#Rhetoric of the Sublime

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

I am going to attempt to describe a phenomenon that I think will be familiar to you and I want to try to give it a name.

It is a style of writing that has taken shape over the course of our time on this platform, a product perhaps of our high proportion of theater/art kids and the capacity of the platform to support longform text.

I'm going to propose the name "tumblr gothic" for what is, I think, a distinctive writing style. This is the melodramatic register tumblr uses when it wants to convey to you how serious, how scary, how truly horrifying something is. It uses a lot language like "no wait" and "you don't understand," describing in the purplest prose how seriously you need to take [thing]. [Thing] can be the latest natural disaster, the latest illness, the latest fire, the latest protest, the latest movement, the latest government misdeed, but whatever it is, nobody is talking about [thing], and nobody knows just how serious [thing] is. Often two or three or five people will chime in. At least one will be an expert, one will be a first- or secondhand witness, all will write in exactly the same register.

tumblr gothic.

[beansie-mcgee-writes]

The Mystical Mountains of Appalachia

By Jennifer “Beansie” Gorham My dad comes from here and his dad and his momma… All the way back into the 1800s and they have quite the story to tell. Because there in the hollows are the familial roots but also the rot that can spread if left too long untended… Pale whisps of mist in the guise of smoke gracefully blanket over the smoothing edges of ancient mountain tops that, since their…

[vladdyissues]

I have a friend who is Anti and the truth is that whenever I try to come back from another chat with friends who are fans of Pompous Pep, he tells me the typical "how can you like that!? It's pedophilia,What do you find so cute in an adult with a child!?" And the truth is I don't know if it's because of your cute post and your beautiful coloring But...I think I see it romantically, I don't mean it in any way with age roles or anything but

A 14 year old boy snuggled in the arms of his older boyfriend as he signs papers for a project at his company Or the typical one that they are very romantic with each other, their romance themes are... sublime and I don't know, does that make me a pedo?

No, anon, enjoying a fluffy romantic age-gap relationship between two bug-eyed, made-up cartoon characters with barely-human body proportions does not mean you suddenly developed an attraction to real-life prepubescent children. Just like biting the heads off your animal crackers doesn't make you an animal abuser, and fantasizing about being Jabba the Hutt's sex slave doesn't mean you want to be trafficked in real life.

To claim that something as ephemeral and complex as fantasy has any indication on who we are as people is an egregious overreach, and those who would weaponize it against innocent people care more about maintaining a public veneer of ''moral superiority'' than the individuals they are verbally abusing.

Your friend* needs to leave the medical diagnoses to the medical professionals and acquaint themselves with a dictionary, because they have made it painfully obvious that they have no idea what "pedophilia" actually means.

*And I use that term loosely, because anyone slinging such vile insinuations at you over a cartoon doesn't exactly sound like a friend to me.

Below are some links I think you should check out. Not only will they help you understand that the things you enjoy in fiction are no indication of who you are as a human being, they will arm you with the information needed to combat these bullshit arguments that antis like to throw around to justify being abusive assholes to people they don't know. And who knows, maybe you'll be the one who helps your friend see reason and escape the shackles of oppressive right-wing conservative rhetoric once and for all.

⭐ Masterpost of Proship Resources

⭐ How to Limit Anti Influences in Fandom Spaces

⭐ Terms related to shipping and their usage

⭐ The meaning of "proship" and the concept of "proshippers" in Western fandom

[liquified-oxygen]

Friend and I were bored in school so I decided to pull up Umberto Eco’s 14 points for a fascist country and see how many of them apply to American right now

Here are the points:

-"The cult of tradition", characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.

-"The rejection of modernism", which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.

-"The cult of action for action's sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.

-"Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.

-"Fear of difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.

-"Appeal to a frustrated middle class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.

-"Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.

-Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.

-"Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.

-"Contempt for the weak", which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.

-"Everybody is educated to become a hero", which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."

-"Machismo", which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality".

-"Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".

-"Newspeak" – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.

