Oxford
> > University Press.
> >
> > Marx, Karl, 1961. Selected Writings in Sociology
> and
> > Social Philosophy, Eds. T.B. Bottomore and
> M.Rubel,
> > Penguin Books: Harmondsworth.
> >
> > ------------------------1983  : A Contribution to
> the
> > Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right' (1843)
> In
> > L.S.Stepelevich (Ed.) The Young Hegelians: An
> > Anthology.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
> > 310-322.
> >
> > Mathews, John H. 1827. Treatise On The Doctrine of
> > Presumption and Presumptive Evidence As Affecting
> The
> > Title To Real and Personal Property. London:
> Joseph
> > Butterworth and Son, Law Booksellers.
> >
> > Mead, George H. (1934) 1972. Mind, Self, and
> Society,
> > >From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. ed.
> > Charles W. Morris. Chicago: The University of
> Chicago
> > Press.
> >
> > Monahan, Arthur. 1994. From Personal Duties
> towards
> > Personal Rights: Late Medieval and Early Modern
> > Political thought, 1300-1600. Montreal: McGill
> Queens
> > University Press.
> >
> > Nickel, James W. 1987.  Making Sense of Human
> Rights
> > :Philosophical Reflections on the Universal
> > declaration of Human Rights. Berkeley: University
> Of
> > California Press.
> >
> > Pateman, Carole.1996. 'Hegel, Marriage, and the
> > Standpoint of Contract' in Feminist
> Interpretations of
> > G.W. F. Hegel. Ed. Patricia Jagentowicz Mills.
> > 209-223. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State
> > University Press.
> >
> > Reeve, Andrew. 1986. Property, London : Macmillan.
> >
> >
> > Weber, M. , 1978        : Economy And Society :An
> Outline of
> > Interpretive Sociology. Vol.II. Guenther Roth and
> > Claus Wittich, (Eds.), Berkeley : University of
> > California Press.
> >
> > Zaretsky, Eli. 1997. "Hannah Arendt and the
> Meaning of
> > the Public/Private distinction" In Calhoun and Mc
> > Growan  1997. 207-231.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
__________________________________________________________
> > Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn
> something new
> > http://in.answers.yahoo.com/
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and
> the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to
> reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the
> subject header.
> > To unsubscribe:
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive:
> <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> http://indersalim.livejournal.com
> 


Send free SMS to your Friends on Mobile from your Yahoo! Messenger. Download Now! http://messenger.yahoo.com/download.php


From sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in  Thu Jul  5 22:12:10 2007
From: sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in (S Fatima)
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 17:42:10 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Reader-list] The Power of Sublime (conversion)
Message-ID: <919492.98558.qm@web8407.mail.in.yahoo.com>

The power of sublime
Tarun Vijay
 
Does it matter if the ice lingam at the Amarnath cave
has melted down? No way, said Gurinder in Jammu, who
has come with a group of ten for the pilgrimage. Every
step we take for the shrine is a fulfilment and the
journey itself is a reward, no matter whether the
physical ice lingam is visible or not. The same
sentiments were echoed when the bomb blasts en route
to the shrine had disrupted the yatra and not a single
yatri went back out of fear or apprehending more
trouble. The journey continued. 

What makes the common, people, otherwise busy in their
own life-earning a living through various professions,
to face bitterest odds and risk their lives to make
such pilgrimages just for a darshan , a holy see? And
this has been continued since time immemorial. They
undertook such arduous journeys when there were no
facilities, tracks and communication systems. Pilgrims
would do their afterlife rituals before they left
home, knowing well they may not return live. The
harshest pilgrimages were Kailas Manasarovar yatra in
Tibet, Hinglaj in Baluchistan and Amarnath in Kashmir.


All these have continued uninterrupted till the
contemporary times of global warming and the changing
contours of the journey's management. Yet what has
remained unchanged is the flow of faith and
enthusiasm. Most of the Hindu pilgrim centres are in
the heights of the Himalayas, defining the sublime
beauty of nature under a reigning solitude which
provides space to introspect and evaporating egos with
the mighty silence of the mountains. This itself is
like experiencing the gods, whether the physical eyes
could see Him or not. 

