*This post finishes up party 2 of Heidegger’s lecture course.

The Parable of Vengeance  

Mr. X and Mr. Y were parents of a boyfriend and girlfriend who were killed by a drunk driver.  Mr. X showed up every day for the trial, demanded justice in a victim impact statement, and felt he got it when the criminal was found guilty and sentenced.  Mr. Y didn’t go to the trial or fill out a statement.

Often as people we will make time for ourselves to go out for the evening with friends. In doing this we are able to leave ourselves behind for a time, that empty us which we would have had to live with if we remained at home. Even this, though, doesn’t allow us to escape our boredom entirely, as evidenced by a slight yawn or polite tapping of the fingers during the conversation. And in any event, you know it is just for one night, and that your desire to eliminate boredom will not be properly satiated by it. Everyone knows that, for instance, the luster of a new favorite song quickly wears off after repeatedly playing it for hours on end – a problem also for new love. In the time we give ourselves for the evening out, we bring time, the drawing out of time, to a standstill, but only for a while where we are entirely present in the situation, cut off from our past responsibilities and future concerns.

We see this in the reverse direction when melancholics observe people that have been oppressed by something or other (either directly or indirectly) and take it up as there cause to right the injustice with all the fire of youth. The individual with the cause speaks from an existence pervaded by purpose and a drive toward the overcoming of inequity and tyranny, while the melancholic, partially out of amusement and partially out of self-pity remarks “at least this oppressed person has what I lack: a cause.” 

We spoke last time of the incarnate beautiful death of Antigone.  Let’s now counterturn this with Antigone as maximally unhomely.  In her dialogue with Ismene that introduces the entire tragedy, she says of humans “Venturing forth underway in all directions, without experience or way out he comes to nothing.”  Heidegger comments “human beings never attain their essence among whatever beings they “get” or get “hold of” on any occasion… human beings, venturing everywhere in all directions, fail to arrive at any experience (Heidegger, HHTI, 94).”  Heidegger says we must not here think metaphysically in terms of psychological types (96).  The choral ode speaks that the unhomely one is expelled from the hearth, “Such shall not be entrusted to my hearth (96).” Antigone is to deinon touto – utterly unhomely.  Her death is kalos thanein, but not most essentially as the beautiful death we spoke of last time. 

The Greek word for being is Hestia, hearth, and so parestios is the one in the warmth of the hearth fire.  There is a luster to beings that we figuratively nurse off of.  But this is a more essential figurative being addicted to beings, so our inconspicuous cravings are the more essential element.  This is the glow that has gone grey for Antigone.  We go from thing to thing, an “infinite array of ‘new’ beings (Heidegger, HHTI,108).”  Humans are under the “delusion (Heidegger, HHTI, 109)” of being truly among beings.  Antigone’s mission to bury her brother pertains to the ancient cult of the dead and blood relatedness familial obligations, but in the end she is just another person being driven by a cause.  This truth is what Sophocles calls arche tamechana, that against which nothing can avail.  Heidegger says “we must think beyond the cult of the dead and blood-relatedness and retain the word of Antigone as it is said: ‘Life is death, and death is also a life (Heidegger, HHTI, 118)’.”  The melancholic tragically comes to see people as running around going from distraction to distraction, enraptured by causes both minor and major.