Yaşamın Çevrimiçi Okulu: Alain de Botton'un ‘The School of Life’ Oluşumunun Strateji ve Taktik Olarak Analizi

Bu çalışma genel olarak popüler kültürün iktidar, direniş ve öznellik gibi olgulara olanak tanıyan bir alan yaratma potansiyelini ve bu potansiyelin varlığına dair eleştirel yaklaşımları tartışmaya açmaktadır. Çalışmada, Michel de Certeau ve Michel Foucault’nun “strateji” ve “taktik” kavramlarını birbirlerine yakın ama farklı şekilde tanımlamalarından faydalanılarak, popüler kültüre dair iki temel yaklaşımın örtüşme noktaları tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Makale, bu iki kavramın popüler kültür çalışmalarında analitik bir araç olarak kullanımının, yani strateji ve taktiklerin birbirini karşılıklı koşullayışının, şu durumu görünür kıldığını ileri sürmektedir: Kültürel ürünlerin esasen çift-değerli oluşları ve sınırlayıcı stratejiler ile özgürleştirici tersine dönüşlerin aynı zemini paylaştıklarını. Öyleyse popüler kültürel ürünlerin kültür endüstrisinin baskısına karşı kullanımı ancak stratejilerin yapılandırdığı bir mekânın içinden mümkün olacaktır. Çalışmanın ampirik boyutunu bir popüler kültür figürü olan Alain de Botton’un kurduğu The School of Life isimli kişisel gelişim oluşumunun analizi oluşturmaktadır. Makale söz konusu organizasyonun özellikle YouTube kanalını ve çevrimiçi satış mecrasını, belirtilen kuramsal çerçeve içinde inceleyerek, The School of Life’ın (ve benzer kişisel gelişim organizasyonlarının) bir analizini sunmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

popüler kültür, Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, strateji, taktik, the school of life

From Life to Its Online School: An Analysis of Alain de Botton’s ‘The School of Life’ as Strategy and Tactic

Through a critical engagement with the literature on the conceptualizations of culture, this article focuses on the possibilities for empowerment and social agency that may be found in manifestations of everyday popular culture and the critiques of this approach that voice their oppressive nature. The article draws on Michel de Certeau’s distinction between strategies and tactics, as qualified by Michel Foucault’s use of the same conceptual pair, in order to develop a conceptual grid that emphasizes their imbrication or mutual conditioning. The key advantage offered by this grid is that it makes visible the inherently ambivalent nature of cultural products and the way in which constraining strategies and liberating tactical reversals are both made possible on the same shared site. It thus argues that popular cultural works may subvert the manipulative imperatives of the culture industry only from within a strategically structured social field. It thereby becomes possible to acknowledge the insights of the culture industry perspective of critical theory, while providing a more nuanced interpretation and evaluation of certain works of popular culture. The conceptual analysis is then applied to The School of Life (an online educational organization initiated by the popular author, philosopher, and entrepreneur Alain de Botton) both to offer an examination of this cultural artifact and to test the assumptions the theoretical framework developed.

Keywords:

popular culture, Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, strategy, tactic, the school of life,

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