“sovereignty can indeed be defined as nothing other than being able to distance yourself from epidemics of opinion; that is, to refuse to be employed in the service of excitation. We live constantly in collective fields of excitation; this cannot be changed so long as we are social beings….they come from the newspaper and wind up returning to the newspaper. My sovereignty, if it exists, can only appear by letting the integrated impulsion die in me or, should this fail, by my re-transmitting it in a totally metamorphosed, verified, filtered, or re-coded form...I am free only to the extent that I interrupt escalation and that I am able to immunize myself against infections of opinion...I have neither the right nor desire to be either a conductor in a stress-semantic chain or the automaton of an ethical imperative.” Peter Sloterdijk “Neither Death Nor Sun”
...sloterdijk wrote this in the german version in 2001 and so far the english version ( 2011 ) is a book length polemic about an academic kerfluffle peate is having with jurgen habermas which isn't what i am actually looking at....this...
“the endless emphasis on the necessity to act, to do something, often betrays the subjective stance of of not doing anything. The more we talk about the impending ecological catastrophe, the less we are ready to do. against such and inter-passive mode, in which we are active all the time to ensure that nothing will really change, the first truly critical step in opposing it is to withdraw into passivity and refuse to participate. This first step clears the ground for a true activity, for an act that will entirely change the co-ordinates of the constellation.” slavoj zizek. “Welcome to the Civilization of the Liar’s Paradox.”
is from the current issue of "philosophy now" and i am left wondering if slavoj has been reading peter's stuff of, possibly, these two are independently ( although somewhat delayed ) coming to the same conclusions...either way virtually all academics are derivative and philosophy explains virtually nothing since it is an escape hatch from "average everydayness" ( see william james )...reading zizek is usually a slog...he is slovenian and so may be writing in his native language with pathetic translations or, perhaps, he is writing in english as a second language and his english skills are not up to snuff with is erudition and sloterdijk ( so far ) is so intent on defending himself form habermas and the german media that his writing seems shrill if nothing else...so here we have the philosophical equivalent of masanobu fukuoka's
"do nothing" agriculture ( except fukuoka's is feasible ) which, like endless talk, would seem to "ensure that nothing will really change"...should i repost conspiracy theory bullshit on social media...why no...in that, at least, sloterdijk is valid...the rest of it seems to border on advice for quietism...you still need totalk about it ( whatever "it" is ) you should make every effort to remain factive in a seemingly fact-free society...which means you'll have to do some digging.
