Ethical imagination and the new possibilities of subjectivity: a global perspective on the culture of the self and its evolution in Kurdistan

ABSTRACT

This paper is written with the hope of not only presenting an ethics that could speak to some of our contemporary subjective and ethical issues but also to introduce some of the pragmatic and aesthetic practices, as they are styled and heightened by a culture in Kurdistan that we call ‘the culture of the self’. It was a culture of elaborating the self and it contained many elements of an ethical perspective. At the beginning of the twentieth century, this culture gradually gave way to a normative and moralistic one. What we acquire from this historical approach is the need to explore the possibility of the re-emergence of a new culture of the self that makes the conditions of subjectivity imaginable. Such a goal will be conceivable if any modern inspiration from ‘the culture of the self’ is to be realized under the direction of a ‘creative’ interpretation; an ethical imagination will be at the heart of this reflective culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethics
• culture of the self
• creativity
• imagination
• reflective practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Following Freire, Mezirow and Brookfield, Nona Lyons (2010) shows her concerns about the dilemmas of reflective practice in professional education. First, she argues with certainty that the future of reflective inquiry will be embedded in ethical concerns. Then, she demonstrates the request for reflective inquiry in professional education, a fact that reveals the ability of a profession linked effectively to some ethical issue. Taking the example of law, she asks: ”How do we prepare students to address these issues? As Freire’s critics questioned, how do you move into action from critical consciousness? We need a more rigorous discussion of these issues.” LYONS Nona, Reflection and Reflective Inquiry, in: Handbook of Reflection and Reflective Inquiry, Edited by Nona Lyons, Springer, 2010, P. 20.

2. Section 344 of The Gay Science (Book Five) gives one of Nietzsche’s most illuminating statements on ‘the will to truth’, a description that can mostly be implied to Wijdan: ‘This unconditional will to truth – what is it? Is it the will not to let oneself be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? For the will to truth could be interpreted in this second way, too – if ‘I do not want to deceive myself is included as a special case under the generalization “I do not want to deceive”…’ NIETZSCHE, F. The Gay Science, Translated by Walter Kaufmann, Cambridge, 2006.

3. For more description, see: Jaff, A. M., Meselei Wijdan [The Question of Wijdan]. Aras Publisher, Erbil, 2008. Also: Qanee. Poetry of Qanee, edited by Burhan Qanee [Divani Qanee]. Paniz publisher, Sanandaj, 2008: P. 204.

4. See: Qanee. Poetry of Qanee, edited by Burhan Qanee [Divani Qanee]. Paniz publisher, Sanandaj, 2008: P. 148.

5. See: Piremird, Poetry Of Piremird, [Divani Piremird,], Sulaimani, Shivan publisher 2007a, p, 387. Also: Xani Ahmad. Mem And Zin, [Mem u Zin], Spirez, Dihuk, Iraq, 2005, pp. 319–361.

6. Gonah can be implicated in some situation to ‘sin’ or ‘being sinful’, which is not surely intended here. Sometimes it evokes ‘pity’, that is neither wanted in this paper.

7. See: Xani Ahmad. The poems of Ahmadi Xani, [Divana Ahmadi Xani], Spirez, Dihuk, Iraq, 2016, pp. 53–4, 65–6. Also: Hashemi, T., The Mirror of Truth, [Meraat’alhaq]. Amir Kabir Publisher, Tehran, 1981.

8. See: Piremird, Poetry Of Piremird, [Divani Piremird,], Sulaimani, Shivan publisher 2007a, pp. 199–204.

9. See: Piremird, Preach and admonitions Of Piremird, [Serjen Pendekani Piremird,], Sulaimani, Shivan publisher 2007b, pp. 65–69, 110–116.

10. See: Mehwi, Poetry of Mehwi [Divani Mehwi]. Lebanese Cultural Center, Beirut, 2008, pp. 137–8. Also: Qanee. Poetry of Qanee, edited by Burhan Qanee [Divani Qanee]. Paniz publisher, Sanandaj, 2008, pp.147, 299.

