Iain T. wrote:
"The martyr may be the witness par excellence, literally
giving his or her life as the guarantee of that to which
they bear witness, but the existential witness--humanity as
bearing witness to what it takes itself to be, and doing so
in language, and thus creating history--is also caught up in
the logic up martyrdom."
--- There is a connection, but no guarantee. When the
situation of the martyr is precisely ritualized and
institutionalized, it is possible to "do what one does", all
the way to the gallows, to the guillotine, the firing squad,
without ever having a "properly" (if you will) activated
existentiell understanding which would be a necessary
precondition for authenticity. Furthermore, as I have been
suggesting, this authenticity, if it is there, is not yet a
guarantee of *moral* authenticity, but, and I think this is
at the crux of Heidegger's entire modus operandi for Being
and time, it is a founding and necessary condition of
possibility of *moral* authenticity. But, moral authenticity
itself must at the same time be in the independent-
substantive relation to the question of violence, and on, in
certain ways, a path of nonviolence. It would be very
helpful then to contrast a somehow "obviously" authentic
(existentially and morally) martyr with one who is not. You
pick for the former case. In the latter case, I would think
of, for example, a missionary working to "convert" people in
a "primitive" land. It is quite easy to imagine the death or
trauma (for martyrdom is not restricted to death, I suspect)
to such a missionary who is never the less still in the
"they", doing what one does, concerning not only simple
activities, but broad decisions concerning peoples lives and
his or her own.
This is a certain "by product" that goes with the
development of recorded history, system, systems of paths,
the presentation of the images and stories of the martyrs'
agonies. For Nietzsche, a "flight from life". I don't agree
with a total iconoclastic approach to the problem of
disauthentication made possible when the story is told. But
the idea that any so-called martyr "really is" authentic
seems quite naive.
This can perhaps be easily problematized under the heading
"*true* martyr?" This is no small point or simple corrective
aspect, again, owing to the very systematization of
martyrdom bound up in so many institutional practices.
Iain also quoted Heidegger:
"Plain the existence of man. But what must man bear witness to? That he
belongs to the earth. This relation of
belonging to consists in the fact that man is heir and learner in all things.
...The bearing witness of human
existence and hence its essential consumation [!!] occurs through freedom of
decision. This freedom lays hold
of the necessary and places itself in the bonds of a supreme obligation. This
bearing witness of belonging to all
that is becomes actual as history. In order that history may be possible,
language has been given to man."
(E&B, pp. 274-275)"
--- The context here might be very important. Is Heidegger
developing the "essential definition" of bearing witness en
route to something concerning the status of Being and Man?
I'm not suggesting that the bearing witness of the martyr
can not be in some way found out to really mean that the
Martyr always says, in essence, "I belong to the earth",
though it takes a lot to be able to see that. But I am also
not suggesting that it is acceptable to take the "words of
the martyrs" as merely this simple, if profound, phrase. Is
the en route to Being at this point in a kind of direct, and
perhaps transformative, if only in the sense of rupture or
contamination, contact and crisis point with the en route of
the moral, the en route to the problem of violence?
---
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 ---
------------------
"The martyr may be the witness par excellence, literally
giving his or her life as the guarantee of that to which
they bear witness, but the existential witness--humanity as
bearing witness to what it takes itself to be, and doing so
in language, and thus creating history--is also caught up in
the logic up martyrdom."
--- There is a connection, but no guarantee. When the
situation of the martyr is precisely ritualized and
institutionalized, it is possible to "do what one does", all
the way to the gallows, to the guillotine, the firing squad,
without ever having a "properly" (if you will) activated
existentiell understanding which would be a necessary
precondition for authenticity. Furthermore, as I have been
suggesting, this authenticity, if it is there, is not yet a
guarantee of *moral* authenticity, but, and I think this is
at the crux of Heidegger's entire modus operandi for Being
and time, it is a founding and necessary condition of
possibility of *moral* authenticity. But, moral authenticity
itself must at the same time be in the independent-
substantive relation to the question of violence, and on, in
certain ways, a path of nonviolence. It would be very
helpful then to contrast a somehow "obviously" authentic
(existentially and morally) martyr with one who is not. You
pick for the former case. In the latter case, I would think
of, for example, a missionary working to "convert" people in
a "primitive" land. It is quite easy to imagine the death or
trauma (for martyrdom is not restricted to death, I suspect)
to such a missionary who is never the less still in the
"they", doing what one does, concerning not only simple
activities, but broad decisions concerning peoples lives and
his or her own.
This is a certain "by product" that goes with the
development of recorded history, system, systems of paths,
the presentation of the images and stories of the martyrs'
agonies. For Nietzsche, a "flight from life". I don't agree
with a total iconoclastic approach to the problem of
disauthentication made possible when the story is told. But
the idea that any so-called martyr "really is" authentic
seems quite naive.
This can perhaps be easily problematized under the heading
"*true* martyr?" This is no small point or simple corrective
aspect, again, owing to the very systematization of
martyrdom bound up in so many institutional practices.
Iain also quoted Heidegger:
"Plain the existence of man. But what must man bear witness to? That he
belongs to the earth. This relation of
belonging to consists in the fact that man is heir and learner in all things.
...The bearing witness of human
existence and hence its essential consumation [!!] occurs through freedom of
decision. This freedom lays hold
of the necessary and places itself in the bonds of a supreme obligation. This
bearing witness of belonging to all
that is becomes actual as history. In order that history may be possible,
language has been given to man."
(E&B, pp. 274-275)"
--- The context here might be very important. Is Heidegger
developing the "essential definition" of bearing witness en
route to something concerning the status of Being and Man?
I'm not suggesting that the bearing witness of the martyr
can not be in some way found out to really mean that the
Martyr always says, in essence, "I belong to the earth",
though it takes a lot to be able to see that. But I am also
not suggesting that it is acceptable to take the "words of
the martyrs" as merely this simple, if profound, phrase. Is
the en route to Being at this point in a kind of direct, and
perhaps transformative, if only in the sense of rupture or
contamination, contact and crisis point with the en route of
the moral, the en route to the problem of violence?
---
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 ---
------------------