Love, the passionate complete surrender devoid of any
demand for a return gift transforms into an
unflinching faith. And there hangs a beautiful story
of Yudhishthira in Mahabharata. On their bodily
ascendance to the heavens in the higher Himalayas,
experiencing the odds in the steep climb near what is
known as Badrinath today, Arjuna became irritated and
angry and asked his elder brother, O Yudhisthira, what
makes you to love this rude, rough and difficult
Himalayas, where I find nothing but rocks, dust and an
unfriendly environment. Yudhishthira smiled and said I

don't love the Himalayas because it gives me something
in return, I love it, for being just what it
is-Himalaya. Obviously true love doesn't expect
converting the beloved. 

It is this power of the sublime, the one way love or
the faith, that has made Hindus survive the centuries
of vicissitudes and upheavals facing the most cruel
and barbaric forces of their times. Hindus never used
clichés like 'harvesting the souls' or 'liberating the
heathens and the pagans' from darkness. For them the
world remained as a family- vasudhaiva kutumbakam and
their prayers, whether at the birth or death rites,
always wish good of all human beings and the nature.
Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Niramaya -let
everyone be happy, everyone be without diseases,
including the human beings, mountains, rivers,
vegetation and animals. 

This message of karuna -the compassion reverberates in
the entire Asia even today where Indian philosophers
had gone centuries before spreading the teachings of
dharma. In Kashgar (Xinjiang, China) I was taken to
see beautiful Mor stupa inside Gobi desert, built
about 1600 hundred years ago, during the time of
Kumarjiva, an Indian monk, who went to Kucha after
having learnt teachings of Buddhism in Kashmir. He was
arrested by an arrogant Chinese general for preaching
Buddhism and kept behind bars for seventeen years till
an emperor freed him. He continued his preaching,
influenced the local population with his scholarship,
earned the title of Kuo-shih meaning 'teacher of the
nation' and is still revered by Communist China with
great honour. He is no longer an 'Indian' but a
perfect Chinese Buddhist monk, like other great saints

Kashyap Matanga, Gobharana and Samant Bhadra, the
latter is famous as a Bodhisattva who came from India
on a white elephant and to whom an entire Mountain
Emei Shan is dedicated. He is worshipped as the
protector of China.  

Compare this with other 'missionaries' who introduced
inquisitions, destroyed temples, bombed Bamiyan to
'serve' their faith. Christopher Columbus described
the purpose of his voyage to the King of Spain in
these lines, ".....for the end which I suppose to be
earnestly desired by our most illustrious king, that
is, their conversion to the holy religion of
Christ..." 

And what happened after Columbus thought he has
discovered India? 

Famous anthropologist Jack Weatherford has portrayed
the Columbus impact in his book Indian Givers in these
lines: He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island
of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would
fit and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded
naked through the streets of Seville and sold as
slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their
parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' 
slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the
Indian bodies into the Atlantic. Because Columbus
captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to
Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines
and plantations which he, his family and followers
created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band
hunted Indians for sport and profit - beating, raping,
torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies
as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of
Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or
exported one-third of the original Indian population 
of 300,000. Within another 50 years, the Taino people
had been made extinct' The population of the United
States prior to European contact exceeded 12 million.
Four centuries later, after the missionary 
'discoveries', the count was reduced by 95% to 237
thousand. 

So when a thought and a social life are attacked to
'harvest', it reacts in different ways. Indians abroad
are doing well, living and re-establishing 
their age old attributes of love, compassion and
brilliance, but back home their religion, social
traditions and way of life are under grave threat 
from the same forces who gave Columbus, Stalin and
Gazhnavi. Any effort to convert a Hindu means deriding
the values of compassion and violating his faith, the
oldest one on this earth, which recognizes that all
paths lead to god. Universal brotherhood demands
respecting the other faith too as true as yours. It's
a different attitude from being tolerant. 

