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Sublie Objects

imothy Moton

Universiy o Caliornia, Davis

I -onology (OOO) is somehing ruly

ne in he orld. I so, i couldnhave come along a a beter ime. Because somehing rulynew in human hisory is happening: somehing we call globalwarming, somehing we call he Sixh Mass Exincion Even.

For some monhs now Ive been hinking abou eniies I callhyperobjecs.1These are objecs ha are massively disribuedin ime and space. Hyperobjecs become visible o humansin an age o ecological crisis. Indeed, is really he oher ayaround: hyperobjecs have alered us o he ecological crisis

ha defines our age: or insance, global warming and nuclearradiaion rom pluonium. I believe ha objec-orienedonology gives us some much-needed ools or hinkinghyperobjecs. Ive been sudying he various properies ohyperobjecs. Theyre nonlocal. Theyre oreshorened in ime.

1 Timohy Moron, Te Eologial Tought(Cambridge: Harvard UniversiyPress, 2010), 1305.


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Theyre viscoushey have he srange qualiy o sicking oyou he more you ry o shake hem off. The more you knoabou hem, he more you figure ou how enmeshed youare in hem. The more you know abou hem, he srangerand even more erriying hey become. They occupy a highdimensional phase space so is only possible or humanso see pieces or aspecs o hem a any one ime.2To under-sand hyperobjecs, we badly need an upgraded heory o hesublime, hich deals in scary and unknoable hings. Andi ere going o do ha, e migh as ell ake on he holeissue o rheoric as i perains o objecs. Is in his spiri oworking owards a greaer undersanding o our ecological

emergency ha I offer his essay.Phlosophy Should Be about Everythng

Slinky Malinkiis a childrens sory abou a black ca, a charm-ing figure who seals all kinds o objecs in he dead o nigh:

Slippers and sausages, / biscuis, balloons, / brushes andbandages, / pencils and spoons.3A he climax o he sory,he solen objecs begin o ac wih a spooky agency: The

glue oppled over / and gummed up he pegs; / he jerseyunravelled and angled his legs. / He ripped on he botles /and slipped on he sock, / he ipped over sideays / and seoff he clock. Now i a childrens book can alk abou objecsin his ay hy can philosophy? Les pu i in even sarkererms. A simple childrens book ells me more abou realhings han mos conemporary philosophy. Why?

To deliver anyhing so we humans can see i you needrheoric. You need some kind o glamour. I ould be churl-

ish o poin fingers and go Hey, gocha! Using a human oolo describe nonhuman eniies! Bused! I mean, come on,wha are we speculaive realiss supposed o do, jus sor obelch, and hope you can smell he pizza or haever? In his

2 For easily accessible discussions o hyperobjecs, including lecures (mp3),search or hyperobjecs a htp://w.ecologyihounaure.blogspo.com .3Lynley Dodd, Slinky Malinki(London: Penguin, 1990).
http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/http://www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/


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essay Im going o sugges ha rheoric isn jus ear candyor humans, or even or senien beings. Im going o suggesha rheoric is wha happens when here is an encounerbeeen any objec, ha is, beeen alien beings.

Heideggers essay Language is abou anyhing bu languageas a sign or somehingmore like language as an alien eniyin is on righ.4Language is a kind o objec. And languageis ull o objecs. Take onmaopoeia: graned, guns gopaninFrench and bangin English bu in neiher do hey go cluckor boing. Bang andpanare linguisic conribuions by guns.Beore hey are French and English, hey are gun-ish, and geranslaed ino human. Likewiseplopand spla, cack,gowl,

tintinnabulationandsussuateand even perhaps visual ermssuch as shimmeandspakle. Those sors o words are a kind osonic ranslaion o a visual effec, he rapid diffusion o lighacross a moving surace. Shimmering is o ligh as muteringis o sound. Language is no oally arbirary.5And i is noenirely humaneven rom a non-Heideggerian perspecive.

Then heres he ac ha language alays occurs in a me-dium, wha Roman Jakobson calls he conac.6In OOO-ese,his means ha objecs encouner one anoher inside anoher

objecelecromagneic fields, or insance, or a valley. Whenhe inerior o he objec inrudes in some sensual way, wenoice i as some equipmenal maluncion: Check, check,microphone check. Is his hing on? More generally, mediaranslae and are ranslaed by messages. We never hear a voiceas such, only a voice carried by he wind, or by elecromagneicaves, or by aer, or by kazoo.7Waer makes hales soundlike hey do. Air and graviy make humans speak cerainords in cerain ays. Valleys encourage yodeling.

