Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 09:41:55 -0800 (PST) From: "Gary C. Moore" <gospode-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: AM I STUPID OR WHAT? Part 7 PART 7 And now hopefully having established several basic points about the necessity and centrality of individual existence and experience, I will now deal with the essay that Arum-Kumar Tripathi and Rene de Bakker recommended to me. The first thing I want to make clear, and actually to show my appreciation of Doctor Dreyfus, is the immense superiority in clarity and true philosophical intent that is in this essay compared to the rest of the off-hand gaff that is in THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO HEIDEGGER. This specifically refers to the essays by Charles Guignon, Michael Zimmerman, and Charles Taylor. I especially did not appreciate this pronouncement from Guignon: “Yet when (Heidegger’s) writings became more widely known among professionals in the field, it was less through this route than through the impact of existentialism in the fifties and sixties. As a result, though Heidegger’s thought is often treated as the cornerstone of existential psychotherapy, what one usually finds is a Heidegger refracted through the lens of the far more accessible writings of Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus. In the mouth of this ‘existentialized’ Heidegger, the idea of authenticity is pictured as the stance of the rugged individualist who, upon experiencing anxiety in the face of the ultimate absurdity of life, lives intensely in the present and creates his or her own world through leaps of radical freedom . . . The decline of existentialism can be attributed, I believe, to the growing suspicion that its image of the human condition is too limited to capture the concrete realities of actual existence. The conception of ‘terrible freedom’ found in the French existentialists, seems to conceal the sense we have of being embedded in the world where not all things are possible. Idealizing the notion of freedom runs the risk of glorifying sheer capriciousness, the kind of ‘do-your-own-thing’ willfulness that created such misery for the ‘me-generation’. Moreover, when authenticity is equated with the existentialist vision of freely creating one’s life as a work of art, it is quite natural to conclude that this idea is consistent with an amoral or immoral way of life . Existentialist psychology, allied in the sixties with ‘humanistic’ movements, was suppose to provide a ‘third force’ to serve as an alternative to Freudian and empirical approaches. Opposing what it perceived to be the scientific ‘mechanism’ and ‘determinism’ of standard theories, this movement sought to protect the dignity of humans by insisting on human freedom. But, in the end, its overblown notion of freedom came to seem as unrealistic and pernicious as the view it sought to replace’ (“Authenticity, moral values, and psychotherapy”, in THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO HEIDEGGER, ed. Charles Guignon, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 215-216). This is a great example of: If you cannot even begin to understand what your opponent is doing or comprehend what the problems even are that they are dealing with, call them names. This is obviously acceptable as an academic virtue and the epitome of philosophical acuity in the “professional” community. However, it is a deliberate and knowing turning one’s back on the whole meaning, history, and purpose of the philosophical endeavor. Guignon’s ethical campaign against such blatant amorality clearly demonstrates that he already fully knows exactly what the truth of truth, of reality, and of human existence is, and that one should acknowledge his obvious mature and well considered judgements of such jejune matters. One wonders, Why is this person supposedly in philosophy at all if he clearly doesn’t like thinking? His language is aimed only at one goal, establishing his authority without justification and the high status of his respectability. I hope I am doing far more reasonable and explicit justice to Doctor Hubert L. Dreyfus who definitely does enjoy thinking, does present a position that is important and relevant to human existence, and, though I thoroughly disagree with the direction he is taking that thinking, presents a formidable argument based on real evidence. Dreyfus has clearly read his Thomas Hobbes and Hobbes’ reasoned but very emotional lament on the ravages of the English civil war and the results of the breakdown of law and common, everyday social decency. If there were a Thomas Hobbes today from Vietnam or Korea or El Salvador or Israel/Palestine that could write and reason as well as he did, such a person could have real impact at least on the reading public that might truly help resolve such conflicts with the realization of what these people are in truth committing upon each other. Contemplating such things, along with mind sets like Guignon’s of such total inhuman indifference to “actual existence” he says existentialism somehow distances itself from, one wonders truly if the name-calling denigration of the ‘do-your-ownthing’, ‘me-generation’ meaning of life has, under the guidance of such educators as Guignon, finally become under them the infliction of pointless pain and idiotic dullness on other human beings. Enough of that. Now to something with some real flesh and blood in it. In Dreyfus essay, “Heidegger on the connection between nihilism, art, technology, and politics”, pp.289-316, the author begins with what might be considered a paen to existentialism compared to Guignon’s exultation of pomposity and drabness. In his connection of Kierkegaard’s passion of commitment to Heidegger, Dreyfus then sets up a legitimate and believable background to his contrast of Heidegger to Kierkegaard: “But whereas Kierkegaard thought that leveling and lack of commitment had been accentuated to nihilistic proportions by the media, Heidegger in BEING AND TIME writes as if leveling had been with humankind as long as tools have, and he sees nothing special in the present