Bit o rant never hurt anyone... 

PREAMBLE: What do I do?!! I ask myself this while being in a break, probably a permanent one from any formal studies (not giving up on self- cultivation though). It's for the first time that I don't want to be enrolled in any form of study anymore, but do things my way; while at it, I decided to go through some popular art productions. For a change. Take off the ''thinking cape/hat/whatever'' and ..chill (I'm grinning...really??!).
 Yet...it seems that I cannot relax and empty my mind by watching films or reading books. I shouldn't wonder anymore about that, I guess I must finally accept that this is who I am and stop worrying I don't relax (i.e. forget about myself) whilst watching a film, for example...since this ''not so relaxed'' position doesn't tire me and I take pleasure in it. Ah well, of films I wish to rant a bit today, so let me roll down by the river (Lethe? :) ).

ONE: *Imagine the Imperial March as musical background*
Star Wars - surely I enjoyed the trilogy. Naturally, I've had lots of fun, admired the imagery, digested easily the simple dialogue, appreciated the artistry of film making and on the whole I loved (finally) watching it - yeah, yeah, I know, better later than never. I actually thought for a while that full relaxation worked!!!! BUT! I couldn't stop thinking of the Freudian echoes in the plot: the father complex, initially appearing in the plot in its most postmodern form - i. e.  the absence of the father).
How about the Jungian archetypes? Luke Skywalker corresponds to the archetype of the hero (which he shares with Han Solo), as much as to the Orphan; he's also a representation of the Self, his quest and individuation path being quite clearly portrayed, just as much as he chooses the Shadow exploration, not to mention his Anima, found in Princess Leia. The Sage part goes to Obi Wan Kenobi, while the Magician is our good old dear Yoda...is it hard to imagine who's the Ruler as well as the Villain figure? Good, you just won a light saber from me (to be collected imaginarily).
Hmm, if I think more I might as well shoot straight to the animal archetypes, but which in the series are replaced by...well, other types of ''people'': ''the faithful dog'' - Chewbacca (hmm, in some ways R2-D2 as well), ''the enduring horse'' - R2-D2 and ''the devious cat''- C-3PO...OK, stopping here, my wires are burning and next film is knocking an exhausted neuron already. So...

TWO:
Blade Runner. With watching this one, I had the intense sensation of ''I know, I know! Let me say it !", only because to me it seemed obvious that the Replicants were some kind of Nietzschean Übermensch, a transition form from man to robot (which I hope it's not visionary). Moreso, staying in the same nietzscean vein, isn't it the killing of the Father (the Creator of the Nexus 6 replicants) the death of God about which the philosopher spoke about? The twilight of gods, leaving behind nothing but chaos and individuality in its struggle to identify itself and create a new world in which to fit , bla, blaaa , blaaa - that's how I've thought while watching the whole film. More blaa and bleah and blaarrgh.  But before finishing this, it's Rick Deckard turn to be tagged: postmodern hero in search of his own identity. Looks like the debate if he's a replicant himself or not, is still going on...is it? Not?
In looking for the correct spelling of Deckard, I looked on Google and surprise, surprise: I'm not the first to talk about Blade Runner in Nietzscean terms. Well done, kiddo. Now relax, it's dinner time and no replicants to take it away from you.
May the Force be with you all!

THE SHORTENED VERSION OF :

Foucault and Nietzsche on progress

Foucault and Nietzsche are the two thinkers who stand as marking figures in mapping the genealogies of unconventional phenomena, in an anti-Enlightenment vein, taking off the coat of Hegelian and Marxist thought, yet making use of historical facts to prove and to stress these important phenomena which affected the history and still continues to do so (the past exists in the present through its consequences). Both take pot shots at sacred cows, as for example Nietzsche in developing criticism on the genealogy of morals (criticizing religion, philosophers etc.), or Foucault in aiming at reason, confinement and punishment, madness or sexuality. The two are diagnosing the evolution of these phenomena and the way they have changed over time, criticizing in fact that which is called progress, in terms of power relations that affect society, seeing it as a source of regression rather than something constructive (which the word ''progress'' implies). But that is what they meet in with; in what the two differ though, and naturally so given the distance in time at which they lived and wrote their works, is that Foucault's discourse is more sociologically aimed at, whereas Nietzsche's stays in the realm of the abstract and philosophical ideas in expressing his views.

Progress, seen as a trap in which we ensnare ourselves is no strange idea for the two thinkers.

Firstly, Nietzsche shows how institutions were seen as a sign of progress in society  and how they inscribed themselves into the frame of creditor-debtor relation, using punishment as a way of keeping control, altering over time and leading to a destructiveresult which is nothing but progress; once a relation of power is established, he coins, the alteration of that relation comes with a loss of utility and the purpose for which that relation was established, fails in how it affects people: one greater power ruling over the rest doesn't equal progress (as history has shown us so many times, with deceptive results) – it leads to death/ destruction:

''(...) the “development” of a thing, a practice, or an organ has nothing to do with its progressus [progress] towards a single goal, even less is it the logical and shortest progressus reached with the least expenditure of power and resources(...) What I wanted to say is this: the partial loss of utility, decline, and degeneration, the loss of meaning, and purposiveness, in short, death, also belong to the conditions of a real progressus [progress], which always appears in the form of a will and a way to a greater power and always establishes itself at the expense of a huge number of smaller powers. The size of a “step forward” can even be estimated by a measure of everything that had to be sacrificed to it.'' (Nietzsche in the ''Second Essay: Guilt, Bad Conscience, and Related Matters'')

