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In
Search of Lost Cheekiness, An Introduction to Peter
Sloterdijk’s “Critique of Cynical Reason”
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner
In this essay I wish to give an introduction to the
first main work of a major German contemporary philosopher
- Peter Sloterdijk. He was born in Karlsruhe in 1947.
36 years later, in 1983, he became the shooting star
of German philosophy with the publication of his
early main work ‘The Critique of Cynical Reason’ with
which I will be concerned in this paper.
In later publications he has dealt with topics as
diverse as the flight from the world (Weltflucht)
of monks, to the cultural history of drugs, the location
when we listen to music [Sloterdijk (1993a)], and
even a Taoism for Europe [Sloterdijk (1996)]. In
addition, it should be mentioned that the philosoüphy
of his latest main works which are called “Spheres” {“Sphären
1” [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1998b] & “Sphären
2” [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999]}
differs significantly from the ‘Critique of
Cynical Reason’. Yet, he is not only a philosopher
and cultural critic, but he has also published a
novel called ‘the magic tree’ (Der Zauberbaum)
[Sloterdijk (1985)] which deals with the birth of
psychoanalysis. His fame in German philosophical
circles is only being matched by Habermas, Marquard,
and Gadamer.
There are, however, also quite a few people, who
would object to me calling Sloterdijk a philosopher,
because, according to them, Sloterdijk lacks academic
rigour, and deals with topics not normally discussed
in Academic philosophy. Still, Habermas takes him
seriously [J. Habermas, in: Pflasterstrand: Nr.:
159 / 1983], internationally renowned Professors
of philosophy have written articles about him [ed.
Suhrkamp (1987)], and there are already lecture series
being organised on some of his writings in Germany,
so it seem as if one should not dismiss him that
easily, even if the initial impression one might
get about him is that he is just a cultural critic.
Let us consider the philosopher’s educational
background. Peter Sloterdijk went through the German
educational system. He studied German literature,
history, and philosophy in Munich and Hamburg, where
he received his Dr. phil. in German Literature. After
he had finished his studies, he was working as a
free lance writer in Munich for some time. Then he
was producing his “Critique of Cynical Reason”.
Nowadays, he is a Professor at the Karlsruher Hochschule
für Gestaltung, and the Wiener Akademie der
Bildenden Künste.
Although, he now is a professional academic, his
inventive style of writing has not changed, and the
titles, as well as the content of his works are still
as innovative and idiosyncratic as they used to be
in his early publications. The Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung has even compared him to such high class
writers as Schopenhauer, and Spengler [J. Busche,
in FAZ: 7.4.1983]. Besides Sloterdijk’s rather
dull discussion of Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy
in his “Thinker on Stage” [Sloterdijk
(1989)], wherein one gets to know Sloterdijk, but
not Nietzsche; I regard this to be a fair estimation.
After briefly having introduced Sloterdijk as a person,
and a writer, I wish to turn to his main work – ‘The
Critique of Cynical Reason’. This 1000 page
long giant was published in Germany in 1983, and
translated into English in 1987. It contains some
of the most refreshing German prose written after
1945. As the title already suggests it is a Critique,
which criticises cynical reason. This sounds interesting,
but where can we place him as a philosopher, one
might wonder.
PHILOSOPHY
Peter Sloterdijk is not someone, who would translate
philosophy as ‘love of the truth’, because
he is not concerned with the great metaphysical,
ontological, and epistemological problems:
The great themes, they were evasions and half
truths. Those futile, beautiful, soaring flights
- God, Universe,
Theory, Praxis, Subject, Object, Body, Spirit, Meaning
, Nothingness - all that is nothing. They are nouns
for young people, for outsiders, clerics, sociologists. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. xxvi]
His philosophy is about all the seemingly insignificant,
apparently lower aspects of life.
The Zeitgeist has left its mark on us, and whoever
wants to decipher it is faced with the task of working
on the psychosomatics of Cynicism. This is what an
integrating philosophy demands of itself. It is called
integrating because it does not let itself be seduced
by the attraction of the ‘great problems’,
but instead initially finds its themes in the trivial,
in everyday life, in the so-called unimportant, in
those things that otherwise are not worth speaking
about, in petty details. Whoever wants to can, in
such a perspective, already recognise the kynical
impulse for which the ‘low-brow themes’ are
not too low. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 140 – 141]
He is still concerned with the questions of life,
and of values, if we take values not only to refer
to general principles, but include attitudes towards
life as well. So, one could say that Sloterdijk understands
philosophy as the ‘love of wisdom’. Thereby,
he is one of Nietzsche’s philosopher’s
of the future, who are the inventors of new values,
and do not believe in the truth anymore. In other
words, he is a post-modernist. I take the term ‘post-modernist’ to
refer to someone who regards the possibility of human
beings to get to know the truth, in respect to metaphysics
as well as in respect to ethics, as impossible. This
implies that for him there is also no set of values,
or principles, which is absolutely valid. A couple
of problems in respect to ones own life arise out
of this attitude because each of us has to find answers
to the following questions: How am I supposed to
live? What are the values, and principles, I intend
to stick to? What could be a possible basis for my
actions? Sloterdijk does not provide direct answers
to these questions.
