November 26, 2005
If, as Blanchot says:
"...the disaster ruins everything, all the while leaving everything intact. It does not touch anyone in particular.. It, the disaster is not a force which directly causes an effect upon those held under its sway. It seems instead to be removed, or perhaps crossed out'.
Then can Friedrich Nietzsche 's death of God be viewed as a disaster? God cannot save us and he does not do anything for us. There is no salvation, no redemption.
Does that mean nihilism is a form of disaster?
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There's a line from Benjamin to the effect that, paraphrasing, after the catastrophe, things go on to take there course anyway- but that just *is* the catastrophe. I haven't read Blanchot and I'd guess his take on things is rather different from Benjamin's. But it seems to me from your citations of him that, aside from the obvious reference to the events of 20th century history (and further), his conception of disaster perhaps might usefully be seen over against Heidegger's concept of the world, as the more or less structured or organized set of meaning horizons through which beings can appear more or less as what they are and existential orientation can be gained. In that respect, disaster would be a disorganization/disintegration of the meaningful orientation provided by a world, with emphasis on the external conditions that make for the internalization of a meaningful orientation. The effect of the disaster is the breaking of (the possibility of) communication and relationship, inspite of the reality of events. The diaster not only disorganizes meaning, but its own "meaning" refuses any recuperation. In that respect, I don't think Nietzsche's "death of God" would quite qualify, since, whatever the force of his prophecy, it remains in the ideational order and amounts to a peculiar attempt to derive new meaning from the felt absence of meaning.s