Applying heuretics to the new media is a challenge. Here I take up this challenge and try to do what may be called applied grammatology. The work of Ulmer is our light house in this task of heuretics. Maybe we can take the notorious prime time debate instance on television by a famous editor anchor who often shouts at the top of his voice: ‘Nation wants to know’ as our case to perform heuretics. Using the heuretics, the anti-method of Ulmer which is portrayed to us by the acronym CATTt, we may begin our applied grammatology. The effort here is to let the same text produce altogether different, and unexpected meaning, the meaning that remains hidden or unaccounted. Here we have taken the statement, ‘nation wants to know’ only for pedagogical reasons and there is no intention to bring any discredit, defame and pain to anyone. We are only activating the heuristic generator of the statement, ‘nation wants to know’ in all its senses we use the CATTt as follows.
CONTRAST
Nation already knows is our contrasting statement.The nation wants to know frames the debate. It marks what is acceptable and what is illegitimate. It draws the boundary between a nationalist and a traitor. Therefore, in the very first step we break the frame when we say: the nation already knows. It does not mean that there is nothing to be known. The new frame is a punctum. It punctures the structure of the old frame. It knows that one who claims that ‘nation wants to know’ is also known to the nation. This means the new frame marks the space and time. Its spacing and timing actually turns the table on the one who asks nation wants to know. The nation knows …who knows whom. Thus, we have not taken a linear, vertical and hierarchical approach. We have taken a horizontal approach and just juxtaposed a contrast with the existing frame. We are not analysing any arguments. We are just taking a trope and replacing it with a contrasting trope.
ANALOGY
Here we choose to go by phonology. The sound now also resonates and sounds like no. The semantics of the two sounds are different. There is sonic congruence between the word know and the word no. The statement nation wants to know, sounds like a big no. By inserting the big no in the nation wants to know, we get nation do not want to know. Therefore, the question is what does the nation not want to know? Or rather who wants the nation not to know? What has to be kept out of the knowledge of the nation? What is the secret that the nation does not know? What will happen if the nation knows that secret?
THEORY
The word know also means to sleep with, to have sexual intercourse. Hence, the nation already knows who is sleeping with whom, who is a presstitute. The nation recognizes, identifies the presstitutes who thinks that nobody knows. The body of the nation knows. The nation knows that God knows that it knows who is wounding its body.
TARGET
Our target concerns with the demonstration of the fact that when anything is framed as the nation wants to know, it becomes a divisive operation. It becomes a wall that breaks our nation. The statement nation wants to know hides something that it wants the nation not to know. Hence, our aim is to manifest that which is hidden. That which is kept out of the horizon by the logcentric principles of identity, contradiction and excluded middle that frame our either/ or thinking.
SECONDARY ELABORATION
We have shown that statement, ‘nation wants to know’ also includes who is using the statement to mark those that are loyal and those that are traitors. This means the nation wants to know whether the one who wants to know knows the powers that be and whether he/she is a presstitute. This means nothing can be kept secret to the nation that wants to know. The one who hides by the statement ‘the nation wants to know’ is also included in this thirst of the nation to know.
We have tried to use the heuretics, the anti-method of Ulmer to do a grammatology of the notorious statement: ‘nation wants to know’. We have not used critical hermeneutics but have tried to engage inventive heuretics to open the horizon of the statement: ‘the nation wants to know’. We have successfully transcended the logocentrism of the principles of identity, contradiction and excluded middle and brought into our view, the hidden, the repressed meaning which simply says that one who is using the statement ‘nation wants to know’ is also included into the frame of the statement. This is why one who is using the statement to mark those that are loyal and traitors of the nation is also marked by the same statement. The statement becomes the judge of its users. Often we have come under the discourse of ‘the nation wants to know’. Somehow it has triggered our love for our nation and produced hatred for its enemies. Indeed, it fired our neurons together. It is said that neurons that fire together wire together. This is perhaps why we like what is called the godi media in our country. We enjoy others as marked traitors and by the logic of either/ or thinking, we count ourselves as loyal nationalists. But our heuristic grammatology has demonstrated that we are blinded. The breakdown of the either/ or thinking has shown that we can be counted among the traitors of our nation. I have tried to do this experiment to open what remains closed by the statement that we have tried to heuretize. I think we have to recognize that we use heuristics as we engage with the cyberspace. Once we recognize it, we shall begin to see its value to widen our often narrow horizons. It has been rightly observed that with the growth of the internet humans have become narrow minded across the globe. Hence, a conscious cultivation of the heuretics will enable us to offer a responsible and emancipative response to the worlds of the internet.
