Shell – Generic

Managerial thought reduces the world to objects for manipulation and control,
which renders it as a self-circulating resource for our use and disposal. This
privileges a single way of viewing the world and forecloses alternative modes of
thought.
McWhorter 92 (Ladelle, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Richmond,
Heidegger and the earth: Essays in environmental philosophy, Thomas Jefferson University
Press, pp. 6)
The danger of a managerial approach to the world lies not, then, in what it knows - not in its
penetration into the secrets of galactic emergence or nuclear fission - but in what it
forgets, what it itself conceals. It forgets that any other truths are possible, and it forgets that
the belonging together of revealing with concealing is forever beyond the power of human
management. We can never have, or know, it all; we can never manage everything. What is
now especially dangerous about this sense of our own managerial power, born of
forgetfulness, is that it results in our viewing the world as mere resources to be stored or
consumed. Managerial or technological thinkers, Heidegger says, view the earth, the world, all
things as mere Bestand, standing-reserve. All is here simply for human use. No plant, no
animal, no ecosystem has a life of its own, has any significance, apart from human desire and
need. Nothing, we say, other than human beings, has any intrinsic value. All things are
instruments for the working out of human will. Whether we believe that God gave Man
dominion or simply that human might (sometimes called intelligence or rationality) in the face of
ecological fragility makes us always right, we managerial, technological thinkers tend to believe
that the earth is only a stockpile or a set of commodities to be managed, bought, and sold. The
forest is timber; the river, a power source. Even people have become resources, human
resources, personnel to be managed, or populations to be controlled. This managerial,
technological mode of revealing, Heidegger says, is embedded in and constitutive of
Western culture and has been gathering strength for centuries. Now it is well on its way to
extinguishing all other modes of revealing, all other ways of being human and being earth. It
will take tremendous effort to think through this danger, to think past it and beyond,
tremendous courage and resolve to allow thought of the mystery to come forth; thought of
the inevitability, along with revealing, of conceal ment, of loss, of ignorance; thought of the
occurring of things and their passage as events not ultimately under human control. And of
course even the call to allow this thinking - couched as it so often must he in a grammatical
imperative appealing to an agent - is itself a paradox, the first that must be faced and allowed
to speak to us and to shatter us as it scatters thinking in new directions, directions of which
we have not yet dreamed, directions of which we may never dream

A world subsumed by calculative technological thought destroys our ontological

relationship with Being. Our instant access to everything as a tool for use
obliterates the essential being of all things making even total planetary
destruction a radically less important issue and a likely inevitability .
**gender paraphrased
Caputo 93 (john, Demythologizing Heidegger, p. 136-41)
The essence of technology is nothing technological; the essence of language is nothing linguistic; the essence of starvation has
nothing to do with being hungry; the essence of homelessness has nothing to do with being out in the cold. Is this not to repeat a
most classical philosophical gesture, to submit to the oldest philosophical desire of all, the desire for the pure and uncontaminated,
not to mention the safe and secure? (2) In his essay "The Thing" Heidegger
remarks upon the prospect of a
nuclear conflagration which could extinguish all human life: [hu]Man stares at what the explosion of
the atom bomb could bring with it. He does not see that what has long since taken place and has already
happened expels from itself as its last emission the atom bomb and its explosion—not to mention the
single nuclear bomb, whose triggering, thought through to its utmost potential, might be enough to snuff out all life on earth. (VA,
165/PLT, 166). In a parallel passage, he remarks: ... [Man finds himself in a perilous situation. Why? Just because a third world
war might break out unexpectedly and bring about the complete annihilation of humanity and the destruction
of the earth? No. In this dawning atomic age a far greater danger threatens—precisely when the danger of
a third world war has been removed. A strange assertion! Strange indeed, but only as long as we do not
meditate. (G, 27/DT, 56). The thinker is menaced by a more radical threat, is endangered by a more radical
explosiveness, let us say by a more essential bomb, capable of an emission (hinauswerfen) of such
primordiality that the explosion (Explosion) of the atom bomb would be but its last ejection . Indeed,
the point is even stronger: even a nuclear bomb, or a wholesale exchange of nuclear bombs between nuclear
megapowers, which would put an end to "all life on earth," which would annihilate every living being, human
and nonhuman, is a derivative threat compared to this more primordial destructiveness. There is
a prospect that is more dangerous and uncanny—unheimhcher—than the mere fact that everything could be blown apart
(Auseinanderplatzen von allem). There is something that would bring about more homelessness, more not-beingat-home (un-
Heimlich) than the destruction of cities and towns and of their inhabitants. What is truly unsettling, dis-placing (ent-setzen), the
thing that is really terrifying (das Entsetzende), is not the prospect of the destruction of human life on the planet, of annihilating its
places and its settlers. Furthermore, this truly terrifying thing has already happened and has actually been around for quite some
time.This more essential explosive has already been set off; things have already been
destroyed, even though the nuclear holocaust has not yet happened. What then is the truly terrifying? The terrifying is
that which sets everything that is outside (heraussitzl) of its own essence (Wesen)'. What is this dis-placing
[Entsetzendel? It shows itself and conceals itself in the way in which everything presences (anwest), namely, in the fact that despite
all conquest of distances the nearness of things remains absent. (VA, 165/P1.T, 166) The truly terrifying explosion, the
more
essential destruction is that which dis-places a thing from its Wesen, its essential nature , its
ownmost coming to presence. The essential destruction occurs in the Being of a thing , not in its entitative actuality;
it is a disaster that befalls Being, not beings. The destructiveness of this more essential destruction is aimed not directly at man but at
"things" (Dirge), in the distinctively Heideggerian sense. The Wesen of things is their nearness, and it
is nearness which has
been decimated by technological proximity and speed. Things have ceased to have true
nearness and farness, have sunk into the indifference of that which, being a great distance
away, can be brought close in the flash of a technological instant . Thereby, things have ceased to
be things, have sunk into indifferent nothingness. Something profoundly disruptive has
occurred on the level of the Being of things that has already destroyed them, already cast them out of
(herauswerfen¬) their Being. Beings have been brought close to Us technologically; enormous distances are spanned in seconds. Satellite
technology can make events occurring on the other side of the globe present in a flash; supersonic jets cross the great oceans in a
few hours. Yet, far from bringing things "near," this massive technological removal of distance has actually abolished nearness, for
nearness is precisely what withdraws in the midst of such technological frenzy. Nearness is the nearing of earth and heavens,
mortals and gods, in the handmade jug, or the old bridge at Heidelberg, and it can be experienced only in the quiet meditativeness
which renounces haste. Thus thereal destruction of the thing, the one that abolishes its most essen tial
Being and Wesen, occurs when the scientific determination of things prevails and compels our
assent. The thingliness of the jug is to serve as the place which gathers together the fruit of
earth and sun in mortal offering to the gods above. But all that is destroyed when pouring this libation
becomes instead the displacement of air by a liquid; at that moment science has suc ceeded in
reducing the jug-thing to a non-entity (Nichtige). Science, or rather the dominion of scientific representation, the
rule of science over what comes to presence, what is called the Wesen, which is at work in science
and technology, that is the truly explosive-destructive thing, the more essential dis-placing . The
gathering of earth and sky, mortals and gods, that holds sway in the thing—for "gathering" is what the Old High German thing means
—is scattered to the four winds, and that more essential annihilation occurs even if the bomb never goes
off: Science's knowledge, which is compelling within its own sphere, the sphere of objects, already had
annihilated things long before the atom bomb exploded. The bomb's explosion is only the
grossest of all gross confirmations of the long-since accomplished annihilation of the thing . (VA,
168/PLT, 170J When things have been annihilated in their thingness, the mushroom clouds of the
bomb cannot be far behind. So whether or not the bomb goes off is not essential, does not penetrate to the essence of
what comes to presence in the present age of technological proximities and reduced distances . What is essential is the
loss of genuine nearness, authentic and true nearness, following which the actual physical
annihilation of planetary life would be a "gross" confirmation, an unrefined, external, physical
destruction that would be but a follow-up, another afterthought, a less subtle counterpart to
a more inward, profound, essential, authentic, ontological destruction.

Our alternative is to embrace gelassenheit. “Releasement towards things” and

“openness to the mystery” is a higher action that means we do not demand
answers – we wait. We must will to not will – this is a reorientation of our
comportment toward the world.
Dalle pezze 2006 (Barbara, PhD in Philosophy U of Hong Kong, “Heidegger on Gelassenheit”, Minerva 10:94-122)
When we think meditatively we do not project an idea, planning a goal towards which we
move, we do not “run down a one-track course of ideas” (ibid., p. 53). When we think meditatively, we need to “engage ourselves with what at first
sight does not go together at all” (ibid., p.53). In order to understand what this means, Heidegger suggests that we look at the comportment we have
towards technological devices. We recognize that, in today’s world technological machineries are indispensable. We need just to think of computers
and their usage in daily life activities to be convinced, above any doubt, that “we depend on technical devices” (Heidegger 1966b, p.53). By thinking
calculatively, we use these machineries at our own convenience; we also let ourselves be challenged by them, so as to develop new devices that would
be more suitable for a certain project or more accurate in the carrying out of certain research.   If calculative thinking does not think beyond the
usefulness of what it engages with, meditative thinking would notice and become aware of the fact that
these devices are not just extremely useful to us. It would also notice that they, by being so extremely useful, at the same time are
we find ourselves so firmly shackled to these technical devices
“shackling” us: “suddenly and unaware
that we fall into bondage to them” (ibid., p. 53-54). If [hu]man, not being aware of this, is in a situation of being
chained to these machineries, then by becoming conscious of this he[/she] finds him[/her]self in a different relation to them.
With this awareness [hu]man[s] can utilize these instruments just as
He[/she] becomes free of them.
instruments, being at the same time free to “let go of them at any time” (ibid., p. 54). And this is so because once
we acknowledge that their usefulness implies the possibility for us to be chained to them, we deal with them differently; we “deny them the right to
It is a matter of a different comportment
dominate us, and so to wrap, confuse, and lay waste our nature” (ibid., p.54).
towards them; it is a different disposition to which Heidegger gives the name “ releasement
toward things” [die Gelassenheit zu den Dingen] (ibid., p.54)   Releasement toward things is an expression of a
change in thinking. Thinking is not just calculation, but ponders the meaning involved and
hidden behind what we are related to and engaged with. This hidden meaning, even if it remains obscure as such, is
nevertheless detected – by a meditating thinking – in its presence, a presence that “hides itself.” But, as Heidegger states,   if we explicitly and
continuously heed the fact that such hidden meaning touches us everywhere in the world of technology, we stand at once within the realm of that
which hides itself from us, and hides itself just in approaching us. That which shows itself and at the same time withdraws is the essential trait of what
we call the mystery. I call the comportment which enables us to keep open to the meaning hidden in technology, openness to the mystery. (1966b, p.

“ Releasement towards things” and “openness to the mystery ” are two aspects of the
55)  

same disposition, a disposition that allows us to inhabit the world “in a totally different way.”
But as we already mentioned, this disposition does not just happen to us. It develops through
a “persistent courageous thinking” (ibid., p. 56), which in this work is meditative thinking.    We
have spoken here of meditative thinking as that mode of thinking that allows “releasement toward things” and “the openness to the mystery” hidden
in the technological world. Let us now move on, armed with meditative thinking, to further investigate Gelassenheit – which we just glimpsed in
relation to technological devices – in its essential traits, considering it as “the manner of taking place of a thinking that is wholly free, wholly open to
Being’s governance” (Lovitts 1995, p. 544).   Keeping Awake for Gelassenheit The dialogue on Gelassenheit opens by addressing the question of the
essence of man. Since the European philosophical tradition has always seen in thinking the sign of the essence of man, questioning the essence of
thinking means questioning the essence of man. What is investigated as the essence of man in the Conversation is not a general meaning of this
essence; rather, what is investigated is “the historical self-transforming, essential sway [künftigen Wesen] of man” (F.-W. von Herrmann 1994, p. 373).
What is distinctive about this search is the fact that it can be carried on and experienced only by turning one’s sight away from man. This seems to be
paradoxical, but as von Herrmann states, this ceases to be a paradox when we consider that the “future” essence of man (which is what we are looking
for) determines itself from its relation to that which is not man. This means that the “self-transforming essential sway of man is comprehensible only in
that relation from out of which man receives its essential sway” (1994, p. 373), and that, we shall see, is the relation of Gelassenheit to “Gegnet”, that
is, “that-which-regions,” which is another name for be-ing itself.   As Heidegger states, the traditional concept of thinking intends thinking as a
representing, and therefore as belonging to the context of will. It is still involved with a subjectivism that Gelassenheit wants to overcome.
Subjectivism, as Caputo attests, is “setting up the thinking ‘subject’ as the highest principle of Being, and subordinating everything to the dictates and
Gelassenheit, as the essence of future thinking, does not belong to the
demands of the subject” (1990, p. 175).
realm of willing. What characterizes the search carried out in Heidegger’s Conversation is the fact that the context of the
search requires distance and detachment from the traditional context in which thinking is related to willing . The question of
the essence of thinking, posed in terms of Gelassenheit, is in fact a question about the essence
of thinking as a “non-willing” [Nicht-Wollen]:   Scholar: But thinking, understood in the traditional way, as re-presenting is a
kind of willing; Kant, too, understands thinking this way when he characterizes it as spontaneity. To think is to will, and to will is to think Scientist: Then
the statement that the nature of thinking is something other than thinking means that thinking is something other than willing. Teacher: And that is
why, in answer to your question as to what I really wanted from our meditation on the nature of thinking, I replied: I want non-willing. (Heidegger
1966a, p. 58-59)   “I want non-willing” is the first step towards Gelassenheit. But in this statement we immediately notice an ambiguity: on the one
hand, when one says “I want non-willing”, it is still a matter of will, wanting the non-willing is an act of will, as it expresses the will to say no to will. On
the other hand, Heidegger states that, by saying that I want “non-willing,” I mean that I “willingly … renounce willing” (1966a, p. 59). But by renouncing
this, I search for what overall stays beyond any kind of willing, and that cannot be ‘reached’ by any act of will. By “renouncing willing,” Heidegger
states, “we may release, or at least prepare to release, ourselves to the sought-for essence of a thinking that is not willing” (1966a,
By means of willing not to will, we put ourselves in the condition of being able to reach
p. 59-60).
that thinking that is not a matter of will. As Caputo puts forward, we need to go through this
stage, as it is a “preparation for the final stage of releasement where we have left the sphere
of willing behind altogether, where [hu]man, as with Eckhart, has no will at all.” (1990, p. 171).   By willing not to will, we move one
step closer to Gelassenheit. Letting go of our willing is the first step that allows Gelassenheit to “wake up” [Erwachen] in ourselves. It is not, though,
that we act to wake it up. Actually this is not at all a waking up. As Heidegger points out, it is an “awakening of releasement,” in the sense of “keeping
awake for releasement” [Wachbleiben für die Gelassenheit ] (1966a, p. 61). Keeping awake for Gelassenheit means to let-go
of willing, in order to contribute to the “awakening” of Gelassenheit. But not only that. By letting-go of willing, we let ourselves be in the position
of being let-in into Gelassenheit. What we face here is a twofold mode of releasement: from one side we need to let-go of thinking
as a representing that tends to explain everything in terms of reasons. This letting-go means
that we keep ourselves awake for releasement which, on the other side, means that we open
ourselves to something, a ‘mystery’ that – as we shall see later – is actually be-ing itself, and is
that which lets us in into Gelassenheit.   Heidegger opts to say “keeping awake” [Wachbleiben] for Gelassenheit instead of “to wake
up” [Erwachen] Gelassenheit, because the latter implies an action undertaken by man, and thus implies that a will is still in place, and that we still abide
in the realm of willing. But in order to know what Gelassenheit means, it itself has to be allowed to be. It is not us that ‘wake it up’. It is something else;
from somewhere else is Gelassenheit called to be, is ‘let-in’ in ourselves. What we can do is to keep awake for Gelassenheit. Once we free ourselves
from willing, we prepare ourselves for the “awakening of releasement”; the more we detach ourselves and we “wean ourselves from willing,” the more
we contribute to the “awakening of releasement.”   Posed in these terms, it seems that dealing with Gelassenheit means to deal with something
specific, something that we would be able to discover and point at, once we possess the right elements. But, as Heidegger often affirms, we need to
start from what we know and are familiar with, in order to step forward, or to simply move on. Let us, therefore, accept for now this impression
regarding Gelassenheit, but try at the same time to keep in mind that Gelassenheit is not something that, as such, we will
be in a position to determine clearly, and hence define as a whole. It will continue to be
hermeneutically the same and something different, and that will perhaps let us abide in a kind of secure vagueness,
in which our thinking will be at rest and dwell. Having said that, we need to nevertheless focus on specific meanings that
we know, which during the dialogue will be enriched, and perhaps changed, with that which is unspoken and ‘unseen’, which will give them new flavor,
new sounds, new color.   At this stage, however, we still cannot say what Gelassenheit is. Grasping the meaning will be a gradual process of disclosure
that arises during the dialogue. Nevertheless, here we come across the structural moment of Gelassenheit, which shows Gelassenheit as the letting go
of willing, a letting go that prepares us to “let-oneself-in” [Sich einzulassen] into Gelassenheit. Gelassenheit awakens when we let go of willing, and by
letting go of it, we let ourselves in, in the sense that we are let-in into Gelassenheit. By letting-go of willing, we actually give ourselves the possibility of
being open to Gelassenheit and, in Gelassenheit, remain open for be-ing itself. This is also a step that moves us from thinking as a matter of willing to
meditative thinking: it is a “transition from willing into releasement” (1966a, p. 61).   Now, what does Gelassenheit mean?
What do we keep awake for? What do we let emerge in ourselves, which kind of mindfulness do we awaken, by letting-go of our thinking as a matter of
will? How are we to think Gelassenheit?   Higher Acting and Waiting Reading the Conversation, we never find a clear statement that gives a definition of
Gelassenheit. From our perspective, Gelassenheit is in fact a process, a conquest, a movement that changes our attitude, our way of thinking. While
reading the conversation we come across elements that belong to Gelassenheit, but they are not exhaustive. They lead to a better comprehension of its
meaning, but they do not define a picture of it, one which we could say: that is Gelassenheit. Nevertheless, these elements point towards and
constitute its meaning.   At a certain point of the dialogue we come across one of these elements. It is identified in the fact that, in Gelassenheit, is
“concealed” an acting which is “higher” than the acting we find in “actions within the world”:   Scholar: Perhaps a higher acting is concealed in
releasement than is found in all the actions within the world and in the machinations of all mankind… Teacher… which higher acting is yet no activity.
Scientist: Then releasement lies — if we may use the word lie — beyond the distinction between activity and passivity… Scholar:... because releasement
does not belong to the domain of the will. (Heidegger 1966a, p. 61).   Before continuing, let me stress one point that could appear strange. Heidegger
refers to Gelassenheit as “higher acting” and this, at first sight, could appear a contradiction if we consider the word Gelassenheit. The word
Gelassenheit has its root on the verb “lassen” which means to let, to give something up. This could suggest that an idea of passiveness belongs to
Gelassenheit, but this is certainly not the case. Actually, the whole dialogue, which is an attempt to lead the reader to experience Gelassenheit, implies,
paradoxically, an active reading. It is an active reading because what this conversation is about is the letting go of an accustomed way of thinking and
wanting, an experience of something which lies beyond it. This
apparent passivity, which should be ‘enacted’ in the
reading and constitutes the experience of Gelassenheit, is no passivity at all. Indeed, it is a
“higher acting” that, as we shall see, has the form of “waiting.” The enactment of our thinking, in the attempt to
think Gelassenheit, is in itself “higher acting,” for in its being ‘on the way’ our thinking is a “waiting upon” what we do not know yet. Our attempt to
think Gelassenheit is, therefore, already an enactment of the higher acting that is proper to Gelassenheit. But now, how are we to understand this
“higher acting”?   Probably when we hear the word “acting” we immediately relate it to a familiar concept of action, such as the one that thinks of
action as that which produces some kind of result, which means that we understand action in terms of cause and effect. To understand what Heidegger
means by “higher acting,” we need to refer to the essential meaning that, according to Heidegger, pertains to ‘action’. In the Letter on Humanism
(1998b), Heidegger defines the essence of action as “accomplishment”, and he unfolds the meaning of accomplishment as “to unfold something into
the fullness of its essence, to lead it forth into this fullness – producere” (1998b, p. 239). “Higher acting” is not, therefore, an undertaking towards a
practical doing, but is a ‘higher’ acting as accomplishment, in the sense of leading forth something into the fullness of its essence. Releasement itself
is what makes this available to [hu]man.   Gelassenheit as “higher acting” is further determined in the dialogue as “waiting” [warten].
As Heidegger affirms, what can be done to glimpse Gelassenheit is to actually do nothing but “wait,” “we are to do nothing but wait”
“Waiting” is the key experience, for in waiting we are in
[Wir sollen nichts tun sondern warten] (1966a, p. 62).
the position of crossing from thinking as representing to thinking as meditative thinking. In
waiting we move from that thinking which, as Heidegger states, has lost its “element” (being) and dried up, to the thinking that is
“appropriated” by its “element” (be-ing itself) and which, therefore, has turned towards being itself (1998b, p. 240-241).   But let us
consider more closely the idea implied in ‘waiting’. When Heidegger says that we have to do nothing but wait, we probably ask
ourselves: what do we have to wait for? Asking this question puts us back into the realm of representing, and therefore removes us from that
disposition from out of which we can experience Gelassenheit.
If we ask what we are waiting for, we are expecting
something, we already have an object of expectation, whereas we need to remain open
towards something we do not know. If I expect, I have an object of my expectation, whereas ‘waiting’ has no object. In waiting,
we rest in the act of waiting, or as Fabris (1983) states, “waiting does not objectify, does not reify possibilities, but instead it maintains them open as
possibilities.” As soon as we represent, says Heidegger, we think about what we are waiting for, and as soon we think about this, we are not waiting
anymore: “in waiting we leave-open what we are waiting for” (1966a, p. 68) because waiting allows itself to be brought into the openness.  
Waiting is a moment of crossing; in waiting the swinging movement between the different
kinds of thinking is present. In waiting something opens. What we need to do is ‘just’ wait,
wait without expecting.
Links
Generic Links
 L – Management
Managerial thought reduces the world to objects for manipulation and control,
which renders it as a self-circulating resource for our use and disposal. This
privileges a single way of viewing the world and forecloses alternative modes of
thought.
McWhorter 92 (Ladelle, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Richmond,
Heidegger and the earth: Essays in environmental philosophy, Thomas Jefferson University
Press, pp. 6)
The danger of a managerial approach to the world lies not, then, in what it knows - not in its
penetration into the secrets of galactic emergence or nuclear fission - but in what it
forgets, what it itself conceals. It forgets that any other truths are possible, and it forgets that
the belonging together of revealing with concealing is forever beyond the power of human
management. We can never have, or know, it all; we can never manage everything. What is
now especially dangerous about this sense of our own managerial power, born of
forgetfulness, is that it results in our viewing the world as mere resources to be stored or
consumed. Managerial or technological thinkers, Heidegger says, view the earth, the world, all
things as mere Bestand, standing-reserve. All is here simply for human use. No plant, no
animal, no ecosystem has a life of its own, has any significance, apart from human desire and
need. Nothing, we say, other than human beings, has any intrinsic value. All things are
instruments for the working out of human will. Whether we believe that God gave Man
dominion or simply that human might (sometimes called intelligence or rationality) in the face of
ecological fragility makes us always right, we managerial, technological thinkers tend to believe
that the earth is only a stockpile or a set of commodities to be managed, bought, and sold. The
forest is timber; the river, a power source. Even people have become resources, human
resources, personnel to be managed, or populations to be controlled. This managerial,
technological mode of revealing, Heidegger says, is embedded in and constitutive of
Western culture and has been gathering strength for centuries. Now it is well on its way to
extinguishing all other modes of revealing, all other ways of being human and being earth. It
will take tremendous effort to think through this danger, to think past it and beyond,
tremendous courage and resolve to allow thought of the mystery to come forth; thought of
the inevitability, along with revealing, of conceal ment, of loss, of ignorance; thought of the
occurring of things and their passage as events not ultimately under human control. And of
course even the call to allow this thinking - couched as it so often must he in a grammatical
imperative appealing to an agent - is itself a paradox, the first that must be faced and allowed
to speak to us and to shatter us as it scatters thinking in new directions, directions of which
we have not yet dreamed, directions of which we may never dream
 L – Fiat
The concept of fiat affirms technological thinking and supports the assumption
that humans possess an unreal ability to know all and accurately predict the
effects of their decisions
Seigfried 90 [Hans, professor in the Department of Philosophy at. Loyola University Chicago,
“Autonomy and Quantum Physics: Nietzsche, Heidegger and Heisenberg”, Philosophy of Science
57, pp. 619-630]
But, of course, Heidegger's (early) analyses do not disprove the Nietzschean claim that we ourselves are not such that we always
already are and remain what we are, nor that the whole world of experience is the product of our organization and grounded in our
form of life and "behavior". On the contrary, the
whole point of his lengthy phenomenological, existential,
and fundamental-ontological analyses is to demonstrate concretely that the received notions
of both ourselves and the world are phenomenally inadequate abstractions and that all forms
of givenness whatsoever, together with the corresponding forms of intuition and
understanding, are functions of the care for our own being.Heidegger describes this care as
the attempt at "acquiring power" over our being and "dispersing all fugitive self-
concealment" (1962, p. 310)-in the Nietzschean idiom: giving ourselves laws and thus becoming ourselves-with the
understanding that we can never have such power "from the ground up" (1962, p. 284) and there always remains the vast profusion
of impenetrability described by Nietzsche. It
is this care, Heidegger argues, which not only determines
what we ourselves are at any given time, but also what all other things are  which we
encounter as ready-made and given in our concernful dealings and in our most objective
observations and theoretical explorations. Appearances of detached and absolute givenness
arise only when we give in to the "tendency to take things easily and make them easy" by
concealing from ourselves the responsibility for the care of our being  (1962, pp. 127-128), which is
most of the time, and when the success of such determinations makes us forget their origin .
Only under such conditions does it look as if we had no hand in the making of the laws that
seem to be the dictates of alien forces (inside and outside of us) which determine what we are and
regulate our form of life. In short, Heidegger tries to do what he criticizes Cassirer and neoKantians for failing to do,
namely, to explicitly demonstrate that all forms of dealing, intuition, understanding, and the givenness of things have their origin in
our form of life (1976b, p. 42)
 L – Politics
Politics operate as a violent imposition of a program on Being through
systematic attempts to order and manage the world. Only the radical departure
from this system can allow for a revelation of politics that comes to us,
destroying the violent imposition of a subjective will
Geiman 2001 (Clare Pearson, "Heidegger's Antigones." A Companion to Heidegger's
Introduction to Metaphysics. Ed. Richard Polt and Gregory Fried. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press)
What Heidegger is calling for here is a radical departure from politics as we have understood it
up to now, that is, as the human agent’s personal or collective attempt to systematically order
and control both physical and human nature. Heidegger offers no principles of justice, no treatise on the proper
organization of institutions, no way to guarantee a better future—in short, no systematic guidelines for action whatsoever. The
utter indeterminacy of what Heidegger is calling for leads many to accuse him of reckless and
stubborn quietism in the face of pressing issues facing humankind. But it is precisely Heidegger’s point that
the conception of politics (and of thinking itself) as the violent and willful imposition of a “program”
on Being is what we need to let go of. He calls us to consider that the factors that drive our modern politics, in all its
plurality, in the direction of the consolidation of power and control and (sometimes subtly but often violently) in
the direction of conformity and homogenization cannot in turn be effectively overcome by
exerting a counter force, by attempting to control and secure the human drive to control, by
demanding conformity to another universal norm. Gelassenheit, on the other hand, means, in part,
letting politics as the polos come to us. Heidegger argues that the “being-with” and interaction that would make up a
more vital and essential human community require that we risk “exposure” to the other (a word he tries to “care”) and suggests that
it is a mistake to think that we can properly engage and listen to others so long as we are
simultaneously protecting and advancing our own separate spheres and identities. The
openness that would appropriately situate human Being is only possible in the move away
from all attempts to systematize and control, from all attempts to fix the historical appearance of Being in some
manageable form. Heidegger is calling for a new kind of respons-ibility, one that has its measure and only safeguard in the
This of course entails a very real political risk, yet it remains compelling
willingness to risk openness and let be.
that the best way to confront large-scale violence is to reshape our personal and political
action in such a way that it is fundamentally nonviolent. Poetic thinking points to just such a
move.