If we took the notion ‘value’ to refer
to general principles concerning the good life only,
then Sloterdijk would not be a philosopher in the
above mentioned sense because, in contrast to Marx,
and Nietzsche, he is not building up a new immanent
system of virtues and values to give answers to the
aforementioned questions {“New values?
No thanks!” [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. 6]}, but he accepts that currently our
Western societies are mainly based on nihilism, and
puts forward an altered attitude towards it. The
present attitude human beings take in respect to
life, if they believe in nihilism, is Cynicism, according
to him. This he contrasts with Kynicism, and while
doing so he describes Kynicism in such a way that
this state of consciousness is much more appealing
than the cynical one. Therefore, one can say that
he is putting forward Kynicism as a better reaction
to nihilism than Cynicism. Cynicism as well as Kynicism
are states of consciousness, according to Sloterdijk,
and they also agree insofar as they both are far
beyond the belief in idealism, and stable, absolute
values. Whenever Sloterdijk employs the term “idealism”,
he does not mean typical idealism a la Hegel, but
he refers to all types of belief in absolutes. The
loss of the belief in stable values, idealism et
cetera, e.g. nihilism, was brought about by the Enlightenment
movement. This movement was accompanied by the cynical
attitude, which he criticises in this work. His work
is not primarily a critique of the Enlightenment,
as Andreas Huyssen pointed out [Sloterdijk (1987b):
Foreword], but rather a critique of the attitude
of Cynicism, which accompanied the Enlightenment
movement. It is not a critique of the Enlightenment
at all, but only a critique of the state of consciousness,
which is usually brought about by any form of enlightenment,
e.g. Cynicism, or as he calls it: Cynical reason.
After having pointed out, where Peter Sloterdijk
is to be found on the philosophical map, I now give
a brief overview over the structure of the ‘Critique
of Cynical Reason’. In the first part of his
Critique, he provides us with the concepts of “Cynicism” and “Kynicism”,
and states examples of the loss of absolutes from
the Enlightenment period, which have brought about
cynical reason in human beings. In the second main
part, which is nearly three times longer than the
first, he goes through masses of examples of Cynicism
in the world process. These examples are divided
up into four main categories. The first one deals
with physionomy, the second with phenomenology, the
third with logic, and the last with a historical
example, e.g. the Weimar Republic. He does so to
provide us with an understanding of the various variations
and complexities of Cynicism. One should also bear
in mind that the four headings, just mentioned, have
rather idiosyncratic meanings within his work, which
are however easily grasped, if one reads the parts
itself. Space here is too limited to deal with all
the problematic notions in question, but a brief
introduction to the key notions of the ‘Critique
of Cynical Reason’ can be given.
I begin with an interpretation of what took place
during the Enlightenment period, according to Sloterdijk,
this leads me to an analysis of the notion of ‘Cynicism’,
which as an attitude towards life is supposed to
be prevalent in the present, and finally I put forward
my analysis of Sloterdijk’s notion ‘Kynicism’,
which he defends as an alternative to ‘Cynicism’.
ENLIGHTENMENT
The Enlightenment brought about the end of the Christian
domination of the Western world, a destruction of
any ideals, absolutes, or truths, whether in respect
to ontology, or morality. The various destruction’s,
of course, did not happen from one moment to the
other, but took place over a long period of time.
In the history of philosophy the enlightenment began
with Descartes “Meditations”. Kants critiques
are further central works concerning the enlightenment
movement. The more the Enlightenment progressed,
the more the importance of nihilism increased, as
more and more ideals were destroyed. However, within
the enlithenment one still has had the reasonable
unified subject on which one could rely and on which
all critiques but also all positive, non nihilistic
conceptions, like Kantian ethics, were based. So
within the enlightenment there was still a small
stronghold against nihilism – the reasonable
unified subject.
