Michael Eldred writes:
>And outside the thinking of beyng?
>For those dwelling within metaphysics without any distance from it (and that
>is
>just about everyone), the destruction of metaphysics appears and must appear
>as
>threatening. Twisting here turns into squirming. And then comes the
>retaliation:
>metaphysics strikes back: The thinking of beyng: a vacuous play on words, a
>"disgusting term" (Adorno), a hotline to Hitler, to Auschwitz, a violent
>extrapolation from a Schwarzwald hut to the entire world, borne by resentment
>against urban life, and so on. (Heidegger's rigid behaviour did not help
>matters.) These are all ways of getting around the thinking of beyng without
>thinking. And they are very effective, on one level, namely, the level of the
>politics of thinking.
>
>The thinking of beyng: the shame of German thinking after Auschwitz, the face
>of
>German thinking that, in shame, is kept hidden and under attack?
>
>But let's get back to thinking instead of digressing outside thinking.
This line of argument continually makes me uncomfortable. Yes, Adorno
(especially in Jargon der Eigentlichkeit, and in parts of Negative
Dialektik) is intemperate, obstreperous, impatient, if not utterly
'oblivious' to the Sache des Denkens. But he cannot so facilely be
dismissed as simply perpetuating 'metaphysics', to the degree that he
attempts to think das Nichtidentische, what escapes all conceptual capture,
a conceptuality in turn founded upon the Herrschaft of
technological-instrumental reason.
Nor can his deepest charge against Heideggerian thinking be so easily
ignored -- namely, that human suffering is conjured away by 'ontology',
ascribing sacrificial ('positive') value to suffering whenever it comes
into ontology's purview. Adorno makes this charge on the basis of the SZ
account of Angst, which may not be appropriate; but this pathos of
sacrifice can be read throughout Heid.'s subsequent work, including Trakl's
Schmerz (and also in Zur Seinsfrage -- pain is a transitional category, a
constellation having to do with Uebergang) and George's traurige Verzicht.
The force of his arguments in ND rests on a meditation on the Shoah which
implicates not just "German thinking" but Western rationality as such.
Heidegger's remark from _Nietzsche_, "Wir leben, indem wir leiben", becomes
transposed, fractured, and rent asunder by the Adornian "Wir leben, indem
wir leiden" -- *corporeal* suffering as the inexpungible residue of
technological logos. To which Heidegger's furtive reply in the Bremer
Vortraege (Band 79) about the production of corpses in the extermination
camps sounds hollowed-out to the point of vacuity.
Best regards,
Paul Murphy
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>And outside the thinking of beyng?
>For those dwelling within metaphysics without any distance from it (and that
>is
>just about everyone), the destruction of metaphysics appears and must appear
>as
>threatening. Twisting here turns into squirming. And then comes the
>retaliation:
>metaphysics strikes back: The thinking of beyng: a vacuous play on words, a
>"disgusting term" (Adorno), a hotline to Hitler, to Auschwitz, a violent
>extrapolation from a Schwarzwald hut to the entire world, borne by resentment
>against urban life, and so on. (Heidegger's rigid behaviour did not help
>matters.) These are all ways of getting around the thinking of beyng without
>thinking. And they are very effective, on one level, namely, the level of the
>politics of thinking.
>
>The thinking of beyng: the shame of German thinking after Auschwitz, the face
>of
>German thinking that, in shame, is kept hidden and under attack?
>
>But let's get back to thinking instead of digressing outside thinking.
This line of argument continually makes me uncomfortable. Yes, Adorno
(especially in Jargon der Eigentlichkeit, and in parts of Negative
Dialektik) is intemperate, obstreperous, impatient, if not utterly
'oblivious' to the Sache des Denkens. But he cannot so facilely be
dismissed as simply perpetuating 'metaphysics', to the degree that he
attempts to think das Nichtidentische, what escapes all conceptual capture,
a conceptuality in turn founded upon the Herrschaft of
technological-instrumental reason.
Nor can his deepest charge against Heideggerian thinking be so easily
ignored -- namely, that human suffering is conjured away by 'ontology',
ascribing sacrificial ('positive') value to suffering whenever it comes
into ontology's purview. Adorno makes this charge on the basis of the SZ
account of Angst, which may not be appropriate; but this pathos of
sacrifice can be read throughout Heid.'s subsequent work, including Trakl's
Schmerz (and also in Zur Seinsfrage -- pain is a transitional category, a
constellation having to do with Uebergang) and George's traurige Verzicht.
The force of his arguments in ND rests on a meditation on the Shoah which
implicates not just "German thinking" but Western rationality as such.
Heidegger's remark from _Nietzsche_, "Wir leben, indem wir leiben", becomes
transposed, fractured, and rent asunder by the Adornian "Wir leben, indem
wir leiden" -- *corporeal* suffering as the inexpungible residue of
technological logos. To which Heidegger's furtive reply in the Bremer
Vortraege (Band 79) about the production of corpses in the extermination
camps sounds hollowed-out to the point of vacuity.
Best regards,
Paul Murphy
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---