Political decisions are a product of managerial thought

Sapru 13 political theorist and author of “Administrative Theories and Management
Thought”, PHI Learning, April 2013
We talk about the managerial state because we want to locate managerialism as a cultural
formation and a distinctive set of ideologies and practices which form one of the
underpinnings of an emergent political settlement. The book sets out to explore the impact of
managerialism on key sets of relationships: those between state and citizen. between public
and private, between the providers and recipients of social welfare. and between
'management' and 'politics' . These changing relationships are mediated through a range of structural and institutional
realignments: the introduction of markets, the rise of contracting, the changing balance of power between central government and
local and regional agencies of governance and so on. But the
ideologies and institutions of managerialism
provide a coherent field that underpins and legitimates these shifts. Managerialism. we argue.
Is shaping the remaking of ' the state - its institutions and practices as well as its culture and
ideology.
 L – Metaphysics
Metaphysics has alienated us from nature
Irwin 2010
(janurary 10th, 2010, Climate Change and Heidegger's Philosophy of Science, Ruth Irwin,
Auckland University of Technology, volume 11, issue 1,)
Heidegger does not go so far as discussing alienation as private property, as Marx does in his later text On Capitalism. But similar to
Marx, Heidegger’s work concerns the relationship between technology and Being . Glazebrook traces
shifts in emphasis in Heidegger's repeated engagements with this relationship. In a move that foreshadows his 1940 reading of
Aristotle's Physics, Heidegger suggests that production always makes use of material which is already there. In the 1940 account he
takes that to mean that physis is prior to techne, since the latter must always appropriate its material from the former. Here in 1927,
however, he suggests that it is only through productive comportment that the understanding of
being as that which is already extant is possible. Productive comportment, then, determines
some things as what they are, and gives access to the fact that something exists already which
can be made into something else. (Glazebrook, 2000: 211-212). That is, the world view reaches for a certain
interpretation of things. Things only emerge from the background and register if they slot into
the expectations defined by the world view. In short, techne allows Being to 'show forth', to
use Heidegger's terminology. In Being and Time Heidegger tries to disintegrate the solipsist division operating in
Idealist philosophy between subjects and objects, or humanity and physis or Being. He does this by showing how
equipment 'worlds', contributing to self-understanding of each of us in a largely unconsidered
way. Long before we can reflect with language (re-presenting things with names, shadowing the being of beings with words) we
are shaped into technologically savvy people. By 1954, when “A Question Concerning Technology” appeared, Heidegger took the
conception of a technological world in a more cynical way. He now argued that
equipment does not just surround
us in a relatively benign manner. It forges our subjectivity. We are under the illusion that we
are 'in control' of technology and by extension, in control of nature. But this assumption is
actually a result of the metaphysical world view of modernity that has alienated us from
nature, making us forget the question of Being and forget what makes us meaningful. Heidegger shows how every
element of nature and humanity becomes integrated into a framework of modern utility.
Whereas once the river might symbolise a boundary between one principality and another, or afford a good fishing
spot, or a restful place to contemplate, the river has become something different within the new
horizon of technology. The technological Gestell requires the river to produce some element for consumption in the
machinery of production. Thus, the river serves a hydro-dam, or links one population to another, or it is sold as a 'tourist
spot'. All of these functions of the river co-opt it into ongoing (or potential) utilitarian value .
Heidegger argues that the technological Gestell challenges forth Being in an abrupt and inconsiderate manner. In earlier times, the
waterwheel let the river flow at its own pace. In our times, the hydro power station is part of a more invasive shaping of the river;
the power station is at a dam; and the river flow discharged from the resulting pool is regulated at a pace dictated by human needs,
not by seasonal flow volume.
 L – Enframing/Metaphysics
Western thought is metaphysical, having as its goal the total pacification and
colonization of the world. It stands above the world, attempting to reduce
everything in it to objects, like pieces on a game board, rendering them an
exploitable standing reserve.
Spanos 2000 [William, Prof of English, America’s Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire, p. 9-11]
Metaphysics, therefore, in its post-Greek, that is, Roman, form, is a way of thinking that perceives "beings" or
"things-as-they-are" from a privileged vantage point "beyond" or "above" them , that is, from a
distance — an "Archimedian point," to appropriate Hannah Arendt's apt phrase9 — that enables the finite perceiver to "overcome" the
ontologically prescribed limits of immediate vision or, to put it positively, to comprehend them in their totality. But incorporated
implicitly in Heidegger's translation of the Greek prefix meta as "from above" is the idea of "from the end." For another meaning of the word meta is
"after." These two meanings, it should be underscored, activate our awareness that the naturalization of the word "metaphysics" has congealed two
metaphorical systems that are, nevertheless, absolutely integral with and necessary to each other: that which emanates from sight and that which
emanates from the object it sees. But to disclose the indissoluble relationship of these metaphorical systems will require separating them out. Holding
in temporary abeyance the resonant specificity of the visual metaphorics of the "first" meaning in favor of thinking the second, we can say that the
metaphysical interpretation of being involves the perception of "beings" or "things-as-they-are" (physis)
from the end, not only in the sense of termination but also in the sense of the purpose or goal
of a directional and totalizing temporal process, a process in which this end is present from
the beginning. If we attend to the word meta as a category of time, we can be more specific about what "beings" actually refer to: it
compels us to understand "them" as the radical temporality of being or, more precisely, the differences that
temporality always already disseminates. To think meta-physically is thus to think backward. This means
retro-spectively or circularly, for the purpose of accommodating difference to a preconceived
end or of reducing the differential force of time to a self-identical, objectified, timeless
presence, while preserving the appearance of the temporality of time. To put this reduction in the terms precipitated by the implicit distinction
between two kinds of time (one that is derivative and one that is original), to think metaphysically is to transform the
spectral nothingness of being (das Nichts) into a comforting and/or productive totalized
Something, a Summum Ens. Behind and enabling Heidegger's statement is his monumental de-struction of the "hardened" Being of modernity in
the appropriately titled Being and Time: his pro-ject to enable the claims of temporal difference, which the metaphysical tradition has perennially
repressed by reifying them, to be heard.10 Putting the circular structure of metaphysical perception in terms of the reification of a temporal force that
is identifiable with the Nothing thus suggests the raison d'etre of this destructive hermeneutics. In so doing, it points acutely to the foundations and
structure of the logic of imperialism. Let me recall a fundamental moment in Heidegger's destruction of the truth discourse of the ontotheological
tradition: his retrieval of the Nothing from "negation," which is to say, from the oblivion to which the reifying logic of modern science would relegate it.
In this project of retrieval, Heidegger distinguishes between fear (Furcht), which is the response of one inhabiting a derivative (technologized) world,
and the "fundamental mood of anxiety" (Angst): Anxiety [unlike fear, which has an object], is indeed anxiety in the face of..., but not in the face of this
or that thing. Anxiety in the face of... is always anxiety for..., but not for this or that. The indeterminateness of that in the face of which and for which
we become anxious is no mere lack of determination but rather the essential impossibility of determining it. In a familiar phrase this indeterminateness
comes to the fore. In anxiety, we say, "one feels ill at ease [es ist einen unheimlich]." What is "it" that makes "one" feel ill at ease? We cannot say what
it is before which one feels ill at ease. As a whole it is so for him. All things and we ourselves sink into indifference. This, however, not in the sense of
mere disappearance. Rather in the very receding things turn towards us. The receding of beings as a whole that close in on us in anxiety oppresses us.
We can get no hold on things. In the slipping away of beings only this "no hold on things" comes over us and remains. Anxiety reveals the nothing.11
Metaphysics is thus a circular mode of inquiry that, in beginning from the end, has as its end
the (finally futile) total reification and determination of the essential anxiety-activating
indeterminacy of the nothing, of temporality, of the differences that temporality
disseminates: of a phantasmic alterity, as it were. To use the rhetoric in Heidegger's discourse that points to the essential imperialism of
metaphysical ontology, it is an end-oriented mode of inquiry intended to level or at-home or
domesticate or pacify — that is, to "civilize" — the "threatening" not-at-home (die Unheimliche) that
being as such "is" for Dasein. The function of metaphysical thinking is not simply to annul the anxiety — the dislocating uncanniness (die
Unheimlichkeit) — precipitated by being-in-the-not-at-home. By an easy extension inhering in Heidegger's ironic invocation of the metaphor of
"grasping" — one of the essential and determining white metaphors of the truth discourse of the Occident, to which I will return when I take up the
spatial metaphorics informing the word "metaphysics" — it can be said that the
function of this "after" in the logical
economy of metaphysics is also to transform the indeterminate realm of the uncanny to a
condition that enables its management. The function of metaphysical thinking, in short, is "ideological." It serves to
reduce the ineffable be-ing of being to what Heidegger will later call exploitable "standing reserve" (Bestand)
and Foucault, "docile and useful body." It is not, however, simply the Other of metaphysics — the nothing, the temporal, the accidental,
the contradictory, the differential, or, to evoke the connotation of the ontological Other I want to underscore, the spectral — that metaphysical
objectification and naming would domesticate and pacify . As the metaphorics released by the solicitation of the
sedimented and innocuous (indeed, benign) names referring to the domestication (at-homing) of being suggest, it is also — and in a determined way —
the "unknown," the "primitive," the "wild" or "savage," the an-archic, the dis-orderly, in their
ecological and human (subjective, sexual, racial, ethnic, and sociopolitical) manifestations. It is, in short, the entire
relay of being that haunts or threatens the authority of the received (hegemonic) discourse of
the dominant, that is, Western, order.
 L – Technology
The aff’s belief in the hype of technology only entrenches the mindset that has
made human become standing-reserve.
Lambeir ’02 (Bert Lambeir, 2002 Heidegger, education and modernity accessed ch 5 pg. 103
6/24/2014)
By referring to the poet Holderlin at the end of his essay "The Question concerning Technology,”
Heidegger shows that technology is not, or should not be, at the heart of [hu]man’s life, that
Being cannot be understood in a purely technological manner. This strongly contrasts with the
contemporary hype concerning technological advancement in general, and information and
communication technology in particular. Although Heidegger never encountered the computer
as such, his analysis captures the contemporary situation sharply, as I will indicate. First,
questioning the information and communication technology in a Heideggerian way leads to
the undermining of the illusion that [hu]man stands deliberately above the machine, as an
autonomous creator. Second, it will become clear that our perception of reality is largely
digitally mediated, and that more than ever before, [hu]man himself has become standing-
reserve. At the same time, Heidegger’s philosophy sets a stage for an alternative
understanding of the computer phenomenon, which provides a space for altering educational
practice in present-day schools.
 L – Science
Scientific Methodology results in massive subjectivism, resulting in everything
descending into a means to an end and no more than mere objects in the aff’s
quest for knowledge
Sawiki, Jana. "Heidegger and Foucault: Escaping Technological Nihilism." Michel Foucault. Vol.
3. N.p.: Routledge, 1994. 34-66. Print.
This picture of scientific inquiry as an aggressive and relentless objectification of the real
coincides with an even more fundamental event in the advent of modern technology. i.e., the
emergence of an understanding of reality as a 'world picture." with the emergence of
Cartesian philosophy, reality becomes a representable object for a knowing subject.' For the
first time human beings view themselves as standing over and against a world that is totally
depictable (if not yet totally depicted). becoming both objects in the picture and subjects for
whom it is a picture. Indeed, Heidegger claims that the idea that reality is a picture for a subject
leads to the very problems of relativism and subjectivism that Cartesianism was designed to
conquer in its search for an absolute foundation. Once the world becomes a picture, then it can
be contemplated and compared to other possible world pictures (or, in contemporary
discussions. "conceptual schemes"). The search for the most adequate picture, and hence the
search for an absolute set of criteria for judging between competing representations of reality,
is one that only makes sense within the confines of the age of the world picture. By granting
priority to the background practices in which human beings dwell, Heidegger is attempting to
circumvent this problematic altogether?
 L – Environment
By trying to find a solution to global warming, trying to control nature, the aff is
simply entrenching the managerial and technological mindset. It is this mindset
that is causing the very ecological catastrophe that the aff seeks to solve.
McWhorter and Stendstad ’09 (Ladelle McWhorter, James Thomas Professor of Philosophy, and Gail
Stenstad, chair of the East Tennessee State University department of philosophy and humanities, 2009, Heidegger and the
Earth: Essays in Environmental Philosophy,pg1-2 accessed 6/25/14)
Paradox is the titillating Other of all logics rooted in the law of noncontradiction. It is Other because it cannot be assimilated; it is
titillating because it is transgressive. Most of us enjoy an occasional encounter with paradox the way we enjoy a good joke- rarely,
however, do we take paradoxes seriously, indeed, our enjoyment depends on our thinking's maintaining itself within the logic of
non-contradiction and on our viewing the paradoxical from that perspective instead of immersing ourselves in the paradoxical on its
own terms. Yet when we think with Heidegger — and especially when that thinking concerns itself with what we might loosely refer
to as ecology — we find ourselves called on to think with and within the paradoxical - or, at least, what appears to be paradoxical
from the perspective of the logic of non-contradiction. When we attempt to think ecological concerns within
the field of thinking opened for us by Martin Heidegger, the paradoxical unfolds at the site of
the question of human action. Thinking ecologically — that is, thinking the earth in our time —
means thinking death; it means thinking catastrophe; it means thinking the possibility of utter
annihilation not just for human being but for all that lives on this planet and for the living
planet itself. Thinking the earth in our time means thinking what presents itself as that which
must not be allowed to go on, as that which must be controlled, as that which must be
stopped. Such thinking seems to call for immediate action. There is no time to lose. We must work for
change, seek solutions, curb appetites, reduce expectations, find cures now, before the
problems become greater than anyone's ability to solve them if they have not already done so. However, in
the midst of this urgency, thinking ecologically, thinking Heideggerly, means rethinking the very notion of
human action. It means placing in question the typical Western managerial approach to
problems, our propensity for technological intervention, our belief in human cognitive power.
Our commitment to a metaphysics that places active human being over and against passive
nature. For it is the thoughtless deployment of these approaches and notions that has brought
us to the point of ecological catastrophe in the first place.
 L – Nature
Using nature to fuel our machines epitomizes the Standing Reserve
Delgado 3-13 
(April 2013, Ana Delgado, Science Direct, http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0016328713000293/1-s2.0-
S0016328713000293-main.pdf?_tid=b26c5536-fa5c-11e3-8290-
00000aab0f02&acdnat=1403476358_6a52c975fba96c466563e5799133247c)
A key argument in¶ this paper is that ethical and social aspects of emerging technologies might
only arise once the technology is transferred and¶ operating in concrete contexts of
application. Not only is it difficult to foresee the implications of new technologies, but also¶
debates are often restricted to expert circles. Accordingly, early debates in synthetic biology ought to be ‘opened
up’ as to¶ include broader perspectives, moving from the narrow type of questions that scientists often ask such as ‘‘what do we
want¶ to research?’’ to broader issues such as ‘‘what do we want to develop?’’ and eventually, ‘‘how do we want to live?’’ Through ¶
the descriptions of a particular synthetic biology project, the paper emphasizes art as key field to facilitate that kind of¶ opening up
and critical questioning.¶ In a similar vein, Delgado discusses contesting designs as a significant element in the emergence of
synthetic biology. This¶ contribution addresses DIYbio (Do It Yourself biology) and situates it as synthetic biology ‘‘moving out of the
institutions and¶ into the realm of the public’’. As citizen science, DIYbio is emerging in an ambiguous relation to synthetic biology
and other¶ current forms of BigBio: ‘‘On
the one hand, depending on the infrastructures generated by
institutionalized forms of biology.¶ Simultaneously, DIYbio labs, online forums, and designs are a materialized
contestation to the ways in which biology, and¶ biological entities, are produced in academic labs and by the Big Bio business. In this
sense, DIYbio emerges questioning¶ presents and projecting futures’’ (page). DIYbio entails, the author argues, a different approach
to the making of the new, and¶ to the making of futures. The paper looks at a number of DIYbio designs as ‘‘things’’ in a
heideggerian sense: temporary¶ gathering of heterogeneous elements, differing from the coherent and stabilized ‘‘objects’’ of
institutionalized¶ technoscience; The argument follows ,
‘‘In this account DIYbio designs emerge as non-lasting,
unstable, and indeterminate.¶ Being the object of continuous actualization, they appear as radically oriented toward the
realization of a near future by¶ transforming the present state of things. Yet, transformative and open DIYbio practices often deploy
a rather localized and¶ domestic dimension, differing from the industrial and large-scale scope of synthetic biology and other Big Bio
open source¶ 2 iGEM stands for International Genetically Engineered Machines. ¶ Editorial / Futures 48 (2013) 1–4 3

The ontology of those in control of turning nature into a power to drives

machines is fatally flawed
Delgado 3-13 
(April 2013, Ana Delgado, Science Direct, http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0016328713000293/1-s2.0-
S0016328713000293-main.pdf?_tid=b26c5536-fa5c-11e3-8290-
00000aab0f02&acdnat=1403476358_6a52c975fba96c466563e5799133247c)
MacKenzie's contribution highlights the promising character of synthetic biology and it is
concerned about how synthetic biology is being realized, not as a single trajectory but at
different speeds and within different “rates of realization ”. Rather than focusing on particular promising
applications being currently developed within the field of synthetic biology, the paper focuses upon the promising
character of synthetic biology in a more fundamental level: synthetic biology brings the
promise of turning biology into technology. To realize this promise, a number of infrastructures are being
developed from standard biological parts (biobricks) to devices as well as a toolkit to assemble those parts into systems.
MacKenzie argues that such infrastructures are iconic, in the sense that they symbolize the
feasibility of the promise of turning biology into technology. Simultaneously, the
infrastructures have a very material character and perform an attempt at engineering (and
controlling) the unpredictable character of life. In developing devices such as biological clocks, the internal
time of living entities is stabilized and made predictable. Engineering the internal time of life is
but one way in which the promise of turning biology into technology may be realized.
However, the paper argues, the realization is taking place at different rates in differing
domains of action, from the realization of infrastructures to policies and ethics . Kastenhofer's paper
also highlights the central role that infrastructural activities and iconic applications play as “proofs of principle” in realizing the
project of turning biology technology.
This contribution situates synthetic biology as an emerging
technoscience with epistemic and policy specificities. As a technoscience, synthetic biology
entails the project and promise of controlling nature. Kastenhofer addressed the turn from
science to technoscience by analyzing ways of knowing and doing. Of the diverse epistemic stances at
interplay in the emergence of synthetic biology, constructivist and creationist practices and visions seem to have a leading role.
This has implications for policy: for instance, when the construction of artificial organisms
with controllable properties is prioritized, it is likely that policies will tend to focus on security
assessments, bioterrorism being framed as a main policy issue. In the same way, a focus on the
construction of new living entities comes with an emphasis on property rights issues. Furthermore, a sharp distinction
between the natural and the artificial will most likely favor particular property right choices.
While that sort of ethical and social issues may become dominant when prioritizing a
constructivist instance, issues related to the true character and legitimacy of science may be
obviated. Thus, the paper suggests “(techno)epistemic orientations, stances, and visions are particularly formative in emerging
technosciences like synthetic biology” (page). In the move from science to technoscience, a new social contract and quality control
mechanisms are needed to cope with the coming challenges and responsibilities of technoscientific research and governance.
 L – Fear of Death
The Aff’s fear constructed on the impacts of the 1AC create human anxiety,
which further perpetuates us breaking things down to their worldly character
Guignon, Charles B., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Cambridge University Press,
1993.
Anxiety for human beings is analogous to breaking down for pieces of equipment . lust as the
breaking down of equipment can show its worldly character by revealing its place in a
network of relations in which it has become dysfunctional , so anxiety can show the ground- less character of human
being by revealing the contingency of the network of purposes  and projects and their background of intelligibility in
which we are no longer involved by virtue of our having become “dysfunctional.” The details of exactly
how that works and exactly what Heidegger thinks is revealed are best left to a discussion of Division II. What we have said in this section is sufficient
to omplete this brief sketch of inauthenticity: it is that into which we flee or fall to avoid anxiety and its
unsettling revelations.
 L – Geopolitics
Geopolitics leads to food insecurity and starvation
Idle Hands Are The Devil's Tools: The Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of Hunger Jamey Essex
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 102, No. 1 (January 2012), pp. 191-207
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers Article
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41412761
Within this increasingly vocal and well-organized consensus on the necessity and urgency of
food justice and democracy remain important distinctions among vulnerability, hunger, and the
hungry in different places. As Kearns and Reid-Henry (2009, 556) argued in examining the
relationship among discourses of biopolitics, bioethics, and the "politics of life itself," and the
uneven structuring of life chances and "vital geographies" that occurs through associated
political economic practices and institutions, "the value of life in some places is predicated on
the non-value of life elsewhere." Although acknowledging the crudeness of this observation,
they employed it to focus calls for social justice on the geographical conditions that structure
and limit vitality and life opportunities. KCHTII; and Reid-Henry (3009, 559) demonstrated how
the deep politicization of life conditions and knowledge’s (e.g., regarding health, terrorism and
violence, or food and hunger) demands operationalization, which "involves particular sorts of
spatial ordering and control," including "concealment of individuals. in plaice" or interventions
into places and bodies that open them to broader networks of calculation, control, and order. As
Young (2004,14) pointed out in analyzing food security’s uneven footing within neoliberal
globalization, evidence strongly confirms that food security in the global south has been
“compromised by the exposure to volatile world prices and reduced domestic food production.”
The intensive neoliberalization of food systems over the last two decades has thus entailed a
fundamental restructuring of food security, resulting in greater vulnerability to hunger and a
severe geographical re- ordering of life chances for the hungry. _
Advantage Links
 L – Climate Change / Global Warming
The affirmative uncritically puts faith in science and technology to save us from
global warming – but this ignores the ontological and epistemological
underpinnings that have created the problem in the first place.
Irwin 08 [Ruth: Senior Lecturer in Ethics, Centre for Business Interdisciplinary Studies Heidegger, politics and climate change:
risking it all. 2008. P. 4-6]
No one foresaw the greenhouse scenario in the past when the steam engine was invented but the immediate
pollution was noticed – see, for example, Wordsworth’s resistance to the steam train through the Lake District at the turn of the
nineteenth century. Part
of our resistance to change is connected to that failure to take early
responsibility for the side effects of industrialization. The signs have always been there, but
we have developed sophisticated mechanisms, discourses and philosophical justifications for
ignoring them. The greenhouse effect is the cumulative result of generations of people releasing a complex cocktail of gases as
side-products of industrial processes, transport and energy, deforestation, mining and large-scale farming. This is not to say that all
the gases in the atmosphere with a greenhouse effect are attributable to humanity. Far from it. However, by driving the levels of
carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (to name the key players) higher than they have ever been before we have stimulated a
new set of conditions that is now interacting with the previously existing circulation of greenhouse gases. For example, water is a
greenhouse gas. Clouds trap light within the atmosphere, bouncing it back down onto the surface rather than letting it reflect out
into space again. By heating the planet by 0.6 ºC, we increase the evaporation process, drying out the soil, heating the oceans and
increasing the density of cloud and precipitation. There are some mitigating effects to cloud too. It shields sunlight from entering the
atmosphere in the first place. Atmospheric
conditions are vastly multifaceted, and we are only
beginning to understand some of the processes and tendencies that are occurring.
Nevertheless, the globalized culture of modernity is having a profound, and extreme, effect on
the inter-related aspects of our environment (see Figure 1). Falling yields in food crops, changes in
the supply of fresh water as a result of glacial melts, water reservoir exhaustion, rise in sea
level, extensive damage to ecosystems and rising numbers of extinct species all characterize
climate warming. Even more extreme weather conditions, including storms, forest fi res,
drought, flooding and heat waves, and increasing risk of ecological feedbacks and the
possibility of overstepping the threshold necessary to maintain life, are all the results of
pollution and the greenhouse effect (Stern, 2008). The scientific guesswork about where that
threshold might be will never exactly be known, unless we overstep it . We do know that the Siberian
permafrost has been melting for about 5 years, and that soils all around the globe are beginning to release greenhouse gases
(especially methane) and that parts of the ocean have warmed to the extent that they are no longer operating as a carbon ‘sink’ but,
from around 2005, have actually begun releasing more carbon than they absorb. For
practical purposes, and for
reasons of political will for change as much as the scientific analysis of the parameters, most
environmentalists in the field suggest that a global average of 2 ºC warmer than pre-industrial
levels is the highest threshold possible. Beyond 2 ºC to 4 ºC, the climate’s feedback systems
are significantly altered and new configurations that are likely to be unpleasant, if not
unbearable, for human civilization take hold (IPCC Summary, 2007). Which is why, I think it is a problem
to continue to blindly obey the norms and technological faith of modernity (cf. Peters, 2001a: 116–
117 for explication of the rationalist, scientist, capitalist and Idealist framework of ‘modernity’). Bringing our awareness to benefit
the health of humanity and the health of the planet is the philosophical enterprise of this book. The
aim is not to reject
technology, out of some puritan ethos, or to optimistically believe that technology is capable
of solving the problem that it helped to create. Rather, my aim here is to begin the process of
thinking anew, the relationship humanity has assumed in hierarchical opposition to the
natural world, in more ecological, integrated and ethical terms. The steps to achieving this
very ambitious project involve engaging with the science, while recognizing how it helps and
how it limits our knowledge and modes of being. It involves engaging with politics particularly
the policy imperatives of pan-global organizations. Moreover, it involves inter-rogating the
philosophical assumptions of modern epistemology and of the impact of modern technology.

The Aff’s attempt to control their climatic impact is rooted in technological

metaphysics. This managerial approach only begets more managerialsim and
eventually puts humans into a world of orderability.
Lansing ’10 (David M Lansing, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems,
University of Maryland Baltimore, 2010, Carbon's calculatory spaces: the emergence of carbon
offsets in Costa Rica, pg 6&7accessed 6/25/2014)
Under the baseline requirements of the CDM, this calculatory conception of the Earth's carbon balance has
extended to even the producers of CDM projects, where the people who plant the trees and
even the territorial space within which the trees are planted (ie the state of Costa Rica) must be
accounted for concerning the future carbon impact within the prescribed spaces of a project . In
this way, our technological comportment toward the world as one that puts primacy on the
makeability of beings has led to a conception of ordering that is ostensibly about the
atmosphere, but has come to include the entire planet as a singular orderable space . The
current managerial approach to climate change, where its purview has come to extend to almost everything,
can be understood as derivative of a technological metaphysics , in which the world is challenged forth as a
planetary circuit of carbon. This understanding of the world as a global space of orderability can be seen as a self- strengthening
circle of manipulative unfolding, in which instrumental ordering begets more ordering (Dreyfus, 2000). Here,
calculation is the grounds of this technological comportment, a recursive and self-
strengthening unfolding of ordering, in which beings are revealed as information (Davis, 2007;
Dreyfus, 1989) units of carbon that are ready for more ordering. Under this orientation toward the
world, not only is the atmosphere and biosphere set upon for ordering but we, as humans, are
as well. Under this meta- physical logic, we are also carbon. And through calculation, we are
'challenged forth' to be as such-carbon to be ordered.

Current methods of dealing with environmental problems are manipulative and

objectifying—lead to consequences that dangerously exceed our powers of
forecasting
Backhaus 9 [Gary, Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy "Automobility:
Global Warming as Symptomatology." Sustainability 1.2 (2009): 187-208, 4/20/9.
www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability, 6/27/14, AV]
Many environmental thinkers have questioned the presupposed tenets , e.g., the doctrine of linear
progress, on which Gore bases his belief in the success of a scientific/technological solution to
global warming and environmental problems in general . “Professional ecologists such as Frank Egler have
countered that „Nature is not only more complex than we think, it is more complex than we can
think [6]‟”. I believe that a commitment to sustainability must recognize limits to human
cognition and thus must take a radically different approach. This does not mean that science and
technology have reduced roles, but that their roles must be based on a new attitude of respectful humility [7]. The
manipulation and appropriation of nature must no longer be our technological goals. Rather, we
should be modifying our own societal/cultural forms, which include science and technology, to live in greater harmony within the
context of natural conditions and agencies. Sciences and technologies that apprehend those conditions can serve to help us become
much more respectful of natural conditions. Neither science nor technology needs to challenge natural processes; it rather needs to
challenge us to live more responsibly. The chauvinist worldview with its doctrine of reactive reparation when it comes to
environmental degradation, no longer can be promoted as a viable behavioral process. We can no longer appropriate
nature and then deal with the so called “unintended side-effects”—a dealing that amounts
to a continual re-engineering of nature, which leads to consequences that dangerously
exceed our powers of forecasting . But a new pro-activity conducive to sustainability should be more focused on
changing our relation to nature, not so much on changing nature. Gore‟s critical analysis merely focuses on wiser uses of
technology; he does not call into question radically enough the doctrine of forcing nature to serve us and does not clearly advocate
a science and technology that serves nature as first priority. This can be accomplished only by fundamental transformations in
human interpretative praxes. In practical language the transformation advocated here means that we dramatically minimize our
ecological footprints, which entails new geo- economic/political/social spatial productions, concerning which science and
technology play a vital role. Cultural
transformation for sustainability requires a new epistemological
basis that recognizes the ontological structure of sustainable ecology as having priority over
human intentions such that we eliminate certain of our expressivities and objectivations,
rather than continuing with the manipulation of nature to accommodate our intentions— a
move away from anthropocentric hegemony to a model of human contextualization that leads away from a worldview that
presupposes the culture/nature dualism.

Heidegger’s ontology envisions global warming as a symptom to the greater

problem of the Being
Backhaus 9
[Gary, Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy "Automobility: Global Warming as
Symptomatology." Sustainability 1.2 (2009): 187-208, 4/20/9.
www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability, 6/27/14, AV]
Taking up Heidegger‟s hermeneutic ontology in its reflection on Being allows us to envision
global ¶ warming as a symptom, as an appearing, complex phenomenon through a particular
way, the ¶ interpretive form of Being to which modern human life has been claimed. We are
led to the essence of ¶ which global warming is an appearing symptom, which is other than its correct
definition—one of the ¶ goals of Gore‟s book is to responsibly inform the average non-scientifically educated person as to the ¶
whatness of global warming, a correct saying of the phenomenon. From a Heideggerian standpoint, ¶ Gore‟s shallow analysis is blind
to deeper truths that concern more than establishing correct statements describing the whatness of global warming.