Before the enlightenment, one used to believe that
the Christian metaphysics is true, that the bible
was revealed to us and represents the actual word
of God, that human beings can get to know the metaphysic
of the whole world by using their faculty of reason,
that if we live a moral life we will gain an eternal
blissful afterlife, that any form of absolutes exists
ontologically in some separate realm, that the earth
is at the centre of the universe, that God is the
creator of everything and many other things from
the support we get from Angels to the existence of
the devil. However, in the Enlightenment period all
these beliefs and various others more were attacked
by critiques. A critique is a theory or a set of
beliefs which attacks or sheds doubt upon an absolute
truth, an indubitable belief. Human beings use their
faculty of reason to undertake these critiques. Sloterdijk
explains the dynamic of these critiques as follows,
and counterposes his own critique to the other ones:
It is the a-priori pain - it makes even the simplest
things in life difficult for a person - that opens
his eyes critically. There is no significant critique
without significant defects. It is the critically
wounded in a culture who, with great effort, find
something healing, who continue to turn the wheel
of critique... Among the great critical achievements
in modern times, sores open up everywhere... Out
of the self healing of deep sores come critiques
that serve epochs as rallying points for self knowledge.
Every critique is pioneering work on the pain of
the times (Zeitschmerz) and a piece of exemplary
healing.
It is not my ambition to enlarge this honourable
infirmary of critical theories. It is time for a
new critique of temperaments. Where enlightenment
appears as a ‘melancholy science’ (Adorno,
Transl.), it unintentionally furthers melancholic
stagnation. Thus, the critique of cynical reason
hopes to achieve more from a work that cheers us
up, whereby it is understood from the beginning that
it is not so much a matter of work but rather of
relaxation. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. xxxvi – xxxvii]
So Sloterdijk’s critique is supposed to be
a gay science, as opposed to the critiques of the
enlightenment which were sad sciences because they
merely destroyed all the ideals in which people used
to believe in, which people employed for structuring
their lives, and which provided a meaning to the
lives of people. Of course, his critique aims to
destroy or attack something as well. Yet, what it
goes against is an attitude towards life which makes
people miserable and depressed, whereas the ideals
the Enlightenment critiques attacked brought at least
an apparent fulfilment and joy into the lives of
the people, like a blissful afterlife. This can be
seen at the critiques which came up during the Enlightenment
period:
There is the Critique of Revelation, Religious Illusion,
Metaphysical Illusion, the Idealistic Superstructure,
Moral Illusion, Transparency, Natural Illusion, and
Illusion of Privacy. I do not wish to go into too
much detail here, although Sloterdijk does. He sets
out the different critiques in a fairly detailed
manner. I will cite only three examples from two
categories. I have taken the first one from Sltoterdijk’s
critique of religious illusion. It is the theory
of priests’ deception, as it came up in the
18th century:
It is known as the theory of priests’ deception.
Here enlightenment approaches religion through an
instrumentalist perspective by asking, Whom does
religion serve, and what function does it serve in
the life of society? The enlighteners were not at
a loss for the - apparently simple - answer. [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. 28]
All religions are erected on the ground of fear.
Gales, thunder, storms... are the cause of this fear.
Human beings who felt impotent in the face of such
natural events, sought refuge in beings who were
stronger than themselves. Only later did ambitious
men, artful politicians and philosophers begin to
take advantage of the people’s gullibility.
For this purpose they invented a multitude of equally
fantastic and cruel gods, who serve no other purpose
than to consolidate and maintain their power over
people.. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 28]
Here the Christian metaphysics was being attacked
by a philosopher. However, this sort of critique
was not only practised by politicians, or philosophers,
but also of artists, as one can see at the next example
taken from Heinrich Heine’s work. It goes against
the morals of the servants of God on earth:
I know the style, I know the text
And also their lordships, the authors:
I know they secretly drank wine
And publicly preached water.
[Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 33]
The last example I wish to give is contained in Sloterdijk’s critique of
illusion of privacy. It deals with the place of the self in relation to nature
and society. It tells us that:
In that which is ‘given in nature’ there is always something ‘given
in addition’ by human beings. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 59]
The aristocratic programming of a heightened self-consciousness, however,
comprises more than just what is too hastily called vanity or arrogance. It provides
at
the same time a high level of character formation and education that works to
form opinions, etiquette, emotionality, and cultural taste... With the ascendancy
of the bourgeoisie, the place of the ‘best’ is awarded anew... The
bourgeoisie found its own way of being better than the others, better than the
corrupt nobility and the uncultivated mob. At first its class ego raised itself
on the feeling of having the better, purer, more rational, and more useful morality
in all areas of life, from sexuality to management... From a historical perspective,
the bourgeoisie is the first class that has learned to say I and at the same
time has the experience of labour... When the bourgeois says ‘I’ the
idea of the pride of labour, of productive accomplishment can also be heard for
the first time... In the workers’ movement... a new political ego took
the floor once more. It was no longer a bourgeois ego, but initially and for
a long time, it spoke a bourgeois language... Its ideology was: freedom, equality,
solidarity... The labourer ego... possesses no primary narcissistic will to power.[Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 62 - 66]
i.e. it does not claim to be the best form of life as the others do.
