--- Could it be that we are dazzled by
Heidegger's technical brilliance? Because I
think his elements of Dasein are reductive and
over simplified. And he seems to leave
something out. We know he "had" to get clear of
the "moral" in order to lay open the bare
structures of Dasein, but that *entire
operation* might itself be derivative. As I've
suggested elsehwere in this list, this is done
largely through using derivative examples of
being in the world not with others, but with
things, objects, in experiences like "fear" and
"anxiety" which are assumed to be isomorphic,
if of a different "valence" than others. Thus
when we come to the question of the "good" of
authenticity, the "better", we suffer in his
texts for their lack of an independent
addressing of violence. The discussion
concerning guilt intrinsicially *involves*
violence (as that for which one is guilty), but
it doesn't take it up directly at all. Thus, I
think his analysis "limps". Indeed, the very
violence of guilt itself, which is, after
Nietzsche, something to be considered
transvaluationally, is something that needs to
be considered very suspiciously. Heidegger
leads us into one particular consequence of the
relation to the other (again, Guilt) while more
or less completely failing to open up a
discussion of the other, and failing, worse
still, to recognize that that is the most
primordial condition. I remember when I was
little looking at things in my house and
thinking about them as somehow expressiong my
mother or father: I would look at an armoir and
think how it "showed" me my mother, or how the
van was "like my dad", "his van", etc. Before I
did this kind of "object analysis", I thought
of my mom and my dad.
This seems to be important since when we raise
the question of the value of authenticity (if
in the end *value* is a good word), we must
realize that the Nazis presented, perhaps, in
some respects, something like an *extreme* of
authenticity. People can be very authentic and
violent at the same time. I think the hidden
hope, however naive, is that by coming to our
own authenticity and just by getting clear on
the structures of dasein we will be free of
misconceptions and will be thereby nonviolent.
I think, on the contrary, that the only way to
be nonviolent is *precisely* through an
*independent substantive recognition and
maitenance as a continuous interpretive
principle the question of violence*.
There seems to be a certain flight from the
call to recognize violenece, and an effort,
instead, to somehow *force* the understanding
of violence through the mechanism of the call
of guilt. This relation to the call is not a
most original relation, but a kind of secondary
one, in which the self is separated from the
self and must be in a kind of "supine" posture
to receive the call as something to be
received, heard (certainly not opened in
dialogue), delivered through "hearkening"
(which appears to be also something like
dictation), etc. The whole range of the most
primordial is left out in Heidegger, it seems
to me. And his method for reaching this range
is itself derivative, and in fact seems almost
polemical: Only death can save us or call (pull
or drag) us to our responsibility.
The point I'm trying to put forward here
relates as well to the recent, and I think
quite good, question concerning "what else
might be authentic, ownmost, etc."
---
There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.
Tom Blancato
tblancato@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Eyes on Violence (nonviolence and human rights monitoring in Haiti)
Thoughtaction Collective (reparative justice project)
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------
Heidegger's technical brilliance? Because I
think his elements of Dasein are reductive and
over simplified. And he seems to leave
something out. We know he "had" to get clear of
the "moral" in order to lay open the bare
structures of Dasein, but that *entire
operation* might itself be derivative. As I've
suggested elsehwere in this list, this is done
largely through using derivative examples of
being in the world not with others, but with
things, objects, in experiences like "fear" and
"anxiety" which are assumed to be isomorphic,
if of a different "valence" than others. Thus
when we come to the question of the "good" of
authenticity, the "better", we suffer in his
texts for their lack of an independent
addressing of violence. The discussion
concerning guilt intrinsicially *involves*
violence (as that for which one is guilty), but
it doesn't take it up directly at all. Thus, I
think his analysis "limps". Indeed, the very
violence of guilt itself, which is, after
Nietzsche, something to be considered
transvaluationally, is something that needs to
be considered very suspiciously. Heidegger
leads us into one particular consequence of the
relation to the other (again, Guilt) while more
or less completely failing to open up a
discussion of the other, and failing, worse
still, to recognize that that is the most
primordial condition. I remember when I was
little looking at things in my house and
thinking about them as somehow expressiong my
mother or father: I would look at an armoir and
think how it "showed" me my mother, or how the
van was "like my dad", "his van", etc. Before I
did this kind of "object analysis", I thought
of my mom and my dad.
This seems to be important since when we raise
the question of the value of authenticity (if
in the end *value* is a good word), we must
realize that the Nazis presented, perhaps, in
some respects, something like an *extreme* of
authenticity. People can be very authentic and
violent at the same time. I think the hidden
hope, however naive, is that by coming to our
own authenticity and just by getting clear on
the structures of dasein we will be free of
misconceptions and will be thereby nonviolent.
I think, on the contrary, that the only way to
be nonviolent is *precisely* through an
*independent substantive recognition and
maitenance as a continuous interpretive
principle the question of violence*.
There seems to be a certain flight from the
call to recognize violenece, and an effort,
instead, to somehow *force* the understanding
of violence through the mechanism of the call
of guilt. This relation to the call is not a
most original relation, but a kind of secondary
one, in which the self is separated from the
self and must be in a kind of "supine" posture
to receive the call as something to be
received, heard (certainly not opened in
dialogue), delivered through "hearkening"
(which appears to be also something like
dictation), etc. The whole range of the most
primordial is left out in Heidegger, it seems
to me. And his method for reaching this range
is itself derivative, and in fact seems almost
polemical: Only death can save us or call (pull
or drag) us to our responsibility.
The point I'm trying to put forward here
relates as well to the recent, and I think
quite good, question concerning "what else
might be authentic, ownmost, etc."
---
There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.
Tom Blancato
tblancato@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Eyes on Violence (nonviolence and human rights monitoring in Haiti)
Thoughtaction Collective (reparative justice project)
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------