Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 06:19:08 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: The Sublime



Reg, That was my point. The idea we lost delivered us over to the psyche
that created that idea in order to project its desires in disguised form.
The difference between terror and its aestheticization: the convenient
belief that one has transcended the affected person that one is and wants to
deny being.  But all to brief--I can only refer again to the longer
discourse where among other things all of this is found animating Kant's
text. walter  At 11:05 AM 11/11/01 +1100, you wrote:
>Walter,
>
>Are you jesting? If you are serious then I couldn't agree less.
>The sublime is not terror, it is the aestheticisation of terror, there's a
>big difference.
>If actual terror/violence etc. is conflated with the sublime then we have
>just lost a useful  idea in philosophy.
>To call Hiroshima a sublime affect, apart from being plain wrong, says more
>about the 'affected' person than the aesthetic term.
>
>Reg
>
>At 09:37 AM 11/10/01 -0500, you wrote:
>>The issue is, indeed, the sublime and maybe after 9-11 we're finally ready
>>to see that Kant on the sublime is really a call for the development and the
>>use of the atomic bomb.  I know it sounds preposterous but so much was
>>slumbering in the great acts of a priori rationality.  And thus we can begin
>>to see the psyche hiding behind the ratio--in Kant and all who continue to
>>draw on him both for their hyper-rational superstructures and the covert
>>prosecution of their deepest desires.  Because yes, the horror of 9-11 was
>>that at one register of the psyche it was experienced as a sublime image.
>>And thus shocking the need of so many to moralistically deny this and attack
>>all who want to understand it.  For the understand is perhaps this: a
>>sublime affect can only be replaced by another sublime affect.  As on 8-6-45
>>and 8-9-45 and on .....???
>>When traumatic events happen historicity within the psyche turns on the
>>sublime register.
>>I have tried to discuss these matters---and Kant on the sublime at
>>length--in Walter A. Davis, DERACINATION; HISTORICITY, HIROSHIMA, AND THE
>>TRAGIC IMPERATIVE (Albany: SUNY P, 2001). 
>>
>>
>>At 06:03 AM 11/10/01 -0600, you wrote:
>>>All,
>>>
>>>I want to deal with some of these other issues in another post, when I
>>>have a little more time.
>>>
>>>But, first of all, there is clearly a difference between interest and
>>>the ethical, certainly within both the Aristotlean and the Kantian
>>>traditions.  
>>>
>>>Kant clearly distinguishes between duty and interest and says that
>>>ethics is only concerned with the former and not the latter.  I realize
>>>the word duty is not a popular one today.  Put in its place something
>>>like 'the right thing' or justice and what Kant says makes more sense.
>>>
>>>It is also interesting that Kant make a similar distinction between
>>>interest and beauty, but I digress...
>>>
>>>Also, there is a clear concept of the sublime that can be described in
>>>both Burke and Kant and it is something that is very different from the
>>>ineffable. My next post will deal with sublime in greater detail. 
>>>
>>>I also think, contrary to Steve, that there is a Kantian side to Badiou
>>>and not merely a Hegelian paternity.
>>>
>>>More later....
>>>
>>>
>>>eric
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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