From: Hubert Mania (humania@t-online.de)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 11:50:12 MDT
Jacques Du Pasquier wanted to know more about Peter Sloterdijk:
Sloterdijk hit the philosophical and literary scene in the 1980s with his
great work "The critique of cynical reason" which made him famous overnight.
What makes him interesting for me is his *literary* genuineness. I love to
read a book of him every once in a while because his language abounds with
authentic analogies and unexpected turns. But after ten pages or so it makes
you wanna "go to the stereo store, get a white noise maker and turn it up to
ten" (Frank Black, formerly singer of the Pixies) or listen to Nine Inch
Nails or play "Dang" by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion "loud, very loud,
very very loud", as Frank Zappa has once wisely suggested.
Why this? Because unfortunately the shaggy ghost of Heidegger is
omnipresent, still barking up the wrong tree and once again being too late
for his appointment with Hegel's "Weltgeist" who on his side is still trying
to figure out what in the world has happened to the world and as a second
job seems to jealously supervising and editing every sentence that
Sloterdijk writes. And that makes it kind of a drag to really enjoy his
writings. all this being and being there and being in and out and sub-being
in for. only Zarathustra knows. But Sloterdijk can develop a very tough
sense of humour when he meets a mind that can cope with his knowledge
Two or three years ago he raised hell in the German feuilletons with a
speech he held about a future "Menschenpark" (human park) where he pondered
about the free breeding of men with the help of biotechnology. I read this
piece and found it awkwardly indigestible. Sloterdijk, it seemed, had no
concept at all about human enhancement.
Sloterdijk himself was surprised about the fuzz his speech had made in the
intellectual scene in Germany. He did not intend to make a statement about
human enhancement at all. This speech actually was intended to be a reply
to an argument concerning a Heidegger paper that is of interest only in
esoteric philosophical circles and too irrelevant to talk about now.
Sloterdijk did not speak against or in favour of human enhancement. He
simply stated labouriously, that biotechnology will soon reach a point of
development where the chance of genetic manipulation will be inevitable.
That was it. But coining the word "Menschenpark" was enough for the
guardians of the intellectual and technological status quo to associate
Third Reich experiments and initiate an outrageous witch hunt. Being
regarded as one of the most impotant contemporary German philosophers, the
yelling was loud, very loud, very very loud.
Much has happened in the last three years. I remember that Sloterdijk was
invited to talk at technology conferences, where Ray Kurzweil was also
peeping in by video. I also remember that he said something like the
transhuman philoosphy of being a little eccenctric, to say the least. I
think he is very well informed about the subject of posthuman future but
still would have ethical objections against transhuman core values.
humania
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