File spoon-archives/bataille.archive/bataille_1999/bataille.9908, message 111


Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 00:36:58 -0700
From: "J. Foster" <borealis-AT-mail.wellsgray.net>
Subject: Re: silence


Faizi writes:

>If it will help me to get past the final throes of this virus, then, please,
>do impart this knowledge to me and in a way that is practical.

I had mono once. I got over it really quickly by taking tea made from yarrow
and 
golden seal. I drank about 6 cups of strong tea one night and then when to
bed and sweated it all out. I was cured the next morning; except for being a
bit weak I was completely cured. I was so sick I got not stand up for more
than a few minutes. 

>This seems superfluous to me.  Why, beyond the merely academic, are you
>concerned with gifts and sacrifice?  I think that your concern here is purely
>academic:  You are reaching for straws.  You must be seeking to justify
>something or there is something that you do not fully understand.  I wonder if
>you fully understand the nature of giving and taking.

No body learns any thing from reading books. Book learning is an
contradicition in terms that is as self-evident as it is untrue. Like man
how do you learn to split kindling from a book? Or boil an egg? Or how do
you learn to think from a book? Or how to keep bees? Yuv got do to it, not
read about it. 

Heidegger wrote a book called "What is Called Thinking" and does anyone
think about the fact that Heid was not the only person who ever thought
before? Why would anyone buy a book called "What is Called Thinking"? 

My perception is that everyone knows what is called thinking. But because
Heid is so famous and intellectually cute that because his name is on the
book cover that people will buy it, they will scoop all his books up as soon
as they come out in new editions. There are two sentences in this book that
Heid talks about. They are not sentences that in anyway resemble modern
sentences; there are parasyntactic sentences written by Parmenides. 

I can still remember the sentences from well over 15 years ago when I first
read this book. One of the sentences goes like this:

"It is necessary: the taking to heart: the letting go: the Being of beings". 

Just a bunch of sentence fragments butted up together like a train going
around a turnl, a  linquistic turn, no [richard Rorty]? Well the other day I
was reading some more Heid trying to unconceal some more meaning in the
texts, and I discovered that in an essay called "What are Poets Good For"
the same phrase as the one by Parmenides, but this time written by Heid
himself, is in print on various pages. Hmmh! I thought this is interesting.
The great post-metaphysical philosopher, the first postmetaphysical
philosopher out of the starting gate, has been using the phrase again that
Parmenides used 2600 years ago. 

The phrase is "Being of beings". In the essay, the topic is Nature in the
Duino Elegies, by Rilke. Now the word Nature, not nature, but capitalized
nature:

"We must think of Nature in the broad and essential sense in which Liebniz
uses the word Natura capitalized. It means Being of beings. Being occurs as
the vis primitiva activa. This incipient power gathering everything to
itself, which in this manner releases every being to its own self. The Being
of beings is the will. The will is the self-concentrating gathering of every
ens unto itself. Every being, as a being, is in the will. It is something
willed." 

So what is being told here is that by convention, Heid is speaking for the
reader since he is using the term "we" in the phrase "we must think". He is
not saying that "I think" but that "we must think" like him. We must agree
with him now that we have bought his book or have borrowed it from a library.

Secondly he says for us, he is speaking on behalf of us, even though the
book was written over 50 years ago. Does he presume to be speaking for
people that were not even born at the time he wrote those words? 

But more importantly is the over use of the phrase "Being of beings". How
many other places does this same phrase find itself? Well you can see here
that the phrase is used twice in one paragraph and in a most uncritical way
too. While I agree that the Being of beings may somehow be connected to the
concept of Nature capitalized by does Heid actually attempt to explain how?
And then shortly thereafter he inserts the same phrase in another sentence
to say that the Being of beings is will now. That sounds like Schopenhaur:
"the world as will and idea", which is of course where the idea of the will
came from originally. And before that there was the philosophy of right.
Anyway the whole idea of the will has taken off splendedly as has the notion
of being and Being, capitalized. Really neat hey! 

"The Being of beings is this relation of the flinging loose to beings." And
this is also interesting since the flinging is how Being gives over to
beings the "venture". Nature is the ground of beings, and it is the Being of
beings. Now that may be fine and dandy, I dont disagree, but since this is
an essay about what poets are for, does it not make sense for those who are
not poets that some more information should be provided? Such as how does
one jump from one statement regarding Nature and then within milliseconds of
reading to a short dissertation on will. Both will and Nature are the same
thing. Everything is one. The will as a faculty of the personality is the
same as Nature which is everything in the created universe. All is one,
will, and idea, and of course the flinging of the venture. 

Earlier, in fact one paragraph before the previous quotes, it is stated that:

"The ground of beings is Nature. The ground of man is not only of a kind
identical with that of plant and beast. The ground is the same for both. It
is Nature, as 'full Nature [Sonnets to Orpheus]" 

I like these sentences a lot. I can see how this can be true, since what is
being stated cannot in any way be contradicted. Man stands or sits, but no
matter what man does man must be on the ground, whether it is frozen, buried
under snow or not, the metaphor is an apt one. The ground is the same for
all creatures within creation. The laws of Nature apply to all creation
regardless, even arboreal men who live in trees. 

Rilke's poem begins:

1.      As Nature gives the other creatures over
2.      to the venture of their dim delight
3.      and in soil and branchwork grants none special cover,
4.      so too  our being's pristine ground settles our plight
5.      we are no dearer to it; it ventures us." 

