What is the difference between sublimity and fearsome things? [closed]

Question

What is the difference between sublimity and fearsome things? Is a despot sublime in their immoral actions? I would suggest critical thinking.

See e.g. Burke and a "delightful horror"

Answer 1

The two words have entirely separate meanings. Fear is an emotion- sublimity is not. Sublimity is normally used to express a high degree of some praiseworthy quality, such as beauty, grace, purity, skill etc. I think it would be considered an incorrect or at best ironic use of the word to talk about sublime immorality.

Answer 2

In traditional esthetics, there are two qualities that are discussed: beauty and being sublime. Beauty mean pretty much what it means in common speech, but being sublime doesn't. In esthetics, to say that an object is sublime is to say that it is awe-inspiring, that it gives the impression of greatness. The Alps have been described as sublime in this sense. In the opening scene of Star Wars, when you see the small ship being pursued, and then they pan out to show the great size of the pursuing ship, they are trying to give an impression of the sublime--something of great size and power, capable of causing great destruction.

Many common examples of sublime objects are natural events of great power, the sorts of things capable of causing great destruction and many violent deaths, so the sublime is linked with fear, but it is not the same thing. You might, for example, watch a volcano from a distance without fear, but still experience the sublime.

Answer 3

There's a great Existential Comics piece about the sulime: The Wrath Of The Sea. This makes the case that the sublime is what reminds us of our own insignificance, which we forget. Certainly Schopenhaeur focused on this kind of feeling of immensity and vast time through the sublime.

Experiencing the sublime is an aesthetic experience. Despots and immoral actions are not generally defined in terms of the aesthetic experience of them. Someone may have found the Neuramburg Rallies sublime though. The idea of a new Reich that would last a thousand years, drew on aesthetics and past glory, to evoke feelings about that future.

Burke argued the sublime cannot be (simply) beautuful, but must create awe and even horror. But that's not saying anything evoking awe and horror is sublime. He is talking about experiences that draw us into moment, into a reaction that's not mediated by processing and evaluation, but a direct emotional reaction. He focused on the physiological experience of reacting to it.

I'm inclined to think making the sublime a special category is kind of odd, like seperating evil from the spectrum of bad things and their contexts is also sketchy. Western Philosophy would benefit I'd say from more attendance to aesthetics, which can be a way of bringing ideas into the lives of far more people. Perhaps in defence of the sublime we can look at it as a way of encouraging focus on more exalted experiences, and a context for discussion of them.

Tinpot dictators and bad people doing bad things isn't it though.

Answer 4

I will reply with what I have

There are two sublimes for Kant, dynamical (when we respond with helplessness) and mathematical. In the latter, imagination is overwelmed by temporal or spatial size, and so fear, even-though the sublime object is not inherently fearsome, as we can be in a safe place and experience it as sublime,

For Kant, it is that delight from afar that empowers us; two moments, ending with the empowerment from reason.