Dasein, Mineness, Authenticity and Authority – the Origin of Existential Decisionism

“Dasein is not of the mode of vorhanden because it is not something that we ‘come across’ as we go about (BT, 69), but rather it is close to us, and is well known because it is inseparable from ourselves, but it is little understood in everyday experience because it is very close to us (BT, 69). In addition, Dasein is not zuhanden because it exists but is not for the purpose of effecting something.”

“Heidegger introduces the idea of ‘mineness’ as a quality that belongs to Dasein, as being that which is the true nature of Dasein”

Mineness, indeed replaces “an entity’ as the mode of Dasein’s authentic encounterability. However Dasein in fact is encounterable in an ‘inauthentic’ but primordial’ manner through the idea of ‘das Man’, or the “they”, the “one”.

Authenticity and inauthenticity = decisionism – the “they” as consensus, liberalism, against authenticity/authority, the “discourse of Mastery” as per Derrida. Authenticity in Heidegger’s early sense only comes with en-ownment of the Master by the en-slaved. The early sense hence not primordial. The ‘Lord’ is master by virtue of en-ownment by the en-slaved bondsman, therefore reducible. The en-slaved as not reducible. ‘Lord’ is Master only in a relative sense, in relation to the specifically en-slaved. En-slavement by en-framing (technology as techne) as ultimate reductio ad absurdum of Lordship to the en-grasping of the con-cept (Be-griff … “griff” grip or handle, old German). Origin of Heidegger’s transgression - the crucial philosophical mistake of favouring the Lord over the bondsman. C.f. the re-estimation of Being as Ereignis in terms of the mastery of the last god in “vom Ereignis.” Dasein is only encounterable as “mineness” by the Lord after a dialectical sublation, “not-mineness” is primordial.

“The possibility of seeing Dasein as either vorhanden or zuhanden results from the fact that in ‘being-in-the-world’ Dasein is constructed of stuff like the world and could be mistaken. Such a mistaking of Dasein for one of the other kinds of being would result in inappropriate relations and behaviour because it would reduce people to being either equipment or mere objects.”

Inappropriate relations or appropriative relations? c.f. the “event of appropriation”. Appropriating as the bringing into what is most proper, das eigen., “own”, ownhood, en-owning.

“Previous western views of humanity regarded people as either bipartite, body and soul, or tripartite, body, soul and spirit, and lead to the assumption that a person is a synthesis of the parts, but in Heidegger’s view Dasein is existence, not a synthesis of separately existing parts (BT, 153). Thus, Heidegger argues for regarding Dasein as a complete and indivisible being that enters into relations and intrinsically is a complete, unified, entity. There are multiple Dasein, which necessarily have some kind of relation to each other, whether warm and friendly or hermitic or otherwise, and these relations are characterized by Heidegger as ‘Being-with’ (BT, 160).”

Dasein is not the knowing Subject of Descartes but the unitary facticity of existence as disclosed. “Disclosedness” also involves “being-with” and allows truth to appear and be known as shared truth. “Eternal truth” depends on eternity, something we are entirely unsure about in a finite universe. “Objective” truth depends on the separation of subject/object, but the implicit intent of these notions – shared truth, or truth outside the individual existing human, is validated by Heidegger in the concept of disclosedness. “Truth” may only be disclosed to Dasein, but it “is” disclosed to, not determined by, the particular Dasein. Without requiring the basis in absolute knowledge of Hegel (only valid for beings within metaphysics) Heidegger offers support for the idea of shared truth about facticity.

My Own Personal Reactance Tale Pt 1

I think I've mentioned wage-slavery before. Perhaps. Of course I've been aware for a good number of years, practically since I started working, that we still live in such a system, however it suddenly became a lot more overt for me, triggering my own reactance and leading to some interesting observations.

My new position carries with it a lot of restrictions, from not being able to smoke on campus to not being able to bid on eBay. But the two restrictions that caused me the most angst were the lack of ability to use email or IM from work. Given that I will probably end up working 8-10 hours a day with a 4 hour combined commute it adds up to a lot of time spent incommunicado, at least as far as computer initiated contact goes. I've known for years that rights are societally granted, that there is no such thing as a bare unsocialized human being that could own “ human” rights, but to be in a situation, within a supposedly “free” society, where I cannot exercise things I have taken for granted for a long time puts me in a very similar position to mitda and emmie, when they run up against restrictions I put on them.

