Desire, Beyng, event: principles of a minimal Heideggerianism

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by  Andrew Tyler Jorn

Inscriptions
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Title: Desire, Beyng, event: principles of a minimal Heideggerianism
Author: Andrew Tyler Jorn
Section: Academic articles
Abstract: Heidegger’s philosophy no longer provokes us today as it once did. In this essay, I
outline three principles of a minimal Heideggerianism – psychoanalytically inflected and
stripped of all dubious mysteriological imagery – that brings Heidegger’s thought up to date
and allows it to speak to the exigencies of the present. These principles are as follows. First,
the historical ‘destiny’ of humanity has unfolded along a single trajectory culminating in
modern techno-capitalism qua total world-picture that corresponds most perfectly and
completely to the internally self-defeating structure of desire. Second, what Heidegger calls
Beyng is the master name for the general loss or lack that drives this destiny inexorably
onward; Beyng thus has no positive content other than its irrecoverable absence. Third, the
event cannot be understood as the promise of an ultimately fulfilling reunification with
Beyng à venir, but only as a traversing of the fundamental fantasy of such unification.
Keywords: Heidegger; Nietzsche; psychoanalysis; desire; capitalism
©
Copyright 2022 Jorn.
Correspondence: Andrew Tyler Jorn, e: [email protected].
Received: 12 October, 2021.
Accepted: 2 November, 2021.
Published: 15 January, 2022.
How to cite: Jorn, Andrew Tyler. “Desire, Beyng, event: principles of a minimal Heideggerian-
ism.” Inscriptions 5, no. 1 (January 2022): 26-34.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
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Desire, Beyng, event: principles of a minimal
Heideggerianism
Andrew Tyler Jorn1
Abstract
Heidegger’s philosophy no longer provokes us today as it once did. In this essay, I
outline three principles of a minimal Heideggerianism – psychoanalytically inflected
and stripped of all dubious mysteriological imagery – that brings Heidegger’s thought
uptodateandallowsittospeaktotheexigenciesofthepresent. Theseprinciplesareas
follows. First, the historical ‘destiny’ of humanity has unfolded along a single trajectory
culminating in modern techno-capitalism qua total world-picture that corresponds
mostperfectlyandcompletelytotheinternallyself-defeatingstructureofdesire. Second,
what Heidegger calls Beyng is the master name for the general loss or lack that drives
this destiny inexorably onward; Beyng thus has no positive content other than its
irrecoverable absence. Third, the event cannot be understood as the promise of an
ultimately fulfilling reunification with Beyng à venir, but only as a traversing of the
fundamental fantasy of such unification.
Keywords: Heidegger;Nietzsche;psychoanalysis;desire;capitalism
Introduction tonality,3 for much of the twentieth century
philosophy struggled to reconcile itself with a
As Žižek points out apropos Hegel, a gen-
certain brand of historico-transcendental on-
uine historical rupture is defined by the emer-
tology and, later, a tall tale about a universal
genceofafundamentalimpossibility–namely,
world destiny culminating in modern technics
that of a certain naivety, of looking the other
– a progressive fall into mass oblivion qua col-
way and feigning indifference, pretending the
lective infatuation with presence, objectivity,
break never happened.2 Even if its seismic
and instrumental rationality – and the saving
impact on intellectual life was not as great as
power of art and poetry. Today, in the open-
that of Plato, Descartes, or Hegel (Žižek’s tri-
ing decades of the twenty-first century, this
umvirate of philosophical titans), Heidegger’s
agenda has all but run its course. ‘Heidegger’
philosophy, too, was undoubtedly such a rup-
remains a trusty product line for the educa-
ture, in the sense that it set an agenda that
tional sausage factory – the focus of endless
couldn’tbeignored. JustasSchoenbergforced
neo-scholastic busywork and the raw material
the musical world to take a stance vis-à-vis
for a steady stream of research ‘outputs’. But
1TsukubaGakuinUniversity,Japan.
2 Žižek,LessThanNothing,193.
3 Ibid. ŽižekrefersheretothestandardAdornoianinterpretationofserialism,onewhich,whileheuristically
useful,isneverthelesshistoricallyquestionable.
