Cologne, 23 July 1996
Paul Murphy and Michel Peine-à-mon-coeur have been tussling over wresting. Is it
violent or not?
What does the OED say?
wrest: (related to "wrist")
"I.1 trans. To subject something to a twisting movement; to turn or twist. [...]
2. To pull, pluck, drag away, or detach (a person or thing) with a wrench or
twist; to twist, tear or wrench out, etc. [...]
3. obs. To turn or dispose (someone, his heart) to a person or thing; to incline
or influence (a person, etc.), to do something. [...]
4. To usurp, arrogate, or take by force (power, a right, etc.); to assume
forcibly (a dignity or office), to seize, capture, or take (lands, dominion,
etc.) from another or others [...]
5. To strain or overstrain the meaning or bearing of (a writing, passage, word,
etc.); to deflect or turn from the true or proper signification; to twist or
pervert [...]
6. To turn or deflect (a matter, etc.); to divert to some different (esp. undue
or improper) purpose, end, etc.; to distort or pervert [...]
7. a. To overstrain the muscles of [...]
II 8 obs. To struggle or contend [...]
9. To force a way, make way with effort, find egress
10. obs. Of sound: To break forth"
Do we see twisting, Verwindung emerging here once again? The violence in
wresting is by no means cut-and-dried, not simply and unambiguously so.
A twist of the wrist can twist something free, out of its roots. This could be a
perversion (Verdrehung), but not necessarily. The twisting of the thinking hand
can be more or less violent, more or less subtle, more or less skilful.
What is being twisted/perverted/deflected/overstrained/wrenched/turned here?
i) Metaphysics: an oblivion to beyng
ii) The being of beings
iii) The sense of being itself
iv) The selfconcealment of being itself.
i) There is no innocence in twisting metaphysics free/back into another
essencing of truth. Such a step back from truth as correctness to truth as
unconcealment involves a lot of strife. If the view of aletheia itself is now
being granted to human being, this does not happen as a sudden flash but in an
historical twilight in which essencings of truth and human understanding of
these essencings compete and struggle with each other. For metaphysics itself,
which cannot stand outside itself, the wresting of metaphysics must seem to be
perversion and 'violence'. Are words perverted from their "proper signification"
(cf. 5. above)? (cue Robert Scheertz). (Some would say there is nothing to
quarrel about here.)
ii) The being of beings, the AS of their appearance in the clearing of
beyng's truth, is not decided once and for all but is subject to the history of
beyng. Thinking and art can help to decide historically AS what beings can
appear. This involves twisting and turning the self-evidences of what they are.
Again, common sense must be perverted, or so it seems. If beings are no longer
to appear AS objects or AS components of the standing reserve, their AS must be
twisted, deflected into another orientation. Again there is strife, for how else
can this decision event-uate? (Some (Chris Rickey perhaps) would say there is
nothing to decide here.)
iii) The sense of beyng as standing presence could be twisted by thinking and
art into another sense. In the _Einfuehrung_ Heidegger points out the peculiar
predominance of the third person singular in the sense of being and thus in our
Western grammar. Is it time to twist/pervert this sense of being into
declinations of itself? What consequences would this have for the AS referred to
in ii)? Or for the humans standing uninclined in the clearing of beyng's truth?
Not only the being of beings, but also human being is not inclined to being
twisted into declination. (Some would say there is nothing to decline here.)
iv) How could human being get a hold on the self-concealment of beyng so as
to give a twist with the wrist? Here the step back becomes most distant. Here
there is especially cause for letting-be (Gelassenheit). Does wresting here
become resting? Can we only wrest(le) with beyng here by disposing our hearts
(cf. 2. obs. above) towards its event-uation? Does strife here turn to calm? Or
is this prospect of self-concealment emerging the most threatening of all, the
apparently most perverse of all (to today's human being (verbally!)), so that
the emergence of self-concealing as such into unconcealment (that is, without
self-concealment losing its essencing) causes the most strife? How are thinking
and art to respond to such an event-uation of the event? (Some would say there
is nothing to think here.)
Cheers,
Michael
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