Feste feiern, wie sie fallen

(Celebrating Festivals as They Come)

Abstract

Festivals are a sort of hyperphenomenon. Firstly, they take place here and now, but exceeding every kind of normality. Partly, they refer to recurrent events such as springtime or Thanksgiving; partly, they remind us of personal events like our own birth, of religious events like the birth of Christ or of political events like the French revolution whose singularity is celebrated by repeating the unrepeatable. Further, we celebrate festivals along with others whose experiences we share and with whom we live together. But there are also dubious festivals like victory celebrations that we are celebrating against others. Common festivals are more or less exclusive. Finally, we have to distinguish between festival events, framed in a specific way and performed in accordance to certain rituals, and extraordinary qualities of festivity spreading out over the world, producing a certain splendor which is increased by the effects of art. In sum, our way of celebrating festivals shows how we are living and dying together. Festivals raise the question whether life is worth being celebrated or not. People getting completely normalised or being centered on their own interest would be people without festivity. Festivals are a sort of life test.