Heidegger

In a message dated 27/06/2007 17:19:10 GMT Standard Time,
_R.B.M.deBakker at uva.nl_ (mailto:R.B.M.deBakker@uva.nl) writes:

Renekins Writes:

With all philosophizers it is clear, but Jud makes it even more clear: they
kick the beast while riding it.

Jud:
Some beasts need kicking and the only way to administer the kick is from
above [or better still from the inside]

Renekins:
The ontology of things as that which is real, was developed by Aristotle, in
reaction to Plato’s doctrine of the common ideai as real reality. Without it,
no science, not even the idea of it would occur.

Jud:
I do not include you in what I have to say, but to state of the ontology of
*things* as *that which is real* is a typically gutless position of
ontological prevarication and conceptual confidence trickery. One must have courage mon
ami, and go further, and define exactly what is meant by *things* - a word
which has served as an escape-hatch for transcendentalists for millennia, who,
like second-hand car salesmen, bent lawyers and politicians prefer
obfuscation to clarity of meaning.

Renekins:
We all have been born into a world where ontology and science have ended,

Jud:
That’s funny - the electric light is still working and humankind has just
unravelled the genome which is the script for its own reproduction, and the
dentists and doctor’s surgeries are still open? Science ended? What’s wrong Rene
have the Nederlandish hospitals all closed, the airports ceased operating and
the synchro-cyclotron closed down in Switzerland? My satellite
car-navigation system still works and the children are happily watching TV - what do you
mean: *Science has ended?* As for *ontology* it has never existed - so how can
it end? Only ontologists exist - but would Aristotle agree with that?

Renekins:
which does not mean that they have ceased to exist, on the contrary, they
are out of control.

Jud:
The only thing out of control here are the terrible floods which are the
fault of that maniac *God* you created such filthy people to desecrate his
world. I often wonder why the incompetent idiot hasn’t been kicked out of heaven
for making so many obvious blunders - do you think all the imbibing of spiked
nectar has turned him into an alcoholic? Science however is working
perfectly in Britain - only three of God’s children drowned, though we have had the
worst floods in centuries - but then our scientifically based rescue services
are superb.

Renekins:
In order to know, and to tell others, what has happened, what is needed is
not to *oppose* the nihilism - which is all too easy, and as said, done by
all - but EXPOSE ONESELF to it.

Jud:
Did that include his self-exposure to the syphilis virus? Science has now
fixed that problem which left Heidegger free to philander with his students.
Please watch out for yourself if you go drinking in any of those trendy bars in
Old Ondertwerp, especially in the area around the Bourla Theatre and Fine
Arts Museum, and steer well clear of any woman with tattoos on her ankle. If you
must though, remember the Boy Scouts’ Marching Song:

“Be prepared that’s the Boy Scouts’ marching song,
Be prepared as life’s road you march along… etc”

Who ARE these nihilists you speak of? Where are they hiding? I have never
met a nihilist in all my days. I have met a lot of anarchists and found them to
be in general very nice people, very sociable, outward-going if a little
idiosyncratic and always short of money - but the same can be said of many
people. Even megalomaniacs like Heidegger were not COMPLETE nihilists, for
would-be social climbers care about themselves a lot, and a true nihilist believes
in nothing or *nout* as we say here in the north.

For Christians I suppose a nihilist is *someone who rejects all theories of
morality or religious belief.* I reject morality as something that does not
exist - but I exist myself moralistically (I am quite conservative in my
personal behaviour and habits) and have my own opinion of what humans exist
correctly as opposed to what humans exist incorrectly according to my opinions
about how we short treat others. For me morality is a matter of mere opinion,
for whilst sodomy was accepted in the Athens of Plato and Aristotle - yet a
few miles to the north in the territory of another tribe you would be skinned
alive for the *Greek behaviour* and yet you could take any woman you like
married or otherwise, whilst back in Athens where Plato’s forms of models
ruled the moral roost, the cuckold had the legal right to kill the male seducer
if caught in the act, and in the back-streets, and it was quite usual to see
a man kill his wife’s fleeing lover with a single blow of a corn-flail.

