[A low metallic pulse]
[Shattering noises]
[The famously cheesy 'Wilhelm Scream']
[The pulsing noise continues, slowly]
[Rising background chanting]
Newscaster 1: ...unimaginable, unbelievable, that in the most famous city of the richest country in the world
Newscaster 1: they're digging mass graves...
Newscaster 2: ..you have death-rates now, they are going to go up...
Newscaster 3: ...those numbers are going to go up, the closer people get to one another, the more deaths we're going to see...
Newscaster 2: ...were saying it would be sixty-something, it's already past that
Newscaster 2: the president now says eighty thousand or ninety thousand, maybe a hundred thousand...
Newscaster 4: ...More Americans are going to soon be dead...
Newscaster 2: ...death projections...
A choir of distorted newscasters: ...death projections...
Distorted voices getting lower: ...death projections...
..and lower: ...death projections...
[The voices collapse into a final, totalising, ominous metallic dong]
Death, in the New Media Age, groans under the weight of simulation
Our world is one in which models supplant reality
At the moment, we are in the midst of a death crisis, as well as a crisis of death and its meaning
Over this video, and the next one, I'm gonna draw a contrast: Being-Towards-Death and death-by-simulation, a double entendre
The first gives a meaning to death, while the second represents death stripped of meaning
It's not permitted to mean anything
Unsurprisingly, the TV models death after this version
Now, what could death mean?
Rewind to 1927 and the publication of one of the best philosophical books ever written, 'Being and Time'
Its author, Martin Heidegger, is likely the most important philosopher of the last century
and, though I don't think you'll be able to argue me out of that position in a YouTube comment, I'd certainly like to hear whether you have an alternate theory
As far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much a bottleneck of the history of philosophy
as his interpretation of what came before really defined the tone of what came after,
in the schools of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Existentialism, and literary theory
all of which came to dominate philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century
Now, it's required by convention to follow up any mention of Heidegger by reminding you that he was a Nazi
(or, would be six or seven years after the publication of this book)
He seemed to do his best to ingratiate himself to The Party, between '33 and '34
and then sort of distanced himself
Though, his remorse was not enough to satisfy everybody
The real question here is wether his philosophy is inherently nationalist, fascist, or racist
For me, the evidence provided for that connection is pretty tenuous
and, moreover, what's odd is that some of his most repeated emphases are diametrically opposed
to the fanatical mobs and the hyper-technocratic bureaucracies of Nazism
but there are also some who believe his politics and philosophy are more complementary
And, while I disagree with that, there is evidence that supports both positions
Even his friends and students were split on this question during de-Nazification
So, I'm not trying to sweep all that under the rug
It's rather uncomfortable that someone who instills in readers the value of thought and reflection would lapse in both so colossally
I wanted to just offer this for your consideration
I'll link to a Wikipedia article that outlines the testimony from people who actually knew him
'Being and Time' is an analytic in which Heidegger develops a phenomenological hermeneutic of how we, as living beings, exist and experience the world
Death is one of its main emphases
Death has almost always been made meaningful in religious contexts
I chose Heidegger here because, though he's sort of implicitly theological, he analyses death without recourse to mortality as an opposite of immortality
For Heidegger, your awareness of your death is what colours the whole rest of your life with meaning
Here's a regular picture of how we might conceive of the concept of death: medical death
[Chalk scraping]
We are born, your life is what you do for a while, and then death is the end of that life
Not so, for Heidegger
From the moment we're conscious, in our particular human mode of consciousness, which is both embodied and linguistic, we are aware of time
And, with every moment that passes, we are aware that our death is approaching us from the future
[A funeral bell rings]
You're always experiencing your death somewhere in the back of your mind, in that you know it's coming
So, your death is not just something at the end of life, it's beside you all along, like a shadow
Now, if you know anything about Heidegger, you'll know that I probably shouldn't be using the word 'consciousness'
The word 'consciousness' is too often associated with an overtly mental or subjectivist version of mind
Heidegger asks you to consider yourself as something that 'is there', in a world that is there alongside you
His word for this is 'Dasein'
Consciously being there, and being aware that you're there, develops in you through a whole bunch of shifting feelings and moods towards the world
and the most important is that you're temporal, that you're mortal, you're 'in time'
So, you can sort of get the title now: you're 'being, being there, in time'. Done! Being and Time
Just in case there are pedants among you, the 'Being' mentioned in the title is not your individualised expression of being, but 'being in general'
But, for now, let's just focus on the experience of death plus temporality
According to Heidegger, when Dasein (we'll just say 'you') reflects on the world, it doesn't feel like that world was made for just you
There's an uncanny feeling that you are not it's centre, that other processes and people have their own thing going on, despite you being there
The mountains did not rise for you, the forests were not planted for you
This experience gives Dasein one of its original dispositions towards the world: 'thrownness' (Geworfenheit)
because it feels like you were thrown into something that was already in progress
Sure, you can do mental experiments, some of which you've probably heard of
'Maybe, the whole world is just the conjuring of a devil'
'Cogito Ergo Sum'
However, you can only ask these kinds of questions because you've already spent all of your life up till that point interacting with the world from a sense of 'thrownness'
You're a part of something, and you have a feeling that it started before you, is somewhat ambivalent towards you, and, in all likelihood, will go on without you
Now, look at this quote, it's significant
because it shows two dispositions towards temporality
Thrownness is one of these - that feeling that the world has its own time outside of your experience of time
Yet we also look to the future. This is called 'projection'.
