Martin Heidegger is perhaps the greatest philosopher of Modernity. Of course such a lofty claim is wholly dependent on a myriad of assumptions: where does one begin ‘Modernity’? Where does this period end? Has it ended? Are the revolutions of Descartes, Hume and Kant, often considered the origins of ‘Modernity’, overshadowed by those who built on their work (whether through refutation or continuation)? Is Nietzsche, being more prophetic than his contemporaries, a postmodern thinker?
To many Heidegger’s contributions, often fallaciously reduced to the general points of Sein und Zeit alongside the smear of his Nazi affiliations, are nothing more than semantic play that doesn’t really amount to anything too profound. In fact, people often make such claims about a lot of the last century’s thinkers. How often have I heard a critique of Deleuze or Derrida which amounts to nothing more than ‘they only used academic language to pad a nonexistent point.’ Though this might be true of those teetering postmodern French thinkers (I don’t believe it is), the same cannot be said for Heidegger. His phenomenological interpretation of being at the start of his career, following in the steps of Husserl who revolutionised philosophy previously, completely shattered two thousand years of ontological thinking and completely inspired the existential tradition of the century, from Merleau-Ponty to Sartre.
Despite all that, and the undeniable brilliance of Sein and Zeit, I find the most interesting and insightful Heidegger to be his later work, far removed from the ontological posturing of his early career.
One idea late Heidegger introduced was that of Gestell, enframement, an effect of technology on the ontology of a human. Humanity has always used technology. To refute such a claim would be insane. Technology is largely one of the preeminent aspects separating us from the rest of the world. However, there is undeniably a difference between a stick with a sharpened rock on the end and a super-computer. This idea can be lightly reflected in Heidegger’s early ontological work, mainly in the perception of the world, id est Vorhandenheit versus zuhandenheit. And as technology increases in speed, the pace of the world must compensate, and as our form of being is a form of being-in-the-world (in-der-Welt-sein) the pace of our very existence increases. But the form of being that is the human form, Dasein, is not equipped for the technological pace of the age. We become a different form of being, a more technological form of being, we are enframed.
There are many implications to this change in pace, but one of the most interesting is the erosion of humanity from human produced works. The loss of humanity in Art.
Literature is perhaps the clearest category of this as writing is slowly superseded by typewriters at the time of Heidegger and later by word processing applications on computers. It’s true that the content produced, assuming it was conceived by AI, is still of human aspect, but there is a slight erosion of humanity within it. When one takes away the natural strokes of the human hand, the writing becomes more technologic, the thoughts faster paced, and the whole work more homogenised.
I do not miss the irony in seeing this very idea present on a website which had to be typed up. One could even make the claim that this very line of reasoning follows with the fast paced technologic form of thinking and being. But what’s to be done about it? This is the world.
Unlike Nietzsche who remains a philosopher more for the postmodern period than his own time, Heidegger still firmly belongs to the twentieth century, and as such his ideas have slowly lost shape with the huge increase in world changes--mainly a consequence of this very fast paced technologic being. So, should we even bother with such ideas?
Recently I produced a video talking about the commodification of Art, specifically within the world of literature, and though there are too many factors to name, mainly the prevailing system of Capitalism which insentivises this kind of dehuman produxion of content, a part of the process is undeniable the speed demanded by the technological pace of life alongside the ease of access allowed by word processors. In part, this and the ease of access provided by the internet in general, has been a blessing. By tearing open the prejudices of the publishing industry, it has allowed disenfranchised voices to finally have a spot to share their stories as well as inspired more people to attempt creation than ever before. But that second point is also the problem.
We live in an age of advertisement. Everything is sold and framed around optics to appear appealing--even people, look at social media and avatar creation. Because of such, people are inspired to follow advertising rather than their own ambition. This is one factor which leads to the mass produxion of content. What Benjamin called Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduxion. So what is the answer to this?
Well, in truth, it means the complete abolition of the profit-driven publishing industry as well as a restructuring of the entire system to remove commodification and the separation of classes. However, when this is achieved, the speed of technology will remain, and as such, I believe there will still be an inclination to fast paced and shallow thoughts.
Poems should be written by hand. They are emotional pieces. If they need to be transcribed after, so be it. But humanity can only be captured within humanity. The soul in the expression of the soul. A Romantic Idealist view, I know. But try it, you might find out the difference.