Interacting with Michael Eldred, whose paragraphs are unmaraked, while
mine are preceded by a triple dash (---).
Robert Scheetz wrote:
"Your dismissiveness here: mere bombast, penile [purile? penal? penibel?
peinlich?] melodrama ..., seems maybe too abrupt. As for methodological
punctilio, it' s, frankly, beyond me. But, I'm still unconvinced this
theme is an ontological nullity. So perhaps you'd consider a brief
argument."
This charge of dismissiveness is echoed by Tom Blancato (see below). That
is not my intention, and my apologies to Tom if I have given this
impression. My concern is to get the discussion of violence into a
phenomenological perspective so that I/we can see what is going on within
a context of thinking from being.
The moral charge [of the bull] staged here by Robert Scheetz may work him
up into a lather of moral outrage but it is not to the point
phenomenologically. The sobre matador nimbly sidesteps this charge.
Heidegger refers in the 'Contributions to Philosophy' to the mood of the
transition to the other beginning, calling it Verhaltenheit (composure,
batedness):
"It [Verhaltenheit] is the style [cf. Nietzsche!] of originary thinking
only because it has to become the style of future human being, of human
being grounded in Da- Sein, i.e. pervades this founding moodedly and bears
it. Composure - as style - the selfcertainty of the founding provision of
measure and of Dasein's withstanding fury." (GA65:33 Section 13)
German: "Sie ist der Stil des anfaenglichen Denkens nur deshalb, weil sie
der Stil des kuenftigen Menschseins, des im Da-Sein gegruendeten, werden
muss, d.h. diese Gruendung durchstimmt und traegt. Verhaltenheit - als
Stil - die Selbstgewissheit der gruendenden Massgebung und der
Grimmbestaendnis des Daseins."
--- What the future *will be* we can not tell, what it *may be*, we can
speculate. This notion of composure strikes me as being, in part, a dream
issuing from a weariness of a *strife* and *polemos* which has not been
able to find nonviolence as such as a mode of contestation which
*preserves* strife. The continuity and seamelessness of this "composure
before fury", which I would regard as a good in itself, and requisite for
phenomenological viewing, albeit never a total requisite, can itself
constitute a severe violence. Composure before fury can also be the
analyst "smiling through his beard at everything under the sun", it can be
the *mere appearance* of genuine composure, the miming of *actual
attainment*, the silencing of voices inextricably bound in pain fully
beyond their own power, the avoidance of crucial issues, even the calm
taking of names of people being hearded into cattle cars. As a certain
ideal, the attainment of composure before fury can be brutally forced
through the restriction of any expression of pain or anger.
--- The capacity to understand phenomenologically phenomena of violence
depends not only on composure, a composure which is in fact never pure,
but also on a whole series of disruptions to composure: the capacity to
*not know*, to *tremeble* before that before which one properly should
tremble, the capacity to *handle* emotional flow in the mode of
*admitting* and *allowing* anger, fear, etc. This is not only a capacity
for phenomenological understanding, but a capacity for authentic moral
response and a "mastery of moods" which does not necessarily take the form
of coolness. Countless therapists/analysts and their
analysands/patients/clients spend countless hours and dollars trying to
undo the damage wrought by this dream of composure, a dream projected from
the weariness of strife, even simply a dream of "nice" behavior. In some
settings, this facade is carried out to extremes, while a wide range of
abuses and breakdowns are swept under the rug. In the end, it is often
only a type of "strong man" who is able to maintain this illusion of
composure continuously, and the capacity to do so is may not necessarily
be a civilized, advanced Being but often the *psychical* correlate to
physical violence. At certain extremes, this "strength" can be a capacity
for the most extreme forms of violence, violences which can in fact
exceed, for the advanced structure of the comportment involved, even
extreme modes of physical violence. To be sure, there is a moment of the
withstanding of fury that is good. The resonances with Nietzsche are all
to the good, Nietzsche as a "man of the future", etc., but also a certain
ascetic Nietzsche, an isolated and incapable Nietzsche, etc. Perhaps the
future that we know lay before Nietzsche is reason enough to give this
sense of composure serious thought.
