Plague Journal, Darkness My Old Friend
That which is earlier with regard to its rise into dominance
becomes manifest to us men only later. That which is primally early shows itself only ultimately to men. Therefore, in the realm of thinking, a painstaking effort to think through still more primally what was primally thought is not the absurd wish to revive what is past, but rather the sober readiness to be astounded before the coming of the dawn.
… destining is never a fate that compels. For man
becomes truly free only insofar as he belongs to the realm of destining and so becomes one who listens, though not one who simply obeys.
Yet when destining reigns in the mode of enframing, it is the supreme danger. This danger attests itself to us in two ways. As soon as what is unconcealed no longer concerns man even as object, but exclusively as standing-reserve, and man in the midst of objectlessness is nothing but the orderer of the standing-reserve, then he comes to the very brink of a precipitous fall; that is, he comes to the point where he himself will have to be taken as standing-reserve. Meanwhile, man, precisely as the one so threatened, exalts himself and postures as lord of the earth. In this way the illusion comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct. This illusion gives rise in turn to one final delusion: it seems as though man everywhere and always encounters only himself.
Enframing blocks the shining-forth and holding sway of truth. The destining that sends into ordering is consequently the extreme danger.
The actual threat has already afflicted man in his essence. The rule of enframing threatens man with the possibility that it could be denied to him to enter into a more original revealing and hence to experience the call of a more primal truth.
— excerpts The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger
Reading Martin Heidegger is difficult. One has to become familiar with a particular vocabulary, and a style of writing. The text is also a translation from German, a grammar very unlike English grammar. In my judgment the concentration to understand is worth the effort. The extended meditation on the meaning of technology is not academic posturing, or double-talk. It is a plea.
The photos are of a project session, when I and my grand daughter used playdoh to fashion pedestals for two miniature imaginary creatures. The ‘enframing’ is playful, highlighting the figures for what-they-are in their essence: playthings of the imagination.
What about a tune to lend lyric and harmony to Heidegger’s words? I suggest this one by Simon and Garfunkel.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
“Fools,” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you.”
— lyrics written by Simon and Garfunkel