At these excerps it becomes clear that Sloterdijk does not put forward arguments
but merely states claims. As he thinks that there is no truth, and that anything
can possibly be argued given the respective premisses, he turns to the premisses
themselves, and tells a tempting story with which he tries to convince the readers
of the plausibility of his premisses, and his story. Here he tries to convey
that if one understands that the aristocratic morality or the middle class morality
were only regarded as the one and only natural morality because it suited the
character of the inventors and usually the subscribers of the respective morality,
then it is tempting to start to believe in the relativity of morality. Every
social group develops a morality suitable for its own good. Members of the different
groups, once they are aware of the fact that they have the morality they have
because they are who they are, and not because it is the one and only true morality,
and who still have to stick to the morality accepted in their social group, tend
to become cynics, which means that the enlightenment about the non universal
validity of a strong morality makes them miserable. Enlightenment thinkers realised
that any strong account of the Good cannot claim universal validity, and so they
tried to establish a universal morality based on reason. This, however, did not
provide them with a strong conceptions of the Good life, but only with an account
of what should not be done. From then on it was allowed to do what one whises
to do, as long as one did not limit the freedom of other individuals, because
all individuals have the right to be free, as they all are reasonable creatures.
No matter whether it is morality or religion, as it is the case in our two examples,
or whether we take other cases of Enlightenment critiques into consideration,
what is important is that traditional absolutes were destroyed by putting forward
different explanations which suggest that the absolutes in questions are no absolutes,
but are rather regarded as truth or absolutely valid due to who one is, yet they
are metaphysically non existent. The whole tradition of critiques can be subsumed
under the heading of critiques of ideologies.
The ‘philosophical’ ideology critique is truly the heir if a great
satirical tradition, in which the motif of unmasking, exposing, baring has served
for aeons now as a weapon. But modern ideology critique - according to our thesis
has ominously cut itself away from the powerful traditions of laughter in satirical
knowledge, which have their roots in ancient Kynicism. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P.
16]
So although the history of critiques of ideologies was linked to laughter and
the satiric tradition, it has dissolved from this and has altered into one which
leads to misery, depression, and pessimism. Sloterdijk calls this attitude towards
life Cynicism. It came into existence parallel to the progression of the enlightenment
period, and has now reached a very influential position in our society.
CYNICISM
What is Cynicism?
Cynicism is enlightened false consciousness [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 5]
Sloterdijks understands Cynicism as enlightened false consciousness. I have already
alluded to what this means. A cynic is someone, who is part of an institution,
or group, whose existence and values he himself can no longer see as absolute,
necessary and unconditional, and who is miserable, due to this enlightenment,
because he sticks to principles he does not believe in. The only knowledge left
for a cynic is his trust in reason, which, however, cannot provide him with a
firm basis for action, and this again is another reason for being miserable.
According to Sloterdijk Cynicism, nowadays, is a common problem. He even says
that Cynicism is universal. I do not think that he says this to refer to the
whole world because the form of Cynicism he describes is clearly linked to the
Enlightenment, and this also implies that he is mainly justified in referring
to the history of the Western industrial countries, or at most all the educated
people all over the world, although even this seems to go a bit far because I
think that the educated people especially in Asian countries still are very involved
in the traditional religions of their countries. This means that the Cynicism
we are concerned with is mainly a phenomenon of the Western Industrial countries.
The discontent in our culture has assumed a new quality: it appears as a
universal,
diffuse Cynicism. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 3]
According to Sloterdijk, the corner stone for this development can already be
found in the education we get at schools and universities.
The universities and schools practice a schizoid role playing in which an
unmotivated, prospectless but intelligent youth learns to keep up with the general
standards
of enlightened meaninglessness. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 83 - 84]
We get already educated in such a way that we are bound to end up as cynics.
Why is this the case? It is due to the schizoid role playing we are supposedly
taught at school and universities. This means that in our education we come in
contact with a huge amount of lifestyles, and we are also being told that most
of them are justified by reference to a metaphysics or a religion, but we also
learn that religions or metaphysics can no longer be upheld. Such an education
puts us into the schizoid situation that we have got the chance to lead many
lifestyles, but without any one of them being justified. So one is forced to
act without being convinced of what one does. The higher one gets within our
educational system, the more contingencies we get to learn, and the more uncertain
our lives become.
