There's so much richness of thought here, I scarcely know where to begin. I'm simultaneously compelled to recall Yeats' “The Second Coming” ("things fall apart; the center cannot hold"), self-reflect on the gendered dynamics of broken men and their mythologies (I am guilty of idolizing Townes Van Zandt), and to brainstorm ways to incorporate Stephenson into my next lecture.
Damn it, Georgia. Stop adding to my pile(s) of things to do!
For the sake of brevity, I should simply say that your analysis of Stephenson has extreme potential for New Object Philosophy. I found myself ruminating quite strongly about your comment on Stephenson's "Delicate": “an unsettling quality to the perfection on the edge of destruction makes you want to watch until the dreadful end." In your framework, the tension of the piece relies on the "illusion of control," and this seems a valuable insight to reframing traditional subject-object dynamics. I won't bore you (or your readership) with a summary of Heideggerian philosophy, but damn, if human control of the non-human isn't the essence of vorhandenheit and zuhandenheit, I don't know what is. Bill Brown puts things very succinctly:
"We begin to confront the thingness of objects when they stop working for us: when the drill breaks, when the car stalls, when the windows get filthy, when their flow within the circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition, has been arrested, however momentarily," (2001, 4).
What I find interesting in your approach is that the "thingness" of Stephenson's glasses (their unknowable nature as non-human entities) is encountered not in the moment of their breaking, but in the moment BEFORE. It is even the threat of their breaking that arrests their flow and causes them to be front and center to our perception, rather than fading into the background of casual use. Glorious.
I will be presenting in Prague on New Object Philosophy next week. You can guarantee I'll be citing Stephenson as well as "Gnosienne."
THINGNESS wow a new obsession rears its head, excuse me while I dive into a Wikipedia rabbit hole
There's so much richness of thought here, I scarcely know where to begin. I'm simultaneously compelled to recall Yeats' “The Second Coming” ("things fall apart; the center cannot hold"), self-reflect on the gendered dynamics of broken men and their mythologies (I am guilty of idolizing Townes Van Zandt), and to brainstorm ways to incorporate Stephenson into my next lecture.
Damn it, Georgia. Stop adding to my pile(s) of things to do!
For the sake of brevity, I should simply say that your analysis of Stephenson has extreme potential for New Object Philosophy. I found myself ruminating quite strongly about your comment on Stephenson's "Delicate": “an unsettling quality to the perfection on the edge of destruction makes you want to watch until the dreadful end." In your framework, the tension of the piece relies on the "illusion of control," and this seems a valuable insight to reframing traditional subject-object dynamics. I won't bore you (or your readership) with a summary of Heideggerian philosophy, but damn, if human control of the non-human isn't the essence of vorhandenheit and zuhandenheit, I don't know what is. Bill Brown puts things very succinctly:
"We begin to confront the thingness of objects when they stop working for us: when the drill breaks, when the car stalls, when the windows get filthy, when their flow within the circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition, has been arrested, however momentarily," (2001, 4).
What I find interesting in your approach is that the "thingness" of Stephenson's glasses (their unknowable nature as non-human entities) is encountered not in the moment of their breaking, but in the moment BEFORE. It is even the threat of their breaking that arrests their flow and causes them to be front and center to our perception, rather than fading into the background of casual use. Glorious.
I will be presenting in Prague on New Object Philosophy next week. You can guarantee I'll be citing Stephenson as well as "Gnosienne."