Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 15:56:35 +1000
Subject: Re: The Sublime


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Steve,

Lyotard, in "The Inhuman" seemed to get so lost in his neo-marxist jargon that he couldn't appreciate the art of photography because it was capitalist-tainted.

A long while ago, before I remember seeing your name on this List, we were trying to
describe the sublime, and I mentioned first sight of my daughter.

I think the subject of the sublime is inexhaustible and we should welcome the presentation of all views.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the daily exterminations in the camps of the Holocaust are some of the most terrible events imaginable, but no beauty, and sublime is said to be beauty AND terror. 

Seeing on television, in real time, the blossoming of a fireball when the second plane exploded, led to the thought that a large hydrogen bomb - which would have vaporized lower Manhattan - might have appeared beautiful to a distant observer (perhaps a child
outdoors) who did not know what was happening, or to one of the perpetrators when he/she saw it on TV.

We saw a comet a few years ago.  If one large enough to destroy Manhattan crashed to earth it might appear (from a distance) beautiful and terrible.

regards,
Hugh

  -


  Reg/Walter/Eric

  1) Whilst I disagree with Walters' hyperbole, simply because so much philosophy has wilfully refused to understand the issues that are raised by science - the clearest moment being the Darwin event. There is a sound point in the below related to the comprehensive industrialisation of the media, which derives its power from the comprehensive aesthetics of terror, which can be understood through the invocation of the 'sublime' - Lyotard invokes the sublime in relation to the aesthetic not to the social itself - in the sections of the inhuman where he addresses the social he invokes the notion of 'development' which is a heavily overcoded version of capital. But this is insufficient given that this does not help in producing an analysis and understanding of the miseries and slavery of a society that at present has extended its domination over the whole planet - this is to re-state,  that this is the society of the spectacle in which we all, the humans and animals on this planet live.

  2) Because we live in the society of the spectacle, and let us remember that the spectacle is 'the social relationship between people that is mediated by images', images  that dominate and degrade any notion of the sublime.  In effect it denies any possibility of the 'sublime' having purchase in this society - for the space of the sublime has been, as Lyotard hints in the inhuman, industrialised to the extent that 'judgements on the beautiful' seem absurdly out of place. (Lyotards much loved Avant-Garde has become merely a traditional subset of the industrialised spectacle). An inevitable beyond of the society of spectacle is the rise of post or inhuman forms, a blurring of the lines between humans and machines, which need to be understood as going well beyond the current medical protheses. The InHuman argues for the spectacular reassessment of the significance of the human and the realignment of the relationship between the human/animal and technology (which I approve of). This is what the late Lyotard, for all of his anti-humanisn, was so terrified of and which he wrote against in his later writing.... But to write against the relationship has to start from the spectacle (Debord) and commodity fetishism (Marx), and not from an approval of the fetishism of the avant-garde. What can be more fetishistic than Lyotard writing on avant-garde painting where he argues -that it enters into the sublime because of its concerns with form and its revealing the invisible through its concerns with the visual?  Whereas the spectacle announces that these are primarily commodities - possibly best understood through the falling rate of use value... The avant-garde was a 19th and 20th C pre-post-modern concern - it does not exist anymore...

  3) Perhaps then, for us, the sublime is simply the spectacle written large across our, into our imaginaries - and nothing else.

  4) Eric - the point at issue with the Kantian and Hegelian differences is that early 21st Century radical critiques of the European Philosophical kind are all descended in some sense from the Hegelian line... Lyotard's Lessons on 'the analytic of the sublime' - makes a very poor improper weapon for the fugitive to pick up and insert hastily inside their jacket - to usea rather wonderful image from Deleuze... Whereas the Debord's texts make are rather wonderful weapons...

  5) Perhaps the return of the sublime as a useful liberatory concept can never be achieved - what cannot be commodified? Were my responses to my daughter's birth sublime or codified responses of capitals last metamorphsis? The metamorphosis of capital has achieved the position of  completely eclipsing use-value and has managed to achieve the status of absolute and irresponsible over all known life, having falisifed the entirety of social production.

  6) The understanding of the 'aestheticisation of terror' has two starting points - the first seems an adequate point for the impact of Kant's sublime on literature and society  - the second is the point where the radical critique and refusal of the sublime, of the aestheticisation starts from - 1) the romantics  - with the fetishism of  the post-Kantian concept of philosophy  2) Marx and the chapter in Capital on Commodity Fetishism. From the latter standpoint Hiroshima can be instantiated as a sublime effect - just as Auschwitz is rendered as a sublime effect by hollywood...

