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Van: owner-heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]Namens
GEVANS613@xxxxxxx
Verzonden: maandag 7 juni 2004 14:45
Aan: heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CC: GEVANS613@xxxxxxx
Onderwerp: Boomerang Bill and the Silly Old Fart.
message dated 07/06/2004 10:58:27 GMT Standard Time, [email protected]_
(mailto:m.riddoch@xxxxxxxxxx) writes:
On Monday, June 7, 2004, at 07:30 AM, [email protected]_
(mailto:GEVANS613@xxxxxxx) wrote:
So you want to mount your white horse and attempt to change human nature do
you?
Malcolm:
No, the question is what should the term 'human nature' mean? You could just
as easily say that it is in our nature to care for others and safeguard the
natural world we dwell in for future generations and that self-destruction is
a perversion of our nature. 'Human nature' is nothing other than the ability
to look to the future and argue about how we should be doing things in the
present based on the lessons of the past. Any assertion that our 'nature' is a
fixed quality like predation is just that, a bare assertion, not a
transcendental absolute. All bare assertions require the power to make them true.
Jud: You are way off beam. The question is what is human nature in the
context of will to will, and how the concept of their own human nature, and the
human nature of other humans is perceived. There is a consensus that human
beings are [and this is a generalisation] greedy, self-centred and not
particularly concerned with the problems of others. OK. Yes, there are countless
exceptions to this modus vivendi., there are people genuinely concerned for the
welfare of others, there are saints as well as sinners, but the negative aspect
of human nature is born out by the fact that in America the majority of the
population backed the attack on Eyerack and the VAST MAJORITY of human beings
in the developed and third world don't give two damns about the animals that
suffered and the factory farms and cruelty in transportation between one
animal concentration camp and the other.… As you say lower down: 'The evolutionary
pinnacle of predation is a mum reaching over to inspect a plastic wrapped
chunk of dead flesh with a price tag and bar code attached to it" So who is to
blame? The human factory farmers or the farm buildings and the modern
technological farm equipment? The Abattoir workers who fire the stun-gun bolts or
the guns and bolts? The trucks that haul the dead carcasses from the abattoir
or the truck-drivers who drive them? The good old mum who reaches for the dead
flesh or the refrigerator in which it displayed? All of the persons involved
in rearing the animals and everyone concerned in the chain from farm to
dinner-plate is complicit in these crimes. Why? - Because it's 'human nature' to
put all those thoughts to the back of the mind and those teeth stuck into the
dead veins and tissue on the plate before you. I am not suggesting that
'human nature' is an unchanging absolute — but then neither is the will to will a
permanent fixity of thought and purpose, which is just another name for
human nature in its fixed and persistent intent or purpose mode as I pointed to
at the outset.
Rene: Hi Jud, excellent descriptions of modern technology/busines.
Right! Will to will - the self-assured reign of meaninglessness - is indeed
nothing unalterable. That's a key for Heidegger! We should 'thank God on our knees'
that we have technology and meaninglessness as what has developed in *our* history.
Where would we be else? In unalterable meaninglessness, total in a Nietzschean sense.
But without being Nietzsche, and that means: we would be nowhere. Very unpleasant
thought...
What we CAN talk about though are the strands of persistent and
reoccurring attitudes which manifest themselves as part of our animal
[human] nature — and the surprising behavioural predictability that can be employed
in the study of human social behaviour conduct. But as Husserl correctly
pointed out — this is sociology — not philosophy.
The will to will, or in plain English - 'an ongoing fixity and persistent
intent of thought or purpose,' is only metaphysical as part of the cognitive
rigidity of metaphysicalists
Malcolm:
Your 'plain English' is never plain to me but rather a mixed bag of
nominalist contortions salted with psychologism and peppered with rhetorical
ejaculations. Generally a gobbledegook, at least that's how it reads to me.
Jud:
Pray inform me what is difficult for you to understand in the sentence: 'an
ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
metaphysical as part of the cognitive rigidity of metaphysicalists? I know you
treasure your chthonic connection with the eternal father buried in Messkirch
churchyard, but try to understand that for a non-metaphysician like me it is
possible to talk of the human beings involved in [say] the production of animals
for the plate without being lumbered like you with an ongoing metaphysical
fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose which entails the
introduction of fanciful 'ontological' analysis aimed at blaming the fat producing
technology of the cattle feed instead of the cattle feeder, the technology of
killing to be found in the abattoirs instead of the killers, the technology of
the distribution networks instead of the distributors, the technology of the
retail outlet rather than the retailers, and the consumer goods rather than
the consumer. Watch my lips - It's the human beings' fault — not the
technology.
The question posed was: 'What is so different with Iraq? Both Nietzsche and
Heidegger urged subjugation by action by the strong over the weak.
