QUOTE OF THE DAY

From an interview in the Tagesspiegel with Ruediger Safranski and Peter Sloterdijk. The interview is a one-year retrospective look at their philosophical television show (the home page for which you can stare at here):

SAFRANSKI: Wir befinden uns in einer hysterisierten Erregungsgemeinschaft, in der die existenzielle Urteilskraft außer Kraft gesetzt ist. Niemand kann mehr zwischen dem wirklich Bedrohlichen und dem nicht Bedrohlichen unterscheiden. Wir wollen einen bescheidenen Beitrag zur Entwicklung existenzieller Urteilskraft beisteuern.

SLOTERDIJK: Die Stoiker haben dieses Problem diskutiert. Es geht um die Unterscheidung zwischen den Dingen, über die man sich nicht aufregen darf, weil sie nicht von uns abhängen, und den Dingen, über die man sich aufregen muss, weil sie von uns abhängen. Um das Deine kümmere dich, um das Nichtdeine nicht.

Safranski: We live in a kind of hysterical community formed by stimulation; existential judgment has been lost. Nobody can differentiate between that which is truly threatening and that which is not threatening anymore. [In our show] we want to provide a modest contribution to the development of existential judgment.

Sloterdijk: The Stoics discussed this problem. The question is the difference between things which we must not get upset about, because they don't depend on us, and the things that we must get upset about, because they depend on us. Concern yourself with what is yours, not with what is not yours.

The whole interview is worth a look. The immediate context for the above quote is Sloterdijk's "Civilization and its Discontents"-type argument that barbaric streaks lurk beneath the psychological tensions produced by modernity, and that it is hence easy for normal individuals to "put on a uniform to respond to false crises."

Die Zeit's Jan Ross wrote the show off as neo-sophistry before the first installment aired last spring. Could be (right now I'm watching the show for the first time). Probably it's a good idea never to refer to yourself as a philosopher because that's a recipe for ridiculousness and vanity: why would you bother to note, for the consumption and identification of others, that you have some connection with something called "philosophy"? Whatever. As a show that attempts, at least, to discuss important issues in an intelligent fashion, it's nonetheless welcome, but I'm still not sure that we wouldn't be better off unplugging the TV altogether and reading a book. Or something.