Song of the Day: We Are Young by Fun.

Lyrics:

Perlawanan terhadap konsep Panopticon: Saat Mahasiswa Biologi UI terlampau Kesal pada Dosennya

Hari kamis tanggal 3 Oktober kemarin, yang mengisi mata kuliah Filsafat Ilmu Pengetahuan adalah Pak Harmoko. Subjek kuliah saat itu adalah tentang konsep Panopticon. Awalnya Panpticon ini hanyalah suatu bangunan penjara berbentuk memutar, dengan sebuah tiang pengawasan berada tepat di tengah-tengah nya. Penjara ini dibuat sedemikian rupa hingga seluruh ruang dalam penjara dapat terlihat dari menara pengawas, yang kemudian mengakibatkan para narapidana untuk selalu menaati peraturan karena mereka selalu merasa diawasi setiap waktu, meskipun tidak jelas apakah menara pengawas itu memang selalu ada yang mengawasi.

Bentuk penjara Panopticon, dgn menara pengawas di tengahnya:

Salah satu ilustrasi sel penjara dalam Panopticon:

Pendeknya, Panopticon itu adalah konsep pengawasan yang tidak terlihat.

Nah, konsep tentang "perasaan selalu diawasi" ini banyak contohnya dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Contohnya: Inspeksi mendadak, atau juga ujian mendadak, maksudnya agar dipaksa untuk belajar terus.

Tapi harus di ingat juga, dimana ada penindasan, pasti ada resistansi atau perlawanan. Seperti contohnya, saat seorang dosen berkata, "Saya kalau ujian tidak akan memberitahu." Tapi karena sudah berulangkali belajar tapi tak kunjung ujian juga, mahasiswa nya pun menyatakan, "Terserah! Mau ujian atau tidak, malas!"

Itu adalah salah satu bentuk reaksi dari residivis XD

Kemudian ada juga cerita tentang seorang Dosen biologi killer. Karena Dosen ini begitu tegasnya, begitu galak dan killer-nya, maka para mahasiswa nya pun tidak main-main saat mata kuliah dosen ini. Pada saat ujian, karena begitu takutnya pada si Dosen ini, seorang mahasiswa memaksakan diri belajar hingga pukul 3-4 pagi.

Waktu jam 8 pagi, sudah harus ujian. Saat ujian, dosennya hanya membawa kurungan burung, jumlahnya 5, ditutupi dengan kain, hanya kelihatan kakinya, lalu soal ujiannya cuma 1 :'Dengan melihat kaki, burung apa ini?'

Ya jelas yang belajar sampai jam 3 pagi marah sekali. Langsung demonstrasi dengan merobek-robek kertas ujian dia.

Dosennya marah. Bilang, "Kok berani-beraninya kamu. Siapa kamu?"

Mahasiswa nya pergi.

Dosennya marahin lagi. "Siapa kamu?!"

Mahasiswa nya tetap pergi.

Dosennya bilang, "Berhenti! BERHENTI!"

Mahasiswa itupun bernenti.

"Siapa kamu?!!"

Lalu mahasiswa itu langsung mengangkat celana panjangnya, menunjukkan kakinya. "Lihat kaki saya. Tebak nama saya."


XDDD

Dewa banget dah ni mahasiswa biologi XD

Song of the Day: I Will Wake (Avicii Ft Aloe Blacc X Mumford & Sons)

Lyrics:

Everyday Culture: On Local and Popular Culture

Hearing those two words, ‘Everyday’ and ‘Culture’, mentioned together, at first I felt it was rather redundant, as initially I thought the everyday, by which I meant the things we do in our everyday life, was already an inseparable part of culture, one of the elements that made up a culture, and therefore by just mentioning the word ‘culture’ alone, I felt it was already sufficient. Then I realized my initial thought was, while not necessarily wrong, only true to certain extent. And as I delved further into the subject of Everyday Culture, I found many of my preconception ideas about my daily life being reconstructed, as I learned that the things that I used to take for granted was actually products of carefully constructed systems. So Far, I am most fascinated by the concept of ideology as explained in Martin’s book.

In his book, Martin states that ideology is the network of ideas and beliefs through which culture and its members order, represent and make sense of reality (Martin, 2003:17). In short, ideology is our way of making sense of our reality. I have to say, this definition is quite enlightening to me, as I used to understand ideology as something abstract, an idea that felt so far beyond my reach it might as well be untouchable. That was mainly because the most I heard the word ‘ideology’ was usually from the television, and the ones who uttered it were politically-inclined-people, such as members of the government body, or legislative representatives. While it was also true that ideology as an idea was included in High School textbook material, the fact that the concept itself was only mentioned, and not explained, certainly did not help my understanding. From the time I was just an Elementary School student, all the way through High School and even in certain subjects in University, I’ve been told over and over that as an Indonesian, my ideology is—or, more correctly, has to be—Pancasila. Honestly, as I understood it at the time, ideology was the underlying reason we did what we did, the invisible force that made us do anything. By that logic, as an Indonesian, it meant that Pancasila should have been the reason for everything I did. But I felt rather disconnected, since I did not think the things I did actually had much to do with Pancasila at all. That also made me feel that maybe, I did not have an ideology after all, since I thought that Pancasila was a set of rules, a set of perfect ideals that I could not live up to. I also started to think that since Pancasila was quite hard to live up to, that maybe Pancasila was just there only as a concept, and was actually quite useless in practice—which, in effect, made me think that ideology was also just that: a set of ideas, and nothing more.

