Skip to main content

Presence and ingratitude: the (restrict) economy of Beyng

Today I started a course on Heidegger's History of Beyng (and on his Meditation). Reflecting on the precedence of Beying over being and beings (and the very ontological difference) while having in mind the contrast between presencing and Ereignis in Time and Being, I explored the idea of the metaphysics of presence in terms of the present, of the es gibt, of the gift. The economy of the gift is the circle of gratitude: in order to show that I'm thankful to the giver, I keep the gift, preserve it and make sure it is no annihilated. My endeavor (the metaphysical or onto-theological endeavor) is to make sure a durable form of the gift is always available, at my disposal. This economic status - a certain restricted economy of being and beings, of what presents itself through beings - presides over the era of persecution (or preservation), of representation, of thesis (as opposed to physis) and maybe of machination. This era is inagurated by a dispensation of being (of Beying), an economic order based on presents and gratitude that places whatever is in the reciprocity circle. In contrast, Heidegger talks about the event (Ereignis) as an appropriation. If appropriation is where being lies - and not the other way round - then there is a taking over of the inhabited world by the events of Beying. The economy that is foreseen then - or found in the past - is one of ingratitude. The ingratitude forged by appropriation, or expropriation. Beying is out of a reciprocal, symmetric relation because it is not grateful but acts with appropriation.

The event of appropriation is what constitutes the history of Beyng. The event of making sure gratitude is brought about is one of the moments in this history. It involves the debt that engages us in a quest for re-presentation (archiving, preserving, restoring) against a background of nothingness. Bataille would have that the avoidance of death (and degradation) is itself an economic gesture.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Necropolitics and Neocameralism

It is perhaps just wishful thinking that the alt-right seemingly innovative and intrepid ideas will disappear from the scene as Trump's reign comes to an end. They have their own dynamics, but certainly the experiences of the last years, including those in the pandemics, do help to wear off their bright and attractiveness. Neocameralism, what Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land with him ushered in as a model of post-democracy that relinquish important ingredients of the human security system, is one of these projects that is proving to be too grounded in the past to have any capacity to foretell anything bright beyond the democratic rusting institutions. It is little more than necropolitics - which is itself a current post-democratic alternative. Achile Mbembe finds necropolitics in the regimes were warlords take over the state-like institutions (or mimick them)  to rule on the grounds of local security having no troubles killing or letting die whoever is in their path. Neocameralism pos...
Post a Comment
Read more

Memory Assemblages out!

  Memory Assemblages is out at Bloomsbury This is the book I wrote during most of 22 and 23. It proposes a spectral realism based on the idea that archives are ubiquitous - I call this pan-mnemism. It offers a conception of how memory related deeply with persistent addition of new events, thoughts and circumstances and this addends concoct varying assemblages of what is retained and what brings this archives to the fore. It also rejects the idea that there is an archeology to the archive - or an ontology to hauntology. Even if it boils down merely to postulate traces or forms. I have neglected this blog for a while and I don't expect myself to be very much back to it soon. But I will talk about the book in my youtube channel, in an English language playlist called "On Memory Assemblages" .  
Post a Comment
Read more

Dismantling absolute contingency

I´ve been wondering about whether we can formulate something about contingency along the lines of a principle of irreduction: aucune chose n´est par elle-même contingent ou necessaire . The principle asserts that necessity is always contingent on underlying fixed things: something is physically necessary (or contingent) given the fixed laws of nature, something is deontically contingent - allowed - or necessary - mandatory - given the fixed ethical rules (or laws of the land). Finally, something is logically necessary (or necessary simpliciter) given a fixed logic. The irreducible diversity of ethical rules, the absence of eternal laws of nature and the plurality of logical systems, if accepted, makes necessity relative to those parameters. An aggiornamento of Heraclitus would have that nothing is necessary comes what may. Surely, of couse, if there is no absolute necessity, there is no absolute contingency. We can then say that in a broader, more abstract level, things are up for grab...
6 comments
Read more