“Anthropotechnics for the Anthropocene”

“According to Sloterdijk, the heroic accomplishments of these spiritual athletes transform the course of history by pointing to new and difficult routes toward which even ordinary people can strive. They offer new horizons, which often take the form of a goal of liberation from everyday life into an “otherworld” or a “beyond.” He doesn’t advocate any single training, insisting that there is no one true path forward, and certainly no fixed end point to reach. Each course of practices and habits is a largely blind striving toward well-marked plateaus, and beyond them, toward untested and previously unknown peaks of “Mount Improbable.”

—John Tresch, “Anthropotechnics for the Anthropocene”