This short explanation of what schizoid role playing means should have already
made it clear that the cynical type of human being can be seen as a mass phenomena
among the people of the upper and the upper middle class nowadays.
Today the cynic appears as a mass figure: an average social character in the
upper echelons of the elevated superstructure. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 4]
It can only be people from the higher classes, who are cynical, because Cynicism
implies that one has to be in the positions of authority, and not believe in
it or rather reject their purposefulness. In the position of authority are priests,
atheists, metaphysical philosophers, Marxists, fascists, scientists, or anyone
else who sticks to some abstract ideology and is part of / a representative of
an absolute system. The problem all these representatives face nowadays is that
all these ideologies have been severely and convincingly attacked and destroyed
via all the critiques published in the Enlightenment period, according to Sloterdijk.
So many of the representatives of the respective ideologies themselves do not
believe in what they are doing anymore, or do not regard their position to be
the one and only truth - like members of the church who do not believe in God,
or economists who would like to be farmers. Still, they have to act and talk
as if they were completely convinced of what they are doing, which is what makes
them miserable. It is the contingency of the value of all life styles which was
brought about by the critiques, and which has lead to a schizoid state of mind,
and to misery, as publicly everybody still has to represent the path chosen.
As the result of this the representatives of the ideologies are often engaged
in empty discourse, which progresses in the following manner.
Each side has developed certain, almost rigged, moves of critique; the religious
criticise the areligious and vice versa, whereby each side has in its repertoire
a metacritique of the ideology critique used by the opposing side: the moves
in the dialogue between the Marxists and liberals are to a large extent fixed,
likewise those of between Marxists and anarchists as well as those between anarchists
and liberals... One knows pretty well what natural scientists and representatives
of the humanities will accuse each other of. Even the ideology critique used
by militarists and pacifists on each other threatens to stagnate, at least as
far as creative moves are concerned. For ideology critique, the Sartrean film
title, The Game Is Over, itself almost half a century old, thus seems apposite.[Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 90]
This sort of engagement in one’s daily tasks results in pessimism, depression,
and indifference. The cynics are living without any passion for life are miserable,
and regard the world to be futile and as something which has to be rejected.
We live from day to day, from vacation to vacation, from news show to news
show, from problem to problem, from orgasm to orgasm, in private turbulances
and medium-term
affairs, tense, relaxed. With some things we feel dismay but with most things
we can’t really give a damn... We would still like to see a lot of the
world and in general ‘to live a whole lot more.’ We ask ourselves
what to do next and what will happen next. In the Feuilleton of the Zeit, the
culture critics argue about the right way to be pessimistic.” [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. 98 - 99]
Of course, they do not have any long term goals anymore, or any great aims. Yet,
they do not take pleasure in what they have either. None of the ideals are worth
striving for any more, and what they have reached, millions of other people have
achieved as well. Nothing is special, everything is permanently the same, the
cynics think that they just strive and inflict pain upon themselves to achieve
a position of respect and authority, although the position for which they are
respected is not regarded to be worthwhile anymore because many critiques have
already attacked it convincingly. There are catholic priests who praise God,
tell their community all the nice little comforting stories about Jesus Christ,
and explain how one is able to reach the blissful afterlife, but themselves do
not believe that there is such an after-life and get involved in rather dubious
activities in their private lives. This is a prime example for what Sloterdijk
regards as a cynic. The bitterness, life denying attitude, the pessimism and
the double standarts which are essential to being a cynic is partly understandable,
even according to Sloterdijk:
However, since the technological atrocities of the twentieth century, from
Verdun to the Gulag, from Auschwitz to Hiroshima, experience scorns all optimism.
Historical
consciousness and pessimism seem to amount to the same thing. [Sloterdijk (1987b):
P. 11 - 12]
One the other hand, one might also wish to point out the benefits we have gained
during the enlightenment, like social welfare, human rights, and an incredible
medical progress. Although these aspects indeed provide us with many goods, we
are lacking something which gives meaning to our lives, and we do not have a
world view through which we can justify our lives, and both of the last mentioned
elements provides human beings with more life fulfilment than does a huge selection
of technological products. Therefore there are good reasons for being a cynic,
and for being miserable.