  regards
  steve

  Reg Mifflin 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 abig difference.If actual terror/violence etc. is conflated with the sublime then we havejust lost a useful  idea in philosophy.To call Hiroshima a sublime affect, apart from being plain wrong, says moreabout the 'affected' person than the aesthetic term.RegAt 09:37 AM 11/10/01 -0500, you wrote:
The issue is, indeed, the sublime and maybe after 9-11 we're finally readyto see that Kant on the sublime is really a call for the development and theuse of the atomic bomb.  I know it sounds preposterous but so much wasslumbering in the great acts of a priori rationality.  And thus we can beginto see the psyche hiding behind the ratio--in Kant and all who continue todraw on him both for their hyper-rational superstructures and the covertprosecution of their deepest desires.  Because yes, the horror of 9-11 wasthat 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 attackall who want to understand it.  For the understand is perhaps this: asublime affect can only be replaced by another sublime affect.  As on 8-6-45and 8-9-45 and on .....???When traumatic events happen historicity within the psyche turns on thesublime regis
ter.I have tried to discuss these matters---and Kant on the sublime atlength--in Walter A. Davis, DERACINATION; HISTORICITY, HIROSHIMA, AND THETRAGIC 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 Ihave a little more time.But, first of all, there is clearly a difference between interest andthe ethical, certainly within both the Aristotlean and the Kantiantraditions.  Kant clearly distinguishes between duty and interest and says thatethics is only concerned with the former and not the latter.  I realizethe word duty is not a popular one today.  Put in its place somethinglike 'the right thing' or justice and what Kant says makes more sense.It is also interesting that Kant make a similar distinction betweeninterest and beauty, but I digress...Also, there is a clear concept of the sublime that can be described inboth Burke and Kant and it is something that is very different from theineffable. My next post will deal with sublime in greater detail. I also think, contrary to Steve, that there is a Kant
ian side to Badiouand not merely a Hegelian paternity.More later....eric





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-

Reg/Walter/Eric

1) Whilst I disagree with Walters' hyperbole, simply because so much philosophy has wilfully refused to understand the issues that are raised by science - the clearest moment being the Darwin event. There is a sound point in the below related to the comprehensive industrialisation of the media, which derives its power from the comprehensive aesthetics of terror, which can be understood through the invocation of the 'sublime' - Lyotard invokes the sublime in relation to the aesthetic not to the social itself - in the sections of the inhuman where he addresses the social he invokes the notion of 'development' which is a heavily overcoded version of capital. But this is insufficient given that this does not help in producing an analysis and understanding of the miseries and slavery of a society that at present has extended its domination over the whole planet - this is to re-state,  that this is the society of the spectacle in which we all, the humans and animals on this planet live.

2) Because we live in the society of the spectacle, and let us remember that the spectacle is 'the social relationship between people that is mediated by images', images  that dominate and degrade any notion of the sublime.  In effect it denies any possibility of the 'sublime' having purchase in this society - for the space of the sublime has been, as Lyotard hints in the inhuman, industrialised to the extent that 'judgements on the beautiful' seem absurdly out of place. (Lyotards much loved Avant-Garde has become merely a traditional subset of the industrialised spectacle). An inevitable beyond of the society of spectacle is the rise of post or inhuman forms, a blurring of the lines between humans and machines, which need to be understood as going well beyond the current medical protheses. The InHuman argues for the spectacular reassessment of the significance of the human and the realignment of the relationship between the human/animal and technology (which I approve of). This is what the late Lyotard, for all of his anti-humanisn, was so terrified of and which he wrote against in his later writing.... But to write against the relationship has to start from the spectacle (Debord) and commodity fetishism (Marx), and not from an approval of the fetishism of the avant-garde. What can be more fetishistic than Lyotard writing on avant-garde painting where he argues -that it enters into the sublime because of its concerns with form and its revealing the invisible through its concerns with the visual?  Whereas the spectacle announces that these are primarily commodities - possibly best understood through the falling rate of use value... The avant-garde was a 19th and 20th C pre-post-modern concern - it does not exist anymore...

3) Perhaps then, for us, the sublime is simply the spectacle written large across our, into our imaginaries - and nothing else.

4) Eric - the point at issue with the Kantian and Hegelian differences is that early 21st Century radical critiques of the European Philosophical kind are all descended in some sense from the Hegelian line... Lyotard's Lessons on 'the analytic of the sublime' - makes a very poor improper weapon for the fugitive to pick up and insert hastily inside their jacket - to usea rather wonderful image from Deleuze... Whereas the Debord's texts make are rather wonderful weapons...

5) Perhaps the return of the sublime as a useful liberatory concept can never be achieved - what cannot be commodified? Were my responses to my daughter's birth sublime or codified responses of capitals last metamorphsis? The metamorphosis of capital has achieved the position of  completely eclipsing use-value and has managed to achieve the status of absolute and irresponsible over all known life, having falisifed the entirety of social production.

6) The understanding of the 'aestheticisation of terror' has two starting points - the first seems an adequate point for the impact of Kant's sublime on literature and society  - the second is the point where the radical critique and refusal of the sublime, of the aestheticisation starts from - 1) the romantics  - with the fetishism of  the post-Kantian concept of philosophy  2) Marx and the chapter in Capital on Commodity Fetishism. From the latter standpoint Hiroshima can be instantiated as a sublime effect - just as Auschwitz is rendered as a sublime effect by hollywood...

regards
steve

Reg Mifflin 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 regis
ter.
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 Kant
ian side to Badiou
and not merely a Hegelian paternity.

More later....


eric