Crisis Theory and World Order: Heideggerian Reflections

3 The Metaphysical Ground of World Order Thinking

In the preceding chapter I have discussed briefly various approaches to world order thinking and have characterized this thinking (speaking generally) as normative, technocratic, and ideological.1 Most important is the observation that this thinking is calculative or, said otherwise, a strategic rationality. Moreover, I have stated that my concern here is with world order thinking as a phenomenon in the fundamental history of the West and, in this sense, with what can be said to be the tacit dimension of Western history insofar as the destiny of the West is determined by metaphysics. Thus, my task is to disclose the metaphysical ground of world order thinking insofar as Heidegger’s thought enables the disclosure of this ground. There is much here that already calls for clarification: What is meant by ‘phenomenon’? In what sense is world order thinking a phenomenon? What is “fundamental” to history—in this case, to the history of the West? What is meant by “the tacit dimension” of this history? What is meant by “the destiny of the West,” and how is it that this destiny is “determined by metaphysics ”? What is meant by ‘metaphysics’, and how is this “determination” to be understood? What do we understand by ‘ground’ in this relationship between world order thinking and metaphysics, such that metaphysics is “the ground” of this thinking? Finally, why should these questions matter to us, 71 CHAPTER THREE The Metaphysical Ground of World Order Thinking such that we should take a “step back” from calculative thinking to that other thinking the task of which it is to pose such questions? I shall attempt to answer these questions in the course of this chapter. To this end I have organized my remarks into two major sections. Section 1 is essentially preparatory, insofar as I explicate relevant concepts as they are understood by Heidegger. On the basis of the conceptual clarification of section 1, I advance in section 2 my main argument concerning the metaphysical ground of world order thinking. SECTION ONE THE ‘STEP BACK’ FROM CALCULATIVE THINKING In a memorial address delivered in 1955 in commemoration of composer Conradin Kreutzer, Heidegger makes a distinction between calculative thinking (rechnendes Denken) and meditative thinking (besinnliches Denken).2 The former has as its unique mark the trait of “reckoning”—of investigating, planning , and organizing with reference to given conditions and specific purposes. Such thinking counts on specific results and profits us in the performance of practical affairs. The possibilities with which such thinking is concerned are more or less “promising,” i.e., more or less realizable as ends, given appropriate means. This thinking is, in a word, efficacious. It has its own need and justification in the very nature of human affairs and associations. World order thinking, I have said, is a calculative thinking. It reckons with given conditions, viz., those global conditions (war, poverty, social injustice, ecological decay, etc.) characterizing a datable point of departure (e.g., the “state of the world” in 1990). It investigates these conditions in accordance with the overarching specific purpose of correcting structural deficiencies in the world political system. Thereby, it is “value thinking.” Indeed, world order thinking is calculative thinking most of all because it concerns itself with values, for ‘value’ means “that which is in view for a seeing that aims at something or that, as we say, reckons upon something and therewith must reckon with something else.”3 World order thinking aims at the elimination of war, at the preservation of the human species, at the elimination of social injustice, and at safeguarding the life-support systems of the planet. This it would do through reorientation of values and public policy, as well as through institutional transformation at various levels of governmental and nongovernmental action and initiative. It is concerned with possibilities of political practice and social organization in general, always with a 72 Theoretical Critique view toward feasibility of intervention and with awareness that specific strategies can be system-diminishing, system-maintaining, system-reforming, or system-transforming.4 In this sense, then, world order thinking is diagnostic and prescriptive, concerned overall with the process of transition from the present system of international relations to a more preferable structure of governance and planetary dwelling. The element of preference is indicative of an operative distinction, viz., that a world order that comes about through rational design is better than one that comes about by the mere drift of events...