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Verzonden: woensdag 25 augustus 2004 19:36
Aan: heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Onderwerp: Re: [roeoz] Separation
In a message dated 24/08/2004 14:05:07 GMT Standard Time,
R.B.M.deBakker@xxxxxx writes:
Rene:
Religion, originally with peaceful fundament, becomes, like anything else,
something altogether different when will-to-will (willed meaninglessness)
comes to rule. Although searching for the security of the soul's salvation,
only in modern times it developed into a downright lie, once all energy was
put into material security. This kind of religion is merely devilish at
bottom
and therefore also very usable for those criminals who cannot, or want not
be
honest about what they've done. But note that "it's only considered a crime,
unless
they catch you".
Lately i found a little book by Ernst Buschor, colleague of H in Freiburg,
on
the parthenon frieze. The religion that is behind and on the frieze cannot
be criminal, of course: it is in itself a confutation of crime, just look.
Don't let yourself be lured into a widerwille, which is itself a
consequence
of modern religious aberration. Either there must be a sort of spontaneous
'religion', celebrating THIS world, once all kinds of widerwille demons
would
have left our bodies, or nothing at all.
Jud:
That is the root of the matter - I find [in my experience] that "the
spiritualistic emotions" [for want of a better term] and joyful
wonderment at the beauty and balance of the cosmos, and the intricacy of a
molecule, and the "worship/dedication" [for want of better words]
displayed by unbelievers in their desire to "revere by understanding," FAR
OUTSTRIPS the ersatz, shabby, subjectivism and aggressive inter-religious
dogfight style contention manifested by the religious for whom faith is an
opiate.
Christian against Moslem - Moslem against Jew - Catholic against
Protestant,
, etc. right throughout history. It is not a modern phenomena as you
suggest.
The big difference in today's world is that the mechanisms available for
ASSERTING and ACHIEVING the implementation of the will as a product of the
"will to will" [internalised greed] have now become available to the
religious/tokenly-religious T-shirted masses, rather than the Monarchies/
Baronage/Aristocracies/Merchant Classes etc., who hitherto operated the
levers of wilful
power. Malcolm's analysis neatly portrays the way in which nowadays the
only
way possible for the present establishment to maintain its position of
dominance is to placate the masses by giving them their beer and circuses,
or the
opportunity to watch the circuses on wide-screen plasma TVs, and plenty of
cheap petrol to enable them to travel around the various venues — and bring
home
their placatory booby-prizes from Walmart in the trunks of their vast
four-wheel drive petrol-guzzlers.
Regarding the Greek friezes — there is no evidence that these works of art
were motivated by a religious piety. Artists the world over have always
gone
where the big-drachma/buck commissions are, and as the gelt was
historically
in the hands of the state/religious establishment, THAT is where the
Michael
Angelo's of this world were forced to congregate whether they liked it or
not.
Rene:
All right as to the circumstances, but it is not unimportant to see that this
'religion' we're searching for is determinative for all things circumstancial
as well. As it is for the individual, treasurer or carving artist. He is
not
a subject in the modern sense of the word. What he does, and is, is
imbedded
in the whole life of the polis, and of which the newly built Parthenon was
one
of the high instances. That they are gods, animals and men, that are
depicted on
the frieze, is undeniable, and stands apart from the piety of the
'jeweilige'
artist/technician. Rather, his piety will depend on the strength of his
polis
membership, visible in the carving. There's no room for objectivity here,
there
can be no question for the real Apollo, like whether he 'exists'. They, in
view
of such questions, must have smiled. We, now, as 'subjects'*, decide in our
inner,
what is real. They didn't: reality appeared from itself. (and man at most
its
moderator - Protagoras)
A statue of Apollo does not re-present Apollo, it only, more or less, brings
Apollo
closer, Apollo being nothing but a manly standing, resting in itself.
* the marks say: really, we are not even subjects anymore, but INSOFAR as we
understand ourselves, we understand ourselves as subjects. That we are no
subjects
anymore, looks at first negative, but that might change, when it would lead
to the opening of the same space, where the Greek took their origin. All
Greeks
were in that experience, and some, who were over-Greek, put the experience
into words (H in: 4 seminars).
Jud:
Beautifully expressed, but the piety expressed in the carvings of the Gods
is surely a reflection of the
of the deference and respectfulness felt by the artist for the polis which
is so organised and constituted
that a worship of these Gods involves their paid inclusion of the raising of
statues in their honour?