My first reactions, predictably, are to restore my freedoms, either by quitting the job, smoking by leaving the campus during the day or using my skill as a developer to access my own email system from work. Some of these I can do, some not. Other responsibilities weigh in, just as they do for my girls. Next comes the phase of analysis of the situation, and finally self analysis to see the reasons and results of my reactance.

It has been quite an eye opener, not that I thought life was all easy going and roses for the girls, but to experience it firsthand as a dominant personality was certainly disconcerting. Things at work will get better, as I work around one or two issues, and accept the others more easily by being distracted with the work at hand and not bored into focusing on the restrictions due to lack of work (it often takes companies a few days to get systems in place for a new developer and this is no exception).

Azureus Vuze for OpenSolaris

It got to irritating me that Azureus is not available for OpenSolaris. So here is a completely unsupported port of the program for OpenSolaris. Your mileage may vary but it seems to work here. Took all of 15 minutes to convert the Linux version. Of course the OnVuze features don't work, but it does pretty much what Azureus 2.x (which at least came in a Solaris/ultrasparc version) did. Given there's lots of programs to view vids etc. on Solaris Azureus comes in handy to download the torrents.

Azureus Vuze for OpenSolaris

A Long Day

We spent much of this rather longish day a little high on vicodin and flexeral. After the stress last night and the sorting it out this morning we all needed a mental vacation, at least I did.

The girls remain as they were as far as our relationship goes. There will be no more “topping from the bottom”. They can make requests, yes, but they cannot and will not be upset if the requests aren't granted.

On a happier note they get fitted tomorrow for their hallowe'en constumes. God knows what I'm going as though. Maybe I'll go as the host, who always dresses as a Texas rancher. Of course he has the ranch to back him up, our 12 sq ft or so backyard doesn't really count :).

Topping from the Bottom

Most of the time the slaves are quite happy doing what they are supposed to do, and quite happy with what Master does. Occasionally, though, Master does or intends to do something unwanted, and despite their vows to the contrary it becomes an occasion where it is tempting to “top from the bottom”.

This doesn't work altogether well for anyone. I don't, and won't indulge it. And it makes me angry and irritable. It makes me second guess doing the things the girls do want me to do, and if I'm not careful it can generate the very resentment I'm trying to avoid with this relationship.

Crrrriiiitttic !

During a conversation Saturday night a Master friend of mine brought up the “Master's inner critic”, in the sense of the following situation. When living 24/7 in an absolute enslavement relationship it can be easy for the Master to get lazy at times. Suddenly there's a “wait a minute, s/he didn't do ... while s/he was doing ... - ah well, let it go this time, the game's on ...”, and this happens a few times in a day, maybe multiply that by a few days, and you've suddenly let a few dozen “ little things” slide.

Then suddenly you decide you have to correct him/her and set things straight. But the “inner critic” is saying “oh yea, come down on him/her NOW after you were too lazy to do it the other three dozen times”, and it becomes a difficult thing to do. And if it keeps on going the AE dynamic is lost completely, the slave no longer expects correction, and the Master loses the ability to do it and just lets the relationship lapse.

Ironically that very thing happened to me seemingly directly afterwards. Having been faced with two slaves suffering from the muted grays, browns and blacks of the depressive end of the bipolar spectrum, and having been home to take care of some things that I wouldn't normally have time for, I found that all of a sudden E. was making dinner every night (or scrounging McD's or KFC for the family), the bedroom, master bathroom, kitchen and closets all looked like thermonuclear test sites and at 7:30am the only person even close to being awake and prepared to leave the house was myself, so I was taking the kidlet to school while E. got ready for work, and my two slaves snored peacefully in bed.

Time to bring out the heavy guns! Yep, I sent an EMAIL, lol. Detailing what wasn't done and that it had to be done from now on.

Or else!!!!

Or else what?

The inner critic was hounding me on that one but I went ahead anyway. Tonight the kitchen, bedroom, master bathroom and closet have all been cleaned and nitpicked over, we had a wonderful birthday dessertfest with mitda's mother, and while these sorts of things are not a cure for bipolar depression we've discussed emmie's situation in particular and come up with what I think is a workable plan to help her learn some new coping skills, as well as get her medications sorted out in a short amount of time, all without taking her near a hospital.