Global warming manifests the enframing that is prevalent in nature

Backhaus 9
[Gary, Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy "Automobility: Global Warming as
Symptomatology." Sustainability 1.2 (2009): 187-208, 4/20/9.
www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability, 6/27/14, AV]
Al Gore is correct in stating that global warming is caused by the increase of greenhouse gasses ¶ trapping infrared radiation, with
CO2 being the most prevalent. In the U.S., coal burning power plants ¶ and automobiles are the chief contributors. He also states
correctly that methane and nitric oxide are ¶ also contributors to global warming, which reach dangerous levels through
industrialized orderings of ¶ farm animals, etc. All of these involve environmental contamination, what Gore would call side-effects ¶
of technological, industrialized society. But
if we reflect on the essence of fossil fuel energy, we will be ¶
led to the way of Being that brings the symptom of global warming to unconcealment. Global
warming ¶ is a symptom of the spatial productions of automobility manifesting the enframing
that challenges ¶ nature and transforms living-spaces of the earth into sites of energy
orderings in a dialectical ¶ intensification: the more storage of energy, the more production of
auto-mobile spatiality. We want to ¶ redirect attention in order to come to terms with the
disease rather than its symptomatic manifestation.
 L – IR
All attempts to think global politics presuppose an ontology which inform all
following action – IR and world order studies inherently follow a calculatative
and technology mindset! All the aff claims are premised on an ontology of
calculation which must be confronted before we can enact change.
Swazo '02 [professor of philosophy at university of Alaska, Fairbanks, 2002 [Norman K, Crisis
Theory and World Order: Heideggerian Reflections p.74-76]
To the extent that world order studies are steeped in a strategic rationality, in calculative
thinking, they do not concern themselves with the task of having a reflective insight into the
fundamental features of the age. They do not concern themselves with the ground that
enables any thinking and doing such as is pursued by a science, natural or social. Yet, it is this
enabling ground that is really determinative of that science, inasmuch as all positing of a
domain of inquiry presupposes an ontology. World order studies , as a development of contemporary
social science, likewise are dependent upon one or another ontological commitment. Specifically, I shall
argue, they are determined by the ontological positions that prevail in the modern period of
Western philosophy; for these are the positions fundamentally decisive for the profound
change taking place in humanity's self-understanding, in our conception of all that is content
of our world, and our relation to this world. About this I shall concern myself in section 2. Before doing this it is
important that this relation between a positive science and ontology be stated in broad outline. For this I turn to Heidegger. "All
non-philosophical sciences," remarks Heidegger, "have as their theme some being or beings, and indeed in such a way that they are
in every case antecedently given as beings to those sciences."8 Continuing, Heidegger writes: They are posited by them in advance;
they are a positum for them. All the propositions of the non-philosophical sciences, including those of mathematics, are positive
propositions. Hence, to distinguish them from philosophy, we shall call all non-philosophical sciences positive sciences. Positive
sciences deal with that which is, with beings; that is to say, they always deal with specific domains, for instance, nature. Within a
given domain scien¬tific research again cuts out particular spheres: nature as physically material lifeless nature and nature as living
nature. It divides the sphere of the living into individual fields: the plant world, the animal world. Another domain of beings is
history; its spheres are art history, political history, history of sci¬ence, and history of religion. . . . The beings of these domains are
familiar to us even if at first and for the most part we are not in a position to delimit them sharply and clearly from one another.
We can, of course, always name, as a provisional description which satisfies practically rhe purpose of posi- tive science, some being
that falls within the domain We can always bring forward and picture ourselves some being belonging to any given domain. ... A
World order studies are,
being—that's something, a table, a chair, a tree, the sky, a body, some words, an action.9
concerned with a number of domains—political, economic, historical, etc.—it is
properly speaking, nonphilosophical. While
the political domain that is central to these inquiries, presupposing the classical architectonic
claims of the science of politics fot thinking and doing. 10 Insofar as the political domain is primary, world
order studies deal with beings that are said to be political , however explicitly or ambiguously this
denomination is to be understood. Such beings are things of vatious kinds: humans qua citizens, office holders, rulers, legislatots;
words such as public or official documents, codes of law, tteaties of reciprocal obligation, spoken discoutse; actions in all modes of
public being-with-one-another; things mote or less familiar but not so well delimited—regimes, states, constitutions, organizations,
All beings of the political domain
associa¬tions; in short, things that have theit being in thought, wotd, and deed.
become the proper concern of this thinking qua world order studies , despite the division of this domain
into particular spheres (domestic politics and international relations) and individual fields (foreign policy, legislation, public law,
public administration, state and municipal or provincial and local government, party politics, etc.). For world order studies,
politics presents itself as global. Politics so conceived , as well as patterns of behaviot and practice between
levels of government, matter insofar as they bear upon and contribute to the overall condition of
our common planetaty existence. Indeed, properly speaking, where global identity and global
interdependence are determinative of outlook concerning political existence, the distinction
of domestic and international spheres becomes rather anachronistic, remaining useful only for
purposes of analyses and investigations proper to the science of politics in its present
empirically-oriented methodology. It is important to undetstand that political science posits in advance
the various political things that constitute its objects of investigation. In this posit, an ontology
—what these things are, how they are, their way of being— is implicit, if not explicit. This ontology, insofar as it is
the ontology of the specific domain or region of beings that politics is, grounds the science of politics. That is,
political science can be said to be dependent on , or to derive from, a regional ontology, viz.,
political ontology. Ontology as such is a theoretical inquiry , i.e., inquiry "explicitly devoted to the meaning of
entities," this meaning being articulated by way of basic concepts. Political ontology , too, is a
theoretical inquiry devoted to the meaning of those entities that provide the subject matter of
empirical political science qua positive science. Consider Heidegger's following comments concerning such a
relation: Scientific research accomplishes, roughly and naively, the demarcation and initial fixing of the areas of subject-matter.
The basic structures of any such area have already been worked out after a fashion in our pre-
scientific ways of experiencing and interpreting that domain of Being in which the area of
subject-matter is itself confined. The 'basic concepts' which thus arise remain our proximal clues for disclosing this area
concretely for the first time. ... Basic concepts determine the way in which we get an understanding
beforehand of the subject-matter underlying all the objects a science takes as its theme, and
all positive investigation is guided by this understanding. Only after the area itself has been explored
beforehand in a corresponding manner do these concepts become genuinely demonstrated and 'grounded'. But since
every such area is itself obtained from the domain of entities themselves, this preliminary research, from which the basic
concepts are drawn, signifies nothing else than an interpretation of those entities with regard to
their basic state of being.n It is in taking the "step back," so to speak, from the positing of a domain and the research
undertaken by a positive science to the ontology implicit in this "demarcation and initial fixing of the areas of subject-matter" that
one begins to make the move from calculative thinking to meditative thinking. Inasmuch as meditative thinking is concerned with
the "meaning" that reigns in things and thus with the ground that enables scientific inquiry, the orientation of such thinking is
primarily ontological rather than positive (scientific). Here we have the distinction between philosophy and science— specifically,
between philosophy qua metaphysics and science. We can now begin to make our way through the questions initially set forth at
the beginning of this chapter, and to clarifying the need for and justification of meditative thinking as it bears upon contemporary
world order thinking.
 L – Hegemony

Hegemony and Technological thought are synonymous- they cannot exist

without one another
Burke, 07 (Anthony Burke- Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at UNSW, Sydney.
Ontologies of War: Violence, Existence and Reason Theory & Event - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2007. As the
hegemon, we cannot place our influence over others. Technological advances will lead to militarization
and our heg cannot solve for the wars. 2007) By itself, such an account of the nationalist ontology of war
and security provides only a general insight into the perseverance of military violence as a
core element of politics. It does not explain why so many policymakers think military violence works. As I argued earlier,
such an ontology is married to a more rationalistic form of strategic thought that claims to link
violent means to political ends predictably and controllably, and which, by doing so, combines
military action and national purposes into a common -- and thoroughly modern -- horizon of certainty.
Given Hegel's desire to decisively distil and control the dynamic potentials of modernity in thought, it is helpful to focus on the
modernity of this ontology -- one that is modern in its adherence to modern scientific models
of truth, reality and technological progress, and in its insistence on imposing images of
scientific truth from the physical sciences (such as mathematics and physics) onto human
behaviour, politics and society. For example, the military theorist and historian Martin van Creve-ld has argued that one
of the reasons Clausewitz was so influential was that his 'ideas seemed to have chimed in with the
rationalistic, scientific, and technological outlook associated with the industrial revolution' .54
Set into this epistemological matrix, modern politics and government engages in a sweeping
project of mastery and control in which all of the world's resources -- mineral, animal,
physical, human -- are made part of a machinic process of which war and violence are viewed
as normal features. These are the deeper claims and implications of Clausewitzian strategic reason. One of the most
revealing contemporary examples comes from the writings (and actions) of Henry Kissinger, a Harvard professor and later U.S.
National Security Adviser and Secretary of State. He wrote during the Vietnam war that after 1945 U.S. foreign policy
was based 'on the assumption that technology plus managerial skills gave us the ability to
reshape the international system and to bring about domestic transformations in emerging
countries'. This 'scientific revolution' had 'for all practical purposes, removed technical limits
from the exercise of power in foreign policy'.55 Kissinger's conviction was based not merely in his pride in the
vast military and bureaucratic apparatus of the United States, but in a particular epistemology (theory of knowledge ). Kissinger
asserted that the West is 'deeply committed to the notion that the real world is external to
the observer, that knowledge consists of recording and classifying data -- the more accurately
the better'. This, he claimed, has since the Renaissance set the West apart from an 'undeveloped' world that contains 'cultures
that have escaped the early impact of Newtonian thinking' and remain wedded to the 'essentially pre-Newtonian view that the real
world is almost entirely internal to the observer'.56 At the same time, Kissinger's hubris and hunger for control was beset by a
corrosive anxiety: that, in an era of nuclear weapons proliferation and constant military modernisation, of geopolitical stalemate in
Vietnam, and the emergence and militancy of new post-colonial states, order and mastery were harder to define and impose. He
worried over the way 'military bipolarity' between the superpowers had 'encouraged political multipolarity', which 'does not
guarantee stability. Rigidity is diminished, but so is manageability...equilibrium is difficult to achieve among states widely divergent
in values, goals, expectations and previous experience' (emphasis added). He mourned that 'the greatest need of the contemporary
international system is an agreed concept of order'.57 Here were
the driving obsessions of the modern rational
statesman based around a hunger for stasis and certainty that would entrench U.S. hegemony:
For the two decades after 1945, our international activities were based on the assumption that
technology plus managerial skills gave us the ability to reshape the international system and
to bring about domestic transformations in "emerging countries" . This direct "operational" concept of
international order has proved too simple. Political multipolarity makes it impossible to impose an American design. Our deepest
challenge will be to evoke the creativity of a pluralistic world, to base order on political multipolarity even though overwhelming
military strength will remain with the two superpowers.58 Kissinger's
statement revealed that such cravings for
order and certainty continually confront chaos, resistance and uncertainty: clay that won't be
worked, flesh that will not yield, enemies that refuse to surrender . This is one of the most powerful
lessons of the Indochina wars, which were to continue in a phenomenally destructive fashion for six years after Kissinger wrote these
words. Yet as his sinister, Orwellian exhortation to 'evoke the creativity of a pluralistic world' demonstrated, Kissinger's hubris was
undiminished. This is a vicious, historic irony: a desire to control nature, technology, society and human beings that is continually
frustrated, but never abandoned or rethought. By 1968 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the rationalist policymaker par
excellence, had already decided that U.S. power and technology could not prevail in Vietnam; Nixon and Kissinger's refusal to accept
this conclusion, to abandon their Cartesian illusions, was to condemn hundreds of thousands more to die in Indochina and the
people of Cambodia to two more decades of horror and misery.59 In 2003 there would be a powerful sense of déja vu as another
Republican Administration crowned more than decade of failed and destructive policy on Iraq with a deeply controversial and
divisive war to remove Saddam Hussein from power. In this struggle with the lessons of Vietnam, revolutionary resistance, and
rapid geopolitical transformation, we are witness to an enduring political and cultural theme: of a craving for order, control and
certainty in the face of continual uncertainty. Closely related to this anxiety was the way that Kissinger's thinking -- and that of
McNamara and earlier imperialists like the British Governor of Egypt Cromer -- was embedded in instrumental images of technology
and the machine: the machine as both a tool of power and an image of social and political order. In his essay 'The Government of
Subject Races' Cromer envisaged effective imperial rule -- over numerous societies and billions of human beings -- as best achieved
by a central authority working 'to ensure the harmonious working of the different parts of the machine'.60 Kissinger analogously
invoked the virtues of 'equilibrium', 'manageability' and 'stability' yet, writing some six decades later, was anxious that technological
progress no longer brought untroubled control:
the Westernising 'spread of technology and its associated
rationality...does not inevitably produce a similar concept of reality '.61 We sense the rational
policymaker's frustrated desire: the world is supposed to work like a machine, ordered by a
form of power and governmental reason which deploys machines and whose desires and
processes are meant to run along ordered, rational lines like a machine. Kissinger's desire was little
different from that of Cromer who, wrote Edward Said: ...envisions a seat of power in the West and radiating out from it towards the
East a great embracing machine, sustaining the central authority yet commanded by it. What
the machine's branches
feed into it from the East -- human material, material wealth, knowledge, what have you -- is
processed by the machine, then converted into more power...the immediate translation of
mere Oriental matter into useful substance.62 This desire for order in the shadow of chaos and uncertainty -- the
constant war with an intractable and volatile matter -- has deep roots in modern thought, and was a major impetus to the
development of technological reason and its supporting theories of knowledge.

The aff’s world-ordering engages in a type of thinking that reduces all life on
earth to a tool to be instrumentalized, further disconnecting ourselves from
what it means to be.
Swazo 02 [Norman K.: Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alaska, Crisis Theory and
World Order: Heideggerian Reflections, p. 110-11]
The inevitability of such a fight issues from the pathology of nihilism— all political thought and practice in our time cannot but
be "pathologically conditioned" (Twilight of the Idols, "The Problem of Socrates," note 10). The attraction to "rational
design" of the world order is today motivated by a Sense of imminent catastrophe and, thus, by the
human impulse to self preservation. Here, however, it is life itself that compels; and precisely in this attraction to
rational design of the world order is there betrayed what Nietzsche recognizes in Western moralism: It is pathologically
conditioned. And what is this pathology? It is nothing other than the strife of subjective egoisms as yet
unmastered. Such is the essence of power-politics. But this, presumably, is life (will to power); and, as Nietzsche puts it,
"life itself forces us to posit values; life itself values through us when we posit values " (Twilight of the
Idols, "Morality as Anti-Nature," note 5). In world order thinking, I submit, the West discharges the energy of its
moral essence, doing so as author of the prevailing morality and as the locus of the dominant
subjective egoisms which have been inevitably diffused to determine all political cultures, the latter
of which are now bound to the West's hegemony over world political culture . The contemporary
world order in structure and value orientation is instituted on the basis of Western reason , and as
such it is characterized by an "order of rank" in which European values have primacy, i.e., are hegemonous vis-a-vis all "other"
(Asian, African, Latin American, etc.) plausibly autochthonous valuations. World order thinking, thus, compelled by life
itself in all its prevalent pathology, posits its values-peace, justice, economic well-being, ecological balance-
over against all that shows itself as the contemporary pathology of "petty politics" and all that is
countervaluation in the strife motivated by the requirements of global hegemony. In this positing of
primacy to the Western valuation, the Occident reveals its near exhaustion , if not its desperation, in the
face of competing modes of subjectivity as manifest by a fragmented and antagonistic "system" of
nation-states, each with its "splinter-will." Given that this world order movement is transnational, the West co-
opting sympathetic forces in the developing world, twit her this exhaustion nor this desperation is restricted to the West: The
"crisis" is effectively planetary. Nietzsche was not amiss in his articulation of the great task that would define the
twentieth century, i.e., the problem of global governance. Neither was he amiss in appreciating its hesitant approach, despite
its inexorability. That is, Nietzsche recognizes the persistent, though declining, influence of the Christian ideal with respect to
the problem of global governance, anticipating that this ideal would yet issue in the call for a moral world order:
Notwithstanding the death of God, Christian value judgments would be transmuted into the political domain. The twentieth
century's emerging order would be a "hybrid" of sickness, the will to power heightening the demands of modern man's self-
determination, the Christian conscience yet restraining-in short, a "fettered" moment in humanity's movement toward total
self-affirmation, total sovereignty in the absence of God and transcendent norms. "They are rid of the Christian God," writes
Nietzsche in his Twilight of the Idols ("Skirmishes of an Untimely Man," note 5), yet "now believe Al the more firmly that they
must cling to Christian morality." It is not yet realized, observes Nietzsche, that "when one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls
the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet." Accordingly, the contemporary world order movement expresses a
commitment to transforming the philosophic orientation (values) as well as transforming institutional structures and patterns
of behavior. World order thinking is, thus, normative. That world order thinking is value thinking is evidence of
its essential debt to the Nietzschean metaphysic, to thinking the world order from the vantage of
subjectness, for it is only with Nietzsche that value thinking comes to predominate in the twentieth
century."' As Heidegger puts it, "Values stem from valuation; valuation corresponds to the will to power." That is, insofar
as the creation of secureness is grounded in value-positing and world order thinkers on their own
essential authority (understood metaphysically, not personally) seek to secure a world order, then world
order thinking cannot but be so grounded. It is precisely this ground, i.e., a self-grounded value-posit,
that entails the technocratic conception of world order and, thus, eliminates a meaningful
distinction between the normative and technocratic approaches . How so? Heidegger answers in words that
indict all value thinking: "thinking in terms of values is a radical killing. It ... strikes down that which is as
such, in its being-in itself. . . ." Everything which is "is transformed into object" and "swallowed up
into the immanence of subjectivity.""' Commensurate with this subjectivity is that objectivity which, in the essence of
the technological, is total, and which finds its instrument in technocracy.
 L – Economy
The aff’s drive for economic gain is fueled on calculations and obsession with
technological efficiency
James, Simon Paul (2001) Heidegger and Environmental Ethics, Durham theses, Durham
Univeristy. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3958/
The prevailing telos in the technological world is a drive toward the ever more efficient ordering of
standing reserve. Thus practices come to be favoured in terms of their performance according
to some standard of efficiency, to the extent that in many situations an appeal to efficiency is likely to provide the
ultimate criterion for deciding on a course of action. In many cases, the particular standard appealed to will be
quantifiable, a percentage of outpatients, perhaps, or a measure of the processing capacity of
a computer. Heidegger therefore associates technology with a distinctive sort of thinking,
namely, calculative thinking, a thinking that 'computes ever new, ever more promising and at
the same time more economical possibilities' (DT: 46). Moreover, in keeping with the supreme nebulousness of
an appeal to efficiency, the most appropriate currencies for the exchange of standing reserve will be those that prove themselves
the most malleable, the most interchangeable. It is perhaps for this reason that Heidegger introduces his account of technology in
terms of the extraction ., of energy: 'Tl;J.~;.:f'ay of revealing that rules in modem technology is a challenging .. dJ [Herausfordern],
which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply en~rgy which can be extracted and stored as such' (BW: 320, editor's
annotation). 13 Presumably, he could also have associated technology with those other supremely flexible currencies, money and
information.
 L – War
The ontology behind war is rooted in a deep technological/metaphysical
thought
Burke ’07 (2007 Anthony Burke Ontologies of War: Violence, Existence and
http://muse.jhu.edu.cordproxy.mnpals.net/journals/theory_and_event/v010/10.2burke.html
Reason 10:2 | ©)
What I take from Heidegger's argument -- one that I have sought to extend by analysing the militaristic
power of modern ontologies of political existence and security -- is a view that the challenge is
posed not merely by a few varieties of weapon, government, technology or policy, but by an
overarching system of thinking and understanding that lays claim to our entire space of truth
and existence. Many of the most destructive features of contemporary modernity -- militarism,
repression, coercive diplomacy, covert intervention, geopolitics, economic exploitation and
ecological destruction -- derive not merely from particular choices by policymakers based on
their particular interests, but from calculative, 'empirical' discourses of scientific and political
truth rooted in powerful enlightenment images of being. Confined within such an
epistemological and cultural universe, policymakers' choices become necessities, their actions
become inevitabilities, and humans suffer and die. Viewed in this light, 'rationality' is the
name we give the chain of reasoning which builds one structure of truth on another until a
course of action, however violent or dangerous, becomes preordained through that reasoning's very operation and existence.
It creates both discursive constraints -- available choices may simply not be seen as credible or legitimate -- and material
constraints that derive from the mutually reinforcing cascade of discourses and events which
then preordain militarism and violence as necessary policy responses, however ineffective,
dysfunctional or chaotic. 61. The force of my own and Heidegger's analysis does, admittedly, tend towards a deterministic
fatalism. On my part this is quite deliberate; it is important to allow this possible conclusion to weigh on us. Large sections of
modern societies -- especially parts of the media, political leaderships and national security
institutions -- are utterly trapped within the Clausewitzian paradigm, within the instrumental
utilitarianism of 'enframing' and the stark ontology of the friend and enemy . They are certainly
tremendously aggressive and energetic in continually stating and reinstating its force. 62. But is there a way out? Is there no
possibility of agency and choice? Is this not the key normative problem I raised at the outset, of how the modern ontologies of war
efface agency, causality and responsibility from decision making; the responsibility that comes with having choices and making
decisions, with exercising power? (In this I am much closer to Connolly than Foucault, in Connolly's insistence that, even in the face
of the anonymous power of discourse to produce and limit subjects, selves remain capable of agency and thus incur
responsibilities.88) There seems no point in following Heidegger in seeking a more 'primal truth' of being -- that is to reinstate
ontology and obscure its worldly manifestations and consequences from critique. However we can, while refusing Heidegger's
unworldly89 nostalgia, appreciate that he was searching for a way out of the modern system of calculation; that he
was
searching for a 'questioning', 'free relationship' to technology that would not be immediately
recaptured by the strategic, calculating vision of enframing. Yet his path out is somewhat
chimerical -- his faith in 'art' and the older Greek attitudes of 'responsibility and indebtedness'
offer us valuable clues to the kind of sensibility needed , but little more. 63. When we consider the problem of
policy, the force of this analysis suggests that choice and agency can be all too often limited; they can remain confined (sometimes
quite wilfully) within the overarching strategic and security paradigms. Or, more hopefully ,
policy choices could aim to
bring into being a more enduringly inclusive, cosmopolitan and peaceful logic of the political.
But this cannot be done without seizing alternatives from outside the space of enframing and
utilitarian strategic thought, by being aware of its presence and weight and activating a very
different concept of existence, security and action.90
 L – Nuclear War / Tech
Nuclear technologies are extremely interventionist, contribute to the
destruction of Being, and reduce the world to a standing reserve
Senecah 05 (environmental theorist, “The Environmental Communication Yearbook” pg 67-68,
2005, http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wW-
RAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA49&dq=nuclear+power+
%2B+heidegger&ots=LuiJiOUoF7&sig=jXKkKiEFaN9DipueYbZwMZ3aqnw#v=onepage&q&f=false)
The theme of nuclear entelechy provides a basis for some concluding observations on nuclear

discourse and its relationship to environmental communication . In an influential essay that was centrally
concerned with entelechy, although it did not employ that term, Heidegger (1977) developed an existentialist
concept of technology as a mode of "revealing." For Heidegger, technology was a way of
apprehending the world, through which the essence of the world is revealed to humans, but
also a way by which the essence of humanity is revealed. Through this dual revealing, both the world and the
human agent (or the human species) are brought to completion. From this perspective, we can view the present
nuclear situation, and the present environmental situation, as revealing the telos toward
which the human community and the world are moving . Rather than responding fatalistically, we can use
these signs to understand, and potentially reconstruct, ourselves and our relationship to the
world. Heidegger distinguished sharply between traditional technologies such as windmills or waterwheels, which draw on the
forces present in the natural world while conforming to those forces, and modern technologies such as nuclear power plants, which
intervene radically in the world to reorder it for human purposes. In the latter mode ,
the world is viewed exclusively
as a "standing reserve," a collection of resources to be organized and made available for use . In
this regard , nuclear technologies are among the most radically interventionist, or most

"modern," of all . Although they are modern in the sense ofbeing historically new, they are also archetypical products of a
modernist discursive formation that is now almost 4 centuries old.
 L – Terrorism
Political responses to terrorism are destined to fail – a thinking of terrorism is a
prior question.
Mitchell '05 [Andrew J. Mitchell, Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Stanford University,
"Heidegger and Terrorism," Research in Phenomenology, Volume 35, Number 1, 2005 , pp. 181-
218]
This does not mean that being exists unperturbed somewhere behind or beyond these beings. The withdrawal of being is found in
these abandoned beings themselves and is determinative for the way they exist. Heideggerian thinking, then, allows us
to ask the question of our times and to think terrorism. My contention in the following is that the
withdrawal of being shows itself today in terrorism , where beings exist as terrorized.
Terrorism, in other words, is not simply the sum total of activities carried out by terrorist groups,
but a challenge directed at beings as a whole. Terrorism is consequently a metaphysical issue ,
and it names the way in which beings show themselves today, i.e., as terrorized. This "ontological" point demands
that there be the "ontic" threat of real terrorists. Further, this metaphysical aspect of terrorism also indicates
that a purely political response to terrorism is destined to fail. Political reactions to terrorism, which depict
terrorism from the outset as a political problem, miss the fact that terrorism itself, qua
metaphysical issue, is coincident with a transformation in politics . That is to say, political
responses to terrorism fail to think terrorism. In what follows I will elaborate some of the consequences of
thinking terrorism as a question of being and sketch a few characteristics of the politicotechnological landscape against which
terrorism takes place.