4 Marin Heidegger, Language, Poer, Language, Tough, rans. AlberHosader (Ne York: Harper and Ro, 1971), 185208.5 The linguis John Laler has compiled an archive o research in his field,called phonosemanics, a htp://w-personal.umich.edu/~jlaler/.6 Roman Jakobson, Closing Saemen: Linguisics and Poeics, in Stlein Language, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960), 350377.7 See Marin Heidegger, The Origin o he Work o Ar, inPoetr, Language,Tought, rans. Alber Hosader (Ne York: Harper and Ro, 1971), 1587.
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These direcives don simply floa around words, buemanae rom ords hemselves.8Whas happening hen Iread Slinky Malinkio a lisener? He or she is picking up onmy delivery, my voice, he ay my son inspires me o speak(since he requess me o read i so ofen). The sory conainswords ha wan o be read a cerain way, ha make you hearhem a cerain wayhe words and rhyhms and rhymes aredirecives ha guide my voices and gesures as I deliver he ex.

There are five pars o rheoric: invenion, ordering, syle,memory and delivery. Im going o argue ha delivery isin ac hefis pa of objec-oiened heoic, no he fifh.Why? Because raher han simply being he envelope in

hich he message is handed o you, delivery is the message,direcly. Delivery is he objec in is weird, clownish hypoc-risy. Delivery has memory, a cerain persisence. Memory ishe way an objec mainains or no is consisency, he wayi conjures and is possessed by phanasmal memories anddreams, he housand shocks ha flesh is heir o. Deliveryhas syleimagery floaing ree rom he objecs surace(ell see ho significan his is hen e sudy ekphrasis ina momen). Delivery has odoanddispositio: an arrangemen

o noes and a empo o pars (I shall now begin o use heechnical erms o classical rheoric). Delivery has invenio,an irreducible ihdranness.

Atiudes o rheoric have prooundly affeced he longhisory o philosophy. Consider in paricular he separaiono rheoric rom invenion and ordering, or as hey could beknon, science and logic. This separaion, a massive orld-hisorical even inauguraed by rheoricians such as PeerRamus in he Renaissance, defined earlier meaphysicians

as scholasic petioggers obsessed wih angels and pins. Igave rise o science as a separae discipline and he reduciono rheoric o syleand he subsequen wihering o syleino ropology, and he subsequen wihering o ropologyino meaphor. So ha when we read a De Man or a Dawkins,

8 I borro he erm dietiverom Alphonso Lingis, Te Impeative(Bloom-ingon: Indiana Universiy Press, 1998), 7175.


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a Derrida or a Dennet, we are sill reading someone ullycaugh in he Ramis pinball machine ha divides syle romsubsance.

This affecs everyhing. Is deeply abou how onology hasbecome aboo. Is abou ho he aesheic arose as a dimen-sion separae rom, even hosile o, rheoric (consider Kansopposiion o rheoric).9Is abou how philosophy has becomeobsessed ih perec argumens raher han suggesive cog-niive work (as Harman pus i so well in he final chaper oPince of Newoks).10Is why he only alernaive o perecreeze-dried argumens is sheer ropological play. Is whyhere is a desperae search or new and improved orms o

meaphysics such as he lava lampy maerialisms on offercurrenly, which are in ac a regression even rom he choicebeween reeze-dried perecion and powdered nohingness.

So in his essay Im going o say a lo o couner-inuiive suff.I believe ha OOO akes us ou o ha pinball machine.

Precisely because i imagines syle as an elemenary aspeco causaliy raher han as candy on op o lumps o suffbumping ogeher indifferenly.

A Rhetorcal Queston

We could rewrie he whole o rheoric as objec-orienedby evesing the impliit ode o Aistotles five pats o hetoi.Insead o saring ih invenion and proceeding hroughdisposiion o elocuion, hen on o memory and delivery, weshould sar wih deliver. Delivery is precisely he physicaliyo your hema, your speech. Demoshenes used o pracice hisdelivery by filling his mouh wih pebbles and walking uphill.

Pebbles and hills played a par in Demoshenes rheoric. Buwell see ha rheoric is ar more concerned wih nonhumaneniies han ha.

9 See Don Abbot, Kan, Theremin, and he Moraliy o Rheoric,Philosophyand Rhetoi40:3 (2007): 27492.10Graham Harman, Pine o Netwoks: Buno Latou and Metaphysis(Mel-bourne: Re.Press, 2009), 16385.
http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_3/Re.Presshttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_3/Re.Press


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We will find ha reversing he order explodes he eleologyimplici in common assumpions abou rheoric (commonor insance in composiion classes): firs you have an idea,hen you figure ou ho o argue i, hen you pour on somenice ear candy, hen you recie i or upload i or whaever.Wihdran objecs do no exis in-order-o anyhing.