--- The ideal of thinking is naive when it thinks that there should never
be shouting, crying, feeling, being *lost* before diverse situations,
trembling before the genuinely fearsome, outrage, etc. But this, perhaps,
is a matter for political commitments, family situations, relationships,
friendship, etc., and not for *phenomenology*. But Heidegger cites this
ideal or "future" not simply as an aspect of phenomenology, but as a
destiny of Being. The path to composure can be complex. Every appearance
of composure is not necessarily composure. The path *to* composure can be
marked by a series of breakdowns, and authentically attained composure can
not be achieved simply by "following the master" or "one's hero", a simple
template operation, but through authentic growth, maturation, dealing,
artistry, accomplishment, etc.
--- A genuinely pure phenomenological attitude can not have any interest
in anything whatsoever. It is a certain guiding ideal in certain ways, but
that's as far as it can go, I think.
Thinking cannot event-uate in a mood of moral outrage.
---- I'm not sure about this. I'm an suggesting throughout my posts on
this thread that thinking can not eventuate without some moral outrage and
charge, and I have repeatedly identified such a charge in Heidegger, and
it is of course quite obvious in Nietzsche. Likewise, the thinking of
violence must have some acquaintance with violence. This does not mean
that such thinking should undertake violence: we have enough real
violence, both historically and presently, to foot the bill. The
acquaintence with violence needs to be diverse and can not hope to subsume
all situations under the mode of composure without considerable violence,
I think. Like the thinking of the essence of music, the thinking of
violence must follow along *behind* violence in certain ways. Not to do so
would be like attempting to develop music theory without every playing
music. Again, I caution: this does not mean engaging in active violence,
but in admitting the violent situations to which one is subjected or to
which others are subjected. You yourself have pointed out your own
tendency to shy away from the moral charge. But I am suggesting here that
a genuine transcendence of the falling of thinking in the face of violence
is not to be found simply in adopting and continually maintaining a
"phenomenological composure", but in passing through various modes of
engagement regarding being concerned about and even already being
subjected to violence. Such a maturation requires moments of greater and
lesser thought, and allowances for "mistakes" on the order of outrage,
confusion, fury, fear, sadness, etc. The reason fury and fear, love and
sadness do not mature is not because thinking is not possible in their
moments, but because *the call to think has not yet been heard*. And, on
the other hand, it has been heard in many cases; Heidegger's is not the
only example of a hearing of the call to think.
Robert Scheetz, on the other hand, accuses me of punctiliousness and
stiltedness. I am attempting to defuse the moral charge and deflect its
fury. If phenomenological method is beyond Robert Scheetz, then there is
still something for him to learn. Nowhere do I say or suggest that the
phenomenon of violence is an "ontological nullity". Rather, I have
questioned the originariness of this phenomenon.
--- I think Robert went too far, but I agree with some of his perceptions.
Robert Scheetz continues at some length and asks: "How is it conceivable,
Violence - dynamic, engrossing, Heraclitean Violence, were not the
controlling trope?"
--- This complex remains marked by the fundamental problem: that thinking
needs to proceed precisely in the midst of strife, even if to recognize
what is *other than* strife, but must *take on the burden of nonviolence*
as such.
Is this supposed to be accepted as an axiomatic truth? Where does this
rhetorical flourish lead us? The totalizing sweep of this statement as
well as R. Scheetz's post on the whole gives me the creeps.
--- And your sense of "composure" gives me the creeps. To be honest, it
does more than that! I hope you take this in the spirit intended: just
because it gives me the creeps does not mean your participation in this
discussion is in question for me, nor the general horizons as they are
occurring in the space of this discussion. This is *my* version of
composure, with which you obviously concur, to some extent: I express and
recognize my "creeps" as part of the flow of things, not simply to be
completely ignored, but not to allow *the descent into the violence*, into
diatribes, into *polemics* such as would obviate, eliminate thinking,
totalize, etc. Here, I suggest, good thinking is indeed taking place, at
least on my part, which I say not in order to praise or aggrandize myself,
but out of a necessity of objectivity.
The only person to date to pose a *question* of violence in this
discussion to date has been Rafael Capurro, who coyly asked: "Why
shouldn't we be violent?"
