I was reading The Renewal of Humanism in Psychoanalytic Therapy by Robert D. Stolorow and it occurred to me that philosopher Martin Heidegger, who is quoted in the preface to the article had a lot to tell us about surviving in the Age of Trump.
Heidegger is one of the most original and important philosophers of the 20th century. Wikipedia summaries his practical philosophy: “thinking is thinking about things originally discovered in our everyday practical engagements. The consequence of this is that our capacity to think cannot be the most central quality of our being because thinking is a reflecting upon this more original way of discovering the world.”
I thought I’d share some of his most relevant quotes for you to think about as you follow the angst provoking news about what Trump is doing to our democracy.
In no particular order here are some Heidegger quotes with my annotations included in italics:
“Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.” (This one is for Trump)
“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.” (This is for all otherwise intelligent Republicans still supporting Trump, and perhaps for Nancy Pelosi.)
“Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one. ” (For Trump who thinks as if he is immortal, yet who deep down inside is terrified of dying alone and unloved.)
“Thinking only begins at the point where we have come to know that Reason, glorified for centuries, is the most obstinate adversary of thinking.” (Again a profound lesson for everyone but especially Republican Trump supporters.)
“The small are always dependent on the great; they are "small" precisely because they think they are independent. The great thinker is one who can hear what is greatest in the work of other "greats" and who can transform it in an original manner.” (Trump with the biggest brain… ‘nuff said...)
“Truth is that which makes a people certain, clear, and strong.” (….and we live in the world where fake news is the truth to the president and millions of his followers)
“To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world's night utters the holy.” (This is a destitute time thanks to Trumpism, and our salvation aside from taking action is to become poets, even if we don’t actually write poetry.)
“When the farthest corner of the globe has been conquered technologically and can be exploited economically; when any incident you like, in any place you like, at any time you like, becomes accessible as fast as you like; when you can simultaneously "experience" an assassination attempt against a king in France and a symphony concert in Tokyo; when time is nothing but speed, instantaneity, and simultaneity, and time as history has vanished from all Being of all peoples; when a boxer counts as the great man of a people; when the tallies of millions at mass meetings are a triumph; then, yes then, there still looms like a specter over all this uproar the
question: what for? — where to? — and what then?” (This quote is eerily prescient. Substitute “a game show host who became president” for “a boxer” and it describes the Age of Trump.)
Note: I took my original story about Corey Lewandowski down because nobody was reading it.