Toward a Political Theory of the Sublime

Abstract

In this chapter, the author develops a topic undertheorized in Bourdieu’s work: physical violence. He presents the key points of an esthetic theory of the sublime and develops an alternative theory of the sublime, which draws on structural constructivism and Taoist political theory. In contrast to an esthetic theory of the sublime that automatically attributes to exceptional and violent physical actions ontological superiority and performative efficiency compared to the ‘weak’ routines of the ontic Lebenswelt, in a structural constructivist theory the key to the sublime as a defining moment of politics can be found in the links between physical events and symbolic structures. According to the author, a political theory of the sublime has to examine the evolving interaction between the physical and the symbolic.