But Hindus are being forced to realise that not all
paths believe in equality and they do not respect our
way even if our ashrams in Hardwar and Rishikesh
display the images of Christ and inscriptions of Allah
in order to emphasize unity in diversity. From Sai
Baba's centers to Ramakrishna Mission, this spirit of
sarva dharma sam bhav (equal respect for all paths) is
prominently at work. But there will not be a single
Christian or Islamic centre which would show a respect
for Hindu icons and ways of worship as a reciprocal
gesture or as a mark of their universal spiritual
vision. 

Recently The Economist reported (June 28, 2007): The
Catholics' ultimate boss, Pope Benedict, is less
flexible. He may feel that because we live in an age
when acts of religious accommodation are possible—and,
for the sake of world peace, necessary—it is more
important than ever to draw doctrinal lines in the
sand. In his recently-published book, Jesus of
Nazareth, he seems to be saying that "much as we
respect one another and accept one another's right to
exist, there are important things on which we cannot
agree." 

He refused to accept that Islam too can be a way to
reach God. Last September he had quoted in Germany a
Byzantine emperor who had called Islam irrational and
violent. In India he had given a call to convert
Hindus and make the present millennium an Asian one. A
Hindu would have said just the opposite. Hence it's
necessary to accept the right of all faiths to live
their own way and abhor converting others. Asserting
right to convert is to force Columbusisation in this
age and times, forgetting the holocaust museums
erected in the land of Indian Americans. 

While the world witnessed unspeakable barbarities by
the Jihadis, Stalinists and Maoists and the Americans
still remember with horror the mass killings during
Columbus's voyage to their land with a mission to
'Christianize ' the locals who he mistook as Indians,
the striking contrast with the 

way the Indian masters preached abroad nourishes the
universal values of love and coexistence. 

In fact the Vedic universe symbolizes the concept and
the spirit of the United Nations as a whole minus the
controls of the US and other veto-

powered members. Unfortunately the neo-colonialist
mindset of a section of the Hindus has developed a
special dislike for anything Hindu 

without even trying to understand the inherent message
of the great way of living, the Dharma , genuinely.
They fall into the din of aphorisms. They 

have created an atmosphere where to talk anything
about Hinduism, to protect and support its icons, to
reform and organise the Hindu society 

looks like a God-ordained responsibility of the RSS
alone, pushing even nationalist slogans Vande Mataram
and Bharat Mata Ki Jai as the sole' 

intellectual property' of the Sangh Parivar. 

This is ironical because every Hindu, in whatever
party or the organization, has an equal responsibility
and a right to safeguard Hindu interests. 

It's their outlook if they don't own it up. If a
section of the Hindus start feeling dispossessed and
is compelled to Islamise their response to be 

heard and recognized, the forces working to
de-Hinduise our land alone would have to share the
blame. 

A nation lives on her traditions and culture and if a
majority is made to feel embarrassed about it, the
future would look like a Saudi kingdom, with 

a façade of faith but perpetually dependent on the
forces from abroad for its safety. 

Assuring Hindu dharma flower means supporting a
liberal, democratic space, a natural bastion of
freedom of thought, worship and speech. It 

abhors a mindset that stones a Rushdie image in
Islamabad or Teheran and asks for his head, no matter
our deep differences with his writings. 

In this beautiful earth, there is no alternative to
understanding others and helping them to know us
better through sublime, placid civil dialogue. 

Symbolically on one hand is the instrument of Yoga and
on the other are the nukes and Osama's bombs. The
choice is clear. 

The author is the Editor of Panchjanya, a Hindi weekly
brought out by the RSS. The views expressed are his
personal. 

(printed in Times of India, 4 July 2007)


		
__________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/


From amc at autonomous.org  Fri Jul  6 09:18:25 2007
From: amc at autonomous.org (amanda mcdonald crowley)
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 23:48:25 -0400
Subject: [Reader-list] Eyebeam Fellowship Applications online!
Message-ID: <F016DCF9-9553-4CB7-92E8-3BC226966204@autonomous.org>

Overview of Eyebeam Fellowships

The application process for Eyebeam's 2007/08 Fellowship program is  
currently open. The deadline for applications is August 6, 2007. All  
applicants will be informed of their application status by October 1,  
2007. The program duration is for 11 months, running from November to  
September.

