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To cite this article: Ashley Woodward (2011): Nihilism and the Sublime in Lyotard, Angelaki:
Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 16:2, 51-71
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journal of the theoretical humanities
volume 16 number 2 june 2011
51
nihilism and the sublime
cally. The first section concisely reiterates religious nihilism makes a distinction between
Nietzsche’s account of nihilism. Nietzsche’s the intelligible and the sensible, elevating the
writings are the locus classicus in comparison intelligible and associating it with transcendence,
with which all subsequent theories of nihilism, while denigrating the sensible and restricting it to
including Lyotard’s, need to be understood. This the immanent realm.
section then introduces the problem of nihilism Nietzsche sees much of Western history as
as Lyotard understands it through his earliest marked by religious nihilism, but proposes that a
engagement with this issue. The second section new and deeper form of nihilism is inaugurated
elaborates his first major treatment of nihilism, in with modernity. Put briefly, Nietzsche sees
his 1974 book Libidinal Economy. The third modern science as undermining religious belief,
section marks Lyotard’s turn to Kant in the early but as unable to replace the religious interpreta-
1980s. It then elaborates the identification he tion of existence with a new interpretation which
makes between nihilism and the sublime at would give meaning and value to human life.
length, and shows how he uses the sublime to This development, which Nietzsche indexes with
theorize the nihilistic conditions of contemporary the shorthand expression ‘‘the death of God,’’
culture. The fourth section then presents the institutes a radical nihilism. Nietzsche sees here
main thesis of the paper: it demonstrates how the danger of the complete collapse of any and
the sublime acts as a positive response and all meaningful worldviews. There are at least
resistance to nihilism in Lyotard’s later work. two discernable responses to radical nihilism
It then contextualizes the nature of this response in Nietzsche’s works. In his early writings, he
in the wider movement of his thought by proposes to re-institute a meaningful culture
construing it as a strategy of retorsion, and as through an ‘‘artist’s metaphysics’’ based in
motivated by a concern for justice. Schopenhauer’s philosophy and Wagner’s
music-drama. In his mature thought, Nietzsche
nihilism: the abyss between meaning rejects such a reinstatement of religious or
metaphysical interpretations of existence, and
and existence instead proposes to push nihilism to its extreme
For Nietzsche, nihilism is an ambiguous and consequences. He proposes a ‘‘self-overcoming’’
complex phenomenon which manifests in several of nihilism, in which the nihilistic impulse will
main types.5 First, religious nihilism (which destroy all categories of thought to provide
Nietzsche associates primarily with Christianity meaning and value, and arrive at a ‘‘blank
and Platonism) provides an interpretation of life slate’’ from which to create new categories of
which imbues it with meaning and value, but only valuation which will give a new and superior
to a severely impoverished degree. The impulse sense of meaning to existence. This last stage is
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woodward
one of complete nihilism; for Nietzsche it is a In this essay Lyotard raises the question of
necessary preparation for a ‘‘revaluation of all meaning bluntly in order to point to the failings
values.’’ of university teaching and capitalist culture.
It is well known that for Nietzsche art plays an Defining ‘‘culture’’ as ‘‘existence accepted as
important role in responding to nihilism. How meaningful,’’ he posits a divide between existence
exactly this is the case is a complex and contested and meaning in capitalism: ‘‘We are essentially
issue, but we may note, with Keith Ansell cut off from [meaning]. In our society sign and
Pearson, the following:6 signification, activity and culture, living and
understanding, are dissociated.’’10
Art is valued by Nietzsche for two main According to Lyotard, the problems of
reasons; firstly, because it enables human existence lie in the mechanized and alienated
beings to endure life in the face of the terror
world of the factory and the worker, while the
and absurdity of existence; and secondly, it
realm of thought and meaning – the university
acts as the great stimulus of life, encouraging
human beings not to recoil from the horror and what has come to be called ‘‘culture’’ – fails
of existence, but to seek its furtherance and to address these problems. He thus finds fault
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53
nihilism and the sublime
a number of different ways throughout the course the value of the thing itself by treating it as a
of Lyotard’s work: first in the Marxian sense replacement for something else (that which it is
of alienation, then in the ‘‘great Zero’’ of his a sign of ). This replacement may be understood
‘‘libidinal’’ philosophy, and then in the idea of according to two different theories of the sign,
the ‘‘immanent sublime’’ which appears in the and Lyotard understands both as nihilistic.
Kantian phase of his work. In each of these On the first model of the sign, the sign
modalities, the basic structural features of this replaces what it signifies (that is, it ‘‘stands in’’
abyss remain the same: meaning is divided from for an absent meaning). In other words, the
existence, and existence devalued in relation to material given of the sign replaces the concept
meaning. As we shall see, these features are it signifies. Lyotard writes that ‘‘[t]his is, to put
characteristic of both nihilism and the sublime. it as brutally as possible, the Platonism of the
As we shall also see, Lyotard ends up insisting theory of Ideas, for example: the sign at the
that this abyss between meaning and existence same time screens and calls up what it announces
cannot and should not be closed, but arguing and conceals.’’15 Given Nietzsche’s analysis of
that we may nevertheless find ways of resisting Platonism as nihilism, Lyotard’s meaning here
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the abyss’s potential to devalue life. However, is clear: the sign replaces a meaning which is
Lyotard’s path to this position is far from itself absent, just as Platonism sees the sensible
straightforward, and moves first of all through as signalling a transcendent intelligible.
the extensive elaboration and response to the Translated into Nietzschean terms, semiotics
problem of nihilism in his libidinal philosophy finds what is apprehended as present guilty of
of the early 1970s. not being meaningful in itself, and posits an
absent meaning which gives the sign a derivative
value.
libidinal economy ‘‘contra’’ nihilism
On the second model, the sign may be
By the time of writing his second major book understood in terms of its place in a wider
Libidinal Economy (1974), Lyotard had lost his network or structure of signs, in which case the
faith in Marxism, and with it the hope that the meaning of any particular sign is deferred
abyss between meaning and existence might be throughout the structure, from one sign’s
overcome by putting an end to alienation.13 reference to another in an ‘‘interminable meto-
In this and subsequent works he encounters nymy,’’16 never achieving an origin or end.
