P Passivität

The history of philosophy is characterized by a thinking in opposites, which includes the opposition between activity and passivity. The previously unquestioned preference for activity is increasingly coming under scrutiny, and it seems that the philosophical response to the discomfort with the primacy of action is a heightened interest in phenomena of the passive. The appeals and demands for self-responsible action have grown in everyday life to such an extent that they are met with annoyance, if not with refusal or pathological disturbances. Today's subject, as the "entrepreneurial self," is not deviant or criminal when it refuses; rather, it is failing, burnt out, and unable to continue. This weakening of the capabilities of individuals urged towards creative self-realization also undermines that inactivity and "deep boredom" of the vita contemplativa, which has long been regarded as a condition for genuine experience and the creative actions that arise from it.