Making Sense of Change Management.chm.pdf 
2008-10-12 - extension: pdf - size: 3 MB
Making Sense of Change Management.chm.pdf
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Heidegger and Climate Change "Bush said he's addressing global warming through new technologies. "I think there (More) "Bush said he's addressing global warming through new technologies. "I think there needs to be time for some of these technologies to kick in, to give them a chance to work," he said."
Technology, before it is something we use to alter the physical world around us (to get the world to do what we want), is first expressed as a mode of being-in-the-world. As Heidegger has said, the essence of technology is itself not technological. The essence, instead, is what Heidegger calls enframing. Our tendency to enframe the Being of the world, to conceptualize and organize it, to define and, in effect, conquer it is the basis of our technology. It may become clear now that our primary (and most powerful) technological device is language. This is so because the grammatical structures of our language enframe the world, making it an object, before it even comes before what we call our perception. In other words, built into the structure of our language are certain preconceptual assumptions about the nature of Being that the language-user implicitly assumes whenever they speak.
We may comment, now, on the quotation above, taken from a recent New York Times article concerning the prospects of climate change. The material success brought about by the industrial revolution highlighted man's ability to alter and control his environment. But his success has come at a price, as now that the dust has settled and revealed the post-industrial future that looms on the horizon, the tremendous cost of technological development has become clear. Our rush to gain control over nature, to objectify her, has thrown her off balance. She never has been an external object to be manipulated; she is not only outside us, but also inside us, that intimate life spring at the core of our own bodily existence. Therefore we too are out of balance. How might we right ourselves?
We know that CO2 levels must be curbed. Bush's solution is, basically, more of the same. In his eyes, we ought to use technology to fix technology. He fails to recognize that our over-reliance on the attitude of enframing is itself the problem. We cannot apply the attitude that has created our problem to solve it. Instead, we must reconceptualize our relationship with technology. To do so means, first of all, to come to terms with the technique of enframing itself. Once we know it well we can move past it, even while still making use of its methods.
Enframing, then, is the consequence of the particularly Western assumption that presence has more value than absence. In all our history since Plato, our eyes have been inclined to notice the figure before, and often in spite of, the ground. This tendency is emphasized when compared to the more Eastern perspective that allows the empty and the full to co-exist happily. For Western man, such a position seems all too relative, even nihilistic. This aversion to the leveling of the ontological playing field (the mutualizing of Being and non-being) suggested by the East must be overcome if we are to survive our transition into post-industrialism.
Some readers may have noticed my pronoun choice, as in when I say "Western man," instead of Western civilization or Western thinkers. I do this not because women are incapable of thinking, but because Western thought is characteristically masculine and phallogocentric, to use Derrida's term. We put emphasis on rationality, clarity, and literalism. At first sight, there seems to be nothing too abhorrent about striving for such goals. Making sense and being clear about what one is trying to say are indeed important if ideas are to be communicated fluently. Let us contrast this with the more feminine character of Eastern thought, which is typically more metaphorical in its attempts to show the reader, rather than tell them, the meaning it wishes to convey. It is often the case that the Western reader will see in Eastern "philosophy" something more akin to poetry than to analytic discourse. Any kernel of truth that may be found in it is thereby demoted to merely aesthetic truth, rather than the fuller, intellectually verified truth thought to be the aim of the more serious and responsible philosophers of the West. Indeed, for many Western thinkers, Rorty among them, the notion of there evening existing a thing called "philosophy" in the East is suspect. From this perspective, the East is seen as almost childish, lacking the maturity of its Western counterpart. Allowing, for the moment, that such characterizations were merited, we might respond by alluding to the benefits inherent to the innocence of childhood. In the East, humanity may indeed have a more genuine relationship with nature, not yet having developed the thick skin that estranges Western man from his home. However, it is not at all fair to characterize a cultural worldview as inherently more or less valuable than any other. Such hierarchies may indeed become necessary when the worldview of one actively threatens that of another (I am thinking here of radical Islam), but in the case of such broad characterizations as Eastern vs. Western thinking, it becomes clear that what the one forgets, the other remembers. In other words, neither is better or worse than the other; the two instead give rise to one another's difference. The one allows the other to be what it is, and in so doing to become aware of itself. We must also be clear, though, in saying that in our current ecological situation we are most definitely threatened. The threat itself is no enemy, however; it is much closer to home than that. The threat is our lack of understanding of ourselves and our tendency to enframe the world.