nihilism in new and innovative forms, and Each signified is in turn a signifier for another
searches for ways of resisting nihilism beyond signified. On this model, meaning itself is
any hope of its final overcoming.14 The book deferred infinitely, and can never be grasped as
develops a reading of Freud inspired by Nietzsche present. In Lyotard’s words, this model of the
in order to show how nihilism may be understood sign means ‘‘that signification itself is constituted
in ‘‘libidinal economic’’ terms. Lyotard gives by signs alone, that it carries on endlessly, that we
detail to his analysis of nihilism in Libidinal never have anything but references, that sig-
Economy through critical discussions of semiotics nification is always deferred, meaning is never
and of Freud’s example of the child’s ‘‘fort/da’’ present in flesh and blood.’’17 Moreover, Lyotard
game in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Since argues that for thinkers like Freud and Lacan, the
these same two examples are presented in his signification of all signs – that is, their capacity to
later works in association with the sublime, it is be meaningful – is grounded in an absent ‘‘great
worth elaborating them in order to establish the signifier,’’ which he calls the ‘‘great Zero.’’ This
identification between nihilism and the sublime ‘‘Zero,’’ like God, is the source of all meaning,
which is central to my thesis here. but cannot itself be grasped as meaningful.
In Libidinal Economy Lyotard identifies In Lyotard’s libidinal philosophy, ‘‘the great
semiotics as a form of nihilism. He notes that Zero’’ acts as a general term for the abyss
for the semiotician any thing may be treated as between meaning and existence which constitutes
a sign, and treating something as a sign negates nihilism.
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woodward
Taking both of these theories of the sign into theory of desire as lack to explain the meaning of
account, Lyotard’s critique of semiotics may be the child’s game as a representational activity
summarized by two factors he believes character- aimed at dealing with the suffering induced by
ize the semiotic sign as nihilistic: the absence the mother’s absence. Lyotard, however, accuses
and deferral of meaning. The semiotic sign is Freud of presupposing what he is attempting
thus a modulation of the abyss between meaning to explain. Freud’s explanation implies that the
and existence for Lyotard, where existence is the feeling of lack (associated with the mother’s
material given of the sign, and meaning is its absence) precedes representation. However,
conceptual signification. In the passage quoted Lyotard argues that this feeling of lack would
above from the early essay ‘‘Dead Letter,’’ not be possible if the child were not already able
Lyotard blames social conditions for the separa- to represent the mother as absent. According
tion of sign and signification. In Libidinal to Lyotard, representation precedes the feeling of
Economy, he sees this separation as intrinsic to lack, and not the other way around.
the structure of the sign itself. In terms of the Lyotard argues that the ‘‘fort/da’’ game
understanding of nihilism outlined above – the may be seen as a ‘‘theatre of representation.’’
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separation of meaning and existence – we can see In Libidinal Economy Lyotard argues that all
that, for Lyotard, semiotics presents a theory of rational theory understood as representation has
meaning which always implies a separation from the same basic structure and function as what
what is supposedly meaningful. Treated as a text, Nietzsche identifies as religious nihilism, and he
as a network of signs, existence is never mean- draws this out by illustrating representational
ingful in itself. We can see here the parallel theory with the image of a theatre. It is as if
Lyotard draws with Nietzsche’s theory of nihi- theory represents something on the stage of the
lism, in which life is found guilty of lacking theatre (the world of immanent existence), the
meaning, and so meaning is projected as lying meaning of which (i.e., the real or original thing
in some transcendent realm, beyond our reach.18 represented) remains outside the theatre walls
Lyotard further elaborates nihilism in (in the world of transcendent meaning; Plato’s
Libidinal Economy through a reading of Eidos or the Christian heaven). The theatre
Freud’s analysis of his grandson’s ‘‘fort/da’’ illustrates the conscious mind, the ego. In
game in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. This Lyotard’s analysis, the ‘‘fort/da’’ game is simply
reading is aimed to show that desire understood the exterior mirror of the interior theatre. The
as lack is not primary (as Freud presents it19) but ego is a theatre of representation in so far as it
secondary, the product of a transformation of distinguishes between interiority and exteriority,
desire understood as positive force or libido. This presence and absence, itself and its mother, and is
is important for Lyotard, because he wants to able to ‘‘stage’’ the absence of the mother because
show that desire as lack is a manifestation of of these distinctions. The ‘‘fort/da’’ game gives
nihilism, while positive libido is a life-affirmative us a clear image of this theatre, with the edge of
alternative. Implicitly following Nietzsche, the child’s cot forming the stage and the wooden
Lyotard shows how nihilism arises from the reel the present/absent object of representation.21
forces of life turning against themselves. He uses In challenging Freud’s interpretation of the ‘‘fort/
the ‘‘fort/da’’ game to illustrate how desire as da’’ game, Lyotard uses it to illustrate the basic
lack arises only with the ‘‘secondary processes’’ of structure of nihilism as representation, and in so
the conscious mind. Lyotard’s reading proceeds doing further elaborates the great Zero, the abyss
via a critical reinterpretation of Freud’s own between meaning and existence. This Nietzschean
presentation of this example.20 Freud interprets reading of Freud is what underlies Lyotard’s
the ‘‘fort/da’’ game as the child’s ‘‘staging’’ of its scepticism towards reason and concern with
separation from its mother, the wooden reel the limits of representation in his libidinal
representing the mother, who was sometimes philosophy.
absent (fort, i.e., ‘‘gone’’), but would then return Lyotard develops a response to nihilism in
(da, i.e., ‘‘there’’). In effect, Freud uses the Libidinal Economy that is focused on desire
55
nihilism and the sublime
understood as libido; that is, as a positive, This indicates a refusal to posit an ‘‘other’’ or
energetic force. Libido acts as a counter-force to ‘‘outside’’ of nihilism, or an end of alienation, a
nihilism for at least two reasons in Lyotard’s tendency we shall see radicalized in Lyotard’s
libidinal philosophy. First, it affirms those later work. Nevertheless, in Libidinal Economy
aspects of existence that nihilism denies: desire, and related work of this period the libido acts
the body, sensual enjoyment, erotic pleasure, ‘‘contra’’ nihilism in so far as it bears different
materiality; in short, the sensible. Second, properties or structural features: nihilism implies
Lyotard emphasizes Freud’s statement in his negation, while the libido is purely positive.
