Be lost in a conception

I have to say that today's VLP reading group gave me some impression not only about our academic subject but also looking at a cultural gap or differences. While group was disscussing about their point of view toward a spectatorship and a new theater form as a theatre maker, I faced the term political again. To me that word has a power like a magic, making me freezing in front of it. It sounds like echoing from another planet, at the same time giving me strange feeling that I cannot be involeved in that word forever. Unlike my personal situation, I have been confronted with that since I came to UK. In Korea, we don't say that word political very often, because that is generally regarded as a term which is related to an ideology and a politician, and we (or I)have a tendency that a speaker of this kind of term seems to have aggresive and strong personalities. Besides, Korean live still in the state which different ideologies exist, even divided into a two different contry.

On the contrary, in UK and European culture, I found out the term political is used a lot in books, conversations, and a daily life. It seems very natural to say that word and like person's own philosophy, everyone seems to have their original political issues. It's expression would vary depends on each person's personalities or situation around them, but point is that it's not something far from our daily life and society. As Christina said, in this postmodern or after postmodern society everybody seems to have a own voice, and political way of thinking or idea might be one of qualities of comtemporary theatre or art. If I have to make my conclusion of this fragmentary though, I will say that now I can be more natural and comfortable in front of political, and maybe it wll offer me more chance to open my heart more widely.

Following is what I found in "Travels in Hyperreality" written by Umberto Eco. Just like today's disscussion, he helped me understand this term.

' I believe it is my political duty. Here again I cwe the American reader an explantion. In the United States politics is a profession, whereas in Europe it is a right and a duty. Perhaps we make too much of it, and use it badly; but each of us feels the moral obligation to be involved in it in some way. My way of being involved in politics consists of telling others how I see daily life, political events, the language of the mass media, sometimes the way I look at a movie. I believe it is my job as a scholar and a citizen to show how we are surrounded by "messages", products of political power, of ecomomic power, of the entertainment industry and the revolution industry, and to say that we must know how to analyze and criticize them.'