It's the aff's technological enframing that makes terrorism inevitable – we

should recognize that true security is impossible and not look at the
metaphysical issue of terrorism in a technological view.
Mitchell '05 [Andrew J. Mitchell, Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Stanford University,
"Heidegger and Terrorism," Research in Phenomenology, Volume 35, Number 1, 2005 , pp. 181-
218]
Insofar as Heideggerian thinking is a thinking of being , then it must be able to think terrorism , for the
simple reason that terrorism names the current countenance of being for our times , and without such a
correspondence to being, Heideggerian thinking is nothing. The issue is not one of applying a preestablished
Heideggerian doctrine to an object or situation that would remain outside of thought. Rather,
the issue is one of recognizing that the objects and situations of our world themselves call for
thought , and that in thinking the world, we enter into a correspondence with being. But what sort of correspondence
can be achieved between the thinking of being and terrorism? Heidegger's articulation of the age of
technology already contains in germ four routes of access for the thinking of terrorism. First, Heidegger himself
witnessed a transformation in the making of war, such that he was led to think beyond the
Clausewitzian model of modem warfare and to open the possibility for a "warfare" of a
different sort. This thought beyond war is itself an opening to terrorism. Second, Heidegger prioritizes terror
(Erschrecken) as a fundamental mood appropriate to our age of technological enframing. Terror is a
positive mood, not a privative one, and it corresponds to the way that being gives itself today. Third, Heidegger thinks
threat and danger in an "ontological" manner that calls into question traditional notions of
presence and absence. Terrorism attends this transformation in presence. Finally, and following from all of this,
Heidegger rethinks the notion of security in a manner that alerts us to the oxymoronic
character of "homeland security" and the impossibility of ever achieving a condition of
complete safety from terrorism. In each of these ways, Heideggerian thinking responds to this most uncommon of
challenges.
 L – Get off the rock
The affirmative attempt to liberate humanity from our earthly imprisonment
provides a framework for violent domination of the universe and disposability
of planet earth.
Macauley '96 [David, teaches philosophy and literature classes at several colleges in New York
City. “Minding nature: The philosophers of ecology”, March 29, 1996, Guilford Publications]
Earth Alienation Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens
above? —THOREAU, Walden In the prologue to The Human Condition, Arendt writes of the launching in 1957 of the first satellite, an
With the
event, she asserts boldly, that is "second in importance to no other, not even to the splitting of the atom."
projection of this [hu]man-made, earth-born, and once earthbound object into the depths of
outer space, she locates both a symbolic and an historic step toward realizing the hubristic
dream of "liberating" us from nature, biological necessity, and earthly "imprisonment." This desire
to escape the earth (and our success in so doing) signifies to Arendt a fundamental rebellion against the
human condition, of which the earth is the "very quintessence," and marks our departure into
the universe and a universal standpoint taken deliberately outside the confines and conditions
in which we have lived from our genesis. This monumental action, too, can be viewed as a prelude to and
encapsulation of Arendt's own thinking about the realm of nature, for it is here that she establishes a stark distinction—or, more
exactly, opposition—between earth and world and calls attention to an alienation which, she claims, we experience from both
spheres. Arendt also shows an early concern with the subject of dwelling—on-the-earth and in-the-world—an activity she speaks of
elsewhere as homelessness and rootlessness, and she signals a preference for turning toward or returning to an older conception of
the natural and the political, namely, a Greek one. Thus, she announces her intention to "trace back modern world alienation, its
twofold flight from the earth into the universe and from the world into the self, to its origins." 4 In the initial pages of The Human
Condition, Arendt reveals a penchant for resorting to phenomenological, historical, and, later, etymological accounts of politics and
"what we are doing" within and to the world and earth, and for employing spatial metaphors and descriptions in the process. In fact,
the satellite which carries us from our home and earthly place into a cosmic space and new
Archimedean point is merely the first such vehicle Arendt invokes to launch us into consideration of a politics of
the spatial and placial. She examines public and private space, spaces of appearance (the polis) and places of disappearance (the
death camps), the inner space and life of the mind, and outer space and its conquest by modern science and technology. In assessing
such thoughts on nature and the earth and their relevance for contemporary ecological and political thought, it is necessary to
situate her views historically by positioning them against the Greeks (to whom she looks), Marx (whom she criticizes), Heidegger
(from whom she borrows), and the Frankfurt School and its heirs (whom she neglects). In this way, one can perhaps better measure
her contributions and failings, her blindnesses and insights. The phenomenon of earth alienation , as Arendt conceives
of it, is an interesting but curious and problematic notion. It is typified strangely by an historical expansion of known
geographic and physical space which, ironically, brings about a closing-in process that shrinks and abolishes distance. Earth
alienation stands in contrast, though not complete opposition, to world alienation. Both originate, in her view, in the sixteenth and
seventieth centuries. According to Arendt, there were three great events which inaugurated the modern age and led to the
withdrawal from and loss of a cultural rootedness in place and estrangement from the earth. First, the most spectacular event was
the discovery of America and the subsequent exploration, charting, and mapping of the entire earth which brought the unintended
result of closing distances rather than enlarging then. It enabled humans to take "full possession of [their] mortal dwelling place"
and to gather into a globe the once infinite horizons so that "each man is as much an inhabitant of the earth as he is of his own
country."5 Second, through the expropriation of chixch property, the Reformation initiated individual expropriation of land and
wealth which, in turn, uprooted people from their homes. Third, the invention of the telescope, the least noticed but most
important event, enabled humans to see the earth not as separated from the universe but as part of it and to take a universal
standpoint in the process. From this bellwether moment, Arendt traces
our ability to direct cosmic processes into
the earth, the reversal of the historic privileging of contemplation over action, a resultant
distrust of the senses, and a marked tendency on the part of science to dominate nature .6 The
telescope, in short, "finally forced nature, or rather the universe, to yield its secrets." 7 The roots of earth and world alienation seem
to be related for Arendt, though two of them—the charting of the earth and the invention of the telescope—are more closely linked
with her conception o: earth alienation than the third. To these events, we can add the rise of Cartesian doubt, for with it our
earthbound experience is called into question with the discovery that the Earth revolves around the sun, a phenomenon which is
contrary to immediate sense experience. Cartesian doubt is marked by its universalizability, its ability to encompass everything (De
omnibus dubitandum), and to leave the isolated mind alone in infinite, ungrounded space. Modern mathematics and particularly
They free us
Cartesian geometry an; also indicted because they reduce all that is not human to numerical formulas and truths.
from finitude, terrestrial life, and geocentric notions of space, replacing them with a science
"purified" of these elements . In effect, they take the geo (the earth) out of geometry. This movement from
natural to universal science and the creation of a new Archimedean point in the human mind (a
metaphor Descartes employs in the Second Meditation), where it can be carried and moved about, is at the heart of her
conception of earth alienation, a distinguishing feature of the modern world.8 It is this historic process
which has enabled us to handle and control nature from outside the earth : to reach speeds near the
speed of light with the aid of technology, to produce elements not found in the earth, to create life in a test tube and to destroy it
with nuclear weapons. In Arendt's view, this
process is responsible for estranging us so radically from our
given home. In fact, she appears to take a step even further in the direction of pessimism when she claims that the earth
is, in a sense, dispensable and obsolete: "We have found a way," she says, "to act on the earth and within terrestrial
nature as though we dispose, of it from outside, from the Archimedean point." 9 In her essay "The Conquest of Space and the Stat are
of Man," Arendt elaborates on these themes and shows the futility of humans ever conquering space and reaching an Archimedean
point, which would constantly be relocated upon its discovery. She suggests that we recognize limits to our search for knowledge
and that a new, more geocentric world-view might emerge once limitations are acknowledged and accepted. Arendt is not especially
we must recover the earth as our home and begin to
optimistic about such an occurrence , but feels that
realize that mortality is a fundamental condition of scientific research . It is not only modern science
which she finds culpable, though, for it was philosophers, she assert;, who were the first to abolish the dichotomy between earth
and sky (by which she might also mean space since the earth includes the sky 10) and to situate us in an unbounded cosmos. And so
the task of reconceiving our relation to the universe also rests on the shoulders of
philosophers.
Topic Links
 L – Oceans
The affirmative attempts to technologically manage the earth’s oceans which
renders the entire planet as a standing reserve, annihilated of its essential
Being.
Mules ’12 (Issue No. 21 2012 — Rethinking the Seasons: New Approaches to Nature
Heidegger, nature philosophy and art as poietic event By Warwick Mules,
http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_21/article_06.shtml)
By linking the saying of nature with justice, Heidegger suggests an ontological ethics based on poiesis as
the sharing of the gift of nature’s giving. The good of nature can only be itself, which is the fact that it gives what is.
[30] The good of nature is the gift of itself shared out, for instance , in the turning of the earth around the
sun that gives rise to the seasons, the weather, rivers, rainfall , tides and currents of the oceans , the blossoming of
plants, and more generally, as a cosmic giving, shared through renewal and decay played out in the contractions and expansions of
time and space that affect all things at all times and places.
In giving what it is, in its “goodness,” nature
massively exceeds the “goods” of technological ordering and the authority of discourses that
provide jurisdiction over nature (e.g. the good of technical efficiency, calculability, predictability
and sustainability). Through its cosmic reach, nature breaches the ordering of Ge-stell with a shine in all things that is
everywhere around. Nature gives even when challenged and ordered into standing reserve. Its
giving is given in the chaos of eternal recurrence [31]: in their givenness, in the shining of nature
through them, things are already otherwise. An ontological ethics responds to the “just”
giving of nature in the singularity of its “event” as openness to Being . [32] Justice in this absolute sense
(ontological justice, concerned with being-as-giving) is “a doing that would . . . be rendered to the singularity of the other . . . as the
very coming of the event” (Derrida, Specters 27-28). [33] An
ontological ethics is not concerned with the
restitution of justice according to rules and norms, but with the “doing” that makes justice
(the giving-sharing of being as becoming) possible in an inaugurating sense. The task of
ontological ethics is to guard over the openness of Being to enable another beginning, another
way of being-with nature from within the technological enframing (Ge-stell) of the modern
world.

Human use and manipulation of the oceans represents the apex of capital
mobility and exploitation, where marine biodiversity gets transformed into
biotechnology products
Stefan Helmreich, Associate Professor in Anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 2007, “Blue-green Capital, Biotechnological Circulation and an Oceanic Imaginary:
A Critique of Biopolitical Economy,” BioSocieties, 2, pp. 287–302
The ‘globe’ imagined in ‘globalization’ is a closed system, a finite sphere crisscrossed by flows of
people, goods and media. Such an encircling topology coalesced from circuits of mercantilism,
capitalism and colonialism. With the Cold War and the rise of environmentalism, the globe
acquired a scientific icon in the image of Earth from space, a blue-green orb of mostly oceans.
At the millennium’s turn, the Pacific, once the westward limit of the American frontier, morphed into a futuristic force field holding
together the Pacific Rim, host to new currents of transoceanic market and telecommunication processes. For believers in the end of
history, West spiraled around to meet East, fulfilling a market manifest destiny. The ocean has
been a key stage for this tale since, as Philip Steinberg argues in The social construction of the ocean, the West
has developed an ‘idealization of the deep sea as a great void of distance, suitable for
annihilation by an ever-expanding tendency toward capital mobility’ . ‘The ocean’ , writes Chris
Connery, ‘has long functioned as capital’s myth element’ , a zone of unencumbered capital
circulation, most evident, perhaps, in oceanic vectors of conquest and commerce, from the
triangular trade to the transnational traffic of container ships. But the ocean has been more
than a channel for trade; it has also been a resource. Nowadays, it is being inspected for a new
kind of wealth that might travel into global markets: marine biodiversity transmogrified into
biotechnology.

Development of the ocean space is rooted in destructive management

ontologies.
Deuchars 2013 [Deuchars, Robert. "Governmentality and Risk: Managing Ocean
Space."Research Paper International Environmental Law (LAWS 530) (2013): n. pag.
Web. Faculty of Law Victoria University of Wellington]
The majority of the literature on international environmental law does not consider any
of¶ the above to be anything other than part of the lexicon of terms that are used to
describe¶ and to analyse environmental problems. Similarly ‘ocean space’ is now increasingly¶
divided up by regional bodies, established by conventions to oversee the management of¶ (usually) labelled
species that are to be managed and or protected by these bodies t hat¶ have a series of measures
that have been designed to ensure the survivability of the¶ resources under our gaze. Ernst Haas asked the provocative
question in the 1970s ‘Why¶ “ocean
space” rather than “the human environment ”, “the ecosystem”,
“atmospheric¶ space” or ”outer space”?’1¶ What Haas did was to ground
the concept ‘ocean space’ as materiality
giving that space a¶ territorial function for the purposes of regime construction . In that sense
Haas made a¶ valuable early contribution to thinking about the vastness of the oceans and of the living¶ things that constitute
ocean space by attributing to it the same ontological status as¶ territory. It is, of course a
double-edged sword
contribution as once the oceans are¶ perceived on the same plane of reality as land a
twofold effect occurs. Firstly, there is the¶ recognition that the ocean space is not limitless; it has
boundaries.2 And secondly, once¶ boundaries are concretised, there is ample room for territorial
disputes over the space¶ itself and increasingly the resources contained within those
boundaries. Ocean space and the ecosystem which is used in the legal definition of the ¶
methodological approach to the management of ocean space in fisheries are described as complex
adaptive systems and the behaviour of the parts or individual scale-entities has a¶ co-evolutionary effect on the behaviour of all
the other agents. In other words nonlinearity¶ represents a
clear break with Cartesian certainty and opens
up theoretical space¶ for uncertainty, irreducible indeterminism and exposes the
weaknesses of our fondness¶ for reductionist forms of analysis. Breaking things down into their
smallest constituent¶ parts seems to have much appeal but when we reveal the objects of our enquiries are ¶ more often than
not repeated practices and processes situated in irreversible time we are ¶ confronted with the in-built limitation of both static
analysis and reductive analysis.3¶ This is not an entirely new idea and has been well explained in other texts. Karl¶ Mannheim in
his classic work Ideology and Utopia exposes our tendencies to attempt to¶ make rigid and fixed practices and processes to give
the illusory appearance of spatiotemporal¶ stability. Again, this situation may make for a certain utility of analysis, but¶ covers
up critical areas of experience such as complexity, emergence and the inherent ¶ instability of identities. He notes:¶ ‘The world
of external objects and of psychic experience appears to be in a state of continuous¶ flux. Verbs are more adequate symbols for
this situation than nouns. The fact that we give names¶ to things which are in flux implies inevitably certain stabilization
oriented along the lines of¶ collective activity. The
derivation of our meanings emphasizes and stabilizes
that aspect of things¶ which is relevant to activity and covers up, in the interest of
collective action, the perpetually fluid¶ process underlying all things’.4¶ Mannheim published this
work in the 1930s, not so long after the establishment of¶ quantum mechanics, which had revealed a number of fundamental
problems for physics¶ but which also became germane to the study of social systems too. However Mannheim ¶ appears to be
acutely aware of the functional reasons why we do not, in most cases, ¶ attempt to designate things as they really are. He
acknowledges that the “interest
of¶ collective action” serves to simplify and solidify unstable
entities for the explicit purpose of functional activity. This logic gives impetus for us to
problematise the fluid concepts¶ of nation-states, the system of nation-states and the
myriad conventions that constitute¶ most aspects of global governance, including
international environmental law.¶ The nation-state and the international system of states are on-going projects
and can¶ never be said to be fully complete. There is a continuous ebbing and flowing of people, ¶ information, laws and norms,
and the transportation of matter-energy flows. When¶ Mannheim mentions the “the perpetually fluid process underlying all
things” we should¶ be careful to place this phrase in context. It can be taken too far thus disabling our¶ attempts to analyse any
given phenomenon. The stabilization of things is often required¶ for us to make any meaningful statements about them.
Although Mannheim’s statement¶ may be correct, stability is often required for analytical convenience even when we know¶
that it merely represents an approximation of the real.¶ In this essay I will consider one
body that has been
established to manage the ocean space¶ within set geographic boundaries. As stated in article 2
of its convention the objective of¶ this body is to act ‘through the application of the
precautionary approach and an¶ ecosystem approach to fisheries management, to ensure the long-
term conservation and¶ sustainable use of fishery resources and, in so doing, to safeguard the
marine ecosystems¶ in which these resources occur.’¶ This body is the South Pacific Regional Fisheries
Management Organization (SPRFMO),¶ which was instituted after years of negotiation under the Convention on the
Conservation¶ and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the South Pacific Ocean in¶ November 2009 and entered
into force in December 2012.5 The Convention itself falls¶ under the auspices of United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS)6¶ which was established the 1982, although many similar regional regimes predate the ¶ present framework for
ocean governance.¶ In the pages that follow I will outline a critique that takes the terms mentioned at the very¶ beginning of
this essay into account and suggest that far from being reasonable and¶ unproblematic, it
is more reasonable to
suggest that these words and terms, and others¶ similar to them, and the framework of
thinking in which they inhabit, are indicative of the culturally modernist ontology and
predominantly positivist epistemology that tend to¶ dominate the discourse of so-called
advanced industrialised societies. In doing so I will¶ have to open up the scope of my enquiry well
beyond environmental law and into areas¶ of philosophy and in particular the question of
the relationship humans have with nature,¶ the international political economy of industries
beyond fishing techniques and accepted¶ practice, and the great uncertainties and gaps in scientific knowledge7 in general and
of¶ the deep seas in particular.¶ Furthermore, my
point of departure necessitates a questioning of the
use and abuse of¶ technology to pursue questionable ends in general8 and technological
practices in¶ particular, especially those practices that have enabled humans to fish in
deeper waters¶ using techniques that do not discriminate between fish, marine mammals,
other life-forms¶ and the ocean space.
 L – Development
Development of the earth leads to machination and hollowing-out of the world
DeLuca 05 Associate Professor of Speech Communication in the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia,
Indiana University Press, “Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and Practice,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ethics_and_the_environment/v010/10.1deluca.html
Machination is unconditional controllability, the domination of all beings, the world, and
earth through calculation, acceleration, technicity, and giganticism. Calculation represents a
reduction of knowing to mathematics and science and a reduction of the world and earth to
what is calculable, a step taken decisively by Descartes (1999, 84–96). Machination is the "pattern of generally calculable
explainability, by which everything draws nearer to everything else equally and becomes completely alien to itself" (1999, 92). The
unrestrained domination of machination produces a totalizing worldview that enchants: "When machination finally dominates and
permeates everything, then there are no longer any conditions by which still actually to detect the enchantment and to protect
oneself from it. The bewitchment by technicity and its constantly self-surpassing progress are only one sign of this enchantment,
by virtue of which everything presses forth into calculation, usage, breeding, manageability, and regulation" (1999, 86–87).
Heidegger prophetically predicts that machination will produce "a gigantic progress of
sciences in the future. These advancements will bring exploitation and usage of the earth as
well as rearing and training of humans into conditions that are still inconceivable today" (1999,
108). Animals and plants are reduced to various forms of use value and, more significantly, are
banished from Being-in-the-world with us: "What is a plant and an animal to us anymore, when we take away use,
embellishment, and entertainment" (1999, 194). "Nature" suffers a similar fate: " What happens to nature in
technicity, when nature is separated out from beings by the natural sciences? The growing—
or better, the simple rolling unto its end—destruction of 'nature' .... And finally what was left was only
'scenery' and recreational opportunity and even this still calculated into the gigantic and arranged for the masses" (1999, 195).
Under the unrestrained domination of machination, humans suffer a "hollowing out" (1999,
91, 348) and Being-in-the-world is replaced by "adventures." (I am here translating Erlebnis as adventure.
Others translate it as lived-experience.) Heidegger really perceives the domination of machination as total and suggests resistance is
futile. Instead, while waiting for the unfolding of Being, he tends to offer up despairing cries, as when he plaintively asks, "Who
ordered the scale of the market? And who demands that everything be weighed on it alone?" (1999, 168). Now I do not think we
need accept Heidegger's mantra "Resistance is futile," but we
do need to seriously consider which strategies of
environmental groups are implicated in machination. Some are obvious, but others are not so clear. The
question moves, then, from asking whether a strategy is effective or moral, to asking, "Does a
strategy contribute to machination?" As our discussion should have made clear, machination is about a logic, not a
particular machine. (This same point is true of Heidegger's later critique of technology.) Heidegger's critique of the logic of
machination has the advantage of being able to be clearly distinguished from any particular machine or technology. Machination, to
reiterate, is a logic characterized by calculation, giganticism, acceleration, and technicity wherein animals, plants, and the earth
To ask if a strategy
become objects, mere resources, and humans, also, are reduced to the service of a ravenous progress.
contributes to machination, then, is to ask whether it contributes to the degradation of the
earth and the hollowing-out of the world, a particularly pressing question for
environmentalists. Obviously, then, the mainstream strategy of setting up headquarters in the political center (Washington,
D.C.) of global capitalism—arguably the finest manifestation of the logic of machination; and adopting such practices as lobbying,
trading favors, making cash donations, doing fund-raising, hiring MBAs and lawyers to run operations, exchanging board
memberships with major corporations, producing glossy magazines funded by advertising from car companies and other suspect
sources, practicing media spin and public relations as if environmental groups are no different (except poorer) than GE, Exxon,
Monsanto, and Union Carbide, is suspect. Mainstream groups have consciously adopted the politics, organizational structure, and
discourse of machination.

Development forces the world to reveal itself-causes Standing Reserve

Rouse, 08 (Joseph, chair in society science of Wesleyan, “Heidegger on Science and Naturalism”
https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/home/jrouse/Heidegger%20on%20Science%20%26%20Naturalism.pdfThe indispensability of
inferential networks for scientific understanding highlights Heidegger’s insistence that his account of idle talk is not altogether
disparaging. He did not reject articulated theoretical understanding, but only recognized that in developing more extensively
articulated theoretical networks, the sciences risk becoming more invested in their own vocabularies and theories than in the things
to be understood. Contrary to the sciences’ familiar fallibilist image, Heidegger worried that the development of a
science closes off the possibility that entities might resist our familiar ways of encountering and
talking about them. For Heidegger, science needed philosophy in order to remain “in the truth.”
The greatest danger in science was not error, which is more readily correctable by further
inquiry, but the emptiness of assertions closed off from genuine accountability to entities (in this
respect, Heidegger’s concern bears interesting affinities to McDowell 1994). Thus, Heidegger insisted that truth as
correct assertion was grounded in a more fundamental sense of truth as “unhiddenness”:
correctness alone would not yield genuine understanding unless the entities themselves were
continually wrested away from burial in mere talk . We can then connect Heidegger’s account of science as the
discovery of entities as occurrent, and his insistence upon the need to ground science in fundamental ontology. In focusing
upon the cognitive discovery of the occurrent, science inevitably pulls us away from its own
“highest” possibility, a readiness for and openness to crisis in its basic concepts out of fidelity
to the entities in question. Only in “philosophically” turning away from involvement with and idle talk about entities,
toward the understanding of being within which entities are disclosed, could science remain open to truthful disclosure of things
themselves. The sciences’ inherent tendency to obscure the entities they discover behind a veil of idle talk is recapitulated and
reinforced by the dominant epistemological conception of philosophical reflection. The
sciences, in their very efforts
to discover and describe entities, lose sight of the entities themselves through involvement in
an inferentially interconnected web of assertions. Epistemologically oriented philosophers then make explicit
and deliberate this tendency to “fall”10 away from understanding of entities themselves. Whereas science aims to understand the
world, epistemological philosophers take scientific cognition as their own subject matter, at one remove from scientific concern .
For Heidegger, by contrast, the most important philosophical task regarding the sciences was to
help renew their truthful openness to “the things themselves.” Heidegger thus implicitly
distinguished naturalism in philosophy from scientism . I have been arguing that he joined naturalists in
arguing, against his neo-Kantian, phenomenological, and logical positivist contemporaries, that philosophy must begin from and
remain within the horizon of our “natural” involvement with our surroundings in all its material and historical concreteness. No
transcendence of this world was permissible. Yet in his early work, 3 Heidegger argued against most naturalists that the empirical
sciences were derivative from (rather than constitutive of) the requisite “natural conception of the world.” In its turn toward
theoretical articulation, science itself was more akin than opposed to traditional philosophical approaches in obscuring or blocking
natural understanding. Yet despite Heidegger’s early commitment to philosophical renewal as a counter to scientism, this
supposedly philosophical task of sustaining the sciences’ truthful openness to “the things themselves” was inclined toward
naturalism in yet another way. Opponents of naturalism typically assign a distinctive subject matter to philosophy, such as
epistemology, logic, semantics, or transcendental consciousness, whereas naturalists tend to emphasize the continuity between
philosophy and the sciences. Heidegger’s conception of fundamental ontology inclined more in the latter direction. In this respect,
his questioning concerning being would be seriously misunderstood were it seen as turning away from science toward something
obscure and “metaphysical.” In thinking about the being of the entities discovered in the sciences, we do not think about something
else. Being is not itself an entity, but only the disclosure of entities as intelligible. Philosophical reflection would not take us away
from the subject matter of the sciences, but would instead aim to bring one back afresh to “the things themselves” in their essential
disclosedness. For Heidegger, Aristotle’s sustained reflections upon biology or Kant’s upon mechanics were not a failure yet to
distinguish philosophy clearly from science, but instead recognized philosophy’s highest calling

Their notion of development is part and parcel with the Eurocentric tradition of
technocratic management of “unimproved” or “uninhabited” spaces.
Spanos 2000 (William V., Prof of English @ Binghamton, America’s Shadow, p. 41-44)
What, however, the panoptic Eurocentric eye of the Enlightenment comes to see in the space within this reconfigured trope of
the circle is no longer - or at least not exclusively - a vast "uninhabited" emptiness, in which the natives do not count as human
beings. Rather, it comes primarily to see an uninformed terra incognita. As the texts of early European travel writers (and social
historians) invariably characterize this amorphous and ahistorical "new world," the European panoptic gaze falls on
an "unimproved" space. As the privative prefix emphatically suggests, it is a space-time in which everything
in it flora, fauna, minerals, animals, and, later, human beings - is seen and encoded not so much as threatening, though
that meaning is clearly there as well, as wasteful or uneconomical and thus as an untended fallow (female)
terrain calling futurally for the beneficial ministrations of the (adult, male) center.72 The
predestinarian metaphorics of the circle precipitates a whole rhetoric of moral necessity. The
"wilderness" as "underdeveloped" or "unimproved" or "uncultivated" (i.e., "unfulfilled" or "uncircular")
space must, as the privative prefixes demand, be developed, improved, cultivated (i.e., fulfilled or
circularized). Indeed, it is the wilderness's destiny. From this representation of the colonial Others as
mired in and by their own chaotic primordial condition, one of the most debilitating of which is
unproductive perpetual war, it is an easy.. step to representing them, as American writers and
historians did the Indian race in the nineteenth century, as either self-doomed73 or appealing to
the European to save them from themselves by way of imposing his peace on their multiply
wasteful strife.74 Referring to John Barrow's representative (enlightened) "anticonquest" narrative about his travels as an
agent of the British colonial governor in the interior of the Cape Colony at the end of the eighteenth century, Mary Louise Pratt
writes: The visual descriptions presuppose - naturalize - a transformative project embodied in the Europeans. Often the project
surfaces explicitly in Barrow's text, in visions of "improvement" whose value is often expressed as aesthetic.. It is the
task of the advanced scouts for capitalist "improve ment" to encode what they encounter as
"unimproved" and, in keeping with the terms of the anti-conquest , as disponible, available for
improvement. European aspirations must be represented as uncontested. Here the textual apartheid that separates land-
scapes from people, accounts of inhabitants from accounts of their habitats, fulfills its logic. The European improving eye
produces subsistence habitats as "empty" landscapes, meaningful only in terms of a capitalist future and of their potential for
producing a marketable surplus. From the point of view of their inhabitants, of course, these same spaces are lived as intensely
humanized, saturated with local history and meaning, where plants, creatures, and geographical formations have names, uses,
symbolic functions, histories, places in indigenous knowledge formations.75 This is an acute observation about the "anti-
conquest" imperialist discourse of Enlightenment travel writing. But it is limited by its characteristic restriction of the word
"improvement" to the historical context of modern capitalism (though the aside referring to the expression of the vision of
improvement in aesthetic terms is suggestive). Like so much "postcolonial" criticism, its historicist
problematic is blind to the genealogy of this modern "anti-conquest" concept. It fails to see that the
rhetoric of "improvement" is a capitalist extension of a much older sys tem of imperial tropes, one
that, in naturalizing the latter, obscures the will to power over the Other that is visible in its earlier
form. This word, that is, not only looks forward to "underdeveloped," the sedimented counterword
that constitutes the base of the neocolonialist discourse of late capitalism , as Pratt seems to be
suggesti ng. It also harks back to what Enrique Dussel calls the "developmental fallacy" informing En-
lightenment philosophy of history from Adam Smith and John Locke through Hegel "and a certain Marx to Habermas. Tracing
the genealogy of Habermas's Eurocentric representation of modernity back to Hegel, Dussel writes:In the Vorlesungen iiber die
Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, Hegel portrays _ world history (Weltgeschichte) as the self-realization of God, as a theodicy of
reason and of liberty (Freiheit), and as a process of Enlightenment (Aufklarung)....In Hegelian ontology, the concept of
development (Entwicklung) plays a central role. This concept determines the movement of the concept (Begriff) until it
culminates in the idea - that is, as it moves from indeterminate being to the absolute knowledge in the Logic. Development...
unfolds according to a linear dialectic; although originally an ontological category, today it is primarily considered as a
sociological one with implications for world history. Furthermore, this development has a direction: Universal history goes from
East to West. Europe is absolutely the end of universal history. Asia is the beginning. But this alleged East-West movement
clearly precludes Latin America and Africa from world history and characterizes Asia as essentially confined to a state of
immaturity and childhood (Kindheit).... The immaturity (Umrei fe) marking America is total and physical; even the vegetables
and the animals are more primitive, brutal, monstrous, or simply more weak or degenerate.76 Even more
fundamentally, Pratt's "unimproved" has its origins in the more deeply inscribed metaphorics of the
seed and its cultivation, as Dussel's recurrent invocation of the rhetoric of "immaturity that in-.
forms the Hegelian discourse suggests. This is the trope (which is also an aesthetics) that, along
with the gaze and the centered circle, informs the very etymology of "metaphysics" and that is
encoded and naturalized in the truth discourse of the Occident. That is to say, the genealogy of the
word "improvement" in the discourse of post-Enlightenment travel lit erature is traceable to the
origins of Occidental history. (The metaphor of the "virgin land," which, as I have intimated, is equally pervasive in the
discourse of early colonialism, constitutes a particularly telling gendered allotrope of this metaphorical system circulating
around the seed. It focalizes the identification of the panoptic gaze that perceives this "unimproved" circular space with the
brutal phallic will.)77 A retrieval of the equally inaugural visual metaphorics with which it is affiliated will bring into visibility the
ideological agenda hidden in the benign connotations of the metaphor of "improvement." In the positivist En-
lightenment, the "unimproved" space of the "wilderness" is understood as a darkness in the sense
not so much of savage or barbarous (though, again, that meaning: resonates in the word as well), as of a
potentially knowable and usable unknown. What its eye beholds primarily is a ter rain that, as the
European cliche about the "inscrutability" of the Orient has it, compels knowing and naming
precisely because its darkly unimproved state resists scrutiny- and domestication. For the French--
natural scientist Michel Adanson, for example, the world of nature wasa confused mingling of beings that seem to have been.
brought together by chance: here, gold is mixed with another metal, with stone, with earth; there, the violet grows side by side
with an oak. Among these plants, too, wander the quadruped, the reptile, and the insect; the fishes are confused, one might
say, with the aqueous element in which they swim, and with the plants grow in the depth of the waters.... This mixture is
indeed so general and so multifarious that it appears to be one of nature's laws.7In thematizing this knowledge-producing
naming-this Linnaean classificatory motif -I do not, despite its decisive contribution to the imperial project proper, want to limit
its origins to the Enlightenment. As the natural affiliation of seed with light (the spatialization of differential temporal
phenomena) suggests, its ultimate origin lies in the Occident's appropriation of the biblical narrative of Adam, armed with the
Logos, naming the beasts. In combinations with the classical apotheosis of the sun/seed, this narrative has played a
decisive role of persuasion throughout the history of Christian European imperial conquest, not
least in that history of genocidal American expansionism inaugurated by the Adamic Puritans'
pacification of the American wilderness.
 L – Energy Tech
Increased energy production creates standing reserves of energy sources – the
plan exacerbates the damage being done
Tad Beckman 2000 (http://www2.hmc.edu/~tbeckman/personal/Heidart.html Harvey Mudd College
Claremont California Professor of Philosophy Humanities and Social Sciences)
The essence of technology originally was a revealing of life and nature in which human intervention deflected the natural course
while still regarding nature as the teacher and, for that matter, the keeper. The essence of modern technology is a revealing of
phenomena, often far removed from anything that resembles "life and nature," in which human intrusion not only diverts nature but
technology today is a challenging-forth of nature so that
fundamentally changes it. As a mode of revealing,
the technologically altered nature of things is always a situation in which nature and objects
wait, standing in reserve for our use. We pump crude oil from the ground and we ship it to
refineries where it is fractionally distilled into volatile substances and we ship these to gas
stations around the world where they reside in huge underground tanks, standing ready to
power our automobiles or airplanes. Technology has intruded upon nature in a far more active
mode that represents a consistent direction of domination. Everything is viewed as "standing-
reserve" and, in that, loses its natural objective identity. The river, for instance, is not seen as a
river; it is seen as a source of hydro-electric power, as a water supply, or as an avenue of
navigation through which to contact inland markets. In the era of techne humans were relationally involved
with other objects in the coming to presence; in the era of modern technology, humans challenge-forth the subjectively valued
elements of the universe so that, within this new form of revealing ,
objects lose their significance to anything but
their subjective status of standing-ready for human design. (8)
 L – “Renewable” Energy
The very idea of renewables, of being able to limitlessly consume, posits the
earth as infinitely exploitable and ultimately replaceable . It is a rationalization
for the endless domination of nature
Michael Peters 02 is Research Professor of Education at the University of Glasgow and holds a
personal chair in Education at the University of Auckland and Ruth Irwin is a Bright Futures and
Ryoichi Sasakawa Scholar from New Zealand/Aotearoa Ecopoetics, Heidegger and Dwelling 2002
p. http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/content/v18.1/peters_irwin.html
There is a sense that we are already moving on from the question of sustainability. Arguably,
it has already become integral to the enframing of technology, and is no longer a notion on
the fringe of politics and radical consciousness. The question of how to change people’s
consciousness in regard to sustainability is almost an historical issue. It has always had an
element of historical reckoning. The question invoked by Heidegger and his Earthsong commentators—
Bate and Haar—is whether there has been, or can be, any agency involved, or if the change in
public awareness arises “of its own accord.”? In any regard, the projection of sustainability into the
future may have some surprizing directions. Obviously, sustainability has been made an issue of
consumerism and a topic that capitalism must address. Many people have relied rather lazily
upon the possibility of the technological fix to environmental problems. Indeed technology
may fix sustainability, not heal it, but rather fix in the sense of make static, retain, position,
conserve, regenerate, and nourish the resource base of capitalism. This is the eschatological
trajectory of technological enframing. The “end of history” with the calculable technicity of
supreme rationality and the relegation of Earth to a recyclable, renewable, and, ultimately,
replaceable resource. It is no longer an issue of how to convince people to accept and
promote sustainability, but of whether human control, often in the guise of liberal
rationalism, will ever again ascertain an earthly wonder last promoted by the Romantics. Or, if
the demise of romanticism in the proliferation of corny paintings and films of the last frontier,
will only be refound in new frontiers, new planets, new solar systems to terra-form in
exchange for the homely, if exhausted, ground of this one.
 L – Oil Dependency

