Sublime

Today, more and more, dignity, decency, and propriety—matters of maintaining distance—are disappearing. That is, the ability to experience the Other in terms of his or her otherness is being lost.

The absence of thresholds results from the compulsion to make everything visible and available.

The exhausted, depressive achievement-subject grinds itself down ... It is tired, exhausted by itself, and at war with itself. Entirely incapable of stepping outward, of standing outside itself, of relying on the Other, on the world, it locks its jaws on itself; paradoxically, this leads the self to hollow and empty out. It wears out in a rat race

No community, in the strong sense, can form in the society of transparency. Instead, chance gatherings [Ansammlungen] or crowds [Vielheiten] of isolated individuals, or egos, emerge; they pursue a mutual interest or cluster around a product line (“brand communities”).

If life is deprived of any possibility of closure, it will end in non-time. Because it rushes from one sensation to the next, even perception is now incapable of closure. Only contemplative lingering is capable of closure. The closure of the eyes is emblematic of contemplative closure. The flood of images and information makes closure of the eyes

While symbolic perception is intensive, serial perception is extensive. Because of its extensiveness, serial perception is characterized by shallow attention. Intensity is giving way everywhere to extensity. Digital communication is extensive communication; it does not establish relationships, only connections.

Meine These lautet, dass dieses institutionell erzwungene und kulturell als Verheißung und Versprechung fungierende Programm der Verfügbarmachung von Welt nicht nur nicht »funktioniert«, sondern geradewegs in sein Gegenteil umschlägt.