[lbo-talk] Grappling with Heidegger

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Wed May 10 07:47:45 PDT 2006



>From: andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
>
>... H's concern is not with
>wanting to live foreover in health and strength but
>with the way the modern world eats up the lives of
>mortal creates.

I don't see how you can separate the two. If you knew you would live forever in health and strength, what difference would it make if you squandered a few decades on the trivialities of the modern world?

On reflection, I also don't see how the modern world that Heidegger pillories differs fundamentally from earlier eras. Yes, there are more distractions now than ever before, but humankind has always eagerly sought out distractions -- often risky and self-destructive ones -- to take people's minds off their eventual decrepitude and death. That is at least in part what Pascal was talking about in saying, "All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone."

Carl



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