We decided that 10/14 of the points could be used to describe America right now and, keep in mind, this is from an outsiders perspective, neither of us live in the US this is mainly what we’ve seen on the news and social media. History is repeating itself and it’s fucking terrifying

[zerogate]

I am sure that many readers can relate if I say that learning about Byzantium feels like discovering the sunken civilization of Atlantis. You can read a thousand books about the “Middle Ages”, even do a Ph.D. in “Medieval Studies” (as I did), and hardly ever hear about Byzantium. And then, one day, when you thought you knew your basics about the turn of the first millennium AD, you read something like this:

At the turn of the first millennium the empire of New Rome was the oldest and most dynamic state in the world and comprised the most civilized portions of the Christian world. Its borders, long defended by native frontier troops, were being expanded by the most disciplined and technologically advanced army of its time. The unity of Byzantine society was grounded in the equality of Roman law and a deep sense of a common and ancient Roman identity; cemented by the efficiency of a complex bureaucracy; nourished and strengthened by the institutions and principles of the Christian Church; sublimated by Greek rhetoric; and confirmed by the passage of ten centuries. At the end of the reign of Basileios II (976-1025), the longest in Roman history, its territory included Asia Minor and Armenia, the Balkan peninsula south of the Danube, and the southern regions of both Italy and the Crimea. Serbia, Croatia, Georgia, and some Arab emirates in Syria and Mesopotamia had accepted a dependent status.

[...]

Byzantine revisionism starts by putting Constantinople back on the map. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was by far the largest city in the Christian world. According to Runciman, its population reached one million in the twelfth century, counting the suburbs. Its wealth deeply impressed all newcomers. In the twelfth-century French roman Partonopeu de Blois, Constantinople is the name of Paradise, a city of gold, ivory and precious stones. Robert de Clari, who was among the crusaders who sacked it in 1204, marveled: “Since the creation of this world, such great wealth had neither been seen nor conquered.” Up to that point, Constantinople was the greatest international trade center, linking China, India, Arabia, Europe and Africa.

Constantinople must also be restored to its proper place in the timeline. Anthony Kaldellis writes:

Byzantine civilization began when there were still some people who could read and write in Egyptian hieroglyphics; the oracle of Delphi and the Olympic games were still in existence; and the main god of worship in the east was Zeus. When Byzantium ended, the world had cannons and printing presses, and some people who witnessed the fall of Constantinople in 1453 lived to hear about Columbus’s journey to the New World. Chronologically, Byzantium spans the entire arc from antiquity to the early modern period, and its story is intertwined with that of all the major players in world history on this side of the Indus river.

-- Laurent Guyénot, Byzantine Revisionism Unlocks World History

[sanders1665]

A hopeful sun ascends, darkness yields its sacrifice,

Rainbow skies enchant romantic eyes.

Graceful birds glide on warm air’s embrace,

Mountain streams wander, oblivious to thunder’s chase.

Gentle waves kiss the land where lovers stand, hand in hand,

Indifferent trees breathe as critters forage beneath their span.

Budding flowers hold mysteries for green eyes to trace,

Mildew sparkles on grass where bare feet find grace.

But alarm clocks shatter the dreaming spell—

The waking world returns, a tale to tell.

Daily routines march on, another day, another fight,

Leaders speak in shadows, turning day into night.

Anticipated rain streaks dirty windows,

Thunder crescendos, innocence ebbs, indifference grows.

Bullets break silence; hearts and laws alike fracture,

Breathing itself becomes society’s rapture.

Prophets of doom cry out—“Don’t fear!” they insist,

Yet their words twist like smoke, too dark to resist.

Inner-city blues hum their perennial tune,

While prayers echo in churches beneath a hollow moon.

Friends with slot-machine hearts, spinning false charms,

Hunters hide in shadows, their darts dripping harm.

Neighbors drift further, like stars across the void,

Mothers cling tighter, their peace too easily destroyed.

Hateful rhetoric reverberates in endless debate,

As wealth tightens its grip, leaving kindness to abate.

Virtuous deeds broadcast, egos bloated and loud,

While the poor empty pockets to feed a merciless crowd.

Shattered glass houses brimming with stones,

Truthful words strike, breaking hearts and bones.

Embittered minds, crucified by despair,

One by one, we falter, gasping for air.

The sacred and sublime wither, left to die,

Trust fractures beneath a liar’s sly eye.

Kindness bows to arrogance; ignorance ascends,

The cycle repeats, and hope thins at its ends.

