From: "bob scheetz" <rscheetz-AT-cboss.com>
Subject: Re: traps & co
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 22:51:36 -0500


Wednesday, March 29, 2000, Kenneth writes:

>fatalism: a doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings
>are powerless to change them; also  : a belief in or attitude determined by
>this doctrine. (Merriam-Webster):
>
>I don't think you mean the word according to this definition, unless you
>subscribe to the Eternal Return as proven fact. But even here, with no
>experience of the ER but only a thought of its possibility, then I doubt
>fatalism describes H or anyone here, save maybe the "it is written" crowd.
>Pessimism, on the other hand - - but then pessimism and/or optimism are
>weak reactions, povertous - - .
>

kenneth,
we've this long time conned the brute dynamics that
drive history, no?...and tho always a nightmare,
the objective conditions of the present,
the having stepped in so far the nihilism of craven logos & kapital....
well...the prospect beggar's language, don't it?
anyway the moral shape of the future is pre-visible;
and renaissance it ain't.
...so for us rare few xians that means
going to the desert to meditate the mystery,
...waiting when time shall have a stop...n'all that.
voila, the fatalism of the west.

otoh,  your embrace of the "life force", of faust/zarathustra,
the historio-nomic dynamic of  egoism/acquisitiveness,
this brute god-of-things-as-they-are,
appears the antithetical triumphalist perspective, no?

and jan's edenic dream?
...the communist parousia?
the synthesis?
(forlorn?) hopefulness?
i suppose.

gratefully,
bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth Johnson <kenn-AT-beef.sparks.nv.us>
To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 12:48 AM
Subject: Re: traps & co


>bob, your exchanges w/rene are the best here, for me, but just want to use
>the above as vehicle to make a little ramblin polemic, nada personal.
>--
>
>fatalism: a doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings
>are powerless to change them; also  : a belief in or attitude determined by
>this doctrine. (Merriam-Webster):
>
>I don't think you mean the word according to this definition, unless you
>subscribe to the Eternal Return as proven fact. But even here, with no
>experience of the ER but only a thought of its possibility, then I doubt
>fatalism describes H or anyone here, save maybe the "it is written" crowd.
>Pessimism, on the other hand - - but then pessimism and/or optimism are
>weak reactions, povertous - - .
>
>By mentioning Jan with me, is this only because we've both expressed a
>vital concern for earth? one which neither you nor rene nor anyone else on
>this list share because you 'know' that earths fate already "is written"?
>The tea leaves are "unambiguous"?
>
>Things as events may be fixed on an iron rail, maybe not, who knows; but it
>seems to me you have too much of a literary rete system developed from too
>much faustian romantic pessimism and not enough of harrowing and planting
>and weeding and care for your profession, which is to engage a future in
>which optimism, pessimism, or even happiness or physical gratification
>becomes incidental to the vital, and which I'll bore no one here by
>referencing once more.
>
>Those for whom a juvenile pessimism toward future, one that has become the
>defining feature of their self, should be spanked by their parents for such
>sacrilege, for the frivolous wasting of the Life force which they really
>are, as meanwhile, and for its real potential, this force needs them _now_
>as never before!!  As Foucault said, "I'm not saying everything is bad
>today, but that everything is dangerous."
>
>Current scenarios of cia rationalisms and political machinations are just
>logical reactions in a world where danger is everywhere. It is not they who
>need to be philosophically engaged. Rather, what is most concernful for
>philosophers is how to get at the heart of the worlding game engine that
>produced this dangerousness to which the cia rationally responds. This is
>something that only an _engaging_ philosophy can engage because these
>cia/kgb machinations are themselves one of the licensed result of some or
>another "what is man" philosophy, Locke, Mill, christianity, islam,
>zoroastrianism, i.e. all "world view" interpretations of appearances,
>inward and outward ones. Apparently you and the H list (except for your
>unlikely pairing of me and Jan) whether it be pessimism or fatalism, does
>not engage appearances for its higher promise, rather, it disengages from
>any promise, throws in the towel.
>
>The X is the diametric opposite of a pessimist. Amor fati is its most
>salient feature. But its Amor fati is a far more complex phenomenon than
>any surface thought portrays. I've written some stuf that probes the
>complexity of its inner workings. This pairing concept of love/fate is not
>taken to pertain to future, but only to past. Only what you have done is
>your fate. If you hate what you have done, then it is your fate to hate
>this fate which you also love. This past hatred also conditions what is
>possible for you toward future, tho its all a bit more complex than this
>however and not for here.
>
>The _most essential prerequisite_, the most needful thing, for engaging the
>future of this present, is to discover your xself!
>--
>
>A recent study of brain physiology has shown that automobile mechanics have
>a much more intricately developed rete systems in their brains than do
>salesmen. This because the amount of problem solving is far more intricate
>for mechanics than for salesmen who only need a memorized pitch, repeating
>the same thing over and over and over. The body responds to its
>necessities. Applying this rete measuring hypothetically, I wonder if those
>who spend all their time in their minds, reading, "thinking" (a composed
>mental writing), wandering along the empires of isms, empiricism,
>pessimism, fatalism, ism, ism, ism, and who never found time or inclination
>to puzzle out the intricate workings of internal combustion mechanics, have

>something vital missing in their capacity for hands on engagement, for
>plowing future - - but on the other hand, to have all the complexities of
>Heidegger's philosophic meanderings under control, say like Anthony, jeez -
>he must have only retes, a brain the size of F. Scott's diamond, eh?
>--
>
>since no one else has "become x", then it seems it is my fate to whistle
>down the wind. I don't love that, I experience nausea over it.
>
>- k
>
>
>
>>but to the "q of technique"?
>>
>>and...you gotta forgive my mule-ishness here,
>>coz heid on tools signifies a immediate,
>>not just ideological, insult.
>>
>>...again,  the principle of sufficient reason, eh?
>>
>>tech, speaking synecdochically,
>>is the extrapolation of the opposing thumb and finger.
>>and indeed an understanding of it's nature is acquired
>>precisely in the practice
>>(in the beginning was the deed)
>>of manual labor, curse of post-lapsarian man;
>>and, in no other way.
>>so the miracle (curse?) of ingenuity that is modern tech
>>is the prodigy of human hand-brain work;
>>and therefore of a piece with the old whole conundrum.
>>but, its fetishization is a fiction of rulership
>>to mystify relations of production and justify exploitation.
>>thence our, petit bourgeois idealists
>>(specialists of "the word"),
>>school teachers, priests, lawyers, ....hollywood artists,
>>are, in the nature of the thing, under specific obligation
>>to accomplish just this task for our aristoi,
>>absent whose blessing they would starve.
>>
>>finally,
>>don't the identical "aporia" present itself in language:
>>what tech is to brain-hand, langue is to brain-voice.
>>...the which as well has ever been put to the manifold
>>maleficence of priestcraft  and propaganda.
>>and so, in this regard  heid's anathematizing metaphysics
>>can be see to be philosophically cognate with his "q of tech", no?
>>
>>yours in fatalism,
>>always,
>>bob
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---