Date: Sun, 4 Aug 1996 14:27:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Tom Blancato <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com> Subject: Re: phenomenology of violence Interacting with Michael Eldred, whose paragraphs are unmaraked, while mine are preceded by a triple dash (---). Robert Scheetz wrote: "Your dismissiveness here: mere bombast, penile [purile? penal? penibel? peinlich?] melodrama ..., seems maybe too abrupt. As for methodological punctilio, it' s, frankly, beyond me. But, I'm still unconvinced this theme is an ontological nullity. So perhaps you'd consider a brief argument." This charge of dismissiveness is echoed by Tom Blancato (see below). That is not my intention, and my apologies to Tom if I have given this impression. My concern is to get the discussion of violence into a phenomenological perspective so that I/we can see what is going on within a context of thinking from being. The moral charge [of the bull] staged here by Robert Scheetz may work him up into a lather of moral outrage but it is not to the point phenomenologically. The sobre matador nimbly sidesteps this charge. Heidegger refers in the 'Contributions to Philosophy' to the mood of the transition to the other beginning, calling it Verhaltenheit (composure, batedness): "It [Verhaltenheit] is the style [cf. Nietzsche!] of originary thinking only because it has to become the style of future human being, of human being grounded in Da- Sein, i.e. pervades this founding moodedly and bears it. Composure - as style - the selfcertainty of the founding provision of measure and of Dasein's withstanding fury." (GA65:33 Section 13) German: "Sie ist der Stil des anfaenglichen Denkens nur deshalb, weil sie der Stil des kuenftigen Menschseins, des im Da-Sein gegruendeten, werden muss, d.h. diese Gruendung durchstimmt und traegt. Verhaltenheit - als Stil - die Selbstgewissheit der gruendenden Massgebung und der Grimmbestaendnis des Daseins." --- What the future *will be* we can not tell, what it *may be*, we can speculate. This notion of composure strikes me as being, in part, a dream issuing from a weariness of a *strife* and *polemos* which has not been able to find nonviolence as such as a mode of contestation which *preserves* strife. The continuity and seamelessness of this "composure before fury", which I would regard as a good in itself, and requisite for phenomenological viewing, albeit never a total requisite, can itself constitute a severe violence. Composure before fury can also be the analyst "smiling through his beard at everything under the sun", it can be the *mere appearance* of genuine composure, the miming of *actual attainment*, the silencing of voices inextricably bound in pain fully beyond their own power, the avoidance of crucial issues, even the calm taking of names of people being hearded into cattle cars. As a certain ideal, the attainment of composure before fury can be brutally forced through the restriction of any expression of pain or anger. --- The capacity to understand phenomenologically phenomena of violence depends not only on composure, a composure which is in fact never pure, but also on a whole series of disruptions to composure: the capacity to *not know*, to *tremeble* before that before which one properly should tremble, the capacity to *handle* emotional flow in the mode of *admitting* and *allowing* anger, fear, etc. This is not only a capacity for phenomenological understanding, but a capacity for authentic moral response and a "mastery of moods" which does not necessarily take the form of coolness. Countless therapists/analysts and their analysands/patients/clients spend countless hours and dollars trying to undo the damage wrought by this dream of composure, a dream projected from the weariness of strife, even simply a dream of "nice" behavior. In some settings, this facade is carried out to extremes, while a wide range of abuses and breakdowns are swept under the rug. In the end, it is often only a type of "strong man" who is able to maintain this illusion of composure continuously, and the capacity to do so is may not necessarily be a civilized, advanced Being but often the *psychical* correlate to physical violence. At certain extremes, this "strength" can be a capacity for the most extreme forms of violence, violences which can in fact exceed, for the advanced structure of the comportment involved, even extreme modes of physical violence. To be sure, there is a moment of the withstanding of fury that is good. The resonances with Nietzsche are all to the good, Nietzsche as a "man of the future", etc., but also a certain ascetic Nietzsche, an isolated and incapable Nietzsche, etc. Perhaps the future that we know lay before Nietzsche is reason enough to give this sense of composure serious thought. --- The ideal of thinking is naive when it thinks that there should never be shouting, crying, feeling, being *lost* before diverse situations, trembling before the genuinely