erik's proposal of commitment based on an aesthetic sensibility seems
plausible, but I am not sure that the problem of eternal return is so easily
resolved as unproblematic. Eternal return is not just a cycle of historical
repetition (or in its most bloated form, a principle of cosmological
dynamics), it is an existential-experiential problem taking place each
moment even if there is no direct awareness of it. At some heightened
moments its full impact is felt, and these are supposed to be affirmative
moments of transformation but also moments of great risk in which the one
who undergoes the experience perceives the overwhelming futility of the
vicious circle. The exact duration of the cycle is not really all that
important, what counts is that the cycle of fate must be transcended or
mastered and a transformation must take place if life is not to be in vain.
The promise of goodwill enacted through an aesthetically informed
intervention which seeks to inject a measure of beauty, enjoyment or
aesthetic pleasure (harmony) must also contend with the fact that there is
no guarantee that will prevent a measure of pain (dissonance) also being
introduced. Pleasure and pain, good and evil must somehow be both accepted
for the aesthetic transformation to take place. This is (humanly)
impossible. The truth of harmony is dissonance. For this reason, I cannot
help thinking of dissonance (or as Blanchot calls it, unworking -
"desoeuvrement") whenever Foucault speaks of fashioning one's life like an
artwork. While Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal return diagnoses and enacts
this predicament, it is questionable whether it truly resolves it, but
perhaps that is its truth. But where would this leave political commitment
and the notion of the political?
cheers
Sebastian
plausible, but I am not sure that the problem of eternal return is so easily
resolved as unproblematic. Eternal return is not just a cycle of historical
repetition (or in its most bloated form, a principle of cosmological
dynamics), it is an existential-experiential problem taking place each
moment even if there is no direct awareness of it. At some heightened
moments its full impact is felt, and these are supposed to be affirmative
moments of transformation but also moments of great risk in which the one
who undergoes the experience perceives the overwhelming futility of the
vicious circle. The exact duration of the cycle is not really all that
important, what counts is that the cycle of fate must be transcended or
mastered and a transformation must take place if life is not to be in vain.
The promise of goodwill enacted through an aesthetically informed
intervention which seeks to inject a measure of beauty, enjoyment or
aesthetic pleasure (harmony) must also contend with the fact that there is
no guarantee that will prevent a measure of pain (dissonance) also being
introduced. Pleasure and pain, good and evil must somehow be both accepted
for the aesthetic transformation to take place. This is (humanly)
impossible. The truth of harmony is dissonance. For this reason, I cannot
help thinking of dissonance (or as Blanchot calls it, unworking -
"desoeuvrement") whenever Foucault speaks of fashioning one's life like an
artwork. While Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal return diagnoses and enacts
this predicament, it is questionable whether it truly resolves it, but
perhaps that is its truth. But where would this leave political commitment
and the notion of the political?
cheers
Sebastian