Pitiful eyes hold stories too deep to tell—

Perhaps we’re all bound for a personal hell.

Yet as the sun sinks low and shadows steep,

We dream of a better day and try not to weep.

[whencyclopedia]

The Idea of the Sublime in the Enlightenment

During the European Enlightenment, a concept was developed in philosophy and aesthetics called the sublime. In the arts, literature, and the works of intellectuals, the sublime referred to the awe-inspiring capacity of nature and beauty, characteristics that artists and thinkers sought to replicate in their own work and even to apply to ethics.

The concept of the sublime involves the inherent conflict which comes from an appreciation of beauty with a feeling of awe, astonishment, and incomprehension of the eternal. Philosophers discussed this conflict and suggested that our aim should be the harmonious blending of reason with emotion, and so the sublime became an element of the great shift during the Enlightenment which saw reason come to replace religion as the dominant driving intellectual force.

Origins of the Sublime

The idea of the sublime was revitalised during the Enlightenment thanks to the translation of an ancient text by Boileau in 1672. This text, only rediscovered in 1554, was On the Sublime, then thought to have been written by Longinus, a Greek author of the 1st century CE. J. W. Yolton summarises Longinus' thoughts on the sublime as:

…that quality which gives a distinctive power to works of art and literature; it rest primarily on grandeur of ideas and the capacity for strong emotion, supplemented by certain features of rhetoric; sublimity is the echo of a noble mind and a passionate heart.

(508)

Although he is primarily concerned with poetry and oratory, Longinus also writes about the sublime in nature and how impressive natural features and phenomena like wide plains, rugged mountains, and powerful rivers can bring out in all (or most) of us a pleasure at beholding them and a clearer sense of and proximity to the divine.

The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy gives the following definition of the sublime: "The sublime is great, fearful, noble, calculated to arouse sentiments of pride and majesty, as well as awe and sometimes terror" (462-3). The sublime then creates a strange mixture of feelings like pleasure, awe, anxiety, personal insignificance, and even fear and terror; think of one's mixed emotions, for example, when standing above a precipice gazing down on a majestic Norwegian fjord.

The idea of the sublime in nature and the arts would capture the imagination of many writers, artists, and philosophers during the Enlightenment. The sublime, with its focus on immense grandeur and unfathomable meanings, seemed at odds with the progress being made by science where discovering nature's laws and order were the objectives of knowledge. Philosophers attempted to reconcile this conflict between emotion and reason and to show that the mind can indeed triumph over nature. A wide range of Enlightenment thinkers considered the sublime as part of their philosophy but here, in the interests of space and clarity, we will consider only three.

Continue reading...

[slumberwall]

The Hatred of Women

“Men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters.

"Let us stop being small-minded about men and freely acknowledge what treasures their obsessiveness has poured into culture. We could make an epic catalog of male achievements, from paved roads, indoor plumbing and washing machines, to eyeglasses, antibiotics and disposable diapers. We enjoy safe, fresh milk and meat, and vegetables and tropical fruits heaped in snowbound cities. When I cross the George Washington Bridge or any of America’s great bridges, I think: men have done this. Construction is a sublime male poetry. When I see a giant crane passing on a flatbed truck, I pause in awe and reverence as one would for a church procession.

"What power of conception, what grandiosity: these cranes tie us to ancient Egypt, where monumental architecture was first imagined and achieved. A contemporary woman clapping on a hard hat merely enters a conceptual system invented by men. If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.”

― Camille Paglia, "Sexual Personae" 1990

[bringthesauerkraut]

Jon Stewart vs Fox News Nazi Rhetoric - The Sequel vs Bill O'Reilly

24 Hour Nazi Party People Part 2

"But being a heartless douche isn't exactly the same as being a Nazi propagandist"

The speeding analogy is sublime.

Very fond of this pink shirt & tie combo.