11. See: Mewlawi, Poetry of Mewlawi, [Divani Mewlawi]. Kurdistan publisher, Sanandaj, Iran, 2010, pp. 62, 64, 93.

12. O’Dwyer and others demonstrate that today there is a need for practicing a sort of self-care practice among the academics. Amid the academics, a rising counter-movement emerged that invites the scholars and professors for resistance, collective activities, or maybe a relaxed scholarship. Actions that are for valuing the self rather than being the producer of knowledge. The author claims for these activities the self-care practices, that are represented mostly by aesthetics practices. See: O’Dwyer Siobhan, Pinto Sarah and McDonough Sharon. Self-care for academics: a poetic invitation to reflect and resist, Reflective practice, Volume 19, 2018 – Issue 2.

13. See: Piremird, Preach and admonitions Of Piremird, [Serjen Pendekani Piremird,], Sulaimani, Shivan publisher 2007, pp. 220–8. Also: Neqshbandi, Mewlana Xalid, Yadi Merdan, vol 2, [Yadi Merdan, Bergi 2]. Aras Publisher, Erbil, 2011.

14. See: Piremird, Poetry of Piremird, [Divani Piremird,], Sulaimani, Shivan publisher 2007, 348–359. Also: The poems of Qanee, in: Qanee. Poetry of Qanee, edited by Burhan Qanee [Divani Qanee]. Paniz publisher, Sanandaj, 2008.

15. See for example the calligraphic works of Taher Hashemi that have been published in various volumes in Iran and Iraq.

16. Above-mentioned concepts and practices are all examples that we can find today among the Kurdish literature (poetry, story, etc.), Orientalists texts, Sufi and religious essays. They are mostly noticeable without any academic effort to formulate. But sometimes there is such a need to formulate the practices that are not nominalized or conceptualized as we know them today; for example: ‘Assuming oneself at fault’ and ‘Need-based interest’.

17. See: Mudaris Mela Abdulkarim. Sena, Sikalla [Sena, Sikalla], Musasir publisher, Mahabad-Iran, 2012; chapters 3 and 4.

18. See chapter 4 in: Lashkri, H. From Sharia to Hagigat [Le Sherietewe bu Haqiqet], Mukiryani, Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq, 2013.

19. See: Yildirim Riza. Dervishes in early Ottoman society and politics: A study of Velayetnames as a source for History, M. A. thesis, Dep. History, Bilkant University, Ankara, 2001.

20. See: Edmonds, C.J. The beliefs and practices of Ahli-Haqq of Iraq-Iran. British Institute of Persian Studies, London, 1969, vol. 7.

21. Anzalone, F. M. Education for the Law: Reflective Education for the Law, in: Handbook of Reflection and Reflective Inquiry, Edited by Nona Lyons, Springer, 2010, P. 86.

22. Paul McIntoch shows his regret how the notion of dialogic has not been considered mostly as an ethics in both term of the word, morally and methodologically. Conceptually, for him, dialogic is the ‘means of exploring forms of interaction’, and as it has its value from a methodological perspective, it needs to be token as a form of ethical practice. McIntoch Paul. Action Research and Reflective Practice. Routledge, 2010, P. 161.

23. Nealon, T. Jeffrey. The Ethics of Dialogue: Bakhtin and Levinas. In Gardiner, M., Mikhail Bakhtin, Vol 4. Sage. London 2003, P. 160–2.

24. In Nicomachean ethics we have the idea of Greek virtue ethics, in which that virtue is its own reward. Nevertheless, opposing morality to ethical perspective in the way we are developing is hard to find in Aristotle’s work.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kaveh Dastooreh

Kaveh Dastooreh is an assistant professor at the University of Sulaimani. He is the author of Toward a Foucaldien Sociology [Vers une sociologie foucaldienne], Haramattan, Paris, 2015 (Book in French) and The dilemma of continuity and discontinuity [Le dilemma de la continuité et de ladiscontinuité], Connaissances et Savoirs, Paris, 2016 (Book in French).