We ofen assume ha delivery is secondary o rheoric, kindo like he volume conrol or he equalizer on a sereoisa mater o condiioning he exernals o rheoric. This isnwha Demoshenes and Cicero hough. Asked o name hemos imporan pars o rheoric, Demoshenes replied Firs,delivery; second, delivery; hird, deliverya which poin

his inerlocuor conceded, bu Demoshenes was ready ogo on.11I e rehink delivery no as a botle ino hich healready-exising argumen is poured like a liquid, nor as anenvelope ha delivers he message like mail, bu as a physi-cal objectand issensual medium, we will be hinking o i likeQuinilian, who says o grea acors ha hey add so much ohe charm o even he greaes poes, ha he verse moves usar more hen heard han hen read, hile hey succeed insecuring a hearing even or he mos worhless auhors, wih

he resul ha hey repeaedly win a welcome on he sage hais denied hem in he library.12The objec-oriened explana-ion or his is ha he voice, an objec ih is on richnessand hidden dephs, ranslaes he ords i speaksa spookyevocaion o he secre hear o objecs no via revelaionbu via obscuriyas i (as i, mind you) i ere summoningorh an obscure dimension o language. Quinilian discussesQuinus Horensius, whose voice mus have possessed somecharm or people o rank him second only o Cicero, given

ho aul his riten speeches appeared.13No beore yougo accusing me o logocenrism, realize ha is no ha voice

11 Quinilian, Institutio Oatoia11.3. This ourh par o he Loeb ClassicalLibrary ediion o Quinilian is no readily available in hard copy, bu anonline version can be ound a a htp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texs/Quinilian/Insiuio_Oraoria/11C*.hml#3.12 Ibid., 11.3.13 Ibid., 11.3.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/11Chttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/11Chttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/11Chttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/11C


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really gives access o he hidden deph o meaningis havoice is an objec in is own righ, vibraing wih uncannyoverones. Like ekphrasis, like meaphor, voice leaps orhoards us, unleashing is densiy and opaciy. Voice has, asGraham Harman pus i, allure.14

We can proceed rom hinking o voice as an objec in isown righ o assering ha a pencil resing agains he insideo a plasic cup is a delivery o a pencil, a cerain kind ophysical posure similar o a loud voice or a cajoling hine.A house is delivery, disporing is occupans and is roomsand is backyard ino various configuraions. A record playeris delivery, as is an 3 player. A book is delivery. A aerall

is delivery. A compuer game is delivery. A spoon is delivery.A volcano is delivery. A ribbon is delivery. A black hole isdelivery. Working backwards, we would end up a inventio. Wecould say ha inventiowas acually objec wihdrawala darkor reverse inventio, covery raher han discovery.

Objec-oriened rheoric is no he long march owards heexplici, bu a graviaional field ha sucks us ino implicisecrecy and silence. Harman argues ha meaphor makes evenhe sensual qualiies o objecs, which seem readily available

o us, seem wihdrawn.15Wha meaphor does, hen, is nounlike anoher rope, which he old manuals call obscuum peobscues: describing somehing obscure by making it seem evenmoe obscue.16Percy Shelley was very ond o his ropehisimages endarken raher han enlighen.17I we generalize hiso he whole o rheoric, objec-oriened rheoric becomes heay objecs obscure hemselves in old upon old o myseri-ous robes, caverns, and orresses o soliude and ocopus ink.

Insead o looking a he five pars o rheoric as a sep by

14 Graham Harman, Gueilla Meaphysics: Phenomenology and he Capenro Tings(Chicago: Open Cour, 2005), 14244, 17282.15 Ibid., 162.16 Richard Lanham,A Handlis of Rheoical ems: A Guide fo Sudens ofEnglish Lieaue(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: Universiy o Cali-ornia Press, 1969).17 Timohy Moron, Inroducion, Te Cambidge Companion o Shelley(Cambridge: Cambridge Universiy Press, 2006), 113.


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sep recipe or making meaning explici (firs you pick asubjec, hen you organize your argumen...), we could seehem as simulaneousaspecs o any objec ha render haobjec myserious and srange ye direc and in your ace.Accouning or hem his way prevens us rom disoringhem as presen-a-hand eniies or meaphysical subsancesdecoraed wih accidens: heres a plasic cup and now weadd some color, now we see i has a cerain shape, ec. Thissimulaneiy o aspecs accouns or wha musicians callimbre, a ord ha conjures up he subsanialiy o imber.A noe played on a plasic cup sounds very differen rom hesame noe played on a smoohly polished ooden cylinder.

Timbre is he sensual appearance o an objec o anoherobjec, in conras o Xavier Zubiris notes, hich are aspecso he hidden dimension o a hing.18So rheoric in an objec-oriened sense is he ay he imbre o an objec maniess.

I we sared wih delivery, he availabiliy o a sensual objec,ed immediaely unurl a hos o myserious qualiies haspoke in srange whispers abou he objec o which hey areaspecs. Delivery deorms ha i delivers and he deliveree,sutering and caricauring hem, remixing and remaser-

ing hem.19Working backwards, he sensual objec persiss(memoia), i displays a unique syle (elocuio), i organizesis noes and pars (disposiioand odo), and i conains amolen core ha wihdraws rom all conac (inventio).20Theplasic cup does his o he pencil. The garden does his ohe house. The plasic cup even does i o isel. The pars ohe cup deliver he whole in a more or less disored way,accouning or various aspecs o is hisory and preseninghe cup ih a cerain syle, ariculaed according o cerain

ormal arrangemensand finally, hese qualiies hemselvesare uncannily unavailable or presen-a-hand inspecion.