The Aff's attempt to “free” the U.S. from oil dependency merely shifts the
technological mindset towards new venues, sanitizing practices that reduce the
world to a standing reserve.
Kinsella ’06 [Wiliam, Ph.D Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University, “Heidegger and
Being at the Hanford Reservation: Linking Phenomenology, Environmental Communication, and
Communication Theory”,
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/9/0/9/8/pages90982/p90
982-1.php]
Heidegger’s concept of projection indicates that nature is always disclosed in light of its
usefulness for Dasein’s practical activities. This characteristic of disclosure is fundamental and
inevitable, and Heidegger is not critical of this human propensity to utilize the world. The
technological attitude that he calls enframing, however, is a specific and problematic mode of
utilization in which nature becomes a “standing reserve” (Heidegger, 1977c) or a “gigantic gasoline
station, an energy source for modern technology and industry ” (Heideggger, 1966, p. 50). Heidegger
(1977c) illustrates this concept with a series of poignant examples: The revealing that rules in modern technology
is a challenging…which puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy that can
be extracted and stored as such. But does this not hold true for the old windmill as well? No. Its sails do indeed turn in
the wind….But the windmill does not unlock energy from the air currents in order to store it. A tract of land is challenged
into the putting out of coal and ore. The earth now reveals itself as a coal mining district, the soil
as a mineral deposit. Agriculture is now the mechanized food industry. Air is set upon to yield nitrogen, the
earth to yield ore, ore to yield uranium…uranium is set upon to yield atomic energy. The coal that
has been hauled out in some mining district has not been supplied in order that it may simply be present somewhere or other. It is
The sun’s warmth is challenged
stockpiled; that is, it is on call, ready to deliver the sun’s warmth that is stored in it.
forth for heat, which in turn is ordered to deliver steam whose pressure turns the wheels that
keep a factory running. The hydroelectric plant is set into the current of the Rhine ….In the
context of the interlocking processes pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical energy,
even the Rhine appears as something at our command…. What the river is now, namely, a
water power supplier, derives from out of the essence of the power station ….But, it will be replied,
the Rhine is still a river in the landscape, is it not? Perhaps. But how? In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a
These examples do not reflect mere nostalgia. Instead, they
tour group ordered there by the vacation industry (pp. 14-16).
illustrate a radical break in Dasein’s relationship with the earth. That relationship is now
characterized by calculation, control, and deliberate disruption of the natural order. Indeed, in the
last two of these examples the natural order is displaced when steam and a tour group are “ordered,” and ambiguously, this
ordering can be understood as a calculated physical arrangement but also as an imperative command. I suspect that this same
ambiguity is present in the original German text, and that Heidegger was well aware of its presence.
 L – Drilling
Deepwater drilling technology exploits the environment and the aff’s increasing
of the tech is allow more dangerous tech
Richard Oliver Brooks, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School; Founding Director of Vermont
Law School's Environmental Law Center. The author thanks Laura Gillen and Megan Sigur for
their assistance.74 Alb. L. Rev. 489. (2010 / 2011 ): 10797 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web.
Date Accessed: 2014/06/23.
Environmental law scholars and practitioners should pay careful attention to the history of the
Gulf oil spill and the failed assessment of deepwater drilling technology. Technology, whether
defective or not, is clearly a major contributor to our environmental problems. n124 Such
technology is part of a complex system of extraction, energy production, manufacturing, and
residual disposal which constitutes the subject of efforts to secure a sustainable environment.
n125 Obviously, any effort to control technology must be viewed in this broader context. ¶ The
history of the efforts to assess and control technology since the 1960s, suggests that there are
significant obstacles to our abilities to put the technological genie back in the bottle, and
effectively regulate new or old technologies. We do not even understand the full complexities
of these technologies and their consequences. At the present time, our technology assessment
effort is largely designed to force new technology, not ban dangerous technology. At the same
time, we are not yet willing to adopt more radical alternatives, such as changed lifestyles, a
restructured economic system, a new mix of industry, or energy systems which forgo the use of
complex fossil fuel technologies and their products. n126 The twenty-first century United States
seems worlds [*513] away from the heady days of the 1960s and the "greening of America." ¶
The historic effort to assess technology in a comprehensive manner failed. The new piecemeal
efforts and proposals to assess technology through bureaucratic analysis of complexity, risk
assessment and evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, and the worst case analysis of catastrophes
are not promising when measured against the headlong rush of technological change. As Barry
Commoner recognized years ago, the underlying economic and political forces make full
prevention efforts unlikely.¶ Most Americans remain captured in the thrall of technological
optimism, with its faith in science, the corresponding belief in progress, and the resulting
affluence. The history of "the roads not taken" to control deepwater drilling, or other
technologies, suggests that we may wish to reconsider our faith in such technological progress
and our capacity to control technology.¶ Perhaps Jacques Ellul was right to be profoundly
pessimistic about our prospects in our technological society. However, his pessimism rested
upon his vision of the failure of a technological society to pursue substantive goals, and the
failure to deliberate about these goals. In fact, the objectives of drilling for oil and gas are
specifically identified in the law governing the leasing program, and in a variety of related
environmental, coastal zone, and energy laws. n127 The Secretary of the Interior is authorized
to strike a balance between oil and gas recovery, environmental damage, and adverse impacts
to the coastal zone.
 L – Carbon Capture
Carbon capture efforts place carbon, the basis of all life, into an ontological
position where it is simply an object to be used by humans. In addition, this
condition will cause the carbon capture efforts to inevitably fail.
Lansing ’10 (David M Lansing, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems,
University of Maryland Baltimore, 2010, Carbon's calculatory spaces: the emergence of carbon
offsets in Costa Rica, pg 1&2 accessed 6/25/2014)
Since the mid-l990’s the Costa Rican state has implemented a number of reforestation policies
meant to transform parts of the nation‘s territory into sites of commodified carbon storage. In
other words, it has attempted to create carbon forestry offsets. A mechanism by which a
person, nation, or corporation can mitigate the climatic effects of their greenhouse gas
emissions by purchasing a credit that helps fund a carbon sequestering forestry project. Despite
its status as an ‘early adopter‘ of this conservation mechanism (Castro el al. 2000). The Costa
Rican state has, to date, largely been stymied in its efforts to develop Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) forestry offsets, the offsets allowed under the Kyoto Protocol. One of the
principal reasons for this failure has been the state's inability to successfully develop a
methodology that answers the seemingly straightforward geographical question of where its
carbon will be stored. Demonstrating the location of additional carbon-sequestering biomass is
a critical step for producing an approved CDM offset (as I will explain in more detail below); it
also requires a tremendous amount of scientific and technical work. Such work includes
measuring and weighing existing biomass in potential areas of carbon sequestration, as well as
performing abstract calculations that estimate the additional carbon that will be fixed in
specific spaces over time (Andersson and Richards. 2001: Pearson et al, 2006). While most of
this work is fairly standard scientific practice, its potential effects are nothing short of
extraordinary. In short, the abstractions that result from these calculations allow for the
element on which virtually all life depends, carbon, to be discursively separated from its
surroundings so that an ordering of the global carbon cycle can occur through the exchange of
the commodified form of this abstraction. In this way. Forestry-offsets aim to link through
exchange, the worldwide atmospheric balance of greenhouse gases to the levels of carbon on
an individual parcel of land. How is it that these practices of calculation are able to accomplish
such a dramatic potential reordering of the world? What effects do these practices of ordering—
which encompass both ‘the global climate' as an orderable object along with a multitude of
locally specific sites of carbon storage—have for the spaces and territories that ultimately
receive commodified forms of carbon? In this paper I address these questions by examining the
ontological conditions that allow for such a quantified measurement of carbon to occur and
explore the effects of these conditions on the production of space and territory. Drawing on
the writings of Martin Heidegger. I argue that these practices of calculation and measurement
are productive of an ontological condition where the objects of the world—its places, natures,
and spaces—become disclosed to us as objects waiting to be ordered. I illustrate the impacts
of this "ontology of ordering' on the constitution of space and territory by discussing the
failure of the Costa Rican state to establish CDM forestry offsets and how attempts to carbon
as an orderable object have resulted in the coproduction of both relational and absolute
spaces that allow for carbon to be remade as a commodity.
The affirmative’s attempt to control climate change by controlling the carbon
cycle is rooted in technological metaphysics. This managerial practice will place
us in the same world of orderability that we have placed carbon.
Lansing ’10 (David M Lansing, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems,
University of Maryland Baltimore, 2010, Carbon's calculatory spaces: the emergence of carbon
offsets in Costa Rica, pg 10&11 accessed 6/25/2014)
This leads me to my second point. Although this understanding of the spaces that result from
the worldwide management of carbon may sound abstract, it is an approach with political
consequences. Using the facts at hand, I could have told a different story of the Costa Rican
state's failed efforts at calculating the future carbon relation of its own policies. I could have
highlighted the apparent incongruence of how two different environmental governance bodies
calculate carbon-the national state and an international governance body such as the UNFCCC-
and speculated on what this means for the future of transnational governance. This approach, in
which global- ization is understood through the lens of newly emergent scales of governance,
has been frequently taken by scholars studying global processes (eg Bulkeley, 2005; Cox, 1997;
Jessop, 2000). What is less discussed, and what I have brought to the forefront here, is the
ontological grounding that allows for a global technocratic politics to emerge. In this case, the
global effort to account for, and manage, worldwide flows of carbon is predicated on a
technological metaphysics, in which the world has become a singular space of orderability.
And by understanding the world through the calculation: of carbon, the enframing of
technology has placed everything related to carbon-that is, everything-under its purview. I
made this point earlier but will repeat it here: We are carbon. And our attempts to confront
climate change through a technological: management of the global carbon cycle runs the risk
of reducing ourselves to beings that are little different from other components of the carbon
cycle we are trying to regulate.

Carbon governance leads to an insensitive approach to ontology

Humalisto and Joronen 13
¶[Niko Heikki & Mikko, Researchers at University of Turku, Department of Geography and
Geology, “Looking beyond calculative spaces of biofuels: Onto-topologies of indirect land use
changes,” Geoforum 50 (2013), 6/24/14, AV]
We will proceed in three stages. The first part of the paper starts ¶ by presenting those key EU
policy features that have had a central¶ role in catalysing indirect land use changes. We shortly
trace the¶ Commission’s policy-development concerning the iLUC until the ¶ recent directive
proposal (CEC, 2012a) and demonstrate how iLUC ¶ models have had a profound impact on this
legislation. Our overall¶ purpose in the first part is to show how the Commission’s separa- ¶ tion
of biofuels and food crops is an important policy decision that ¶ leans on the knowledge
produced by the iLUC models. We start the ¶ second part of the paper by scrutinizing those
calculative frame-¶ works that the Commission used to define, govern and unfold the ¶ indirect
land use changes (iLUC) of biofuel production. We aim at ¶ a more fundamental exploration of
biofuel politics, which operates¶ already at the level of ontology – i.e., through the ontological
‘enframing’ of iLUC phenomenon. By this, we do not wish to undermine the power of the
Commission’s policy making. Our aim is¶ rather to explore the limits of the ontological horizon,
which the¶ calculative modelling and framing of the iLUC phenomenon has en- ¶ closed.
Accordingly, in as much as the ontological scaffolding of ¶ ‘enframing’ constitutes a horizon of
possibility for the policy deci-¶ sions, it purifies the diversity of indirect land use impacts into a ¶
quantifiable realm of existence. By building upon the ontological ¶ approach more or less set by
Martin Heidegger, we scrutinize the¶ relation that the ontological politics of carbon
governance has with¶ the indirect land use impacts of the EU’s biofuel consumption . In¶ the
third part of the paper, 9. Accordingly, we understand both ¶ human and non-human entities as
active and capable of creating¶ and catalysing effects. We argue that the topological
insensitivity¶ of the EU biofuel policies does not come from the lack of proper ¶ calculations,
but from the constricted ontological relation to things, ¶ which the calculative models, and the
policies based on them, con-¶ stitute. By questioning the linear and causal understanding of
the¶ relationship between biofuel policies and their (direct and indirect) ¶ land use impacts, the
paper ends by proposing a non-calculative¶ and topology-sensitive approach capable of
scrutinizing the com-¶ plex onto-topologies of biofuel production.
 L – Geoengineering
Oceanic and Natural exploration are the root cause of climate change in the
status quo
Hamilton ‘13
(“What Would Heidegger Say About Geoengineering?” Clive Hamilton, September 2013,
https://www.academia.edu/3122599/Climate_Change_and_Heideggers_Philosophy_of_Science)So between world and earth is
strife, and in the struggle lies destiny and the possibility of meaning. Nihilism, the denial of all higher values, is the denial of this
struggle— recognizing only world and suppressing earth. All
worlds are grounded on earth, understood this
way, so that attempts to suppress earth are always attempts to make worlds float on air . In
this light, geoengineering is an attempt to assert world and deny earth . Yet earth forever
breaks through all attempts to order and control, which points to the ontological meaning of
climate change. Plans to engineer the climate —through the creation of a planetary command
centre—are bound to come to grief on the rock of earth 20 because, through all attempts by humans to
understand and control the earth, disorder irrupts. Humans can master world but they cannot master earth. I
am suggesting that disruption to the climate from human-induced global warming can be understood as
earth breaking through into world, chaos breaking through the order, the unknowable
imposing itself on all scientific knowledge. Given the closeness of earth to Heidegger’s Being, instead of the history
of Being we may speak of the ‘history of earth’ not in a cosmological or geological sense but as the destiny from which worlds spring
and which always remains out of reach. It is worth noting that Heidegger’s conception implies a rejection of all
ethical naturalism, such as that captured in Aldo Leopold’s maxim: ‘A thing is right when it tends to preserve
the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends
otherwise.’62 Heidegger did not see humans as deviating from some natural state to which they must return but as the being
burdened with the task of giving meaning to existence, travelling on a path along which Being realises itself through humans . So
environmental ethics based on an ideal of the good arising out of some conception of a
harmonious natural state are alien; there is no place for nostalgia in the history of Being, for
ecocentric ethical perfectionism or for any notion of intrinsic value in nature.63 For these
demand a conception of the natural from which humans have been purged, a state of being
that is unimaginable.
 L – Geothermal
The aff’s quest for a solution using geothermal has concealed the many hazards
to the environment and humans, exploiting workers and ecosystems.
Carol Stewart. 'Geothermal energy - Effects on the environment', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of
New Zealand, updated 13-Jul-12
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/geothermal-energy/page-5
Depletion of resources¶ The process of extracting geothermal fluids (which include gases, steam and water) for
power generation typically removes heat from natural reservoirs at over 10 times their rate of
replenishment. This imbalance may be partially improved by injecting waste fluids back into
the geothermal system.¶ Damage to natural geothermal features¶ Natural features such as hot springs,
mud pools, sinter terraces, geysers, fumaroles (steam vents) and steaming ground can be easily, and irreparably, damaged by
geothermal development. When the Wairākei geothermal field was tapped for power generation in 1958, the withdrawal of hot
fluids from the underground reservoir began to cause long-term changes to the famous Geyser Valley, the nearby Waiora Valley, and
the mighty Karapiti blowhole. The ground sagged 3 metres in some places, and hot springs and geysers began to decline and die as
the supply of steaming water from below was depleted.¶ In Geyser Valley, one of the first features to vanish was the great Wairākei
geyser, which used to play to a height of 42 metres. Subsequently, the famous Champagne Pool, a blue-tinted boiling spring,
dwindled away to a faint wisp of steam. In 1965 the Tourist Hotel Corporation tried to restore it by pumping in some three million
litres of water, but to no avail. Geyser Valley continued to deteriorate, and in 1973 it was shut down as a tourist spectacle. This story
has been repeated many times where there has been geothermal development.¶ Subsidence¶ Extracting geothermal fluids can
reduce the pressure in underground reservoirs and cause the land to sink. The largest subsidence on record is at Wairākei, where
the centre of the subsidence bowl is sinking at a rate of almost half a metre every year. In 2005 the ground was 14 metres lower
than it was before the power station was built. As the ground sinks it also moves sideways and tilts towards the
centre. This puts a strain on bores and pipelines, may damage buildings and roads, and can alter
surface drainage patterns.¶ Polluting waterways¶ Geothermal fluids contain elevated levels of
arsenic, mercury, lithium and boron because of the underground contact between hot fluids
and rocks. If waste is released into rivers or lakes instead of being injected into the geothermal
field, these pollutants can damage aquatic life and make the water unsafe for drinking or irrigation.¶ A serious environmental
effect of the geothermal industry is arsenic pollution. Levels of arsenic in the Waikato River almost always exceed the World Health
Organisation standard for drinking water of 0.01 parts per million. Most of the arsenic comes from geothermal
waste water discharged from the Wairākei power station. Natural features such as hot springs are also a source of arsenic,
but it tends to be removed from the water as colourful mineral precipitates like bright red realgar and yellowy green orpiment. ¶ Air
emissions¶ Geothermal fluids contain dissolved gases which are released into the atmosphere .
The main toxic gases are carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Both are denser than air and can collect in pits,
depressions or confined spaces. These gases are a recognised hazard for people working at geothermal
stations or bore fields, and can also be a problem in urban areas. In Rotorua a number of deaths have been attributed to
hydrogen sulfide poisoning, often in motel rooms or hot-pool enclosures. Carbon dioxide is also a greenhouse gas, contributing to
potential climate change. However, geothermal extraction releases far fewer greenhouse gases per unit of electricity generated than
burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas to produce electricity.
 L – Biofuels
Endorsing biofuel policies perpetuates unpredictable connections that enframe
non-human actors as placeless reserves
Humalisto and Joronen 13
¶ [Niko Heikki & Mikko, Researchers at University of Turku, Department of Geography and
Geology, “Looking beyond calculative spaces of biofuels: Onto-topologies of indirect land use
changes,” Geoforum 50 (2013), 6/24/14, AV] ¶ ¶ We, of course, do acknowledge the positive
impact the agro-¶ economic models have had on the process of making the iLUC phe- ¶ nomenon
solid enough to become tackled with the policy instru- ¶ ments of the EU. In what follows, we will
nevertheless show how¶ the problem with the biofuel policies is not so much of the reliabil- ¶
ity of the epistemic representations these models produce, but of ¶ the way the models
ontologically purify the actual place-based¶ land use changes by implementing spatially
indifferent nexuses¶ of calculative measurement upon the iLUC. In order to make a case ¶ for this
thesis, we will further explicate why and how the ontolog- ¶ ical politics of calculative ‘enframing’
has remained incapable of¶ taking into account the unpredictable topologies of biofuel produc- ¶
tion. We will do this, by discussing the iLUC question against the ¶ topological and ontological
insights originating more or less in¶ the works of Latour (1987, 1993, 2005), Serres (1982, 2007)
and¶ Heidegger (2003; see also Ryan, 2011; Malpas, 2012). By ‘topology’, we hence refer to the
heterogeneous place-based ‘assemblages’ or ¶ ‘gatherings’ of biofuel production, which are
constituted out of the¶ multiple unpredictable connections (and potentialities) between
human and non-human actors, ‘enframing’, in turn, denoting a¶ set-up that ontologically aims
to frame the way these gatherings¶ come-to-presence as placeless reserves of calculative
ordering.¶ We will depict how iLUC models, owing to their calculative ontol-¶ ogy, do not (and
cannot) take into account the way biofuel produc-¶ tion is fundamentally constituted through
the active spatial¶ connections created by the vital and active effects of material ¶ things and
human action. All in all, our aim is not to analyse¶ onto-topologies of singular biofuel production
sites, or to continue¶ discussions concerning the finding of the most suitable model to ¶ quantify
iLUC in terms of GHG emissions, but rather to grasp those¶ topological and incalculable forms
of indirect land use relations¶ that the calculative ethos behind Commission’s policies is
unable¶ to attend to.
 L – Algae
Humanity’s comportment to nature treats it as a Standing Reserve, always
readily available for use, shows how algae biofuel specifically is perpetrating
the ontological disposition of Standing reserve
Delgado 3-13 (April 2013, Ana Delgado, Science Direct, http://ac.els-
cdn.com/S0016328713000293/1-s2.0-S0016328713000293-main.pdf?_tid=b26c5536-fa5c-
11e3-8290-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1403476358_6a52c975fba96c466563e5799133247c)
Kastenhofer's paper also highlights the central role that infrastructural activities and iconic
applications play as “proofs of principle” in realizing the project of turning biology technology.
This contribution situates synthetic biology as an emerging technoscience with epistemic and
policy specificities. As a technoscience, synthetic biology entails the project and promise of
controlling nature. Kastenhofer addressed the turn from science to technoscience by analyzing
ways of knowing and doing. Of the diverse epistemic stances at interplay in the emergence of
synthetic biology, constructivist and creationist practices and visions seem to have a leading
role. This has implications for policy: for instance, when the construction of artificial
organisms with controllable properties is prioritized, it is likely that policies will tend to focus
on security assessments, bioterrorism being framed as a main policy issue. In the same way, a
focus on the construction of new living entities comes with an emphasis on property rights
issues. Furthermore, a sharp distinction between the natural and the artificial will most likely
favor particular property right choices. While that sort of ethical and social issues may become
dominant when prioritizing a constructivist instance, issues related to the true character and
legitimacy of science may be obviated. Thus, the paper suggests “(techno)epistemic
orientations, stances, and visions are particularly formative in emerging technosciences like
synthetic biology” (page). In the move from science to technoscience, a new social contract and
quality control mechanisms are needed to cope with the coming challenges and responsibilities
of technoscientific research and governance. Bensaude-Vincent's paper also situates synthetic
biology in its relation to the future as a technoscience. She highlights how imagining promising
futures is not only a funding strategy, but it is at the core of the techno-epistemic culture of
synthetic biology. Yet, even when synthetic biology is overall a promissory field, it does not
encompass a single economy of promises. Rather the multiple research programs and strategies
that make up synthetic biology build on different visions of nature and the future. Bensaude-
Vincent argues “strong visions of the future as improving nature, challenging nature or
emancipating form nature permeate synthetic biology”. For instance, the vision of “improving
from nature” informs the biobrick approach to synthetic biology. Research strategies are
dedicated to getting rid of the complexity and messiness of nature in order to make it better.
Bensaude-Vincent identifies this way of knowing and doing as “technomimetism”, that consists
in manipulating nature to imitate the functioning of machines. This way of imaging nature and
the artificial relates to a way of imaging future as something that can be engineered and
designed from the present. Paradoxically, the extravagant promises of synthetic biology are
not so often questioned by civic society groups, sociologists or ethicists. On the contrary, they
usually take these promises too seriously, endorsing them with credibility. Some forms of
skepticism have emerged from within the scientific community. However, present shortcomings
are interpreted as challenges and future opportunities. The paper suggest this kind of ‘epistemic
opportunism’ as a feature of an epistemic culture that belongs within policy contexts where
immense hopes (of economic growth) are put into technological innovation. The paper finally
explores how utopia permeates the epistemic culture of synthetic biology, and therefore how
synthetic biology is emerging in different ways in a tension between the possible and the
actual.
 L – Natural Gas / LNG
The aff exploit the environment by pumping toxic and carcinogenic fluids into
the ground, then after the aff has sucked out all of the gas, they leave the
premise, leaving behind the toxins, rotting the surrounding landscape
Klew. "Issues: The Exploitation of Natural Gas." Issues: The Exploitation of Natural Gas.
Klew.org, 2009. Web. 26 June 2014.
Dangers of Gas Exploitation: The contamination of air and fresh groundwater can occur: (1)
during drilling; (2) during stimulation; and (3) once the well is abandoned. When the surface
casing is being drilled, all of the zones are exposed to each other allowing communication
between the groundwater, the surface, and other zones like salt water aquifers . If improperly
drilled, contamination of fresh groundwater is possible at this time. Incomplete or poor cementing of the surface
casing can also provide unintended paths for gas and water migration from other zones
throughout the life of the well. Once completed, the well is stimulated using fracturing techniques which introduce a
fluid containing toxic chemicals. During the fracturing process, high pressures, large volumes of fluid,
and greater intensities along horizontal well bores can create paths for gas migration along
natural faults or weak geologic layers (strata), particularly for shallow wells. Contaminants from the
fracturing fluids are produced with the natural gas for months after completion and require safe
disposal. According to a study for the United States House of Representatives, there are as many as 750 chemicals
used in fracturing fluids in the United States. These mixtures comprise approximately 2500 different products designed for
specific applications. The return fluids can contain such contaminants as formaldehyde, acids, isopropanol,
benzene, toluene, xylenes, phenanthrenes, naphthalene, fluorenes, aromatics, 1- methylnapthalene, 2-methylnapthalene, ethylene
glycol, methanol, as
well as natural contaminants such as heavy metals, salts, arsenic, mercury and
radioactive materials. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified many of these
chemicals as toxic, some of which are known carcinogens . According to these sources, the effects might
include cancer; liver, kidney, brain, respiratory, and skin disorders; birth defects; and other health effects The fluids that flow back
with the natural gas must be properly contained and disposed of. It is not uncommon that these fluids are contained in temporary
tanks or open pits. These
fluids, if not controlled properly, can contaminate surface and
underground water systems. The natural gas saturated in the waste fluids, as well as other
volatile chemicals, may be released to the atmosphere when produced and contained. Airborne pollution from
fracturing fluids can include hydrogen fluoride, lead, methanol, formaldehyde, hydrogen chloride, and ethylene glycol. These may
cause severe health effects including reproductive disorders, nerve disorders, high blood pressure, and in the case of hydrogen
fluoride, may be fatal in substantial doses. Furthermore, since the preferred method of disposing of hazardous water from fracturing
is by injection it back underground, the reliability of the underground system is also of concern as injected fluids may migrate to
groundwater aquifers. Once
the well is in operation and eventually abandoned, gas migration can
occur due to cement failure, corrosion of the steel casing, or a combination of the two. A
study by the Energy Utility Board (EUB) suggests that of the 300,000 wells drilled in Alberta,
about 4.5% indicate surface casing vent flow (SCVF) or gas migration . The authors suggest that aging
wells pose the greatest risk for air and water contamination . A similar study in the United States suggests
that one out of six abandoned oil and gas wells were leaking, and concluded that it is almost
certain that a well drilled today will leak and contaminate groundwater within 100 years.
Impacts
 ! – Standing Reserve
Humanity’s dependance on technology as a means of revealing reduces nature
to a standing-reserve
DeLuca 05 Associate Professor of Speech Communication in the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia,
Indiana University Press, “Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and Practice,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ethics_and_the_environment/v010/10.1deluca.html
In addition to meditating on media and public relations practices, a careful reading of Heidegger would compel environmentalism to
meditate on its relations to technology and to images. To address the issue of technology first, environmental
groups
often rely on modern technology while writing off such use as a necessary cost of 'doing
business' in a modern, mass media public sphere. That may be true, but Heidegger's writings
caution us against gliding over the writing off. What are the costs of using modern
technology? Besides relying on the technological infrastructure of the communication industry
(computers, telephones, video camcorders, etc....) to appear on TV, issue press releases,
maintain web sites, lobby politicians, and raise money, environmentalists in the course of
working and living rely on cars, planes, air conditioning, highways, microwaves, electricity,
and a plethora of plastic products. In short, environmentalists are implicated and imbricated
in the technosphere. Now Heidegger's meditation on the essence of technology and the essence
of humanity's relation to technology serves to displace the conventional questions concerning
technology. Heidegger refuses the question of whether technology is good or bad or neutral.
As he puts it, "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 like
to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology " (1993, 311–12). Instead,
Heidegger is asking after the essence of technology, which, he famously declares, "is by no
means anything technological" (1993, 311). Rejecting the understanding of technology as a
"mere means" that humans can master, what he terms the merely correct but not true
"instrumental and anthropological definition of technology" (1993, 312), Heidegger proposes
technology as "a way of revealing" (1993, 318). Avoiding the romanticism of a return to the Pleistocene or the
utopianism of embracing a Star Trek futurism, from a Heideggerian perspective the question becomes,
"What sort of revealing does a particular regime of technology make possible?" More
prosaically, what sort of relationships [End Page 78] to the earth and world does a technology
enable? To this question, Heidegger provides a stinging critique of modern technology [albeit,
admittedly, tempered by an ontological hope (see 1993, 333–41)]. The way of revealing of modern technology
is Gestell or enframing: "The revealing that rules throughout modern technology has the
character of a setting-upon, in the sense of a challenging-forth. . . . a challenging, which puts
to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored
as such" (1993, 321, 320). Nature, then, is reduced to a "standing-reserve... a calculable
coherence of forces " (1993, 322, 326),6 so that "nature reports itself in some way or other
that is identifiable through calculation and that it remains orderable as a system of
information" (1993, 328).7 Heidegger gives examples from the fields of agriculture and energy that ring even more true today
(see 1993, 320–21).
Technology’s reduction of nature to standing-reserve results in humanity being
reduced to the same point
DeLuca 05 Associate Professor of Speech Communication in the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia,
Indiana University Press, “Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and Practice,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ethics_and_the_environment/v010/10.1deluca.html
The problem, then, is not that nature is seen as "standing-reserve," a "calculable coherence of forces," but that that is all it can be
seen as. The
practice of enframing also has deleterious effects on humanity. In connection with
erasure, it blinkers humanity's vision of the earth. "Thus when man, investigating, observing,
pursues nature as an area of his own conceiving, he has already been claimed by a way of
revealing that challenges him to approach nature as an object of research, until even the
object disappears into the objectlessness of standing-reserve" (1993, 324). Further,
enframing reduces humanity itself as the orderer of the standing-reserve: As soon as what is
unconcealed no longer concerns man even as object, but exclusively as standing-reserve, and
man in the midst of objectlessness is nothing but the orderer of the standing-reserve, then he
comes to the very brink of a precipitous fall; that is , he comes to the point where he himself
will have to be taken as standing-reserve. Meanwhile, man, precisely as the one so
threatened, exalts himself and postures as lord of the earth . In this way the illusion comes to prevail that
everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct. This illusion gives rise in turn to one final delusion: it seems as
though man everywhere and always encounters only himself. (1993, 332) The ensuing decades have elaborated on Heidegger's
insight. The worst tendencies in postmodern theory can be read as illustrating the illusion that everything humanity encounters
exists only insofar as it is a human construct. More significant is how this
conceit of humanity as lord of the earth
manifests itself in environmental discourses, so, in a common example, humans need to save
the rainforests because unknown cures for human diseases may be found in them . How this
dangerous dynamic reduces humans to standing-reserve plays itself out in the example of the forester: The forester who measures
the felled timber in the woods and who to all appearances walks the forest path in the same way his grandfather did is today
ordered by the industry that produces commercial woods, [End Page 80] whether he knows it or not. He is made subordinate
to the orderability of cellulose, which for its part is challenged forth by the need for paper, which is then delivered to newspapers
and illustrated magazines. The latter, in their turn, set public opinion to swallowing what is printed, so that a set configuration of
opinion becomes available on demand. (1993, 323) This example is useful in its exposure of how modern technology's
ordering of nature is also an ordering of humanity and a reduction of both to standing-
reserve. The example is further noteworthy for its illustration of how modern technology is a system or regime,
not a particular device. Modern technology is not the chainsaw. Rather, it is the chainsaw and
forestry science and the transportation system and the profession of journalism and printing
presses and public relations and mass communication technologies and the machinery of
politics and. . . . It is this system that enframes/ensnares/produces a particular version of
nature and a particular type of humanity.
 ! – Enframing
Enframing is manipulative and neglects local and particular anomalies
Humalisto and Joronen 13
¶ [Niko Heikki & Mikko, Researchers at University of Turku, Department of Geography and
Geology, “Looking beyond calculative spaces of biofuels: Onto-topologies of indirect land use
changes,” Geoforum 50 (2013), 6/24/14, AV]
It is crucial to take into account that as a modality of revealing ¶ things, ‘enframing’ (Gestell) is
not based on a success (or failure) of¶ the used models, but on a peculiar ontological way of
coming to¶ presence. Enframing aims to purify the ‘presencing’ of things, their ¶ ontological
multiplicity, in advance by reducing their presence into¶ a set-up available for calculative
manoeuvring and possession. This¶ calculative ordering-revealing of things does not signify a full
cap-¶ ture of things and their relations through the models – the logic of ¶ calculative enframing is
only structured to function this way.¶ Accordingly, ‘enframing’ denotes a measurement of
revealing, the¶ way things come to presence, not as an achievement of the com- ¶ plete
ordering of things but as a drive to do so. The ‘enframing’ is¶ not only ordering-revealing, but
also a challenging-revealing – a¶ revealing that challenges things in order to predict and
measure¶ their movements with best possible certainty. Although it is ¶ important to stress that
the results of iLUC models are not random ¶ – the accountability of the models can also be
questioned through¶ empirical research, as Wicke et al. (2012: 91) argue – this mission ¶ itself is
precisely the innermost limit of modelling. Instead of ¶ acknowledging the unpredictable and
random events of revealing,¶ the models are structured to gain tighter control and ordering of¶
things with the variables that do not concern the messiness and ¶ uncontrollability of the
becoming of actual relations, but their¶ explanation, prediction and mastering through
calculative and ab-¶ stract approximations. Such calculative challenging – a drive to-¶ wards a
greater improvement of ordering – is always measured¶ with regard to its own success: it
neglects those local and particu-¶ lar anomalies that escape the grip of its enframing, at its
best deal-¶ ing them as not-yet-ordered circumstances in need of more ¶ efficient computing.
Fundamentally ‘enframing’, and its calculative¶ operations, do not refer to numbers and
counting, but to the qual-¶ ity of revealing, which unfolds things by manipulating them into a¶
setting where they can be ordered, controlled and challenged with¶ calculative plans,
scenarios and models.