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Jorn Desire, Beyng, event
we have long since ceased to turn to existen- its own way and for its own ends – holds that
tial phenomenology for the deepest insights the truth or ‘essence’ of a body of thought is
into the human condition. We don’t reach for onlyeverfullyunderstoodretroactively,inthe
conceptssuchas‘enframing’(Gestell)or‘stand- light of a present whose contours it will al-
ing reserve’ (Bestand) to elucidate the meaning readyandnecessarilyhavecometoshape(thus
and dangers of a techno-scientism run amok. Heidegger brings out the truth of Nietzsche’s
And we certainly (and thankfully) don’t look thoughtinthesamewaythatNietzschebrings
to grand metanarratives about epochal ‘send- out the truth of Hegel’s). The claim, then, is
ings of being’ or the ‘ringing of the fourfold’ that psychoanalytic theory is unusually, per-
to inform our efforts to deal with imminent hapsuniquely,positionedtobringoutthetruth
crises such as the ongoing (and ever increas- ofthebodyofthoughtthatfallsunderthehead-
ing) threat of nuclear war or a raging climate ing of the name ‘Heidegger’ – a truth that,
emergency which is not just on our doorsteps moreover, confirms that this thought contin-
butindeedalreadyfloodingourbasementsand ues to speak to the needs and concerns of the
burning up our homes. Heidegger’s disastrous present. To be sure, there is a certain irony
political career aside, this kind of thinking has or tension in saying that Heidegger’s thought
simply lost its hold on us; we no longer have maintains its pertinence only and precisely in-
to ask where we stand vis-à-vis Heidegger in sofarasitistranslatedintothelanguageofpsy-
order to get our intellectual bearings in the choanalysis (why not simply do psychoanaly-
world. Indifferenceisnotonlypossible;indeed sis?). Thewager,however,isthatthebenefitof
it is the norm. thistranslationismutual: thehopeisthatstrip-
But if Heideggerian thought no longer pro- ping Heideggerian thought of its burdensome
vokes us as it once did, perhaps it retains a mysteriological baggage with the aid of psy-
certainpowertoorientus,namely,byframing choanalysis not only rescues the former from
an intellectual mise-en-scène that can serve as irrelevance but also, and conversely, gives the
a backdrop against which further and more latteranopeningforappropriatingelementsof
fine-tuned theoretical work can comfortably Heidegger’s (now demystified) historical on-
becarriedout. Ifso,however,thegeneralmes- tologyanditsradicalandengrainedscepticism
sage of this thought will inevitably have to be of the modern religion of infinite power and
recastinlanguagewhichismoreresonantwith productivity.4
the times. This language, I will propose, along Drawing out the inner truth of a thought
with its underlying conceptual logic, is that of in this way is something different from a
psychoanalysis, and more specifically, a fully ‘hermeneutical’ analysis which would seek to
contemporary and deeply penetrating psycho- uncover obscure authorial intentions through
analytic critique of capitalism which at first an elaborate and tortuous exegesis of ‘texts’.
glance might seem wholly antithetical to both The aim is not to reconstruct what Heidegger
the spirit and the letter of Heidegger’s philos- ‘meant’ to say, but rather to say what was in
ophy. But this is far from the case. The jus- fact said in a better way. One reason for as-
tification for translating Heidegger’s thought signingthisroletopsychoanalysisinparticular
into the psychoanalytic idiom is the very prin- is that, as with Heidegger, it subordinates a
ciple that informs Heidegger’s own readings diagnosis of the contradictions of capitalism as
of the history of philosophy. This principle acontingentsystemoforganisationofpolitico-
– to which psychoanalysis also subscribes in economic life to higher-order reflection on
4 IwouldliketothankananonymousreviewerforsuggestingthatIflagthistensionupfront.
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Desire, Beyng, event Jorn
Power | desire
prior, constitutive, and equally contradictory
forces and processes formative of the subject
ThefigureofNietzschecomestooccupyasin-
of capitalist modernity as such. For both, the
gularlyprivilegedplaceinHeidegger’sproject.