18 Xavier Zubiri, On Essence, rans. A.R. Caponigri (Washingon: CaholicUniversiy Press, 1980), 467. See Graham Harman, ool-Being: Heideggeand the Metaphysis o Objets(Chicago: Open Cour, 2002), 24368.19 Lingis, Impeative, 135.20 Harman, Gueilla Metaphysis, 1026, 11921; 161.


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The molen core is wrapped wihin he delivery. Laingives us a clue abou his by ranslaing he Greek or de-livery, hypokisis, as eiher acioorponuniaio.21We ge heword hypocrisy rom hypokisis.22I sems rom he verbto judgeor intepetobjecs inerpre hemselves. Ye in sodoing hey are like acors, boh dissembling and generaingan enirely resh se o objecsas an orchesra inerpresa score by playing i. For insance, hypokisiscan signiy heone or manner o an animals cry. The cry expresses heanimal, ye is also an objec all is own. Ponuntiatiois morelike he manies appearance o an objec o anoher objec.I speaks o he dissembling par o hypokisis.Aciosounds

more like execuion (Heideggers Vollzug); he dark unoldingo an objecs hidden essence.Atiospeaks o he ay objecsmagically oam ih being.

Objecs, hen, are hypocries, orever spli rom wihin.Id raher live in a hypocriical Universe han a cynical one.Weve had quie enough o ha, a sympom o ho he san-dard philosophical game or wo hundred years has been

Anyhing you can do I can do mea. Tha is, philosophy hasmore or less acily agreed ha leaping away rom objecs ino

he beyond is he mark o rue philosophy and inelligence.Is i no possible o imagine ha an objec-oriened rheoricalheory migh accoun or vicarious causaion, he only kindo causaion possible beeen onologically vacuum-sealedobjecs? Harman alks abou elemens or qualiy objecshe aspecs o sensual objecs ha somehow communicaewih one anoher.23Could my srange reverse rheoric sup-ply a model or his? Is i possible hen ha an elemen re-sembles a phrase, or a rheorical period? Harman hins ha

he linguisic rope o meaphor migh be alluring precisely

21 Charlon T. Lewis and Charles Shor,Latin Dictionar(Oxord: ClarendonPress, 1879), atio,ponuntiatio.22 Henry George Liddell and Rober Scot,A Geek-English Lexicon: Revised and

Augmented thoughout by Si Henr Stuat Jones with the Assistane o RodeikMKenzie(Oxord. Clarendon Press, 1940), .23 Harman, Gueilla Metaphysis, 16470, 171.


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because i gives us a ase o some kind o deeper causaliy.24Can we imagine he ineracion beween a pen and a woodenable as made up o rheorical phrases and periods, herebyhe elemens o one objec persuade anoher? Consider heLain roo o persuasion (suadeo), hich has o do ih hoone objec urges, impels, induces or sways anoher.25Theaesheic, in oher words, is no a superficial candy coaingon he real, bu is insead he lubricaion, he energy andhe glue o causaliy as such. To hink so is ruly o exi heRamis pinball machine.

A Speculatve Sublme

According o OOO, objecs all have our aspecs. They wihdrawrom access by oher objecs. They appear o oher objecs.They are specific eniies. And has no all: hey really exis.Aesheically, hen, objecs are uncanny beass. I hey werepieces o music, hey migh be some impossible combinaiono slapsick sound effecs, Sufi singing, Mahler and hardcoreechno. I hey ere lieraure, hey migh exis someherebeween The Commedia Dell Are, Te Cloud of Unknowing,

Wa and Peaceand Waiing fo Godo. Pieo Lunaiemighbe a good meaphor or groesque, righening, hilarious,sublime objecs.

The objec-oriened sublime doesn come rom somebeyond, because his beyond urns ou o be a kind o opi-cal illusion o correlaionism. Theres nohing underneahhe Universe o objecs. Or no even nohing, i you preerhinking i ha way. The sublime resides in pariculariy, noin some disan beyond. And he sublime is generalizable

o all objecs, insoar as hey are all wha Ive called sangesanges, ha is, alien o hemselves and o one anoher inan irreducible ay.26

O he wo dominan heories o he sublime, we have a

24 Harman, Gueilla Metaphysis, 172.25 Leis and Shor, Latin Ditionar, suadeo.26 Moron, Te Eologial Tought, 3850.


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choice beeen auhoriy and reedom, beeen exerioriyand inerioriy. Bu boh choices are correlaionis. Tha is,boh heories o he sublime have o do ih human subjec-ive access o objecs. On he one hand we have EdmundBurke, or whom he sublime is shock and awe: an experienceo erriying auhoriy o which you mus submi.27On heoher hand, e have Immanuel Kan, or hom he sublimeis an experience o inner reedom based on some kind oemporary cogniive ailure. Try couning up o infiniy. Youcan. Bu ha isprecisely wha infiniy is. The power o yourmind is revealed in is ailure o sum infiniy.28