1915 paper ‘‘The Unconscious’’ that the primary As we shall see, the resistance to nihilism Lyotard
processes of mental functioning – those most finds in the sublime is more profoundly identified
closely associated with the libido – know nothing with nihilism itself.
of negation.22 As such, Lyotard finds in the libido
a response to nihilism on purely ‘‘logical’’ the crisis of perception (the sublime
grounds: it founds a form of mental functioning
prior and other to negation, which is a necessary
as nihilism)
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condition for the very possibility of nihilism In the 1980s, Lyotard’s theoretical references
(since, put simply, nihilism requires a distinction shift from Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche to Kant,
between meaning and existence, and the negation Levinas, and Wittgenstein. Lyotard describes this
of existence in relation to meaning). For both turn in terms of a renewed concern with justice,
these reasons, Lyotard understands the purely and with the theme of judgement that emerges
positive libido as a force of life-affirmation, and from this concern. Libidinal Economy was not
associates it with Nietzsche’s will to power.23 well received, and Lyotard harshly criticized it
Crucial to Lyotard’s argument in Libidinal himself on the grounds that it was ethically
Economy, however, is the rejection of any idea irresponsible. The release of libidinal forces it
of a liberation of ‘‘pure desire’’ which would advocates takes place ‘‘beyond good and evil,’’
definitively overcome nihilism. A key idea in the respecting only the criterion of intensity.24 In an
book is what he calls ‘‘dissimulation.’’ Lyotard interview Lyotard explains that his next major
insists that desire is always manifest in relation book ‘‘Le Différend remedies the shortcomings
to structures (understood, broadly speaking, in of Economie libidinale; it is an attempt to say the
the structuralist sense, as composed of discrete same things but without unloading problems
elements and their relations), both giving rise to so important as justice.’’25 In this period of his
them and disrupting their stability. Dissimulation work Lyotard retains a scepticism towards purely
refers to the way in which structures always theoretical reason and a concern to draw the
hide desire, and desire is always manifest in limits of representation, but turned now towards
a structured form (for example, the theatre of the end of justice. In the philosophy of phrases
representation is itself an energetic formation, developed in The Differend, Lyotard defines
a transformation of libido). In Libidinal justice in terms of the ‘‘space’’ in which phrases
Economy, Lyotard advocates a response to meet (rather than being given by any particular
nihilism through encouraging the freeing and phrase regimen or genre of discourse), and
intensification of desires dissimulated within injustice is understood as the silencing of a
structures which dampen their intensity. phrase which demands to be heard (which is what
However, such desire is never found in a he calls a ‘‘differend’’). In more general terms,
‘‘pure’’ state, but through its creation, destruc- Lyotard understands justice as the expression
tion, and transformation of structures. of differences free from the ‘‘terror’’ of being
Libidinal Economy dismisses any hope of excluded or silenced.
decisively overcoming nihilism, and instead Kant becomes an important resource for
offers a strategy of intensifying life-affirmative Lyotard in this period because of the distinction
desire within structures which will inevitably he draws between the different faculties: in
dampen its intensity to some degree. particular, pure reason (the faculty of theoretical
56
woodward
knowledge) and practical reason (the faculty of discovery linked to the invention of other
desire or the will, which is concerned with action realities.
and with ethics). In this phase of his work, What would this ‘‘lack of reality’’ mean if
Lyotard wishes to underline this distinction we were to free it from a purely historicizing
interpretation? The phrase is clearly related
because he is sceptical about the power of pure
to what Nietzsche calls nihilism. Yet I see
reason to establish principles adequate to ensure a modulation of it well before Nietzschean
ethics and justice. Lyotard argues that there will perspectivism, in the Kantian theme of the
always be events and differences which will be sublime.28
excluded from any particular representation or
system of theoretical knowledge. For him, Kant’s Again, in ‘‘Complexity and the Sublime,’’ the
separation of the faculties serves to protect sublime is associated with nihilism through
against the ‘‘transcendental illusion’’ that pure Nietzsche’s expression of the latter as ‘‘the
reason can be all-encompassing. Reflective judge- death of God’’: ‘‘The retreat of regulation
ment is a form of thinking which ventures and rules is the cause of the feeling of the
between the faculties without being determined sublime . . . It is also the death of God (. . . this
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Modernity, whenever it appears, does not In a certain way the question of the sublime
occur without a shattering of belief, without is closely linked to what Heidegger calls the
a discovery of the lack of reality in reality – a retreat of Being: retreat of donation. For
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nihilism and the sublime
Heidegger, the welcome accorded something experience fails to be presented in the forms
sensory, in other words some meaning embo- of space and time; with the Heideggerian retreat
died in the here-and-now before any concept, of Being, the world is no longer revealed to us
no longer has place and moment. This retreat in a way which is phenomenologically prior to
signifies our current fate.32
conceptual analysis. In the language of Being and
The precise relationship between nihilism and Time, the world no longer appears to us primarily
the sublime remains elusive in these passages, in a hermeneutic manner, but an apophantic one.
but they are clearly strongly associated, perhaps Or, in the language of his later works, beings
to the point of identification. And yet there is also are now revealed as Bestand through techno-
the suggestion of a difference between them: they scientific enframing (Gestell). What Lyotard
proceed from the same problematic, but are highlights is how this shift in the way beings
different modulations of that problematic. I wish are revealed impacts on perception, through a
to show how both poles of this ambiguity are distortion of the forms of time and space, of our
developed in Lyotard’s thought. sense of moment and place.34 It is this link
Put briefly, Lyotard can associate Nietzschean with perception that allows Lyotard to make the
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nihilism and the Kantian sublime to the point of analogy between the Heideggerian meditation on
identification because they can be seen as having nihilism and the Kantian sublime. For Lyotard,
the same form and implying the same content. both nihilism and the sublime may be understood
Both concepts are structured according to a in terms of a ‘‘crisis of perception’’ in which
distinction and tension between related sets of space and time are destabilized and the reality
terms: sensible and intelligible, existence and of the sensible world is called into question:
meaning, finitude and infinitude, immanent an abyss opens between the sensible and the
material and transcendent Idea. In Nietzsche’s intelligible.