Fellowships will be offered in the R&D OpenLab, the Production Lab  
and the Education Lab. The focus of the Fellowships varies depending  
on the tools and skills available and the creative objectives and  
philosophy of each Lab. Up to five Fellowships will be granted for  
2007/08.

http://www.eyebeam.org/production/production.php?page=felcall

For all of the Fellowships we are seeking applications from artists,  
hackers, designers, engineers and creative technologists to come to  
Eyebeam for a year to undertake new research and develop new work.  
The ideal Fellow has experience working with and making innovative  
technological art and/or creative technology projects and has a  
passion for collaborative development. Fellows will bring this  
experience and working approach to their own independent projects,  
projects initiated by other Residents or Fellows and projects  
conceived collaboratively during the Fellowship period.

Fellows are selected from an open call. International applicants are  
welcome to apply although we do not have the resources to provide  
travel or accommodation. We are happy to work with selected  
applicants, where required, to help them to secure funds to cover  
these expenses. International Fellows are responsible for securing  
their own visas for the Fellowship period.
Fellows receive a $30,000 stipend and health benefits during their  
stay. They are able to take on additional external teaching or  
consulting work, but there is an expectation that Fellows will be  
working at Eyebeam a minimum of four days a week.

Collaborative partnerships at Eyebeam will be fostered though group  
critiques, discussions and projects, within and between the lab  
environments and residency programs. Fellows also benefit from  
critiques, lectures and workshops by external practitioners chosen  
for their relationship to subjects and projects being worked on in  
the Labs.

All Fellows are encouraged to share their skills and knowledge with  
the larger Eyebeam community by conducting formal and/or informal  
workshops with others in the Labs as well as possible workshops open  
to the public. There are also opportunities to develop work for  
performance, events, seminars, exhibition or other public programming  
in the Eyebeam galleries (and beyond) during the term of the  
fellowship. Core to our principle at Eyebeam is the brokering of  
relationships between artists, hackers, coders, engineers and other  
creative technologists and the contexts we provide. The intention is  
to foster and facilitate relationships whereby technologists and  
artists can come together to germinate and hothouse their ideas,  
develop new processes and create new works through a period of  
immersion in a social context which is rich in technology, expertise  
and ideas.

Research Themes
We also support research groups to bring together creative  
practitioners working at Eyebeam as well as expert external  
participants. New research leads to possible public outcomes  
including seminars, public discussion and exhibition.

Research themes for 2007/08 include (though will not be limited to):
* Energy, Technology and Sustainability
* Urban research, urban interventions and media in public space
Artists and creative technologists interested in these research areas  
are particularly encouraged to apply for 2007/08 Fellowships.

Application Requirements
Applications received after the deadline of August 6, 2007, will not  
be accepted. All applications and work samples must be submitted  
through the online form. No exceptions will be made. You can create a  
user/password during the application process and log back into the  
server to update your application before the final deadline.

Complete applications must include the following information:
* Contact Information
* Resume or CV (rtf or pdf doc)
* Work samples in the form of URLs or uploaded media
    * Include a project description with your work sample that  
explains your contribution to the piece, how it was meant to be  
viewed and how it relates to your proposed project(s).
* Concise responses to all application questions

Incomplete applications will not be considered.
Please read the guidelines for each of the Fellowships carefully.  
Each working environment has different sets of tools and different  
mentors/trainers for these tools, so applicants should consider which  
environment will best suit their own needs and experience. However,  
all artists, technologists and residents have access to resources  
across all three labs and programs.
If you have any questions, please email fellowshipinfo at eyebeam.org.

Thanks, we are excited to hear from you!

http://www.eyebeam.org/production/production.php?page=felcall

--
EYEBEAM
540 W. 21st Street
New York, NY  10011, USA
T +1 - 212.937.6580
F +1 - 212.937.6582
amc at eyebeam.org
www.eyebeam.org




From skinnyghosh at gmail.com  Sun Jul  8 00:41:44 2007
From: skinnyghosh at gmail.com (sukanya ghosh)
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 00:41:44 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Indian Animation: a history?
Message-ID: <468FE570.1050600@gmail.com>



