The Fig, the Olive and the Peaceful Land: Stories from Sansevieria: Political Thought's Evolution (7)

"Once happened, says a news reader when telling a course of history, publik officials of a department in Indonesia, had agreed to commute the word 'Amin' [amien] to 'Qobul' [granted]. And it was said, that it had being considered to remove the word as well, temporarily or permanently, from the Indonesian Language Dictionary. The reason were simple: first, in North Korea, girls were not allowed to share the same name as Kim Jong Un's daughter. Girls who used the same name, would be deleted, but South Korea defended them tooth and nail. The second, 'Annoyed.' The third, 'Confused."

"Do you see what I see? " asked Sansevieria while keep opening the sheet. "Maybe, maybe not. Even if you’re standing right next to me and I see something that I want to share with you, you still may not see it until all that remains is a glimpse. I'm not intending to talk about one-eyed man or creature such as Dajjal or Cyclops, or even the hundred-eyed Indra or Argus, relating to the nature of lexicon, but, probably, but what's hidden behind the interior, to invite you, to see what I see.
Vision is the sense we know the most about. They say, our eyes—and we're gratefu to have a pair or two, whatever form it takes—don't really see, but to collect information when there's a light—because light from an object can move through space and reach our eyes—then send it to the brain. Thus, the brain turns the signals into the images we're going to see.

The scientific study of the eye is believed to have originated with the Greek physician Herophilus, says Kara Rogers, who lived from about 335 to 280 BCE. Indeed, from his work came the words that we use today to describe the various parts of the eye, including the words retina and cornea. In Herophilus’ day, scientists believed that we could see because beams of light came out of our eyes and fixed on objects.
The Arab physicist Ibnu al-Haitsam or known in the West as Alhazen, around CE 1000, concluded from experimental observations that light actually travels into the eye. The first observation was that “the eye, when looking at a very strong light, feels pain and may be damaged.” The second was that the eye registers an afterimage after looking at a bright light.
Five hundred years later, at the time of Leonardo da Vinci, the idea that rays emanate from the eye to palpate the viewed object was still prevalent enough that Leonardo objected, “It is impossible that the eye should send the power of vision outside itself through visual rays, because, on opening the eye from whence such rays must depart, the power of vision could not reach out to the object without a lapse of time. This being so, the rays could not climb in a month to the height of the sun, when the eye wished to see it.”
Doctors and anatomists discovered that human eyes are actually light collectors. Light rays travel from objects around us and stimulate the lightsensitive cells in our eyes.
Eyes are delicate and precise organs that are vulnerable to problems. There are, however, a number of mechanisms in place to protect the eyes. Eyebrows and eyelashes keep out dust, sweat, and other irritants. Eyelids lubricate the surface of the eyeball and protect against the introduction of foreign bodies into the eye. Lacrimal glands at the outside upper corner of each eye create a steady supply of tears to keep the eyeballs moist. Tears—produced by irritation, yawning, and crying—also contain bacteria-killing enzymes that destroy infections. To keep the eyes moist, we blink, often involuntarily.

Vision is a type of sensory perception, and as such the brain plays a crucial role in the interpretation of information transmitted from the retina. There are several areas of the brain that are involved in this process. Information about an object in the visual field travels to the visual centres in the brain in the form of electrical impulses. These impulses, which originate in the cells of the retina, are sent along neuronal tracts that defi ne the visual pathway in the brain.
Luminance, or what artists refer to as value, is perceived lightness. It is defined by how the human visual system responds to light—in particular, how bright the average human judges a light to be. Understanding luminance is important because our perception of depth, three-dimensionality, movement (or the lack of it), and spatial organization are all carried by a part of our visual system that responds only to luminance differences and is insensitive to color.
The elements of art have long been held to be color, shape, texture, and line, says Margaret Livingstone. But an even more fundamental distinction is between color and luminance. Color (in addition to describing objects’ surface properties) can convey emotion and symbolism, but luminance (what you see in a black-and-white photograph) alone defines shape, texture, and line. Pablo Picasso described it aptly in a letter to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, 'Colors are only symbols; reality is to be found in lightness alone.'

