[lit-ideas] Re: Heil Heidegger?

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 18:56:59 -0600

RP:
John Wager is bored with the discussion. I can see how that might be;
but so far, rather than engaging in a ping-pong match, we seem to be
misunderstanding one another, and, whatever we're playing, it seems so
far more like air ping-pong than the real thing.<<

Well then, I don't see as how my two cents could muddle things more, so I'll toss 'em into the pot. Palma should fold now, I worry about him having an apoplectic fit.

No I'm not a philosopher, and thank God for that, for I have free range. Heidegger first fascinated me when I read "everyone is always already enmeshed in a world" (or words to that effect). That was exactly what I had thought and yet I'd never seen it said before (I told you I'm no philosopher). One can only reflect the time and culture one is a product of. Exactamento, Herr Heidegger. But then Heidegger did a turnabout -- he became a pseudo-metaphysical mystic -- a piss poor poet, a mad myth maker of Nordic racial glory. Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise, he was, after all a product of his time and culture and he was deeply imbued with the tenets of a strongly reactionary and authoritarian Catholic Church. I do find myself in sympathy with Heidegger's fear of technology -- that it turns all beings into "standing reserve" -- or has a tendency to do so. But, look here, that's what aesthetic experience is all about -- there's no standing reserve when it comes to aesthetics, no way to stock pile it, no way to use it for some other purpose. Go smell a rose if you're scared of being "personnel".

Mike Geary
smelling like a rose
in Memphis
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