formulation of nihilism, as we have seen, Lyotard develops this analogy between nihi-
transcendent meaning negates immanent exis- lism and the sublime in one of his earliest
tence. In Kant’s formulation of the aesthetic of treatments of the sublime aesthetic, ‘‘Sublime
the sublime, transcendent Ideas are found in Aesthetic of the Contract Killer’’ (1981).35 While
tension with an immanent material which defies the principal subject of this essay is the painter
good form. Sublime feeling arises when the Jacques Monory, Lyotard argues that ‘‘Monory’s
objects of perception overwhelm our capacities oeuvre testifies to a discrepancy between presence
to synthesize the raw data of sensation into and infinity, between existence and meaning,’’36
intuitions (sensory objects presented in time and and he interweaves his interpretation of Monory
space); the faculty of Imagination thus fails to with a striking analysis of contemporary nihilism.
present intuitions and match them with concepts In contrast to his position in ‘‘Dead Letter,’’ in
as it does in the case of ordinary experience. this later essay – in which the issue of the
However, the faculty of Reason presents an meaning of life is once again raised explicitly –
Idea of limitlessness which is provoked by the Lyotard seems to insist on the intractability of the
‘‘badly-formed’’ sensation.33 As with nihilism, abyss between meaning and existence. The essay
the sensible world is called into question in begins with a metaphoric description of nihilism,
relation to a supposedly superior intellectual in which the lengthening shadows that indicate
category, but a category which itself cannot be the onset of winter illustrate the origin of our
verified by accordance with objects of experience. nihilistic tendencies: ‘‘The abyss between what
Both nihilism and the sublime thus rupture the can appear and what can be thought was opened
integrity of experience, instituting a divide at the outset by the coming of winter.’’37
between the sensible and the intelligible, and Winter here symbolizes the negative judge-
casting doubt on the reality of the world. ment made on the sensible world of appearance
The analogy that Lyotard makes between (existence). Thought separates itself from the
Heideggerian nihilism and the Kantian sublime sensible world in the hope that a better, more
proceeds along similar lines: with the sublime, meaningful world might lie elsewhere. The
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woodward
coming of winter thus signals the onset of identification of nihilism and the sublime may
suffering and the disappointment with life be found in Lyotard’s analysis of the sublime as a
which, in Nietzsche’s analysis, causes us to sign, and his revisitation of the ‘‘fort/da’’ game
negate it. Lyotard writes that ‘‘the paucity of in an elaboration of sublime feeling. Lyotard
reality is revealed, and suffering in the face characterizes the sublime work of art as a sign
of winter starts moaning and covers the experi- in the essay ‘‘Critical Reflections’’:
ence of finitude with curses.’’38
In this essay Lyotard advances the striking . . . the sublime remainder is withdrawn
beyond or beneath any capability of forming
thesis that in the contemporary world the sublime
something presentable, like a pure Idea that
has become an ‘‘immanent sublime.’’ Kantian
exceeds the imagination and that closes off
Ideas – concepts which extend beyond the its horizon. Thought feels its moorings in the
possibility of presentation in empirical objects sensory being ripped away and its objects
of our experience – are no longer solely the trembling at the edge of the abyss. The object
province of transcendent metaphysical specula- that is the occasion of this distress and of this
tions such as God, the immortal soul, or freedom exodus is surely there, but at the same time it
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of the will. Lyotard argues that such Ideas have is not there. As a phenomenon it is certainly
become immanent through the mapping of the presented, but as the inspiration for the
world, with the aid of scientific techniques Idea of an absolute, it does not belong to
and new technologies, in ways which defy the the presentation; it is the sign of the
unpresentable. The object is a sign or signal
possibility of our experience. In particular,
of what I call a ‘‘presence,’’ which is not a
Lyotard notes the discovery of macroscopic and presentation.40
microscopic worlds with telescopes, microscopes,
and other sensitive equipment, and the capacity Here, the aesthetic object itself – the sensible
of computers to store amounts of information material of the artwork – acts as a sign for the
that exceed the competence of any individual supersensible (the Idea), and is threatened
to master. Lyotard then attributes Ideas with a with non-existence (‘‘trembling at the edge of
‘‘murderous power’’ because of the way they the abyss’’). The sublime object is the sign
reduce the significance of the data of our direct of presence, and its meaning (the Idea) is not
sensory experience. Lyotard writes: ‘‘Nothing present in it: it thus plays ‘‘the game of
ever in sense-able things can equal the infinity of de-presence, the very game of semiotic
Ideas.’’39 In the context of our new, scientifically nihilism.’’41 Here with the sublime, we are very
and technologically expanded worldview, close to Lyotard’s own vitriolic description of the
‘‘reality’’ can no longer be considered as given ‘‘bad, nihilist’’ sign in Libidinal Economy, where
in perception. Indeed, the world of perception is he accuses the semioticians: ‘‘See what you have
itself ‘‘derealized’’ in comparison with the world done: the material is immediately annihilated.
that science and technology have revealed. Thus, Where there is a message, there is no material.’’42
in one of Lyotard’s first deployments of the The material, sensuous element of the sign is
sublime, it functions as a concept through which not meaningful in itself, and in that sense it is
to analyse the nihilism of the contemporary negated, while it signifies its meaning as a
world. transcendent ‘‘presence’’ which is not itself
In addition to these relatively explicit identi- present in, or immanent to, the material. With
fications of nihilism and the sublime, Lyotard’s the sublime understood as a sign, then, we appear
writings contain implicit suggestions of a strong to be back to the basic structure of religious
association between the two ideas. We saw in the nihilism.
