Great introduction! Thanks! Hannah Arendt wrote deeply about 'assimilation' in her book about Rahel Varnhagen, Elias Canetti generalised 'assimilation' profoundly (sublimating it!) into his central concept of metamorphosis (in German Verwandlung is more meaningful) crucial for Crowds And Power. For him this was a quality all humans, more or a less, have. Kafka's story Die Verwandlung was indeed an important inspiration during his writing of Die Blendung (Auto da fe).
The urge of Canetti to take notes had everything to do with his central obsession: crowds/masses. The notes your are reading here showing it: the quantity of phenomena and how to relate to it. For Canetti the Crowd/mass was the rhizome (yes Deleuze & Guattari were constant readers of Crowds and Power) of the metamorphosis. Canetti studied chemistry but he made from mass a philosophical, or better a poetical, object with the emphasis on social and psychological phenomena, but he sees also biological connections with our bodiess. (mass in general are gathering of 'bodies'). During the fourty years of thinking and writing about crowds/masses, the notes were a spin off on the way of composing his main book Crowds And Power. Also his novel Auto da fe was already deeply infuenced by his ideas about mass/crowd. (The books of Kien are 'crowds' too!) So the translation of german Masse in crowds is less meaningful. Canetti idea of mass is not only about quantity but, maybe even more, also about equality: the drive to find unity with others: the will to identify to find identity. In the German Verwandlung is also an associaton(!) with Verwandtschaft (kinship). Canetti saw imitation as a begin in the process of metamorphosis. But there is more... much more in this genius work full of hidden intellectual pearls :)
Great introduction! Thanks!
Hannah Arendt wrote deeply about 'assimilation' in her book about Rahel Varnhagen, Elias Canetti generalised 'assimilation' profoundly (sublimating it!) into his central concept of metamorphosis (in German Verwandlung is more meaningful) crucial for Crowds And Power. For him this was a quality all humans, more or a less, have. Kafka's story Die Verwandlung was indeed an important inspiration during his writing of Die Blendung (Auto da fe).
Thank you or this comment, Contextcatcher. Very useful in understanding Canetti!
The urge of Canetti to take notes had everything to do with his central obsession: crowds/masses. The notes your are reading here showing it: the quantity of phenomena and how to relate to it. For Canetti the Crowd/mass was the rhizome (yes Deleuze & Guattari were constant readers of Crowds and Power) of the metamorphosis. Canetti studied chemistry but he made from mass a philosophical, or better a poetical, object with the emphasis on social and psychological phenomena, but he sees also biological connections with our bodiess. (mass in general are gathering of 'bodies'). During the fourty years of thinking and writing about crowds/masses, the notes were a spin off on the way of composing his main book Crowds And Power. Also his novel Auto da fe was already deeply infuenced by his ideas about mass/crowd. (The books of Kien are 'crowds' too!) So the translation of german Masse in crowds is less meaningful.
Canetti idea of mass is not only about quantity but, maybe even more, also about equality: the drive to find unity with others: the will to identify to find identity. In the German Verwandlung is also an associaton(!) with Verwandtschaft (kinship). Canetti saw imitation as a begin in the process of metamorphosis.
But there is more... much more in this genius work full of hidden intellectual pearls :)