Malcolm:
No, subjugation was a problem according to Heidegger, and its origin is the
metaphysics of subjectness but as you refuse to read him and only want to mine
bits and pieces of his text for your rhetorical anti-Hun writing I don't
imagine that will make any sense to you either.
Jud:
I read him a lot in order to combat him as you well know. My writing is not
anti-Hun — it's Anti-Heidegger and anti-hypocrisy. Pray explain then why,
[if he had 'problems' with the subjection of others he treated his colleagues as
if they had just crawled from beneath a rock during his Rectorate? Why if
conquest of others was a problem did Heidegger exhort the young cannon-fodder
from the Heimat in his audience to serve the fatherland, if only that the
fatherland might successful subjugate those that they triumphed over? Why, in
the full knowledge of what Hitler had spelt out concerning what he intended to
do with the Jews i. e., eliminate them — is that not subjugation for Christ's
sake? Where was the 'problem' in that for Heidegger? The only 'problem' it
seems to me is that it wasn't happening quick enough for him, and his
tear-arsing around the country attending Nazi meetings and giving up his spare time in
organising quasi-military weekend camps [if you had a uniform you had to
wear it] bears testimony to his complete immersion in the sort of activity
calculated to get the 'subjugation-show' on the road. Perhaps you are in the
possession of something nobody else knows — that Heidegger was a pacifist or
something? If so you've certainly hit the research jackpot and it'll make you
famous overnight? Where diid you find this piece of arcanum? Metaphysics of
subjectness? There is nothing METAPHYSICAL about subjecting someone, or being
subjected to being herded, or herding someone into a gas chamber — what was the
silly old Nazi prick talking about?
Malcolm in the bowels of Christ THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS 'GLOBAL POWER' and
'it' certainly doesn't have a 'brain' which is capable of exercising an
ongoing fixity of purpose.
Malcolm:
Your quasi nominalism constantly reduces you to absurdity and I understand
you can only read everyone else through your absurd AIT lens which leads you to
conclude that it is everyone else that is absurd. From the other side of
this dialogue however I can assure you that I find you as ludicrously pointless
as you must do me.
Jud:
Your quasi Heideggerianism constantly reduces you to absurdity and I
understand you can only read everyone else through your absurd transcendentalist
lens which leads you to conclude that it is everyone else that is absurd. From
the other side of this dialogue however I can assure you that I find you as
ludicrously pointless as you must do me.
Jud:
the problem facing humanity is humanity not technology ... It is the way
that humanity uses technology that counts — you can either use a boomerang to
scratch your back or you can throw it and kill people.
Malcolm:
Boomerangs were used for killing game and for ceremonial purposes, they were
part of the tool set of traditional Aboriginal peoples who generally lived
in a very stable complementary relationship with their lands.
Jud: Interesting stuff indeed but nevertheless it was a remarkable piece of
TECHNOLOGY which could be used to kill or be used for peaceful purposes [sport
, etc.]
Rene: Here could be seen in a flash: it all depends on what techne and logos are.
In the QCT is shown a way from causality, as the essence of technological
thinking - to another way things (and man) might belong together. With the Greeks,
things and men were thought not primarily as causes and effects, but they OWED
what they were to more encompassing happenings. See the silver plate: when it
has its function, its essence, in a lastly in a relation of earth and sky,
that is not stated, but given shape, hervorgebracht, produced as in Pindaros,
or any local cult, it can never ever become a Campbell soupcan. But when it gets
isolated from its context, because this is itself a finite one, then also the
producing and use of it become isolated, an isolation that cannot but increase
and demand an isolated, un-conscious, 'human' partaker. I think one cannot hold
the porn actors responsible, they are as irresponsible as the obesive.
But sure the malice is there.
It is his *opinion*, said H, that our constellation (Gestell) still now has sthing to
do with the Greek constellation, esp. on account of the enormity of its destructive
power (which is incomparable to anything before; it also does not lead to real mastery).
By taking BOTH into view at the same time, a possible way can be gone that envisions
the special meaninglessness of our history, gone global. This he thought possible,
but not more than that, in 1933. The coincidence of his discovery of the origin of
European nihilism, together with a revolution in Germany, the country of metaphysics,
was just too great for him, not to succumb to the temptation to take part. Surely after
his passivity in the Great War. Mein Kampf just belonged to the gigantic heap of
political propaganda, that he did (and could) not pay attention to. He better could
have spent half an hour reading Mein Kampf though, and
Socrates admired the hands of Alcibiades, without thinking, of what they
could do.
