From: Henry Sholar <henry-AT-agenceglobal.com>
Subject: Re: FYI/ bypassing freedom, making the sale
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 10:00:34 -0500



On Dec 25, 2003, at 1:55 AM, Anthony Crifasi wrote:

> Henry Sholar wrote:
>
>> AC:
>> So if Gestell is neither a factical effect nor the sum of all factical
>> effects (both of which can be changed) nor any entity at all, but how
>> these are all understood as the beings they are in the first place,
>> then what could it possibly mean to "change" Gestell through the
>> factical means available to us? Isn't this an equivocation of everyday
>> thinking (which can be changed by such people through factical means)
>> and the understanding which this presupposes in every case already
>> (over which Heidegger says we never have power in any case)? 
>> ======================>>
>> The questions you raise require some kind of satisfactory relationship
>> between 'later' heid's "thinking Being historically" and the Heid of
>> SuZ, and a comprehensive gathering of all of that.
>
> Wouldn't the same problem apply to Heidegger's criticism of 
> inauthenticity in SuZ itself? There would be a similar lack of power 
> to change the possibilities that are already casted for us by the 
> They-self. Yet Heidegger's criticism of the inauthenticity obviously 
> suggests that he thinks we can choose authenticity.

But what is "choosing" authenticity? I think it essentially boils down 
to a resolute awareness
that the Anyone (das Man) is an ungrounded background of cultural 
practices, and that is
as good as its going to get (so far as 'truth' and 'meaning' and 
'significance' are concerned)
and therefore one chooses to be flexible in taking a stand for oneself, 
and, perhaps,
deepens one's ability to cope with anxiety.

And I have problems understanding what you mean by "lack of power to 
change possibilities
that are already cast for us by das Man."  First, we don't have an 
exhausted supply of cultural
practice power in the dynamic of das Man, i.e., cultural practices are 
disclosed anew all the time;
and secondly, all of our 'power' comes out of everydayness. We, as 
individuals,
are just one peculiar slant on the cultural practices of everydayness 
(das Man) and nothing more.
But some slants prove much more helpful in the changing of times than 
others.

Thinking through the cultural practices is itself a practice that gives 
possibilities dis-covered
not only from what is present, but also the presence of the absent, 
that which is  a part of the
cultural practice but uncaptured under the sway of Gestell.


BTW:  H's criticism of inauthenticity, as I see it, is his analysis 
that there is no logical or transcendental
foundation to human understanding.  There is just everydayness as 
conjured up by das Man.

>
>> We already understand the truth of being as gestell as historical,
>> dynamic as ontological understanding, which gains us the possibility
>> of thinking about it, as does Heidegger, and we, following his lead in
>> his essays on the subject after the mid 30s.
>>
>> I do not put ontic examples (WalMart, Bush admin., corp capitalism,
>> neuro-marketing, and on and on) into a big bag, logical or
>> theological, labeled "gestell" which is itself unapproachable to
>> thinking. Rather, the things themselves lead to an accessible
>> understanding of gestell, as does gestell provide a background, a
>> network, a horizon, an opening that has distinctive historical and
>> cultural characteristics: mobilizations & the challenging forth of all
>> beings as inventory. And there is then a back and forth to thinking
>> ont differly on these two levels of description.
>
> I wasn't saying that gestell itself is unapproachable to thinking, but 
> rather to our power to choose otherwise. I think the problem becomes 
> clear if we get more specific with what exactly is supposed to happen. 
> Let's say I become aware (through poetry or by myself or by studying 
> Heidegger etc.) that the way I encounter beings is under the sway of 
> what Heidegger calls Gestell.

Becoming "aware" of Gestell?  What does that mean?

One can gain understanding of Gestell through circumspective concern of 
the things around oneself.
One can gain understanding of Gestell  through concern for the 
processes of the unready-to-hand.
One can gain understanding of Gestell through an authentic 
understanding of das Man. and so on...

This kind of understanding is primarily that of practical, know-how 
affinities with things,
and not  theoretical "awareness."


> But then what? Can I then simply *choose* to understand things 
> otherwise? Being aware of how I understand does not imply that I can 
> choose how I understand. Even the everyday notion of understanding is 
> not that simple (eg., in the science of psychology, a phobia or a 
> neurosis is not something that we can simply will away once we are 
> aware of it).

Well, how does one 'cure' oneself of fears and obsessions? Part of the 
Gestell-interpretation
tells me that the language games of mental health are exactly that, 
skillfully developing a
  process of willing away our fears and obsessions. That's the way it 
works these days.
Nietz the peach had it right. Freud dis-covered the possibilities.


> Can I, then, choose to resist the sway of Gestell by factically 
> separating myself from mobilized modern life - for example, by moving 
> into the woods? That would separate me from factical mobilizations, 
> but mobilizatioN (i.e., Gestell as the pre-understanding of everything 
> as mobilized) is not any factical mobilization or even the sum of all 
> factical mobilizations. So then, how exactly would I "choose" to 
> change my pre-understanding of things as mobilized?

