[Reader-list] More on Billi Gates

[pratap pandey]

Immanent to Billi Gates is what may be called the
ethic of "new feudalism". It is an objectification of
a subjectivity-fetish. (A subjectivity-fetish may be
defined as a subject-position in conjunctural
circulation, a subject-position available and highly
valued as cultural capital in the "selfic" market). It
is an objectification of that subjectivity-fetish that
may be called as desiring-to-become a global aeducated
Indian. When Billi Gates swings open to let you in, or
swings shut to keep you out, or scrutinises you as you
bend your head and walk through the pedestrian
entrance/orifice, you come face-to-face with the
cultural logic of globalisation in India.

Culturally, this "new feudalism" ethic may be
understood as the transparent display of
rentier-landlordism, a cultural form of
property-ownership that allows entry into global
aeducated Indian-ness. It is an ethic that celebrates
self-regarding action. In this ethic, the Other is an
expensive unattainable whose desire must be tracked
down and overcome, whose desire must be understood,
subdued and taken over. "new feudalism" is the
celebration of the moment of take-over, the ultimate
act for the self in which the Other is no longer
necessary in order to become. The possibilities of
becoming are those, and only those, that are laid down
by the Self itself. "new feudalism" is joissance at
having overcome difference, at having resolved it into
sameness (reduced it, one may say.

Thus Billi Gates signifies a great transformation in
the cultural logic of modern citified India. It is a
way to understanding how selves shape-up and get
shaped-up as societies transform. If we today exist in
a society where becoming is also a form of
productivity, then Billi Gates signifies one such
historically-specific form of production of self:
Being of the class of global aeducated Indian.   

The fantasy-structure in which this celebration     

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