by Nikki Albert

Created on: November 23, 2010

“The darkening of the world, the flight of the gods, the destruction of the earth, the transformation of man into a mass, the hatred and suspicion of everything free and creative, have assumed such proportions throughout the earth that such childish categories as pessimism and optimism have long since become absurd.” - Heidegger.

Heidegger’s whole perspective on technology and the environment is linked to his conception of Being and Dasein. The best answer to the fundamental question of Being Heidegger comes up with Being is equal to Time. Being then is the unfolding of time, the revealing and concealing of beings. Thus Being is actually Becoming. Dasein is our way of being-in-the-world. Analyzing how we are in the world to find Being does not get us far, we actually have to ‘let Being be’ am to listen to what it reveals to us through the medium of Dasein. We can hear Being speak more clearly through art, poetry and music. Modern technology covers over Being and hides us from ourselves. This is because of the belief that the ‘I’ is the most fundamental idea and thus we are the more important being and the world is there for our use. This leads to the destruction of our environment; it is this limited avalanche lie process that Heidegger fears most and doubts we can overcome. For Heidegger our function, or nature, is to be world disclosers. Humans have modes of being that reveals Being. Both art and technology are techne and are ways of brining-forth being. Modern technology has evolved from its original form of techne, and in this Heidegger sees a danger to Dasein and also possible saving power.

In essence technology is revealing. Modern technology differs from technology in the past, in that “revealing that rules in in modern technology is a challenging,” (Krell, p.14). This challenging “puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can be extracted and stored as such.” (Krell, p,14). We conceive of the environment as resource for our use and we stockpile it, “Everything is viewed as ‘standing-reserve’ and, in that, loses its natural objective reality.” (Beckman, p,4). This limits our view of nature and distances us from it. “Just as humans have progressively limited the being of the natural objects around them, Heidegger observed, they too have acquired a progressively limited character or being.” (Beckman, p,5). By continuing on this

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