Recently there are two books that really inspired me. One of Heidegger’s being and time, especially the section when he talks about “the They,” about how our being is shaped, caged, covered up by the Others. (Sartre, a profound misreader of Heidegger famously said: “Hell is the other” (L'enfer, c'est les autres), The others as the totality of the common and the ordinary of people. The other is Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, especially the part in which he is talking about the power of political correctness to control and to eliminate certain kinds of ideas and opinions from being thought, making freedom in thinking and ways of life more or less an illusion. Let me quote one passage from each. I think the connection between is obvious. And I hope it would be thought-provoking to you, too.
Thus the “They” maintains itself factically in the averageness of that which belongs to it, of that which it regards as valid and that which it does not, and of that to which it grants success and that to which it denies it. In this averageness with which it prescribes what can and may be ventured, it keeps watch over everything exceptional that thrusts itself to the fore. Every kind of priority gets noiselessly suppressed. Overnight, everything that is primordial gets glossed over as something that has long been known. Everything gained by a struggle becomes just something to be manipulated. Every secret loses its force. This care of averageness reveals in turn an essential tendency of Dasein which we call the “leveling down” of all possibilities of Being.
Being and Time, section 27.
Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments that tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has perfected despotism itself, though it seemed to have nothing to learn. Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression; the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as the will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose proudly superior. Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The master no longer says: "You shall think as I do or you shall die"; but he says: "You are free to think differently from me and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow citizens if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence worse than death."
Chapter XV Democracy in America
I exiled myself from my country to the States for freedom, in thinking and in Being. All that, it seems, is to change the fetters on arms and feet for that on the head. The problem is not if America disappointed me or not. The questions is if there is a place where a freedom to think and to be be. Politics.
3 comments:
I think this is a very interesting comparison! And I believe that your link between Heidegger's "average They" and democracy is no coincidence. "Being and Time" was written during the Weimar Republic and that Heidegger was no friend of Weimar democracy, is no secret. Heidegger's description of the averageness of "They" even talks about newspapers and other common public organs.
However, it must also be noted that the "They" phenomenon for Heidegger is not merely an ontic reality - it is an existential reality for Dasein. So Heidegger would not be happy with a simplistic link between his "They" phenomenon and democracy.
Thank you for pointing out the political background of H's Being and Time, Timothy. That really helps. I agree with you in distinguish H's enterprise from that of T's. H, as you said, is dealing with our being, it is much more fundamental than the political level. I pull the two together because they provide two ways of, or two levels, of thinking of the illusory freedom in modern democratic societies. This illusory freedom, is apparently a political problem, then deep down, a superficial manifestation of the condition of Being.
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