ABSTRACT
You are schizophrenic! - Gyorgy Markus accused me in the auditorium of Sydney University when I told the audience that I accept Heidegger's cultural criticism. In particular his view that, on the one hand, the 'first beginning' from which our Western thinking had taken its course has come to an end. Even if this ending could endure more than the whole of Western history until now. As a consequence we have to open ourselves to an Ereignis, to another beginning which would happen not as a result of human endeavours (Heidegger had taken the lesson of his short engagement to the Nazi-movement!), but as coming from Being. On the other hand, just because this process of ending, seen from the perspective of the finite human being, must be considered as practically eternal, we cannot simply wait for this new beginning. We can, without seeking redemption, introduce reforms inside our range of effect, in order to emend and to create more acceptable circumstances. I was absolutely not offended: I accept his judgement. To accept, on the one hand, the European type of modernity as a state of affairs which we cannot change as a whole; what is more, to interpret even our unsuccessful efforts to change it in its whole as ending in the worst cataclysms of human history, and to say, on the other hand, that modernity itself is going in the direction of the same, or similar cataclysms, as Heidegger's view of the epoch of Ge-stell undeniably suggests,1 seems to be a view which is, even if not necessarily selfcontradictory, at least embarrassing. Why can't I take either the standpoint of modernity with all its contradictions, take the standpoint of enlightenment with all the necessary reservations forced upon us by the history of the last two centuries, ignoring Nietzsche's and Heidegger's apocalyptic prophecies. In other words, to either try to show that their view is a one-sided and reactionary generalisation of the just mentioned lesson of modern history or to accept their view. And to do this without trying to do more, as if everything is in order, as if modernity gives us the necessary playground for a good and meaningful life.