However, Sloterdijk does not regard it as necessary to react in such a way to
the nihilism of our times or as he calls it to having an enlightened consciousness,
but he regards it only as a contingent response. He does not think that the awareness
of the enlightenment critiques or the enlightened consciousness is the problem,
but the response towards this knowledge should not be Cynicism, but rather Kynicism,
which I will introduce in the next section. He says:
In order to survive, one must be schooled in reality. Of course. Those who
mean well call it growing up, and there is a grain of truth to that. But that
is not
it all. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 6 - 7]
KYNICISM
We can get an initial grasp of the difference between Cynicism and Kynicism,
in an example Sloterdijk gives us. It involves a kynical critique of the great
cynic Adorno. He
was just about to begin his lecture when a group of demonstraters prevented
him from mounting the podium... Among the dirupters were some female students
who,
in protest, attracted attention to themselves by exposing their breast to the
thinker. Here, on the one side, stood naked flesh, exercising ‘critique’;
there, on the other side, stood the bitterly disappointed man without whom scarcely
any of those present would have known what critique meant... It was not naked
force that reduced the philosopher to muteness, but the force of the naked. [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. xxxvii]
Sloterdijk introduces the notion ‘Kynicism’ by dealing with its Greek
origin. Once we have grasped what Greek-Kynicism is all about, it should be easy
for us to apply the concept to our times. So firstly I will cite what Sloterdijk
tells us about Kynicism:
Greek Philosophy of Cheekiness: Kynicism
Ancient Kynicism, at least in its Greek origins, is in principle cheeky... In
kynismos a kind of argumentation was discovered that, to the present day, respectable
thinking does not know how to deal with. Is not crude and grotesque to pick one’s
nose while Socrates exorcises his demon and speaks of the divine soul? Can it
be called anything other than vulgar when Diogenes lets a fart fly against the
Platonic theory of ideas - or is fartiness itself one of the ideas God discharged
from his meditation on the genesis of the cosmos? And what is it supposed to
mean when this philosophising town bum answers Plato’s subtle theory of
Eros by masturbating in public?
To understand these apparently irrelevantly provocative gestures, it is
worth reflecting on a principle that called into being the doctrines of wisdom
and
that was regarded by the ancient world as a truism, before modern developments
eradicated it. For the philosopher, the human being who exemplifies the love
of truth and conscious living, life and doctrine must be in harmony... The appearance
of Diogenes marks the most dramatic moment in the process of truth of early European
philosophy... With Diogenes, the resistance against the rigged game of ‘discourse’ begins
in European philosophy. Desperately funny, he resists the ‘linguistification’ of
the cosmic universalism that called the philosopher to this occupation. Whether
monologic or dialogic ‘theory’, in both, Diogenes smells the swindle
of ldealistic abstractions and the schizoid staleness of a thinking limited to
the satirical resistance, an uncivil enlightenment. He starts the non-platonic
dialogue. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 101 - 102]
It is this cheerful cheekiness which one can find in all of the kynics action,
and which distinguishes the kynics attitude from the cynics. The kynics argue
with the whole of their bodies, especially with its lower part, which has been
neglected through out the history of philosophy. The kynic is similar to the
cynic only in so far as they both have an enlightened consciousness. Yet, the
enlightened consciousness of the cynics is called false by Sloterdijk, because
their consciousness makes them miserable. Whereas the enlightened consciousness
of the cynics can be called correct, because they are cheerful, life-affirming,
full of vitality and therefore also cheeky.
Cheekiness has, in principle, two positions, namely, above and below, hegemonic
power and oppositional power, expressed on the language of the Middle Ages: master
and serf. Ancient Kynicism begins the process of ‘naked arguments’ from
the opposition, carried by the power that comes from below. The kynic farts,
shits, pisses, masturbates on the street, before the eyes of the Athenian market.
He shows contempt for fame, ridicules the architecture, refuses respect, parodies
the stories of gods and heroes, eats raw meat an vegetables, lies in the sun,
fools around with the whores and says to Alexander the Great that he should get
out of the sun. What is this supposed to mean?
Kynicism is a first reply to Athenian hegemonic idealism that goes beyond
theoretical repudiation. It does not speak against idealism, it lives against
it. [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. 103 - 104]
Farting is something one does not do. Like masturbating, pissing and picking
ones noses, it is an activity one only does behind closed doors, but one does
not do it in public and one never talks about it as well. It is regarded as cheeky
if one breaks these conventions, and cheekiness nowadays rather has some negative
connotations. However this has not always been the case, as Sloterdijk tells
us:
By the way, only in the last few centuries has the word ‘cheeky’ (frech)
gained a negative connotation. Initially, as for example in Old High German,
it meant a productive aggressivity, letting fly at the enemy: ‘brave, bold,
lively, plucky, untamed, ardent.’ The devitalization of a culture mirrored
in the history of this word. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 102 - 103]
Vitality, life affirmation, living, laughing, celebrating is all linked to Kynicism.