Enframed things are displaced and turned into standing reserves becoming
variables subordinate to use
Humalisto and Joronen 13
¶[Niko Heikki & Mikko, Researchers at University of Turku, Department of Geography and
Geology, “Looking beyond calculative spaces of biofuels: Onto-topologies of indirect land use
changes,” Geoforum 50 (2013), 6/24/14, AV]
In the Gestell things are not only undifferentiated in ontological¶ terms but also spatially. As
‘enframed’ things are moved apart from¶ their originary sites of revealing, dis-placed into
spatially indiffer-¶ ent and universally measurable relations, eventually being turned¶ into
mere nodes and variables subordinate to the distanceless nex-¶ uses of calculative ordering
(Joronen, 2012, see also Elden, 2006).¶ Accordingly, the iLUC impact is solely measured with
regard to¶ the calculative schemes set beforehand, such ‘enframing’ reducing ¶ the complex and
unpredictably invasive land use changes into uni- ¶ versal, topologically uncomprehending
ontological frameworks. In¶ order to secure the ecological sustainability of biofuel feedstock, ¶
the abstractions of the calculative models are structured to force ¶ the impacts of biofuel
production from their surroundings and con- ¶ nections to the realm of calculative handling. All in
all, Gestell is¶ able to ‘enframe’ things into ‘standing-reserves’ by veiling two ele-¶ ments
intrinsic to the emergence of biofuel production: the actual ¶ multiplicity of topological
connections between things and human¶ actors and the inexhaustible possibility behind the
unpredictable¶ self-emerge of material entities.
 ! – Ecological Destruction

Treating nature as a Standing Reserve leads to the ecological destruction of the

globe
Irwin 2010 (January 10th, 2010, Climate Change and Heidegger's Philosophy of Science, Ruth
Irwin, Auckland University of Technology, volume 11, issue 1,
file:///C:/Users/Zach/Downloads/irwin%20-%20Climate%20Change%20and%20Heidegger's
%20Philosophy%20of%20Science%20.pdf)
Modern understandings of the river reduce it to utilitarian considerations. Storage capacity
has changed completely. Electricity makes the mill operate year round. The mill no longer needs proximity to the river as
electricity is networked far and wide. Intermodal transport allows grain from around the world to be ground; seasonal shifts
have become irrelevant. Flour is consistently available regardless of season, to a widely distributed set of 'consumers.'
There are obvious benefits to the economic distribution of goods. Storage and transportation have allowed locals
to be free of the constraints of their own ecosystems. Yet this 'freedom' of local people from
constraints of their own ecologies also means they are less cognizant of threats to their
ecosystems by mass production. Huge swathes of the planet are profoundly compromised by
industrial practices; industrial agriculture, mining, mass deforestation, urban sprawl, and so
on. The technological Gestell alienates us from our niche, and ultimately, as Marx noted, from our species-being. Threat of
ecological destruction has long been a problem, but the alienation afforded by industrial
production has allowed most of us to ignore the problematic and reside smugly within the
illusion of mastery over nature. Climate change, however, is on a scale that disallows this pervasive ignorance. It is a
planetary event of a size that overwhelms even giant entities such as nation states and multinational companies. Saudi Arabia and
other OPEC states may try hard to discredit climate change as a problem, but ever since 1988 the UN attempts to administer
coordinated global response to climate warming. Already the creation of a transnational institution such as the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change indicates the seriousness of the problem. Climate change is challenging the anthropocentric position of
Heidegger (and that of extreme Idealism) for its hubris. Scientists seeking to demonstrate the anthropogenic causes of modern
climate change have sought to understand the climate of the earth over the last 650,000 years. Thus,
our understanding
has extended well beyond the epoch of actual human civilization. It will always be the case
that we inevitably project our concerns and world view onto data. But pressing at the limits of
knowledge, the evidence challenges our knowledge systems and extends or obliterates
previous ways of Essays Philos (2010) 11:1 Irwin | 28 conceptualizing things. Climate change brings modernity as an epoch
into clear view, from its beginning to its end. The fossil-based industrialization and consumption are
proving to be so toxic that as a modus operandii they have to change fundamentally .
Heidegger asks questions of the modern paradigm that may allow us to transcend the
technological alienation that industrial production and modern philosophy, as its cultural
superstructure, have created. Climate change is setting a limit on that world view with a finality that has never before
been encountered. It remains to be seen whether thinking of a more ecologically based mode of technology will sufficiently change
humankind.

Perpetuation of the 1AC’s Calculative mindset leads to inevitable destruction of

nature
DeLuca, Kevin. "Project MUSE - Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and
Practice." Project MUSE - Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and
Practice. N.p., 2005. Web. 27 June 2014.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/een/summary/v010/10.1deluca.html>.
Machination is unconditional controllability, the domination of all beings, the world, and
earth through calculation, acceleration, ethnicity, and giganticism. Calculation represents a
reduction of knowing to mathematics and science and a reduction of the world and earth to
what is calculable, a step taken decisively by Descartes (1999, 84-96). Machination is the "pattern of
generally calculable explainability, by which everything draws nearer to everything else
equally and becomes completely alien to itself" (1999, 92). The unrestrained domination of
machination produces a totalizing worldview that enchants: "When machination finally
dominates and permeates everything, then there are no longer any conditions by which still actually
to detect the enchantment and to protect oneself from it. The bewitchment by technicity and its constantly
self-surpassing progress are only one sign of this enchantment, by virtue of which everything
presses forth into calculation, usage, breeding, manageability, and regulation " (1999, 86-87).
Heidegger prophetically predicts that machination will produce "a gigantic progress of sciences in
the future. These advancements will bring exploitation and usage of the earth as well as
rearing and training of humans into conditions that are still inconceivable today" (1999, 108).
Animals and plants are reduced to various forms of use value and, more significantly, are
banished from Being-in-the-world with us: "What is a plant and an animal to us any- more, when we take away use,
embellishment, and entertainment" (1999, 194). "Nature" suffers a similar fate: " What happens to nature in
technicity, when nature is separated out from beings by the natural sciences? The growing-or
better, the simple rolling unto its end-destruction of 'nature' . . . . And finally what was left was only 'scenery'
and recreational opportunity and even this still calculated into the gigantic and arranged for the masses" (1999, 195). Under the
unrestrained domination of machination, humans suffer a "hollowing out" (1999, 91, 348) and Being-in-the-world is replaced by
"adventures." (I am here translating Erlebnis as adventure. Others translate it as lived-experience.)

This technological though allows us to view the environment and the world as
something that can simply be thrown away.
Joronen 10 (Mikko, Doctoral candidate in Human Geography @ The University of Turku, The Age
of Planetary Space Introduction, 2010
http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/66733/AnnalesAII257Joronen.pdf?sequence=1)
Accordingly, Heidegger understands modern technology above all as a metaphysical project.
Modern technological devices, from the “manual technology and manufacture” of the
industrial age to the revolutions made first by the “engine technology” and then by what
Heidegger (1998h:132–133) calls the ruling determination of modern technology as
“cybernetics” (i.e. the rise and irruption of the systems of maximum possible automation of
command), all manifest a peculiar mode of revealing that is not just total in nature, but an
ever-growing imperial drive structured to constantly reach towards global enlargement and
intensification. Eventually such technological unfolding leads to a diversity of phenomena,
including the worldwide homogenization of modes of living, the constant mobilization of
cultural and economic practices, the global circulation of information, goods, capital, people,
and knowledge, the establishment of colossal stocks of energy with massive potentiality of
destruction as well (with the weapons of mass destruction), and the commodification and
productisation of all aspects of life from nature to culture, from genetic information to
consumption culture – even a certain insensibility with regard to tragedies of suffering (for
instance through the television spectacles of war and catastrophe), as Haar adds (1993:80; see
also Gillespie 1984:128; Mugerauer 2008:xv-xviii). In spite of the seemingly diverging characters,
the former phenomena are nothing but epiphenomena of the age defining metaphysical
scaffolding of technological revealing; it is the ‘framework’ of calculative drive, the
technological revealing of ‘enframing’, which allows for multiple set of phenomena to emerge.
As will be later shown in more detail, such sense of unity is first and foremost typical for a
metaphysical mechanism of unfolding operative throughout the 2300 year tradition of
Western thinking, a mechanism still being constitutive for the contemporary technological
‘enframing’ (Gestell) and self-heightening ‘machination’ (Machenschaft) of all things. As a
matter of fact, it is the planetary outcome of such a technological mode of unfolding, which
according to Peter Sloterdijk (2009) was first initiated and started as a ‘mathematical
globalization’ – as a project that in Heideggerean reading was boosted into its technological
form by early modern philosophers and mathematical physicists – further proceeding as a
‘terrestrial globalization’, finally leading to an age of ‘planetary globe’, which eventually
turned the earth into a mere planet under totally penetrable networks of orderings (Thrift
2008:234–235; Morin 2009; See also Heidegger 1998h:133; Dallmayr 2005:44; Radloff
2007b:36–48). As the thesis will show, the contemporary planetary unfolding was first initiated
by the latent ground of thought behind the metaphysical formulations of early Greek
philosophers, further boosted by the mathematical developments of early modern thinkers,
finally coming forth as cybernetic systems of ordering cast upon the planet. In such a planet,
conceived as a mass of matter wandering in empty universe, everything is called to be
useable, penetrable, mouldable, ‘decodable’ and mobile.

Our managerial thought has allowed to view nature as something we can

simply use and abuse, even up to its destruction.
Beckman, 00 (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Humanities and Social Sciences at Harvey
Mudd College Tad Beckman, “Martin Heidegger and Environmental Ethics.”
http://www2.hmc.edu/~tbeckman/personal/Heidart.html)
The "withdrawal of the gods" is a sign of our pervasive power and our progressive "ego-
centrism." The human ego stands at the center of everything and, indeed, sees no other thing or
object with which it must reckon on an equal footing. We have become alone in the universe in
the most profound sense. Looking outward, we see only ourselves in so far as we see only
objects standing-in-reserve for our dispositions. It is no wonder that we have "ethical problems"
with our environment because the whole concept of the environment has been profoundly
transformed. A major portion of the environment in which modern Westerners live, today , is the
product of human fabrication and this makes it ever more difficult for us to discover a correct
relationship with that portion of the environment that is still given to us. It is all there to be
taken, to be manipulated, to be used and consumed , it seems. But what in that conception
limits us or hinders us from using it in any way that we wish? There is nothing that we can see
today that really hinders us from doing anything with the environment, including if we wish
destroying it completely and for all time.
 ! – Annihilation
A world subsumed by calculative technological thought destroys our ontological
relationship with Being. Our instant access to everything as a tool for use
obliterates the essential being of all things making even total planetary
destruction a radically less important issue and a likely inevitability .
**gender paraphrased
Caputo 93 (john, Demythologizing Heidegger, p. 136-41)
The essence of technology is nothing technological; the essence of language is nothing linguistic; the essence of starvation has
nothing to do with being hungry; the essence of homelessness has nothing to do with being out in the cold. Is this not to repeat a
most classical philosophical gesture, to submit to the oldest philosophical desire of all, the desire for the pure and uncontaminated,
not to mention the safe and secure? (2) In his essay "The Thing" Heidegger
remarks upon the prospect of a
nuclear conflagration which could extinguish all human life: [hu]Man stares at what the explosion of
the atom bomb could bring with it. He does not see that what has long since taken place and has already
happened expels from itself as its last emission the atom bomb and its explosion—not to mention the
single nuclear bomb, whose triggering, thought through to its utmost potential, might be enough to snuff out all life on earth. (VA,
a third world
165/PLT, 166). In a parallel passage, he remarks: ... [Man finds himself in a perilous situation. Why? Just because
war might break out unexpectedly and bring about the complete annihilation of humanity and the destruction
of the earth? No. In this dawning atomic age a far greater danger threatens—precisely when the danger of
a third world war has been removed. A strange assertion! Strange indeed, but only as long as we do not
meditate. (G, 27/DT, 56). The thinker is menaced by a more radical threat, is endangered by a more radical
explosiveness, let us say by a more essential bomb, capable of an emission (hinauswerfen) of such
primordiality that the explosion (Explosion) of the atom bomb would be but its last ejection . Indeed,
the point is even stronger: even a nuclear bomb, or a wholesale exchange of nuclear bombs between nuclear
megapowers, which would put an end to "all life on earth," which would annihilate every living being, human
and nonhuman, is a derivative threat compared to this more primordial destructiveness. There is
a prospect that is more dangerous and uncanny—unheimhcher—than the mere fact that everything could be blown apart
(Auseinanderplatzen von allem). There is something that would bring about more homelessness, more not-beingat-home (un-
Heimlich) than the destruction of cities and towns and of their inhabitants. What is truly unsettling, dis-placing (ent-setzen), the
thing that is really terrifying (das Entsetzende), is not the prospect of the destruction of human life on the planet, of annihilating its
places and its settlers. Furthermore, this truly terrifying thing has already happened and has actually been around for quite some
time.This more essential explosive has already been set off; things have already been
destroyed, even though the nuclear holocaust has not yet happened. What then is the truly terrifying? The terrifying is
that which sets everything that is outside (heraussitzl) of its own essence (Wesen)'. What is this dis-placing
[Entsetzendel? It shows itself and conceals itself in the way in which everything presences (anwest), namely, in the fact that despite
all conquest of distances the nearness of things remains absent. (VA, 165/P1.T, 166) The truly terrifying explosion, the
more
essential destruction is that which dis-places a thing from its Wesen, its essential nature , its
ownmost coming to presence. The essential destruction occurs in the Being of a thing , not in its entitative actuality;
it is a disaster that befalls Being, not beings. The destructiveness of this more essential destruction is aimed not directly at man but at
"things" (Dirge), in the distinctively Heideggerian sense. The Wesen of things is their nearness, and it
is nearness which has
been decimated by technological proximity and speed. Things have ceased to have true
nearness and farness, have sunk into the indifference of that which, being a great distance
away, can be brought close in the flash of a technological instant . Thereby, things have ceased to
be things, have sunk into indifferent nothingness. Something profoundly disruptive has
occurred on the level of the Being of things that has already destroyed them, already cast them out of
(herauswerfen¬) their Being. Beings have been brought close to Us technologically; enormous distances are spanned in seconds. Satellite
technology can make events occurring on the other side of the globe present in a flash; supersonic jets cross the great oceans in a
few hours. Yet, far from bringing things "near," this massive technological removal of distance has actually abolished nearness, for
nearness is precisely what withdraws in the midst of such technological frenzy. Nearness is the nearing of earth and heavens,
mortals and gods, in the handmade jug, or the old bridge at Heidelberg, and it can be experienced only in the quiet meditativeness
which renounces haste. Thus thereal destruction of the thing, the one that abolishes its most essen tial
Being and Wesen, occurs when the scientific determination of things prevails and compels our
assent. The thingliness of the jug is to serve as the place which gathers together the fruit of
earth and sun in mortal offering to the gods above. But all that is destroyed when pouring this libation
becomes instead the displacement of air by a liquid; at that moment science has suc ceeded in
reducing the jug-thing to a non-entity (Nichtige). Science, or rather the dominion of scientific representation, the
rule of science over what comes to presence, what is called the Wesen, which is at work in science
and technology, that is the truly explosive-destructive thing, the more essential dis-placing . The
gathering of earth and sky, mortals and gods, that holds sway in the thing—for "gathering" is what the Old High German thing means
—is scattered to the four winds, and that more essential annihilation occurs even if the bomb never goes
off: Science's knowledge, which is compelling within its own sphere, the sphere of objects, already had
annihilated things long before the atom bomb exploded. The bomb's explosion is only the
grossest of all gross confirmations of the long-since accomplished annihilation of the thing . (VA,
168/PLT, 170J When things have been annihilated in their thingness, the mushroom clouds of the
bomb cannot be far behind. So whether or not the bomb goes off is not essential, does not penetrate to the essence of
what comes to presence in the present age of technological proximities and reduced distances . What is essential is the
loss of genuine nearness, authentic and true nearness, following which the actual physical
annihilation of planetary life would be a "gross" confirmation, an unrefined, external, physical
destruction that would be but a follow-up, another afterthought, a less subtle counterpart to
a more inward, profound, essential, authentic, ontological destruction.

Humanity’s comportment towards their vulnerable environment causes the

complete annihilation of things
Ziarek 13  Professor and Chair of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo, “A Vulnerable
World: Heidegger on Humans and Finitude”, Project Muse, University of Wisconsin Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/substance/v042/42.3.ziarek.pdf 2013
Heidegger’s critical point is that the anthropocentric human attitude toward things, based on
relations of power and manipulation, does not allow things to appear as things. The threat of
nuclear annihilation, which loomed large during the time Heidegger wrote one of his most challenging essays, “The Thing,” is for
him secondary to the silent, long-standing, and more pervasive annihilation of things:
“Science’s knowledge, which is compelling within its own sphere, the sphere of objects,
already had annihilated things as things long before the atom bomb exploded. The bomb’s
explosion is only the grossest of all gross confirmations of the long-since-accomplished
annihilation of the thing: the confirmation that the thing as thing remains nil. The thingness of the thing
remains concealed, forgotten. The essence [Wesen] of the thing never comes to light, that is, it never gets a hearing. […] That annihilation is
so weird because it carries before it a twofold delusion: first, the notion that science is
superior to all other experience in reaching the real in its reality, and second, the illusion that,
notwithstanding the scientific investigation of reality, things could still be things, which would
presuppose that they had once been in full possession of their thinghood . […] In truth, however, the thing
as thing remains proscribed, nil, and in that sense annihilated. This has happened and continues to happen so essentially that not only are things no
longer admitted as things [nicht mehr als Dinge zugelassen sind], but they have never yet at all been able to appear to thinking as things.” This long
quotation provides a stark illustration of the way in which Heidegger drastically twists our customary ways of thinking about power and vulnerability,
even if he does not deploy the term vulnerability as such. First of all, with the nuclear threat looming, he deliberately focuses on things, rather than on

living beings, let alone humans. And second, he directs attention to a much more deep-seated vulnerability of
things and the world than the one brought to our attention by the possibility of nuclear
annihilation, or, as we might chime in today, the threat of global climate change or the
possibility of a complete depletion of resources . In a twist of perspective, Heidegger proposes to think from the point of
view of things rather than humans, which radically changes the valence of the relation of humans to things. For Heidegger, scientific development’s
threat to things (and obviously also to the world as such, and to humans inhabiting it) is anchored in a more pervasive and fundamental disallowing and
interdiction of things, which is never simply produced by the human, but to which humans lend a hand. As he puts it, things
have not yet
been able to appear as things, which means that they have not been things or have been nil—
always already annihilated. The annihilation at issue here is not physical destruction, but a
more essential interdiction brought about by the conjunction between the withdrawal
characteristic of being itself—its [End Page 176] retreat and ceding of priority to apparently
subsisting or even permanent beings—and human comportment toward things , which,
forgetful of being’s characteristic retreat, apprehends things as objects—permanent and
graspable—and thus makes it impossible for them to appear as things. The possibility of
physical or material annihilation is “only the grossest of all gross confirmations of the long-
since-accomplished annihilation of the thing.” Scientific development would not have been
possible without the always already and continuously accomplished “annihilation” of things,
so that they appear not as things but as objects—that is, available as objects to human beings ,
who, as subjects, can cause objects to become scientifically known, manipulable, available, and disposable, to the point of their physical destruction.
One can trace here a distinction between destruction, figured by nuclear destruction, andannihilation, which renders things nil, not allowing them to
appear as things. But
to notice this annihilation that interdicts things as things, we need first to
notice the human contribution to it, and then to transform drastically the way we see and
relate to objects in order, perhaps for the first time, to relate to things. We need to be
released from the power relations that subtend the technically organized modern world and
let things be things. Yet humans can let things be things only to the extent that things are given—from the event of being—to be let be.
Thus letting be is never exclusively a matter of human action or decision, but instead is a middle-voiced response, an attitude that what exists is part of
the (en)folded relatedness of the world.

