The Manifestation of “The Other” and the Possibility of Self-Redemption - Reconsidering the Authenticity of Where Yellow Sails are Flying

Abstract

Authenticity, as a research topic in the field of urban problems, is a concentrated reflection of many cultural anxieties caused by urbanization. This article selects the movie Where Yellow Sails Are Flying, trying to clarify the inherent logic and theoretical contexts of authenticity, including what it is, how to define its perceptual, imaginative and practical connotation in the ontology angle. And then pointing out that “human”, as the core of cognitive schemata in practice, has the meaning of otherness of others, so cannot be attributed to an object of “being” or theoretical reality. It not only contains Benjamin’s Messianic unknowable dimension, but also is closely related to the negation of the metaphysical system of presence in the post-modern context. Finally, authenticity, as a kind of cultural politics and practice, is considered to be a collection of blindness and insight, distorting the experience by generalizing and abstracting while displaying the fracture of the signifier and signified. It is only through multiple cultural perspectives can individuals escape from the history of “the other”. This paper also uses the relevant arguments of scientists or philosophers such as Slavoj Žižek, Zygmunt Bauman and Jacques Lacan to critically interpret the theory of authenticity.