Technology itself is not the threat, but rather it is our use of it that has caused so much harm. Heidegger makes this clearer through an etymological examination of the Greek "techne," the root of our "technology." Techne is often translated as technique or craftsmanship and refers to any method that reveals, rather than creates, what was already present. It does not create because creation implies the construction of something out of nothingness. Technique, in the way we are using it here, refers rather to the manipulation of that which is in order to reveal a relationship formerly hidden from view. When the new pattern is brought forth, the original state becomes concealed. Such is the paradoxical nature of technology. Any gain on one end is a loss on another. There is, therefore, no such thing as technological progress. There is only technological change interpreted through the lens of cultural bias, which judges anew in each age what constitutes the good life. To return to our etymological examination of technology, it becomes apparent by our definition above that poetry, too, is a technique. How, though, might we contrast it with the usual sort of technology, that of machines designed for specific purposes in mind, of techniques which seek an end outside themselves? We might begin to distinguish the two by the ontological stance they take in relationship to the world. Mechanical technology is teleological, while poetic technology is deontological. The former is a means while the latter is an end. Similarly, the former is active while the latter is passive. Mechanics manipulate while poetics grants, as Heidegger puts it. Poetry accepts what nature gives, bringing it into view (into words) so that it can be celebrated through a kind of participatory knowledge. In a sense, poetry uses words to open the doors and windows of the mind to the undisturbed light of nature. Mechanics, in contrast, reaches, oftentimes violently, into nature and tries to divide and control it, bringing specialized factual knowledge into view while at the same time concealing one's own shadow. This shadow is what estranges us from Being, leaving us with only beings, with things and objects, which we then feel compelled to organize and control.
In the East, hieroglyphics are still in use. In the West, the alphabet took over some 2,500 years ago, when the Greek mind systematized Egyptian glyphs and modeled the written word on the voice. It is as though the organic whole of the hieroglyphic word was torn asunder and mechanized, reduced into discrete components. The assault upon the hieroglyph itself was an assault on the hieroglyphic worldspace, as well.
Am I advocating a return or remodeling of our phonetic alphabet to an ideogramatic system like those of the East? Possibly. What is clear is that our ecological crisis is really a spiritual crisis. That is, our relationship with nature is imbalanced because we are estranged from Being. Our estrangement from Being has come about because of our use of language. Therefore, to recognize Being once more, to harmonize our relationship with nature, we must reconceptualize our use of language. "Language is the house of Being," as Heidegger says. We ought to take care, then, not to track mud on the carpet. (Less)
Heidegger and Climate Change "Bush said he's addressing global warming through new technologies. "I think there (More) "Bush said he's addressing global warming through new technologies. "I think there needs to be time for some of these technologies to kick in, to give them a chance to work," he said." Technology, before it is something we use to alter the physical world around us (to get the world to do what we want), is first expressed as a mode of being-in-the-world. As Heidegger has said, the essence of technology is itself not technological. The essence, instead, is what Heidegger calls enframing. Our tendency to enframe the Being of the world, to conceptualize and organize it, to define and, in effect, conquer it is the basis of our technology. It may become clear now that our primary (and most powerful) technological device is language. This is so because the grammatical structures of our language enframe the world, making it an object, before it even comes before what we call our perception. In other words, built into the structure of our language are certain preconceptual assumptions about the nature of Being that the language-user implicitly assumes whenever they speak. We may comment, now, on the quotation above, taken from a recent New York Times article concerning the prospects of climate change. The material success brought about by the industrial revolution highlighted man's ability to alter and control his environment. But his success has come at a price, as now that the dust has settled and revealed the post-industrial future that looms on the horizon, the tremendous cost of technological development has become clear. Our rush to gain control over nature, to objectify her, has thrown her off balance. She never has been an external object to be manipulated; she is not only outside us, but also inside us, that intimate life spring at the core of our own bodily existence. Therefore we too are out of balance. How might we right ourselves? We know that CO2 levels must be curbed. Bush's solution is, basically, more of the same. In his eyes, we ought to use technology to fix technology. He fails to recognize that our over-reliance on the attitude of enframing is itself the problem. We cannot apply the attitude that has created our problem to solve it. Instead, we must reconceptualize our relationship with technology. To do so means, first of all, to come to terms with the technique of enframing itself. Once we know it well we can move past it, even while still making use of its methods. Enframing, then, is the consequence of the particularly Western assumption that presence has more value than absence. In all our history since Plato, our eyes have been inclined to notice the figure before, and often in spite of, the ground. This tendency is emphasized when compared to the more Eastern perspective that allows the empty and the full to co-exist happily. For Western man, such a position seems all too relative, even nihilistic. This aversion to the leveling of the ontological playing field (the mutualizing of Being and non-being) suggested