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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

WHYdegger (see what I did there?)

"We fall in line, we live the lie. (Give up, give up, and feed the machine.
It grows inside, nowhere to hide. (Wake up, wake up, and kill the machine."
-Red, Feed the Machine

For one thing, in my honest opinion, metaphysics is really interesting and exciting to study, particularly when it comes to Martin Heidegger. The question of why there are essents rather than nothing may seem like a ridiculous question at first, but the more and more you look into it, the deeper it becomes. Soon, you're dealing with Platonism, Existentialism, and all different sort of ideas. By the end of the first chapter, you're dropped on the front lines of a war between machinerey and the sukis that you didn't even know existed. Yes, it is extremely confusing, but I believe that, for those who are willing and keep an open mind (dangerous as that may be) will find some very worthy material. What's funny is that, at the end of class yesterday, I believe it was Dr. Talmage who posed the question: "Why are we studying this? Why should we care about metaphysics at all? How can this stuff really apply to our lives?" Thankfully, that is the perfect question to ask.

It is extremely important that essays like the ones we have read are studied because, well, look what happens when they aren't! Look at the members of this world that don't care about poetry, that don't care about the deeper questions in life, that will never leave the front door of their own mind. They go through life pursuing the next big thing, chasing dreams and money and whatever comes to mind, and only look at the here and now of this life as to how it benefits them directly at that time. You know who these people are, and you know that we as a society and a culture are largely disinterested with anything that does not involve personal success, world peace, or simplicity. That's why things like poetry, philosophy, and the humanities in general have fallen by the wayside, and look at the kind of people this culture creates as a result. For anyone who remembers Nietzsche's predictions about the Last Man, who no longer cares about asking questions and finding meaning in life, who would simply crash his life on the rocks because it's how he feels at the time, look him in the eyes and tell him he's wrong.

This is exactly what Heidegger warned about in the end of this chapter-the machine men. He sees industrialization not just in the physical world but in the metaphysical world, i.e. mankind as a whole. In our search for individuality and freedom we are in fact enslaving ourselves to trends, science, intelligence, and anything other that which truly frees us-the question of what it means to be. Despite the fact that Heidegger says to keep religion out metaphysics, no theologian can deny that a life simply lived looking at his shoes and hands without asking questions in a life that is dead. One must be alive in the Spirit, which one must be aware that there is more to life than just the day and awake to the fact this life in which we live will enslave us if we let it, and we as Christians cannot allow ourselves to let that happen. We can no longer accept apathy nor can we keep looking towards statistics and science as what defines us as people nor can we let ourselves be defined by Descartes. "Why are there essents rather than nothing?" Why do we care rather than not?

If you actually made it through all of that, you have my humble thanks. Feel free to comment as you please with questions or corrections. I commented on Joy Vigneulle's This Defines VS That Defines.

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