Re: Melville's hangman

At 09:43 24-5-02 -0700, you wrote:
>    
> Rene schreef: 
>>Meanwhile Heidegger gained insight in the deeply founded and
>>all-encompassing power of nihilism/metaphysics. Somewhere
>>in the Nietzsche lectures is the statement that the metaphysical
>>formulation of its question: what is the Being of beings, seems
>>innocent, but some day, a couple of thousands years -great years! -
>>later, the results become apparent, but of course not their cause.
>>And suddenly one is in a snake circle, out of which no old god can save you.
>>And of course also not over after 1945, and also not after the
>>destruction of Iraq. That's why I say that metaphysics is not
>>in a book, it is here and now, and annihilating the possible wonder
>>of a blue world, of which nobody really knows anything, as it annihiltates
>>the possible wonder about ourselves, we strange beings, that are the
>>arena of the world happening, but use our ability to see only to look
>>television, and throw away our lives, without even realizing, that it
>>might be something completely else than what we see and learn (as)
>>everyday.
>>But please note: I am not *against* this.
>>But please also note, that you are inside it, and not over against.
>>
>>rene       On Metaphysics
> 
> And perhaps after all, there is no secret. We incline to think that the
>Problem of the Universe is like the Freemason's mighty secret, so terrible
>to all children. It turns out, at last, to consist in a triangle, a mallet,
>and an apron, -- nothing more! We incline to think that God cannot explain
>His own secrets, and that He would like a little more information upon
>certain points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us. --Letter
>to Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1851 
       
Kenneth,

Melville continues: 

But it is this BEING of this matter; there lies the knot with which we
choke ourselves.
As soon as you say ME, a GOD, a NATURE, so soon you jump off from your stool
and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the
dictionary,
and you would have Him in the street.

This "being of the matter" is certainly not proto-heideggerean, but still
... I read it thus,
that the me/god/nature solutions make you hang (definitively), but only the
being-of-the-matter 
keeps you choking, living. And being 'only' being-in, which is secret enough.

or not? please correct me! 

rene








-----------------------------------
drs. René de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering 
tel. 020-5252309              


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