by the East must be overcome if we are to survive our transition into post-industrialism. Some readers may have noticed my pronoun choice, as in when I say "Western man," instead of Western civilization or Western thinkers. I do this not because women are incapable of thinking, but because Western thought is characteristically masculine and phallogocentric, to use Derrida's term. We put emphasis on rationality, clarity, and literalism. At first sight, there seems to be nothing too abhorrent about striving for such goals. Making sense and being clear about what one is trying to say are indeed important if ideas are to be communicated fluently. Let us contrast this with the more feminine character of Eastern thought, which is typically more metaphorical in its attempts to show the reader, rather than tell them, the meaning it wishes to convey. It is often the case that the Western reader will see in Eastern "philosophy" something more akin to poetry than to analytic discourse. Any kernel of truth that may be found in it is thereby demoted to merely aesthetic truth, rather than the fuller, intellectually verified truth thought to be the aim of the more serious and responsible philosophers of the West. Indeed, for many Western thinkers, Rorty among them, the notion of there evening existing a thing called "philosophy" in the East is suspect. From this perspective, the East is seen as almost childish, lacking the maturity of its Western counterpart. Allowing, for the moment, that such characterizations were merited, we might respond by alluding to the benefits inherent to the innocence of childhood. In the East, humanity may indeed have a more genuine relationship with nature, not yet having developed the thick skin that estranges Western man from his home. However, it is not at all fair to characterize a cultural worldview as inherently more or less valuable than any other. Such hierarchies may indeed become necessary when the worldview of one actively threatens that of another (I am thinking here of radical Islam), but in the case of such broad characterizations as Eastern vs. Western thinking, it becomes clear that what the one forgets, the other remembers. In other words, neither is better or worse than the other; the two instead give rise to one another's difference. The one allows the other to be what it is, and in so doing to become aware of itself. We must also be clear, though, in saying that in our current ecological situation we are most definitely threatened. The threat itself is no enemy, however; it is much closer to home than that. The threat is our lack of understanding of ourselves and our tendency to enframe the world. Technology itself is not the threat, but rather it is our use of it that has caused so much harm. Heidegger makes this clearer through an etymological examination of the Greek "techne," the root of our "technology." Techne is often translated as technique or craftsmanship and refers to any method that reveals, rather than creates, what was already present. It does not create because creation implies the construction of something out of nothingness. Technique, in the way we are using it here, refers rather to the manipulation of that which is in order to reveal a relationship formerly hidden from view. When the new pattern is brought forth, the original state becomes concealed. Such is the paradoxical nature of technology. Any gain on one end is a loss on another. There is, therefore, no such thing as technological progress. There is only technological change interpreted through the lens of cultural bias, which judges anew in each age what constitutes the good life. To return to our etymological examination of technology, it becomes apparent by our definition above that poetry, too, is a technique. How, though, might we contrast it with the usual sort of technology, that of machines designed for specific purposes in mind, of techniques which seek an end outside themselves? We might begin to distinguish the two by the ontological stance they take in relationship to the world. Mechanical technology is teleological, while poetic technology is deontological. The former is a means while the latter is an end. Similarly, the former is active while the latter is passive. Mechanics manipulate while poetics grants, as Heidegger puts it. Poetry accepts what nature gives, bringing it into view (into words) so that it can be celebrated through a kind of participatory knowledge. In a sense, poetry uses words to open the doors and windows of the mind to the undisturbed light of nature. Mechanics, in contrast, reaches, oftentimes violently, into nature and tries to divide and control it, bringing specialized factual knowledge into view while at the same time concealing one's own shadow. This shadow is what estranges us from Being, leaving us with only beings, with things and objects, which we then feel compelled to organize and control. In the East, hieroglyphics are still in use. In the West, the alphabet took over some 2,500 years ago, when the Greek mind systematized Egyptian glyphs and modeled the written word on the voice. It is as though the organic whole of the hieroglyphic word was torn asunder and mechanized, reduced into discrete components. The assault upon the hieroglyph itself was an assault on the hieroglyphic worldspace, as well. Am I advocating a return or remodeling of our phonetic alphabet to an ideogramatic system like those of the East? Possibly. What is clear is that our ecological crisis is really a spiritual crisis. That is, our relationship with nature is imbalanced because we are estranged from Being. Our estrangement from Being has come about because of our use of language. Therefore, to recognize Being once more, to harmonize our relationship with nature, we must reconceptualize our use of language. "Language is the house of Being," as Heidegger says. We ought to take care, then, not to track mud on the carpet. (Less)
Making Sense of Change Management.chm 2007-09-15 - extension: chm - size: 3 MB
Making Sense of Change Management.chm
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0749453109 Change Man 
2009-10-11 - extension: rar - size: 1 MB
0749453109 Change Man
Hosted on: rapidshare.com
0749453109 Change Man 2009-10-11 - extension: rar - size: 1 MB
0749453109 Change Man
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