The Standing Reserve mentality has become applicable to the population,

making humans little more than objects, to serve a systematic annihilation of
the Being. *gender paraphrased
Dreyfus 93 (October 1993, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Art, Technology and Politics,
file:///C:/Users/Zach/Downloads/dreyfus%20-%20Heidegger%20on%20the%20Connection%20between%20Nihilism,%20Art,%20Technology%20and
%20Politics%20.pdf)
What, then, is the essence of technology -- i.e.,
the technological understanding of being, or the
technological clearing -- and how does opening ourselves to it give us a free relation to
technological devices? To begin with, when he asks about the essence of technology we must
understand that Heidegger is not seeking a definition . His question cannot be answered by
defining our concept of technology. Technology is as old as civilization. Heidegger notes that it can be correctly defined
as "a means and a human activity." But if we ask about the essence of technology (the technological understanding of being ) we
find that modern technology is "something completely different and ... new." (QCT 5, VA 15) It even
goes beyond using styrofoam cups to satisfy our desires. The essence of modern technology Heidegger tells us, is to
seek to order everything so as to achieve more and more flexibility and efficiency :
"[E]xpediting is always itself directed from the beginning ... towards driving on to the
maximum yield at the minimum expense." (QCT 15, VA 23) That is, our only goal is optimal ordering, for its own
sake. Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand
there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this
way has its own standing. We call it standing-reserve. (QCT 17, VA 24) No more do we have
subjects turning nature into an object of exploitation: The subject-object relation thus
reaches, for the first time, its pure "relational," i.e., ordering, character in which both the
subject and the object are sucked up as standing-reserves . (QCT 173, VA 61) Heidegger concludes:
"Whatever stands by in the sense of standing-reserve no longer stands over against us as
object." (QCT 17, VA 24) He tells us that a modern airliner, understood in its technological essence, is not a tool we use; it is not an
object at all, but rather a flexible and efficient cog in the transportation system. Likewise, we
are not subjects who use
the transportation system, but rather we are used by it to fill the planes . In this technological
perspective, ultimate goals like serving God, society, our fellow [humans] men, or even
ourselves no longer make sense. Human beings, on this view, become a resource to be used --
but more importantly, to be enhanced -- like any other . Man, who no longer conceals his character of being
the most important raw material, is also drawn into this process.(EP 104, VA 90)
 ! – Serial Policy Failure
Failure to account for the ontological roots of modern politics ensures serial
policy failure – we will repeatedly reproduce the same problems that we seek
to solve
Dillon & Reid 2000 [Michael & Julian, Prof of Politics & Prof of International Relations, “Global Governance, Liberal
Peace, and Complex Emergency,” Alternatives: Social Transformation & Humane Governance 25.1]
As a precursor to global governance, governmentality, according to Foucault's initial account, poses the question of order not in terms of the origin of
the law and the location of sovereignty, as do traditional accounts of power, but in terms instead of the management of population. The management
of population is further refined in terms of specific problematics to which population management may be reduced. These typically include but are not
necessarily exhausted by the following topoi of governmental power: economy, health, welfare, poverty, security, sexuality, demographics, resources,
skills, culture, and so on. Now, where there is an operation of power there is knowledge, and where there is knowledge there is an operation of power.
Here discursive formations emerge and, as Foucault noted, inevery society the production of discourse is at once
controlled, selected, organised and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose
role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its
ponderous, formidable materiality.[ 34] More specifically, where there is a policy problematic there is
expertise, and where there is expertise there, too, a policy problematic will emerge. Such problematics are detailed and
elaborated in terms of discrete forms of knowledge as well as interlocking policy domains. Policy
domains reify the problematization of life in certain ways by turning these epistemically and politically contestable orderings of life into "problems" that
require the continuous attention of policy science and the continuous resolutions of policymakers. Policy
"actors" develop and
compete on the basis of the expertise that grows up around such problems or clusters of
problems and their client populations. Here, too, we may also discover what might be called "epistemic entrepreneurs." Albeit
the market for discourse is prescribed and policed in ways that Foucault indicated, bidding to formulate novel problematizations they seek to "sell"
these, or otherwise have them officially adopted. In principle, there is no limit to the ways in which the management of population may be
problematized. All aspects of human conduct, any encounter with life, is problematizable. Any problematization is capable of becoming a policy
problem. Governmentality thereby creates a market for policy, for science and for policy science, in which problematizations go looking for policy
sponsors while policy sponsors fiercely compete on behalf of their favored problematizations. Reproblematization
of problems is
constrained by the institutional and ideological investments surrounding accepted
"problems," and by the sheer difficulty of challenging the inescapable ontological and
epistemological assumptions that go into their very formation. There is nothing so fiercely contested as an
epistemological or ontological assumption. And there is nothing so fiercely ridiculed as the suggestion that the real problem with problematizations
exists precisely at the level of such assumptions. Such "paralysis of analysis" is precisely what policymakers seek to avoid since they are compelled
constantly to respond to circumstances over which they ordinarily have in fact both more and less control than they proclaim. What they do not have is
precisely the control that they want. Yet serial policy failure--the fate and the fuel of all policy--compels them
into a continuous search for the new analysis that will extract them from the aporias in which
they constantly find themselves enmeshed.[ 35] Serial policy failure is no simple shortcoming
that science and policy--and policy science--will ultimately overcome. Serial policy failure is rooted in
the ontological and epistemological assumptions that fashion the ways in which global
governance encounters and problematizes life as a process of emergence through fitness landscapes that constantly
adaptive and changing ensembles have continuously to negotiate. As a particular kind of intervention into life, global governance
promotes the very changes and unintended outcomes that it then serially reproblematizes in
terms of policy failure. Thus, global liberal governance is not a linear problem-solving process
committed to the resolution of objective policy problems simply by bringing better
information and knowledge to bear upon them. A nonlinear economy of power/knowledge, it deliberately
installs socially specific and radically inequitable distributions of wealth, opportunity, and
mortal danger both locally and globally through the very detailed ways in which life is variously (policy) problematized by it. In
consequence, thinking and acting politically is displaced by the institutional and epistemic rivalries
that infuse its power/ knowledge networks, and by the local conditions of application that
govern the introduction of their policies. These now threaten to exhaust what "politics," locally as well as globally, is about.[
36] It is here that the "emergence" characteristic of governance begins to make its appearance. For it is increasingly recognized that there are
no definitive policy solutions to objective, neat, discrete policy problems. The "subjects" of policy
increasingly also become a matter of definition as well, since the concept population does not have a stable referent either and has itself also evolved in
biophilosophical and biomolecular as well as Foucauldian "biopower" ways.
 ! – Serial Policy Failure (Ocean Specific)
All knowledge of the oceans is devoid of authentic human relations. Their 1AC
claims are not objective, but mediated by imperfect science that leads to failed
policies
Deborah Jane Kennedy, Doctoral Candidate, 2007, Ocean views: an investigation into human-
ocean relations. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, p. 3,
http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/123/
The lack of attention afforded to the oceans is partly explained by the fact that the character
of the human physical relationship with water complicates our ability to "get close" to ocean
ecosystems and dwellers in ways that improve understanding and empathy with them, and
add depth to relations. Our knowledge of the oceans is, for the most part, a step removed
from direct experience. As Benson, Rozwadowski and van Kelton (2004, xiii) note, ‘[B]eyond the
borders of the tidal zones and continental shelf shallows, the oceans are a forbidding and alien
environment inaccessible to direct human observation. They force scientist-observers to early
their natural environment with them, such as with a deep-sea submersible.’ This means the
type of investigations scientists can make are both restricted and directed. General knowledge
of the oceans is highly dependent on what scientists report and this influences the balance
between community and expert knowledge, policy- making. Yet as marine scientists have
made Germ the very fluidity and interconnectivity, scale and opacity of ocean environments
have complex ramifications for the marine sciences. The physical characteristics of the ocean
environment club scientific insights and capacity to respond effectively to problems and crises,
much more so than for terrestrial environments.
 ! – V2L
Technological thought reduces people to pieces of machinery, destroying all
value to life
Belo 10 (Dana, Department of Philosophy California State University, Inquiry, Vol. 53 Issue 1,
pg. 4-5. “Heidegger’s Aporetic Ontology of Technology,” February 2010.)
Machine technology is, fundamentally, no mere mechanism (Räderwerk) and it is not a particular
instantiation of enframing as a universal concept . 17 Rather, enframing is an essential dispensation as
that sine qua non without which machines cannot exist . In fact, “Modern technology is what it is not only
through the machine, rather the machine is what it is and how it is from out of the essence of
technology. One says nothing about the essence of modern technology when one represents it as machine technology.” 18
The staggering implication is that machine technology is somehow superfluous for understanding
the essence of technology. 19 Heidegger underscores this point when he says, elsewhere, that “the
utilization of machinery and the manufacture of machines. . . is only an instrument concordant with
technology, whereby the nature of technology is established in the objective character of its raw
materials.” 20How does this affect human beings? Heidegger claims that “because man cannot
decide, out of himself and by himself, regarding his own essence it follows that the ordering of
standing-reserve and enframing is not only something human ”. 21 But insofar as it is something human,
humans are coresponsible because they exercise a capacity (Fähigkeit) for determined participation. The apparent
autonomy and self-determination humans enjoy gives the impression that they can opt out of
continuous ordering but this is merely the way that enframing dissimulates itself as the illusion of
agency. If people “are in their essence already enframed as standing-reserve ”, 22 what kind of freedom is
this but a mechanical and nihilistic reproduction of the same? When Heidegger insists on the universal character of enframing
he underscores this point. 23 In Heidegger’s view freedom is to be conceived only ontologically, as openness to being in the
form of enframing, rather than ontically or instrumentally (as the ability of the autonomous agent to choose among a variety of
options). Unable to change his urge to order and control, the technicized being is sub-jected to the
imperatives of the system. Substantive goals and meaningful differences are leveled by the ubiquity
of technical reason and replaced with a self-optimizing system. Total enframing thus totally
encompasses humans. “To the enframed belongs also man, admittedly in his own way, be it that he
serves the machine or that within ordering he designs and constructs the machine. The human
being is in his own way a stock-piece in the strongest sense of the words, stock and piece.” 24 Thus, as technical
makers, users and designers, human beings are resources too. Because all activities today are in one
way or another technologically mediated everyone is enframed as either a technical maker, user and/or
designer or a combination thereof. In his most extreme statements of the case the difference between humans and things is
effaced. For instance, the technological ordering of nature is of a different kind than the one through which the earlier peasant
ordered his acres. The peasant’s doing did not impose upon, nor challenge the earth; it concerned itself with the potential
growing powers of the seed; it sheltered them in their thriving. In the meantime the ordering of the fields crosses over in the
same ordering, reducing the air to oxygen, the earth to coal and ore, the ore to uranium, the uranium to atomic energy and this
to an orderable destruction. Agriculture is now the motorized food industry, in essence the same as the production of corpses
in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same as the embargo and starvation of countries, the same as the
production of hydrogen bombs. 25

This technological mindset destroys our value to life by making humans nothing
more than something that can be calculated and ordered at will.
Lansing ’10 (David M Lansing, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems,
University of Maryland Baltimore, 2010, Carbon's calculatory spaces: the emergence of carbon
offsets in Costa Rica, pg 1&2 accessed 6/25/2014)
Heidegger (1997b) also writes that the enframing of technology is productive of a conception of the
world as a singular ball, or whole picture. This conception of the world-as-picture is not one in
which the 'real' world has somehow been concealed from us through a false representation
but rather one in which the world has become conceived as a controllable, orderable object,
an orientation in which beings of the world have become ensnared in a system of ordering. in
which all beings are 'ready- at-hand' for use (Heidegger. l977b: l9TlcL In this case, objects and subjects do not necessarily stand
opposed to each other, as in the world-as-ball as an object in opposition to humans, but rather the
relational character
between objects and subjects the world and us-becomes forged through their incorporation
into a global standing reserve, where both humanity and the objects of the world itself are
made ready-at-hand within a worldwide system of calculable ordering (Heidegger. l977c: Joronen. 2008.
page 605). For Heidegger the enframing that is the essence of technology means that our relation
with the world is thoroughly transformed and has the effect of producing a new
understanding of ourselves, where everything becomes subject to calculation and measure in
terms of productivity, power, resources, and energy, resulting in a thorough transformation of
our own being-in-the-world. Here, even humanity itself becomes set-upon in this very way,
where we become objects that are subject to ordering and manipulation. Long before sequestering
carbon in trees was even a theoretical idea. Heidegger made a connection between the modern technological orientation toward
the world and the demands it would place on forests and those who do their ordering: "The forester who, in the wood, measures
the felled timber and to all appearances walks the same forest path in the same way as did his[or her] grandfather is today made
subordinate to the orderability of cellulose, which for its part is challenged forth by the need for paper, which is then delivered to
newspapers and illustrated magazines" (l977a. page 18). In this passage. Heidegger's focus is not on the transformation of the forest
but on the transformation of the forester, where the forester's being becomes constituted through a technological disclosure of the
world, and the orderability of the cellulose of trees is constitutive of his own being as someone who orders, ultimately revealing the
forester himself as subordinate to the orderability of natural resources. Notice that the forester's subordination to cellulose does not
lie in the trees them- selves but in the system within which trees have become ensnared. Their orderability derives from the
demands of producing "illustrated magazines". Today, as lowering the 'carbon footprint' of our actions becomes more of a priority,
forests are once again set-upon as objects of orderability-only it is no longer cellulose but carbon that is challenged forth; and it is
not the newspaper industry, but instead, a global regime of climate management that challenges forth the orderability of carbon,
and ourselves as those who order.
 ! – Nihilism
Technology kills Being and philosophy= nihilism, worst impact= objectification
NIETZSCHE, HEIDEGGER, EUROPE: FIVE REMARKS Joanna Hodge Journal of Nietzsche Studies,
No. 3, NIETZSCHE/HEIDEGGER (Spring 1992), pp. 45-66 Published by: Penn State University
Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20717562
According to Heidegger, the rise of the sciences required the evolution or philosophy, in its specifically Greco-European form. For
Heidegger, the
triumph of technology that marks the end of philosophy is putting its imprint on
the whole earth. This is the change for philosophy: in the past, philosophical invention has affected the world, as constituted
by human thinking, but not the earth, which has a material- base in advance of human intervention. The triumph of philosophy as
technology converts the scope of its impact into one on both conceptual and material boundaries. The
triumph of
technology is also a triumph of generalized knowledge over self-related wisdom: a triumph of
a knowledge without location over a knowledge bound up with place and with a specific
relation to space and time. This triumph and the spread of technology across the world is the
spread and triumph of nihilism, which Heidegger identifies as the greatest danger
threatening humanity . This deterritorialising of nihilism transforms it from a cultural condition, experienced by individuals
in their relation to cultural identity, into a global material reality. According to Heidegger, philosophy
cannot flourish in
this nihilistic deterritorialised domain which technology bears with it and reinforces . By contrast,
Derrida' s writings reveal another tradition at work within European philosophy. He marks Hebraic silences within Hegel's garrulous
Hellenic idylls: he finds the traces of an excluded alterity in the texts or the tradition. He shows that nihilism has flourished alongside
a denial of the heteronomy of European culture . Technology and nihilism are the latest in a sequence of
undesirable exports from first to third world, along with disease, alcoholism, Christianity,
nuclear waste, and, perhaps, feminism. By becoming global, I suggest nihilism changes
location. It ceases to be an individualized condition and becomes akin to a metaphysical
principle, but with this difference that, unlike metaphysical principles, it is not held in place by
stipulation and by cultural practice. It is held in place by being rendered real, through the
transformative effects of a set of cultural and technical relations on the physical infrastructure
of the world. As an example or what I have in mind, take the impact of the motor car on the English landscape. To think
through Heidegger's claims about an end to philosophy in a technological transformation of physical, material relations, is to see his
claims about the completion or metaphysics as a transformation of a theoretical question about truth and reality into a practical
question about research and about transformations in the structures of human experience. This sets up for discussion the
connections Heidegger conceives between certain notions of universality, a certain experience of being European and the project of
philosophy as classically conceived. The notion of universality converts through the dispersions of technology into generality: and it
turns out that the categories of Hegelian logic, particular, universal, singular, are themselves grounded in a specific experience or
cultural identity, the singular universality' of Greco-Ronan culture, not in a generalizable universality. There is a singularity in this
conception of universality which contrasts to the heteronomous economy of conceptions of the globe.
Alternatives
 Alt – Gelassenheit
Our alternative is to embrace gelassenheit. “Releasement towards things” and
“openness to the mystery” which is a higher action that means we do not
demand answers – we wait. We must will to not will – this is a reorientation of
our comportment toward the world.
Dalle pezze 2006 (Barbara, PhD in Philosophy U of Hong Kong, “Heidegger on Gelassenheit”, Minerva 10:94-122)
When we think meditatively we do not project an idea, planning a goal towards which we
move, we do not “run down a one-track course of ideas” (ibid., p. 53). When we think meditatively, we need to “engage ourselves with what at first
sight does not go together at all” (ibid., p.53). In order to understand what this means, Heidegger suggests that we look at the comportment we have
towards technological devices. We recognize that, in today’s world technological machineries are indispensable. We need just to think of computers
and their usage in daily life activities to be convinced, above any doubt, that “we depend on technical devices” (Heidegger 1966b, p.53). By thinking
calculatively, we use these machineries at our own convenience; we also let ourselves be challenged by them, so as to develop new devices that would
be more suitable for a certain project or more accurate in the carrying out of certain research.   If calculative thinking does not think beyond the
usefulness of what it engages with, meditative thinking would notice and become aware of the fact that
these devices are not just extremely useful to us. It would also notice that they, by being so extremely useful, at the same time are
we find ourselves so firmly shackled to these technical devices
“shackling” us: “suddenly and unaware
that we fall into bondage to them” (ibid., p. 53-54). If [hu]man, not being aware of this, is in a situation of being
chained to these machineries, then by becoming conscious of this he[/she] finds him[/her]self in a different relation to them.
With this awareness [hu]man[s] can utilize these instruments just as
He[/she] becomes free of them.
instruments, being at the same time free to “let go of them at any time” (ibid., p. 54). And this is so because once
we acknowledge that their usefulness implies the possibility for us to be chained to them, we deal with them differently; we “deny them the right to
It is a matter of a different comportment
dominate us, and so to wrap, confuse, and lay waste our nature” (ibid., p.54).
towards them; it is a different disposition to which Heidegger gives the name “ releasement
toward things” [die Gelassenheit zu den Dingen] (ibid., p.54)   Releasement toward things is an expression of a
change in thinking. Thinking is not just calculation, but ponders the meaning involved and
hidden behind what we are related to and engaged with. This hidden meaning, even if it remains obscure as such, is
nevertheless detected – by a meditating thinking – in its presence, a presence that “hides itself.” But, as Heidegger states,   if we explicitly and
continuously heed the fact that such hidden meaning touches us everywhere in the world of technology, we stand at once within the realm of that
which hides itself from us, and hides itself just in approaching us. That which shows itself and at the same time withdraws is the essential trait of what
we call the mystery. I call the comportment which enables us to keep open to the meaning hidden in technology, openness to the mystery. (1966b, p.

“ Releasement towards things” and “openness to the mystery ” are two aspects of the
55)  

same disposition, a disposition that allows us to inhabit the world “in a totally different way.”
But as we already mentioned, this disposition does not just happen to us. It develops through
a “persistent courageous thinking” (ibid., p. 56), which in this work is meditative thinking.    We
have spoken here of meditative thinking as that mode of thinking that allows “releasement toward things” and “the openness to the mystery” hidden
in the technological world. Let us now move on, armed with meditative thinking, to further investigate Gelassenheit – which we just glimpsed in
relation to technological devices – in its essential traits, considering it as “the manner of taking place of a thinking that is wholly free, wholly open to
Being’s governance” (Lovitts 1995, p. 544).   Keeping Awake for Gelassenheit The dialogue on Gelassenheit opens by addressing the question of the
essence of man. Since the European philosophical tradition has always seen in thinking the sign of the essence of man, questioning the essence of
thinking means questioning the essence of man. What is investigated as the essence of man in the Conversation is not a general meaning of this
essence; rather, what is investigated is “the historical self-transforming, essential sway [künftigen Wesen] of man” (F.-W. von Herrmann 1994, p. 373).
What is distinctive about this search is the fact that it can be carried on and experienced only by turning one’s sight away from man. This seems to be
paradoxical, but as von Herrmann states, this ceases to be a paradox when we consider that the “future” essence of man (which is what we are looking
for) determines itself from its relation to that which is not man. This means that the “self-transforming essential sway of man is comprehensible only in
that relation from out of which man receives its essential sway” (1994, p. 373), and that, we shall see, is the relation of Gelassenheit to “Gegnet”, that
is, “that-which-regions,” which is another name for be-ing itself.   As Heidegger states, the traditional concept of thinking intends thinking as a
representing, and therefore as belonging to the context of will. It is still involved with a subjectivism that Gelassenheit wants to overcome.
Subjectivism, as Caputo attests, is “setting up the thinking ‘subject’ as the highest principle of Being, and subordinating everything to the dictates and
Gelassenheit, as the essence of future thinking, does not belong to the
demands of the subject” (1990, p. 175).
realm of willing. What characterizes the search carried out in Heidegger’s Conversation is the fact that the context of the
search requires distance and detachment from the traditional context in which thinking is related to willing . The question of
the essence of thinking, posed in terms of Gelassenheit, is in fact a question about the essence
of thinking as a “non-willing” [Nicht-Wollen]:   Scholar: But thinking, understood in the traditional way, as re-presenting is a
kind of willing; Kant, too, understands thinking this way when he characterizes it as spontaneity. To think is to will, and to will is to think Scientist: Then
the statement that the nature of thinking is something other than thinking means that thinking is something other than willing. Teacher: And that is
why, in answer to your question as to what I really wanted from our meditation on the nature of thinking, I replied: I want non-willing. (Heidegger
1966a, p. 58-59)   “I want non-willing” is the first step towards Gelassenheit. But in this statement we immediately notice an ambiguity: on the one
hand, when one says “I want non-willing”, it is still a matter of will, wanting the non-willing is an act of will, as it expresses the will to say no to will. On
the other hand, Heidegger states that, by saying that I want “non-willing,” I mean that I “willingly … renounce willing” (1966a, p. 59). But by renouncing
this, I search for what overall stays beyond any kind of willing, and that cannot be ‘reached’ by any act of will. By “renouncing willing,” Heidegger
states, “we may release, or at least prepare to release, ourselves to the sought-for essence of a thinking that is not willing” (1966a,
By means of willing not to will, we put ourselves in the condition of being able to reach
p. 59-60).
that thinking that is not a matter of will. As Caputo puts forward, we need to go through this
stage, as it is a “preparation for the final stage of releasement where we have left the sphere
of willing behind altogether, where [hu]man, as with Eckhart, has no will at all.” (1990, p. 171).   By willing not to will, we move one
step closer to Gelassenheit. Letting go of our willing is the first step that allows Gelassenheit to “wake up” [Erwachen] in ourselves. It is not, though,
that we act to wake it up. Actually this is not at all a waking up. As Heidegger points out, it is an “awakening of releasement,” in the sense of “keeping
awake for releasement” [Wachbleiben für die Gelassenheit ] (1966a, p. 61). Keeping awake for Gelassenheit means to let-go
of willing, in order to contribute to the “awakening” of Gelassenheit. But not only that. By letting-go of willing, we let ourselves be in the position
of being let-in into Gelassenheit. What we face here is a twofold mode of releasement: from one side we need to let-go of thinking
as a representing that tends to explain everything in terms of reasons. This letting-go means
that we keep ourselves awake for releasement which, on the other side, means that we open
ourselves to something, a ‘mystery’ that – as we shall see later – is actually be-ing itself, and is
that which lets us in into Gelassenheit.   Heidegger opts to say “keeping awake” [Wachbleiben] for Gelassenheit instead of “to wake
up” [Erwachen] Gelassenheit, because the latter implies an action undertaken by man, and thus implies that a will is still in place, and that we still abide
in the realm of willing. But in order to know what Gelassenheit means, it itself has to be allowed to be. It is not us that ‘wake it up’. It is something else;
from somewhere else is Gelassenheit called to be, is ‘let-in’ in ourselves. What we can do is to keep awake for Gelassenheit. Once we free ourselves
from willing, we prepare ourselves for the “awakening of releasement”; the more we detach ourselves and we “wean ourselves from willing,” the more
we contribute to the “awakening of releasement.”   Posed in these terms, it seems that dealing with Gelassenheit means to deal with something
specific, something that we would be able to discover and point at, once we possess the right elements. But, as Heidegger often affirms, we need to
start from what we know and are familiar with, in order to step forward, or to simply move on. Let us, therefore, accept for now this impression
Gelassenheit is not something that, as such, we will
regarding Gelassenheit, but try at the same time to keep in mind that
be in a position to determine clearly, and hence define as a whole. It will continue to be
hermeneutically the same and something different, and that will perhaps let us abide in a kind of secure vagueness,
in which our thinking will be at rest and dwell. Having said that, we need to nevertheless focus on specific meanings that
we know, which during the dialogue will be enriched, and perhaps changed, with that which is unspoken and ‘unseen’, which will give them new flavor,
new sounds, new color.   At this stage, however, we still cannot say what Gelassenheit is. Grasping the meaning will be a gradual process of disclosure
that arises during the dialogue. Nevertheless, here we come across the structural moment of Gelassenheit, which shows Gelassenheit as the letting go
of willing, a letting go that prepares us to “let-oneself-in” [Sich einzulassen] into Gelassenheit. Gelassenheit awakens when we let go of willing, and by
letting go of it, we let ourselves in, in the sense that we are let-in into Gelassenheit. By letting-go of willing, we actually give ourselves the possibility of
being open to Gelassenheit and, in Gelassenheit, remain open for be-ing itself. This is also a step that moves us from thinking as a matter of willing to
meditative thinking: it is a “transition from willing into releasement” (1966a, p. 61).   Now, what does Gelassenheit mean?
What do we keep awake for? What do we let emerge in ourselves, which kind of mindfulness do we awaken, by letting-go of our thinking as a matter of
will? How are we to think Gelassenheit?   Higher Acting and Waiting Reading the Conversation, we never find a clear statement that gives a definition of
Gelassenheit. From our perspective, Gelassenheit is in fact a process, a conquest, a movement that changes our attitude, our way of thinking. While
reading the conversation we come across elements that belong to Gelassenheit, but they are not exhaustive. They lead to a better comprehension of its
meaning, but they do not define a picture of it, one which we could say: that is Gelassenheit. Nevertheless, these elements point towards and
constitute its meaning.   At a certain point of the dialogue we come across one of these elements. It is identified in the fact that, in Gelassenheit, is
“concealed” an acting which is “higher” than the acting we find in “actions within the world”:   Scholar: Perhaps a higher acting is concealed in
releasement than is found in all the actions within the world and in the machinations of all mankind… Teacher… which higher acting is yet no activity.
Scientist: Then releasement lies — if we may use the word lie — beyond the distinction between activity and passivity… Scholar:... because releasement
does not belong to the domain of the will. (Heidegger 1966a, p. 61).   Before continuing, let me stress one point that could appear strange. Heidegger
refers to Gelassenheit as “higher acting” and this, at first sight, could appear a contradiction if we consider the word Gelassenheit. The word
Gelassenheit has its root on the verb “lassen” which means to let, to give something up. This could suggest that an idea of passiveness belongs to
Gelassenheit, but this is certainly not the case. Actually, the whole dialogue, which is an attempt to lead the reader to experience Gelassenheit, implies,
paradoxically, an active reading. It is an active reading because what this conversation is about is the letting go of an accustomed way of thinking and
wanting, an experience of something which lies beyond it. This
apparent passivity, which should be ‘enacted’ in the
reading and constitutes the experience of Gelassenheit, is no passivity at all. Indeed, it is a
“higher acting” that, as we shall see, has the form of “waiting.” The enactment of our thinking, in the attempt to
think Gelassenheit, is in itself “higher acting,” for in its being ‘on the way’ our thinking is a “waiting upon” what we do not know yet. Our attempt to
think Gelassenheit is, therefore, already an enactment of the higher acting that is proper to Gelassenheit. But now, how are we to understand this
“higher acting”?   Probably when we hear the word “acting” we immediately relate it to a familiar concept of action, such as the one that thinks of
action as that which produces some kind of result, which means that we understand action in terms of cause and effect. To understand what Heidegger
means by “higher acting,” we need to refer to the essential meaning that, according to Heidegger, pertains to ‘action’. In the Letter on Humanism
(1998b), Heidegger defines the essence of action as “accomplishment”, and he unfolds the meaning of accomplishment as “to unfold something into
the fullness of its essence, to lead it forth into this fullness – producere” (1998b, p. 239). “Higher acting” is not, therefore, an undertaking towards a
practical doing, but is a ‘higher’ acting as accomplishment, in the sense of leading forth something into the fullness of its essence. Releasement itself
is what makes this available to [hu]man.   Gelassenheit as “higher acting” is further determined in the dialogue as “waiting” [warten].
As Heidegger affirms, what can be done to glimpse Gelassenheit is to actually do nothing but “wait,” “we are to do nothing but wait”
 “Waiting” is the key experience, for in waiting we are in
[Wir sollen nichts tun sondern warten] (1966a, p. 62).
the position of crossing from thinking as representing to thinking as meditative thinking. In
waiting we move from that thinking which, as Heidegger states, has lost its “element” (being) and dried up, to the thinking that is
“appropriated” by its “element” (be-ing itself) and which, therefore, has turned towards being itself (1998b, p. 240-241).   But let us
consider more closely the idea implied in ‘waiting’. When Heidegger says that we have to do nothing but wait, we probably ask
ourselves: what do we have to wait for? Asking this question puts us back into the realm of representing, and therefore removes us from that
disposition from out of which we can experience Gelassenheit.
If we ask what we are waiting for, we are expecting
something, we already have an object of expectation, whereas we need to remain open
towards something we do not know. If I expect, I have an object of my expectation, whereas ‘waiting’ has no object. In waiting,
we rest in the act of waiting, or as Fabris (1983) states, “waiting does not objectify, does not reify possibilities, but instead it maintains them open as
possibilities.” As soon as we represent, says Heidegger, we think about what we are waiting for, and as soon we think about this, we are not waiting
anymore: “in waiting we leave-open what we are waiting for” (1966a, p. 68) because waiting allows itself to be brought into the openness.  
Waiting is a moment of crossing; in waiting the swinging movement between the different
kinds of thinking is present. In waiting something opens. What we need to do is ‘just’ wait,
wait without expecting.
 Alt – Will not to Will
Alternative: We must take a firm action to resist the urge to will, and instead
hold ourselves resolutely open for the mindset shift away from managerial
thinking
Mchworter and Stenstad ‘9 (Ladelle McWhorter, James Thomas Professor of Philosophy, and Gail Stenstad,
chair of the East Tennessee State University department of philosophy and humanities, 2009, Heidegger and the Earth:
Essays in Environmental Philosophy,pg1-2 accessed 6/25/14)
Thinking with and after Heidegger, thinking
Heideggerly and ecologically, means, paradoxically, acting to place in
question the acting subject, willing a displacement of our will to action; it means calling
ourselves as selves to rethink our very selves, insofar as selfhood in the West is constituted as
agent, as actor, as calculatively controlling ego, as knowing consciousness. Heidegger's work
calls us not to rush in with quick solutions, not to act decisively to put an end to deliberation,
but rather to think, to tarry with thinking unfolding itself, to release ourselves to thinking
without provision or predetermined aim. Such thinking moves paradoxically, within and at the edge of the tension
and the play of calculation and reflection, logos and poesis, and urgency that can yet abide in stillness. The thinker whose work
makes up this book have felt called to think as Heidegger attempted to think. The essays presented here are responses to that call;
they am attempts to take seriously what presents itself to us first of all as paradox; they are attempts to allow thinking to immerse
itself in itself at the site of the very difficult question of how thinking might release itself to think the earth. Thus, this volume unfolds
itself in the region of paradox. It comprises discussions of how
we as active agents might come to hold
ourselves resolutely open for the new occurring of non-technological, non-managerial, non-
agential thought, of how it might come about that speaking, thinking, and living might occur
differently, of how we might begin now to undergo the loss of our delusion of impending
omnipotence and perhaps escape that delusion's nihilistic results . The conversants are not
environmental experts armed with information about particular crises or the consequences of particular techniques.
They are philosophers struggling to open thinking towards paths that will affirm rather than
destroy the earth.
 Alt – Rejection
Our alternative is to not do the affirmative. Refusing the call to act is the
essential first step for ontological reflection.
McWhorter 92 (Ladelle, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Richmond,
Heidegger and the earth: Essays in environmental philosophy, Thomas Jefferson University
Press, pp. 2)
Thinking today must concern itself with the earth. Wherever we turn -on newsstands, on the
airwaves, and in even the most casual of conversations everywhere - we are inundated by
predictions of ecological catastrophe and omnicidal doom . And many of these predicti ons bear
themselves out in our own experience. We now live with the ugly, painful, and impoverish ing
consequences of decades of technological innovation and expansion without restraint, of at least a
century of disastrous "natural resource management" policies, and of more than two centuries of
virtually unchecked industrial pollution - consequences that include the fact that millions of us on
any given day are suffering, many of us dying of diseases and malnutrition that are the results of
humanly produced ecological devastation; the fact that thousands of species now in existence will
no longer exist on this planet by the turn of the century; the fact that our planet's climate has been
altered, probably irreversibly, by the carbon dioxide and chloro fluorocarbons we have heedlessly
poured into our atmosphere; and the mind-boggling fact that it may now be within humanity's
power to destroy all life on this globe. Our usual response to such prophecies of doom is to ignore
them or, when we cannot do that, to scramble to find some way to manage our problems, some
quick solution, some technological fix. But over and over again new resource management
techniques, new solutions, new technologies disrupt delicate systems even further, doing still more
damage to a planet already dangerously out of ecological balance . Our ceaseless interventions seem
only to make things worse, to perpetuate a cycle of human activity followed by ecological disaster
followed by human intervention followed by a new disaster of another kind. In fact, it would appear
that our trying to do things, change things, fix things cannot be the solution, because it is part of the
problem itself. But, if we cannot act to solve our problems, what should we do ? Heidegger's work
is a call to reflect, to think in some way other than calculatively, technologically, pragmatically.
Once we begin to move with and into Heidegger's call and begin to see our trying to seize control
and solve problems as itself a problematic approach, if we still believe that thinking's only real
purpose is to function as a prelude to action, we who attempt to think will twist within the
agonizing grip of paradox, feeling nothing but frustration, unable to conceive of ourselves as
anything but paralyzed. However, as so many peoples before us have known, paradox is not only a trap; it is
also a scattering point and passageway. Paradox invites examination of its own constitution (hence of the patterns of
thinking within which it occurs) and thereby breaks a way of thinking open, revealing the configurations of power that propel it
and hold it on track. And thus it makes possible the dissipation of that power and the deflection of
thinking into new paths and new possibilities. Heidegger frustrates us. At a time when the stakes
are so very high and decisive action is so loudly and urgently called for, Heidegger apparently calls
us to do - nothing. If we get beyond the revulsion and anger that such a call initially inspires and
actually examine the feasibility of response, we begin to undergo the frustration attendant upon
paradox; how is it possible, we ask, to choose, to will, to do nothing? The call itself places in
question the bimodal logic of activity and passivity; it points up the paradoxical nature of our
passion for action, of our passion for maintaining control. The call itself suggests that our drive for
acting decisively and forcefully is part of what must be thought through, that the narrow option of
will versus surrender is one of the power configurations of current thinking that must be allowed to
dissipate.
Only total disconnection with calculative mindset will allow us to shift, no lee-
way
DeLuca, Kevin. "Project MUSE - Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and
Practice." Project MUSE - Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and
Practice. N.p., 2005. Web. 27 June 2014.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/een/summary/v010/10.1deluca.html>.
In a fundamental sense, then, the environmental strategy of relying on Wilderness pictures
insures the promotion of a wilderness vision that pre- vents even the possibility of a human-
wilderness engagement. The fact is, our worldview means that we never do see the wilderness
or nature or the earth, that which is. This basic disjunct would go a long way toward
explaining our irreconcilable wilderness vision and material practices, our driving of SUVs to
go see the Grand Canyon. The subject that has reduced the world to object is, in turn, reduced to tourist, to sightseer:
"And finally what was left was only 'scenery' and recreational opportunity and even this still calculated into the gigantic and
arranged for the masses. . . . the Rhine is still a river in a landscape, is it not? Perhaps. But how? In no other way than as an object on
call for inspection by a tour group ordered there by the vacation industry" (Heidegger 1999, 195 and 1993, 321). A
Heideggerian questioning of our age of the world picture, suggests, then, that
environmentalism needs to question the image strategy it has relied on consciously and
unconsciously since before its beginning, since 1864.