Critic, be damned.

Busy Weekend

One of the big local BDSM groups held its annual voting munch last night. Although we had a party to go to we dropped by the munch and passed our ballots. Mostly the same people won as last year, which is ok in most ways but a couple of our favourites didn't get the ballot.

Afterwards we went to a very intimate gathering of a BDSM group that, while inclusive, specifically tries to reach out to the black BDSM community, which is fledgling at best apparently. While emmie and I had some sexy S&M playtime Jubal warmed up mitda. I don't play emmie very often but when I do it means a lot to me because she submits for my enjoyment purely. Once she had had more than enough I did a “scene” with mitda that garnered a very unusual comment on its beauty from someone else at the party. We also enjoyed some great conversation. It's unusual for us to be able to spend significant time with other Absolute Enslavement couplse/triads etc. but we talked to a couple at the munch and then another couple that we have a great deal of respect for hosted the party. The slave of that couple mentors emmie and mitda on their enslavement and it seems to help them a lot, particularly emmie.

This morning we dragged ourselves from bed and went to brunch with the same people from the party. Again we had some great conversation and more than a little good food at a pancake house.

All in all an enjoyable M/s oriented weekend.

OpenSolaris with Audio and Everything

Well I finally got audio working on OpenSolaris thanks to the good folks at OpenSound System. Now everything on my laptop works under OpenSolaris. Everything worked by default, actually, upon installation except the audio. Wifi is built in. And of course being an X Windows based GUI I can load the GUI from any of my unix servers and run applications as if they were local to the laptop, while they use the CPU and disk space of the server.

Fitness for Master

As the most unhealthy member of the family it behooves me to try to get a little bit healthier. E is quite healthy, running a half marathon or so weekly and working out nightly before bed. And mitda has surprising stamina, after starting to run again she is quickly up to 6.5 miles. That leaves emmie and I, who would both much rather be sitting our asses on the bed than moving them in some useful fashion.

So we have started soccer practice in the mornings. I enjoy kicking the ball around, at one point I was actually a decent player. Neither emmie nor I get the “runner's high” from exercise, but I do get some excitement from the skill of handling a ball with one's feet.

As a result my legs are sore. Particularly my groin, which doesn't get used so much outside soccer as it does within soccer. But it should be worth it to keep it going. We all enjoy it and it's a good way to spend time together as well as getting some fitness happening.

Goodbye Windows Server 2008

Well it's back to OpenSolaris as Windows Server 08 had one problem after another, first the network list service crapped out, then COM+, then FTP no longer worked. Sigh, I guess RC0 is still not ready for prime time.

Trying Windows Server 2008

So I'm trying out Windows Server 2008 RC0 64 bit on my Thinkpad. So far, so-so. It's pretty fast, much faster than the 32 bit version of Vista on the same machine. Not quite as fast as OpenSolaris but probably about the same as Fedora Linux 8. I've had some problems with Com+, probably caused by the wireless driver for the atheros chipset but still unsure about that. I would probably rather go back to OpenSolaris but for the fact that the OpenSound drivers don't work on this particular intel hda soundcard as of yet. They're close, but not there.

Headachy Night

I woke in the middle of the night with a sharp headache. Some Excedrin is taking the edge off but no way can I lay down. I pounded a bottle of water and a coke and am hoping the fluid and caffeine work some magic. It takes me back to the period where I had a migraine that lasted for years. I somewhat got used to it. I somewhat just took a lot of painkillers – codeine, morphine, fentanyl. I don't ever want to go through that again.

Thought at its Limits

Foucault praises linguistics and psychoanalysis as examples of thought at its limits which discovers at the center of knowledge not humanity, but a sort of anti-humanity, a dead end if you will. Both linguistics and psychoanalysis find humanity suspended in a web of language, a language which mediates humanity and allows humanity to constitute an image of itself. But language is not such a stable support network; rather language's promise of solidity is something like quicksand, an infinitely regressing system which cannot comprehend its own foundation since it has no center or originary meaning to rest on. "From within language experienced and transversed as language, in the play of its possibilities extended to their farthest point, what emerges is that man has 'come to an end', and that, by reaching the summit of all possible speech, he arrives not at the very heart of himself but at the brink of that which limits him; in that region where death prowls, where thought is extinguished, where the promise of the origin interminably recedes." If humanity reveals itself only in and by language, humanity must accept a certain condemnation of silence to never be able to speak of its own origins and ends. Humanity is thrust into the foreground only to be distanced from its foundations, its background, a horizon which cannot speak and which, when approached, undoes thinking (as meaning is undone at the roots of language, the self at the roots of psychoanalysis), leaving only a horizon of the dead.

