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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

disaster « Previous | |Next »
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?

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:40 PM | | Comments (3)
Comments

Comments

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

John,
what if the meaningful horizon Nietzsche's death of God is nihilism? Isn't that process the decay and disintegration of value meaning that makes our life meaningful and helps us to deal with the chaos?

As for Nietzshe, it seems to me that his perspective is bound to the subjectivist turn,- in particular, to an aestheticist conception of subjectivity,- and, correspondingly, to a conception of will or mastery. (Also, there seems to me to be a basic contradiction in Nietzsche's account of nihilism, insofar as his recommendation against "passive" nihilism, the corrosion of received "values", is an endorsement of "active" nihilism. If nihilism is the "solution" to nihilism, then either the crisis of nihilism is not so much a crisis, or "active" nihilism is no solution.) But I'm guessing Blanchot is operating a step or two beyond Nietzsche. Obviously, he's referring crucially to the catastrophe of that complex of events that goes by the name of "Auschwitz"- (perhaps also with special reference to the fall of France, as before the War, he was a monarchist/rightist with ties to Action Francaise). What is asserted about "disaster", from your own citations, is 1) that it is a collective event, hence defying individual will or perspective, and 2) that it involves a contamination of the interiority, by which "values" are held, precisely through the "exteriority" through whigh which interiority is possible. (This is where that strange category of "exteriority", common to Levinas, Blanchot and Foucault, comes into play. Heidegger's "Being-in-the-World" emphasized that human beings were not things-amongst-things, but rather carried their world with them, like, so to speak, a tortoise with its shell. But Heidegger's conception required a transcendental articulation, in terms of "conditions of possibility", the so-called "existientials", which was married to an ontological purism or purification. "Exteriority", then, would be the obverse side of "Being-in-the-World", in the sense of the non-transcendental human exposure to their being things-amongst-things, immersed in the elements, but precisely thereby tied to relations with one another.) The main point here is that "disaster" is not or does not amount to a loss of "values", but rather to the loss of their efficacy, to their hollowing out through the external conditions of their supposed justification. That is why Blanchot emphasizes that "disaster" is unreachable, but leaves everything as it is nonetheless.