previous section how, in his ‘‘libidinal phase,’’ Lyotard briefly returns to the ‘‘fort/da’’ game
Lyotard identified nihilism in the structure of the in one of his last significant essays on the
sign, and in the construction of desire as lack sublime, ‘‘Anima Minima’’ (1993). His discussion
through representation, illustrated with Freud’s of the game in this context underscores in many
‘‘fort/da’’ game. Further indication of the respects the representational nihilism it is used to
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nihilism and the sublime
illustrate in Libidinal Economy, but turned to calls it ‘‘the unpresentable,’’ ‘‘nothing,’’ or ‘‘the
quite a different end. Lyotard’s aim in the paper immaterial.’’
is to extend certain qualities of the sublime In Lyotard’s late writings, aesthetics thus
aesthetic sentiment to all aesthetic sentiments.43 involves a kind of nihilism in so far as the
These qualities are directly related to nihilism. aesthetic sentiment negates or calls into question
Lyotard claims (in a passage quoted above) that the data of perception and sensation, indicating
a kind of nihilism is identifiable in all aesthetic something beyond what is merely given in or as
experience. To repeat: sensation. Lyotard suggests that this presence
is itself what gives the given, what presents the
Nihilism does not just end the efficiency of presented; it is a condition for what is sensed
the great narratives of emancipation, it does that cannot itself be sensed.46 In more prosaic
not just lead to the loss of values and the
terms, we might suggest that what Lyotard means
death of God, which render metaphysics
by ‘‘presence’’ is that which is felt, but which
impossible. It casts suspicion on the data of
aesthetics.44
cannot be reduced to anything given in the
aesthetic object itself.47 Lyotard thus conceives
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Lyotard elaborates what he means here with aesthetics – the sublime in particular, but
reference to the ‘‘fort/da’’ game. He rehearses ultimately aesthetics in general – as inherently
Freud’s example uncritically this time, saying paradoxical, in so far as it concerns both the
that of course the reel represents the absent sensible and the negation of the sensible. In other
mother, but then goes on to give the following writings Lyotard indicates this theme with
interpretation: paradoxical terms such as ‘‘presenting the
unpresentable,’’ ‘‘anaesthetic’’ aesthetics, and
The child makes the object disappear over ‘‘immaterial matter.’’ In the essay ‘‘Anima
the edge by mumbling ‘‘fort’’ and celebrates Minima,’’ this paradox is illustrated with
its return with a ‘‘da.’’ What is played out the ‘‘fort/da’’ game: it indicates the nihilism –
is the mutation of sight into vision and
the negation of the sensible – at the core of the
appearance into apparition. Apparition is
sublime aesthetic.
appearance stamped with the seal of its
disappearance. Art puts death’s insignia on
the sensible. It ravishes sensation from the survivors, or experimenters?
night and impresses the seal of darkness (the sublime as response to nihilism)
upon it.45
I have now sketched in some detail the reasons,
Lyotard is suggesting here that there is a nihilism both explicit and implicit, for thinking that
inherent in aesthetics in so far as the apprehen- Lyotard associates nihilism and the sublime so
sion of the sensible which gives rise to aesthetic closely that we may seem justified in thinking
sentiment (what I see, hear, etc. is beautiful, or that for him they are essentially the same thing.
is sublime) is something other than the mere I will now argue that Lyotard presents the
apprehension of sense data (of the kind which sublime not only as a modality of nihilism but
might, for example, and according to Kant’s also as a response to it. I will then attempt to
metaphysics, be matched with concepts and form explain Lyotard’s use of the sublime in this
objects of knowledge). For Lyotard, aesthetic ambiguous way by contextualizing it in the wider
apprehension involves a destabilization or calling movement of his thought.
into question of the ‘‘everyday’’ apprehension of Lyotard’s deployment of the sublime as a
sensible material; aesthetic experience turns our response to nihilism has both important conti-
perception away from an ordinary apprehension nuities and important discontinuities with
of the world with its habitual identification of Nietzsche’s response. Like Nietzsche, Lyotard
objects, and towards a ‘‘something else’’ which proposes that art, and the aesthetic experience to
invites aesthetic sentiment. Lyotard calls this which it gives rise, acts as an important counter
‘‘something else’’ presence. He also sometimes to nihilism. However, the kind of art Lyotard
60
woodward
endorses, and the political and cultural dimen- He begins to see any proposal for closing the
sions of the aesthetic experience to which it gives abyss as potentially terroristic, because to con-
rise, differs significantly from that advocated strue existence as meaningful in a determinate
by Nietzsche. Lyotard breaks with Nietzsche on way is to exclude those who disagree with such
both responses to nihilism outlined above: on the a meaning, or are not recognized as significant
reconstitution of a unified culture, and on the in its terms.
hope of overcoming nihilism by pushing it to its The aesthetic significance of Lyotard’s concern
extreme. In relation to the first of Nietzsche’s with the politics of culture and community
proposed responses to nihilism, Keith Ansell emerges in his engagement with Kant, particu-
Pearson explains that larly in Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime.
Here, we see a preference for sublime art and
[i]t is important to appreciate that the ‘‘art’’ sublime aesthetic experience over the experience
Nietzsche speaks of and esteems is public art, of the beautiful on explicitly political grounds.
