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Thanatos Instinct Quotes

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Thanatos Instinct Quotes

“Look at us. We build giant highways and murderously fast cars for killing each other and committing suicide. Instead of bomb shelters we construct gigantic frail glass buildings all over Manhattan at Ground Zero, a thousand feet high, open to the sky, life a woman undressing before an intruder and provoking him to rape her. We ring Russia's borders with missile-launching pads, and then scream that she's threatening us. In all history there's never been a more lurid mass example of the sadist-masochist expression of the thanatos instinct than the present conduct of the United States. The Nazis by comparison were Eagle Scouts.”

DeathCitiesUnited StatesModernityManhattanSadismGround ZeroThanatos Instinct
Book:Don't Stop the Carnival
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“And, in answering affirmatively to such questions, would not such despair further entrench us in this barbarism as we collectively foreclose upon the possibility of what seems to us impossible—the transformation from a society founded upon evil to one founded upon love? Perhaps even to suggest such a thing strikes us as maudlin and trite. Yet, a path remains open for it, but not one we may wish to embark upon. It is the hope that I may suffer my apathy before barbarism’s decadence. Decadence concerns a collective stagnation of the will that no longer wills anything other than to will itself, i.e., to express its power for power’s sake in an infinite repetition of the same. In such a situation, I am left with the despair of an a-pathetic ego that concludes: “this is just the way things are” or “it is what it is.” Suffering this apathy then means encountering a crossroads whereby I may either more fully assume the thanatonic and participate in the decadence of barbarism or, perhaps, allow this suffering to convert decadence into a crisis, turning from the crisis of crisis that is decadence and, thereby, also convert my a-pathy back toward a pathos that awakens me to this pernicious logic at work.”

ApathyPhenomenologyThanatosThanatos InstinctGiveness
Book:Evil and Givenness: The Thanatonic Phenomenon
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“And, in answering affirmatively to such questions, would not such despair further entrench us in this barbarism as we collectively foreclose upon the possibility of what seems to us impossible—the transformation from a society founded upon evil to one founded upon love? Perhaps even to suggest such a thing strikes us as maudlin and trite. Yet, a path remains open for it, but not one we may wish to embark upon. It is the hope that I may suffer my apathy before barbarism’s decadence. Decadence concerns a collective stagnation of the will that no longer wills anything other than to will itself, i.e., to express its power for power’s sake in an infinite repetition of the same.25 In such a situation, I am left with the despair of an a-pathetic ego that concludes: “this is just the way things are” or “it is what it is.” Suffering this apathy then means encountering a crossroads whereby I may either more fully assume the thanatonic and participate in the decadence of barbarism or, perhaps, allow this suffering to convert decadence into a crisis, turning from the crisis of crisis that is decadence and, thereby, also convert my a-pathy back toward a pathos that awakens me to this pernicious logic at work.”

ApathyPhenomenologyThanatosThanatos InstinctGiveness
Book:Evil and Givenness: The Thanatonic Phenomenon
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