modern subject is not a mere ‘effect’ of capital-
For Heidegger, Nietzsche is ‘the last thinker
ism but in some sense its condition of possibil-
of the modern era’. This means, of course,
ity. Theterms‘capital’and‘capitalism’mustac-
notthatNietzscheanachronisticallybringsthe
cordingly be understood in what Bataille calls
modern era to a close, but rather that he com-
a ‘general’ as opposed to a ‘restricted’ sense.5
pletes or fulfils it. Nietzsche is singled out be-
While it is true enough that no specific con-
causeheisthethinkerwho‘thinksthemodern
figuration of capitalist relations of production
essence of the West simultaneously with the
is historically inevitable, there is nevertheless
historical essence of the modern world history
a sense in which we can say that ‘capital’ qua
of the globe’.6
orientation to productive life überhaupt is the
Amoreuniversalisingthesiscouldhardlybe
ontological correlate – and highest and fullest
imagined. Heidegger is effectively dethroning
expression – of human subjectivity insofar as
Hegelasthethinkeroftheabsoluteandbestow-
it is (d)riven by certain irreducible and irre-
ing that status on Nietzsche; he is unambigu-
mediable structural tensions and traumas. So
ously proposing that European modernity – as
far,then,fromcapitalbeingmerelya‘product’
expressed in its highest and most perfect form
of human nature, it would be more correct
inNietzsche’sphilosophy–insomefundamen-
to say that capital is human nature itself: ‘cap-
talsensemarkstheendortelos(quarealisation
ital’ being one of the names, even a kind of
of the ‘essence’) of the history of all human-
master name, for an originary restlessness – an
ity hitherto. ‘Nietzsche’s thinking’, Heidegger
inexorable and irrepressible ‘will to difference’
declares, is ‘the genuine European-planetary
– engendered and perpetuated by a structural
thinking’, i.e., the ‘European-planetary trait in
conflict – what Heidegger would call an ‘Ur-
Nietzsche’s metaphysics’ is itself ‘only the con-
streit’ – at the heart of the subject’s libidinal
sequence of that fundamental trait in his phi-
economy.
losophythroughwhichhisphilosophyreaches
In the remainder of this essay, I will sketch
back’tothebeginning,‘intotheconcealeddes-
out this quasi-psychoanalytic essence of Hei-
tinyofWesternthinking,andinacertainway
deggerian philosophy in three basic theses,
completes its determination’.7
whichIwillorganiseunderthefollowinghead-
What sort of ‘essence’ might this be? What
ings: power,Beyng,event. Eachofthesehead-
‘completes’ itself in Nietzsche’s philosophy?
ings corresponds to a fundamental teaching
Heidegger’s answer is strangely simple: what
of psychoanalytic theory, to which we might
Nietzsche brings to light is the (then-still-
give the corresponding headings: desire, objet
hidden) truth of being itself. If we put this
a/lost object, traversing the fundamental fan-
in ordinary language, this says that there is
tasy. Taken together, these theses constitute
something about the way in which human be-
the core of a general orientation that I will call
ingsunderstand–‘naturally’,asitwere,andso
minimal Heideggerianism.
perhaps inevitably – what it means for beings
‘tobe’atallthatpropels,slowlybutinexorably,
all of human history, the ‘world history of the
5 See,forexample,Bataille,TheAccursedShare,Vol. 1,19-26.
6 Heidegger,ThinkingandPoetizing,7.
7 Ibid.,7-8.
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Jorn Desire, Beyng, event
globe’, along a certain fixed teleological trajec- in ‘objects’ to which such satisfaction is inti-
tory. More specifically, it is because we have mately but ultimately only contingently tied.
never not understood being as objectivity – the In the paradigmatic example: at the level of
structural correlate of productive activity in bare animal instinct, the human infant is satis-
general – that global-universal history has un- fiedbynourishingmilk,whileatthelevelofthe
foldedinthedirectionofaprogressivemastery drives, it ‘cathects’ – i.e., libidinally attaches it-
and domination of the earth. What Heidegger self to – the mother’s breast as an object which
findsinNietzsche,then,isaperceptive,honest, is associatively coupled with the enjoyment
andfearlessappraisal,indeedaringingendorse- of nourishment despite providing no physical
ment, of ‘being’ as we have always already (if nourishment itself. Drives, then, have a so-
onlyobscurely)understoodittobe: rawwillto maticsource,buttheyultimatelytranscendthe
power. ‘IfNietzschethinkswhatis,andthereby strictly biological domain.
