Heidegger's Heidegger's profound boredomprofound boredom and addictionand addiction

Paul Boshears

the European Graduate School (CH)

The purpose of this talk

Heidegger's discussion and development of Heidegger's discussion and development of profound boredom helps us to intimate an profound boredom helps us to intimate an orientation towards ourselvesorientation towards ourselves in an in an expanded sense such that expanded sense such that who we are is who we are is mutually implicated and consummated in mutually implicated and consummated in our relationships to the world as itselfour relationships to the world as itself..

Befindlichkeit ----> Dasein

Es st einem lanweilig (lit. “It is boring for one”) - a state of profound boredomprofound boredom

The central problematic in modern society is the The central problematic in modern society is the loss of identity in our intoxication to developing loss of identity in our intoxication to developing technologiestechnologies

The central task for humanity is to return to the return to the worldworld as not only that mysterious medium through which we live but also the only manner the only manner in which we might express our freedomin which we might express our freedom

Addiction and Modernity

A strict medical model of addiction subsumes A strict medical model of addiction subsumes personal agencypersonal agency to a pathological chemical interaction – We are alienated from ourselves in narcosis.

AA-style (12-step) interventions demonstrate the fundamentally social nature of recoveryfundamentally social nature of recovery: individuals that not only change their behavior but also their social context are more likely to maintain cessation from substances of abuse.

The tyranny of efficiency

Nature. 11 December, 2008 . Vol. 456.

BeingBeing in the modern era is concealedis concealed by the growing purveyance of three attitudes:

1) Calculation – the principle of organization

2) Acceleration – “not-being-able-to-bear the stillness of hidden growth”

3) Massiveness – the rapidly stacking-up of the calculable

Befindlichkeit?

Wie befinden Sie sich? – “how do you find yourself (today)?”

Our moods reveal to us our how we find ourselves, our “findednessfindedness”

Two moments in this theory of moods:

1) understanding (verstehen)

2) attunement (befindlichkeit)

Time

Our attempts to kill time (so as to drive away boredom) are actually a driving-on of time.

Any attempt to kill time obscures our being (Dasein), which is always a being-in time.

Three forms of boredom:

1) becoming bored by something

2) being bored with something

3) profound boredom – an indifference from outside

World's telling refusal

Profound boredom, Profound boredom,

“brings the self in all its nakedness to itself as the self that is there and has taken over the being there of its Da-sein. For what purpose? To be that Dasein.”

This is a calling, then, to consummate the emptiness of our being within our relation to all of Being (nature, the universe, etc.)

A call to responsiveness, rather than A call to responsiveness, rather than responsibility.responsibility.

Assumptions about Selfhood

• “Who I amWho I am” is fundamentally a social event, it is not a substance or kernel that contains my essence.

• This performative self (Butler, 2005) is based upon and adjusted within my social and physical environments.

• My uniqueness is determined by my performance of my roles within these environments; “who I am” develops within a context.

Notions of Selfhood¹

BA

R

¹ Kasulis, Thomas P. 2002. Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press.

Notions of Selfhood

A

B

DH

F

I C

EG(Kasulis 2002)

This is the essential purpose of the prison – to disallow relationships between society and the prisoner

Notions of Selfhood

Spouse, Parent, Friend, etc.

Spouse, Child, Friend, etc.

A BR

(Kasulis 2002)

Notions of Selfhood

A B

(Kasulis 2002)

Notions of Selfhood

A

B

CD

EF

G

(Kasulis 2002)