Sloterdijk's work observed through the lens of current social theory

Peter Sloterdijk is not exactly a social theorist in the ongoing academic sense. One will look in vain in his books for elaborated conceptual arguments, lengthy discussions of the views of canonized social scientists, or the kind of meticulous step-by-step reasoning that tries to convince the sceptic who is already well versed in the matter at hand. Sloterdijk prefers to think fast and overwhelms the curious reader of his sometimes biting, much more often ironic comments on contemporary society primarily with well-chosen metaphors instead of dry concepts. Several of his writings do nevertheless address in an interesting way at least three substantial issues within current social theorizing. The first one regards the nature of the social. What is the kind of proverbial stuff societies are made of? As Sphären (‘Spheres’), the title of his three-volume magnum opus, already indicates, Sloterdijk opts for a topological approach. In his view, societies indeed consist of ‘turbulent and asymmetrical associations of space-multiplicities’ or spheres. A sphere is an inner zone that acts as an atmosphere, as a space that links two or more individuals because it is filled with moods or vibes, inspirations, energies, and resonances or sympathies that produce mutual solidarities. The basic component of the social is the dyadic sphere, thus Sloterdijk asserts with much gusto against the idea that the social is composed of inter-subjective relations between autonomous subjects. A human subject is never alone but can only exist in the mode of co-subjectivity, as a being that is literally animated by past and actual words, gazes, voices… of others. In line with the recent ‘affective turn’ within social theorizing, and partly inspired by the writings of Gabriel Tarde, Sloterdijk thus points out the importance of non-linguistic forces for a correct understanding of the social. Not that ‘flows of desire’, a key expression in Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus and also an influence acknowledged by Sloterdijk, animate social life. Sloterdijk rather advocates a social energetic view, an approach that tries to understand the phenomenon of human togetherness primarily in terms of shared energies, or immaterial forces that act upon the participants in social relations and produce various ‘communities of resonance’.