President Biden’s decision to withdraw forces from Afghanistan is – as when Saigon fell to Vietnamese forces – a sign of failure. Meaning, even the state with the strongest economic, technological and military power is not an unlimited force.

The faces on the billboards are really just phantoms of the desire for recognition and the ambition for power – a soft version of the face of the king about to seize lands.

Under a regime that declares a constant state of war, citizens are placed within a prison-like Jeremy Bentham’s ideal construction, the panopticon: on its high tower are the eyes of Argus Panoptes.

AI, artificial intelligence, is both exciting and worrying—and that is our state right now. It is often observed that the more super-intelligent these machines are, the less autonomy we have. We can no longer call ourselves decision-making subjects. It could spell the end of individuality. 

Given this atmosphere, it is understandable why Toeti Heraty entered the field of philosophy and paid particular attention to the person as subject and their world. Her thesis was titled Aku dalam Budaya (I in Culture).

In Murakami’s story, the first question that arises is: are names personal possessions? Where do we get them from?