Let me start by saying that I don’t know. You might think that this lack of knowledge would disqualify me from pursuing this line of questioning, but you would be wrong. After all, I am a human being. Or, to say it another way, since I am the being in question, there is no one more qualified to ask.

This is the genius of Heidegger’s analytic. First, ontology can only ever really be the phenomenology of ontology. And second, Dasein is always and forever my own.

To put still another way, I am/you are/Dasein is the only one who can formulate the question concerning the nature of being.

So, I put it to you again–what is a human being?

The question of being is perhaps a silly question. Or maybe I just feel silly posing it. I don’t know.

What I do know is that the question is something I want to work towards, or circle around–or at least sit on for a while.

Depending on your -ology of choice (no pun intended), being functions quite differently. Is it an empty signifier? A collection of attributes? Is it fundamental laws of nature?

Traditional philosophy tried to save us from the impossibility of this question by positing a Real behind/beyond the real. Metaphysics.

Essentially, thinkers concerned themselves with the nature of stuff. The what. But what about the that? What about the fact that we exist? What is that?

Heidegger took it one step further, asking a terribly curious question: what is is? Believe it or not, this simple play on words changed everything. It was Nietzsche who proclaimed the end of metaphysics; but it was Heidegger, less than a century later, who brought it about with his silly double verbing. Silly or not, it seems that contemporary philosophy has not yet dealt with the end of metaphysics.

Contemporary thinkers have tended to return to classical ideas looking to erect a scaffolding of being somewhere exterior to the human in question. Badiou has taken up refuge in the analogy of set theory. Zizek in dialectical materialism. Baudrillard in the desert of the hyperreal. Brilliant as their thought is, I think that we have to come to it after we have dealt with Heidegger and his folly.

If we are to move forward, or circle, or sit on the question of being, it begins (as Heidegger suggests in Being and Time) with the one who is concerned with the question. Furthermore, taking into account the mine-ness of Dasien, the question of being belongs to you in the same way it belongs to me.

Putting it another way, the question of being qua being begins with the question of human being.

As we will be approaching this question–at least in part–through language, one caution. When we try to explain the existence of something, we “naturally” try to put it into words. There is a tendency then to confuse the rules of grammar with the way of being.

Ontology…really, all the -ologies have fractured our perception of the world in an effort suture names and patterns to our experience. And if it’s the wonder of experience (or the anxiety of it) that draws us to the question, we should be leery of approaches that break wonder into bits just for the sake of putting it into appropriate categories.

As I close I want to invite all of you to share some of the mine-ness of your being. Don’t bother getting too deep into the question. I’d love to hear your first thoughts and impressions on the question. The more nonsensical the better. I don’t have this all scripted out yet. It’s a little daunting to call this a first installment, or a series of blogs, but I suppose it’s something like that.

I leave you with a quote from Alan Watts:

“I cannot formulate the question that is my wonder…as soon as I open my mouth I find I’m talking nonsense…”

Fuck you!  You have to come up with the good idea!

This little nugget of negative inspiration came to me via a video of an interview with the (in)famous philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek (for the bit on the video go to about 9:28).

Here, Zizek is speaking about EGS, The European Graduate School based in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.  In explaining why he likes working at EGS, Zizek contrasts it with “the worst American way” of teaching, in which professors help students find a direction of study.  He says that when students come to him and ask him for direction he simply says, “Fuck you! You have to come up with the good idea!”

Now, I have certainly benefited from the guidance of my teachers at every step of my education.  And when I first heard this clip it put me off a little, especially because I have entertained thoughts of studying cultural theory and philosophy.  Yet, there are days when I wake up and realize precisely that I still don’t have a direction; I still don’t know what I want.  That’s when the wisdom of Zizek’s words hit home.  There comes a time when a person has to stop relying on surrogates to suggest where to go and what to do.  Sometimes you have to find out who YOU are and what YOU want, by yourself.

In roughly rejecting students’ overtures, Zizek refuses the role of a god and takes on the role of a mirror.

So thanks Zizek!  I will come up with a good idea, and when I do I will steal your job.

What is it that you want?

As with any controversy, the current bombing of Gaza has the potential to act like a prism for ideology. Various sides refract through the event like light through a gem-stone. This post offers a glimpse of a few of the ostensible colors that shine out from the recent violence in and around the Gaza strip.

• It takes quite a bit of chutzpah to claim that Israel “wants peace” as Israeli fighter jets drop hundreds of tons of bombs on the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds, destroying universities, hospitals, pharmacies, schools, homes, and social welfare offices. Rather than leading to peace, this claim actually only covers up for Israel’s continued violence and intransigence. –Jon the Antizionist Jew from Daily Kos
• No democratic government in the world would tolerate this. No population would permit it. No army would allow an implacable foe [Hamas] to launch missiles at its citizens and improve its capabilities. –Ron Proser, Israel’s Ambassador to UK, from the Telegraph
• So what does a promising solution look like to me? . . . the entire context of the conflict must be fundamentally shifted. That means changing public opinion in the Palestinian territories. Hamas didn’t win because Palestinians love violence and war and enjoy living in refugee camps and walking through checkpoints every day. Hamas won a democratic election because they created an extensive social-services network to help the needy independently of the Palestinian government. –Fauza from Feministe
• Should Palestinians recognize the right of Israel to exist, end terrorism against Jews and nurture a sincere desire to live in peace, they would end their suffering. The solution now is simply in the hands of the Palestinians – not the Israelis. –Jerusalem Post
• The mystery of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . is why it has persisted for half a century when everybody knows the only workable solution: the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank and – conclusively – Gaza, the establishment of a viable Palestinian state and, as part of that process, a compromise over the status of Jerusalem . . . What would be a proper imaginative act in the Middle East today? For Israelis and Arabs, it would involve giving up political control of Jerusalem, agreeing that the Old Town should become a city without a state, a place of worship, neither a part of Israel nor of a putative Palestine, administered for the time being by an international force. –Slavoj Zizek from LRB

Why is porn afraid of good narrative? Cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek took up this question at a talk he gave to the employees of Google (around 34:34 on the video). According to Zizek, it’s because you can’t have your cake and eat it too. He maintains that we can’t handle both fully revealed sexual acts and the intimacy that comes via story.

However, Zizek fails to recognize that there is a narrative present in porn. He cites adult “gonzo” films where the camera and cameraman/woman are part of the action in order to illustrate the complete lack of story within such films. But rather than illustrating a lack of narrative, the inclusion of the camera is a clue as to the type of narrative being constructed–a narrative that says “this is actually happening (somewhere it is possible).”

What is happening? Enter a story about the degradation of women and the glorification of the phallus, instrument of pleasure/death. Enter a story about the possibility of transgressing the taboo. Enter a story about sterilized sex–sex without awkwardness, tenderness, or pubic hair. Porn is bursting with narrative.

Why care? We should care because, according to a Time article, the adult film industry earns between $520 Million and $10 Billion annually (depending on whom you ask). So, there are quite a few people out there who are exposed to porn narratives, and a narrative is a powerful cultural force. This requires a more thorough thinking of the stories people imbibe behind closed doors. Your thoughts?