From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 11:35:42 EST
Subject: Re: The Obergefreiter's Stripe of Dasein.



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In a message dated 25/03/2003 13:30:25 GMT Standard Time, 
rene.de.bakker-AT-uba.uva.nl writes:

Jud [earlier]
Heidegger the cognitive chiseller simply dresses up these facts of clinical 
commonality in philosophical language, which Heideggerians now agonise and 
pontificate over, as if it were some significant and profound revelation 
uncovered by the great man. Much of Heideggerian philosophy can be read (in 
plain language) in any student-nurse's: 'Introduction to Psychiatry' handbook 

Rene writes:

Heidegger once told to Walter Schulz, an expert on absolute idealism, that 
the death analysis of BT was written for medical students. Poor Schulz could 
not believe it. Did you laugh? Sorry!

The question is, what did Heidegger mean by that? It's a question for 
everyone ......

cheers and my respect for your flexibility,

Jud:

I'm always laughing Rene. Seriously for a moment, upon my first reading of BT 
I was immediately struck by his whole concept of the awareness of "Being 
towards death" as being a prerequisite for promotion from the ranks of the 
unthinking herd, and that a recognition of one's earthy finitude was 
essential in order to qualify for the award of the Obergefreiter's stripe of 
an intellectually battle-hardened 'Dasein'. 

The irony is however, that it is usually the members of the un-Daseinised 
un-philosophical hoi poloi who are the most aware of the brevity of life, 
which they celebrate in their behaviour of un-delayed satisfaction, and their 
many folk-sayings and songs which address the brevity of life. Heidegger 
gives the impression that the Daseinic Preobrazhensky  Guards is an elite 
regiment for the philosophically minded  sensitive intellectual, who through 
the study of the "inception" (the Greek ideal etc.) and a rigorous 
re-examination of the rescued and  hallowed "Question of "Being," can 
therefore shuffle nihilistically, [but knowledgeably and contentedly] towards 
the lip the trench which is this mortal coil, before spiralling down like a 
Daseinic sycamore leaf [a green one of course] to the depths of nothingness 
from whence we came.

Ask anyone you like the question: "Are you aware that you will die one day?" 
and EVERYONE will answer: "Yes." Most people (unlike Heidegger) learn to live 
with this knowledge and come to terms with it. He seems to want everybody to 
bear this fact (about the inevitability of death) in mind in their every 
waking moment, so that everyone will end up as angst-ridden and miserable as 
him. Reading between the lines of  Arendt's letters, he was a wet-blanket at 
life's party - the miserable one in the corner. But for Hitler to take his 
mind off things a bit, he would have probably kept reptiles, spiders or frogs 
for a hobby - or even worse have been a stamp-collector. If we took his 
advice we would probably all end up in a mental clinic like he did. 

What he should have done is had a good night out on the piss with a load of 
Liverpool-Irishmen - they would have put him right on: "the meaning of life," 
and "live for today for tomorrow you may snuff it", etc. Instead of that he 
filled his mind with this bunch of foolishness about "Being," which doesn't 
even exist.  It's US that exist - not our "Beings."  The myth of "Being" is 
simply our own awareness of the daily process of OUR being here, (which we 
call "our lives," and not the metaphysical construct "being-here" itself,  
which, like the movement of our arm - doesn't exist - for it's the ARM that 
exists. The movement of the arm is simply one of the ways in which the arm 
exists, and that which we call "our lives," is simply a general term for the 
many ways in which we exist during our time here. The dancer doesn't remember 
"the dancing" - [though he may describe it that way] he remembers the entity 
that is himself, and the entities that are other persons -  doing the dancing.


As for his remark to Walter Schulz, I am sure that most medical students are 
aware of the facts of life and death. Medical students (in Britain anyway) 
maybe in order to block out the horrors of the sharp blade they are forced to 
wield on the dissecting table, are a notoriously wild crowd, who indulge in 
all night parties and drinking and womanising.  Perhaps Heidegger just wanted 
to spoil their fun, by reminding them that they too, in their comportment 
towards death, were not exempt from the glinting blade of the Great Reaper's 
scythe?  

regards,

Jud

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ 
Jud Evans - ANALYTICAL INDICANT THEORY. 
http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com

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