--- In this regard, my "lack" of a posing of the question of violence has
two parts: 1, I have suggested that most of this thread *is* a posing, and
2, you should perhaps appreciate that in the extensive preliminaries I
undertake, albeit not the only possible preliminaries, I am in fact
remaining quite faithful to the ideal of composed phenomenology, or, as I
much prefer to say, thinking. Indeed, in this regard, I suspect that my
composure is in fact much more mature than yours, if it is possible to say
this without offense, and I don't mean offense, in that for me the
*question has remained consistently possible* where as for you it has been
often *hanging in the balance of its very existence*, which is hardly a
way to sustain phenomenological investigation. On the other hand, your
persistence, with this borne in mind, is especially laudible, as is your
willingness to genuinely think in this matter.
The tone of moral outrage attempts to gag this question. It is still an
open question for me whether and in which sense Heraclitean polemos can be
translated as 'violence'.
--- And it is an open question for me, too, as you will recall. I have
simply and repeatedly only specificed that violence and the history of
geopolitical war (think again of the quotes from Heraclitus!) can not be
totally removed from the sense of polemos. Furthermore, I think the
ensuing history after Hericlitus testifies for the wrong- headedness of
the "back to the Greeks" programs of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and rather
the necessity of learning to take up, *precisely*, the question of
violence.
And if Western Civilization is violent to the core, as Robert Scheetz
claims, so what? What is then left to think? Being in its essential
violence? Open and shut case - violent foreclosure through accusation.
--- To the extent that this is true, and I believe we must say that it is
a matter of extent, the matter of *nonviolence*, the explicit
thematico-substantiviation in thinking and dwelling of *violence* is what
*most* calls for thinking, in these thought- provoking times. Just as
phenomenology has an advental emergent structure, albeit one which is in
fact not fully true, as Being has not in fact been completely forgotten,
and reflection has gone on in the works of poets and children and people
all over the place all the time, so has nonviolence an *advental structure
of emergence*. But *since nonviolence is precisely the thematization and
being given to thoughtaction of violence*, it has the ability to call
itself into question according to he possibility of *violence of its
advental structure*, in the form of a possible "coup". This ability is,
however, limited in certain ways, and *must draw on the other developments
of thought*, just as the other developments of thought must draw on the
question of violence. It is a complex, hybrid condition of intersubmissive
thematic-substnativiation.
I would suggest on the contrary that moral diatribes have nothing to do
with thinking but instead obfuscate it and attempt to drive it into
impotence.
--- Sheer diatribes may do just that. But there is more to the "charge"
than the diatribe, and a genuinely and minimally mature attitude can and
must allow the rant in the flow of things, *or else the accomplishment of
composure and Da-Sein as dwelling*, and, indeed, as I am suggesting, as
its own being *as nonviolence* will be false. Such a *falsity*, in
prevailing Dasein, would be held up by the "strong-men" of Dasein, and
those too "weak" (or too perceptive!) to maintain such an appearance would
have to be "removed" or biochemically disappeared, institutionalized, etc.
Such is indeed part of what is at stake. While this may seem an extreme
claim, I think on the contrary it is intrinsic, implied, and in fact the
existing condition, in the form of prevailing "psychiatry", the very
result, often, of the sheer imposition of "composure".
Tom Blancato is concerned at my dismissiveness and my "a-voiding a range
of phenomena". I repeat: that is not my intention. Rather, I am trying to
see the phenomenon of violence phenomenologically,
--- And perhaps I am not: I am trying to see it *thoughtfully* and in
light of the *thought of Being*. I am suggesting, in part, that it is an
underlying violence and alienation from Da-Sein's emergence *as
nonviolence* that motivates Heidegger's shift from *phenomenology* to
*thinking*, even "the other thinking", and poetic dwelling. But a *mere
reinstantiation* of polemos, of the rift between earth and world, a
dwelling in the fourfold which does not *open up the vast history of
violence* is, to be frank concerning Heidegger, sheer ignorance and
blindness. (I'm sorry to cut your sentence in half. You proceed:)
which is apparently now leading us into a dispute about: What is
phenomenology? Tom writes in response to some quotes from SZ on
phenomenology:
"Again, I appreciate this, but at the same time, I think the suggestion
that the 'ontic world' is always and only never understanding beings in
their Being is mistaken, indeed, perhaps something of a "coup", a "rushing
in" and installation of an historical advent of the "phenomenon" as such.