As I have already said Kynicism as well as Cynicism reject any form of belief
in absolutes. It is the life affirming attitude of Kynicism which distinguishes
it from Cynicism.
In idealism... the ideas stand at the top and gleam in the light of attentiveness;
matter is below, a mere reflection of the idea, a shadow, an impurity... [How
does Kynicism react?] The excluded lower element goes to the marketplace and
demonstratively challenges the higher element. Feces, urine, sperm! ‘Vegetate’ like
a dog, but live, laugh and take care to give the impression that behind all this
lies not confusion but clear reflection.” [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 104]
The reflection which must be apparently implicit in ones actions, expresses itself
not verbally but within the bodily arguments typical for the kynic. That it is
difficult to respond to these sort of arguments became obvious in the way Plato
related to Diogenes:
However, neither Socrates nor Plato can deal with Diogenes - for he talks
with
them ‘differently too’, in a dialogue of flesh and blood. Thus, for
Plato there remained no alternative but to slander his weird and unwieldy opponent.
He called him a “Socrates gone mad” (Socrates mainoumenos). The phrase
is intended as an annihilation, but it is the highest recognition. [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. 104]
Yet, it is not only the divine Plato who implicitly showed the greatest respect
for Diogenes, but authorities or great people in general have this or a similar
related sort of attitude towards him.
Those who rule lose their real self-confidence to the fools, clowns, and
kynics: for this reason, an anecdote has Alexander the Great say that he would
like to
be Diogenes if he were not Alexander. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 102]
It is only the kynical attitude which is able to put forward effective reasons
against idealism, because of the following reasons.
In the dog philosophy of the kynic (kyon, dog in Greek:- Trans.), a materialist
position appears that is clearly a match for the idealist dialectic. It possesses
the wisdom of original philosophy, the realism of a fundamental materialist stance,
and the serenity of an ironic religiosity. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 104]
When Diogenes urinates and masturbates in the marketplace, he does both because
he does them publicly - in a model situation... The philosopher thus gives the
small man in the market the same rights to an unashamed experience of the corporeal
that does well to defy all discrimination. Ethical living may be good, but naturalness
is good too. That is all kynical scandal says. Because the teaching explicates
life, the kynic had to take oppressed sensuality out into the market. Look how
this wise man, before whom Alexander the Great stood in admiration, enjoys himself
with his own organ. And he shits in front of everybody. So that can’t be
all that bad. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 106]
Like Cynicism Kynicism is a realist position, which rejects idealism, absolutes,
and unconditional truths, however, in contrast to Cynicism, which makes people
miserable because cynics are still part of higher orders in which they themselves
do not believe any longer, the kynics are happy, cheerful, and cheeky and kynics
do not belong to hierarchically ordered systems or normal social institutions.
One might be tempted to reply to Sloterdijk that his defence of neo-Kynicism
is a very immature conception because his kynics just fail to take any practical
human tasks into consideration, e.g. one simply needs to earn money to have something
to eat, to drink and a place to live in. However, to earn money one has to belong
to a social system, but social systems are always ordered hierarchically, therefore
it is impossible to live like a kynik and to secure ones own existence. A kynical
lifestyle can be seen as just a dream young immature people usually have. Yet,
Sloterdijk is not so simple minded not to have a response to that objection.
In that respect he mentions three institutions in which this kynical cheekiness
can be found and where it can be practised.
Apart from the city, three social dies of serene refractoriness have played
an
essential role in the history of cheekiness: the carnival, the universities,
and the Bohemians. All three function as safety valves through which needs that
otherwise are not given their due in social life can achieve a limited release.
Here, cheekiness has had a space in which it has been tolerated, even if the
tolerance has lasted only a short time and can be rescinded.” [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. 117]
So it is the carnival, the universities, and the boheme, which allow one to be
a true kynic. Although one should also keep something from this light kynical
spirit for the rest of the time, these are the social institutions in which a
kynical lifestyle is possible and one is justified to express it in an extreme
manner.
The old carnival was a substitute revolution for the poor. A kingly fool was
elected who reigned over a thoroughly inverted world for a day and a night. In
this inverted world, the poor and the decent brought their dreams to life, as
costumed oafs and bacchanals, forgetting themselves to the point of truth, cheeky,
lewd, turbulent, and disgraceful. One was allowed to lie and to tell the truth,
to be obscene and honest, drunken and irrational... Class societies can scarcely
survive without the institution of the inverted world and the crazy day - as
the Indian and Brazilian carnivals demonstrate.
