“We will make philosophy dangerous,
change the notion of it,

we teach a philosophy that is dangerous to life;
how can we serve it better?

An idea is much more valuable to humanity
when it is more costly.

If no one hesitates to sacrifice themselves
for the idea of ‘God,’ ‘Country,’ ‘Freedom,’
if all of history is only the smoke surrounding this kind of sacrifice,
how can we show the primacy of the concept of ‘philosophy’
over these popular concepts — ‘God,’ ‘Country,’ ‘Freedom,’ —
other than by making it more costly
than them,
by demanding still greater hecatombs?”

(A hecatomb was a great public sacrifice, originally of a hundred oxen in ancient Greece or Rome – a slaughter)

-excerpt On Nietzsche by Georges Bataille, trans. by Stuart Kendall p. 22

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Life in these times is dangerous.

Have you noticed?  Living in “the developed world,” Batavia, the Fox River Valley, for the time being, if you happen to be privileged, you may not have noticed…  What would an abrupt turn in circumstance mean for you?  A layoff, a diagnosis of ill health, something that medication or surgery would not fix?  What about a sudden turn, a life-changing event suffered by a child or grand child?  Perhaps that would be the greatest darkness…

I think often of those who live in Ukraine.  The typical citizen has no “control” over the politics, the ebb and flow of power, the rise and fall of temperature between diminutive Ukraine, and a Russian autocrat enveloped by shame over a lost empire…   There is war.

And so it goes.  The war grinds on as winter approaches.  The infrastructure upon which they rely in the towns and cities, for heat and light, has been damaged by waves of rocket attacks.

Look around.  Life is dangerous.

What is needed?  A point of view that is apposite to the dangers that we face, ideas that are equally dangerous, courageous, a deliberate “bet of our lives” for a future time characterized by a renovated, revolutionized relationship between ourselves, all of us, gay and straight and non-binary and transgendered, male and female, etc.  By extension,  less violent, more human relationship would extend to politics between communities and nations.  The quest of humanity is to become more human.

What is called for: a philosophy that sets my hair on fire!