Sloterdijk: You gotta change your life - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-29T12:37:59Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/sloterdijk-you-gotta-change?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A57954&x=1&feed=yes&xn_auth=noContext for the following qu…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-09-05:5301756:Comment:579542014-09-05T21:50:08.913ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375541?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375541?profile=original" width="502"></img></a></p>
<p>Context for the following quote: Sloterdijk is discussing growth-oriented living and self-transformative practice in terms of (or in relation to) spiritual asceticism, acrobatics, artistedom, (participatory) creativity, and cosmic evolution as the ascent of Mt. Improbable. </p>
<p>"The creator follows a metaphysical assignment: if life itself is already a vibrating…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375541?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375541?profile=original" width="502"/></a></p>
<p>Context for the following quote: Sloterdijk is discussing growth-oriented living and self-transformative practice in terms of (or in relation to) spiritual asceticism, acrobatics, artistedom, (participatory) creativity, and cosmic evolution as the ascent of Mt. Improbable. </p>
<p>"The creator follows a metaphysical assignment: if life itself is already a vibrating mountain of improbabilities, one can only prove an affirmation by piling that mountain up even higher. That is why upward procreation is meant to create a creator. By producing additional increasers of the improbable, one acclaims the dynamic of improbability increase as a whole. Hence the demand for a human being who has overcome their own obstacles in life and is free of resentment towards creativity. Only such a person would no longer take themselves -- let alone their ancestors -- as a yardstick for the becoming of the next generation. Only they could affirm without neophobic reflexes the idea that the cultural mountain range of improbability must, in future, be unfolded a level higher with each generation; they would not turn their own imperfection into an obligation for their descendants. They would rather die out than return unchanged. They understand and welcome the fact that according to the law of the normalization of the improbable, earlier peaks present themselves as mere hills or plains in the perception of later generations...</p>
<p>For the 'creative' (a word that died a heat death in less than a century) person, the comparative -- in the form Indo-Germanic languages place in their speakers' mouths -- is more than simply a grammatical function. The elementary triads <em>big-bigger-biggest</em>, <em>bonus-melior-optimus</em>, or <em>potens-potentior-potentissimus</em> give a primitive impression of life's graduated acts of enhancement. One need only undo the theological blockage of the superlative in order to understand that the maxima have always left room for increase, even when they are secured with <em>nec-plus-ultra</em> fences. It is the very cultural process of life that presents what was great yesterday as smaller, and passes off the greater of earlier times as normality only a short time later. It transforms the insurmountable difficulties of yesterday into paths on which, soon afterwards, even the untrained will advance with ease. For those who have lost faith in the omnipotence of obstacles -- and what was classical ontology if not a faith in large-scale obstacles? -- the previous state is the base camp for the next outing. From that point on, the acrobatic path is the only viable one...</p>
<p>Artistedom is the somatization of the improbable."</p>
<p>~ P. Sloterdijk, <em>YMCYL</em></p> I've just finished "Thinking…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-06-26:5301756:Comment:571332014-06-26T18:57:02.251ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>I've just finished "Thinking in Suspended Animation" (unfortunately titled "The Art of Philosophy" in English). A published series of lectures following YMCYL. It continues this investigation which picks upon Neitzsche's history of ascetism as a key self-developmental and empowerment practice associated, eventually, with philosophers. It focuses primarily on how distanced, disinterested abstract reflection or witnessing activities evolved both as a form of weakness and as a special…</p>
<p>I've just finished "Thinking in Suspended Animation" (unfortunately titled "The Art of Philosophy" in English). A published series of lectures following YMCYL. It continues this investigation which picks upon Neitzsche's history of ascetism as a key self-developmental and empowerment practice associated, eventually, with philosophers. It focuses primarily on how distanced, disinterested abstract reflection or witnessing activities evolved both as a form of weakness and as a special strength which is still needed even though we must dissociated from its more blatant notions of disembodied purity in a mythological landscape. </p>
<p>Of course my eye is drawn, in the passage above (the world ethos... council of acrobats), to the manner in which is comes close to my inclusive of anti-fragility as a key feature of the active/healthy form of religionization of culture. Anyone who envisions "post-nihilism" can only do so by thinking of a passage which is also an adaptation -- acrobatics.</p> "Kafka's hermetic note can al…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-06-25:5301756:Comment:569762014-06-25T01:10:00.406ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>"Kafka's hermetic note can also be assigned to the complex of developments that I call the de-spiritualization of asceticisms. It shows that the author is part of the great unscrewing of the moderns from a system of religiously coded vertical tensions that had been in force for millennia. Countless people were trained as acrobats of the world above in this era, practised in the art of crossing the abyss of the 'sensual world' [Sinnenwelt] with the balancing pole of asceticism. In their…</p>