age” (pg. 290). Now, I am sure everyone has read statements in Heidegger to the effect that “leveling and lack of commitment” have “been accentuated to nihilistic proportions, specifically his reference to the technological giants Russia and the United States as bastions of evil between which, at one time, he saw no difference. He did change his mind about the matter and developed a much more balanced and interesting view of technology later. But, much more importantly, Dreyfus does disclose in that statement an extremely fundamental and supremely important point throughout Heidegger, a point that if not taken into consideration reduces Heidegger to trash: THAT NOTHING HAS BASICALLY CHANGED IN HUMAN NATURE SINCE THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY WITH THE GREEKS, CHINESE, AND INDIANS. In other words, as we have exactly the same kind of body, we have “always already” all begun and fundamentally endure with EXACTLY the same kind of needs, as Sartre explicitly shows in the CRITIQUE OF DIALECTICAL REASON, and that, though different cultures seem to have fundamentally different answers to the same questions, yet, if we look hard at real human experience as it truly factically IS, we find in individuals here and there in the present age, though usually in an undeveloped fashion, trying to follow through exactly the same paths of thinking as the Greeks, Chinese, and Indians went through. Culture is not something that exists as an objectified spirit high above us that descends upon us and makes us live a certain way. Rather, culture is something worked out in each individual’s factical life within their own Situation and their own pain and joy. So in reality there NEVER is “a” culture, but always as many cultures as there are individual human beings. Each person’s way of life is a kind of ‘solution’ to the problems raised by ‘culture’. Which means as each person approaches those problems absolutely alone from within their private Situation, they may well be resolved as “unrealistic and pernicious”, as “overblown”, as “amoral or even immoral”, as “do-your-own-thing”, or, Guignon forbid such “amoral or immoral” behavior as “freely creating one’s life as a work of art”. When I go jogging very early in the morning, I occasionally meet gang members coming home from wherever they were, and doing what they were. I’m sure Guignon would consider them “amoral or immoral”, but as with all other COMMITED “amoral or immoral” people I have met with in my life, they have a straightforward code of ‘ethics’ that, though it can be dangerous to you under the right circumstances, you can actually rely upon them abiding by. It is the people who pomposly declare their moral standards like Guignon that you must beware, along with the likes of the Ayatollah Houmeini, Jerry Falwell, and Meir Kahane, all, all profoundly moral men. When a person makes it clear that they know exactly what right and wrong is, you are in deep trouble. This why I am writing here, because I am NOT certain that Dreyfus is wrong or how much he might be wrong since I hope I have made it clear he has a strong basis upon which he makes his argument, an unusual approach blatantly ignoring obvious existentialist elements in Heidegger’s philosophy but still very strong, possibly in fact a very complicated path I do not even have the slightest, vaguest comprehension of. AND it is your job to show me exactly why and where I have gone wrong with adequate evidence and not pompous moral pronouncements. “The only way to have a meaningful life in the present age, then, is to let your involvement become definitive of reality for you, and what is definitive of reality for you is not something that is in any way provisional – although it certainly is vulnerable. That is why, once a society like ours becomes rational and reflective, such total commitments begin to look like a kind of dangerous dependency. The committed individual is identified as a workaholic or a woman who loves too much. This suggests that to be recognized and appreciated, individual commitment requires a shared understanding of what is worth pursuing. But as our culture comes more and more to celebrate critical detachment, self-sufficiency, and rational choice, there are fewer and fewer shared commitments. So commitment itself begins to look like craziness” (pg. 291). One thing is for sure, Dreyfus is radically opposed to Guignon’s denigration of existentialism’s “rugged individualist” who “creates his or her own world through leaps of radical freedom” that “is too limited to capture the concrete realities of actual existence” to the point that I wonder why Guignon even tolerated Dreyfus essay in his book that makes him look so bad. Once again, Dreyfus straightforwardly defines a clear and present danger in current reality. Commitment has indeed begun “to look like craziness.” But revolving precisely upon this point, I would radically disagree with Dreyfus estimation that this “society like ours” (let me make this PERFECTLY CLEAR: it is not mine!) is either “rational” or “reflective”. It might be called ‘reasonable’ if the most spineless and mindless possible image of that ‘reason’ can be put forward. This is the age of compromise so no one has to make a commitment and conclude a harsh decision about what to do about horrendous problems, for instance, that of the fast accumulating population of the utterly useless aged like me that are not now able, or soon will cease to be able, to do productive work and are a gigantic drain on any welfare state’s economy to the point that, even within my lifetime, literal bankruptcy faces their treasuries. And then add to that figure all the other kinds of fast accumulating populations, the mentally ‘ill’, the mentally retarded, the perpetually ill, the disabled that cannot or will not work or train for work, the old people like me whose skills are outdated and find it extremely hard to train at new technologies, the greatly expanding population of criminals in and out of prison, and the great mass of people in general who despise education and accomplishment yet have a great love of money. Am I