Brexit 38 Ryszard Kapuściński, The Other (London: Verso 2018), p.51 Condensing a lifetime of travel journalism Ryszard Kapuściński outlines his experience of other through the reactions he has had himself during his lifetime being an empathic insider as E Relph would call it. This has taken him out of his European roots to worlds wider than the west, making him come to almost despise the concept of Nationalism. This is because the ‘dangerous feature of nationalism is that an inseparable part of it is hatred for an Other’ where the other becomes this deformed mass that has no name, has no profession, has no age, for Ryszard, he would simply become a Pole. He notes that others always have a sensitivity towards skin colour and uses the example of children in Uganda were fascinated by his skin tone, touching him and checking to see if they also turned white…. Where the feeling was a sense of tension for him and others at this moment, they were both others surrounded by other others. Ryszard Kapuściński largely discusses this chapter in a philosophical sense pulling from real world experience. For example he documents the wests actions during the Iranian revolution, where there was an absence of western reporters and writers, almost as if the western world was ignoring a world drama even in the wake of this new globalization taking place where the human population of the world map changed in a near overnight event during the 20th century. This ignorance to third world events meant that this new world of a globality still remains in the 19th century where ‘researching’ ‘interpreting philosophies’ ‘fathoming’ ‘thinking and way of life remains in the hands of a narrow group of specialists.’ This would suggest that it distorts the true nature and explains the idea also discussed by E Relph of the mass image. Thus, making an autonomous homogenic state that appears to be one thing without real life events, real life dramas and real people. He sees the world as a real life Tower of Babel, all striving for power, where god has not just mixed language,
A discursive Narrative to wards it’s future 39 but culture, customs, passions and interest, a far more complex group all seeking their own agenda generated by their identities; this then creates a tower of his own and the alien. This suggest that there is going to be a power struggle forever, a capitalistic like structure governing the ways we do things, forever, unless we come up with a ‘new theory for the human soul’ as Francis Fukuyama would put it, where we all understand that there is ‘Great human family that we all belong to’. By being an atheist Kapuściński has realized that his other for example when he is asked do you believe in god, is, someone ‘who believes deeply in the existence of an extra-corporeal world, an extra material world.’ Something that is true to the other, but not to him, a difference. This difference is a heterotopian divide, as seen by Foucault, suggesting that with others in the presence of self, we perhaps exist in the heterotopia and the real is the illusion, by way of examples such as ‘democracy and totalitarianism’
Ryszard Kapuściński, The Other (London: Verso 2018), p.63 The ‘Other in The Global Village’ is primarily concerned with ‘Philosophy of dialogue’ and the ‘The philosophy of encounter’ in a world that has been dominated by the European culture for the past five centuries. Due to controversial way European culture has been overbearing of others it has led ‘The philosophy of encounter’ ignoring race, religion or culture alike. Resulting in a distorted image, and now marginalized groups are demanding a seat at the global round table (figure of speech) that has up until this point been primarily occupied by the European and American factions, in the face of technological advancements. Advances in communication has made our multicultural world more obvious and ubiquitous Kapuściński argues, humiliating the Other. While it is important to note the other at every step Kapuściński, is careful to realizes he comes from this western faction of ‘we = Europeans’ where in the closed mindedness of old we thought it to men we = the world and makes note that Philosophy of dialogue is now being questioned by ongoing historical changes. This historical change is in the light of media and communications where people such as Marshall McLuhan started to dream and fantasize of a global village, where people truly new each other, on a global scale but is now more like an anonymous crowd at an airport that are mutually indifferent and ignorant, where dialogue is absent even in the presence of encounters. Was discussed at great length in this chapter, when considering the world that was filled with selfishness and greedy consumerism predominately expressed through the western mass image, however over and over again in this culture we move on rarely uncovering any identity of person or object alike as we continually are wanting to move on to the next best thing. It suggests that we look forward so much to what we want that we never look around to our neighbour or even to our past, even globalized media Kapuściński argues that it’s becoming shallower, more incoherent and confused. There is an absence of ethics, an absence of consideration towards
the other. ‘I know that I am because I know another is’, this quote offers identity through the act of turning towards an Other and becoming acquainted with them, and through dialogue as ‘man is a creature that talks’ we learn about ourselves by learning of an Other. However, suggest this practice throughout history shows at ‘first moment, as a first reflex a person reacts to an Other with reserve and restraint, mistrust or plain reluctance, or even with hostility.’ Written in the mid 2000’s Kapuściński pulls from real world events in a European lens torn between capitalism and communism in Poland, where technology is steaming ahead with advancements at the cost of the human soul among so many more things. This thinking of the enslavement of the human soul goes along with the concepts of mass taste (or lack of), mass hysteria, mass paranoia and finally mass murder, this was supported the treatment of a extremely brief look into Jewish philosophers such as Hannah Ardent, someone who was actively involved with Heidegger, who sympathized with the Nazi regime, who took identity to new lows with the treatment of (and I hate to say in this way) the Jewish people, with the mechanism of propaganda via film radio and print media.