Boh sublimes assume ha: (1) he world is specially or

uniquely accessible o humans; (2) he sublime uniquely cor-relaes he orld o humans; and (3) has imporan abouhe sublime is a reacion in he subjec. The Burkean sublimeis simply craven coering in he presence o auhoriy: helaw, he migh o a yran God, he power o kings, and hehrea o execuion. No real knowledge o he auhoriy isassumederrified ignorance will do. Burke argues ourighha he sublime is alays a sae pain, mediaed by he glasspanels o he aesheic. (Thas why horror movies, a ruly

speculaive genre, ry o bus hrough his aesheic screena every opporuniy.)Wha we need is a more speculativesublime ha acually ries

o become inimae wih he oher, and here Kan is a any raepreerable o Burke. Those more sympaheic o Kan mighargue ha here is some ain echo o realiy in he experienceo he sublime. Cerainly he aesheic dimension is a way inwhich he normal subjecobjec dichoomy is suspended inKan. And he sublime is as i were he essenial subrouine o

he aesheic experience, allowing us o experience he powero our mind by running up agains some exernal obsacle.Kan reerences elescopes and microscopes ha expand hu-

27 Edmund Burke,A Philosophical Enquir into the Oigin of ou Ideas of the Sublimeand the Beautiul, ed. James T. Boulon (Oxord: Basil Blackell, 1987), 5770.28 Immanuel Kan,Citique of Judgment, rans. Werner Pluhar (Indianapolis:Hacket, 1987), 1036.


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man percepion beyond is limis.29His marvelous passageon he way ones mind can encompass human heigh and bysimple muliplicaion comprehend he vasness o MilkyWay sysems is sublimely expressive o he human capac-iy o hink.30Is also rue ha he Kanian sublime inspiredhe powerul speculaions o Schelling, Schopenhauer andNiezsche, and more ork needs o be done easing ou hohose philosophers begin o hink a realiy beyond he hu-man (he work o Gran and Woodard sands ou in pariculara presen).31Is rue ha in 28 o he Third Criique, Kandoes alk abou ho e experience he dynamical sublimein he error o vasness, or insance o he ocean or he

sky. Bu his isn anyhing like inimacy ih he sky or heocean. In ac, in he nex secions, Kan explicily rules ouanyhing like a scienific or even probing analysis o whamigh exis in he sky. As soon as e hink o he ocean as abody o waer conaining fish and whales, raher han as acanvas or our psyche; as soon as e hink o he sky as hereal Universe o sars and black holes, we aren experiencinghe sublime (29):

Thereore, when we call he sigh o he sarry sky sublime, we musno base our judgmen upon any conceps o worlds ha are inhab-

ied by raional beings, and hen [conceive o] he brigh dos ha e

see occupying he space above us as being hese orlds suns, movedin orbis prescribed or hem wih grea purposiveness; bu we mus

base our judgmen regarding merely on ho e see i, as a vas vaul

encompassing everyhing, and merely under his presenaion may

we posi he sublimiy ha a pure aesheic judgmen atribues o

his objec. In he same way, when we judge he sigh o he ocean

we mus no do so on he basis o how we hink, i, enriched wih allsors o knowledge which we possess (bu which is no conained in

29 Kan, Citique, 106.30 Ibid., 113.31 Iain Hamilon Gran, Philosophies o Natue afe Shelling(London: Con-inuum, 2006) and Ben Woodard, Slime Dynamics(orhcoming wih Zer0books).


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he direc inuiion), e.g., as a vas realm o aquaic creaures, or as he

grea reservoir supplying he waer or he vapors ha impregnae heair ih clouds or he benefi o he land, or again as an elemen ha,

while separaing coninens rom one anoher, ye makes possible

he greaes communicaion among hem; or all such judgmens willbe eleological. Insead e mus be able o vie he ocean as poes do,

merely in erms o ha maniess isel o he eyee.g., i e observe

i hile i is calm, as a clear mirror o aer bounded only by he sky;

or, i i urbulen, as being like an abyss hreaening o engul every-

hingand ye find i sublime.32

While we may share Kans anxiey abou eleology, his main

poin is less han saisacory rom a speculaive realis poino view. We posiively shouldn speculae when we experiencehe sublime. The sublime is precisely he lack of speculaion.Should we hen jus hrow in he owel and drop he sublimealogeher, choosing only o go wih horrorhe limi experi-ence o senien lieormsraher han he sublime, as severalspeculaive realiss have done? Can e only speculae romand ino a posiion o eeling our own skin abou o shred,or vomi abou o exi rom our lungs?

