Resident 35: AARON SCHUSTER
The Philosophy of Complaint
(...) The third kind of complaint, or what Spinoza also calls the intuitive complaint or the intellectual complaint of God, is the highest, most sublime, and most perfectly rational form of complaint, attained by only a few sage whiners in their lifetime. Here the vexations and troubles of the mode are viewed sub specie aeternitatis, from the perspective of the everlasting Grievance that is the one-Substance or God. At this stage we are elevated beyond anthropomorphic categories and representations, the so-called “culture of complaint” where everyone is a victim and someone else morally if not legally responsible for the mess. In the intellectual complaint of God, it is no longer “I” who complains, nor is there anyone left to blame for just how screwed up things are. All that remains is the sheer and unfailing necessity of a cranky automaton: It complains. Both the victimized self and the injurious other that sustains it are dissolved in the anonymous grumbling of a damaged life, which yammers on and on but without resentment, without malice, without guilt, and without worry. It is the pure complaining of the essence that ‘complains itself’ in and through the individual modes and all creation. In this sublimated expression of universal woe, pain and suffering are lifted above the personal passions and transmuted into a cold, austere joy.
Sábado 12 Novembro 21h
Talk 'The Philosophy of Complaint' starts at 22h
Domingo 13 Novembro 21h
Rua Diogo Do Couto, 5a
1100-195 Lisboa
www.caribicresidency.com
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