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67 Part II Modern Technology Heidegger begins his characterization of modern technology in “Die Frage nach der Technik” by speaking of the “essential domain” of technology . He does not say explicitly what the term “essential domain” (der Wesensbereich) means, but it is readily intelligible. Technology has been determined in its essence as a disclosive looking. Presumably, then, the domain of the essence is the domain gazed at in the disclosive looking. This domain has come to light as the realm of Being, the essence, truth, disconcealment, aletheia. The “essential domain” of technology is then precisely the essence, the essence of things in general. Thus Heidegger’s term Wesensbereich should perhaps be translated very literally as “essence-domain.” What it expresses is that technology has the essence as its domain, technology is fundamentally the disclosive looking at the essence of things in general. What has just been determined is precisely that technology is this sort of theoretical disclosure, a matter of truth, and not primarily a way of doing and making things. Heidegger proceeds to raise the hypothetical objection that this determination of the essential domain applies only to ancient and not to modern technology: “In opposition to this determination of the essential domain of technology, one could object that it might indeed hold for Greek thinking and, at best, might apply to handcraft technology, but it does not at all appertain to modern, power-machine technology” (FT, 15/13). Let us look a little more closely at this possible objection. What is supposed not to appertain to modern technology, and why? Ancient versus modern technology The objection denies that modern technology is an affair of looking disclosively upon Being or upon the essence of things. Ancient technology might conceivably be understood in those terms, but not modern technology . Why? What is the difference between the two technologies? As expressed here, the difference is between handcraft technology and power-machine technology. That is, the difference is between the hand, or the hand machine, and the power machine. What is this difference? What is the difference between, say, a chisel in the hands of Michelangelo and a laser knife (which is a “high-tech” power tool)? From one point of view, the former is at times more violent than the latter. A chisel would be infinitely more “invasive” than a laser if it had to be used in surgery. But there is a more fundamental sense in which to be gentle means to let come forth, no matter how much noise and brute strength it takes, and to be violent is to impose upon, no matter how little material damage is done. In this sense, the hand tool is gentle, and Michelangelo’s sculpting is gentle work, whereas modern surgery, even laser surgery on the eye, is violent and forceful , if it stems from the usual imperious attitude of today’s medicine. The difference between the gentleness of hand tools and the force of power machines is doubtlessly in play in the formulation of the hypothetical objection just stated. Handcraft technology can be understood as an affair of looking, for the precise reason that it is gentle. Handcraft does not, so to speak, overpower the matter but only gears into the matter’s own flow in a certain direction. Handcraft is not the master of the form buried in the matter, it is the servant of that form. Recall Aristotle’s thesis that the eidos is the genuine producer and that everything else is subservient to it. That is exactly why ancient technology might be determined in its essence as a disclosive looking. If handcraft is subservient to something already implicit in the matter, then indeed the prime work of the handcraftsman can be understood as the gentle occupation of contemplation, of looking disclosively upon that to which it is subservient, upon that whence it receives guidance, namely the Being of some being, or, speaking generally, Being as such. Because handcraft is gentle,1 because it desires to nurture Being, it can be understood as primarily theoretical, as the disclosive looking upon Being. Power-machine technology is precisely powerful; it enforces its will upon matter, imposes a form onto matter, rather than merely nurturing a form from latency to visibility. Power-machine technology is pragmatic; it desires results and cannot be bothered with theory. Through power machines , human will is inflicted on matter; the man running a power machine is a dictator. He forces his will onto matter. That is why modern...

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