Salvador Dali (1904-1989): The Persistence of Memory. A surrealist reexamination of the Eurocentric cosmic order and concept of time.
On western history
The legitimacy of western model of history on our society are proven to be too important, only by looking at how the past eurocentric modernity is embraced throughout this non-western region currently. The disorienting confusion between the original historically-specific eurocentric 'modernity' and the meaning of 'modernization' itself has fueled our adoption of the wrong duo in our eastern soil. If the non-western world's modernization is based on its colonialist, exploitative and mass-industrialist model of 'euromodernity', and is built upon the western model of historical bedrock, then I think we have no other option other than using the western package to analyse and plan for our own future. That is what build our present identity.
The root of this situation lies in the false universalistic assumption that tend to equal eurocentric modernity with modernization. The eurocentric model with its geographically specific history of past innovations like human enslavement, science and mass-industrialization, are a solely an european invention and assertion. This benchmark for human civilization has never been challenged by any of their conceived 'weak' non-western 'sub-human'. But on the other hand, the value of 'modernization' itself lies in every non-western civilization, each is different to another, distinct, unique and non-imitative, has yet to fully developed before we succumb to the european model that itself in the past, has records of devastative manipulation on non-western society. So is there any other historical model that we can use to describe our crooked modernization? - pessimistically other than the western model, No.
Just like how the word 'enlightenment' is perceived, the signifier of the 16-th century renaissance immediately overwhelm and took over any other model of 'enlightenment', for example, of the Buddhist and Taoist tradition, and many other. With this his level of misconception, it does suggest that the need to critically reevaluate and redefine our own edition of modernity is calling.
The mass-information age now has help our effort to question our past blunders. More and more people has enough information to develop the attitude of questioning. Helped by the capitalist mass cultural shuffling, the pluralistic and the chaotic contemporariness of the world culture now has slowly brewing a new wave of fundamentalism who seek to recast the monopoly of the eurocentric modernity. In architecture, the defiant and internal struggle with the universalizing european modernity can be seen in the development of many sub-regionalist architecture that look away and remediate from the already porous european architectural utopianism. Their introverted, meditative and defensive architecture gesture suggest their newly found awareness of their past cultural flop. In philosophy, some postmodern fundamentalism movement like the al-Attas's 'Islamization of knowledge' are good example of this conviction of false cultural selection.
Thus I think, the Malaysian 'centre' could be the culture of the time before these postmodernist chaos and counter-culture struggle begun.
On feudalism
I think indeed, a 'true' democracy has never happened throughout the human civilization. The concept of 'democracy', freedom and right, are merely psychological invention. They are 'named' while any name can be 'named'. Feudalism and inequality are like oxygen, are everywhere, and only the polished names of 'democracy' and 'equality' could temporarily hide what is apparent. The modern psychological manipulation by the ruling class and the vulnerability of the peasant are the backbone of 'democracy' - the new feudalism. The Chinese socialist government is the only one who understand this reality. Their model of a 'harmonious socialist society' and selective modernization took precedence upon the failure of the extensive european model of modernity towards a sustainable cultural ideal.
On the sudden technological flux
Identical to the consequence of globalization plus the concentration of advance technologies and wealth, the sudden flux of technology in architecture in this country will further polarize the big scale architectural consortiums who own the technical knowledge on jointing these industrial parts, and the survival of those individual self-made architects who rely largely on conventional materials. This concentration of wealth, knowledge and power proven to be an undeniable characteristic of a feudalist order.
Salvador Dali - Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943). Perhaps the notion of total redefinition of our own standard of modernization and its effort required, could stem from the idea of Dalinian surrealist reborn of a man out of the eurocentric entrenchment.
Salvador Dali.
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