<p>"Kafka's hermetic note can also be assigned to the complex of developments that I call the de-spiritualization of asceticisms. It shows that the author is part of the great unscrewing of the moderns from a system of religiously coded vertical tensions that had been in force for millennia. Countless people were trained as acrobats of the world above in this era, practised in the art of crossing the abyss of the 'sensual world' [Sinnenwelt] with the balancing pole of asceticism. In their time, the rope represented the transition from immanence to transcendence. What Kafka and Nietzsche have in common is the intuition that the disappearance of the world above leaves behind the fastened rope. The reason for this would be completely opaque if one could not demonstrate a deeper raison d'etre for the existence of ropes, a rationale that could be separated form their function as a bridge to the world above. There is in fact such an explanation: for both authors, the rope stands for the realization that acrobatism, compared to the usual religious forms of 'crossing over,'is the more resistant phenomenon. Nietzsche's reference to 'one of the broadest and longest facts that exist' can be transferred to it. The shift of focus from asceticism to acrobatics raises a universe of phenomena from the background that effortlessly encompasses the greatest oppositions in the spectrum from wealth of spirit to physical strength. Here charioteers and scholars, wrestlers and church fathers, archers and rhapsodists come together, united by shared experiences on the way to the impossible. The world ethos is formulated at a council of acrobats" (p. 64).</p> A few notes on my reading fro…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-06-04:5301756:Comment:564002014-06-04T20:34:15.480ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>A few notes on my reading from this book so far.</p>
<p>In Chapter 2, Sloterdijk approaches Nietzsche as he approaches Heidegger in his <em>Spheres</em> trilogy: highlighting a particular discovery of the author, turning it at an angle, and then running through an extended "what if" exercise: what if more emphasis were placed here, how might this be further developed? In <em>Spheres</em>, Sloterdijk meditates on "being and space" as a sequel to Heidegger's work. In <em>YMCYL</em>, he takes…</p>
<p>A few notes on my reading from this book so far.</p>
<p>In Chapter 2, Sloterdijk approaches Nietzsche as he approaches Heidegger in his <em>Spheres</em> trilogy: highlighting a particular discovery of the author, turning it at an angle, and then running through an extended "what if" exercise: what if more emphasis were placed here, how might this be further developed? In <em>Spheres</em>, Sloterdijk meditates on "being and space" as a sequel to Heidegger's work. In <em>YMCYL</em>, he takes up Nietzsche's idea that we inhabit the ascetic planet -- that scarcely an older fact about human existence can be named than the fact that humans are practicing animals. He acknowledges that Nietzsche focuses, in A Genealogy of Morals, primarily on unhealthy or pathological forms of human religious practice, but suggests 1) that in some cases, Nietzsche lacked the proper lenses to see that the world-denying and zealous excess he identified among some ascetics might better be read as an expression of laudable spiritual heroism; and 2) that despite the fact that human practice sometimes is pathological or misguided, Nietzsche's identification of our world as the Practicing Planet opens the way to (further) develop a science of general Ascetology or Praxiology (of which we find both individual and collective expressions throughout human history), and that the insight allows us to develop a model of anthropotechnics which helps us to (re)understand a wide range of human-transformative practices (religious, psychological, spiritual, sociological, political, etc).</p>
<p>In Chapter 3, "Only Cripples Will Survive," he looks at the life story of Unthan, an armless fiddle player, whose efforts to master everyday tasks as well as various artistic and marshal talents, provide an example of what Sloterdijk calls the high art of normalcy. He situates this story in the early 20th century philosophical and political climate in Germany, where a "defiant existentialism" thrived. I have not reached the end of the chapter yet, so I don't know yet where Sloterdijk is going with this, but I immediately think of the Polydox theological trope of "Spirit as prosthesis" -- as a "supplement" which not only aids the infirm, but which allows for new and surprising forms of excellence-in-living. I'll comment on this again once I finish the chapter.</p> tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-23:5301756:Comment:561902014-05-23T00:25:21.982ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375142?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375142?profile=original" width="420"/></a></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375142?profile=original"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505375142?profile=original" width="420"/></a></p> Also see Balder's blog post o…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-22:5301756:Comment:563402014-05-22T17:46:28.925ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p>Also see Balder's <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/three-nows-the-future-infinitive-and-triple-loop-awareness" target="_self">blog post</a> on the future infinitive, and the links I posted therein.</p>
<p>Also see Balder's <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/three-nows-the-future-infinitive-and-triple-loop-awareness" target="_self">blog post</a> on the future infinitive, and the links I posted therein.</p> A couple points jumped out at…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-22:5301756:Comment:563392014-05-22T17:30:29.981ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p>A couple points jumped out at me:</p>