attemptstosaywhatbeingsasawholeactually ThegroundofwhatHeideggercalls‘thehis-
are with respect to their being, then Nietzsche torical essence of the modern world history of
says: all beings are, insofar as they are, will to the globe’ lies in the curious dynamics of this
power.’8 The name ‘Nietzsche’ is the banner transcendence. Unlike instincts, which regu-
heading of an epoch – ‘the epoch of the de- late the organism’s life and keep it in a state
velopment and installation of the mastery of of relative homeostasis, drives turn out to have
the human over the earth. The human as the a complex structure that, if thought through,
subject of production. The earth as the core explains why the human is a ‘subject of pro-
area of the objectivity of world use.’9 duction’ for whom the earth is nothing but
For many reasons, we no longer have much ‘thecoreareaoftheobjectivityofworlduse’.10
use for such a metaphysically suggestive yarn When an organism gets what it needs, it gets
aboutaworld-historicaldestinyperfectingand ‘the Thing itself’, as it were – it touches ‘the
completing itself in European modernity. But Real’. An object, on the other hand, can never
perhaps this story can be told in a more nu- beaThinginthissense. Objectsareinternally
anced and plausible way – one that brings out split–or‘barred’,asLacanwouldsay–andfor
its‘innertruth’inamannercomparabletoHei- two main reasons. First, on the phenomeno-
degger’s distillation of the truth of Nietzsche’s logical or ‘Imaginary’ register, objects always
thought. Psychoanalytic drive theory, I will appear as an ever-shifting rhapsody of what
risk, can help us do just that. Husserl calls ‘adumbrations’ or partial views,
Here we must be content with a rough i.e.,montage-likeassemblagessubjecttocease-
sketch of the argument. We begin by distin- less eidetic variation. Objects, put simply, are
guishing between instinct (Instinkt) and drive shot through with negativity – or more pre-
(Trieb)ascloselyrelatedbutnonethelessdistinct cisely, negativity is structurally constitutive of
phenomena. While instincts are oriented to- ‘objectivity’ as such: all objects are ‘partial ob-
ward the satisfaction of biological needs – and jects’.11Second, on the socio-cultural or ‘Sym-
for this reason are characteristic of living or- bolic’ register, the meaning of objects is al-
ganisms in general, qua living – drives, on the ways shifting and unstable, a retroactive and
other hand, are never oriented toward mere contingent by-product of a complex, anony-
satisfaction but are rather and always invested mous, and autonomous play of (linguistic and
8 Ibid.,7.
9 Ibid.,64.
10ThefollowingdescriptionofthedrivesasinternallythwartedisaroughsummaryofAdrianJohnston’stheory
ofthe‘splitdrive’inhisearlyworkTimeDriven: MetapsychologyandtheSplittingoftheDrive.
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Desire, Beyng, event Jorn
non-linguistic) signifiers (what Derrida calls no end. As opposed to the organism seeking
différance). Unlike in the case of instincts, instinctualgratification,thesubjectstrictosensu,
then, drives never get what they are after; ob- as a subject oriented toward objects, is defined
jects never satisfy in the way food qua nour- precisely by this self-defeating ‘bad infinity’
ishment simpliciter satisfies a hungry animal. of satisfaction and frustration. What trauma-
Anditispreciselythisimpossibilityofattaining tisesusisnotsimplynotgettingwhatwewant,
full satisfaction that precipitates an inexorable but the terrible, tragic way in which we only
metonymic ‘sliding’ from one necessarily inad- get what we want in never getting what we
equateobject-choicetothenext,theconsump- want. This explains the complex and paradox-
tion of each only exacerbating, never sating, ical role of fantasy, whose job is to fabricate
theoriginaldemand. Everinhotpursuitofthe obstacles (such as Lacan’s nom/non du père, i.e.,
object that would be ‘It’, the Thing itself, the the ‘No!’ of an authority) that make the dream
drives are, as Freud says, pure compulsions to of full jouissance – of ‘enjoying our enjoyment’
repeat. – possible precisely by keeping it forever out
There is, in short, an irreducible, structural of reach.13
antinomy involved in the sublation of instinct. Fromthisperspective,itbecomessomewhat
Drives are propelled and sustained by the very less preposterous to talk about a universal (if
failure that elicits them; they obtain a kind uneven) history of progressive domination on
