Is 'Being' a mere word and its meaning utterly nebulous, or is it the
spiritual destiny of the Occident?
This Europe, which is always in the process of tearing itself apart out of
utter blindness, lies today in the great pincer-grip formed by Russia on the
one hand and America on the other. Seen metaphysically, Russia and America are
both the same: the same desolate frenzy of unbounded technology and of the
unlimited organization of the average human being. Once the furthermost corner
of the globe has been technologically conquered and opened up to economic
exploitation, when every possible event in every possible place at every
possible time has become as accessible as quickly as possible, when people can
'experience' an attempt on the life of a king in France and a symphony conceit in
Tokyo simultaneously, when time has become only speed, instantaneousness, and
simultaneity, and time as History has disappeared from the existence of all
peoples, when the boxer is seen as the great man of a people, when mass
gatherings running into millions are regarded as a triumph—then, yes, then, the
questions which hover over this whole grotesque charade like ghosts are: for
what?—where to?—and what then?
The spiritual decay of the earth is so advanced that peoples risk exhausting
that reserve of spiritual force which enables them just to see and take
stock of this decay (in respect of the destiny of 'Being'). This simple
observation has nothing to do with cultural pessimism: for in every corner of the
world the darkening of the world, the flight of the gods, the destruction of the
earth, the massification of man, the contemptuous suspicion of everything
which is creative and free, have reached such proportions that such childlike
expressions as pessimism and optimism have long become laughable.
We lie in a pincer-grip. As the people placed at the centre we experience
the hardest pressure, as the people with the most neighbours we are most at
risk, and on top of this we are the most metaphysical people. But this people
will only be able to forge a destiny out of its fate if it first creates in
itself a resonance, some possibility of a resonance, of this fate and achieves a
creative understanding of its tradition. What all this involves is that this
people as a historical people projects itself and thereby the history of the
West from the core of its future development into the original realm of the
forces of Being. If the great verdict on Europe is not to be reached on its
road to annihilation, then it can only be reached because of the unfolding of
new historically spiritual forces from the centre.
In order to underpin values which have been raised to the level of a moral
imperative, the values themselves are attributed Being. But in this context
Being basically means no more than the presence of what exists. Only that what
is meant is not as crude and palpable as tables and chairs. Once values are
endowed with Being the high-point of confusion and rootlessness has been
arrived at. However, since the expression 'value' is gradually coming to sound
hackneyed, especially since it still plays a role in economic theory, values are
now called 'totalities'. In 1928 there appeared the first volume of a
complete bibliography of the concept value; 661 works concerning the concept of
value are cited. They have presumably grown to a thousand by now. This is all
called philosophy. What today is systematically touted as the philosophy of
National Socialism, but which has nothing in the least to do with the inner
truth and greatness of this movement (namely the encounter of a globally
determined technology with the man of the new age), darts about with fish-like
movements in the murky waters of these 'values' and 'totalities'.
Martin Heidegger
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spiritual destiny of the Occident?
This Europe, which is always in the process of tearing itself apart out of
utter blindness, lies today in the great pincer-grip formed by Russia on the
one hand and America on the other. Seen metaphysically, Russia and America are
both the same: the same desolate frenzy of unbounded technology and of the
unlimited organization of the average human being. Once the furthermost corner
of the globe has been technologically conquered and opened up to economic
exploitation, when every possible event in every possible place at every
possible time has become as accessible as quickly as possible, when people can
'experience' an attempt on the life of a king in France and a symphony conceit in
Tokyo simultaneously, when time has become only speed, instantaneousness, and
simultaneity, and time as History has disappeared from the existence of all
peoples, when the boxer is seen as the great man of a people, when mass
gatherings running into millions are regarded as a triumph—then, yes, then, the
questions which hover over this whole grotesque charade like ghosts are: for
what?—where to?—and what then?
The spiritual decay of the earth is so advanced that peoples risk exhausting
that reserve of spiritual force which enables them just to see and take
stock of this decay (in respect of the destiny of 'Being'). This simple
observation has nothing to do with cultural pessimism: for in every corner of the
world the darkening of the world, the flight of the gods, the destruction of the
earth, the massification of man, the contemptuous suspicion of everything
which is creative and free, have reached such proportions that such childlike
expressions as pessimism and optimism have long become laughable.
We lie in a pincer-grip. As the people placed at the centre we experience
the hardest pressure, as the people with the most neighbours we are most at
risk, and on top of this we are the most metaphysical people. But this people
will only be able to forge a destiny out of its fate if it first creates in
itself a resonance, some possibility of a resonance, of this fate and achieves a
creative understanding of its tradition. What all this involves is that this
people as a historical people projects itself and thereby the history of the
West from the core of its future development into the original realm of the
forces of Being. If the great verdict on Europe is not to be reached on its
road to annihilation, then it can only be reached because of the unfolding of
new historically spiritual forces from the centre.
In order to underpin values which have been raised to the level of a moral
imperative, the values themselves are attributed Being. But in this context
Being basically means no more than the presence of what exists. Only that what
is meant is not as crude and palpable as tables and chairs. Once values are
endowed with Being the high-point of confusion and rootlessness has been
arrived at. However, since the expression 'value' is gradually coming to sound
hackneyed, especially since it still plays a role in economic theory, values are
now called 'totalities'. In 1928 there appeared the first volume of a
complete bibliography of the concept value; 661 works concerning the concept of
value are cited. They have presumably grown to a thousand by now. This is all
called philosophy. What today is systematically touted as the philosophy of
National Socialism, but which has nothing in the least to do with the inner
truth and greatness of this movement (namely the encounter of a globally
determined technology with the man of the new age), darts about with fish-like
movements in the murky waters of these 'values' and 'totalities'.
Martin Heidegger
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