In English, the word 'project', etymologically, means 'to throw forward'
When you consider the future, you undertake projects
That is, you consider your possibilites of action
Now, of all the things you do, there is only one that you must do and that is 'die'
[Funeral bells again]
Any possible action you take, then, in time is one step closer to death, no matter what that action is
You're aware of this, and it actually changes the shape of ALL experience
Your death is not just this 'thing' in the future. It's with you now, and you're aware that every action brings it closer
This gives your actions value, because you have to choose which one is most worth doing, considering that anything that you do brings your death one step closer
This is called Being-Toward-Death
(which Heidegger pretty much ripped off of Kierkegaard, and that's why it's sometimes lumped in with Existentialism)
Because you're going to die, and yet will never experience death
(because you can't be-there when you're not-there)
you have another exisistential disposition towards your lifeworld, and this is called 'care'
This is an original way of being, meaning that you are open to the world, that you'll take an interest in it
You question the world that you find yourself in, you're curious about it
You care about your time here, because every time you do something you're drawing nearer to not-being-here
So, time is where your life gets its meaning from
Your projects matter because each one is a step towards death
[Record scratching to a stop]
Actually, hold up here!
So, I started with the second half of 'Being and Time', the part about time
but the first half, which is about Dasein, explores our original ways of encountering the world
and this is called 'ready-to-hand'
This inner circle shows some of Dasein's original dispositions of care
and this outside circle shows how these dispositions are best expressed, according to Heidegger
You are not at your most human when you are watching YouTube, you are at your most human when putting your hands on the world
Now, not just in an instrumental sense, not doing it as a job
Heidegger wouldn't even use the typewriter, because he thought it would lead to 'bad philosophy', so he wrote all his books out by hand, or so the story goes
Anyway, if you want to be more human go explore the 'Handlichkeit' (or 'manipulability') of the world
You can see in here the German word 'Hand', and in here the latin word manus (hand)
You gotta use your hands directly on the world, if you want to know it and really understand it
We call these 'hobbies', as if they're frivolous but, for Heidegger, this is when you're at your most 'authentic'
I'm not into giving advice, but maybe this frictionless, abstract space of YouTube isn't where you wanna spend ALL your dying time
[Cheekily]: (Except this channel, of course)
Alright, back to dying
Your concern with projects, taking action, and making a difference matters, because your death is always inching towards you
As a mortal, your time is limited, so you have to choose what to spend your time on
This is your freedom
The horizon of death is what makes these things worth doing
[pop]
[pop] [a funeral bell chimes]
Now, I've discussed 'thrownness' and 'projection', two ways Dasein cares
The last mode of care is where you get your sense of your own unfreedom, which is caused by everybody else
[Popping noises as dots appear] You fall in line
You fall into a crowd
absorbed by politics, TV shows, career expectations, consumption, idle gossip
Instead of being yourself, doing your own projects, you become an aspect of 'They-self' (das Man)
It's not a simple case of wether these things are 'good' or 'bad', just that the activity that made you 'you' has now been abosrbed by the world
The word for this is verfallen (fallenness), because you have fallen out of yourself and into a crowd
The crowd is just 'They'
They don't wonder, and they don't act out their freedoms as individuals
Doing what everyone does because everyone does it is the opposite of acting out your freedom
and it is an 'inauthentic' way to live
You get sucked into average everydayness
And that world is not as interesting
It no longer provokes your curiosity
This is just repeating habits and following trends
'Authentic' living is being aware of death - dreading it, sure - but then acting out the freedom that it offers
And the feeling of fallenness is that which pulls you out of everydayness and back to authenticity
This 'they' is called 'das Man', the inauthentic Dasein
So, what was this video about?
I tried to present the case that death is not only meaningful, but it's the horizon of all meaning
The way death is considered today is comparatively inauthentic and stripped of meaning
In fact, it's prohibited from meaning anything
It's a mere opposition to 'health'
The meaningless death of crowds, the spectacle of death plastered across our screens, offer little chance for meaningful reflection
Not just on why death matters but, conversely, how death gives life meaning
You're on PlasticPills, this has been Part One of Two tracing 'death's disenchantment' and, as always, I appreciate knowing what you thought of it
Actually, one of you - a commenter - left me this, 'death', as a topic, so thanks for that
And stay tuned for Part Two
'Til then, memento mori
[Dramatic music fades into something softer, more melancholic, sinister]