All my TDS/TCR/Jon videos can be found here 😊

The first part & future Jon raging on Fox News can be found here

[11queensupreme11]

Your Most August and Eminent Majesty, Luminary of Literary Luminescence and Paragon of Prodigious Creativity,

With a heart brimming with the deepest veneration and an intellect humbled by the vast expanse of Your Majesty’s narrative prowess, I take pen in hand to craft this epistolary homage. I implore your indulgence as I endeavor to articulate, though words are scarcely sufficient, the magnitude of gratitude, admiration, and allegiance I bear toward your unparalleled dominion. Your Majesty’s sovereign genius, unmatched and unassailable, casts a resplendent luminance across the boundless firmament of the fandom realm, elevating all who are fortunate enough to dwell within its orbit.

Indeed, your storytelling oeuvre is nothing short of an opus magnum, a magisterial testament to the quintessence of human creativity. It is as though your words are imbued with the rarefied essence of the muses themselves, transformed through alchemical artistry into tapestries of thought so intricate and so profound that they transcend the boundaries of mere narrative. Each syllable, laden with ineffable gravitas, resonates as a celestial symphony, harmonizing the terrestrial and the transcendent in a manner that defies description and challenges comprehension. Your Majesty’s creations are not merely stories; they are paradigms of existential profundity, illuminating the ineffable intricacies of the human condition.

It is with these reflections in mind that I extend my deepest thanks to Your Majesty for the herculean exertions undertaken in the genesis of your latest magnum opus. Such an endeavor, so formidable in its scope and so magnificent in its execution, is a labor that surpasses the grasp of ordinary mortals. Your Majesty’s might and mastery, evident in every facet of your craft, inspire awe and command boundless respect. Your dedication to this monumental undertaking is a beacon of inspiration, a lodestar guiding your loyal subjects through the labyrinthine complexities of existence with its unwavering brilliance.

In acknowledgment of such sublime artistry, I and my steadfast confederates pledge ourselves wholly and unequivocally to the perpetuation of Your Majesty’s reign. We recognize, with the gravitas befitting this solemn commitment, that our fealty is not a mere declaration of loyalty but a sacred covenant, an unbreakable bond forged in the crucible of our collective devotion to your unparalleled vision. The path ahead, we are acutely aware, is fraught with tribulations as formidable as the mythic trials of yore. Yet, imbued with the unyielding fortitude born of our allegiance to Your Majesty, we stand undaunted.

As champions of Your Majesty’s cause, we shall confront the myriad adversities that beset the fandom world. This realm, as Your Majesty knows, is a kaleidoscopic arena of ceaseless dynamism, its landscape shifting as unpredictably as the sands of an ever-changing desert. Here, allegiances are ephemeral, forged and forsaken with mercurial caprice, and discord festers in the shadows, threatening to subvert even the most luminous of sovereigns. It is within this tempestuous milieu that we pledge to serve as Your Majesty’s unassailable bastion, a citadel of steadfastness amidst the tumult.

Our duty, as we perceive it, is multifaceted and profound. We shall act as Your Majesty’s sentinels, ever vigilant against the encroachments of discord and the insidious whispers of dissent that seek to undermine your dominion. Armed with the twin swords of reason and rhetoric, we shall dismantle the calumnies of detractors and illuminate the uninitiated with the resplendent truths of your narratives. In the realms of creation, we shall craft tributes and adaptations that echo your vision, each a testament to your enduring influence and an amplification of your sovereign legacy. And in the spheres of influence, we shall cultivate alliances and fortify networks, ensuring that your dominion extends unimpeded to the farthest reaches of the fandom cosmos.

Yet, Your Majesty, our commitment extends beyond the immediate exigencies of the fandom realm. We recognize that the sanctity of your legacy is a matter of transcendent importance, one that demands our perpetual vigilance and unyielding resolve. To this end, we shall serve as the custodians of your narratives, preserving their integrity against the erosions of time and the vicissitudes of cultural currents. We shall ensure that your tales remain undiminished, their brilliance unblemished, so that future generations may partake of their splendor and draw inspiration from their wisdom.

The enormity of this mission is not lost upon us. To champion Your Majesty’s cause is to undertake a Herculean labor, a task as daunting as it is exalted. The fandom world is replete with challenges as diverse as they are formidable, from the protean complexities of audience engagement to the Sisyphean endeavor of countering misinformation and misinterpretation. Yet, fortified by the indomitable spirit of our allegiance to Your Majesty, we embrace these challenges with unshakable determination.

