A philosophy of pure ressentiment

Cioran accepts his aggressive-depressive disposition as the atmospheric fact of his existence. He accepts that he is fated to experience the world primarily in dystonic timbres; weariness, boredom, meaninglessness, tastelessness, and rebellious anger towards everything that is the case. He frankly affirms Nietzsche’s diagnosis that the ideals of metaphysics should be viewed as the intellectual products of physical and psychosocial illness…Thinking does not mean thanking, as Heidegger suggests; it means taking revenge.

You Must Change Your Life by Peter Sloterdijk (2012)

Image via TuttoCioran

Seas that are open again

Gratitude pours forth continually, as if the unexpected had just happened—the gratitude of a convalescent—for convalescence was unexpected…. The rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of seas that are open again.

Friedrich Nietzsche quoted by Oliver Sacks


Photo by author: Lyme Bay, 6 April 2014

21st century sublime

In a post on Rationally Speaking last year, Steve Neumann asked what can be sublime in the 21st century?

He argued that nature could no longer supply it, and "our feeling for the sublime, if it is to happen at all, will have to come more and more from culture." His chosen example was the music of...Led Zeppelin, and specifically their live performances.

But can the likes of Pagey, Percy, Jonsey and Bonso be the only trigger?

Turn back for a moment to Burke's 1757 treatise.  As an admirably concise video reminds us,  a feeling of the sublime is something that affects us viscerally despite the danger.  The sublime moves us deeply because it is tied to the possibility of pain. [1] When we experience the sublime we exercise the nerves that could save our lives in a genuinely threatening situation.

We may need those nerves when facing manmade effects in nature such as rapid climate change. For that reason, I'd say this sequence from Chasing Ice can arouse feelings of the sublime, as well as being scary.




Note [1] (added 4 December) "The physiology of fear and attraction [can be] so similar that we sometimes cannot tell them apart," writes Sy Montgomery.