I'm also thinking about a book again. Seems to me that most of life is pretty much ringed with fear-- fashioned with fear, even. The welfare state comes to mind, as does the fact that I wear clothes. Moreover, the critical/skeptical epistemological mode seems to me as also a product of fear: Descartes' project, after all, is rooted in a test of his faculties so that he can be sure that no supremely bad devil dude is tricking him out. The fact that modern philosophy won't settle for anything less than 100% certainty is symptomatic of its paranoia--a grim, settled fear that post-modernity wafts out of like a rat from a garbage can.
That's all a rabbit trail, of course, but it dovetails nicely with the whole seatbelt/insurance/retirement/government/metal detector thing that keeps us all freaked out enough to sacrifice liberty for a comfortable death.
My proposal? An aesthetic of trust. Believe me; it's beautiful.
Even though rats don't waft.
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