It is, then, in this context that Foucault speaks of humanity as a recent invention. Only with the elaboration of specific systems of thought which could inquire not into humanity's ideal or essence, but the functioning of the foreground and the silhouette of humanity against the enabling background. "We shall say, therefore, that a 'human science' exists, not whenever man is in question, but wherever there is analysis - within the dimension proper to the unconscious - of norms, rules, and signifying totalities which unveil to consciousness the conditions of its forms and contents." The subject of humanity was constituted during a certain moment in history which "dissolved" language, that is, an era which knowingly constructed its understanding of humanity "objectively," in between the spaces of representationality which show how humanity is deployed. According to Foucault, the human sciences address humanity in so far as people live, speak, and produce (biology, philology, and economics), and create its model by isolating and questioning the functioning of humanity when the norms and rules break down, and on that basis rebuild knowledge by showing how a functional representation of humanity can come into being and be deployed (and thus, Foucault will later argue, perfect the techniques of normalization and socialized encoding of rules via totalizing methods of power).

As language is now re-coalescing at its limits, combining thought and unthought, the Other of knowledge must give itself over to the Same. Where the limits of thinking reveal its own basis as its foundational limitations, a new way of thinking is constituted which, as Levi-Strauss says, "dissolves humanity." Foucault writes, "Since man was constituted at a time when language was doomed to dispersion, will he not be dispersed when language regains its unity?" The "death of man" seems a relatively peaceful event, not where humanity explodes with enormous violence, but a moment where humanity withdraws into the background such that a new array of knowledge can be foregrounded. Foucault does not yet have the advantage of a fully elaborated theory of language; however, if such a unity of language is not philosophized, humanity will forever find itself in a dying state, undoing itself by its own logic without our awareness. Foucault seems to ask that humanity die gracefully so that we can direct our energy to elaborating what is not yet thought, and approach a new horizon of articulation.

The Discourse of Mastery and Unlimited Responsibility

A “discourse of Mastery” is by definition ontologically (study of Being) penetrating. By this I mean that it gets at the totality of its subject matter in such a way as to have conquered it. To take an example Euclidean geometry, which carves pure space into dimensions, angles and arcs, is a discourse of Mastery of spatiality. As such it is repressive, in that it subsumes other perceptions of spatiality.

This repression can be very much freeing. Euclidean geometry frees the architect to do what he does knowing the basics will work, knowing the rules of the game. What happens when we bring quantum spatiality into the equation?

Essentially nothing, because while the architect may nod to quantum spatiality it doesn't have ontological penetration for him. It doesn't describe the beings he works with and utilizes on a day to day basis. Another Master's Mastery is as such only of a similarly comprehensive interest to myself or to my slaves. It might well be a discourse of Mastery, but it is not mine.

Mineness is a human trait, a trait of human being itself, that it is in each case mine. Or rather, is in the first place, but with the possibility of being given to another. This “giving”, or “ giving up” is en-owning, a giving of one's Being, an event (ereignis), an appropriation (bringing to the proper, to one's own). This giving up brings en-slavement, the Master's absolute subjugation of the slave. This subjugation brings its kind and tenor of Mastery.

With Mastery comes unlimited responsibility through the “ Mineness” of the slaves new mode of Being. The slave is, in totality, Mine as Master. I am therefore responsible for what my slaves do, say, imply, as much as I am for what I do, say, or imply from that event of enownment onward. From the event onward a slave is a human being with a difference, a modality of toolhood, they are some of the beings that I work with and utilize on a day to day basis. Mastery works itself out through the unlimited responsibility of using those tools daily, without hiatus. Mastery is a working through, a going through, and its workmanship is absolutely restless. It is restless in the way it moves and arranges its equipmental totality, its World, which is also the World of its slaves.