fearsome, outrage, etc. But this, perhaps, is a matter for political commitments, family situations, relationships, friendship, etc., and not for *phenomenology*. But Heidegger cites this ideal or "future" not simply as an aspect of phenomenology, but as a destiny of Being. The path to composure can be complex. Every appearance of composure is not necessarily composure. The path *to* composure can be marked by a series of breakdowns, and authentically attained composure can not be achieved simply by "following the master" or "one's hero", a simple template operation, but through authentic growth, maturation, dealing, artistry, accomplishment, etc. --- A genuinely pure phenomenological attitude can not have any interest in anything whatsoever. It is a certain guiding ideal in certain ways, but that's as far as it can go, I think. Thinking cannot event-uate in a mood of moral outrage. ---- I'm not sure about this. I'm an suggesting throughout my posts on this thread that thinking can not eventuate without some moral outrage and charge, and I have repeatedly identified such a charge in Heidegger, and it is of course quite obvious in Nietzsche. Likewise, the thinking of violence must have some acquaintance with violence. This does not mean that such thinking should undertake violence: we have enough real violence, both historically and presently, to foot the bill. The acquaintence with violence needs to be diverse and can not hope to subsume all situations under the mode of composure without considerable violence, I think. Like the thinking of the essence of music, the thinking of violence must follow along *behind* violence in certain ways. Not to do so would be like attempting to develop music theory without every playing music. Again, I caution: this does not mean engaging in active violence, but in admitting the violent situations to which one is subjected or to which others are subjected. You yourself have pointed out your own tendency to shy away from the moral charge. But I am suggesting here that a genuine transcendence of the falling of thinking in the face of violence is not to be found simply in adopting and continually maintaining a "phenomenological composure", but in passing through various modes of engagement regarding being concerned about and even already being subjected to violence. Such a maturation requires moments of greater and lesser thought, and allowances for "mistakes" on the order of outrage, confusion, fury, fear, sadness, etc. The reason fury and fear, love and sadness do not mature is not because thinking is not possible in their moments, but because *the call to think has not yet been heard*. And, on the other hand, it has been heard in many cases; Heidegger's is not the only example of a hearing of the call to think. Robert Scheetz, on the other hand, accuses me of punctiliousness and stiltedness. I am attempting to defuse the moral charge and deflect its fury. If phenomenological method is beyond Robert Scheetz, then there is still something for him to learn. Nowhere do I say or suggest that the phenomenon of violence is an "ontological nullity". Rather, I have questioned the originariness of this phenomenon. --- I think Robert went too far, but I agree with some of his perceptions. Robert Scheetz continues at some length and asks: "How is it conceivable, Violence - dynamic, engrossing, Heraclitean Violence, were not the controlling trope?" --- This complex remains marked by the fundamental problem: that thinking needs to proceed precisely in the midst of strife, even if to recognize what is *other than* strife, but must *take on the burden of nonviolence* as such. Is this supposed to be accepted as an axiomatic truth? Where does this rhetorical flourish lead us? The totalizing sweep of this statement as well as R. Scheetz's post on the whole gives me the creeps. --- And your sense of "composure" gives me the creeps. To be honest, it does more than that! I hope you take this in the spirit intended: just because it gives me the creeps does not mean your participation in this discussion is in question for me, nor the general horizons as they are occurring in the space of this discussion. This is *my* version of composure, with which you obviously concur, to some extent: I express and recognize my "creeps" as part of the flow of things, not simply to be completely ignored, but not to allow *the descent into the violence*, into diatribes, into *polemics* such as would obviate, eliminate thinking, totalize, etc. Here, I suggest, good thinking is indeed taking place, at least on my part, which I say not in order to praise or aggrandize myself, but out of a necessity of objectivity. The only person to date to pose a *question* of violence in this discussion to date has been Rafael Capurro, who coyly asked: "Why shouldn't we be violent?" --- In this regard, my "lack" of a posing of the question of violence has two parts: 1, I have suggested that most of this thread *is* a