of enjoyment – or ‘jouissance’ in Lacanian jar- the part of ‘subjects of production’ for whom
gon – precisely from their structural inability theearthisavastfieldof‘objectivityforworld
ever to obtain the enjoyment they expect. In use’. For we only have to ask how we should
psychoanalytic theory, this strictly negative as- expectsuchconstitutivelyfrustratedsubjectsto
pect of the drive – i.e., drive taken specifically organise their world generally speaking. And
from the angle of its appearance as an orig- theobviousansweris thatdesiring subjects are
inary frustration or dissatisfaction stemming likely to configure the world along the lines
from the constitutive impossibility of acquir- of this fundamental fantasy. If we think of
ingtheThingitself–isdesire. Strictlyspeaking, capitalism (or ‘techno-capitalism’,14 as Heideg-
driveanddesirearenotdistinctlibidinalforces. ger would have it) along Bataillean lines, as
Indeed we cannot even say, as Freud himself a system of production geared toward the ex-
did, that they fall on different psychic registers pansion of the productivity-expanding forces
(as the transformation of unconscious pleasure themselves in perpetuum (of production for its
into conscious unpleasure). Rather the drive- own sake), then capitalism turns out to be, at
desire couplet points to a fundamental tension bottom, simply the most sublime and ‘authen-
or fissure at the heart of subjectivity itself.12 tic’ (in the sense of ‘ap-propriate’, discussed
The unhappy ‘ce n’est pas ça’ of desire is co- below) external manifestation of desire. Cap-
emergentwithandinseparablefromthedrive’s italism accomplishes this in two related ways.
blind,superegoicinjunctiontoenjoy!, enjoy! to First, it sets in motion an immensely power-
11Oneofthebestrecentaccountsofthisconstitutivenegativityoftheobjectisfoundinthelife-phenomenology
ofRenaudBarbaras. Ashewrites,‘itisnotaquestionofadimensionthatwouldbeaddedtobeingorthatwould
carveoutitsconstitutivedensity,butofanegativitythatisconstitutiveofbeingitself...whichistantamountto
sayingthatthepresenceoftheappearinginvolvesessentiallyadimensionofindeterminacyorretreat.’ Barbaras,
DesireandDistance,73.
12 Johnston,op. cit.,373-4.
13 AsToddMcGowanwrites,‘Thetaskoffantasyisenvisioningthepossibilityofacompletesatisfactionthat
thesubjectcanneverexperience.’ SeehisCapitalismandDesire,203.
14 IfirstencounteredthisformulationinMigueldeBeistegui,ThinkingwithHeidegger,155.
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Jorn Desire, Beyng, event
ful apparatus of differential production which ger’s failure to go beyond the transcendental
transforms the world – beings as such and as project of isolating the way in which being
a whole – into a vast field of objects whose is necessarily understood within the tempo-
sole raison d’être is to mask the inherent fail- ral horizon of human existence. Likewise, in
ure of the drives by creating the illusion of the his later work Heidegger is at pains to explain
possibility of an infinite (and infinitely acceler- that his continued use of the word ‘being’ is
ating) proliferation of difference as such: ‘This intended to dislodge it from the ‘metaphysical’
may not be “It”..., but perhaps this, or this, framework which has fixed its meaning since
or this...’ At the same time, and second, cap- the dawn of Western thought (thus precipitat-
italism looms over the subject as a Big Other ingitsinevitabledeclineintomere‘objectivity
whose very complexity, incomprehensibility, ofworlduse’always‘onhand’forthe‘subjectof
and internal contradictions function as a scape- production’). ThisisevidentfromHeidegger’s
goat to explain and justify this failure despite refusal to settle into a stable vocabulary vis-à-
this productivity: ‘I might have “It”, if only the vis‘being’. Sometimes,forexample,Heidegger
system weren’t so broken, if only there were adopts the medieval spelling ‘beyng’ (Seyn), in
more regulations...’, etc. It is precisely this the manner of Hölderlin. At other times he
paradoxical unity of yes! and no! that makes invokes a ‘mystery’ (Geheimnis) or an ‘enigma’
capitalism so seductive and enduring, and that (Rätsel). Still at other times he prefers to put
demands that we understand it as something theword‘being’undererasurebysimplycross-
essentially more than a mere logic of social or- ing it out – the cross itself gesturing vaguely
ganisation. By conjuring up the illusion of the to something else, a sort of ‘fourfold’ play of
infiniteproductionofdifference,capitalismsus- equiprimordial cosmic ingredients (Geviert).