Operating System Fun

I have given Fedora 8 three goes without success. Granted it is still in beta, Test 3 is the current edition. But rather obvious problems have prevented me from dual booting OpenSolaris and Linux on my laptop using it. Such as the wireless not working on Test 3. It worked on Test 1 and Test 2, now it doesn't work. C'mon guys, this is almost as bad as Windows. Actually I expect that the hiccups will be fixed by November's release date and at that point I will try dual booting again.

While, in fact, I have gotten Windows Server working on emmie's laptop. Windows 2008 Server RC0, to be specific. And while it is slow as molasses compared to OpenSolaris it is reasonably stable and reliable. E. is getting along ok with Vista, it should be faster on his dual core than it in fact is, but he has enough hardware power to make it livable.

And I'm back to OpenSolaris. The next upgrade is a hardware upgrade for mitda's laptop which is dying a slow death after quite a good amount of usage. Her new one should arrive any day now, and while I let her make the decision about what OS to run, she surprised me by saying OpenSolaris. She gets along with XP Pro ok but is in slight envy of the speed and stability I get with Solaris. And the fact that StarOffice (Sun's supported version of OpenOffice) and GIMP and Firefox and Pidgin all come installed instead of requiring download and manual installation.

Self-Identity

Self-identification is a mysterious thing to me. People self-identify in all kinds of ways. For me it can be Master in an M/s relationship, bipolar, software architect, English-Canadian living in the US, all kinds of things that have overlapping and contradictory features.

For instance the English-Canadian background I have tends me towards socialist ideas. It can be difficult working out human ownership when one doesn't fundamentally believe in private property. And the bipolar throws a huge curve into everything, especially when both of my slaves are also bipolar. But being a Dominant is obviously not a bipolar tendency, if only proven by the fact that my two slaves ARE also bipolar.

So we tell ourselves our self-identifying stories and try to make the best of our possibilities. I am enjoying things the way they are going and I very much credit my family (current) for that.

Sleepy ...

After going out for coffee with emmie and Jubal I find myself too sleepy to think much on anything – mitda was too tired to even go out for coffee and stayed home.

Which isn't to say I don't have a lot on my mind. It'll just have to wait to make it into the blogosphere.

My Conflagration had a little Conflagration

Last night mitda decided to try her luck grilling some chicken quarters. After all, it can't be that hard to grill something, men do it!

So she caused a bit of a conflagration. By the time she called me out to

help the grill temperature gauge had hit its maximum of 800 degrees and the chicken was literally on fire. The bacon she had wrapped around the chicken didn't help matters, but the fact that all three burners were on high and the lid was closed was the real issue.

After letting the grill cool I went ahead and baked the chicken at about 350 degrees to cook it through, and we had very blackened chicken for dinner. Surprisingly it didn't turn out that bad. It was quite edible.

Counselling and Mastery

I had an interesting experience last night. Jubal is in grad school to get a Master's degree in counselling (yes he plans a kink-aware practice). He interviewed me as part of his schoolwork. The particular thing he was training himself on was how to ask open ended questions. I found it quite neat that, despite knowing he was testing some technique, the technique remained effective.

With slave training I believe the same thing applies. Although the slave is aware of his/her training and the techniques applied the techniques still work just as well. In some ways they work better because the slave is involved and immersed in his/her training and is optimally working as hard at the training or harder than the Master.

I had a few criticisms of Jubal's techniques but overall he did a good job. Talking about personal issues with a family member is never easy, and it worked quite well and helped me personally somewhat in figuring out an issue I have at the moment. Not that it's a big issue like childhood molestation or anything, it's a simple work issue. But it's all the little issues that add up.. And it's the little issues that slaves have that a Master has to take the most time dealing with.

Test of Staroffice / Openoffice Weblog Publisher

This is a test, I repeat, This is a test.

I just installed the weblog extension for Staroffice/Openoffice on my laptop. In my case I'm using Staroffice, which comes with OpenSolaris and has a few extra features over Openoffice. Both my girls run Openoffice on their Windows machines rather than Micro$oft Office and it seems to work for them quite well. Now that Lotus Symphony also supports Opendocument format we actually have a competition in free office suites. So don't pay $$$ for MS, Openoffice reads and writes MS files just fine, and a number of governments and institutions are stopping the glut of asking for .DOC format files and starting to request Opendocument files instead. It works. It's free. And it's not so ugly as Office 2007 with its messed up skins.