posing, and 2, you should perhaps appreciate that in the extensive preliminaries I undertake, albeit not the only possible preliminaries, I am in fact remaining quite faithful to the ideal of composed phenomenology, or, as I much prefer to say, thinking. Indeed, in this regard, I suspect that my composure is in fact much more mature than yours, if it is possible to say this without offense, and I don't mean offense, in that for me the *question has remained consistently possible* where as for you it has been often *hanging in the balance of its very existence*, which is hardly a way to sustain phenomenological investigation. On the other hand, your persistence, with this borne in mind, is especially laudible, as is your willingness to genuinely think in this matter. The tone of moral outrage attempts to gag this question. It is still an open question for me whether and in which sense Heraclitean polemos can be translated as 'violence'. --- And it is an open question for me, too, as you will recall. I have simply and repeatedly only specificed that violence and the history of geopolitical war (think again of the quotes from Heraclitus!) can not be totally removed from the sense of polemos. Furthermore, I think the ensuing history after Hericlitus testifies for the wrong- headedness of the "back to the Greeks" programs of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and rather the necessity of learning to take up, *precisely*, the question of violence. And if Western Civilization is violent to the core, as Robert Scheetz claims, so what? What is then left to think? Being in its essential violence? Open and shut case - violent foreclosure through accusation. --- To the extent that this is true, and I believe we must say that it is a matter of extent, the matter of *nonviolence*, the explicit thematico-substantiviation in thinking and dwelling of *violence* is what *most* calls for thinking, in these thought- provoking times. Just as phenomenology has an advental emergent structure, albeit one which is in fact not fully true, as Being has not in fact been completely forgotten, and reflection has gone on in the works of poets and children and people all over the place all the time, so has nonviolence an *advental structure of emergence*. But *since nonviolence is precisely the thematization and being given to thoughtaction of violence*, it has the ability to call itself into question according to he possibility of *violence of its advental structure*, in the form of a possible "coup". This ability is, however, limited in certain ways, and *must draw on the other developments of thought*, just as the other developments of thought must draw on the question of violence. It is a complex, hybrid condition of intersubmissive thematic-substnativiation. I would suggest on the contrary that moral diatribes have nothing to do with thinking but instead obfuscate it and attempt to drive it into impotence. --- Sheer diatribes may do just that. But there is more to the "charge" than the diatribe, and a genuinely and minimally mature attitude can and must allow the rant in the flow of things, *or else the accomplishment of composure and Da-Sein as dwelling*, and, indeed, as I am suggesting, as its own being *as nonviolence* will be false. Such a *falsity*, in prevailing Dasein, would be held up by the "strong-men" of Dasein, and those too "weak" (or too perceptive!) to maintain such an appearance would have to be "removed" or biochemically disappeared, institutionalized, etc. Such is indeed part of what is at stake. While this may seem an extreme claim, I think on the contrary it is intrinsic, implied, and in fact the existing condition, in the form of prevailing "psychiatry", the very result, often, of the sheer imposition of "composure". Tom Blancato is concerned at my dismissiveness and my "a-voiding a range of phenomena". I repeat: that is not my intention. Rather, I am trying to see the phenomenon of violence phenomenologically, --- And perhaps I am not: I am trying to see it *thoughtfully* and in light of the *thought of Being*. I am suggesting, in part, that it is an underlying violence and alienation from Da-Sein's emergence *as nonviolence* that motivates Heidegger's shift from *phenomenology* to *thinking*, even "the other thinking", and poetic dwelling. But a *mere reinstantiation* of polemos, of the rift between earth and world, a dwelling in the fourfold which does not *open up the vast history of violence* is, to be frank concerning Heidegger, sheer ignorance and blindness. (I'm sorry to cut your sentence in half. You proceed:) which is apparently now leading us into a dispute about: What is phenomenology? Tom writes in response to some quotes from SZ on phenomenology: "Again, I appreciate this, but at the same time, I think the suggestion that the 'ontic world' is always and only never understanding beings in their Being is mistaken, indeed, perhaps something of a "coup", a "rushing in" and installation