Trevor I have taken this from my old philosophy.com weblog. It is a passage from Heidegger's essay, 'What are Poets For?' in Poetry, Language, Thought.

Heidegger's passage is this:

"What is deadly is not the much-discussed atomic bomb as this particular death-dealing machine. What has long been threatening man with death, and indeed with the death of his own nature, is the unconditioned character of mere willing in the sense of purposeful self-assertion in everything. What threatens man in his very nature is the willed view that man, by the peaceful release, transformation, storage, and channelling of the energies of physical nature, could render the human condition, man's being, tolerable for everybody and happy in all respects. But the peace of this peacefulness is merely the undisturbed continuing restlessness of the fury of self-assertion which is resolutely self-reliant. What threatens man in his very nature is the view that this imposition of production can be ventured into without any danger, as long as other interests besides----such as, perhaps the interests of faith------ retain their currency.

...What threatens man in his very nature is the view that technological production puts the world in order, while in fact this ordering is precisely what levels every order, every rank, down the uniformity of production, and thus from the outset destroys the realm from which any rank and recognition could possibly arise." M. Heidgger, Poetry, Language, Thought (pp. 116-7)

Basically, Heidegger is arguing that human willing, in the form of purposeful self-assertion, is what is dangerous. When coupled to the system of technology we are threatened with a single endless winter----darkness----or a destitute time. He then adds:

"But where there is danger, there grows also what saves us."

These lines, which are from the German poet Holderin, signpost the way from the abyss. That is what poets are for in a destitute time.

In the earlier post, which was written during the Iraqi war, I asked:

"Do we encounter such poets today when the talk of our politicians is about war? Does not the purposeful self-assertion coupled to the war machine threaten us with danger?"

The academic reception of these texts of Heidegger's on the poets is usually treated in terms of romantic poetry. Or Heidegger is treated as a philosopher who influenced French existentialism. They can be more properly seen as Heidegger mediating on Holderins' poems without engaging in literary criticism or aesthetics.

In the context of the discussion here about poetry, philosophy and experimental writing I would suggest that these late texts of Heidegger's are an example of a poetic philosophical writing. In these texts we have a mixing of the thinking poet and the poetic thinker and an increasing turn to the poetic quality of the language. They point to, and practice a new kind of poetic thinking that responds to the destitute time we live.

If you like, these texts are an example from the side of philosophy of the new kind of writing that you suggest Bukowski practices.

Comments

Posted by: Adesoji Oni | December 23, 2003 4:35 AM