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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
Sometimes the almost constant references to the Hegelian Other makes my inner non-idealist shudder. But the general point is well made, and the method of making it -- a very Continental style free association -- is new to me, and an enjoyable change from the philosophy I usually read.
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
ET SI AIMER ÉTAIT DÉJÀ UN ACTE POLITIQUE ANTICAPITALISTE ?
Dans ce monde
où l’on souhaite ressembler à l’autre et s’oublier soi-même,
où nous devenons objet de consommation et consommé,
où sa propre valeur est définie par le marché des biens de consommation et la culture de masse,
où l’Autre n’est qu’un ennemi de compétition dans une société de la performance,
où la confiance cède la place au contrôle,
où l’on n’est plus capable de faire l’expérience de l’Autre et l’on ne recherche plus qu’en lui la confirmation de soi-même,
où dans chacun, entrepreneur de soi, règne une économie de la survie,
et où la liberté réside dans la malédiction de devoir éternellement s’exploiter soi-même… et si l’Eros était un acte de rébellion qui le ferait s’effondrer ?
-———————— L’ENFER DE L’IDENTIQUE ————————-
Ce livre ouvre une réflexion profonde autour du Moi et de l’altérité dans une société qui se nourrit de nos failles pour en faire du profit. Une réflexion qui nous guidera vers l’Eros et/ou le Thanatos... L’atopie de l’autre se révélera-t-elle comme l’utopie de l’Eros ?
Dans ce monde
où l’on souhaite ressembler à l’autre et s’oublier soi-même,
où nous devenons objet de consommation et consommé,
où sa propre valeur est définie par le marché des biens de consommation et la culture de masse,
où l’Autre n’est qu’un ennemi de compétition dans une société de la performance,
où la confiance cède la place au contrôle,
où l’on n’est plus capable de faire l’expérience de l’Autre et l’on ne recherche plus qu’en lui la confirmation de soi-même,
où dans chacun, entrepreneur de soi, règne une économie de la survie,
et où la liberté réside dans la malédiction de devoir éternellement s’exploiter soi-même… et si l’Eros était un acte de rébellion qui le ferait s’effondrer ?
-———————— L’ENFER DE L’IDENTIQUE ————————-
Ce livre ouvre une réflexion profonde autour du Moi et de l’altérité dans une société qui se nourrit de nos failles pour en faire du profit. Une réflexion qui nous guidera vers l’Eros et/ou le Thanatos... L’atopie de l’autre se révélera-t-elle comme l’utopie de l’Eros ?
informative
fast-paced
In J. G. Ballard’s short story “The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon,” the protagonist retreats to a house by the sea to recover his sight after falling ill. His temporary blindness heightens his other senses. From within, dream images well up. Soon, they seem more real to him than reality; obsessively, he gives himself over to them. Time and again, he summons forth the mysterious coastal landscape with its blue cliffs. In his mind’s eye, he clambers down rock stairs to a cave. There he meets a mysterious sorceress, the embodiment of his desire. After a beam of light strikes his eye as his bandages are being changed, he comes to believe that it has burned away his fantastic visions. His sight returns, but the dream images do not. Filled with despair, he resolves to destroy his eyes in order to see more. His scream of pain is also a joyous ejaculation:
Quickly Maitland pushed back the branches of the willows and walked down on to the bank. A moment later, Judith heard his shout above the cries of the gulls. The sound came half in pain and half in triumph, and she ran down to the trees uncertain whether he had injured himself or discovered something pleasing. Then she saw him standing on the bank, his head raised to the sunlight, the bright carmine on his cheeks and hands, an eager, unrepentant Oedipus.11
In his reading, Slavoj Žižek assumes that Maitland’s actions unfold in an idealist, Platonic dispositive: “how are we to pass from ever-changing ‘false’ material phenomenal reality to the true reality of Ideas?” What does it mean to go “from the cave in which we can perceive only shadows to the daylight in which we can catch a glimpse of the sun?”12 Žižek mistakenly claims that Maitland stares into the sun hoping “to view the scene in its entirety.”13 In truth, however, Maitland is following an anti-Platonic dispositive. By destroying his eyes, he has made bold to withdraw from the world of truth and hypervisibility, to retreat into the cave — a twilight space of dreams and desire.
closing your eyes visibly signifies as much.
The corollary of hypervisibility is the dismantling of thresholds and borders. Thresholds and transitions are zones of mystery and riddle — here, the atopic Other begins.
Quickly Maitland pushed back the branches of the willows and walked down on to the bank. A moment later, Judith heard his shout above the cries of the gulls. The sound came half in pain and half in triumph, and she ran down to the trees uncertain whether he had injured himself or discovered something pleasing. Then she saw him standing on the bank, his head raised to the sunlight, the bright carmine on his cheeks and hands, an eager, unrepentant Oedipus.11
In his reading, Slavoj Žižek assumes that Maitland’s actions unfold in an idealist, Platonic dispositive: “how are we to pass from ever-changing ‘false’ material phenomenal reality to the true reality of Ideas?” What does it mean to go “from the cave in which we can perceive only shadows to the daylight in which we can catch a glimpse of the sun?”12 Žižek mistakenly claims that Maitland stares into the sun hoping “to view the scene in its entirety.”13 In truth, however, Maitland is following an anti-Platonic dispositive. By destroying his eyes, he has made bold to withdraw from the world of truth and hypervisibility, to retreat into the cave — a twilight space of dreams and desire.
closing your eyes visibly signifies as much.
The corollary of hypervisibility is the dismantling of thresholds and borders. Thresholds and transitions are zones of mystery and riddle — here, the atopic Other begins.
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
No good philosophy is more than 80 pages, so Han gets an extra .5 for staying well below.
Nevertheless, what begins well seems to melt into repetition, references to a pretty tired philosophical in-crowd and a growing stain of new age whimsical "wisdom."
But the point on the death of the Other is well taken. Lasch is a surprising ommision here as he's whipped his share on this narcissistic post before.
The begged question of *why* we work to obscure the Other is untouched.
Nevertheless, what begins well seems to melt into repetition, references to a pretty tired philosophical in-crowd and a growing stain of new age whimsical "wisdom."
But the point on the death of the Other is well taken. Lasch is a surprising ommision here as he's whipped his share on this narcissistic post before.
The begged question of *why* we work to obscure the Other is untouched.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Han's Bücher sind ein absoluter Hirnfick. Kurze Sätze mit meist einfachen Wörtern und viel Gehalt.
reflective
slow-paced
Quick read, but I'll have to reread a few times to fully understand. Han's style is dense and heavy with a tight concentration of references to other philosophers and media. The experience of reading feels a bit like viewing the sunset through dense foliage; every once in a while you get lucky and a bright ray of light bursts through.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced