File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0101, message 3


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."


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