Midsommar: Heidegger and the Horror of Being-with
Midsommar (dir. Ari Aster, 2019) is the film about a group of young Americans, who decide to visit a Swedish community living in accordance with old traditions and celebrate the summer solstice there. At first glance, the inhabitants of the village don’t differ from each other, they look very similar wearing the same costumes, living in a harmonious symbiosis – far from individualistic desires of being separate or distinct from each other. Everything that turns out to be the most terrifying in Midsommar is very closely related to the director’s attempt to undermine and violate the anthropocentric vision of individualism. In my presentation I would like to focus on the non-anthropocentric idea of collective death and the non-individualistic form of community shown in the Ari Aster movie. In order to do that, I confront it with the existentialist perspective of Martin Heidegger, who upholds the tradition of human individualism. Heidegger perceived death as the principle of individuality (principium individuationis), serving to distinguish an authentic individual from a formless social mass (das Man). Jacques Derrida, continuing the thanatical tradition of philosophy, argued that we cannot in any way avoid death, which is an extremely individual and not transferable gift (The Gift of Death). Heidegger, opposing the static vision of the subject (human nature), points out that the most interesting human ability is to be ecstatic (ἔκστασις – standing next to, outside), i.e. the strange ability to come out of oneself. I would like to radicalize Heidegger’s concept of ecstasy, think about it definitely more collectively, and in this way answer the question: what is the most terrifying in Midsommar? I would like to prove that what scares the author of Being and Time the most is not the death itself, but rather the perspective of individual dissolve into collectivity. I order to do that, I confront the world of individualism with the Nordic vision of a non- individual community. In this way I try to realize the postulate of Donna Haraway, which indicates the need to create new, different stories about life, dying and survival – other than those related to the superhuman effort of an individual or an individual hero. Midsommar allows us to think the notion of humankind in a completely new, non- anthropocentric way, in the line with the vision sketched by Timothy Morton. The basic rule of horror movies: “by separating yourself from the group you die”, turns out to be the fundamental law of symbiotic realm. Therefore, the main source of problems and troubles in Midsommar is the possessive individualism that separates us from collective life.
Andrzej Marzec Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
Andrzej Marzec Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
The Horror of the Void in Blaise Pascal and Game of Thrones
Against theories of physical plenitude, according to which there is no void in the world, the 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal proves the existence of the void in the world and his discovery fills him with terror. This paper focuses on the nature of the awe- inspiring horror that Pascal derives from the void, and which he theorises across his works, both in his scientific experiments and in his ethical and metaphysical inferences made on their basis.
It leads Pascal to point at what he calls the ‘errors’ (erreur in French) and erratic wanderings (errance) of human beings, who shy away from the realities of the void. It is in fact, their incapacity to face the unknown out of fear and wilful blindness to the terrors of the void that surround us.
The paper brings out the tension in Pascal between the terror of facing the void and the terror of admitting to the erratic wanderings of humans to avoid this void. This tension frames a theory of a radical horror genre which, I show, finds its expression in certain aspects of the famous HBO series, Game of Thrones, in which associations of the void, the unknown and the terror of infinite spaces converge on the idea of the ‘North’ and what lies ‘Beyond the Wall’ – a no-man’s land of snow and darkness and open sky, which is where the series begins and ends.
Ada Bronowski University of Lisbon, Portugal
It leads Pascal to point at what he calls the ‘errors’ (erreur in French) and erratic wanderings (errance) of human beings, who shy away from the realities of the void. It is in fact, their incapacity to face the unknown out of fear and wilful blindness to the terrors of the void that surround us.
The paper brings out the tension in Pascal between the terror of facing the void and the terror of admitting to the erratic wanderings of humans to avoid this void. This tension frames a theory of a radical horror genre which, I show, finds its expression in certain aspects of the famous HBO series, Game of Thrones, in which associations of the void, the unknown and the terror of infinite spaces converge on the idea of the ‘North’ and what lies ‘Beyond the Wall’ – a no-man’s land of snow and darkness and open sky, which is where the series begins and ends.
Ada Bronowski University of Lisbon, Portugal