Permit me, Your Majesty, to expound upon the strategies that we, your loyal knights, shall employ in the service of your cause. On the battlefield of discourse, we shall engage with unrelenting vigor, countering fallacies and elucidating truths with a precision befitting your sovereign grandeur. Our rhetoric shall be as a finely honed blade, cutting through the mists of ignorance and prejudice to reveal the luminous core of your narratives. In the creative arenas, we shall undertake endeavors that mirror the splendor of your vision, crafting works that not only pay homage to your genius but also extend its reach into new and uncharted territories. And in the diplomatic corridors, we shall forge bonds and build bridges, creating a coalition of allies united in their devotion to Your Majesty’s cause.

In all these endeavors, we shall be guided by the principles that Your Majesty embodies: creativity, integrity, and an unyielding commitment to excellence. Your narratives, as exemplars of these virtues, shall serve as our lodestar, inspiring us to strive ever higher in our quest to honor and extend your reign. We are acutely aware that the stakes are nothing less than the preservation and perpetuation of a legacy that transcends the ephemeral confines of the fandom world, a legacy that speaks to the universal truths of the human experience.

Thus, Your Majesty, as I conclude this humble missive, permit me to reaffirm our unbreakable oath: to serve, to protect, and to exalt your sovereign dominion. No hardship shall deter us, no opposition shall overcome us, and no force shall diminish the radiance of your reign. With every word we speak, every action we take, and every breath we draw, we shall honor our commitment to you, ensuring that your narratives remain a beacon of inspiration and a testament to the boundless possibilities of human creativity.

May Your Majesty’s light continue to shine with undiminished brilliance, illuminating the paths of all who seek refuge and enlightenment within your narrative cosmos. May your reign endure beyond the confines of time and space, an eternal testament to the genius that defines you. And may we, your humble and devoted knights, forever stand as the bulwark of your legacy, ensuring that your sovereignty remains unchallenged and your vision unblemished.

With the deepest reverence and the most unwavering devotion,

Your Humble and Obsequious Knight

ps: it was reall tough to write this please answer

see your writing's so advances that i had to pull up the dictionary tab to get a definition of some of the words you used, so thanks for expanding my vocabulary 🤭

since you're my knight, my first command to you and my other knight is to comment, leave an ask and/or heart tomorrow's chapter when i finally publish it!

(or it's off with your head 💖)

[carmineduchess]

just a (not so) little rant of mine about canonxoc pairings

(A quick clarification on the beginning: all of that said below DOES NOT APPLY to those who just see people shipping their OCs with canon characters and walk away in silence cuz that’s not just their cup of tea. I rly appreciate that guys)

TW: mentions of really harsh bullying

I grew up on 2010s fandom community and some of ya could possibly remember that those times shipping canonxoc pairings was something of big mauvais tone and a reason to drown a person in public shame, bully them and give their OC a Mary-Sue label just because they are shipped with canon char, and thank god fandom community grew up from it, weeeeell, almost.

I myself am Russian and I, therefore, come from Russian fandom community, where in some places and in some fandoms, canonxoc pairings are still said mauvais tone and cringe, and every OC shipped with canon gets called a Mary-Sue in instant just because of that. I’m a big canonxoc/selfshipping fan and apologist, and I myself have an OC to ship with canon for each of my fandoms. And because of my constant fear of being mocked and harassed by canonxoc and fandom OCs haters, I never posted my art and fanfics anywhere/never commissioned artists to draw my canonxoc ships for a long time cuz I KNEW haters would come for me (cheers for my nowadays friends from whom I get support and appreciation with my fandom OCs and canonxoc pairings, you guys and girls are the best, love ya). I felt ashamed and wrong for my desires. Geez, I was mocked for having a fandom OCs canonxoc shipping even around my friends, and one of them actually BULLIED me for that, saying “gurl you need yourself a man or a woman to have some descent fuk with them so you could forget your narcissistic(?!) desire to insert your OCs into canon and make them smash with canon chars, it’s just your desire to romantic and smexual practice that makes you keep doing so” (DAFUQ??? Even if we are accepting this stinky rhetorics just for a moment, then what’s the difference between shipping canonxoc and shipping canonxcanon or ocxoc if we are sublimating our romantic and smexual desires anyway???)