In that sense it is not so far removed from the feelings of inclusion felt
by a civil servant working in the Births, Marriages and Deaths Department?
He feels comfortable in his salaried position thanks to the wisdom of the
state in deeming that the archiving of data regarding the
Births, Marriages and Deaths is desirable. The fact that the Athenian polis
saw the erection of statues and friezes depicting the Gods as desirable,
in a way ensured that the artist is imbedded inclusively in the whole life
of the polis just as much as the tax-gatherer, or the temple priests.
Am I nit-picking for the sake of nit-picking I wonder? Integration into the
mechanisms and mores of the state does bring with it a certain conservatism
-
a satisfaction and a reluctance to change, and a suspicion of those who seek
to bring about alteration or rock the boat.… I have often wondered whether
there is a magical figure or criterion of living-standard which when applied to
a certain group, ensures acceptance, feelings of inclusion and political
complacency. One thinks of Saddam's highly paid personal guards, the high
salaries of top civil servants, and one wonders why the Saudi Royal family have
been so incredibly stupid to pay the hoi polloi in their kingdom such low
loyalty maintenance handouts from their vast revenues, rather than find the
exact amount which would ensure political stability and the continuance of the
monarchy? Maybe "much wants more" as we say here in the north?
Rene (new): i wrote: "treasurer or carving artist", so i don't deny
money, power etc., just that these, as it is today, are the ONLY decisive
factors.* There is more important than that, and the Greeks took great care
not to spoil it, for instance by ingeneous law-making in order to prevent
tyranny. Oidipous has all the power he could wish, but he asks for more,
that nothing remains unconcealed, and by that he loses the light of his eyes.
Now that is myth, one could say, but myth was a very strong power in the
polis. As long as it was strong, rulers had to conform to it and its separation
of the human and the godly, the warning for hybris.
In your eagerness to throw away the demonized warcausing gods, you forget that
the real existing gods (titans), that have subordinated the old ones, like oil
or television, are far more devastating and revengeful. A television, like
the old Tantalos, shortens and lengthens time, it dominates the defenceless
to the bone, and enslaves its servants in a way the old gods could only dream of.
*THIS is Heidegger's indication of the danger: that calculating thinking, which
remains very necessary, becomes the EXCLUSIVE way of behaving. Instead of being
neutral qua Dasein, as which Anthony proposed also torture and bombing, this
exclusivity is the great danger threatening, which should be noticed as such,
in order to let grow the saving and the turning (Die Gefahr und die Kehre)
Jud:
One of my lifelong, dear personal friends was the well-known Liverpool
ecclesiastical sculptor Eric Carr [alas passed away] whose huge carvings
can be
seen in just about every Catholic Church in Merseyside - and Eric was a
confirmed atheist.
Rene:
Atheists have their own confirmations, and are just like theists in this
respect.
Jud:
It is refreshing to read that you agree that widerwille is itself a
consequence of modern religious aberration, now perhaps {as I agree] you
could point
to the differences in "modern" religious aberration and "historical"
religious aberration. How has religion changed and why?
Rene;
Having written enough on it, it's maybe more interesting how Hoelderlin, who
is not simply 'a poet,' thought. With the Greeks, thus Hoelderlin, gods and
men, sky and earth mixed. What they found is beauty (Schoenheit), not promise
but presence. That is irretrievably lost.
In the Middle Ages reigns the *love* for the beauty gone.
Hoelderlin, who studied theology/philosophy (the dog's necklace), saw this
phase ending too, and then, in the poor night of the shrewd and their sciences,
only language, poetry remained. But poets, he writes in 'Bread and wine', are
like the priests of Dionysos, who used to go from place to place in the holy night.
So, a historical development is highly secondary, rather being-without-gods
(atheism) is a darkness and a wilderness, where the sensuous can be sensed anew,
and from the (ab)ground up. Instead of falling down into the abyss, Hoelderlin
speaks of a falling up. (quoted by Heidegger in the first piece on Trakl)
Jud:
At the risk of appearing to display a "sycophantastic pretence at
camaraderie," I would like to edit your part of the above [without changing your
meanings by omission, etc.] but simply for purposes of presentation, and upload it
to the Athenaeum library? Possibly under the title
"The Artist, religion and the State." OK with you?
All right with me, Jud. Thanks for taking the trouble.
rene
Cheers
Jud
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