One of the reason I find Martin’s concept, where ideology acts as something that grounds everything we think, do and say (2003:22) fascinating is precisely because he offers how ideology is invisible, how the subjects of ideology themselves may not realize it, and how, basically, it would be quite improbable to be without an ideology. I think, the way Martin explains it, ideology is something that we unconsciously absorb through continuous exposure through various mediums. I say unconsciously here, because we may not always be aware of the underlying ideology in the things we are exposed to in our everyday life. Take for example, the advertisements for women’s beauty product such as Pond’s ™. While the advertisement forms and plots may differ from time to time, all those advertisements have the same underlying concept: that unless you have white, clear skin, you would not be able to attract men. Those advertisements also seem to suggest that women would only try to fix or beautify themselves in order to get men to notice them. On the surface, these advertisements are only trying to convince you to buy their products; but on the other side, the choice of models, fashion styles as well as storylines may contribute to the overall ideology presented in the final products, which sometimes, could be wholly different from the product’s concept altogether. I also belief that even the products’ promoter themselves may not be fully aware of the ideology behind their advertisements. Of course, this is only one of the examples of how an ideology could not always be found on the surface, that you may have to look closer in order to see it at all. It should also be noted that our background, be it social or educational, would affect the ideology that we think we perceive.

Ideology is, according to Martin (2003), a way for us to make sense of our reality. In my opinion, when you are trying to promote an ideology, it is better to promote it in the subtle way, just like Pond’s ™ advertisements I briefly illustrated above, rather than by forcefully feeding it, like the way the ideology of Pancasila has been shoved down our throats since we were little. At least in my experience, despite the fact that I’ve been exposed to Pancasila for most of my life, I only feel detachment and disconnection when I hear or read the word Pancasila, when it actually should have made me feel nationalistic, like it (perhaps) originally intended.



Reference:
Martin, F. (2003). Interpreting Everyday Culture. London: Edward Arnold Ltd.

Song of the Day: Just One Yesterday by Fall Out Boy

Lyrics:

A Brief Introduction to Gothic

When the word ‘gothic’ is mentioned, a number of things immediately come to mind, such as fashion or music style. Even to those who barely know anything about the term itself, the word ‘gothic’ tends to remind some people of the color black, of something unordinary and different from the norm. According to Stevens (2000), the word ‘gothic’ originally came from the word ‘goths’, a term used to be associated with some Germanic tribes involved in the disintegration of the Roman Empire, before it was adopted by Anglo-Saxon in British isles in reference to the rebellion against tyranny at the time. By the 18th century, the term gothic had become a tradition that may refer to the idea of a convergence between religious belief, aesthetic taste, and political inclination—as the term often associated with an upheaval against those currently in powers.

As a tradition, gothic has embedded itself in various means, such as literature, art, architecture, music, film, or fashion. While the development of gothic from its beginning until 19th century may be traced through literature, art, and architecture, by the 20th century, it has expanded to other medium, such as fashion, music and film. This expansion means a shift in the definition of the term itself, and nowadays, rather than the rebellion against those in powers, the term gothic refers more to the mysterious, unexplainable, or scary things, including, for example, supernatural elements. As the Merriam-Webster online dictionary stated, one of the definitions of the word gothic is a style of fiction characterized by the use of desolate or remote settings and macabre, mysterious, or violent incidents.

As has been mentioned, one of the medium for gothic tradition, most notably in 20th century, is movies. Even in the beginning, movies based on gothic elements were so popular it created its own genre called gothic movie genre. One of the first gothic movies ever made was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, made in 1919. Although it was provided to horror audience, considering the gothic elements and the way the movie relied more on the dark atmosphere and emotional impact, this movie could also be considered a gothic movie. It should also be noted that nearly all movies that centered a vampire could be included on the gothic movie category. As for the recent gothic movies, both incarnation of Batman Series, be it by the hand of director Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan, could be considered gothic movies (Burton even more than Nolan), as both series have the dark, gloomy atmosphere, creepy castle, tragic death, emotional impact and sometimes the blurry line between good and evil, as is the characteristic of gothic genre in general.

Considering their similarities, such as affixation with death, it could be hard to differentiate gothic movies from horror movies. According to Derek M. Kwait, gothic movies have certain characteristics that differentiate them from other movie genres:
• atmosphere
• introspective characters
• death
• grotesque

In a way, it may be said that the easiest way to distinguish gothic from horror is by measuring the amount of emotional impact and/or the gore that could be felt/seen in a movie. If the amount of gore is felt to be greater than the emotional impact, then the movie could be considered a horror movie and not a gothic movie.

Reference

Stevens, David. 2000. The Gothic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kwait, Derek M. http://entertainmentguide.local.com/gothic-movie-5678.html Demand Media. (Accessed in 22 February 2012)
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gothic (Accessed in 22 February 2012)
Nayha, Antti . 1996. http://www.student.oulu.fi/~sairwas/frameX/horror/ (Accessed in 22 February 2012)