Cleisthenes created ten new tribes based on residence in the demes of
Attica, and enrolled many aliens of base origin and crude beastly practices into
these new tribes. Their evils caused uproar in the streets and many were put to
death with great cruelty. Their holy men had committed ritual gross
bestiality with a hundred oxen, afterwards the abused beasts were slaughtered and a
ritual meal was held in which the multitude all joined with great celebration
of this immorality. The hecatomb’s organs of re-generation being specially
favoured as a delectation. Indeed for them, not to participate in such
immorality was immoral and a great insult to the gods.
[2] (Kitto. 1997. P. 110)

So what would you rather do if you had been an Athenian - be a religious
person and commit bestiality with an ox at the bidding of a pervert priest or
be a *nihilist? What would you rather be today in Ondertwerp - a Christian
and thus a proxy part of a poxy bunch of murderers or be a *nihilist?

I reject the immoral priests of Christianity [who are never out of our
newspapers] who sexually abuse little children, and I condemn the establishment
religions for having cathedrals and mosques dripping with gold while others
starve. I oppose the Christian blessed beasts of Britain and USA for murdering
people with rockets and bombs from the sky, and for the mullahs who urge
their menfolk to destroy themselves and others in cowardly suicide attacks and
covert bombs. Who then is the *moral* one - the priestly pederasts and
sodomites of oxen and religious murderers or me - the perfectly behaved, communally
active, family man, law-abiding family man who never even looks at cattle
never mind gets *over-familiar* with them?

Renekins:
Only one has done this: Nietzsche. Only he managed to avoid occupying the
only position where ‘truth’ can be saved: (again as said) the individual
becoming absolute, the last man. Instead of overcoming all the others, one just has
to concentrate on one’s grown-up self - and starting to surpass it. It is
not easy, and only the deadly disease which is within us, can make one doing it.
But the long-term perspective is that one can leave the aversive talk to
itself, and, at last, pay attention to different sounds and sights.

Jud:
Beautifully said Renekins - it looks like the consolation of philosophy has
finally delivered your well-deserved bonus. Have you been reading Boethius
Alain de Botton or both? I see you no longer mention the beast of the factory
farms - dare I hope that you have removed that particular metaphysical
monkey from its stranglehold around your weary shoulders too? I do hope so, for
without the MH mark of the beast branded into the skin of your left shoulder,
you would come across as the perfectly, charming, cultured bourgeois gentleman
and a tribute to your country. So if you haven’t already done so already -
please try to rid yourself of the cultural and philosophical lout with whom
you have been concerned for so many years. Get some deep, wholesome breaths of
good Nederlandish air as you cycle along those idyllic canal banks of yours..

Jud’s original continues…

The present messages with the accompanying transmutation of verbs into
abstract nouns and gerunds and Platonistically inspired existential sentential
templates is so patently ludicrous when viewed from a semantic, ontological or
philosophical point of view, that I experience great difficulty in summoning up
the mental energy even to read them in the serious manner which all
contributions deserve. The emergence of some death-trekking transcendentalist taking
a short break from comporting himself along the yellow-brick road towards
death to claim that there exist entiatic nominata which correspond to these
abstract referenda just makes me yawn.

If it weren’t for the philosophical damage that they do, one might even
welcome these illogicalities as heaven-sent, comedic routines,
pantomime-parts-of-speech sent as a knockabout intermezzi in the Heideggerian opéra bouffe, to
brighten up the boredom of interminably meaningless transcendentalist tracts
and pseudo-psychological drivel

My critique is the general one of an increasing number of philosophers and
scientists, but that is not to say that I don’t recognise the usefulness of
many hypostatisations in natural language and in ordinary communication at
street level.

Away from the university or philosophical discussion I use them myself in
this way all the time, and you will find my writings peppered with metaphor, for
they are so damn difficult and handy as communicative short-cuts to avoid in
natural language. And yes, once in a while its good to relax. It’s good fun
to let one’s analytical hair down and visit the philosophical theme park -
THE Land of Let’s Pretend, which is engendered by such crude reification
wherein the metaphysical Munchkins abide. Its fun to go along for the ride on the
transcendentalist roller-coaster with the screaming Heideggerians in their
kiss-me-quick hats, holding tight to some candy-floss of metaphysical nonsense
and be a kid again.

But now such cheap and cheerful ontological yobbish fun has invaded
philosophy itself like some metastasising cancer, surely it is time to take stock of
the situation? For philosophers to engage with these nonsenses gravely and
employ them with a straight face when addressing psychology, ontology,
sociology or matters scientific or philosophical importance I find utterly
incomprehensible.

To reify is to ‘thingify’: to treat an abstraction as a material thing. I
find such behaviour most unscholarly and unprofessional – the equivalent of
skinhead-culture spilling over into the domain of serious philosophy.

Reificational Regards,

Jud Evans.

Personal Website. _http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
 http://evans-experientialism.freewebspac…)

Posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
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