of an historical advent of the "phenomenon" as such. I suggest that in the litigation process, there are some genuinely ontological moments in various ways, as there are all over the place. The suggestion that everything outside of phenomenology is "mere narrative" is a bit too much. Likewise, when phenomenology *fully* clarifies itself, it, too, remains blind to the disclosure of beings in their Being, being transferred utterly over into what I've metanymized as "the skeletal", the dream of structure. This, as you have reaffirmed, for you constitutes part of the "charging" and, by indications, will not be regarded substantively, I suspect." I did not say "the 'ontic world' is always and only never understanding beings in their Being" but that phenomena almost never present themselves in a way that allow them to be seen as what they are: modes of being. All phenomena presented to human being presuppose in a way an understanding of being, which Heidegger calls "Vorverstaendnis" ('pre-understanding'). This pre-understanding has to be transformed by thinking to reveal beings AS beings, beings in their beyng. When Tom claims there are "genuinely ontological moments" "in the litigation process", I agree, but point out, these moments are not visible prima facie, i.e. at first sight, but have to be brought to a language that discloses them in their being. I tried to do this in a sketchy way in my last post by showing how the adversarial process can be situated in an essencing of truth as veritas. --- Let me be very clear here: there is "understanding as genuine advent", and some of this issues from *taking up the cause of thought* as Heidegger does. But, I am also suggesting, strongly, that not all of what is called "pre-" in Heidegger is really simply "pre-", prima facie, etc. There was understanding before Heidegger. "Genuine ontological moments". But I am still recognizing a wealth of insight in Heidegger, and a certain waxing and waning truth to Heidegger's observations. --- But leaving that question aside, and addressing a general trend in your vies here: Notably absent from Heidegger's explorations is sex. To what extent can we see sexuality in its being without in the process getting, by turns and for moments, etc., turned on? And were we really able to do so, what insights would our thinking of sex really have? As to the claim that phenomenology reduces phenomena to a skeletal structure: Of course phenomena are not left in their (endless) narrative detail. To complain about, say, the structure of care as worked out in SZ and which can easily be reduced to a formula, as Tom has given, is, in my view, to warn against the dangers of formulae in which nothing is thought, i.e. there is an entire development in SZ in which a multitude of phenomena are brought before the readers' eyes before Heidegger announces his 'formula' for the care-structure of Dasein. It is the path of thinking that is important, going through it oneself; the 'result' in itself is worthless. And SZ is only ONE path of thinking, not the be all and end all. It works out the structure of Dasein in a transcendental path of thinking that works out conditions of possibility. (This is the sense in which 'possibility' is 'higher' than necessity (of logic).) --- I didn't mean to satyrize the "formula" in that regard: rather, I was demonstrating the efficacy of Heidegger's progression in thought which was able to give itself to such "formula" or "developed moments of summation" in the Analytic. And yes, there *is* a wealth of phenomena disclosed in SZ. The danger and the skeletal is not to be found in the moment of summation, but, I meant to suggest, in the *entirety of SZ*. I think the skeletal metaphor is quite productive. A wealth of "bones" are showed in their interconnections, but of course one must understand them according to the muscle on the bones, and furthermore, and primarily, according to Being: the dwelling (or rupture to dwelling in violence) of the one with the bones, the occasions of Being, etc., all of which the Analytic must serve in certain ways. Note the other associations: the attempt to choreograph a ballet using the skeleton chart as a choreography chart as misguided, for example. Rather than talking of a skeleton, I prefer to talk about a simplifying disclosure of essence/essencing. There are a few essential words of Western history that lie at its core and whose transformations account for basic, elemental and simple shifts in this history. Heidegger's tracing of the essencing of truth is perhaps the paradigm of this. The myriad phenomena of Western history over 2500 years are thus 'reduced' to this 'skeletal' history? Yes, if you will. But nevertheless, this history of the transformations of the essencing of truth is not just any story. --- Well, before such a reduction, I'm sorry, but I truly believe one should *really be trembling!