Onward and Upward ?

"Above the skies, he looks around and tells us what he can see, or rather what he can not see: Boga Nyet!: There is no God! Below him are the toppling towers and domes of churches and mosques, left behind and condemned to imminent collapse by the soaring achievements of Soviet science. The old religions are withering away. Reason and research have raised humanity to a new idea of heaven – we can now all join Gagarin in an achievable paradise, empty of divine beings, and full instead of starry promise."
--The Guardian.

Levinas sees it differently. This is a moment of claustrophobia, nihilism. There is no escape, no transcendental dimension to our lives and therefore no more "height". From now on we're all flat-earthers.

"To take this seriously, we may hear in it a
very important assertion: the new condition
of existence in the weightlessness of a
space 'without place1 is still experienced
by the first man sent there as a here, as
the same, without genuine otherness. The
marvels of technology do not open up the
beyond where science, their mother, was
born. In spite of all these movements,
there is no outside here! What immanence!
What a wretched infinite! "

--Levinas.

And Arendt (1958) writes about the incredible paradox: just as we come to see ourselves only as finite creatures, inextricably earth-bound, we come to hate the earth (our greatest dreams are to escape from it). But also [she doesn't say this, or use the word 'hate'] our hatred is expressed in environmental destruction. Maybe this also explains the hatred for peasants or anything that is related to the land? (Lesley Chamberlain's Motherland' is excellent on this).

~~~

Dear C, 

Apologies for the very late reply. Yes, the book is out. Rumour has it that 3 copies have been sold!