You have to change your life
You must change your life (subtitle: About anthropotechnics ) is the title of an essay by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk that was published in 2009 . The title refers to Rilke's sonnet Archaic Torso Apollo , which closes with this sentence. The central consideration is that man - as a lifelong practitioner - creates himself in practice.
content
The starting point of his considerations is Rainer Maria Rilke's sonnet Archaic Torso Apollo :
We did not know his unheard-of head,
in which the eyeballs ripened. But
his torso still glows like a candelabra
in which his gaze, only screwed back,
holds and shines. Otherwise the bow of
the breast could not dazzle you, and in the gentle turning of
the loins a smile could not go
to that center that bore the conception.
Otherwise this stone would stand disfigured and just
below the shoulders with a transparent fall
and would not shimmer like the skins of predators;
and do not break out from all its edges
like a star: for there is no place that
does not see you. You have to change your life.
Sloterdijk selected the last movement of the sonnet to give his text on the metanoic imperative the title. "You have to change your life" is for him the summary, condensation and evaporation of all religious teachings, exercise instructions and training that point people to their "vertical tensions" and remind them to become aware of their possibilities, to grow beyond themselves and ultimately "with them one God ”. The vertical power tension as an expression of an inherent will in the individual could lead to self-optimization. However, this is only inherent in those individuals who can position themselves as pioneers or record holders in their respective disciplines. “Vertical tensions” can be understood to mean all efforts and thus tensions of people who try to follow an upward, i.e. vertical , direction. This would be made possible by the release of growth impulses, which let the own development tendencies arise. It was only through the "vertical tension" that people came under the dictate of the claim that calls them to perfect themselves, that encourages them to achieve maximum performance, that encourages them to practice. The "vertical tension" stands in contrast to any horizontal relaxation that is on the way in the sense of a pandemic trivialization , of comfort in culture. The alleged return of religion after postmodernism is analyzed by Sloterdijk to the effect that religion has always been part of a “general discipline”, that there actually is no religion, but that “spiritual training systems” have been called religion. This claim, which does not want to be understood as critical of religion, is one of the main statements of the book. Sloterdijk analyzes the emergence of religious practices as the need to leave the “United States of Ordinaryness” and the need to distinguish from what is in the world. According to Sloterdijk, religions or religious systems are “exercise systems” which have their own responsibility for “vertical tension”.
In his essay “You must change your life” published by Suhrkamp , Sloterdijk develops an anthropological model of the human being as a practitioner . Sloterdijk understands exercise “any operation through which the qualification of the agent for the next execution of the same operation is maintained or improved, whether it is declared as an exercise or not.” The “immunitarian constitution of the human being” means that man strives to become himself to perfect, biologically, socio-cultural (legal, military, political) and symbolic (religion, art). The work is also a further plea for this recognized constant work of man on himself - for the improvement of the individual as well as the world.
The essay mainly consists of the presentation and analysis of forms of exercise in the intellectual history of the past 2000 years in different cultures with special attention to oriental meditation and ascetic practices , which is justified by the fact that " exercise " is a translation of Greek ἄσκησις (áskēsis from the ancient Greek verb ἀσκεῖν (askeín - "practice", "diligent")) into German.
Sloterdijk tries to present his text kaleidoscopically about the most varied of protagonists , he leads the reader into his "anthropotechnics" about Rilke's sonnet, Unthans - cripple - skill development , the history of the Olympic Games , Lafayette Ronald Hubbard's Scientology , Jacob's ladder , the transformation of Saul to Paul under the constant contrapuntal interweaving with statements by Friedrich Nietzsche .
reception
The essay is praised in terms of content in the most important feature sections; he said he was “focusing his own systematic thinking more on the individual” (FAZ) and refusing to accept “value-conservative propaganda or left-wing romantic regressions” (SZ).
The style of the essay is partly criticized because of its exaggerated jargon, on the other hand the Aperçus Sloterdijks are praised.
Theatrical performance
On October 3, 2011, a theater adaptation of the essays was premiered in the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe .
output
- Peter Sloterdijk: You have to change your life. About anthropotechnics . 1st edition, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-41995-3 ; as paperback, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3518462102 .
literature
- Stephan Thiele: Change your life - but how? Art of living according to Rupert Lay, Hermann Schmitz and Wilhelm Schmid. Dissertation, University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig 2013 [1]
- András Másat (ed.): Ethics and everyday life. Between truth and reality. University of Budapest 2009 [2]
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Rainer Maria Rilke: Archaic Torso Apollo. In: Complete Works. First volume, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1955, p. 557.
- ↑ topping to metanoetisch, German thinking, originally unthinkable; too ancient Greek metanoētikós "changing his mind, repentant"
- ↑ Peter Sloterdijk: You have to change your life. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 12.
- ↑ Peter Sloterdijk: You have to change your life. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 692.
- ↑ a b Peter Sloterdijk: You have to change your life . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 14.
- ^ The Thirteen Combat Record Holder , review by Andreas Platthaus in the FAZ of March 23, 2009 (accessed on April 8, 2009).
- ↑ There is no religion , review by Jens Bisky in the SZ of March 21, 2009 (accessed on April 8, 2009).