* It is currently the fashion to dismiss 'essentialism' as 'metaphysics', to which I retort, quoting Heidegger; we have to learn to think. Getting into a lather of moral outrage or losing oneself in narrative detail are two ways of evading this task of learning to think. --- I agree. Such a lather is, in fact, one of the structures of violence that I see. *And the reduction of all charged thought to lather*, (which you aren't really doing here, though there is a tendency) like the reduction to all talking not concerned "properly" with Being to *chatter*, and the *very arena of composure* are all potentially violent and thoughtless scenes as well. And I will reassert, to be clear about something I feel a call to be clear about: the scene of "composure" as a final solution to the problem of the moral, of pain, anger, etc., can in fact be *more violent* than the scene of fomenting and straight-forward outrage, marking, I suspect, at the limit, a certain tendency to madness which is, as Louis Sass has pointed out in his book on madness, especially prevalent in developed countries (as the Destiny of Being, no doubt!) --- And I also agree about "essence" to some extent here: Nor is "essense" in Heidegger any simple metaphysical moment. "Dasein's essence lies in its existence." This structure is quite far from the attempt to see Heidegger as merely essentializing, or to make existence prior to essence. I take your point, Tom, that phenomenology cannot "fully" clarify itself. There are various paths of thinking, various attempts at trying to reveal beings in their being, different languages of phenomenology. Perhaps all these attempts ultimately fail. That doesn't matter. Thinking is open-ended and never-ceasing, never coming to a conclusive conclusion. Phenomenology, in my view, is not a super-discourse that masters and dominates every other discourse or phenomenon. Like all thinking, it has its blind-spots, which however cannot be taken as an excuse to give up thinking. --- Of course, and no where do I suggest giving up thinking. In fact the thinking of being achieves very little. --- I disagree strongly with this. But this little is nevertheless capable of founding history in its fundamentally simple structure. Heidegger writes on this repeatedly, e.g.: "The _first beginning_ of the essence-history of the Occident stands under the heading 'being and word'. The 'and' names the essence-relation which being itself (and not, say, first humans thinking about it) causes to e-merge in order to bring its [being's] essencing to truth in it [the essence-relation]. In Plato and Aristotle, who say the beginning of metaphysics, the word becomes logos in the sense of statement. Logos transforms itself in the course of the unfolding of metaphysics into ratio, reason and spirit. Occidental metaphysics, the essential history of the truth of beings as such as a whole which brings itself to language in thinking from Plato to Nietzsche, stands under the heading 'being and ratio'. For this reason, 'the irrational' also appears in the age of metaphysics and only in this age, and subsequently also 'lived experience'. If we think of the title 'Being and Time', then 'time' says here neither the calculated time of the clock in the sense of Bergson and others. The name 'time' in the title according to the clearly expressed relation of belonging to being is the preliminary name for the more originary essencing of aletheia and names the essential ground (ground of essencing) for ratio and all thinking and saying. 'Time' in 'Being and Time', a strange as this may seem, is the preliminary name for the initial _ground_ of the word. 'Being and word', the beginning of the essential history of the Occident, is experienced more originarily. The treatise 'Being and Time' is only an indication of the E-vent that being itself sends a more _originary_ experience to Occidental humankind." (GA54:113f 'Parmenides') This does not get us any closer to clarifying Heraclitean polemos and its relation to violence --- I wouldn't sum up the problem of the question of violence in this way, though this is part of it, in my opinion. (assuming that Robert Scheetz' accusational and totalizing charge is left to one side), but may help clarify what it means to think phenomenologically. --- Perhaps mature composure has as part of its responsibility to think genuinely about that which *is* thoughtful and is given for thought, is applicable and calls for thinking, in that which, in rage, totalizes or is violent. If you see what I mean here, then we see, as well, the *sense* of "composure* can be quite multiple. Nonviolence respects one's attackers and does not simply dismiss them. In doing so, it elevates both the attacker and the attacked. I do not intend to foreclose phenomenological clarification of the relationship between polemos and violence. --- Nor do I. Perhaps we could dwell on this issue a bit. Cheers, Michael --- Regards, --- Tom B. --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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