Heid explains that "Beings are, by going with the venture to which they are
given over. The Being, of beings is the venture....Rilke, in representing
Nature as the venture, thinks of it metaphysically in terms of the nature of
will." So we are back into business here to with the Being of beings as now
a venture. But being involved in a venture to do what, sell copies of books
on thinking? Well I dont mean to be sarcastic but what is so fascinating
abou the venture? Heid is not calling what the venture is a verb or action,
but a noun. What is really egging Heid-egger on? I think Rilke is saying
that Nature is analogous in someways to the metaphysical. It is possible
also that Heid appears to be saying that the will too is part of the
metaphysical, even though there is no mention of the will outwardly in the
five lines here. But the metaphysical ground of being 'ventures' us. So
there are indications of a will in nature if the analogy holds. I can buy that. 

The poet says here that nature grants no special cover to creatures. Heid
adds that "we men who have ventured are 'no dearer' to the daring that
ventures us. The two imply: venture includes flinging into danger." Thinking
that Nature is the will, or metaphysically as the nature of the will has for
it's grounds being. In my understanding a thing has being if it exists,
right. So to say that 'being is' or 'being's' this or that is tantamount to
saying that something is. There is not need to use the term being is since
it means only is. Leave out being and you have Being is, which means the
same as being is. So there is no need to say the Being of beings, since
beings are, they simply 'is'. Now if the term Being meant something, and
even if Being had no apparent essence, or consisted of a 'hyper-essential',
was G-d like, or term for G-d, then I think we could parlez here, plez soys
guise, es ezzy, don'it mek jah juan a creye? 

"That nature lies in this, mortals reach into the abyss sooner than the
heavenly powers. Mortals, when we think of their nature, remain closer to
that absence because they are touched by presence, the ancient name of
Being. But because presence conceals itself at the same time, it is itself
already absence. Thus the abyss holds and remarks everything." 

While I agree the abyss is something in nature - we have several abysses
nearby - and even metaphysically the abyss can be real, as in grief, sin,
and the like, or even in spiritual darkness, a place where the light can
only get in through a crack [Cohen], so does example here add to the
confusion, conflation of "is" statements, or can it clarify what the poet is
saying? We never read about anything that is real unless it is in the
present tense. Why is that? Abyssus invocat abyssum means deep calls unto
deep. And what does this statement mean? Well it is a statement made by
Rudolph Otto, a philosopher of the mystical experience who compared eastern
mysticism with western mystical tradition. In his book "Mysticism East and
West" Being as understood by Sankara an eastern mystic, and as understood by
Eckhart, is the equivalent of G-d, the creator.

"Esse est Deus - Deus igitur et Esse idem." trans. "G-d is being - Therefore
G-d and Being are the same." 

Otto comments that "such Being is opposed to all becoming and therefore to
all change (avikriyam): 

Deus autem, utpote, esse, initium est et principium et finis. Quod enim est,
non fit nec fieri potest."  trans. "But G-d, that is Being, is the beginning
and the principle and the end." 

The point that I wish to express here is that in tradition there is no
reference that I have uncovered as to the meaning of the phrase "Being of
beings is..." There  are not other examples of the phrase except in
Heidegger's translation. To my thinking then it appears to be unwise to even
utter this phrase except withing the secretive hand written or type written
enclosure of the page. At least there no one can instant question the author
as to the meaning and intent before it is published. The term then appears
to confuse the creator with creation. Since the all mighty creator is so
much different than the creature, it would appear foolish to confuse the two
together and even to say that the two: G-d and human being, for instance are
will, nature, presence, etc. 

If G-d is Being as Eckhart suggests, and I can agree with him, then Heid is
saying that the G-d of beings is will. To me there should be a wide gulf
between G-d as a transcendent and immanent reality, and then the case may be
made for a special relationship between the creator and the created, a
special form of relationship that is much closer than what we experience
with any creature, even ourselves. Otherwise everything would be holy,
everything would be precious and eternal, which it does not seem to be.
Something else exists besides the holy, which is what causes the falling out
or the flinging out into danger in a venture, or 'ad-venture', and what is
also called the beautiful risk. To be enticed by the magic of Maya, is to be
thrown into venture, to be flung outside of the self in a rapturous exstacy.
There must be some dynamic tension between the self and what is referred to
as Being, I would think. During sleep there is no consciousness except the
dream. The analogy of the night, the abyss is what is always there in life;
the attitude of living reflects this. At night we are in repose, reclined at
rest, in the day we are active, upright for the most part, focussed on work.
The abyss conceals what is hidden below. There is an upward spiralling. The
day breaks. It is no longer the stars that light the way, nor the moon that
makes it possible to  walk about in the fields. 

"The silence of dusk replaces the days speaking, the wonder still remains:
we are justified. We are justified in the order of being, together with our
kin, the trees, the boulders, the creatures, as bearers of the miracle of
creartion: that there is something, not nothing. We are justified in the
order of time as we take up the task to which we are called therein, to be
faithful stewards of the earth. We are finally, justified by grace in the
order of eternity, as we raise the creation above the passing and perishing
of the order of time in an act of love." [Erazim Kohak, The Embers and the
Stars] 

<snip>

>Is anyone grateful for my benevolence and kindness in so doing?

forever grateful

john, knocking on heavens basement


   

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