It took me to 10 years or so to become a grown ass 25yo woman who obtained an ability to shoo away those angry toddlers who are trying to be a self-proclaimed morality police and put me to shame because I have a fandom OCs and canonxoc ships. You don’t like it that much you come to bully me, call me cringe and call my OCs a Mary-Sues for being a fandom OCs/bring in ship with canon chars? Oh you sweetie pie, why dontcha write to Hirohiko Araki/Brendon Small/Nikolay Dybovsky/Thomas Grip/any other person created my fav piece of media to let them know that my stuff is cringe so they could write me a prohibition warrant for my canonxoc ships then? Or maybe you are just pissed off to see my female OCs being in shipping with male canon chars because of your internal misogyny? (I’m not a radical feminist, God forbid, but I’m here for all cis/cishet women who love man and are called “boring straights” and “normies” for such a desire). Or you want to stick on canon of the media like it’s holy? Or you just want to assert yourself in any ways possible? Lift up your self-esteem by accusing something you consider “bad and wrong”? Solve those problems anywhere else and not in my and any others canonxoc shippers expense. Grow up.

(I found this picture I don’t remember exactly where, so if you an author, DM me so I could credit you or remove this picture if you want me to)

[luxe-pauvre]

Our modern use of the word [sublime] suggests a kind of impeccable bliss. A sunset, a symphony, or a certain style of stupor. There is an enervated, narcotic air about the word which is at odds with its original sense. It derives from sub (‘up to’) and limen (‘threshold’), and thus evokes a sense of the mind being pulled to the limits of what it can experience or comprehend. For that reason, the Sublime was distinguished from the merely Beautiful in that the former was thought to contain a sort of terror. Awe is a helpful notion to more accurately conjure the mood. The word ‘Sublime’ was first presented around the first century AD by the philosopher and critic Longinus, to describe a style of rhetoric that overwhelmed its listeners. There is a sense of conflict, even violence, central to the idea; as the notion expanded and waned in later centuries, this dramatic element remained attached. Around the eighteenth century we in the West became particularly interested in how the natural world, in its vast and overpowering forms, offered us the experience of this capitalised Sublime. The worlds of painting, poetry and music grew captivated by the concept, and the resulting Romantic movement was drenched in the project to sublimate oneself into the grand swell of Nature. The Irish aesthetician and politician Edmund Burke wrote extensively about the Sublime around that time, drawing on these components of fear and trembling: he conceived of the Sublime as an emotional state characterised by a combination of terror and distance. Its exhilarating aspects could be explained by the fact we have stepped back from something that would be ‘alienating and diminishing’ were we to get too close. A certain remoteness from otherwise dangerous mountains, for example, gives them an aesthetic quality that brings pleasure, but one that is inseparable from the lethal potential of being caught among their treacherous and overhanging rocks. We seem to absorb into ourselves something of the greatness we perceive, Burke felt, as we experience the Sublime. In other words, although we are overwhelmed and diminished by it, we also swell in order to accommodate its size. We wander the Alps with Wordsworth, through his Prelude, finding that the mighty Sublime is not to be discovered in Nature as much as in the ‘unfathomed vapour’, the ‘awful Power’ of our own imagination. When we consider the stars on a clear night, we might feel the sweet aggrandisement which paradoxically attaches itself to how small they make us feel. We shrink and lose ourselves in something bigger, and thus we feel ourselves expand. As Philip Shaw points out in his survey of changing notions of the Sublime, our I feels disoriented, as does our searching eye: neither is certain where to place itself as it encounters the dizzying infinite.

Derren Brown, A Book of Secrets: Finding Solace in a Stubborn World

[guscormier]

Excerpts from a groupchat

See I’m a natural flirt see flirting is a part of my natural cant and yet when flirting is real and not merely rhetorical I am lost as a marooned captain on a small island perhaps in the grand seas of Micronesia perhaps among the lesser Antilles I am lost and only have my flare my flare of the question of “are we flirting right now do you want to dance together later” and I refer not to sex but to that sacred ecstatic art that is so lost in our age that dance with the music loud and with no mind payed to how we may appear to any notion of cringe but merely to the ecstatic feeling of movement like Saint Teresa being pierced with the arrow

