Thursday 17 May 2018

Baffling Structure of Academia: A case against Certificatory Sovereignty

Life was vibrantly alive when we as the human animal had less tendency to ponder upon structure or institutions but to run after "bio-energy", like a "noble savage" (Rousseau, A discourse upon the origin of inequality) used to travel after many a uncertain truths, without thinking about velocity, mass, or gravitation. Life was difficult and, of course every difficult thing was life. It was a brave new world, conceptualized through the classical European philosophical tradition which converted "Human" into Citizen, if I may add further, "Human Resources". Then the epistemological convergence of "Nature", which was conceptualized in Oriental tradition as sacred; an organic life, into "natural resources" (Aqeel Bilgrami, Secularism, Identity, and Disenchantment), that was a strategic move to master, not only nature as the natural resources, but to fellow humans as the object to be exploited. This convergence was the degradation of Life, from ferociousness to mastery or expertise (Rousseau, The First Discourse), whereby "others" lost the very subjectivity, the voice, and was reduced into mere subalternatity (Antonio Gramci, Prison Notebook).

Slavery was the outcome of this way of thinking, similarly bureaucracy was encouraged, to sustain and to maintain various hegemonic structures, encompassing Feudalism, Capitalism, and Neo-Liberalism. Life was moving into no direction, but trapped in  "State of indistiction between hope and despair" (Georgio Agamben, Homo Sacer). However, certifications flourished everywhere to certify all the academic and moral intellects, even though, apparently missing or visible at first reading (by love or suspicion). Life in a modern society is "bare life" (Georgio Agamben, Homo Sacer) without ornamental certificatory Sovereignty. Academic Structure is proudly staring at everyone whoever is asking for its accessibility. After all certificates are here to be materialized and life is here to be realized.

Posted by: Mrityunjay Kumar Singh
Research Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi.

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