tains the fantasy of full satisfaction even while, Beyng, that is to say, only first appears as
at the very same time, it alleviates the desiring lost, missing, in retreat; it has no positive con-
subject’s guilt and anxiety by absolving it of tentoutsideofthisoriginaryabsenceandwith-
anyresponsibilityforitsconstantfailuretolive drawal. Beyng signifies a ‘Real’ which is only
up to this (impossible) demand.15 given after the fact, in and through its very
oblivion. ‘Youmayhuntdownallbeings’,Hei-
Beyng | objet a/lost object degger says, ‘but nowhere will the trace of
being show itself’.16 In psychoanalytic terms,
Havingestablishedthismuch,thetworemain-
Beyngisthereforeyetanothername–perhaps
ingprinciplesofminimalHeideggerianismfall
the most general name – for the ‘lost object’
moreeasilyintoplace. Heidegger,aseveryone
of the drives, the Thing itself which appears
knows, is the thinker of ‘being’. In truth, how-
precisely as the forever unattainable. Beyng is
ever, it would be far more correct to say that
what Lacan calls ‘objet a’, the intangible trace
Heidegger is the thinker of everything but ‘be-
of the Real that is always one step ahead of de-
ing’. Thereasonisthat,fromthebeginningto
sire. In chasing down Beyng in every object,
the end of his career, ‘being’ is precisely what
desiring subjectivity inevitably turns Beyng
never shows up. The project of Being and Time,
‘itself’ into an object; the mad pursuit of this
of course, was famously cut short by Heideg-
elusiveobjetaisitselfwhatcondemnstheworld
15 AsSamoTomšičwrites,thedrive‘isfixatedontheobject,thegeneralequivalent,whichduetoitsparadoxical
status...supportstheinfinitisationofsatisfaction,whichistosay,itsimpossibilityandendlessperpetuation. The
capitalistdriveforself-valorisationisanunsatisfiabledemand,whichnolabourcanliveupto.’ SeeTheCapitalist
Unconscious,123-4.
16 Heidegger,TheEvent,66.
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Desire, Beyng, event Jorn
to appear as an ever-growing stockpile of (em- wasnevertheretobeginwith. Itmust,inshort,
pirical) objects to be mastered, consumed, and amount to what psychoanalysis calls ‘travers-
discarded. This is why Heidegger says that ingthefundamentalfantasy’offullenjoyment.
the most important matter for thinking today We will never ‘have’ Beyng – human beings
is ‘the subjectivity of the human and its role in and Beyng will never mutually have or ‘appro-
(beyng) as objectivity’.17 priate’ each other – as long as this is taken to
meanafantasyinwhichhumanityfinallyfinds
Event | traversing the itself face to face with the Thing itself in the
fundamental fantasy glory of full presence. What is appropriated in
the appropriative event – i.e., that which must
‘Er-eignis’ is the Heideggerian term which is be ‘owned up to’ as what belongs to our ‘own-
usuallytranslatedas‘event’. TheGermanword most’ humanity – is precisely this originary
‘eigen’ has many meanings, but in Heidegger’s and irrecoverable loss. When Heidegger says
philosophy it often conveys a sense of ‘own- that ‘only a god can save us’,18 this means not
ness’, as in the word ‘Eigentlichkeit’, tradition- that we hold out hope for divine salvation, but
ally translated as ‘authenticity’ but perhaps bet- rather and simply that such salvation is what
ter rendered as an ‘owning up to’ oneself. Sim- wecanneverexpectorattain–thereisnoway
ilarly,suchanowninguptooneselfmightalso ‘back’ to the Real, because the Real was lost
betakenasacertainkindof‘propriety’toward from the beginning.