Mobilized modern life is constructed by each of us by adopting cultural 
practices
in a certain way. Those who choose possibilities that provide practices 
and roles,
  skills and stances not under the sway of Gestell do so by disclosing 
possibilities
that have been covered up in some fashion but are a part of the 
cultural fabric of
everydayness. These practices may be forgotten or anomalous, or even 
some new
originating re-configuration.

This is going on all the time, it is the ontological work of historical 
Dasein.
But the paradigmatic shifts, the ontological breakthroughs, are rare.

Once again, the "pre-understanding of everything" is not a fixed 
transcendental logic
containing all possibilities of Dasein. It is a cultural and historic 
dynamic that continues
to change all the time, with evolving cultural practices constantly 
changing,
some to dominate and others to be forgotten. But all these practices 
are "there,"
available as possibilities, even the most long forgotten.


> When we get specific about what such a change in understanding is 
> supposed to be, it seems in principle impossible for us to have power 
> over how we understand (ontologically) things, even if we can become 
> aware of how we do understand today.

It appears to me that your ontological distinction, the difference,
is logically akin to the distinction of the numinous and the phenomenal.

I know what a car is (mode of transportation, piece of equip requiring 
skill set,
paradigmatic thing opening up a brief world of a couple of hundred years
during which the people of the planet exploited the fossil fuels and
toxified the planet...  and so on) by way of an inexhaustible background
of cultural practices opened up by the car setting itself to work in 
opening
up a world. The deeper I think about all these practices the better I 
understand
the ontological implications of the car. And it becomes another 
indicator of gestell.


> Simply referring to the poet, statesman, artist, or philosopher does 
> not solve this problem, since at stake is a possible equivocation 
> between factical thinking (which those people can affect through the 
> factical means available to them) and ontological understanding.

Well, I just think that these three cultural roles offer the best 
stance for
stumbling onto some constellation of cultural practices in an original 
way
that opens up a world of possibilities hitherto unavailable. I'd hafta 
put the
entrepreneur in there too, particularly for our distinctively american 
culture,
since the mobilization of all beings here is so predominately, pret' 
near exclusively,
consumerist in its style.

>
>> Your questioning comes from the other direction:  how does one
>> possibly do this given the hermeneutical structure of meaning... the
>> fore-structure, the nature of hermeneutical understanding as circular
>> and so on... I would say that a bridging work that may offer some
>> suggestions on this approach could be found in "The Origin of the Work
>> of Art."
>
> Even in SuZ, Heidegger speaks of "choosing" to have a conscience (in 
> the ontological sense). Are you thinking of a specific place in the 
> Origin?

I'd advocate reading the whole essay. But the dynamic human practice 
that
Heidegger is describing has to do with the work of art itself creating 
a world,
namely, gathering the cultural practices into a new pattern, "form of 
life,"
that opens up, paradigmatically, new ways of living. It has little if 
anything
to do with the intentionality of the creator (artist, statesman, 
entrepreneur, et al)
but rather that the setting to work of the thing itself opens up a 
world.

If you want the Reader's Digest version and you got Poetry, Lang, Thot,
start at page 71 and read until the attention deficit kicks in. If you 
make it
to the bottom of the page you'll get the gist, perhaps.

>
>> But it is as if you are suspending your understanding of what we can
>> know of Gestell as the ontological truth of our epoch, its history to
>> a certain extent, and its implications, to a certain extent.  As if a
>> logic of Gestell closes out all possibilities of thinking about the
>> Gestell. But one typical venture (as does Michael E in his thinking
>> beyond or with gestell) is to collect the anomalies, and think through
>> glimmers of possibilities that may already be cast in these anomalies.
>
> When I asked Michael this very same question, his answer was that mood 
> is *equipromordial* with understanding, and can therefore allow Dasein 
> to transcend the limits of the possibilites by which it understands 
> itself. Not sure about that - mood itself may not be reducible to 
> understanding, but I didn't get the impression that mood was of 
> anything besides how Dasein already understands itself in every case. 
> Further, we don't choose our mood either, so since the issue is 
> whether we can choose to transcend our modern understanding, it seems 
> to me that bringing in mood wouldn't solve the problem.
>
>

Granted none of us choose our "mood," but the attunement of some Dasein
(such as poets, thinkers, entrepreneurs) is such that they take a 
stance and make
choices that produce a "work of art," and it is the genie out of the 
bottle that
originates new possibilities for all of us.

So, to bring this thing to a close, and return to the origin: perhaps 
these characters
at Emory will actually find, thru monkeying around with MRI technology, 
a way to
pre-fix shopping tendencies in the brain, and pre-determine all 
consumer activity
so the whole retail market can be more accurately predictable.

But maybe someone will stumble upon the paradigmatic cultural stance or 
constellation
of practices that reveal to most of us the absolute stupidity of 
consumerism and the
senselessness of the vast majority of the arrays and arrays of crap out 
there in the Mall,
  and people will begin doing something else.

As sweet as that sounds, I wouldn't bet on it. perhaps the key is to 
find that determination in your
own particular stance, your own extremely local style of living under 
the sway of Gestell.




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