Now, imagine that you are a photographer. You're going to take a picture, with your camera or smartphone. No real rules that one must follow to learn how to see, but many principles and techniques that are designed to help you see. To advance your personal vision, you must exploit the vision of your lenses , no matter their zoom ratio or amazing sharpness. Almost everyone can 'see' in the conventional sense, but developing photographic vision takes practice. Learning to see creatively helps you visualize your work, and the world, in a whole new light, because one of the important elements in photographing is 'your point of view'.
In this era of the Zoomers—Gen Z, almost everyone can be called a photographer. With the development of mobile phones with cameras that are easy to carry everywhere, whether iOS, Android or even Linux, it will be easier for people to take photos, even if 'just taking a picture' or picturing with 'photographic eyes'. Generally, a snapshot looks like: Uncle Ot sitting by the pool, grinning at the camera. A snapshot is a casual record of some event or person or object. The main thing you're looking at a snapshot is a memory, 'Oh, so that's what Uncle Ot used to look like!' It doesn't matter if part of her head got cut off or if she's slightly out of focus. All that matters is that the picture is clear enough to preserve some memories.
A lot more matters in a true photograph. A photograph is, or should be, an artistic interpretation of an event or person or object. Its purpose is to tell the viewer—any viewer—something about its subject. It should show not just what the subject is, but what it is like. And it should do so with impact and style. The main difference between a snapshot and a photograph is the care with which each is produced. Taking a snapshot involves little more than pointing the camera in the right direction and clicking the shutter. Taking a photograph requires paying attention to every detail within the frame, and getting all of them just right, before the shutter is clicked.

A photograph must be composed. All its elements must be selected and arranged to work together toward some unified effect. So, in photography, there are some rules: rule of thirds, leading lines, composition and so on. Those rules are like training wheels. They teach you fundamentals and get you going in the right direction when you start. Life is full of rules, right? We have rules for the sake of having rules. Let’s be honest: a lot of people like rules, they feel safe when there are rules. But at every possible opportunity, you have been urged, to bend and break the 'rules.' Our own inclinations and needs, make each of us, break the rules. It's okay, for your own photographic style and insights to evolve, you must be free to record the world as you see it. But naturally there are rules for breaking rules, too. We know it as 'Policy.'
First, break a rule for a good reason. While it can feel liberating to break rules just to break them, the thrill isn't likely to last very long. Sooner or later, it all begins to seem like random shots in the dark. Stick to the rules until you have a good reason not to, and your results will probably be more interesting. Secondly, break as few rules as possible. For any photograph, try to stick to as many of the established rules as you can. If you decide to break a compositional rule, try to follow the rules for correct exposure. Don't forget that photography is a language. If you want to be understood, you can't make up all your own words and grammar. Photography, like any art, must evolve to remain healthy, but we often forget it and broke the rules too far, or even to change it at our will.

Now, it's time to present portraits. Jeffrey A. Winters displays some portraits of Oligarchs. The portraits presented by Winters bring up the types of Oligarchies: Warring Oligarchies, Ruling Oligarchies, Sultanistic Oligarchies and Civil Oligarchies. In a warring oligarchy, wealth defense is accomplished directly by armed oligarchs who separately rule their own domains. In a ruling oligarchy, the arrangement is collective and requires at least partial disarmament for the system to be stable. A sultanistic oligarchy is a third mode of wealth and property defense. In a civil oligarchy, all oligarchs are fully disarmed, the coercion that defends oligarchic fortunes is provided exclusively by an armed state, a civil oligarchy is the only type in which no oligarchs rule (if they hold office, it is never as or for oligarchs), and the coercive state defending property for oligarchs is governed impersonally through bureaucratic institutions. This combination of factors has several important implications. One is that in civil oligarchies, strong and impersonal systems of law dominate oligarchs rather than oligarchs dominating (or being) the law. This, in turn, changes the character of property ownership from being claims enforced by oligarchs to being rights enforced by the state.

One of Winters' exhibition portraits is a panorama of the Oligarchy in Indonesia. The photo is 'black and white', revealing the characteristics of the Oligarchy that occurs. Winters mentions it as the 'Sultanic Oligarchy'. The word 'Sultan' here has nothing to do with the Sultan in Jogja or other sultans in Indonesia. By the way, according to Elena Woodacre about today’s constitutional monarchs, that there is little doubt of its significance in terms of academic study, as a central element of civilizations around the globe from its earliest societies until the present day. Monarchy has been scrutinized by specialists from multiple disciplines, particularly historians, anthropologists, sociologists, archaeologists, art historians, literary specialists and through the lens of gender studies, i.e. 'Kinghsip' and 'Queenship'. Woodacre and other researchers, do not include constitutional monarchy as 'Dynastic Politics'.
So, Winters refers the concept of sultanism originates in the writings of Max Weber. It seemingly orientalistic, but he means that it is neither narrowly to rulers in the Middle East nor to caliphates. This Sultanism conception, is secular in its origins and operation. Three elements are particularly prominent in defining sultanistic regimes [in the Indonesian context, perhaps what Winters means is 'bendoro' in a pejorative sense]. First, sultanistic rulers govern personalistically and exercise extreme discretion over all political-economic matters of significance. They enhance their power and discretion by blocking rather than building independent institutions. Such laws and institutions that exist are subordinated to the prerogatives of the ruler.
Second, sultanistic rulers maintain strategic control over access to wealth and deploy material resources as a key part of their power base. The relationship within the oligarchy between the one and the rest is symbiotic, but also fraught with tensions. Third, sultanistic rules strive to establish and maintain discretionary control over coercive power within the state or regime. This includes controlling the armed forces, intelligence, police, the judicial apparatus, and sometimes engaging paid bands of paramilitaries, enforcers, and thugs. Even if a sultanistic ruler cannot fully disarm other oligarchs in the system, he or she commands enough firepower to intimidate and overwhelm most of them. In sum, a sultanistic regime is a personalistic rulership in which institutions and laws are enfeebled and the leader governs through the use of coercive and material power to control fear and rewards.