Ye horror presupposes he proximiy o a leas one ohereniy: a lehal virus, an exploding hydrogen bomb, an ap-proaching sunami. Inimacy is hus a precondiion o horror.From his sandpoin, even horror is oo much o a reacionsho, oo much abou how eniies correlae wih an observer.Wha we require is an aesheic experience o coexising wih1+noher eniies, living or nonliving. Wha speculaive real-ism needs ould be a sublime ha grans a kind o intimacih real eniies. This is precisely he kind o inimacy pro-

hibied by Kan, or whom he sublime requires a Goldilocksaesheic disance, no oo close and no oo ar aay (25):

in order o ge he ull emoional effec rom he magniude o he

pyramids one mus neiher ge oo close o hem nor say oo ar aay.

For i one says oo ar away, hen he apprehended pars (he sones

32 Kan, Citique, 130.


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on op o one anoher) are presened only obscurely, and hence heir

presenaion has no effec on he subjecs aesheic judgmen; and i

one ges oo close, hen he eye needs some ime o complee he ap-

prehension rom he base o he peak, bu during ha ime some o

he earlier pars are invariably exinguished in he imaginaion beore

i has apprehended he laer ones, and hence he comprehension is

never complee.33

The Kanian aesheic dimension is an experienial condomha shrink raps objecs in a proecive film. Sae rom hehrea o radical inimacy, he inner space o Kanian reedomdevelops unhindered. Good ase is knowing precisely when

o vomiwhen o expel any oreign subsance perceived o bedisgusing and hereore oxic.34This on do in an ecologi-cal era in hich aayhe precondiion or vomiingnolonger exiss. Our vomi jus floas around somehere nearus, since here is now no away o which we can flush i ingood aih.

Agains he correlaionis sublime Im going o argueor a speculaive sublime, an objec-oriened sublime o bemore precise. There is a model or jus such a sublime on he

markehe oldes exan ex on he sublime, Pei Hypsousby Longinus. The Longinian sublime is abou he physicalinrusion o an alien presence. The Longinian sublime canhus easily exend o include non-human eniiesand, Ishall argue, non-senien ones. Raher han making onicdisincions beween wha is and wha isn sublime, Longi-nus describes ho o achieve sublimiy. Because he is moreineresed in how o achieve he effec o sublimiy rheoricallyhan ha he sublime is as a human experience, Longinusleaves us ree o exrapolae all kinds o sublime evens be-een all kinds o eniies.

Longinus sublime is already concerned wih an objec-likealien presencehe migh call i God bu we could easily calli a Syrooam peanu or he Grea Red Spo o Jupier. The

33 Kan, Citique, 108.34 Jacques Derrida, Economimesis, Diaitis11:2 (1981): 225.


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Well see immediaely ha each one ses up relaionshipsih an alien presence.

(1) Brilliance. In Greek, to ekphanestaton, luser, brilliance,shining-ou (is a superlaive, so i really means superlaive

brilliance. Longinus declares ha in much he same way asdim lighs vanish in he radiance o he sun, so does he all-pervading effluence o grandeur uterly obscure[s] he arificeo rheoric.36Brilliance is whahidesobjecs. Brilliance is hewihdrawnness o he objec, is oal inaccessibiliy. In hemode o he sublime, is as i we are able o ase ha, evenhough is sricly impossible. Longinus compares i o hegushing magma o an exploding volcanoa descripion has

highly congruen wih several places in Harmans work inhich he reers o he molen core o an objec. The ligh ohis magma is blindinghas why is wihdrawal, srangely.Is righ here, is an acual objec. Longinus hus calls hisbrilliance an uncanny ac o he sublime.

For Plao o ekphanesaonwas an index o he essenialbeyond. For he objec-oriened onologis, brilliance is heappearance o he objec in all is sark uniy. Somehing iscoming hrough. Or beter: we realize ha somehing was

already here. This is he realm o he uncanny, he srangelyamiliar and amiliarly srange.(2) Clariy (enageia). Maniesaion, sel-evidence. This

has o do wih ekphrasis.37Ekphrasis in isel is ineresing orOOO, because ekphrasis is precisely an objec-like eniy halooms ou o descripive prose. Is a hyper-descripive parha jumps ou a he reader, periying her or him (urninghim o sone), causing a srange suspension o ime like BulleTime in Te Maix. Is a litle bi like wha Deleuze means

hen he alks abou ime crysals in his sudy o cinema.38This is he jumping-ou aspec o ekphrasis, a brisling viv-idness ha inerrups he flow o he narraive, jerking he

36 Longinus, On the Sublime, 127.37 Ibid. 121.38 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema : Te ime-Image, rans. Hugh Tomlinson andRober Galea (London: Coninuum, 2005), 6697.


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reader ou o her or his complacency. Quinilian sresseshe ime-warping aspec o enageia(he erm is measasisor metathesis), ransporing us in ime as i he objec had ison graviaional field ino hich i sucks us. The objec inis brisling specificiy.