I suggest that in the litigation process, there are some genuinely
ontological moments in various ways, as there are all over the place. The
suggestion that everything outside of phenomenology is "mere narrative" is
a bit too much. Likewise, when phenomenology *fully* clarifies itself, it,
too, remains blind to the disclosure of beings in their Being, being
transferred utterly over into what I've metanymized as "the skeletal", the
dream of structure. This, as you have reaffirmed, for you constitutes part
of the "charging" and, by indications, will not be regarded substantively,
I suspect."
I did not say "the 'ontic world' is always and only never understanding
beings in their Being" but that phenomena almost never present themselves
in a way that allow them to be seen as what they are: modes of being. All
phenomena presented to human being presuppose in a way an understanding of
being, which Heidegger calls "Vorverstaendnis" ('pre-understanding'). This
pre-understanding has to be transformed by thinking to reveal beings AS
beings, beings in their beyng. When Tom claims there are "genuinely
ontological moments" "in the litigation process", I agree, but point out,
these moments are not visible prima facie, i.e. at first sight, but have
to be brought to a language that discloses them in their being. I tried to
do this in a sketchy way in my last post by showing how the adversarial
process can be situated in an essencing of truth as veritas.
--- Let me be very clear here: there is "understanding as genuine advent",
and some of this issues from *taking up the cause of thought* as Heidegger
does. But, I am also suggesting, strongly, that not all of what is called
"pre-" in Heidegger is really simply "pre-", prima facie, etc. There was
understanding before Heidegger. "Genuine ontological moments". But I am
still recognizing a wealth of insight in Heidegger, and a certain waxing
and waning truth to Heidegger's observations.
--- But leaving that question aside, and addressing a general trend in
your vies here: Notably absent from Heidegger's explorations is sex. To
what extent can we see sexuality in its being without in the process
getting, by turns and for moments, etc., turned on? And were we really
able to do so, what insights would our thinking of sex really have?
As to the claim that phenomenology reduces phenomena to a skeletal
structure: Of course phenomena are not left in their (endless) narrative
detail. To complain about, say, the structure of care as worked out in SZ
and which can easily be reduced to a formula, as Tom has given, is, in my
view, to warn against the dangers of formulae in which nothing is thought,
i.e. there is an entire development in SZ in which a multitude of
phenomena are brought before the readers' eyes before Heidegger announces
his 'formula' for the care-structure of Dasein. It is the path of thinking
that is important, going through it oneself; the 'result' in itself is
worthless. And SZ is only ONE path of thinking, not the be all and end
all. It works out the structure of Dasein in a transcendental path of
thinking that works out conditions of possibility. (This is the sense in
which 'possibility' is 'higher' than necessity (of logic).)
--- I didn't mean to satyrize the "formula" in that regard: rather, I was
demonstrating the efficacy of Heidegger's progression in thought which was
able to give itself to such "formula" or "developed moments of summation"
in the Analytic. And yes, there *is* a wealth of phenomena disclosed in
SZ. The danger and the skeletal is not to be found in the moment of
summation, but, I meant to suggest, in the *entirety of SZ*. I think the
skeletal metaphor is quite productive. A wealth of "bones" are showed in
their interconnections, but of course one must understand them according
to the muscle on the bones, and furthermore, and primarily, according to
Being: the dwelling (or rupture to dwelling in violence) of the one with
the bones, the occasions of Being, etc., all of which the Analytic must
serve in certain ways. Note the other associations: the attempt to
choreograph a ballet using the skeleton chart as a choreography chart as
misguided, for example.
Rather than talking of a skeleton, I prefer to talk about a simplifying
disclosure of essence/essencing. There are a few essential words of
Western history that lie at its core and whose transformations account for
basic, elemental and simple shifts in this history. Heidegger's tracing of
the essencing of truth is perhaps the paradigm of this. The myriad
phenomena of Western history over 2500 years are thus 'reduced' to this
'skeletal' history? Yes, if you will. But nevertheless, this history of
the transformations of the essencing of truth is not just any story.
--- Well, before such a reduction, I'm sorry, but I truly believe one
should *really be trembling!*
It is currently the fashion to dismiss 'essentialism' as 'metaphysics', to
which I retort, quoting Heidegger; we have to learn to think. Getting into
a lather of moral outrage or losing oneself in narrative detail are two
ways of evading this task of learning to think.
