Preface
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” “eli, eli, lama sabachthani?”
Where are you looking? Look over there.
Man is on the Cross. If you seek
another place you will find nothing. There is one place to dis-cover, the Place
of the Skull. There is one existential-analytic to be done, the nausea of the
Cross.
Do you seek? Or will you be sought?
We begin, as all do,
with the wrong question. [We must always begin where they are (das Man), not where they ought to be. We
must learn anew the question to be asked, but first, we ask the wrong question and
follow wherever the descent leads, to whomever it may go.]
What is man? The
question is mine. What is it to be me?
The historiography of
the question aggressively conceals its importance. [For we do not wage this existential-analytic
without resistance, but rather drag into light the elusive, intricate, and
powerful force of History so as to make a clearing (Lichtung) for illuminatio.
The force of History must be reckoned with; we cannot accommodate it nor
pretend it is not here. There is no moment
of vision without coming to terms with historiography, it is unavoidable;
it is here, and we will reckon with it.]
The historiography of
the question, first, revealed in its own prejudice of linear clock time, and
second, in its relevant content, is meant to obfuscate, to distance and to
finally throw us off the trail [entanglement]. Yet, unfolding in time we are nevertheless
witness to the force of History in its magnificent splendor and grandeur. We
are witness to that long anticipated pride of the present course, namely, the
force of History throwing itself over and against itself, entangling verum existens with vanum existens. Presumed in this entanglement is verum as nostalgia, the act of wrestling
free as foreign and strange as the will for verum
existens itself. In the present situation we are delivered to the frontier
of this new possibility, one piloted not by a progress toward liberation
(Hegel), but by the disinterest of nihilism. We stand, not as victors over the
beleaguered past, but as victims of it. We stand, not on the noble ends of
progress, but on the ash heap of its ruins. The result of the force of History
throwing itself against itself means one thing: we have become cannibals of History.
The mark of the present age is one of consuming the very flesh of the past. The
enlightened concepts produced by the force of History have now become the place
of feeding for the book-philosophers, nibbling on the leftovers of the past. This
spectacle, this entanglement, can only be described as the cannibalism of
History. This is where the tide of dialectics has left us, marooned on a remote
and barren isle, left to fend for ourselves. [What will arise from this
abandonment? From where do they go after they find their fill on History?]
Yet, at the
intersection of this grand contradiction we happen upon a possibility
previously unknown. In the cannibalism of the force of History there arises a
new potential, a new hope – a possibility yet to be realized. This is a faint
possibility to grasp the reigns of a new direction, a possibility previously unheard
of and unimaginable.
Nevertheless, for now
our mission is to untangle entanglement. If we are to eventually ask the right
question, we must first see the failure of the wrong question.
The question has been
asked, and, therefore, we are led to believe, presupposes some particular answer.
[We are not ready for the right question, therefore is it surprising the force
of History answers its own question by devouring itself?] Descartes knew the
question best and developed it in a determined manner. The question for the
force of History is held tightly to his protected bosom.
We begin where they
begin. Could that History be imaginary, a folksy tale or gassy bloating of the
mind? Or better, could it be the consequence of nefarious minds, upward and
outward of the questioner? Sure, but, even as History knows, that is to patrol
the trotted path of the frequent and philosophically neutered. We do not need
to rehearse this aspect of his failure, its evidence is already on beautiful
display.
To be sure, we could
travel down the path of Descartes in a different way. He did not so much blaze
a new path as much as he exposed an already existing possibility. But,
nevertheless, because he marched forward along his exposed way, without holding
in position, he missed the very essence of the question at hand. [This is what
the force of History cannot admit.]
What is man? Man is
me. Shall we tend to the small garden of Fichte? We could, but what fruit would
be left to harvest? I am I is no different than I am me. Tautology was the
center of reality for Aristotle, why do we think it is different for Fichte? This
obscures more than it discloses.
Man is god. This
seems very reasonable. Curious it was never taken seriously by the civilized
pagans and all their progenitors. Why aren’t I god? I ask the only question
that rings through the entire universe as truly my own. Am I not enthroned upon
all the mysteries of the universe when I pose myself as both the question and
answer? In truth, God is as distant here as I am from myself. This obscures
more than it discloses.
