On Fri, 2 Feb 1996, Laurence Paul Hemming wrote:
> On the 2nd February, Michael Antonucci wrote:
>
> >I understand the instinct to admire a raging iconoclast who disrupts a
> >slow and difficult consensus building process with Sturm und Strang.
>
in yet another posting concerning the interminable drivel that has
dominated the discussion here, reflecting nothing other than the rather
small-world preoccupations of liberal North America.
(And surely Strang is Drang?)
So writes Dr. Lemming in yet another posting that assumes the position of
a judge or neutral arbitrer, while *SIMULTANEOUSLY* entering the fray.
Perhaps this reflects nothing other than stereotypical British snottiness
and parochial contempt for the colonists who actually worked up the
courage to escape their dreary island. (Note: this is a joke, satirizing
Dr. Lemming's stereotypical denigration of North America.)
And you are correct, I got tired and made a typographical error. The
line that you responded to was, admittedly, also something of an error, that
(probably unjustly) sacrificed precision for rhetorical simplicity.
I think that most of Lemming's problems could be solved by substituting
"slow and difficult process of attempting to maintain an unruly and
variegated discourse without degenerating into rage and personal insults"
for "slow and difficult process of consensus-builiding." That, and, of
course, a European address. Thanks for the revision, though.
> What is it to build a "slow and difficult consensus" in a discussion
> primarily concerned with the work of Martin Heidegger? In what sense
might we
> interpret him as encouraging such a thing?
First, you're probably right - I sacrificed accurate communication of my
intent on the altar of a metaphor. Retrospectively a bad move, sorry. I
do think that we should and do have conflict in this forum without
necessarily moving toward any telos of consensus.
I will say, though, just for the record, that we can discuss Martin
Heidegger without endorsing his ethics. If I DID wish to make a case for
consensus building, I would be perfectly justified in doing so here,
without Heidegger's hypothesized approval.
> Did not in fact he stand against the formation of opinion or outlook
or understanding as "consensus"?
Or have I been misreading him for years? If he did stand against such a thing, might a little more care and thought, a little more self-questioning in our venturing of opinions and questions be appropriate?
No, I'm basically conceding this point. I did not intend to promote a
single Weg or definitive reading of Heidegger.
> There is an increasing concern in the study of Heidegger to produce the
"definitive" answer - to "clean up" the study of this difficult and
controversial thinker, and so to create a "consensual" discourse to which
each of us, if we are going to be allowed to participate, must be conformed.
A "universalisation" of the interpretation of the thought of Heidegger,
which in its own totality and coherence can "account" for the moves he makes,
the mistakes, the twists and turns and so forth, and bring them into a
synthesis which will make them self-evident and immediately accessible to all
but the dullest amongst us.
I basically agree, although grounding this argument in implied elitism
("accessible to all but the dullest among us") is, of course, typically
British :).
I would issue a similar statement, but would ground the condemnation in
the totalitarian possibilities of a single hegemonic interpretive system,
instead of fear that the peasants might start talking abotu Heidegger.
> Heidegger himself points in the opposite direction: to what is "original"
(urspruenglich) in my encounter with him: to what in my engagement with him
and with the Western tradition points me first in the direction of thinking
- to abandoning the position of apprentice toward thinking as such.
>
> Might we have a little less rehearsing of our own preoccupations?
Often our readings of Heidegger are inextricably imbricated with "our own
preoccupations." Your above paragraph, which details your rather
personal "encounter with him," is a decent case in point.
> Might we just allow ourselves to be occupied by the matter at hand?
This statement is paradoxical, as well as being typically British in its
pedanticism :).
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