If we cannot grant this, Heidegger has also nothing to grant us, punctum.
cheers
rene
The ancestor of the boomerang is the Killing-stick and the
aboriginals knew the Killing-sticks well before the boomerang. But these killing
machines were known elsewhere. Indeed some have been excavations in Florida and
north Europe, in the tomb of the Pharaohs, some have find some have been dated
to more than 3000-years old. Curved sticks being used for the hunting of
birds are frequently represented on the frescos of old Egypt and rupestral
engravings in the Sahara. Thus, it is with the Killing-sticks that the aboriginals
drove out their enemies and not with the boomerang. The Killing-stick is
larger and heavier than the boomerang, moreover it is unable to return. The point
remains that it is a piece of technology that can be used to kill or for
play. You can't blame the boomerang or the killing-stick if it used for evil
purposes — its the guy who throws it — the ONTIC human being who throws the
ONTIC boomerang or ONTIC killing stick.
Malcolm:
Nowadays the boomerang equivalent for us moderns is a shopping trolley in
the meat section of a supermarket tied into local and international distribution
channels to industrial abattoirs, meat farms, the industrial cereal
agriculture that feeds the meat, logistical transport systems, the energy
infrastructure that powers it all and provides the fertilizers, a biochemical industry
to provide antibiotics, a banking and corporate system to finance the whole
shebang, a government legislature to regulate it and armies of workers and
managers to keep the meat moving onto the shelves day in day out.
Jud:
Interesting stuff and I agree with every word.
Malcolm:
The evolutionary pinnacle of predation is a mum reaching over to inspect a
plastic wrapped chunk of dead flesh with a price tag and bar code attached to
it. This act requires a very complex global network of technological
innovation to support it, it requires a whole way of life as an 'equipmental totality
of relations'. Jud: This act requires a very complex humanly directed global
network of humanly created technological innovation to support it, it
requires a whole way of human life as an 'human/equipmental totality of relations'.
Malcolm: Part of Heidegger's question about technology is that it has become
so complex and interwoven that the old notion that humans merely use
technology to shape a chaotic world in their image overlooks the possibility that it
is the technological setup itself that forms how we already understand the
world within which we use technology.
Jud:
Heidegger was speaking rubbish as usual. The communication that we enjoy at
the touch of a key, the films that we view from our cinema seats, the
transport we use to move around, whether we bike-it to the corner shop or fly to
Timbuktu, the supermarket we wander through packed with a myriad of goods from
all corners of the earth, are just a more sophisticated versions of the markets
of the Greek agora, of the passing-on of messages by word of mouth, the
reading of papyri with their hand-drawn illustrations, and the horse-drawn carts
and donkey-carriages and ships that were used to travel about in the ancient
world. Why should the technological setup of the ancient world affect people
differently in any age? Humankind adjusts to its environment as history
flows on. People are better informed now because of technology, in less pain,
healthier, live longer, travel further, have more security [unless you have a
brown face and there is oil underfoot] The old arch-conservative and reactionary
Heidegger was simply a peasant from the sticks — he wasn't used to all the
noise of the big city, but grew up in a milieu where lads and maids danced
around the maypole, and horses and carts clip-clopped by with their cargo of
mangel-wurzels, their drivers asleep at the reins. He reacted against the
urban frenzy of the university towns and the apparent chaos. Physically he was
an ailing runt from the sticks overwhelmed by the noise of the traffic — the
fumes and the clatter of typewriters. He would have been happier if he had
stayed in Messkirch and had taken over his dad's job of yanking on church bells
and pulled the ropes and pulled his wire in the quietude of the cool dark
interior of the belltower.
Malcolm:
Your assertion that 'it is the way that humanity uses technology that
counts' doesn't take this possibility of a 'technological understanding' into
account and merely subscribes reason and/or instinct as the arbiter of our use of
technology. Your analogies are far too simplistic for me and I find
Heidegger's problem concerning technology infinitely more philosophical.
Jud:
What are we supposed to do? Go around smashing the looms and putting
hammers through monitor screens? Rip up railway tracks and throw dentist chairs on
the rubbish heap — pull all the plugs that feed the stock exchange and burn
the moguls at the stake? The man was a headbanging looney! There will be
reason and unreasoned use of technology in any age [Greek fire, siege engines,
beaked Triremes, etc.]. Why? Because some HUMANS are reasonable and others
aren't. You can't blame the technology all the time, in spite of the fact that
it cannot answer back, because technology DOESN'T REASON - HUMANS DO. It
there is any unreason to discuss it is Heidegger's lack of it in relation to
technology. Maybe he thought the shoah could be blamed on the chambers and the
ovens rather than the people [the ONTIC NAZI PEOPLE] who organised and operated
them?
Henry's: 'narrative which weaves itself into the popular consciousness' is a
HUMAN narrative - not a 'technological' one - you cannot blame the
technological medium for the human message.
Cheers,
Jud
Nullius in Verba
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
JUD EVANS - XVANS XPERIENTIALISM
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