normally we hate being made to feel
small we can’t stand being humbled or
reminded of our insignificance we get
fronted and resentful the 18th century
Anglo Irish philosopher Edmund Burke
however thought that these experiences
could be rather wonderful and quite
important – to explain what he meant he
developed the idea of the sublime in a
beautiful book called a philosophical
inquiry into the origin of our ideas of
the sublime and beautiful first
published in England in 1757 in modern
use sublime just means very very nice
sublime glass of Shambhala a sublime
plate of scrambled eggs with truffles
but this wasn’t at all what Burke was
interested in though there is a slight
connection for Burke a sublime
experience is indeed one that’s really
nice but it’s nice for a very strange
reason it makes us feel insignificant
Burke was obsessed with a range of
experiences that is sublime experiences
in which being slightly humiliated is
actually something we relish he was
picking up on a sector of human
experience that up to then had been
totally ignored one of his key examples
is storms the vast dark skies oppressive
the wind is horribly powerful large
trees are overturned we feel when
nothing in the face of the violence of
nature but this helps put things in
perspective in comparison with a storm
the familiar irritants of daily life
seem less significant something similar
happens when we contemplate a huge
mountain or view the enormous frozen
wilderness of the Labrador coast from
the window of an Airbus a380 Burke also
liked vast momentous stories
he loved Milton’s Paradise Lost which
describes the cosmic struggle between
God and Satan because stories like these
also make the exome details of ordinary
life seem for a moment almost
idiotically minor Burke is latching on
to a good way of being made to feel
small he’s noticing that when we feel
small in some ways we become good and
large in other dimensions
bits of our egoism and pride seem less
impressive so we might be moved to be
more tolerant less wrapped up in our own
concerns Burks saw the sublime as a
useful corrective it restores
perspective and that’s why we like it
it’s a psychological maneuver that can
benefit us in many ways and shows its
utility whenever there’s an excessive
tendency to get caught up in the details
of an immediate situation thanks to
Edmund Burke a little but valuable area
of experience gained a name it became
possible to focus on it and see its role
in life more clearly the sublime emerged
at first in connection with nature and
the arts but its contribution to
existence is actually quite broad we
don’t just need the sublime on holiday
or in an art gallery which are
unfortunately the places we’re liable to
encounter it it’s something we need to
build into our lives on a daily basis in
the Utopia there would be deliberate
strategies to ensure we encounter the
sublime on a regular basis in the past
religions were quite careful to set up a
meeting with a sublime every Sunday
after a week in the factory or the
office or caught up in domestic life
everyone would be confronted with ideas
of eternal grandeur a God who loves the
world so much that he sacrifice his only
son for our salvation architecture that
asserted a heritage of a thousand years
and music calculated to make us feel
part of the whole of humanity but for
almost everyone that resource is no
longer available
we’re collectively in need of new
occasions to meet the sublime in a
reliable frequent way so that we can be
made to feel small in the most helpful way on a regular basis
small we can’t stand being humbled or
reminded of our insignificance we get
fronted and resentful the 18th century
Anglo Irish philosopher Edmund Burke
however thought that these experiences
could be rather wonderful and quite
important – to explain what he meant he
developed the idea of the sublime in a
beautiful book called a philosophical
inquiry into the origin of our ideas of
the sublime and beautiful first
published in England in 1757 in modern
use sublime just means very very nice
sublime glass of Shambhala a sublime
plate of scrambled eggs with truffles
but this wasn’t at all what Burke was
interested in though there is a slight
connection for Burke a sublime
experience is indeed one that’s really
nice but it’s nice for a very strange
reason it makes us feel insignificant
Burke was obsessed with a range of
experiences that is sublime experiences
in which being slightly humiliated is
actually something we relish he was
picking up on a sector of human
experience that up to then had been
totally ignored one of his key examples
is storms the vast dark skies oppressive
the wind is horribly powerful large
trees are overturned we feel when
nothing in the face of the violence of
nature but this helps put things in
perspective in comparison with a storm
the familiar irritants of daily life
seem less significant something similar
happens when we contemplate a huge
mountain or view the enormous frozen
wilderness of the Labrador coast from
the window of an Airbus a380 Burke also
liked vast momentous stories
he loved Milton’s Paradise Lost which
describes the cosmic struggle between
God and Satan because stories like these
also make the exome details of ordinary
life seem for a moment almost
idiotically minor Burke is latching on
to a good way of being made to feel
small he’s noticing that when we feel
small in some ways we become good and
large in other dimensions
bits of our egoism and pride seem less
impressive so we might be moved to be
more tolerant less wrapped up in our own
concerns Burks saw the sublime as a
useful corrective it restores
perspective and that’s why we like it
it’s a psychological maneuver that can
benefit us in many ways and shows its
utility whenever there’s an excessive
tendency to get caught up in the details
of an immediate situation thanks to
Edmund Burke a little but valuable area
of experience gained a name it became
possible to focus on it and see its role
in life more clearly the sublime emerged
at first in connection with nature and
the arts but its contribution to
existence is actually quite broad we
don’t just need the sublime on holiday
or in an art gallery which are
unfortunately the places we’re liable to
encounter it it’s something we need to
build into our lives on a daily basis in
the Utopia there would be deliberate
strategies to ensure we encounter the
sublime on a regular basis in the past
religions were quite careful to set up a
meeting with a sublime every Sunday
after a week in the factory or the
office or caught up in domestic life
everyone would be confronted with ideas
of eternal grandeur a God who loves the
world so much that he sacrifice his only
son for our salvation architecture that
asserted a heritage of a thousand years
and music calculated to make us feel
part of the whole of humanity but for
almost everyone that resource is no
longer available
we’re collectively in need of new
occasions to meet the sublime in a
reliable frequent way so that we can be
made to feel small in the most helpful way on a regular basis
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