Longinus assers ha while sublime rheoric mus conainenageia, sublime poery mus evoke ekplexisasonishmen.39This may also be seen as a kind o specific impac. In sriclyOOO erms, ekphrasis is a ranslaion ha ineviably misseshe wihdrawn objec, bu which generaes is own kind oobjec in he process. Ekphrasis speaks o ho objecs moveand have agency, despie our aareness or lack o aareness

o hem; Harmans analogy o he drugged man in ool Beingprovides a compelling example.40Now i somehow you gei rong, you end up ih bombas: he limi here objecsbecome vague, undefined, jus cluter (he word bombasli-erally means suffing, he kind youd pu in shoulder pads).

Ekphrasis accouns or a phenomenon ha perains ohyperobjecs, somehing Im calling viscosiy. The hyperob-jec is so massively disribued, and so bizarre, ha i melsyou. And hen you realize youre covered in i, or suffused in

i like radiaion.(3) Transpor. The narraor makes you eel somehingsirring inside you, some kind o divine or demonic energy,as i you were inhabied by an alien. Being moved, beingsirred.41We can imagine he sublime as a kind o ransporer,like in Sa ek, a device or beaming he alien objec inoanoher objecs rame o reerence. Transpor consiss osensual conac ih objecs as an alien universe. Jus as heransporer can only ork by ranslaing paricles rom one

place o anoher, so Longinian ranspor only orks by oneobjec ranslaing anoher via is specific rames o reerence.In so doing, e become aare o ha as los in ranslaion.Transpor hus depends upon a kind o void, he ihdran

39 Longinus, On the Sublime, 1234.40 Harman, ool-Being, 623.41 Longinus, On the Sublime, 100.


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realiy o he universe o objecs, he aspec ha is oreversealed rom access bu neverheless hinkable.

The machinery o ranspor, he ransporer as such, is whaLonginus calls amplificaion: no bigness bu a eeling o (asDocor Seuss pus i) biggering: [a figure] employed whenhe maters under discussion or he poins o an argumenallo o many pauses and many resh sars rom secion osecion, and he grand phrases come rolling ou one aferanoher wih increasing effec; in his way Plao, or insance,

ofen swells ino a mighy expanse o grandeur.42By atuningour mind o he exploding noes o an objec, amplificaionses up a sor o subjec-quake, a soul-quake.

(4) Phantasia. Ofen ranslaed as visualizaion.43

Visualiza-ion no imagery: producing an inner objec. Is imagery inyouno in he ex. Quinilian remarks haphantasiamakesabsen hings appear o be presen.44Phanasiaconjuresan objec. I I say New York and youre a New Yorker, youdon have o ediously picure each separae building andsree. You sor o evoke Ne Yorkness in your mind. Thas

phantasia. Wha Ive called he poeics o spice operaes hisay: he use o he ord spice (raher han say cinammon

or pepper) in a poem acs as a blank allowing or he worko olacory imaginaion akin o visualizaion.45Is morelike a hallucinaion han an inended hough.46In sories,or insance,phanasiageneraes an objec-like eniy haseparaes us rom he narraive flopus us in ouch ihhe alien as alien. Visualizaion should be slighly scary: youare summoning a real deiy afer all, you are asking o beoverhelmed, ouched, moved, sirred.

42 Longinus, On he Sublime, 116, 117; Docor Seuss, Te Loax(New York:Random House, 1971), 49.43 Longinus, On the Sublime, chaper 15.44 Quinilian, Insiuio Oaoia, 6.2.29. htp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texs/Quinilian/Insiuio_Oraoria/6B*.hml#245Timohy Moron,Te Poetics of Spice: Romantic Consumeism and the Exotic(Cambridge: Cambridge Universiy Press, 2006), 338, 12931.46 On he seduciveness o phanasms, see Lingis, Impeative107116.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/6Bhttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/6Bhttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/6Bhttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/6B


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In OOO erms,phanasiais he capaciy o an objec oimagine anoher objec. Sensual conac wih he alien as aspecific objec. Ho paper looks o sone. Ho scissors looko paper. Do objecs dream? Do hey conain virual versionso oher objecs inside hem? These would be examples o

phantasia. How one objec impinges upon anoher one. Thereis oo much o i. I magneizes us wih a errible compulsion.

Now or an example o he Longinian sublime, ake Har-mans firs grea use o he meanwhile rope (which Meillas-soux calls he ih elsewhee), in his paper Objec-OrienedPhilosophy:

Bu beneah his ceaseless argumen, realiy is churning. Even as hephilosophy o language and is supposedly reacionary opponens

boh declare vicory, he arena o he world is packed wih diverse

objecs, heir orces unleashed and mosly unloved. Red billiard ball

smacks green billiard ball. Snoflakes gliter in he ligh ha cruelly

annihilaes hem; damaged submarines rus along he ocean floor. As

flour emerges rom mills and blocks o limesone are compressed by

earhquakes, giganic mushrooms spread in he Michigan ores. Whilehuman philosophers bludgeon each oher over he very possibiliy

o access o he orld, sharks bludgeon una fish and icebergs smashino coaslines.