that is, art such as Greek tragic drama, which
Kant draws an interesting link between aesthetic
gathers together a people or community
experience and community through an analysis
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61
nihilism and the sublime
distinct) to monocular vision.’’54 Thus, beautiful regarding their experience. While such a possi-
art had a socially and culturally integrating bility remains relatively undeveloped in Lyotard’s
function. works, the feeling of the sublime announces the
For Kant, there is a link between the aesthetic possibility of a new model of community, one
of the beautiful and community as such. In based on the sublime and dissensus rather than
responding to the problem of how to explain the the beautiful and consensus.59
status of judgements of taste – which do not seem This deployment of the sublime aesthetic
to be objective or open to demonstration, like directly breaks with the project of a public art
knowledge claims, but which nevertheless differ and a shared culture which Nietzsche sometimes
from mere personal preferences – Kant argues endorses as a response to nihilism. This break
that such judgements demand a consensus which takes place in the name of justice. Lyotard draws
is qualitatively different from that involved in together the preservation of the difference
rational argumentation. That is, when we judge between the Kantian faculties and the refusal to
something to be beautiful, we expect others to reconcile the intelligible and the sensible, both
agree with us, without having to – or being able in the name of justice understood as a respect for
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to – argue our point. Kant describes this as an difference, in the programmatic statement closing
immediate communicability of the feeling of the the essay ‘‘Answer to the Question: What is the
beautiful.55 According to Lyotard, it is based on Postmodern?’’:
the presupposition of a shared ‘‘community of
feeling,’’ and so it establishes the possibility of . . . it is not up to us to provide reality but to
community on an aesthetic, pre-rational basis, invent allusions to what is conceivable but not
presentable. And this task should not lead us
and on the ideal of consensus.56
to expect the slightest reconciliation between
It is precisely such a community based on
‘‘language games’’ – Kant, naming them the
consensus that Lyotard sees as a threat to justice. faculties, knew that they are separated by an
He develops a complex reading of Kant, against abyss and that only a transcendental illusion
Kant’s own intentions, to show that the aesthetic (Hegel’s) can hope to totalize them into a real
of the sublime breaks from this notion of unity. But he also knew that the price of this
community as consensus. Kant argues that illusion is terror. We have paid dearly for our
while there is an immediate communication of nostalgia for the all and the one, for a
the feeling of the beautiful, the communication of reconciliation of the concept and the sensible,
sublime feeling is mediated by a feeling for the for a transparent and communicable experi-
moral law. In Lessons on the Analytic of the ence. Beneath the general demand for relaxa-
Sublime, Lyotard argues that ‘‘[t]he sublime tion and appeasement, we hear murmurings
of the desire to reinstitute terror and fulfil
feeling is neither moral universality nor aesthetic
the fantasm of taking possession of reality.
universalisation, but is, rather, the destruction of
The answer is: war on totality. Let us attest
one by the other in the violence of their to the unpresentable, let us activate the
differend.’’57 Lyotard’s reading is complex, but differends and save the honour of the name.60
we may summarize its upshot as follows. While
Kant seeks to show that the feeling of the sublime Moreover, as we have already seen, Lyotard
testifies to the power of Reason and the moral law rejects the Nietzschean hope of overcoming
through the experience of the superiority of nihilism by pushing it to its limits. As Lyotard
Reason over imagination (the faculty of the understands it, such a project is bound up with
presentation of sensations), Lyotard insists on revolutionary and utopian politics, and the
the irresolvable ‘‘differend’’ between the two Marxist idea of social change being produced by
faculties. For him, the feeling of the sublime is the contradictions of capitalism being pushed to
the experience of incommensurability itself.58 their extremes. Lyotard lost his faith in Marxism
Such a feeling breaks with the ideal of consensus in part because of his experience of disappoint-
because it is an experience of dissensus: the ment with Algeria: for a long time he agitated for
faculties find themselves in disagreement revolution, but after Algerian independence there
62
woodward
was no significant social transformation in the of human reason over perceptible nature.62
Marxist sense, and new structures of exploitation Characteristically, Lyotard rejects such a reading,
simply replaced the old. In Libidinal Economy emphasizing instead the tension between reason
he argues that any form of social organization will and imagination – between the intelligible and
necessarily be exploitative and alienating to some the sensible – which is the occasion for the feeling
degree, and rejects the revolutionary project. of the sublime. In emphasizing sublime feeling,
Moreover, he argues that Marxism is precisely Lyotard calls attention to the limits of reason.
a faith, and a form of religious nihilism. It is Moreover, at times Lyotard emphasizes the
predicated on a ‘‘reconciliation fantasy’’ in the sensuous side of the sublime, and the way that
form of a utopian idea of society, and Lyotard the sublime experience involves the suspension of
rejects it as nothing but a fantasy. Often, the idea the active powers of the mind in the confronta-
of utopia remains nothing but an absent and tion with sensible materiality.63 The sublime may
deferred source of value, which devalues the be understood not as a devaluation of the sensible
present in relation to a futural projection.61 but as the very recuperation and triumph of its
However, the real danger of such fantasies is that possibility when the objects of sensible percep-
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they can motivate violent political actions, both tion are called into doubt. As such, it resists the
through revolution and through the exclusions devaluation of the sensible aspects of existence
and repressions which take place in the name which nihilism threatens.64
of creating a utopian society. For these reasons, Second, in place of the stability of the triumph
Lyotard rejects the idea of a definitive over- of reason over sensation, Lyotard underlines
coming of nihilism, and opts instead for a Kant’s suggestion that the sublime feeling is a
strategic working within existing social constant agitation, and links this agitation to
conditions. the stimulation of, and increased feeling for, life.
Despite Lyotard’s disavowal of the Nietzschean This point remains suggestive in Lyotard’s
project of overcoming nihilism in both senses writings, and is not filled out in great detail.
