Klasik ve Modern Trajedi Arasında: Kutsal, Meta ve “Din Olarak Kapitalizm”

Abstract

Bu çalışma Arthur Miller’ın Satıcının Ölümü eserini klasik trajedi anlayışıyla karşılaştırarak modern kapitalizmin birey üzerindeki etkisini siyasal teoloji perspektifinden ele almaktadır. Bu bakımdan, kapitalizmin, bireyin psişik dünyasını metanın suretinde yeniden inşa ederken bir din gibi işlediği fikrinden hareketle, Benjamin’in ‘mitsel şiddet’ kavramıyla kapitalizmin örtük şiddeti arasında bir paralellik kurmakta ve kapitalizmin kendi kendini doğal bir düzen gibi sunduğunu, ancak aslında sürekli olarak bireyleri ezen mitsel bir şiddet biçimi olduğunu ileri sürmektedir. Bir din olarak kapitalizm metanın ikircikli niteliğini bizzat öznenin içerisine taşımak suretiyle işlemektedir. Bunu yaparken de öznenin zaten dil tarafından bölünmüşlüğü zemininden nasıl faydalandığı, Lacan’ın özne kavrayışının ve Agamben ile Bhabha’nın fetişe yönelik fikirlerinin ışığında açıklamaya çalışmaktadır.

Keywords

• meta
• trajedi
• mitsel şiddet
• bölünmüş özne
• imgesel

Between Classical and Modern Tragedy: The Sacred, The Commodity and "Capitalism as Religion"

Abstract

This study, by comparing Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman with the classical comprehension of tragedy, examines the effects of modern capitalism on individual within the context of political theology. In this regard, considering the fact that capitalism functions as a religion in the process of re-constructing the psychic world of the individual, the text draws a parallel between Benjamin’s concept of the ‘mythical violence’ and the implicit violence of capitalism, and argues that despite capitalism asserts itself as a natural order it is indeed an endless form of mythical violence. Capitalism as a religion functions through transmitting the binary nature of the commodity into the very core of the subjects. To highlight how it exploits the foundational dividedness of human beings which is created by the language itself, I will appeal to Lacan’s theory of the subject, and the examinations on the fetishism and fetish by Giorgio Agamben and Homi Bhabha.

Keywords

• commodity
• tragedy
• mythical violence
• divided subject
• imaginary
• capitalism
• fetish

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