Indian Animation: a history?
----------------------------


The nature of my research and project centre around the question of an 
animation history in India. The problem situates itself with the asking 
of the question – where is our animation history and indeed is there 
one? I am an artist and animator and many things besides and the nature 
of my work has led me to investigate a little closely into tracing a 
sort of historical overview of animation within India. On finishing Art 
College and progressing to study animation at NID (the National 
Institute of Design) I remember, how as students we were confronted with 
being inducted into a discipline which did not seem to have a very long 
lineage. At the time, NID (the national institute of design) was fast 
approaching 30 years of existence and it seemed a shame that there was 
no public memory of all the works that had been produced over the years. 
Almost all other disciplines presume a certain basic tour through a 
history as an intrinsic part of the curriculum, and it seemed very 
strange to me that there was no such thing as far as animation. The 
seeds of this project surfaced with this idea, albeit manifesting itself 
as a concrete study more than twelve years hence.

The plot thickens with the idea of film history in India. Now animation, 
contrary to a certain popular belief is not entirely about cute bunnies 
and ‘caricature’. The word itself derives from the Latin verb ‘animare’ 
which means to give life. Animation film history runs parallel to the 
history of the moving image. In fact some would have it that while the 
Lumiere brothers took the innovation of cinema to a ‘realist’ stream, 
Inventors and innovators like Emile Kohl and George Melies took the path 
of ‘trick’ imagery and fantasy. Animation as we know it has moved along 
this tenuous path of various ‘trickfilms’, inventive gadgetry and 
experimentation – all with the purpose of moulding of manipulating image 
movement and time to create a different semantic pattern. It is 
interesting that this excitement with a new medium did in fact take 
place in India as well. In a country where we have no dearth of story 
telling methods, the cinematograph and the invention of cinema made way 
for various pioneers to experiment. Dadasaheb Phalke is credited with 
creating the first Animation film as early as 1912. The New Theatres 
joined the fray and soon followed with their own animation film as did 
Prabhat Film Company and Gemini studios etc. The really early history of 
Indian animation makes it even more mystifying as to why animation 
production didn’t quite progress in the same momentum.

Part of my project seeks to find answers to this by looking at the 
historical climate of the country during this time. Animation production 
continued but it was taken up by State run organizations and agencies as 
opposed to commercial cinema studios. Are we to then surmise that the 
direction that animation took from the 1940s is attributable to the 
larger task of nation building? The early traces of these survive in 
films such as “the war that never ends” a film directed by the wife of a 
certain captain Johnson who ran the old Army Cartoon Unit. Cartoons 
having lent themselves easily to mass communication have often found 
themselves the carriers of social messages – in this case the war 
against disease. If we were to take a cross section of Indians and ask 
them for one example they can think of for Indian animation – we would 
find that even now the ‘Ek Titli, Anek Titliyan’ song and film resounds 
in every one (those that is, that were around in the seventies and 
eighties and who would, no doubt add the ubiquitous slogan of ‘hum do, 
hamare do’ as a refrain). Looking closely, we find that animation in the 
years after independence was channelised into a certain kid of state run 
apparatus. The Cartoon Film Unit of The Films Division was set up in 
1948. The Films Division was the official film production apparatus of 
the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The Indo-US Technical Aid 
Programme of 1951 brought veteran Disney animator Claire weeks to India 
to train and create animation programmes. The Industrial Policy 
Resolution of 1953 led the Government of India to invite renowned 
designers Charles and Ray Eames. On the basis of their ‘The India 
Report', the National Institute of Design was set up in 1961. All these 
initiatives and more such as the Doordarshan supported and produced 
animation.
I will attempt to trace how these developments changed the course of 
animation history in the country. How from a vibrant medium full of 
possibilities it became the more staid handmaiden of social awakening. 
How the movement and growth of animation film design became embroiled in 
the larger canvas of the developmental ideal. How from artistic 
possibilities the shift was made towards a pragmatic truth. And of 
course how the last decade or so has seen the first public stirrings of 
the animated film in India. And how even this reflects in a sense the 
changing climate of our country. And how somewhere in this shaky 
trajectory of the animated film lies the faint shadow of the growth and 
development of a country.