discussed above, there are significant ways in It is most clearly articulated in the first few pages
which Lyotard’s descriptions of the sublime of the essay ‘‘Judiciousness in Dispute, or Kant
resonate with Nietzsche’s explanations of how after Marx.’’65 Referring to section 27 of the
art can act as a counter-movement to nihilism. Critique of Judgement, Lyotard notes here the
I wish to suggest three such ways. First, for all contrast with respect to the mind that Kant
the annihilation of the sensible and the elevation suggests between the feeling of the beautiful and
of the intelligible in the aesthetic of the sublime, that of the sublime. With the feeling of the
it is still an aesthetic, the occasion of a sensation beautiful, the mind is in a state of restful
and a feeling, and not just a cognition. For contemplation; with the feeling of the sublime,
Nietzsche, art acts counter to nihilist religion and the mind feels itself moved. Lyotard quotes Kant:
metaphysics because it engages the sensuous ‘‘[This sublime motion] may be compared to a
and sentimental aspects of our being and of life vibration (Erschütterung); that is, to a quickly
that the nihilists condemn. It thus engages the alternating attraction towards and repulsion
whole of our nature, and enables us to affirm from the same object.’’66 (Lyotard explains this
the whole of life. It is distinctive of Lyotard’s agitated movement as consisting in the imagina-
reading of the sublime to underline precisely its tion’s alternating repulsion from and attraction to
sensuous and sentimental aspects. reason, as the two faculties debate over the status
One of the most original aspects of Lyotard’s of the sublime object in experience, alternately
reading of the Kantian sublime is his insistence agreeing and disagreeing.) While the agitation
on the significance of the fact that the sublime proper to the sublime is the agitation of a
is a feeling. While this is not, of course, denied transcendental subject and not of an empirical
by any of Kant’s interpreters, there is a human individual, Lyotard further notes that
tendency by some to interpret the sublime as a critical analogy may be made with Kant’s
functioning primarily to indicate the superiority anthropological texts, in which health in an
63
nihilism and the sublime
empirical sense is also associated with an agitated discussions of experimentation in his later works.
movement. Lyotard describes the agitation dis- An example may be found in the closing pages
cussed in these texts as ‘‘an alternation, an of Peregrinations. After again making an associa-
exchange between two poles, a thrust inhibited by tion between the ‘‘crisis of space and time’’
an obstacle, a movement to and fro, a race from in which the aesthetic of the sublime becomes
one point to another and then back again, a operative and the Heideggerian ‘‘retreat of
visceral vibrato, an excitation of the life force.’’67 Being,’’ Lyotard writes:
Lyotard finds further evidence for this associa-
tion of the sublime and vitality in Kant’s claim . . . in opposition to the Heideggerean idea of a
that the indirect pleasure and delight associated decline, I would argue that this retreat takes
a path that allows the artist to search for other
with the feeling of the sublime stem from
forms by means of new technologies, if they
‘‘a momentary checking (Hemmung) of the vital
are taken as Technai. I think that the question
powers and a consequent stronger outflow of at stake in art today is whether a programmed
them.’’68 Lyotard’s emphasis on agitation in the synthesis allows the artist to invent new forms
sublime and its association with health recalls which were not possible with the immediate
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the role Nietzsche gives to art in responding to contact with so-called nature . . . We must find
nihilism by being a stimulus to life, by activating new paths in order to approach new artistic
our vital powers and increasing our appetite clouds and new clouds of thoughts.70
for living. Lyotard’s reading suggests that the
sublime can provide precisely such a stimulus For Lyotard, the aesthetic of the sublime allows
through the agitation of the faculties it produces. new possibilities for creative forms in the arts,
These first two points – the emphasis on forms which may be found through experimenta-
the sublime as sensation and feeling, and the tion with materials under the conditions of the
agitation it produces as having an affinity with privation of the ‘‘good forms’’ of time and space
vitality and health – are drawn together in (as alluded to here, Lyotard argues that new
‘‘Anima Minima.’’ Here, Lyotard portrays aes- technologies provide materials for such artistic
thesis itself as a stimulation to life, and even as experimentation).71
the origin of life: ‘‘Sensation makes a break in an The value of the creative sublime as a response
inert nonexistence. It alerts, it should be said, to nihilism is emphasized by Lyotard’s privileging
it exists it. What we call life proceeds from of experimentation over ‘‘mere survival.’’ This
a violence exerted from the outside on a theme appears in several of his later works in the
lethargy.’’69 Life is presented here, as the title context of an analysis of changing social condi-
of the essay suggests, as a ‘‘minimal animation,’’ tions. As we have seen, according to Lyotard the
the result of sensible stimulation on something sublime has become an ‘‘immanent sublime’’ as
which has a capacity to receive sensations. a result of the technological displacement of our
(Lyotard often calls this capacity ‘‘passibility.’’) sense of reality, from perceptual givens to infinite
Lyotard suggests, then, that life and health are data. One of the decisive transformations of social
associated with the agitation and animation which conditions Lyotard believes that technologies
sensation exerts on something which has a effect is the decline of the category of
capacity to receive it. The sublime, as an aesthetic ‘‘experience.’’ Experience, in this sense, is the
of agitation, acts as a model for this sensible ‘‘life experience’’ gained over time, through
stimulation to life. In this respect, the sublime which a person accumulates knowledge and
may be seen as resisting nihilism by activating forms character. In place of the human subject
and affirming the integral connections between understood as ‘‘experiencer,’’ Lyotard contends,
agitation, sensation, and life. our cultural ideal is now the ‘‘expert,’’ who needs
Third, for Lyotard the aesthetic of the sublime only to know the specific technical knowledges
acts as a stimulus to new possibilities for creative which allow her to perform her function in her
artistic experimentation. The creative possibili- field. The goal of the expert is not personal
ties of the sublime emerge in Lyotard’s frequent growth, but the operation and maintenance of the
64
woodward
technical apparatuses which exceed the capacities a greater historical and cultural specificity: it is
of any user, to which the store of knowledge is not aimed at compensating for the meaningless-
entrusted. ness of life in a general existential sense, but
Given these new conditions of existence, at artistically transforming the experience of
Lyotard sketches two possible fates for us: postmodernity.
we may become ‘‘mere’’ survivors, or we may Lyotard’s response to nihilism from within,
become experimenters. He writes that ‘‘the through an elaboration of the sublime which is
quantitative infinite of knowledges and powers itself a modality of nihilism, may better be
. . . has eaten away at experiences and made understood by considering it in the wider context
us into survivors or experimenters . . . ’’72 And of his thought. We have already seen how
further: Lyotard’s recourse to the sublime may be under-
stood in terms of his rejection of revolutionary
For the abyss aroused by sublime feeling, is politics and a community based on consensus.
