Changes

What, precisely, is the ontological status of this weird ''Genuss ''that threat­ ens threat­ens to drag us into its self­-destructive, vicious cycle? It is clearly not cul­ture, but it is also not nature, as it is an "unnatural" excess that totally derails nature. So, should we not posit a link, an identity even, between this ''Genuss ''and what Immanuel Kant isolated as the

''"unnatural" savagery (Wildheit) or passion for freedom specific to hu­ man nature: "Savagery [or unruliness,'' ''Wildheit"] is independence from laws. Through discipline the human being is submitted to the laws of humanity and is first made to feel their constraint. . . . Thus, for exam­ple, children are sent to school initially not already with the intention that they should learn something there, but rather that they may grow accustomed to sitting still and observing punctually what they are told, so that in the future they may not put into practice actually and instantly each notion that strikes them. Now by nature the human being has such a powerful propensity towards freedom that when he has grown accustomed to it for a while, he will sacrifice everything for it." The predominant form of appearance of this weird "savagery" is passion, an attachment to a particular choice so strong that it sus­ pends sus­pends rational comparison with other possible choices. When in the thrall of a passion, we stick to a certain choice whatever it may cost: "Inclination that prevents reason from comparing it with the sum of all inclinations in respect to a certain choice is ''passion (passio animi)''." As such, passion is morally reprehensible: "far worse than all those transitory emotions that at least stir up the resolution to be better; instead, passion is an enchantment that also refuses recuperation. . . . Passions are cancerous sores for pure practical reason, and for the most part they are incurable because the sick person does not want to be cured and flees from the dominion of principles, by which alone a cure could occur…… And, as the subdivision "On the inclination to freedom as a passion" tells us, "For the natural human being this is the most violent ''[heftigste] ''inclination of all." Passion is as such purely human; animals have no passions, just instincts. The Kantian savagery is "unnatural" in the precise sense that it seems to break or suspend the causal chain that determines all natural phenomena—it is as if in its terrifying manifestations, noumenal freedom transpires for a moment in our phenomenal universe.''