Sloterdijk’s theopoetry
03
Sep
One of the greatest contemporary philosophers,
of enormous influence on Byung-Chul Han, Sloterdijk is far from being a Christian or any type of religious person, but he is wise enough to know the enormous influence of religion on culture throughout the centuries and in our time.
What sky is he talking about then, he clarifies: “The sky we are talking about is not an object capable of visual perception. However, since time immemorial, when looking up, representations in the form of images accompanied by vocal phenomena were imposed: the tent, the cave, the vault; in the tent the voices of everyday life resound, the walls of the caves echo ancient songs of magic, in the dome chants in honor of the Lord in the heights reverberate” (p. 11), explains the author in your preliminary observation.
Mythological gods, the author based on the Greenfield papyrus (10th century BC), where we see: “Detail from the Greenfield papyrus (10th century BC)”: “The goddess of the sky, Nut, bows over the god of the earth, Geb (lying down), and of the god of the air, Shu (kneeling). Egyptian representation of heaven and earth” (p. 12, photo, Wikipedia Commons).
However, it is not a mythological essay either, he writes: “What we intend, in what follows, is to speak of communicative, luminous skies that invite raptures, because, corresponding to the task of poetological enlightenment, they constitute zones of common origin of gods, verses and pleasures” (p. 13).
It makes a curious metaphor with Mt 13:34, a passage so dear to Christians that says: “All this Jesus spoke in parables to the crowds. He spoke nothing to them without using parables, to fulfill what was said by the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim things hidden since the creation of the world'” (Mt 13,34-35), it was necessary because it spoke of “communicative, luminous” heavens.
In his metaphor Sloterdijk says: “Deus ex machina, deus ex cathedra and without parables he told them nothing” (p. 13, about divine reality), and here the philosopher questions the contemporary world, which idolizes these contemporary gods ex machina and ex cathedra.
It will remind you of the theopoetry in the mouth of Homer, who had “speaking gods”, but it will also remind you of the passage in which Zeus rebukes “the willful manifestations of his daughter Athena”, and says to her: “My daughter, what word has escaped you from the barrier teeth?” (p. 15)
Of course, as Christians we do not talk about mythological gods, it reminds us of Christian semiotics where signs are important: “the zone of signs grows parallel to the art of interpretation. The fact that it is not accessible to everyone is explained by its semi-esoteric nature: Jesus already reproached his disciples for not understanding the “signs of the time” (semaîa tòn kairòn).” (pg. 25).
It is not about delusion or gross falsehoods about eschatological events, if they exist they are only bearers of these “signs” true oracles and prophets, or to use Sloterdijk’s term: theopoets who say things from heaven, such as poetry and clarity, even if use parables due to the difficulty of expressing them in everyday language and reality.
The signs of the times, dark as wars and alive as those who resist with the spirit of hope and peace, do not make tragedy like the Greeks a sign of revenge or intolerance, but of seeing beyond what the raw and naked reality seems to show.
Sloterdijk, P. Making the sky speak: on theopoetry, Trans. Nélio Schneider, Liberdade Station, 2024.
