New Spirits – Reading Deleuze in India
Consciousness exists only in connection with other consciousness
There was a time in Europe when people spoke of polymaths. In Germany, this would be Alexander von Humboldt, or Goethe; in France, an Enlightenment thinker; in Italy, the Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci. In antiquity, Aristotle. Surely there are wise people in many cultures and epochs of whom history tells us that they knew everything one could have known at the time. Of course, that is nonsense. But this narrative serves a longing. We want to know everything, yet…
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I have always had a gut unease about an atomistic worldview. At school we learn that the smallest building blocks of the universe are atoms. Now physics has moved on; we speak of protons, electrons, positrons, quarks and strings, etc.… But at its core, the idea remains the same: the world is composed of the smallest parts of matter. This is such a widespread idea that few people doubt it, that is, doubt the exclusivity of this worldview. I expressly…
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I love complexity, but sometimes also radical simplification—to gain a little clarity. For example, the history of ideas in the visual arts. In Europe, after the great migrations, art history can be sketched in broad strokes as a history of ideas: In medieval art, stories were told visually – mainly the stories of the Bible. Most people could not read, after all, certainly not Latin or Greek. The wood-panel painting of the altars is therefore a kind of comic, and…
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Black holes pose riddles for us. I am not a cosmologist and engage with black holes through popular science, with a philosophical interest. They mark a limit of our imagination. Gravitational force influences space and time, science says. Concentrated at one point, it compresses matter into its pure substance, squeezes atomic nuclei and electrons together into a mass (atoms consist largely of emptiness, after all). With its incredible gravitational force, this mass draws everything in and bends and distorts space…
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It is now definitely time to rethink. What our fathers and grandfathers called progress is destroying our planet. Science is not an end in itself, not everything technically possible is good, not everything that is fun and satisfies our senses is meaningful. Now we hear again and again from many sides that we should concentrate on the small steps in front of us; only in this way would we move forward together. This may occasionally be right too, but it…
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In Plato’s allegory of the cave, people sit before a wall on which the shadows of the real objects of the world can be seen. Since they have seen only shadows throughout their lives, they think these are reality. The philosopher’s task is to explain to people that they should turn around to see how the apparatus of light, which serves as a projection mechanism, produces an illusion. Once people had recognized this, they would free themselves from the chains…
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For so many years I have thought about Marx. Who has not? The idea of an equal and solidary community, free of ideological superstructure or irrational will-o’-the-wisps. A world that knows only matter and sees in it a scientific, progressive movement. Its goal? A world in which humanity is complete, that is, harmonious, without envy and ill will, solidary and equal in rights, without alienation and external determination, which alone makes possible the unfolding of the individual within a collective.…
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It was a feat of strength. Clearing out the apartment, moving with friends, putting things into storage, reorienting myself before a new chapter begins. Leaving the familiar, breaking the status quo, doing what is important and right without making compromises. But that also means suffering and inflicting wounds, breaking things and planting something new. Strange only that some friends are going through something similar. After Covid, the world is different. We no longer want to live as we did before.…
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