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A Reply to BlakeC’s gauntlet of 3 days or so ago. I repost his quote and continue not so sure about the “straightforwardness” of Heidegger, but that is my problem. 🙂

BLAKECOSMOS: Today I am going to be attempting something ambitious. I am going to pair a quotation from Heidegger, with a very densely packed observation from Dr. Farrell, and then ask given the pretty straightforward quotation from Heidegger on Technology, what possible implications might be suggested by Dr. Farrell’s observation. OK! here we go!
“Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which today we particularly pay homage, makes us utterly blind to its essence” (Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology) 1954

Apologies for the belated reply … The reason for the delay in the appearance of this response is due to a phenomenon that you (BlakeC) will recognize. You will recognize the “delay” as a phenomenon both as a function of time and a logical necessity of the interpretive process.

The quote above is from the opening pages of Heidegger’s The Question concerning Technology. I base my response on the English translation by William Lovitt (The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Harper Torchbooks [TB 1969], Harper and Row, 1977) Not being at all familiar with German, and only glancingly with Heidegger, I can not speak to quality of the translation although the Lovitt is often used as a text. One has to keep in mind that the use of a particular translation for a course is often based on a combination of “close enough” and reasonable cost. One last caveat here. The “close enough” judgement may be made by someone not especially qualified to render such a judgement. That said the Harper Torch Books are usually good, solid editions, and I own a great many of them. Enough of that …

Heidegger opens the text by saying “In what follows we shall be questioning concerning technology. … and in so doing we should like to prepare a free relationship to it. The relationship will be free if it opens our human existence to the essence of technology”. There is a long foot note on the translation of the German noun Wesen. My way of reading has always been to ignore such foot notes on a first reading so as to not immediately get bogged down in minutiae. It is not that I am a philistine toward such discussions but during an initial engagement of a text I have found them to be counter productive.
(Part I of an attempt to post the entire response)