Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 15:26:13 +0000
From: Joseph Milne <alfar-AT-globalnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Technik


At 02:45 02/11/97 +0200, you wrote:
>Dear Joseph,
>
>Thanks for your message. A short comment because work demands my
>concentration.
>
>On Sat, 1 Nov 1997, Joseph Milne wrote:
>
>> Yet I wonder if the real reason that we find
>> Heidegger so persuasive on technology lies on the political level. Certainly
>> it has very clear political implications, but is that the *root* as it were
>> of our horror at the prospect of what technology may lead to?
>
>You are right: the "political" issue is not the foundation of Heidegger's
>question concerning technology. But it is also possible to look at the
>matter from the opposite perspective: a philosopher whose thinking has
>often been condemned as non-ethical and non-political, but here is a theme
>that could well be evidence of, at least, a political undertow.
>
>As to the "root" -- and here I may well be repeating myself --, if there
>is a genuine sense of horror, it must result from an awareness that our
>belief in our own "technological" omnipotence (that the world is in our
>"hands") has always been unfounded. The "horrific prospect" of technology
>is that we continue believing so.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Panu
>

Dear Panu,

We could attribute technology to hubris.  But equally we could attribute it
to man's fear and sense of powerlessness and an offort to overcome this.
Thus so many ordinary people put their hopes in technology and science in
the hope that all suffering may one day be overcome.  It is always worth
looking to see what is being evaded in any ideology or hope.  On the other
hand, fear and hubris may be two sides of one essential deeper thing.

With kind regards,
Joseph



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