Language: From I-Dentity to My-Dentity

Abstract:     
What does it mean by the word “our”/”my-ness”/“my-dentity” or possedness(svatva) in the context of four Ls: Language, Labour, Land and Love ? The author of this paper has dealt with only two Ls: Language and Labour taking his cues from Raghunatha Siromoni and Karl Marx. My-dentity as a category does not depend on the exchange value as ascribed by the market economy, therefore the author has paraphrased “fit for use” (viniyogayogyata) as “use value” and it eradicates the self-other differences in the context of my-ness. The author is not talking about I-dentity or I-ness, but on my-dentity or my-ness, i.e., what “I” possesses or what belongs to “me” — my ownership, endowment, possessed-ness or rather entitlement . Thus this paper is a psychoanalytic shift from the individual ego to the possession of ego as imagined and symbolized. This paper starts with some problematic questions: Do “I” possesses something or something is imposed upon my I-dentity or as my “own” following certain rules of socio-cultural or politico-economic legitimacy? As a homo sapiens, except my supposed genetic endowment, do I have something as my “own”? Do I have my ownership of four Ls in the context or locus of this planet or universe? Then what is about the legal entitlement as proposed by Amartya Sen? Without questioning the stipulated value ascribed to a currency note, Sen puts “etc.” at the beginning of the exchange process. This is the paradox of his framework as it leads to fallacy of infinite regress.The author elaborates his arguments by following age old dialogic forms. He concludes his paper by following Derrida and by introducing the concepts of Anti-Grammar, n-glossia, Bhasa-samavaya.

Note: This paper is an elaborated English version of the Bangla paper "On My-ness and Economic Entitlement" paper ID: 2032594. Therefore, the abstract is same.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 21

Keywords: my-dentity/my-ness, linguistic entitlement, svatva,“gift” or zakat, governmentality, nihsvatva, baikhari, madhyama, pasyanti, paravak, Bhasa-samavaya, n-glossia, reverse mimicry, anti-grammar =grammEr

working papers series