What is man? Answer does not come back. There is no
response, no echo in the dark which suggests an answer, there is only silence.
What is man? We expect an answer, but instead are given silence. What is man? Our
expectations are startled. Why would this come to us? This is not the answer we
expect.
What is this silence
and why do we fall away from this new possibility? Why do we not let it fill
us? Is not the silence which returns to us a possible answer for us?
Stand revealed in the
silence.
Here Descartes is
helpful, he exposes us to his [and all] failure like nowhere else. Here we
locate the failure the force of History does not want to see, the failure it
cannot accept. The silence does not beckon us forward along a way. The silence
does not portend a directionality upward and outward. The silence does not
entail context, content or any other watchword. How could it, it is silence? In
the silence we are passive, we receive. The silence acts upon us. The silence obstructs
us, frustrates and impedes our movement. The silence holds us against ourselves,
placing us over the precipice of own previously unrecognized, unknown, and
fear-provoking interiority. It certainly does not tug us at the collar towards
some predetermined end.
Stay with the
silence. Silence is the answer given. The silence rebukes the questioner; it
forces us to push against ourselves while revealing our lust for content. Do
not yield to the temptation to fill the silence. We yearn for stuff, for that
which will obscure the silence. But the silence will not abide. The silence
rings hollow in us, it throws us against
ourselves, and if we allow it to, it destroys all but who we are.
Here we see the
blessed fruit of silence: the dethroning of Man. In silence we finally taste
defeat. What is Man? Man is defeated.
We find in silence, sheer
power of destruction. This destruction renders us powerless. The tide turns
away from us, the centrality of the content of our lives is eradicated by the
power given as silence.
Descartes took a
path; he stared into the silence and succumbed. He asked: where do I go? He
answered: I go here. In that offense he navigated the force of History to the
world of the here and there making it unable to be silenced.
We are tempted to
ask: what do we do in the silence? Kierkegaard rings loudly in our ears: take a
leap. Do we leap out of the silence? But from where are we leaping? To God we
leap, but from nothing we leap. Do we create ourselves in the leap? Have we
such awesome power that we create ourselves ex
nihilo? God is as obscure here as I am before I have even leapt.
No, order is
revealing. I asked and then silence came. I existed before the silence; the
question had meaning even before the silence, for I asked before the silence
came. Silence revealed me, it did not create me. Meaning is presupposed in the
question and confirmed in the silence. It is meaning which binds together the
questioner and the question, the question and the silence.
I am in the silence
with my meaning. Meaning is important to me; it may have even been the basis
for the question. Where does this meaning come from? Meaning presupposes my
question. First there was meaning, and then there was I asking the question. I
stand on meaning, am I formed by meaning as well?
I am a being in which
I find the meaning of myself in silence.
Am I one with my
meaning? Clearly no, the meaning preexisted my question. Therefore, I am not
alone, I have finally dis-covered. I
have dis-covered meaning and I have dis-covered it exists before me.
I am a being which
dis-covers, as I have dis-covered meaning.
I am that being in
which it matters to mean.
The meaning of my
existence is revealed in the silence, in the silence I mean. In the silence I
dis-cover, and with this discovery of dis-covery there is something to uncover
beyond what we already have before us.
There is something
out there, and I intend to dis-cover it.
The Cross churns the tide of
temporality, it is contemporaneity that unfolds non-contemporaneity and
promises the future. The Cross is the equiprimordality of this temporal unity.
The Cross is beckoning to be dis-covered within temporality. Will you seek it?
Will you face the nausea of Golgotha? Or will you disunify the horizons of temporality
and remain.
You must choose between time and
temporality, disunity and equiprimordality, the nausea of the World and the
nausea of the Cross. You must dis-cover the meaning of silence, or the nausea of
being-thrown [Geworfenheit] into the World will be your undoing.
“The nausea has not left me and I don’t
believe it will leave me so soon; but I no longer have to bear it, it is no
longer an illness or a passing fit, it is I.”
“It is hard to fight with one’s
heart’s desire. Whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul.”
“Everything flows…Nothing abides.”