All o hese eniies roam across he cosmos, inflicing blessings andpunishmens on everyhing hey ouch, perishing wihou a race or

spreading heir powers urheras i a million animals had broken

ree rom a zoo in some Tibean cosmology47

This is nobodys world. This is sor o he opposie o sockin rade environmenalis rheoric (which elsewhere Ive

called ecomimesis): Here I am in his beauiul deser, andI can prove o you Im here because I can wrie ha I see a redsnake disappearing ino ha creosoe bush. Did I ell you Iwas in a deser? Thas me, here, in a deser. Im in a deser.48

47 Graham Harman, Objec-Oriened Philosophy, in owads SpeculaiveRealism(Wincheser UK: Zero Books, 2010), 93104, 945.48Timohy Moron,Ecology without Natue: Rethinking Envionmental Aesthet-


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This is no mans land. Bu is no a bleak nohingness. Bleaknohingness, i urns ou, is jus he flip side o correlaionismsworld. No. This is a crowded Tibean zoo, an Expressionisparade o uncanny, clownlike objecs. Were no supposed okowow o hese objecs as Burke would wish. Ye were nosupposed o find our inner reedom eiher (Kan). Is likeone o hose maps ih he litle red arro ha says You AreHere, only his one says You Are No Here.

From the Sublme to the Rdculous

This essays ile comes rom Slavoj iek, whose Sublime Object

o Ideologyas he firs book o his I ever read back in 1991.ieks sublime objec is sublime or someone, no in isel(ha is, among is consiuen objecs) or ih oher objecs.The sublime objec o ideology is a correlaionis sublimeha really only has one message o deliver: ha objecs arean ideological anasy.49Ye he sublime ges a somehinghas essenial o objecs: heir wihdrawnness and he wayin hich a he same ime hey manies, in all heir scinil-laing pariculariy, he kind Longinus calls ekphanesaon.

The sublime underpins oher kinds o aesheic ineracionbeeen objecseven ridiculous ones.Are here non-sublime ineracions beween objecs? O

course. One can easily imagine, or insance, a ridiculousineracion beeen objecs. The rick ould be o ascerainwheher he objecs ound he ineracion ridiculous. A shoemeeing a banana skin migh be a ragedy or eiher pary,no a arce.

Slinky Malinkis hef o household objecs produces

a marvelous Laour liany, a requen figure o speech inOOO. Is requen because Laour Lianies are collecions ononrepeaing, unique objecs, as diverse as possiblea soro mini-revenge o uniciies agains global goo and global

is(Cambridge: Harvard Universiy Press, 2007), 2978.49 Slavoj iek, Te Sublime Objet o Ideology(London and Ne York: Verso,1991), 2017.


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sysems. Then he objecs begin o maluncion, hey unleashheir orces on one anoher and he ca. Suddenly he amilyappears, bu he objecs via hich hey appear sho up firs:

On wen he lighs, / BANG wen he door / and ou camehe amily, / one, o hree, our.50We perceive his appear-ance in he ramework o maluncioning equipmen (hashe sublime); he lighs go on in an unconscious parody oHeideggers lihtung. On en he lighs is he climax, heenargeia, ha beams he amily downhey are seen as aliensin heir on house.

We need an objec-oriened sublime in an ecological age.Google Earh wouldn qualiy as Kanian sublimiyis oo

explicily scienificbu i ould coun as Longinian, rans-poring us o real places. Ecological eniies such as globalwarming need a Longinian sublime o evoke hem. This re-quires sensiiviy o hyperobjecs, conac wih alien eniiesha are here among us now. (We could apply he five pars orheoric o hyperobjecs. Delivery as heir sublime exisence.Memory as heir emporal oreshorening and he ac haheyre already here. Syle as heir viscosiy and nonlocaliy.Ordering as heir properies as derivaives, byproducs ec.

ha are more inense han he objecs and relaions in whichhey originae. Invenion as he myserious wihdrawal com-mon o all objecs bu obvious in heir case.)

I would be a good sar o look away rom he supposed con-en o rheoric, and even away rom syles such as meaphoror ekphrasis, and owards he mos physical orm, delivery.Then ruly we can say ha by generaing more sublime ob-

jecs o one, pich, bearing, rhyhm, orque, spin, nonlocaliy,lineaion, viscosiy, ension, enanglemen, synax, climae,

hef, densiy, nuclear fission, ineria, rhyme (he lis goes onand on), rheoric really does give us a glimpse o real sensualhings, hings even a ca and an eigheen monh year old boycan seal, read abou and ge angled up in.

50 Dodd, Slinky Malinki, 26.

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