Heidegger

mP:
Bob, you might not believe this but I feel very much the same about violent
thuggery (the guilt, the impotence, the rage). I understand the reports,
also watch the disgusting sight of ‘collateral damage’ etc. I also get
aeriated by much else in this world and right now, in this situation (i.e.,
on this list here now) I am exercised by your above, what I think is a
misuse of this here now list: as an anti-Israeli activist platform. My
“damn” and “bah” (hardly extreme) are my lukewarm expressions of impotent
rage. It’s not because it’s anti-*Israeli* or because it’s *anti*-Israeli,
it’s because it smells like a recruitment poster: after all the opinionating
journalism we now have the call-up to arms paper! This is supposed to be a
philosophical discussion list. You can take that two ways (at least): one,
whatever is discussed is discussed in a philosophical manner; two, for the
most part, whatever the manner of discussion, what is discussed is
philosophical in its nature; and with both the accent should be leaning
towards the thinking of Heidegger and his thinkerly milieu. Your call above
for a circulation of a boycott does not appear to me to satisfy the notion
that this is a philosophy list. I suppose it could if offered up as a
provocative prelude to a philosophical discussion of the issues raised in
the call-up, or of the notion of call-up-to-arms itself, or to activist
speech as a phenomenon, etc. What do you say to that, Bob? I think also
that, along with the two website graphs staring at each other in silence
example, I am making a comment (yes, an enraged one, mea culpa, must try to
think it through properly without explicit rage…) on a certain decline in
discursive practices, and in particular, on this list over the past decade.
Am I alone in thinking that a few years back, this list’s highly prolific
discussions were almost always concerned seriously with Heidegger’s
thinking, and conducted in a fecund and respectful manner over a wide range
of topics, and were often conducted in a philosophical mode too?

Bob, I do not think I have engaged in ad hom: if so, I apologise. I also do
not think it is narcissistic to demand that philosophy be philosophical
(unless you’re going to argue (Heidegger-wise) that the essence of
philosophy is nothing philosophical: now that would be really interesting
and worthy of debate). Again, concerning the so-called ad hom, supposing I
was a (even vaguely) zionist jew, or a good israeli patriot, or even leaning
slightly in that direction [and how do you know this is not the case with
others reading your call-to-arms?], would not your call for a boycott be
ever so slightly ad hom, if not incendiary? I do not find moral arguments at
all distasteful, but I do nonetheless ask that somewhere in all of this
moralising some kind of philosophical manner of thinking be present,
hopefully asking the question as to the nature of morals themselves whilst
arguing morally — incidentally, this is my argument with Anthony and his
polls — (otherwise such argument becomes preaching, not philosophy). You
have shown that you can do this (and whilst I have not necessarily agreed
with you {agreement and disagreement are nothing to me}, I have admired your
intensity and breadth, especially on mythopoesis), and recently you dropped
the notion of ‘justice’, that it be respected in discussions of currency.
How about engaging in thinking ‘justice itself’ and ‘the just’ on this list,
rather than just [sic] speaking of the unjust and the injustices as they
currently surface in reports of current events?

BobS:
quod this sort of division of labor in phil, as everywhere else, only
produces very shiny, very marketable, junk. to the extent it doesn’t ensue
from whole being (mentation, affect, will, …and the other, the world, the
times, and time) phil is counterfiet, inauthentic, …and in this age and
place (european civ) of subjectivism that generally means narcissism,
luxuriating in one’s self and ideology (…cf., rene’s recent sad
exhibition).
secondly, i never called you ‘zionist’. i know you profess to abominate
both alike. But i can’t get past perceiving that as an abdication, a loss
of will to meaning (in one’s thrown-ness), which is the soul of phil; and
therefore only another proof
that your deepest objection to my discourse is not on phil grounds but its
discordancy with an otherwise exquisite harmony of rarefied narcissism.

but things are distinctly turning your way. so, you have every reason to be
of good cheer, and just delete me too.

