“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Thursday, December 22, 2011

Anti-Nihilism Death Ray

...from within nihilism itself. That's the line I'm running in Hyperobjects. Philosophies, like elections, have consequences. Trying to negate nihilism by running towards what Heidegger calls Erlebnis (lived-experience) only doubles down on the nihilism. You have to tunnel through it.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tim,

This anti-nihilism death ray sounds too familiar to me ;-) though, i really don't see how you would engage it with 'Hyperobjects' (not that i already know what the hell a 'Hyperobject' is, neither that am really keen to know, honestly). But i just wanted to share that negating nihilism would not double down on it. There is no really way to tunnel it (what ever that might mean). Negating nihilism can only lead to one thing (not an object, please).

I leave this as homework for you to think rather to run your 'Hyperobjects'. Just take notice in which sense the aritmetics of your lived-experience are failing here. Why?

cheers :-)