Sultanistic oligarchies as an ideal type share certain common features, and they also exhibit some similarities and differences with warring and ruling oligarchies. Wealth and property defense as an oligarchic imperative does not disappear just because the task of securing the material position of oligarchs shifts out of their individual or collective hands. The historical record is rich in examples demonstrating that oligarchs can adapt to changing arrangements for securing their wealth against threats. However, for existential reasons, what they cannot accept is a generalized failure to defend.
Being disarmed does not alter the fact that oligarchs can usually use their material power resources to guard their fortunes against frontal threats. In extreme situations, this means rearming—a pattern that is particularly likely in cases involving oligarchs who hold a substantial proportion of their wealth in land or in extraction and mining. For urban oligarchs whose wealth and property are primarily commercial, it typically means deploying material resources in a manner that destabilizes a sultanistic ruler—including wrenching transfers of wealth out of the economy, covertly funding mass rallies, hiring agitating vigilante militias, or financing alliances with commanders in the armed forces willing to restore a secure property regime. Oligarchs can also hasten a ruler’s exit by signaling their lack of support in a crisis. Concentrating a huge amount of wealth and coercive power in the hands of a single sultanistic actor gives that individual a great deal of discretion. However, in the presence of a stratum of independent and matured oligarchs, that discretion is complicated by broader oligarchic demands for wealth and property defense.
The fact that all oligarchs except one are disarmed, or at a minimum one holds overwhelming coercive capacities (most often those of the police and armed forces), means that oligarchs as a group are unlikely to rule directly. Although some oligarchs gain access to high offices—which, in turn, helps spawn new oligarchs through corruption or allocating business opportunities—the proportion of all offices held by oligarchs is greatly reduced compared to patterns seen in ruling oligarchies. In addition, unlike in a ruling oligarchy, where elaborate methods are devised by oligarchs themselves to rotate offices, spread access, and impose term limits on key positions to avoid destabilizing power concentrations, in a sultanistic oligarchy the lead oligarch pursues strategies first to concentrate his or her power of office, and then to use access to key posts to reward supporters and subvert competitors. Individuals who hold important and potentially powerful offices, whether oligarchs or elites, are heavily dependent on the sultanistic oligarch. All oligarchs holding political positions do so because of their association with the lead oligarch and serve at his or her discretion.

The source of any photograph is not the camera or even the scene viewed through the viewfinder—it is the mind of the photographer. Another photographs presents by Joel Kotkin. Kotkins photographs convey us that Feudalism is making a comeback. It will look different this time around: we wont see knights in shining armor, or vassals doing homage to their lords, or a powerful Catholic Church enforcing the reigning orthodoxy. Societies are becoming more stratified, with decreasing chances of upward mobility for most of the population. A class of thought leaders and opinion makers, which Kotkin call the “clerisy,” provide intellectual support for the emerging hierarchy. As avenues for upward mobility are diminishing, the model of liberal capitalism is losing appeal around the globe, and new doctrines are arising in its place, including ones that lend support to a kind of neo-feudalism. According to Kotkin, a new form of aristocracy developing in the United States and beyond, as wealth in postindustrial economy, tends to be ever more concentrated in fewer hands.
Today, the benefits of economic growth in most countries are going mainly to the wealthiest segment of the population. This wealth tends to be handed down from one generation to the next, creating something akin to a closed aristocracy. It may not have a legally privileged status or political power by right of inheritance, but its wealth can buy influence with government and over the culture. Thus we see an oligarchy emerging in supposedly democratic countries, with a neo-feudal aristocracy grafted onto a powerful central state.

Let's continue these Kotkin's portraits, in the next session, okay, 'cause this session's duratin, is over. Bi 'idhnillah.

Then Sansevieria sang Richard Marx's song,

Now, I can rest my worries
And always be sure
that I won't be alone, anymore
If I'd only known you were there
all the time
all this time! *)