Secondly, Foucault bases his observations on cases throughout history, pointing out the manner in which the progress and its tools, i.e. institutions proved to play a marking role in the regression I mentioned before, although, the appeareance of these institutions was inevitable. Such is the case he discuses in ''The Great Confinement'', about the first mental institution in France (L'Hopital General), an institutional structure which reminds of Nietzsche's creditor-debtor relation and its inevitable, yet not progressive consequences :

"(...) the unemployed person was no longer driven away or punished; he was taken in charge, at the expense of the nation but at the cost of his individual liberty. Between him and society, an implicit system of obligation was established: he had the right to be fed, but he must accept the physical and moral constraint of confinement.''  p. 48

Foucault points out further these consequences and how their meaning in society, defining confinement in its full societal implication:

''(...)  confinement acquired another meaning. Its repressive function was combined with a new use. It was no longer merely a question of confining those out of work, but of giving work to those who had been confined and thus making them contribute to the prosperity of all. The alternation is clear: cheap manpower in the periods of full employment and high salaries; and in periods of unemployment, reabsorption of the idle and social protection against agitation and uprisings.'' (p. 51)

Just like Nietzsche he doesn't forget to point out how the church played its role in the Classical age as a tool of control, taking part alongside the hospital (mental asylums in effect, with more or less mentally ill people)  in the bourgeois ''machinery'' which sought to separate things for their own good and comfort, a city life machine in which the poor and the sick were no good (read ''useful''); institutionalising morality,exercising power through confinement with the intention of progressing the society came not without risks or repercusions which exist still. 

Works cited:

1. Foucault, M. - ''The Great Confinement'' , Madness and Civilisation, A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Vintage Books (a division of Random House, New York)

2. Nietzsche, F.  ''Second Essay: Guilt, Bad Conscience, and Related Matters'', On the Genealogy of Morals, A Polemical Tract (  http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogytofc.htm)

Yet another assignment (lost track of which I posted or not - but being that the PoMo course is ending these days, I have to pay some tribute to it) ........ 

In what follows, my endeavour is to depict briefly how Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-reliance ideas inscribe in the line started by one of the marking figures of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. By comparing Kant's work What is Enligtenment? and Emerson's essay (on) Self-Reliance, it cannot be denied the common ground from which the two thinkers started their work (and how some of their ideas converge), nor can be ignored the step further made by Emerson in showing how  individuals can eiberate themselves from societal chains and conformity through self- trust and believing in themselves.
Enlightenment is man's leaving his self caused-immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another.,  coined Kant in his important work What is Enlightenment?, pointing out to the individual's strive in the cultivation of the mind and acquisition of knowledge, as important assets in becoming enlightened, in becoming free from any form of guidance (being that political, religious, etc.) and emergence out of being a ''minor'' as he called those who accept as given what other inflict as accepted teachings on them with the direct consequence of persisting in the mediocrity of imitation. Emerson meets in this respect with Kant's idea, he himself pleading for men to break from what given to them as norms and which stand against the personal nature in each of us: There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction (...) that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. In other words, both Kant and Emerson underline the importance of the self and self acknowlegment that there's only one way to feel free and rise above the social mimetic behaviours: cultivating that self (through knowledge in Kant's opinion -Sapere aude! , and by trusting oneself and one's own capacities and possibilities, as Emerson shows throughout his whole essay on self- reliance: Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.).
What is interesting though, for both thinkers, is that this cultivation of the self (despite the means they favour in achieving that) doesn't mean breaking up from society into isolation and ascetism or whatever other form of solitude, but they believe that this cultivation of the self is beneficial for the whole society: being enlightened (Kant) or nonconformist (Emerson) equals serving to better the world, to improve the way one feels and at the same time to help others understand what they have to do in the world. This means to some extent that those who trust themselves and are enlighted, serve as models in showing  ways of individual rise and eliberation, progress in the end: There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself. (I. Kant, What is Enlightenment?) ; Emerson's position might seem a bit more radical than Kant's , but it leads to the same core idea, that a man must not conform, yet he can indeed serve as a model in his struggle (with all the adversities which shall be pouring on one who dares speak and act against the tide of his/her time): All men have my blood, and I have all men's. (...) But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. ; the elevation and self-awareness comes not out of selfishness, but out of the crude truth that we must stay faithful to ourselves and our inner nature  while living in the truth of this revelation, as Emerson underlines: I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. (...) the law of consciousness abides (Emerson) and it cannot be ignored. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again, says Emerson; he talks about the rebirth of a world, not of a solitude, which supports the idea from which this paragraph started.
Thus, Kantian ideas of enlightenment can be identified in Emerson's wish for men to rise above their subdued statuses and/or imposed behavior, and live according to their own personal nature and in conformity with their principles, not the ones society imposes. The two thinkers meet in their wish for men to become free  and true to themselves.
Works cited:
(1) Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essays: First Series/Self-Reliance ( en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_First_Series/Self-Reiance )
(2) Kant, Immanuel - What is Enlightenment? ( ebooks.gutenberg.us/WorldeBookLibrary.com/whatenli.htm )