----------------
Sukanya Ghosh
Calcutta


From apnawritings at yahoo.co.in  Sun Jul  8 18:24:40 2007
From: apnawritings at yahoo.co.in (ARNAB CHATTERJEE)
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2007 13:54:40 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Reader-list] TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE PERSONAL: IF Post 5
Message-ID: <69457.87708.qm@web8505.mail.in.yahoo.com>

 
          TOWARDS A THEORY OF THE PERSONAL

Dear Readers, 
 
           After hinting at a historical
reconstruction of the personal as pre-private and
pre-public in my last post ( 30 June, 07), it would be
interesting to examine if the distinction can be
sustained theoretically as well. Here I shall pursue
it in a short and sharp manner. 
          In my subsequent posts I shall pursue how
personalist social work embodied these lessons in
colonial Kolkata; put briefly, in the coming posts
I’ll start deploying the paradigm I’ve proposed.
1. Personal as pre-private : A theoretical detour
          Notice that when we were revisiting the
etymological meaning of private and public, we didn’t
refer to person or personal. But if we had done so,
personal-private difference would be restored even in
that. Person deriving from old Latin persona meant
mask, particularly one worn by an actor; personal also
derived from the same persona. Now one reason for
wearing this mask was to enable the audience to
identify the character’s personality, who -  because
of the distance, could not always traverse it
visually. Therefore while private meant (often) a
solitary  existence removed from the  public life,
person or personal grew up in response to a collective
audience—in communicative complicity. Armed with this
one insight as a flicker , now we are able to expand
on the distinction theoretically:    
                         

            Here we are approaching then—a theory of
the personal.   But because the personal appears lost
in the private, what is central to my work is the
distancing of the person-al from the private since,
having been embodied in the private it is used
interchangeably with the private as a similar register
of opposition to the Public. So before we begin let us
rehearse at the cost of uneasy boredom, the standard
usages that Private and Public have assumed: Public in
the west is built into the optic of the ‘public
sphere’- where public opinion is formed through the
mediation of publicity forms and  is connected to
certain forms of representation, deliberation and
political authority. Private (sphere) follows by
entailing things that are not to be publicized in a
particular sense. Private is in opposition to the
public in the sense it suspends the formal equality of
all before law and entails things which will not be
shared with the public; in fact it opposes and
excludes the public and what wonder that the family
organized around private property, sex to that of
correspondence and conversation over telephone give  a
content to the private and privacy. 
       So we begin by exploring the personal –private
difference (1.1) and then chart it vis-a- vis the
public (2.2) to complete the triangle; (Endnotes are
in bracketed numbers ).

      1.1 Let us then try at first to  validate the
personal-private difference  by deploying the best
contemporary classic discussion of privacy.
                   W.A Parent’s landmark paper titled
‘Privacy, Morality, and the Law’ ( Parent, 1983.)
published in the journal  Philosophy and Public
Affairs is memorable for many reasons. One of them is
of course that he  demolishes here all  the classic
comfortable notions ( some of  which I’ve used above )
of privacy we had taken for granted. Here is a short
synopsis of his destruction: one, “Privacy consists of
being let alone.” Parent argues, there are “
innumerable ways of failing to let a person alone
which have nothing to do with his privacy. Suppose,
for instance, that A clubs B on the head or repeatedly
insults him. We should describe and evaluate such
actions by appeal to concepts like force, violence,
and harassment ” (272); not the violation of privacy.
Two, “ Privacy consists of a form of autonomy or
control over significant personal matters.” Parent
wonders at the example of a person who voluntarily
divulges all sorts of intimate, personal, and
undocumented information about himself to a friend.
She is doubtless exercising control
But we would not
and should not say that in doing so she is preserving
or protecting her privacy. On the contrary, she is
voluntarily relinquishing much of her privacy. People
can and do choose to give up privacy for many reasons
” (273). Third, “ Privacy is the limitation on access
to the self.” Parent retorts by saying if by access we
mean physical proximity or an exemption from snooping
or surveillance, then solitude or peace could be more
viable alternatives. But is peace or solitude privacy?
No, because “ 
it confuses privacy with the
existential conditions that are necessary for its
realization. To achieve happiness I must have some
good luck, but this doesn’t mean that happiness is
good luck. Similarly, if I am to enjoy privacy there
have to be limitations on cognitive access to me, but
these limitations are not themselves privacy. Rather
privacy is what they safe guard ” (275). Now having
demolished nearly all of the received definitions of 
privacy, Parent comes out with a terse formulation of
his own  definition of privacy  which survives, and I
think quite plausibly,  the above objections.  “
privacy is the condition of not having undocumented
personal knowledge  about one possessed by others. A
person’s privacy is diminished exactly to the degree
that others possess this kind of knowledge about him ”
(269). Parent adds, “What I am defining is the
condition of privacy not the  right of privacy” (269).
Let us just take hold of the word personal in the
above definition. What is personal here is that which
is a prior condition of privacy. Personal may provide
the private or privacy with a content but personal is
not privacy. Nothing can be the condition of something
unless it is different from that which is  being
provided with the condition by courtesy of the former
or unless we are ready to mess up, in the most 
unphilosophical manner, the precondition of a
definition with the definition itself. 
 