talking about the future population of the world? No, this is the present population. But no one wants to see this, they refuse to examine the situation, they feel no concern because those who ride the wave of present success at the moment feel such a concern is ridiculous and, like Guignon, ‘unrealistic’. But there can only be one, and one only, result of having the vast majority of the population completely unproductive. A similar blindness occurred before the Great Depression of 1929 when the booming economy totally ignored the complete collapse OVER A PERIOD OF YEARS of the farming system. An even worse example was the inclusion of slavery in the Constitution of the United States by the founding fathers who clearly knew then, even the ones from Virginia, that such inclusion contained the very destruction of the newly created nation that so nearly came to pass during the Civil War. So this society is far from rational, and certainly in no possible fashion whatsoever “reflective”. But this aside, I would have to agree with the rest of Dreyfus’ paragraph. This is because, though we are opposed in some of our basic premises, Dreyfus, unlike Guignon, is rational himself. If one discovers a problem, first of all, one tries to understand it as it actually exists, not call it a belittling name and walk away from it. I think when Dreyfus uses the words “rational” and “self-sufficiency”, he means a kind of detachment that is totally divorced from problem-solving and resolving, not the detachment of blind justice dispensing equity, but the detachment of Guignon’s “I don’t want to think about it.” In other words, they claim the word “rational”, especially its lack of commitment and emotional resolve it brings, but have no idea to its meaning or effective use outside of that. What they are skilled at is manipulation, saying something is in “decline” due to a vague “suspicion” (on whose part?) that an “image of the human condition is too limited (in what way?) to capture the concrete realities of actual existence”, which is a circular and goal-less endeavor that contains its own ultimate exhaustion and collapse because it has foresworn “commitment”. I will even admit, to a degree, that “individual commitment requires a shared understanding of what is worth pursuing.” As much as we may or may not dislike the context, art, literature, and philosophy were encouraged and supported in a way during the medieval age. Whereas in the modern context, it is productiveness that is rewarded in these endeavors, where a scholar must “publish or perish” regardless of quality, and the artist’s and writer’s greatest boast is, “I can deliver!” i.e., mechanically produce the merely adequate. Dreyfus is perfectly right with his examples of “a workaholic or a woman who loves too much.” As disastrous as these lifestyles can be, Dreyfus shows commitment requires a bit more than opinions and moralization. I would rather be forced to commit to the passion of the Catholic Church than the dead dreariness of academic art, literature, and philosophy. Commercial success, on the other hand, is a Quixotic thing. You could say Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, Shakespeare, Rubens, and Rembrandt were commercial successes of sorts. But then it gets to be a question of exactly WHY are these people laying out their money and who are they? Does the evaluation of giving concrete value really have any connection to the art as such it is buying? For you could say that in the Renaissance, it was an investment in vanity and self-esteem, whereas now it is merely an investment for monetary gain since no one really needs to cultivate self-esteem as that can be bought with little expenditure of time and effort. But at least money has, and maybe really IS reality. The meaning of what money really is, that, concretely, this supposedly concrete, solid, down to earth, ultimate practical value that is essentially very complex history of relations of exchange, has always puzzled me. Its power is very real. In fact one could say its power to evoke truth itself is possibly unparalleled. And the power of money displayed in how it is used and what exactly it is used to buy, in naked truth discloses our primal values – as a ‘society’ of individuals watching what a person with the power of money does, with that person knowing full well they are being closely observed in what they do. I wish Sartre would have used his analysis of “the look” in a profound examination of the overwhelming power of money which was so important to his later thought. I remember reading about Germans at the end of World War II whose Nazi paper money was officially without any value whatsoever, still using that mere symbol of money because it was the only money they had, and especially where barter had failed or was totally confused. What do you say? “When everything that is material and social has become completely flat and drab, people retreat into their private experiences as the only remaining place to find significance” (pg. 292). This is “nothing special in the present age” EXCEPT that it is seen as “craziness” as Dreyfus says. In almost every other age, there was a deliberate space set aside for such people. Monasteries and convents and hermitages were one such kind of space, something almost universal in all the religions of the world and even in Greek and Indian philosophy. And we no longer have anything like it, no protected space to retreat into ourselves from this overbearing world of blatantly hypocritical morality whose true name is force and fraud. True, and still going by what Dreyfus said about Heidegger, the morality of each and every age was totally and blatantly hypocritical – it is a necessary part of its essence – but this age is unique in being without a space for people who are totally nauseated by that hypocrisy. They are precisely the ones, unlike us who can always compromise a way to get along with the world, who are called "crazy." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/ --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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