oneself, to be properly (toward) oneself, i.e., to This brings us back to Nietzsche and ‘the
be what one is in the most ‘ap-propriate’ way. modern world history of the globe’. For Niet-
For this reason, ‘Er-eignis’ is often translated zschetoo,inanessentialway,hastraversedthe
as the ‘appropriative event’. And while it is fundamental fantasy. Is Nietzsche also, then, a
customary to distinguish between authenticity thinkeroftheevent? ForHeidegger,Nietzsche
andthe(appropriative)event,itisalsoclearthat completes – in the sense of brings to perfect
theyshareacommonconcern,namely,thatof closure–thehistoryofallhumanityhitherto–
what constitutes the most proper relationship whatHeideggeroftencallsthe‘firstbeginning’.
between human beings and Beyng ‘itself’. If Nietzsche accomplishes this through a simple
we insist on understanding Beyng, in confor- butdecisivereversalthatfollowsthelogicofde-
mitywiththetradition,asanobject,thensuch sire through to its ultimate conclusion. Insofar
an event can only appear as something quasi- asdesireisinseparablefromexperiencesoffrus-
theological,asoteriologicalinterventionàvenir tration and anxiety elicited by the trauma of
that reconciles a fallen humanity with a tran- the constitutive loss of the Thing (i.e., Beyng),
scendent power. Beyng, however, as we said, its movement, however relentless, remains es-
is originarily and irrecoverably lost – a Real sentially reactive. As such, desire is unhealthy
retroactively conjured up by desiring subjec- – a kind of sickness to be overcome in favour
tivity in the very act of pursuing it. If we keep of an affirmation that treats this very loss as the
this in mind, it follows that the event must be a priori condition and catalyst of an immense
understoodinacompletelydifferentway–not and hyperactive power of world-creation. Ni-
as any (re)discovery of the heretofore missing etzsche sublates the pathetic, rest-seeking no!
Thing, but instead, and simply, as a coming to of desire – ‘that’s not “It”!’ – into the yes! of
terms with the fact that the Thing – ‘Beyng’ – the will to power and its relentless, uncompro-
17 Heidegger,ThinkingandPoetizing,67.
18 Heideggermakesthisremarkinanow-infamousDerSpiegelinterviewfrom1966.
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Jorn Desire, Beyng, event
mising command to master and dominate the ting’ which flips the Hegelian dialectic on its
globe – create! create!; that is, he affirms the no! head. It is true that history culminates in ab-
itself qua creative. Like Nietzsche’s own physi- solute freedom, but insofar as freedom is pure
caldisabilities(hisblindness,chronicpain,etc.), will to will, it is a freedom which is grounded
desire is the wellspring of our innermost and not in knowledge but in ‘the forgetfulness of
inexhaustible strength and health. The modern beyng’.20 BysimplyaffirmingBeyngaspower,
subject, the ‘subject of production’ – heralded Nietzschebringstheepochofthisforgetfulness
by Zarathustra and epitomised in the figure of to its end.
the dandy, the artist of existence – is not the
one whose enjoyment is perpetually thwarted Conclusion
by a lack it cannot master, but rather the one
Are we then condemned, as it were, to the
whoderivesenjoymentpreciselyfromtheend-
will to power? Is there not perhaps another
lesscreativityandproductivitywhichthiscon-
way forward? Is another beginning possible?
stitutive lack makes possible and elicits – the
For Heidegger, the fact that we can ask such
one who actively ‘wills to will’, i.e., wills the
questions at all is evidence that we have, in
ceaseless production of difference and nothing
some sense, begun to detach ourselves from
besides. This is what Heidegger is getting at
the first beginning, from ‘metaphysics’. We
when he says that the ‘“essence” of the human’
have entered, as Heidegger puts it, a period of
resides in ‘the completed subjectivity of the
self-producing will to unstable constancy’.19 transition. The transition is not something that
comes ‘after’ metaphysics, but is rather a ‘turn-
Precisely in willing this ‘unstable constancy’ in
ing’ within metaphysics itself. As thinkers of
setting itself up as the world-creating master-
the transition, we remain firmly within meta-
artistofexistence,thesubjectiselevatedintoits
physics but in such a way that we are alienated
‘essence’asthesubjectofcapitalparexcellence. If
from metaphysics – or as Lacan would say, ‘ex-
capitalismisasystempredicatedonthelogicof
timate’ to metaphysics, that is, excluded from
accumulation, this must always be understood
within metaphysics.21 In truth, it is only from
in a qualitative and not a mere quantitative
thevantagepointofthisintimateexclusionthat
sense – not a greedy lust for more..., but a re-
metaphysics is constituted as history at all. But
lentless pursuit of the new, other. The promise
this is also to say that metaphysics is only first
of capital is that of never having to stay the
constituted as a question for thought – namely,
same.