                                      
  1.2   Now, if I’m correct to argue the personal as
the theoretical (and not only historical) precondition
of the private, let me include here the other
indispensable algorithm of the binary: public and
expand this to a full formulation.
                
i) PERSONAL IS PHENOMENOLOGICAL, PRIVATE/PUBLIC ARE
POLITICAL  : We are aware of the criteria for public
and private. Private/public are stable categories
which are defined by legal-juridical indexes and
people go to court for redress if they feel violated
(2). But genuine personal matters like that of love or
/and friendship (3)  cannot be legislated and are not 
subject of litigation. There is a unique uncertainty
and indeterminacy associated with the decision or the
destiny of a person in these cases (nobody knows
whether A loves B—even B does not) --which makes it a
phenomenological ( 4 )notion and not a political one. 

ii)  PRIVATE IS OPPOSED TO THE PUBLIC, PERSONAL IS NOT
: Personal unlike the private is not necessarily
opposed to the public. I might choose somebody to be
my lover, it’s my personal choice and I might want to
declare my choice to the public, this makes  love  a
personal relationship, and not a private one. Consider
more examples: When “personal attacks” are made in
politics they may not intrude into somebody’s sacred
domain of privacy but are essentially directed against
a person and in this sense they are personal attacks.
I have a personal opinion and who stops me from
uttering it to the T.V interviewer ? But consider sex,
sex is private in the sense I cannot choose to have
sex in the public or  consider  private property which
 is famous for its exclusion of the public.

iii) PERSON/PERSONAL ARE NOT SPHERES LIKE THE PRIVATE
AND THE PUBLIC: The interesting point is, while
public/private spheres are categories that are tied to
certain phenomenon; ‘personal’ is a category that is
peculiarly tied to the ‘person’; there is no ‘sphere’
(5 ) which is or ought to be  explanatively employed
here. ( Sphere, etymologically, is referred to an area
of activity and  public/private arenas do refer to a
collection of actions whereas the personal refers to
the agency  of these actions (6). We may be fathers in
our private sphere and officers in the public office,
but a person is not simply a father or an officer. We
might perform our public or private actions but a
person cannot be reduced to these actions. He is both
a father and an officer and more. A dangerous mafia
outside may be a caring father at home. That in the
agency of his person he combines these irreconcilable
roles or differentiates them and the way he does it
constitutes the personal  agency of the person (See
CONCLUSION for a debatable clarification on this). 
 
 iv) PERSONAL IS BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC AND/OR 
BEYOND: Let us remember that in Indian law the
personal is defined as anything referring to a
person—they may be private matters or public affairs.
In this sense personal is both public and private. A
person  at times is a private person or assumes 
public roles.  But as s/he belongs to both it can be
as well argued that s/he belongs exclusively to
neither. Or again, belongs to both by virtue of
crossing both these floors time and again. And as such
the personal  becomes a third not reducible to the two
other registers. It is impossible to reduce it to
private/public  functions because it is able to grasp
and escape both  limits at the same time.   

