On Monday, October 25, 2004, at 05:56 PM, michaelP wrote:
James, John, Malcom: we don't really need the bushmen and neo-con-artists to
declare total war, since the wholesale desertification of the earth by
'normal' business (the total using up of every being in the cycles of
production, consumption and distribution: gestell) has long long since been
total war (world war III & IV). If we could see that the real terror comes
from this implacable phenomenon and not especially from the so-called
terrorists (of either persuasion, islamist or neocon); to not see this is
errorism indeed...
That is in part what I'm arguing isn't it? Technology, from Heidegger's perspective, is the problem. But I disagree with your metaphorical use of the term 'total war'. Gestell may very well be reflected in the 'total mobilisation' of all resources effected by capitalist globalisation over the last half century with its resultant drastic environmental effects but this current generation of westerners have yet to be exposed to the ravages of total war as were our grandparents 60 years ago.
War is real terror, just ask the Iraqis and Afghans, and the young soldiers sent to conquer them in the name of freedom. I think it's important to recognise that the 60 years or so of relative peace and prosperity for us westerners has set us up for yet another planetary conflict. In this sense the end of the Nazi regime and the formation of the UN order did not usher in a new era of democracy and freedom, it just allowed the old system to continue on its merry way to the next seemingly inevitable conflagration. That's a commonplace theme of course, but we do seem to be historically privileged to see the whole structure unravel before our eyes as modernity reenacts itself as a history of calamity.
In this sense the neocon extremists are just an effect of Gestell but I find them rather disturbing in that they seem to be part of the same self-consciously willful phenomenon as Heidegger's Nazi's. They are the last people I would have controlling the reins of our new predatory world order and from the perspective of the critique of the 'will to will' they do not augur well for our future.
Cheers,
Malcolm
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