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September 3, 2007
In The sublime nature of politics in The Griffith Review Martin Leet and Roland Bleiker state that:
The analytical and political significance of the sublime derives from the way it opens a window on to the significance of emotions. Ancient philosophers understood well that the body politic is governed primarily by emotion and sentiment. People are driven to think and act by powerful undercurrents of feeling and passion...Experiences of the sublime hit us with the deficiencies of rationalist modes of perception and remind us of their normally hidden emotional building blocks.
Generally speaking, we move about in a familiar manner, adhering to routine habits of viewing the world. The sublime moves the earth from under our feet. We are plunged into the unknown, into a field of disorientation.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, Banksia, Victor Harbor, 2007
Leet and Roland Bleiker say that:
the sublime can overwhelm us with feelings we thought we had mastered but which had been bubbling under the surface all along, waiting for an opportunity to dislodge our comforting outlook. How should we react? What should we do? If you are shocked out of your mind, it is only natural to want to return home, to return to the bright lights of rational understanding.
The potent emotions unleashed are fair game for power politics. And we do have such a politics--one based on fear.
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