Second footnote to the post titled “Smell the Right Place”

Politics happens to be the least habitable and friendly place for the creative and imaginative person. As Goethe wrote: “Aesthetic pleasure keeps us on our feet, while the rest of the world succumbs to the political epidemic.” We are to let go in order to engage and thus become sublimated in “the play of eros” and in turn become “truly human.” The creative and imaginative person – or the Romantic – is also religious. As a result: “The Romantic attitude belongs to a living culture, but Romantic politics is dangerous. What applies to religion applies to Romanticism, which is a continuance of religion by aesthetic means: it must withstand the temptation of reaching for political power.”