as the question of metaphysics itself. Think-
But if Nietzsche completes the first begin-
ing metaphysics is the furthest thing from all
ning,itisneverthelessthecasethathedoesnot,
zealous ‘criticism’ of metaphysics. The ques-
inHeidegger’sview,comprehendthiscomple-
tion is not: howdo we usurpthe will to power
tion as such – and for Heidegger, this absence
and reverse the mania for infinite differential
of an historical (or onto-historical) perspec-
production it unleashes on the world (through
tive makes all the difference. It is what allows
its externalisation as capital)? It is rather and
Heidegger to describe the first beginning in
simply this: what might it mean for humanity
terms of an originary and inexorable ‘forget-
19 Heidegger,ThinkingandPoetizing,65.
20 Ibid.,64.
21See,forexample,Heidegger,TheEvent,70. Heideggerheretalksaboutthetransitionasatimewhen‘thewill
towillingcompelsitsexecutorstoactagainstthemselves’. Thetransitionisaperiodinwhichwebegintoceaseto
seeBeyngmerelyastheobjectivityofobjects,ormoresimply,whenwebegintoreconcileourselveswiththe
eventquaconstitutiveloss.
January 2022 – Volume 5 33
to engage with Beyng – the originarily and Consumption. Translated by Robert Hurley.
irretrievably lost Real – in a new and – given New York: Zone Books, 1988.
the state of the planet at present, we can only Beistegui, Miguel de. Thinking with Heidegger:
add – saner way? How might we live in the Displacements. Bloomington: Indiana
world if not as masters – producers, creators, University Press, 2003.
‘artists’ – of the world? What might the earth
Heidegger, Martin. The Event. Translated by
beifitwerenolongermerelythe‘coreareaof
Richard Rojcewicz. Bloomington: Indiana
the objectivity of world use’?
University Press, 2013.
Heidegger is no more able to answer these
——. Introduction to Philosophy: Thinking and
questions than Marx was able to write recipes
Poetizing. Translated by Phillip Jacques
forcommunistcookshopsofthefuture,orpsy-
Braunstein. Bloomington: Indiana
choanalysis is able to tell you how to enjoy
University Press, 2017.
your life. At the same time, Heidegger also
Johnston,Adrian. TimeDriven: Metapsychology
knew that in an age in which we are cease-
and the Splitting of the Drive. Evanston:
lessly bombarded by the most exotic and in-
Northwestern University Press, 2005.
comprehensible answers (artificial intelligence,
carbon capture, augmented reality, space min- McGowan, Todd. Capitalism and Desire: The
ing, metaverses,blockchain,quantumcomput- Psychic Cost of Free Markets. New York:
ing,neuralinterfacing,greengrowth...),such Columbia University Press, 2016.
a commitment to genuine thinking is perhaps Tomšič, Samo. The Capitalist Unconscious:
the most radical act of all. Marx and Lacan. London: Verso, 2015.
Žižek, Slavoj. Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the
References
Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. London:
Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Verso, 2013.
Essay on General Economy, Vol. 1:
©
Copyright 2022 Jorn.
Correspondence: Andrew Tyler Jorn, e: [email protected].
Received: 12 October, 2021.
Accepted: 2 November, 2021.
Financial statement: The scholarship for this article was conducted at the author’s own
expense.
Competing interests: The author has declared no competing interests.
How to cite: Jorn, Andrew Tyler. “Desire, Beyng, event: principles of a minimal Heideggerian-
ism.” Inscriptions 5, no. 1 (January 2022): 26-34.