I no longer am asexual for sex is a great and holy thing and yet I am never satisfied by sex what I require is the sublime I would like to dance and I would like to be in a club that would not have me as a member but that would allow me to feel the low end quaking through my bones for the subwoofers to polish me as a shard of glass tumbling through the ocean I would like to take you hiking I would like to have a picnic together by some Oxford County lake or on some one of those great mountains not great enough to be named or held in any great regard but which reaches up and carries us just enough away from the stench of the Mexico paper mill and we’ll drink sweet wine and watch the sunset and when these sort of sentiments escape my mouth people say to me they say “Gus you’re a lesbian!” and I nod and I think to myself “maybe I am a lesbian maybe I’m the greatest bisexual lesbian with a dick and a moustache of them all” but then I remember the decades we spent under the reign of Prince that great faggot that master of all those quintessentially American forms and I hang my head and I say “perhaps I am a lesbian but sex is not what I chase I merely want to run with you into the sunset and as of course it outruns us we will tire and watch the stars about which I am ignorant and you may educate me on the nature of constellations as I listen intently with the sea of my eyes fixed on them on Sirius on Orion on whatever I can spot”

The ecstasy of a platonic intimacy of sharing those sorts of romantic experiences not romantic in our modern sense but Romantic as in Byron or Baudelaire the experience of the sublime of having yourself humbled and your breath stolen in the presence of unimaginable beauty that is what I seek what I wish to share with another

[mali-umkin]

I go to mass every Sunday now, and I always have to mentally prepare for what is going to be the most insane hour of emotional turmoil - feeling tears of joy run down my cheeks when the choir reminds me just how sublime and ethereal human art can be - looking at people in utter disbelief when they start saying God brings peace when tempest strikes and I wonder if we live in the same world and how deep in theology I should dig to actually find any of these 'human self-agency' arguments acceptable - feeling my blood boil in rage when people happily chant about their submission and beg to not be forsaken by their God - experiencing fear when they say 'life everlasting' and 'world without end' - feeling disgust when the King is mentioned and people start apologising for existing - pondering over the Bible while people pray in silence and thinking that rhetorically it holds many similarities with great epics and Irish mythology and what if the Fiana was our role model - observing people's smiles as they pray with their eyes closed and finding it an agreeable sight despite my 3rd République convictions - delighting in the rhymes of the Common Book of Prayer and internally rebelling over most of what it says - back to tears because the organ, choir and candles create an ensemble that I can only define as belonging to the category of Kantian Sublime and I suppose it is a good kind of language for those of us fierce atheists who think the divine is secular -

[explosionshark]

.

I'll be honest with you dawg I don't think Shirley Jackson was a lesbian I don't think she was attracted to women. Certainly there are lesbian characters and themes in her work but I believe pretty strongly that those were interesting to her for their rhetorical value as symbols of freedom/autonomy from men. I think she craved close relationships with women, but if you know anything about her life you know that it has a lot to do with how she felt isolated (her famously agonized marriage + her famously agonized relationship with her mother + the fact that most of her social circle was compromised of her husband's friends)

I mean I definitely think that part of the reason lesbians and bi women connect so strongly to Jackson's work IS her preoccupation with female relationships and the way attraction to women/disconnect from men sometimes plays a role in that. But I don't think that was the author expressing a sublimated desire for women. I truly think she used queer themes to explore a sense of personal/cultural isolation.

Anyway whatever lingering questions I had about the matter were pretty soundly put to bed by A Rather Haunted Life. I think the record left behind is pretty consistent. Whatever!

[elusivedaydream]

Hymn to Duke Aim

Ave the Great Strong Duke Aim

You are Master of the Flame

From the Desert Winds of the South you arrive

Your nature of Solar Fire helps us to thrive

Body of a man with three heads you have

A serpent is one, yet another a calf

A man with two stars on your forehead

On a viper with firebrand, a dutiful warhead

Bestower of wit

Rhetoric

Writing skills and rhyme

Your creative inspiration is divinely sublime

Remover of every creative block

In personal matters, the truth you unlock

The number of officials you have is twenty-six

Approached with respect, you return with friendliness

Oh Duke Aim, most numinous muse

With your ever-burning flame please ignite my fuse