A division of labour, Bob: in what? Intellectual labour? Ideological
production and reproduction? How can the labouring of the thinker *not*
“ensue from whole be-ing”? Thinking be-ing is necessarily knowingly or
unknowingly exposed to everything that can influence and determine it; why
do you make this distinction (Marx never did)? Why is it “luxuriating in
one’s self” to ask of philosophy that it be concerned with the nature of
morality and morals (for example) whilst bringing to bear the (opinions on)
morality of currency as it surfaces in the media, the inevitable taking of
sides as they appear in their compelling and exhausting fashion? That
philosophy take on the task of looking at the very opinionating of what
surfaces as those different and differing perspectives, interests,
commitments, ideologising, propogandising, etc, simply because we are merely
men, and men are always in some situation (historically, socially,
class-wise, geographically, culturally, linguistically, etc) and thus offer
up a view from that situation? Should not philosophy — if it is to be
something other than situated speech, the ordinary speech of ordinariness
(wherever, whenever, however it occurs, however (and precisely because) it
is ubiquitous and insisting, compelling loudest music…), however
fascinating, interesting, street-cred, reasonable, right-minded, etc — show
its difference in its aspiration to be some kind of surmounting of,
overcoming of (as in verwindung {sorry if I’ve spelt it wrongly, I mean
something other than uberwindung}), transcending of, beyonding of, etc, such
ubiquitous expression, preaching, understanding, perspectivising? If not, it
seems to me that either all speech is philosophical or (which amounts to the
same thing) the difference that philosophy makes is silent, that philosophy,
like ordinary speech, says nothing and the distinction between speaking and
saying (something) is void: and isn’t this nihilism?

I know you never called me a zionist, but I was not referring to myself when
I suggested that your circular to the list might be ad hom or incendiary to
someone(s). It’s similar to Jud’s calling this list(’s members as belonging
to) a cult: my sensibilities were outraged that some kind of ‘we’ was being
accused, and I have always taken that as a back-hand ad hom (one that is
outraged that it be considered so and thus then engages in seemingly
defensible explicit ad hom in counterpoint…)

As for “abominate[ing] both alike”, presumably (in this case) you mean the
zionist entity (Israel, international zionists, et al) and the anti-zionist
entity (hamas, hezbollah, Iran, Syria, et al), my professing of a commitment
to philosophy (as far as my abilities will take me…) forbids me to (qua
philosophy as I understand it) express any sympathy of the kind you find
easy to express: that does not mean I do not have any [far from it], just
that this is not the place to profess such, and, that I am highly committed
to thinking beyond/under whatever loud music assails my ears and engages my
most vulnerables. In that spirit, I do not abominate both sides, because
that would be taking the side of neither-side: and that would not be looking
a-side at the sided-ness of taking sides (taking sides is, in this case,
siding with a war-like entity, which is waging war by other means). Rather,
the phenomenon of siding offers me the possibility of looking at sidedness
itself (all sides, any sides, the besides, the asides, siding…). If
philosophy (that which you designate as “exquisite harmony of rarefied
narcissism”) is the expression of feelings/impressions (everyone has them),
the statements of facts (everyone makes them), the indication of preferences
(everyone has them), the siding with sides (everyone does), etc, then
everyone is a philosopher and thus philosophy loses its distinction and
becomes analytically nothing, silent.

And then, Bob, I wonder what in hell is the “exquisite harmony of rarefied
narcissism”: sounds like hell to me. Given, the philosophical life (if lived
committedly, authentically) is not an easy one (it must run counter to
‘commonsense’ and obviousness, since what is obvious is, er, obvious and
does not need to be said, and philosophy, whatever it is or not, must *say*
something and not just speak interminably of what is simply or immediately
evident. Philosophy, science and religion (to mention the three most obvious
contenders for serious thinkerly speech) must say something about beings
that is not obvious, not immediately evident, other than commonsense, etc,
since these constitute the environment of the most immediate and ubiquitous,
and thus do not need repeating, since they are what is most apparently
intimate, close, nearest, all-prevailing. Given you do (in your latest posts
concerned with the horror that is the current war between Israel and
Hezbollah et al) provide in your speeches what is already a current and
widely held set of viewpoints and keenly take a most definite and well-known
and proliferated side in the conflict as reported ad nauseam, it seems to me
that you do not sit in the discomfort of not doing so, rather your
guilt/shame/rage/impotence is the very stuff that proliferates war, and thus
lies in the comfort zone (in the sense that war and violent conflict is what
has typified human existence for a long long time and thus can be seen as a
way of not changing, as conservative; to claim that one side is the poor
disenfranchised oppressed the other the imperialistc oppressor, etc, is what
everyone has always done and so the revenge, the continuance of the comfort
of war as a permanent state, a state of nature, etc). To not take sides
(philosophically) whilst nonetheless feeling sided (as a man) is not
comfortable and hardly harmonic; to take sides (philosophically) is what
everyone does (unphilosophically) and thus is to remain conservative, to
challenge nothing, to (philosophically) say nothing.

I am willing to discuss the (mediated) concrete phenomena (that “mid-east”
war, for example) and what is spoken regarding them, but (for me, as I take
philosophy) this discussion needs to be on the way to something else,
otherwise, again, it’s just a hi-falutin pub chat and war by other means.

You say that things are turning my way: genuinely, what do you mean? “Delete
you” Bob? Never! Why? Have I?

Good cheer you say: I am gutted by what is going on.

En avant?

michaelP

Posted on Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
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