substituted the concrete mass of materials A further dimension of understanding is given
and hardware in self-regulating set-ups. What
in the idea of ‘‘retorsion.’’ One of the most
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65
nihilism and the sublime
obscuring (on Lyotard’s account, justice, the which does injustice to difference. Lyotard wants
event, the sensible, and in general all differences both meaning and justice, but, unlike Nietzsche,
which do not survive metalinguistic translation). he is absolutely unwilling to sacrifice the latter
The point I wish to draw from this is that we for the former. Lyotard’s rejection of the hope of
may see the itinerary of Lyotard’s thought as overcoming nihilism – of reconciling the sensible
being moved by an increasing attraction to the and the intelligible, of meaning and existence – is
strategy of retorsion and to the resources of driven by this insistence. It prompts him to
immanent critique. In his Marxian phase and still search for a model of community based on
to some extent in Discourse, Figure and the dissensus rather than consensus, as well as for
essays preceding Libidinal Economy, he posits possibilities for responding to nihilism from
the possibility of a transgression of existing social within a nihilistic culture. Lyotard finds both
and conceptual structures and hopes for a in the aesthetic of the sublime. If Nietzsche is
revolution which will bring an end to alienation right in supposing that life can only be justified
and (in effect) restore the identity of meaning and aesthetically,79 then the sublime
existence. In Libidinal Economy, the gesture is a form of aesthetic justification
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66
woodward
7 Ansell Pearson 159. there is the specular partition between
them, already the auditorium-side and the
8 Lyotard was a member of the Marxist organiza-
stage-side, already the theatre; and the
tions Socialisme ou Barbarie (1954 ^ 64) and
theatre the child constructs with the edge
Pouvoir Ouvrier (1964 ^ 66).
of his bed as the footlights, and the thread
9 Lyotard, ‘‘Dead Letter’’ in Jean-Franc ois Lyotard attached to the bobbin as curtain and scen-
38 ^39. ery, governs entries and exits, this prosthe-
sis-theatre is of the same type as that
10 Ibid. 34.
already hollowed out within him, it is the
11 Ibid. 35. replica in ‘‘exteriority’’ of the hollow volume
in which the two poles of his own body and
12 Ibid. 39.
that of his mother, theatrical counterparts,
13 For an account of this loss of faith, see Lyotard’s non-existent poles, capture, secure in their
‘‘A Memorial of Marxism: For Pierre Souyri,’’ trans. field, dominate every event of the libidinal
Cecile Lindsay, in Peregrinations. band. (Libidinal Economy 23)
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67
nihilism and the sublime
33 See Kant, The Critique of Judgement, sections 47 For Lyotard’s most significant discussion of this
23^29 (‘‘Analytic of the Sublime’’). idea, see his ‘‘Presence.’’
34 Heidegger gives a striking early illustration 48 Ansell Pearson 5.
of this in section 23 of Being and Time, in terms
49 In Lyotard, Driftworks 72.
of the effect of modern technologies such as the
radio on Dasein’s spatiality: 50 In the posthumously published essay ‘‘The
Greek State,’’ for example, Nietzsche fears
All the ways in which we speed things up, ‘‘the cry of compassion tearing down the
as we are more or less compelled to do walls of culture,’’ in which case ‘‘the desire for
today, push us on towards the conquest of justice, for the equalization of suffering,
remoteness. With the ‘‘radio,’’ for example, would swamp all other ideas.’’ See Ansell
Dasein has so expanded its everyday envir- Pearson 73.
onment that it has accomplished a de-sever-
ance [‘‘bringing-close’’ or ‘‘making the farness 51 See, in particular, sections 39 and 40 of The
vanish’’] of the ‘‘world’’ ^ a de-severance Critique of Judgement.
which, in its meaning for Dasein, cannot yet 52 Lyotard, ‘‘Answer to the Question: What is
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be visualized. (Being and Time 140 [105]) the Postmodern?’’ in The Postmodern Explained
to Children 19.
It is the more general effects of such technologies
that Heidegger describes in later works in 53 ‘‘Representation, Presentation, Unpresentable’’
terms of Gestell (see ‘‘The Question Concerning inThe Inhuman119.
Technology’’ in The Question Concerning Technology
and Other Essays). Lyotard endorses and extends 54 Ibid.
this Heideggerian theme, suggesting that 55 Kant writes:
Heidegger understood the apogee of techno-
science as nuclear science, but that ‘‘we have . . . I say that taste can with more justice
done much better in Gestell nowadays,’’ and citing be called a sensus communis than can sound
contemporary communication technologies and understanding; and that the aesthetic,
computer science (The Inhuman 114). rather than the intellectual, judgement
can bear the name of a public sense . . . We
35 Lyotard, ‘‘Sublime Aesthetic of the Contract
might even define taste as the faculty of
Killer’’ inThe Assassination of Experience by Painting.
estimating what makes our feeling in a
36 Ibid.192. given representation universally communicable
without the mediation of a concept.
37 Ibid.191. (The Critique of Judgement, trans. Meredith,
38 Ibid.192. section 40,153 [295])
68
woodward
64 To elaborate this point a little further, we 76 For example, in Libidinal Economy he refers to
may note that feeling is usually thought on the the linguistic turn in French thought, associated
sensible side of the sensible/intelligible opposi- with ‘‘the closure of representation,’’ as
tion. The feeling of the sublime is analysed by
Kant as a feeling of both pleasure and pain, that sarcastic discovery, that sham dropping
and pleasure and pain are both identified by of the scales from our eyes, by those thinkers
Plato as lying on the side of the sensible and who come and tell us: what is outside is really
distracting the soul from remembering its inside, there is no outside, the exteriority
true divine origin in the intelligible world of the of the theatre is just as much its interiori-
forms. In the Phaedo, for example, he has ty . . . this sad piece of news, this cacangelism
Socrates say: ‘‘[E]very pleasure and every pain which is only the other side of evangelism,
provides, as it were, another nail to rivet the this wretched news that the artefact-bearers
soul to the body and to weld them together’’ running along their little wall behind the
(Plato’s Phaedo 34). backs of slaves who are bound and seated
at the bottom of their cave, do not even
65 InThe Lyotard Reader. exist, or what amounts to the same:
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Ashley Woodward
Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy,
c/o School of Philosophy, Anthropology, and
Social Inquiry
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC 3010
Australia
E-mail: ashleydw@unimelb.edu.au