Likewise since the Middle Ages, universities have become important in the social
economy of cheekiness and kynical intelligence. They were by no means simply
places of teaching and research. In them, there romped also a vagrant, extravagant,
youthful intelligence that was clever enough to know something better than just
cramming.
The Bohemians, a relatively recent phenomenon, played a prominent role in
the regulation of the tensions between art and bourgeois society. Bohemianism
was
the space in which the transition from art into the art of living was tried out...
Research has established that there were only a few long-term Bohemians, the
milieu remained a transit station, a space for testing out life and departing
from the norms. There they used their freedom to work out their rejection of
bourgeois society until a (perhaps) more grown-up ‘yes, but’ took
its place. [Sloterdijk (1987b): P. 117 - 118]
However, Sloterdijk does not think that these three neo-kynical institutions
fulfil their roles properly anymore.
For a long time now carnival has meant not “inverted world” but flight
into safe world, of anaesthesia from a permanently inverted world full of daily
absurdities. We know that, at least since Hitler, Bohemianism is dead, and in
its offshoots in the subcultures cheeky moods are to be found less than the cheerless
attitude of withdrawal. And as far as the universities are concerned - oh, let’s
not talk about that!
These mutilations of cheeky impulses indicate that society has entered a
stage of organised seriousness in which the playgrounds of lived enlightenment
are
becoming increasingly clogged. This is what dampens the climate of this country
so much. We live on in a morose realism, not wanting to be noticed, and play
the respectable games. Cynicism prickles beneath the monotony. A clear-sighted
academia and elsewhere. The provocations seem to be exhausted, all bizarre twists
of modern existence seem to be already tried out. A state of public, respectable
torpor has been entered. A tired, schizoidly demoralised intelligentsia plays
at realism by contemplatively walling itself up in harsh circumstances. [Sloterdijk
(1987b): P. 118]
The fact that these traditional kynical institutions do not fulfil their role
anymore in a proper way is exactly what Sloterdijk is criticising. By doing so,
he is trying to reintroduce cheekiness and kynikal life-style elements into our
society to make our lives more colourful, cheerful and cheeky. It is not that
he portrays Kynicism as a new God, but he solely wishes to increase its importance.
It has to be pointed out that although Sloterdijk regards kynicism as a better
reaction to the state the enlightenment has left us with, and therefore to a
position within the enlightenment, I doubt that this is actually the case. As
with the introduction of “kynicism” the notions of “truth” and “the
reasonable unified subject” also get attacked. These, however, represent
the basis of the enlightenment project. Therefore, it would be more appropriate
to say that by introducing “kynicism” Sloterdijk goes beyond the
enlightenment. As enlightenment and modernity are closely related concepts, and
by going beyond the enlightenment, he also goes beyong modernity, one should
call the kynical position defended in the ‘Critique of Cynical Reason’ a
postmodern.
Within Sloterdijks recent work, he becomes doubtful of his earlier position,
as he seems to have realised that the kynical position is not one which solves
the problem of cynicism properly. It might bring about a temporary relief, but
that is all. Therefore, he has been working towards a stronger conception of
the Good within his latest main works. Although, Sloterdijk himself has gone
beyong his early works, the kynical position defended in the “Critique
of Cynical Reason” nevertheless has to be regarded as a suitable developmental
step between cynicism and a stronger position of the good, and so is a position
worth to be taken lightly.
Bibliography:
Sloterdijk, Peter “Kritik der zynischen Vernunft” [Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 1983]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Der Zauberbaum” [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag,
1985]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Kopernikanische Mobilmachung und ptolomäische Abrüstung” [Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1987a]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Critique of Cynical Reason” [Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1987b]
Edition Suhrkamp “Peter Sloterdijks ‘Kritik der zynischen Vernunft’” [Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1987c]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Zur Welt kommen - Zur Sprache kommen: Frankfurter Vorlesungen” [Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Thinker on Stage: Nietzsche’s Materialism” [Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1989]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Versprechen auf Deutsch: Rede über das eigene Land” [Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1990]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Weltfremdheit” [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag,
1993a]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Im selben Boot: Versuch über die Hyperpolitik” [Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993b]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Eurotaoismus: Zur Kritik der politischen Kinetik” [Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1996]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Der starke Grund zusammen zu sein” [Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1998a]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Sphären 1” [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag,
1998b]
Sloterdijk, Peter “Sphären 2” [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag,
1999]
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