--- I agree. Such a lather is, in fact, one of the structures of violence
that I see. *And the reduction of all charged thought to lather*, (which
you aren't really doing here, though there is a tendency) like the
reduction to all talking not concerned "properly" with Being to *chatter*,
and the *very arena of composure* are all potentially violent and
thoughtless scenes as well. And I will reassert, to be clear about
something I feel a call to be clear about: the scene of "composure" as a
final solution to the problem of the moral, of pain, anger, etc., can in
fact be *more violent* than the scene of fomenting and straight-forward
outrage, marking, I suspect, at the limit, a certain tendency to madness
which is, as Louis Sass has pointed out in his book on madness, especially
prevalent in developed countries (as the Destiny of Being, no doubt!)
--- And I also agree about "essence" to some extent here: Nor is "essense"
in Heidegger any simple metaphysical moment. "Dasein's essence lies in its
existence." This structure is quite far from the attempt to see Heidegger
as merely essentializing, or to make existence prior to essence.
I take your point, Tom, that phenomenology cannot "fully" clarify itself.
There are various paths of thinking, various attempts at trying to reveal
beings in their being, different languages of phenomenology. Perhaps all
these attempts ultimately fail. That doesn't matter. Thinking is
open-ended and never-ceasing, never coming to a conclusive conclusion.
Phenomenology, in my view, is not a super-discourse that masters and
dominates every other discourse or phenomenon. Like all thinking, it has
its blind-spots, which however cannot be taken as an excuse to give up
thinking.
--- Of course, and no where do I suggest giving up thinking.
In fact the thinking of being achieves very little.
--- I disagree strongly with this.
But this little is nevertheless capable of founding history in its
fundamentally simple structure. Heidegger writes on this repeatedly, e.g.:
"The _first beginning_ of the essence-history of the Occident stands under
the heading 'being and word'. The 'and' names the essence-relation which
being itself (and not, say, first humans thinking about it) causes to
e-merge in order to bring its [being's] essencing to truth in it [the
essence-relation]. In Plato and Aristotle, who say the beginning of
metaphysics, the word becomes logos in the sense of statement. Logos
transforms itself in the course of the unfolding of metaphysics into
ratio, reason and spirit. Occidental metaphysics, the essential history of
the truth of beings as such as a whole which brings itself to language in
thinking from Plato to Nietzsche, stands under the heading 'being and
ratio'. For this reason, 'the irrational' also appears in the age of
metaphysics and only in this age, and subsequently also 'lived
experience'. If we think of the title 'Being and Time', then 'time' says
here neither the calculated time of the clock in the sense of Bergson and
others. The name 'time' in the title according to the clearly expressed
relation of belonging to being is the preliminary name for the more
originary essencing of aletheia and names the essential ground (ground of
essencing) for ratio and all thinking and saying. 'Time' in 'Being and
Time', a strange as this may seem, is the preliminary name for the initial
_ground_ of the word. 'Being and word', the beginning of the essential
history of the Occident, is experienced more originarily. The treatise
'Being and Time' is only an indication of the E-vent that being itself
sends a more _originary_ experience to Occidental humankind." (GA54:113f
'Parmenides')
This does not get us any closer to clarifying Heraclitean polemos and its
relation to violence
--- I wouldn't sum up the problem of the question of violence in this way,
though this is part of it, in my opinion.
(assuming that Robert Scheetz' accusational and totalizing charge is left
to one side), but may help clarify what it means to think
phenomenologically.
--- Perhaps mature composure has as part of its responsibility to think
genuinely about that which *is* thoughtful and is given for thought, is
applicable and calls for thinking, in that which, in rage, totalizes or is
violent. If you see what I mean here, then we see, as well, the *sense* of
"composure* can be quite multiple. Nonviolence respects one's attackers
and does not simply dismiss them. In doing so, it elevates both the
attacker and the attacked.
I do not intend to foreclose phenomenological clarification of the
relationship between polemos and violence.
--- Nor do I.
Perhaps we could dwell on this issue a bit.
Cheers,
Michael
--- Regards,
--- Tom B.
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