CONCLUSION

           A lot can be talked about  the implications
of  the proposal I’ve outlined above. But instead as a
provocative sample I want to submit before you as I’ve
already hinted in ( above iii) why irreconcilable role
definitions are better described through personal
agency and not identity as proposed by Amartya Sen
et.al. This is also to confront and urge a rethinking
on the  rubric of identity and identity politics to
day through the personal.
                        So yes, following from iii
above
.I start by asserting that personal “agency” and
not identity as Amartya Sen (Sen 2006)  argues (and
I’m aware of our Shuddhabrata Sengupta’s celebration
of Sen’s book in Outlook but because I “know” the
compulsions on us to be   politically correct while we
write or speak  in the media, I’m granting him the
benefit of doubt; and if he still holds on to  his
celebration of Sen’s argument, I hope there will be a
dialogue;).
                  To resume
personal “agency” and not
identity as Amartya Sen (Sen 2006)  argues; neither it
is, I assume the issue of ‘limited autonomy’ we enjoy
regarding our choice of temporality (for instance
‘past’) as Dipesh Chakraborty pointed out as a
rebuttal of Ashis Nandy’s alleged excessive
voluntarism in regard to traditions. I think what
happens here is that a sociological register is being
mixed up with a (social) philosophical one. Role, role
taking, hypothetical role taking, role reversal etc
are all sociological determinants emerging in response
to the “functional differentiation” of society;
identity is a classical philosophical problem which
can be—I’m afraid, appropriated in Sociology with an
unprofessed naivete. Classical identity questions were
not brought to solve role conflicts. Put briefly, the
fact that I’m a father at home, and an officer at the
office does not entail I’ve two identities or multiple
identities here (and therefore I be tolerant about
others); Now (granting this technical mix up a
breather) given the classical formulation of identity
in philosophy (Partha Chatterjee did invoke it in
Princely Impostor)   —it is the question of
uninterrupted continuity that matters i.e., my sure
transition from this role to that role will sustain my
identity ( or unless the man who has undergone
functional abnormalcy or the so called “mad” have real
multiple identities). This will not be possible with
an absolute identification or total immersion in a
particular role or else, as we know, a Salesman, in an
economic delirium as if, will use the language of
selling love to his wife at home or an attractive
woman -- after having had (lets add this) domestic
confirmation, will be sure about seducing the Boss to
go up and up (for the latest elongated statement on
such matters, you’ve already seen ‘Life in a Metro’).
Now, that becomes only possible when there is a lack
of identification rather than identification as such.
This gives the power to feign and cheat others (as
told before, this is ‘the governance by fraud’ which I
place before the ‘governance by force’ or ‘the
governance by consent’) as well as subscribe to
purposive truthfulness. Now, we can guess why we do
not succeed with honesty in daily life, honesty as the
practical maxim of truth is based on a total positive,
normative identification with a norm or a rule; when
it promises rights, it offers them. But Hegel, you’ll
remember, defined fraud as giving the semblance of
rights rather than the rights themselves to the 
recipient   who has the mistaken contention all the
while that he is being offered the right thing. This
successful and enabling (!) lack of identification
could not be a place-holder for the phrase ‘identity’;
one could as well term it Dis-Identity or
Non-Identity. What we are rejecting then is an
absolute lack or an absolute identification with a
particular role, and given our everyday life, we
master or learn to master, more or less the
manipulation or maneuver of these and ‘continue’
without interruption; our corresponding success or
failure depends much on this.   Now, who does this--
this is the question. I’ll answer: the person. And if
it is that then I’m perhaps right in using personal
‘agency’ (where identification, disidentification and
the manuevre are present in their rational and/or
irrational combinations) and not personal ‘identity.’ 

            Identity when reduced to such sociological
questions of functional role assumptions has also
given rise to other misunderstandings sans Amartya
Sen:  for instance toleration emerging from so called
‘multiple identities’ (!). The answer is, if there is
a constant lack of identification with each of my
roles (well again - wrongly   ‘ identities’), there is
a constant dis-identification at work (and why not)
with other similar or dissimilar people. Now to what
extent this would be tolerated and not is an empirical
question and cannot be solved philosophically or
predicted sociologically. (The case of Cho Seung-hui’
and the Virginia Tech Massacre is a case in point.)And
wh