Martin Heidegger and the Call of Conscience Explained

Martin Heidegger and the Call of Conscience Explained through MATRIX

Inauthentic Self living in the ’fallen’ everydayness ”My name is das Man and I live in the everyday world (let us call it Matrix). I’m like everybody else. I say what Others say and do what Others do. I obey the rules of society because this is the way how Others behave. I sometimes even break the rules of society (indeed, I’m a hacker too) but only because Other people break them too…”

”There is nothing special in it that I’m das Man. In the everyday world, everybody is das Man. ’No one is himself’, as Martin Heidegger says in his great book Being and Time. ’I did it my way’, has no meaning here… Moreover, everybody also remains das Man, at least for the most part. Me too…”

”Yet sometimes I have an uncanny feeling as if ’somebody’ would be ’calling’ me – it is like an alien voice. I’m a little bit nervous. Is there something ’wrong’ in this world? And what is this voice? Where does it come from? ”

”Now I know – I have to be RESOLUTE (I admit, the resolution in this photo is not very good…). I have to confront the uncanny Call!”

Das Man Confronting the Call… Das Man Pill of Everydayness The Call of Conscience Pill If you take it, nothing happens… The first authentic choice is Not to choose this Pill! When it is not chosen, you ”hear” the Call of Red Pill… of Conscience

”I’LL ’TAKE’ THE RED PILL!!!” ”I’ll take it because the call of conscience, ‘coming from me and yet beyond me’, ‘summons’ (aufrufen) me from my ‘lostness’ in das Man, as Martin says – and I don’t want to be das Man, that is, like everybody else…”)

”But alas! I have ’chosen’ the Call of Conscience Pill (I wanted to have a conscience – Gewissenhabenwollen as Martin says), but nothing happened, nothing still is revealed…” ”Weird? ”

”Or rather, I SEE IT NOW, what is revealed is NOTHING!” ”Now I’m free… from the ’domination by Others’ and the inauthentic everyday world! I’m free because I’m alone with myself. The Conscience Pill radically individualized me…”

”Yet now I really feel anxiety! This free world is uncanny indeed! Among other things, the Call of Conscience ’takes the words from the common-sense idle talk of das Man’ as Martin says in Being and Time. You surely notice that it has taken my words…”

”Yet unlike my friend Neo in the MOVIE Matrix, the Call of Conscience Pill does not open up some OTHER world for me – such as you can see above. I’m ’condemned’ to remain in Matrix… As Martin says, authentic existence is not ‘something which floats above falling everydayness. ’ It means only a ‘modified way’ in which the everydayness is ‘seized upon. ’”

”But when I’ve taken the Call of Conscience Pill, I’m increasingly becoming conscious of my ownmost possibilities…” ”Look at me now! Am I not authentic! Indeed, my name is no longer das Man. Please, call me AUTHENTIC SELF!”

”Yet the Conscience Pill was not so impressive as I thought. To be sure, I’m authentic now, but the Pill revealed nothing but that I am GUILTY, always-already… Damn!”

”Yet I’m not guilty because I’ve done something wrong but I’m guilty because I LAG BEHIND MY POSSIBILITIES without being able to actualize them – because I AM my possibilities. I have no essence (see my picture above). My existence is my essence. ”

”But because I now know that I’m always-already GUILTY, that Being-guilty is my ownmost possibility, I’m alwaysalready also personally RESPONSIBLE… for everything. I’m no longer that irresponsible inauthentic self that I used to be… Now I take CARE” ”That’s great!”

”Moreover, I now know that the authenic hearing of the Call of Conscience signifies also ’briging oneself to factical action’, as Martin says in his great book Being and Time. Here you see me in such action. It is my own action and I’m fully responsible for it. I’m taking CARE of bad guys. ”

”Yet it seems to me that I’m still not fully authentic… Like something would be missing? I know that my ownmost possibility is that of Beingguilty, but would it be possible that I outstrip my ownmost possibility? Can it be outsripped? It seems to me that it can be outstripped…”

”Unless… I realize that my ownmost-ownmost possibility is DEATH and more precisely, my being-towards-death (since we remember that at stake is a possibility). Then I’m no longer in any way capable of evading my primordial Being-guilty and infinite responsibility…”

“Indeed, it is absolutely impossible for me to actualize my death – for my death cannot be anything but a possibility for me. My death is the ultimate confirmation of the permanence of my guilt. This is so, you see, because death is not a moment of transition in the end of human life but a constant possibility of absolute impossibility… Now I’m really-really AUTHENTIC!”

“Or, as my hero Martin says with the clarity peculiar to him…” Any factical Dasein has been determined by its ownmost Being-guilty both before any factical indebtedness has been incurred and after any such indebtedness has been paid off; and wanting-to-have-conscience (Gewissenhabenwollen) signifies that one is ready for the appeal to this ownmost Being-guilty. This prior Being-guilty, which is constantly with us, does not show itself unconcealedly in its character as prior until this very priority has been enlisted in that possibility which is simply not to be outstripped. When, in anticipation, resoluteness has caught up the possibility of death into its potentiality-for-Being, Dasein’s authentic existence can no longer be outstripped by anything