The Art of Drawing Distinctions

Abstract

This chapter highlights the individual's capacity for differentiation. Imagine the human body: take, for example, the mouth, whose capacity for differentiation would be called a sensation. The largest organ, the skin, also has sensation. The ear: therein lies musicality, the sense of balance, the sense of hearing, and rhythm. These sensations are divided between two cerebral hemispheres. All of these sensations play a role in an encounter with another person. The moment when related sensations reach a decision about another human being is called feeling. This is not something sentimental, but rather is subject to the sentimentalization and commercialization of the nineteenth century. In reality, feeling is something very human. It is what a person adds to an objective relation. In order to be able to convey more clearly the difference between sensation and feeling, Alexander Kluge introduces another term: passion. There is the passion of the mind and there is the mind of passion. This is the intensification of the will, feeling, the sum of various feelings pointed in a single direction.