<p>"The absolute imperative [...] exceeds the options of hypothetical and categorical. [...] The numinous authority [...] is my innermost not-yet."</p>
<p>Recalling <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/object-oriented-ontology?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A41077" target="_self">this</a> post as but one example. There's a 'god' I can support.</p>
<p>A couple points jumped out at me:</p>
<p>"The absolute imperative [...] exceeds the options of hypothetical and categorical. [...] The numinous authority [...] is my innermost not-yet."</p>
<p>Recalling <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/object-oriented-ontology?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A41077" target="_self">this</a> post as but one example. There's a 'god' I can support.</p>
"If one wished to transfer…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-22:5301756:Comment:564342014-05-22T16:55:36.435ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505376243?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505376243?profile=original" width="333"></img></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>"If one wished to transfer all the teachings of the papyrus religions, the parchment religions, the stylus and quill religions, the calligraphic and typographical, all order rules and sect programs, all instructions for meditation and doctrines of stages, and all training programs and dietologies into a single workshop where they would be summarized in a…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505376243?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505376243?profile=original" width="333"/></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>"If one wished to transfer all the teachings of the papyrus religions, the parchment religions, the stylus and quill religions, the calligraphic and typographical, all order rules and sect programs, all instructions for meditation and doctrines of stages, and all training programs and dietologies into a single workshop where they would be summarized in a final act of editing: their utmost concentrate would express nothing other than what the poet (Rilke) sees emanating from the archaic torso of Apollo in a moment of translucidity.</p>
<p>'You must change your life!' -- this is the imperative that exceeds the options of hypothetical and categorical. It is the absolute imperative -- the quintessential metanoetic command. It provides the keyword for revolution in the second person singular. It defines life as a slope from its higher to its lower forms. I am already living, but something is telling me with unchallengable authority: you are not living properly. The numinous authority of form enjoys the prerogative of being able to tell me 'You must'. It is the authority of a different life in this life. This authority touches on a subtle insufficiency within me that is older and freer than sin; it is my innermost not-yet. In my most conscious moment, I am affected by the absolute objection to my status quo: my change is the one thing that is necessary. If you do indeed subsequently change your life, what you are doing is no different from what you desire with your whole will as soon as you feel how a vertical tension that is valid for you unhinges your life." ~ Sloterdijk, <em>You Must Change Your Life</em></p> It looks like he will address…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-16:5301756:Comment:560932014-05-16T04:58:16.798ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>It looks like he will address this, though in what ways I'm not sure yet: "After centuries of experiments with new forms of life, the realization has dawned that humans, whatever ethnic, economic, and political situation might govern their lives, exist not only in 'material conditions,' but also in symbolic immune systems and ritual shells."<br></br><br></br>I expect he may relate this to the 'topoi' he discusses in his Spheres books: various enacted sphereological spaces, related to embodied…</p>
<p>It looks like he will address this, though in what ways I'm not sure yet: "After centuries of experiments with new forms of life, the realization has dawned that humans, whatever ethnic, economic, and political situation might govern their lives, exist not only in 'material conditions,' but also in symbolic immune systems and ritual shells."<br/><br/>I expect he may relate this to the 'topoi' he discusses in his Spheres books: various enacted sphereological spaces, related to embodied actions or interfaces: the chirotop, or the topos enacted by performances-in-the-world of the human hand; the phonotop, or the topos enacted by vocal performances; the uterotop, empathic spheres that start with and progressively expand from maternal care; the alethotop, or lineages as guardians and enactors of particular knowledge forms; the theotop, or the place of revelation (of ancestors, spirits, semiological relations, gateways of hierophany, etc). Each of these topoi are generative (en)closures of sorts.</p>
<p></p> I also haven't read it, but w…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-16:5301756:Comment:559962014-05-16T01:55:03.536ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>I also haven't read it, but will let you know whether and how he addresses this. I agree that if he attempts to narrow still-relevant religion down to the individual and his practices, and to bracket out group imagination or fantasy (as well as institutions or generative (en)closures), his approach will be too spare. Based on some of his other writings, I don't expect him to go this route, but we'll see...</p>
<p>I also haven't read it, but will let you know whether and how he addresses this. I agree that if he attempts to narrow still-relevant religion down to the individual and his practices, and to bracket out group imagination or fantasy (as well as institutions or generative (en)closures), his approach will be too spare. Based on some of his other writings, I don't expect him to go this route, but we'll see...</p>