Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 00:00:51 +0000
From: Tommy Beavitt <tommy-AT-scoraig.com>
Subject: RE: Dasein


At 10:53 am +0100 26/1/02, Tudor Georgescu wrote:
>That comes from the following considerations: Plato admitted a Good
>higher than the existence, Good which would regulate existence. His
>followers began to judge (evaluate) existence. They invented value.
>Value invented Nietzsche.
>
>From the idea of value of existing came the capitalist view of life as a
>business. Heidegger totally rejects this view saying: "Life is not a
>good business; it is not a bad business either. Life is not a business."
>
>
>The capitalist specialization of mankind created financial speculation.
>Plato was nothing else than such a speculator. He failed to see that
>writing on a blackboard with the chalk, riding the horse, or watching
>the TV, these are not added through thinking to these objects.
>
>Nietzsche's destiny is the destiny of any classic, and Plato is the
>father of classicism, i.e. that proud and superior attitude towards
>existence, which comes from a lack of existing (as what you are).
>
>To be is to become, to exist.

Hello Tudor,

I am very interested to read what you have to say about value. Do you 
really think (the capitalist concept of) value necessarily implies 
the existence of a Good higher than the existence? I am surprised by 
this: I always thought that value was always "to" something. As a 
consumer of porn, say, the act of a model stripping off and 
performing in front of a cameraman has value to me. I am therefore 
prepared at least notionally to pay to consume such a cultural 
product so that the model, the cameraman and all the other actors who 
have added value in this particular value chain can be rewarded for 
their efforts. But I wouldn't be able to justify the creation of porn 
in terms of a "Good which is higher than the existence".

Another interesting example recently was when  one of my clients (an 
agriculturist) was complaining about all the effort that was wasted 
performing audits on parts of systems that have gone wrong. He was 
thinking about all the "unproductive" clerical effort that went in to 
correcting a mistake. "Unproductive?", I countered. Do you think that 
Andersen [the accountants firm] thinks audit work "unproductive?". He 
had to admit that value was always a question of perspective.

It is the combination of value exchanges pertaining to farmers and 
housewives and energy speculators and accountants and masturbators 
and porn actors that contributes to a country's GNP. Again, this is 
not, or shouldn't be held to be, evidence of the existence of a "Good 
higher than existence". It just is.

Were you suggesting an alternative?

Tommy Beavitt


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