Only total rejection of managerial thoughts allow us to redirect our relationship

with nature, the affs discourse prove links to every perm
James, Simon Paul (2001) Heidegger and Environmental Ethics, Durham theses, Durham
Univeristy. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3958/
Many environmental thinkers would reject the idea that the global environmental crisis is a
practical problem to be solved through practical means. Their point is not that this interpretation of the crisis
is simply wrong - they do not doubt that the crisis demands action. Their point is rather that to see the
environmental crisis as nothing more than a practical problem to be solved through economic
and political reforms and scientific and technological innovations is to overlook its 'deeper'
implications for our understanding of the world and our place in it . For these thinkers, before
we rush in to 'fix' the environment- to curb carbon dioxide emissions, to develop green
technologies, and so on - we should pause to contemplate the nature of the crisis itself, for
there are essential lessons the crisis can teach us concerning our understanding of the natural
world and our relation to it. I will call these thinkers radical ecologists. 1 This general project of looking
back to the impoverished accounts of nature we have inherited and looking forwards to the
possibility of an 'eco-friendly' understanding of nature finds itself cashed out in a variety of
interrelated conceptual themes. One radical ecologist might state her case in terms of anthropocentrism, labelling the
pernicious tradition as 'anthropocentric' and a new understanding as 'biocentric' or nature-centred. Another might speak of the
anthropocentrism of the tradition and the need to embrace a 'more feminine' understanding of nature. Another radical ecologist
might refer to the need to supplant the Cartesianism of the tradition with an appreciation of the 'oneness' of mind and nature.
 Alt – Embrace the Danger
We must embrace the danger of existence to free and open our minds.
Accepting that we cannot control the world and accepting the risk of existence
is the only way to shake ourselves from the monotony of control.
Sabatino 07 [Charles J.: professor of philosophy at Daemen College “A Heideggerian Reflection on the Prospects of
Technology” reprinted in Janus Head 10(1) www.janushead.org/10-1/sabatino.pdf p. 70-72].
Nevertheless, in spite of what at times appears to be a severe criticism of technology, Heidegger does not sound an ultimately
despairing note about the fate of the modern world. In the latter part of his reflections, he addresses what he refers to as the
possibility of a saving that might turn things around and offer hope. To
be saved, he says, is to be brought back to an
awareness of who we are: as those to whom has been entrusted the safekeeping of world.
This will occur not by trying to escape the danger; but rather by reaching into the danger; for
where the danger is, there precisely is the saving.8 Hope exists not in backing away from the danger out of fear,
condemning the reach of technology; but rather in entering more fully and embracing the danger for what it is. We would be saved
from the danger by the danger itself. Harking back to the themes of authenticity originally struck in Being and Time (eigentlicheit:
owning as pertaining to oneself), it
would entail owning responsibility as those to whom the world has
indeed been given over and into whose safekeeping it now rests . Nevertheless, It would not be accurate
to interpret Heidegger as simply heralding the technologizing of world. His thinking is more subtle and perhaps even paradoxical in
nature; and we might gain a better clue as to his meaning by contrasting his thought to that of Nietzsche. Almost a century earlier,
Nietzsche’s prophetic character Zarathustra sought to usher in a new age by declaring God dead and inviting humans to assume the
role once ascribed to God. Previously, humans said God out of fear of having to accept the burden of full responsibility over world as
their own. Zarathustra calls forth a higher form of human who would embrace this new found responsibility and choose to wield all
the power associated with it as a birthright and future destiny. Nietzsche saw this not as a danger, but as the final frontier and
challenge for humanity to emerge into its own fullness and greatness. In many respects, Heidegger would seem to agree with
Nietzsche’s assessment concerning the dawning of a new age. A new found sense of power and mastery over world is indeed taking
place with the developments of modern technologies. Furthermore, Heidegger might even be going further than Nietzsche,
understanding the event of the modern age not so much as something humans must choose, but as something for which they have
been destined by a fate larger than themselves. Indeed, for Heidegger, the real danger was that this was a fate and destiny humans
could not escape. However, in other respects, these two thinkers could not be more different from one another. Nietzsche took
hope that humans would embrace the power now in their hands as witness to their own greatness, even to the point of becoming as
God. Heidegger, on the other hand, invites
a mode of reflection that would move in a much different
direction. He would have us not exalt in embracing the power we have over world, but rather
have us become astounded and thereby humbled by the magnitude and all-encompassing
manner in which all aspects of world have come into our hands. The saving hope is that the
danger itself—the extent to which it can be taken for granted that the world is now in our
hands—can be brought into the light of day and seen as the danger from which we cannot
extricate ourselves, a danger arising not strictly from our own choosing and doing, but from
our very manner of existing to begin with. It is as though Heidegger would have us appreciate the fact that in many
respects we are not as in control of things as we would like to believe; that we are not fully in charge of even our own
accomplishments. Instead, the very manner in which we are needed as those alone who could accomplish the promise of technology
manifests how—as needed—we ourselves partake in the event (evenire: the coming about) of world in a way we could never fully
control. Heidegger would have us accept that all is possible, precisely as made possible. However unique and privileged we are as
those into whose responsibility the world has now been entrusted, nevertheless, even our greatest of achievements implicate much
more than just our own powers. They involve as well what from Heidegger’s perspective could be seen as a mission or calling as
those entrusted to reveal the possibilities of world because of our open way of belonging within the interplay of relatedness that is
world. Heidegger says there
is hope for the world if and as the danger is perceived precisely as the
danger. Somehow, the all-encompassing manner in which everything is now open and
accessible, that there may be no limits to what we can do, and that all lies vulnerable might
suddenly act as a lightning strike to shake us out of the slumbers of the everyday business. It
might dawn on us that everything, including world itself is at risk; and thus we ourselves are
at risk. Then we might understand that we ourselves are the danger.
Technology’s enframing nature triggers a danger that can only be prevented by
humankind’s embracement of the unknown
CJE 9 (Cambridge Journal of Economics)
[“Technology, objects and things in Heidegger”¶ Camb. J. Econ. (2009) first published online
May 29, 2009 doi:10.1093/cje/bep02, AV 6/25/14]
Another word in Heidegger’s constellation of technology terms is danger, which turns
out to be yet another synonym for a presence-at-hand that strips the world of all concealed
mystery. ‘The essence of technology is en-framing. The essence of en-framing is danger’
(Heidegger, 1994, p. 54). Though the danger is already with us, we do not yet experience it
as danger (Heidegger, 1994, p. 55). And to add yet another term to the mix: ‘in the wake of
every danger, there looms a distress. Distress compels. [Not no¨tigt]’ (Heidegger, 1994,
p. 55). This talk of danger also links up with one of Heidegger’s favourite passages from the
poet Friedrich Ho¨lderin. In the hymn ‘Patmos’, Ho¨lderlin writes: ‘Wo aber Gefahr ist,
wa¨chst / Das Rettende auch’ [‘But where danger is, there grows / also that which saves’].
This two-sided interplay of danger and saving power reflects the two faces of being itself.
Being presents itself as a present-at-hand facxade, but also withdraws into inscrutable
subterranean depth. Technology is not a lamentable human deed of Neolithic times or the
Industrial Revolution, but an unavoidable facet of being itself. For being (or sometimes
‘beyng’ [Seyn], to use Heidegger’s beloved archaic spelling) lies far beyond the normal
cause-and-effect relationships of the world: ‘beyng is not accompanied by anything
comparable to it. It is caused by nothing else, and is not the cause of itself. Beyng does not
proceed, and never proceeds, from a causal connection’ (Heidegger, 1994, p. 75). Hence,
humans cannot force a change in the essence of technology to occur and must passively
wait. But this still leaves us with a special role denied to all other entities: ‘the great human
essence resides in the fact that it belongs to the essence of being, is used by it to preserve the
essence of being in its truth’ (Heidegger, 1994, p. 70). In the danger of being lies the
possibility of a turn (Kehre) away from the forgetting of being into the truth of being itself
(Heidegger, 1994, p. 71). Despite the horror of technology, Heidegger contends that we
can see the lightning-flash of being in the essence of technology. By stripping everything
down to such a miserable form of presence-at-hand, it confronts us with the call of distress
from being itself (Heidegger, 1994, p. 77). But humans, the shepherds of being, must
continue to wait: ‘Only when humans, as the shepherds of being, wait upon the truth of
being can they in any way anticipate the arrival of the other destiny of being, without
degenerating into a mere wish to know’ (Heidegger, 1994, pp. 71–2).
 Alt – Distress
Heideggerian thought provides the gift of distress that provokes self reflection
DeLuca 05 Associate Professor of Speech Communication in the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia,
Indiana University Press, “Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and Practice,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ethics_and_the_environment/v010/10.1deluca.html
First off, Heidegger's work offers a way of thinking. In the beginning of "The Question Concerning
Technology" Heidegger writes, "Questioning builds a way. We would be advised, therefore,
above all to pay heed to the way and not to fix our attention on isolated sentences and topics.
The way is one of thinking" (1993, 311). These words suggest an approach to environmental
issues (and a way of reading Heidegger). The first paragraph of "The Age of the World Picture" offers more explicit advice:
"Reflection4 is the courage to make the truth of our own presuppositions and the realm of our
own goals into the things that most deserve to be called into question" (1977, 116). What is crucial here
is that Heidegger is offering us the gift of distress if we have the courage to embark on the path of questioning, of mindfulness, that
casts into doubt all of our taken-for-granted. Heidegger is not offering us answers or programs or utopian
projections. Traveling the path is our task of thinking. Perhaps a groundplan can be cobbled out of Heidegger's
work, though I think such a project is antithetical to Heidegger's thought. Michael Zimmerman attempts to answer
a groundplan-like question: "the extent to which Martin Heidegger's philosophy manages to
carry out the task proposed by Passmore: to provide a nonanthropocentric way of thinking
that will lead us out of the current crisis in culture and environment " (1983, 100). Fortunately,
Zimmerman's work, while perhaps harnessing Heidegger to provide "a basis for radical environmentalism" (1983, 128), falls short of
providing a groundplan. Throughout
this essay I want to insist on reading Heidegger as offering not
groundplans, but the gift of distress that provokes us to question our presuppositions and
goals. The presuppositions and goals that we need to question include humanity's relation to
nature, humanity's and environmental groups' relation to industrialism and technology, and
the strategic practices of environmental groups, including lobbying, public relations, the dissemination of
wilderness images, the promotion of ecotourism, and the goal of saving wilderness.
 Alt – Openness
We must shift our focus from the basic ontology that focuses on the “naïve and
opaque” to fundamental ontology that allows us to disclose the truth of the
human being
Rae 10 [Gavin, Department of Philosophy at The American University in Cairo. “Re-Thinking the
Human: Heidegger, Fundamental Ontology, and Humanism.” Human Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1
(May 2010), pp. 23-39, Published by: Springer, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40981088, 6/27/14,
AV]
¶ Asnoted, however, frequently the second movement of Heidegger's analysis was ¶ forgotten and/or ignored and his thought
became interpreted as a philosophical ¶ anthropology of the human being. However, this is not and never was the ¶ Heideggarian
project. Heidegger is not interested in providing an anthropological ¶ account of the human being; "the analytic of Dasein remains
wholly orientated ¶ towards the guiding task of working out the question of Being" (1962, p. 38). The
movement from ¶

analysing the ontology of the human being to that of being must be ¶ continued if the human
being, and all else, is to be understood. As Heidegger ¶ explains, "basically, all ontology, no matter
how rich and firmly compacted a ¶ system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and
perverted from its ¶ ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being,
and ¶ conceived this clarification as its fundamental task" (1962, p. 31, italics in original]. ¶ For this
reason he calls an inquiry into the being of beings "fundamental ontology" ¶ (1962, p. 34) as
opposed to the "naive and opaque" (1962, p. 31) ontology that simply focuses on beings. Only
fundamental ontology can disclose the truth of the ¶ human being. ¶

To think of being in its true form we must abandon thought that operates
through fixed boundaries
Rae 10 [Gavin, Department of Philosophy at The American University in Cairo. “Re-Thinking the
Human: Heidegger, Fundamental Ontology, and Humanism.” Human Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1
(May 2010), pp. 23-39, Published by: Springer, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40981088, 6/27/14,
AV]
Linked to Heidegger's notion that critique undertakes a clearing that opens up ¶ new paths of
thought is his insistence that being: (1) must be thought on its own ¶ terms; and (2) transcends
metaphysical binary oppositions. This is a crucial aspect ¶ of Heidegger's valorization of being and his attempt to re-
think the human. For ¶ Heidegger, metaphysics remains caught in an either/or subject/object dichotomy ¶ because of its reliance on
conceptual thought. But, as I noted, being
cannot be ¶ thought conceptually; to think of being requires
that we "recognise that there is a ¶ thinking more rigorous than the conceptual" (1978a, p. 258).
Heidegger recognizes that our conditioning to think in terms of fixed oppositions means that the new
non- ¶ conceptual form of thinking he brings to our attention is both difficult to think and/ ¶ or
may seem nonsensical. However, he is adamant that to think of being, that which ¶ truly "is," requires
that we abandon thought that operates through fixed ontical ¶ boundaries. This is possible and indeed
necessary because being escapes such ¶ logical oppositions.
 Alt Solves – Generic
The solution to the technologically induced problem of global warming is not
technological. It is being open to a new way of interpretation in which entities
other than those of standing reserve can exist
Backhaus 9 [Gary, Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy "Automobility: Global Warming as
Symptomatology." Sustainability 1.2 (2009): 187-208, 4/20/9. www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability, 6/27/14, AV] This very brief
discussion of Heidegger is important for two reasons. First, because my conception of automobility emphasizes the spatial
organization of standing reserve, which Heidegger does not treat, and because automobility entails an empirical manifestation of
man‟s ordering attitude and behavior in terms of spatial production, we recognize an already established ontological analysis from
which automobility is to be interpreted. Secondly, we
have an exemplar by which we can see what is to be
done to uncover the Being that allows something to appear as that something, which is
always other than the appearing beings. Heidegger‟s hermeneutics provides the possibility to
claim that the solution to the technologically induced problem of global warming is not itself
something technological, if indeed we are to open ourselves to other possible
interpretational modes of Being such that other kinds of entities would then be unconcealed .
We want to free ourselves up to sustainability as a way of Being by being open for a new way
of interpretation, a new worldview, a new paradigm for living, other than enframing, by
which new kinds of entities other than those of standing reserve will show themselves from
its clearing.
 Alt Solves – Environment
In the world of the alt tech is still accessible, the comportment shift fixes how
we relate to it, solves back for the environmental destruction
Dreyfus ’93 (October 1993, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Heidegger on the Connection between
Nihilism, Art, Technology and Politics, file:///C:/Users/Zach/Downloads/dreyfus%20-
%20Heidegger%20on%20the%20Connection%20between%20Nihilism,%20Art,%20Technology
%20and%20Politics%20.pdf)
In the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the robot, HAL, when asked if he is happy on the mission,
says: "I'm using all my capacities to the maximum. What more could a rational entity want? "
This is a brilliant expression of what anyone would say who is in touch with our current understanding of being. We pursue the
development of our potential simply for the sake of further growth. We have no specific goals .
The human potential movement perfectly expresses this technological understanding of being, as
does the attempt to better organize the future use of our natural resources. We thus become
part of a system which no one directs but which moves towards the total mobilization and
enhancement of all beings, even us. This is why Heidegger thinks the perfectly ordered society
dedicated to the welfare of all is not the solution of our problems but the culmination of the
technological understanding of being. Heidegger, however, sees that "it would be foolish to attack
technology blindly. It would be shortsighted to condemn it as the work of the devil. We
depend on technical devices; they even challenge us to ever greater advances." (DOT 53, G 24)
Instead, Heidegger suggests that there is a way we can keep our technological devices and yet remain
true to ourselves as receivers of clearings:
We can affirm the unavoidable use of technical devices, and also deny them the right to
dominate us, and so to warp, confuse, and lay waste our nature . (DOT 54, G 24-25) To understand how this
might be possible, we need an illustration of Heidegger's important distinction between technology and the technological
understanding of being Again we can turn to Japan. In contemporary Japan traditional For us to be able to make a similar
dissociation, Heidegger holds, we
must rethink the history of being in the West. Then we will see that
although a technological understanding of being is our destiny, it is not our fate . That is, although
our understanding of things and ourselves as resources to be ordered, enhanced, and used efficiently has been building up since
Plato, we are not stuck with that understanding. Although the
technological understanding of being governs
the way things have to show up for us, we can hope for a transformation of our current
cultural clearing. Only those who think of Heidegger as opposing technology will be surprised at his next point. Once we
see that technology is our latest understanding of being, we will be grateful for it . This clearing is
the cause of our distress, yet if it were not given to us to encounter things and ourselves as resources, nothing would show up as
anything at all, and no possibilities for action would make sense. And once we realize -- in our practices, of course, not just as matter
of reflection -- that we
receive our technological understanding of being, we have stepped out of
the technological understanding of being, for we then see that what is most important in our
lives is not subject to efficient enhancement -- indeed, the drive to control everything is
precisely what we do not control. This transformation in our sense of reality -- this overcoming of thinking
in terms of values and calculation -- is precisely what Heideggerian thinking seeks to bring
about. Heidegger seeks to make us see that our practices are needed as the place where an understanding of being can establish
itself, so we can overcome our restricted modern clearing by acknowledging our essential receptivity to understandings of being
modern man must first and above all find his way back into the full breadth of the space proper to his essence. That essential space
of man's essential being receives the dimension that unites it to something beyond itself ... that is the way in which the safekeeping
of being itself is given to belong to the essence of man as the one who is needed and used by being. (QCT 39, TK 39 )
This
transformation in our understanding of being, unlike the slow process of cleaning up the
environment, which is, of course, also necessary, would take place in a sudden gestalt switch .
The turning of the danger comes to pass suddenly. In this turning, the clearing belonging to the essence of being suddenly clears
itself and lights up. (QCT 44, TK 43) The danger -- namely that we have a leveled and concealed
understanding of being -- when grasped as the danger, becomes that which saves us . The selfsame
danger is, when it is as the danger, the saving power. (QCT 39, TK 39) This remarkable claim gives rise to two opposed ways of
understanding Heidegger's response to technology. Both interpretations agree that once one recognizes the technological
understanding of being for what it is -- an historical understanding -- one gains a free relation to it. We neither push forward
technological efficiency as our sole goal nor always resist it. If we are free of the technological imperative we can, in each case,
discuss the pros and cons. As Heidegger puts it: We
let technical devices enter our daily life, and at the same
time leave them outside, ... as things which are nothing absolute but remain dependent upon
something higher. I would call this comportment toward technology which expresses "yes"
and at the same time "no", by an old word, releasement towards things . 16 (DOT 54, G 25) One natural
way of understanding this proposal holds that once we get in the right relation to technology, viz. recognize
it as a clearing, it is revealed as just as good as any other clearing.17 Efficiency -- getting the
most out of ourselves and everything else, "being all you can be" -- is fine, as long as we see
that efficiency for its own sake is not the only end for man, dictated by reality itself , but is just our
current understanding. Heidegger seems to support this acceptance of the technological understanding of being as a way of living
with technological nihilism when he says: That which shows itself and at the same time withdraws [i.e., our understanding of being]
is the essential trait of what we call the mystery. I call the
comportment which enables us to keep open to the
meaning hidden in technology, openness to the mystery . Releasement toward things and
openness to the mystery belong together. They grant us the possibility of dwelling in the
world in a totally different way. They promise us a new ground and foundation upon which we
can stand and endure in the world of technology without being imperiled by it . Heidegger finds
essential to overcoming nihilism: embeddedness in nature, nearness or localness, and new shared
meaningful differences. Thus releasement, while giving us a free relation to technology and
protecting our nature from being distorted and distressed, cannot by itself give us any of
these.
 Alt Solves – Global Warming
Alt key to solve warming, multiple warrants.
Housman and Flynn 11 [Benjamin H. Housman and Thomas R. Flynn “Cooling Down Global
Warming: Revisiting Sartre and Heidegger on this Modern Day Challenge” The ‘Step Back’ as a
‘Step Towards’ Confronting Global April 14, 2011]
E. The ‘Step Back’ as a ‘Step Towards’ Confronting Global Warming Heidegger directly speaks to this notion of a ‘step back’ in many
of his works, but particularly in his 1957 essay entitled “The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics”. He says, “ The
step
back points to the realm which until now has been skipped over, and from which the essence
of truth becomes first of all worthy of thought” (1969 [1957], 49). Stepping back out of
positionality, out of solely calculative thinking, out of the plans and schedules of our daily
lives, provides an entirely new perspective on how we relate to the world, on how we live in
this world, that will enable us to see certain aspects of our world in an altogether new
dimension. This step back allows us to pull out of the systematically rigid, planned, and
positioned world that consumes us. Through this step back and meditative thinking, we can
begin to live resonantly through releasement, escaping the shackles of technology that
currently overpower and define our being. Even if we learn to have this comportment towards
things engendered through releasement and become capable of living with technology rather than as slaves to it, will this be
sufficient; will global warming cease being a danger? Many people would argue that technology must be
reformed and transformed altogether, for even if we learn to live with technology, the levels of greenhouse gases emitted by the
technological devices we use on a daily basis is simply unsustainable. As mentioned earlier, though, Heidegger 42 accepts
the technological direction of history and realizes that we cannot simply eliminate
technological devices from our daily lives; we cannot instantaneously revert to a pre-
Industrial, agrarian society. However, failure to revive our meditative thinking means that
calculative thinking would continue to dominate the way we think, thereby only exacerbating
the levels of consumption, utility, application, and positionality that define the modern
technological world. Failure to ‘step back’ and a persistence of calculative thinking would only
keep us on the same path; global warming would only increase and we would stand little hope
of preserving our environment. Releasement, while it represents a non-willing, does not mean that the will ceases to
exist altogether. While one can be open to the mystery of the world, one can also live his or her life
but take that which presences and ascribe meaning to it through a meditative thinking . This
means that in letting being be, the true essence of being breathes freely and reveals itself. In the
context of the modern technological world, we release ourselves to the world by letting the
technical devices and phenomena—cell phones, automobiles, power plants, the motorized
food industry etc.—enter our lives so that we can understand exactly how they fit into our
world. Through such an understanding, we may begin to see those technical devices and
phenomena from a new perspective, one that may inspire us to modify them in such a way
that we can more essentially guard being. Indeed, global warming fundamentally threatens
being; if our roles as shepherds of being means protecting being from that which threatens it,
then we must address this culture of modernity overrun by calculative thinking and rooted in
global warming. Releasement towards things enables us to live with technology because 43 it enlightens us on the very
dangers inherent in modern technology but separate from its essence. Heidegger does not intend to suggest that
we can provide a quick and easy solution to global warming merely through changing the way
we think. He recognizes the scope and force of technology, and feels this danger in all its power. However, adjusting the
way we live our lives represents a necessary step towards preventing global warming from
destroying our earth. We cannot solve this problem through continually applying
metaphysical methods involving calculations, statistics, and numbers to the objectified and
alienated environment around us. Such thinking still resides in the calculative and positioned
culture of modernity that prevents us from coexisting meditatively with nature. This ‘step
towards’ hampering global warming and ‘step back’ to the realm of meditative thinking that
has been skipped over will lead to careful activity in the spirit of guarding being and our
nature. Heidegger says in his Letter on Humanism, “Thinking comes to an end when it slips out of its element…Said plainly,
thinking is the thinking of Being” (1993 [1947], 220). He proceeds to say at the end of his letter, “Thus thinking is a deed.
But a deed that also surpasses all praxis. Thinking towers above action and production, not
through the grandeur of its achievement and not as a consequence of its effect, but through
the humbleness of its inconsequential accomplishment ” (262). Thus, thinking is an action, the
highest action , insofar as it is a thinking of Being, which has been forgotten in our current
age. But this thinking of Being does not mean that ‘deeds’ or everyday praxis cease to exist or cease to have any significance in our
daily lives. Rather, deeds are now enriched due to the deed, thinking, which allows one to access 44 Being. Deeds undertake
a more careful role in our lives and have more meaning behind them since they have been
thought in relation to Being. Does this mean that through meditative thinking we will all arrive at the same solution, the
same relation to being and adopt universal deeds that everyone supports? Presumably not. Some people may be
inspired to become hermits and radically limit or virtually eliminate the role of technology in
their lives altogether; others may adopt certain habits that they believe frees them from
technology’s authority; and others may devote themselves to developing new technical
devices that do not deplete so many resources and do not distance us from Being. However
one changes his or her deeds, what remains consistent is that the person has now adopted an
ethic of care, has now freed him[/her]self from technology’s dominion, has recognized the
danger in positionality and the largely calculative culture of modernity , and has transformed his or her
activity so that it resides closer to the human’s essential nature. This way of being grants us the opportunity to
save our environment, if and only if the distress is felt widely and profoundly , and may be what
Heidegger had in mind when he called for us to say ‘yes and no’ to technology. F. How to Say ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ to Technology
Heidegger’s thoughts on technology may seem utterly abstract and impractical, in that he never provides any
specific plans towards confronting particular devices or processes— e.g. reduce carbon
emissions to ‘x’ level per year, only use public transportation, etc.— because such suggestions
still reside in the metaphysical realm. Heidegger recognizes a deeper and more prevalent
issue; our way of relating to the world as measurable, as standing reserve, as not yet applied,
and as not yet consumed. Solutions, then, cannot 45 solely focus on specific devices because
these devices are only objectified symptoms and reflections of a larger, cultural problem. Our
efforts must also be directed towards attending to this culture of modernity that threatens
both man’s essence and our environment. So what does Heidegger’s philosophy offer us? It offers a view of the
world that has been overlooked by many due to the speed and lack of thought that pervades society. It shows the ubiquitous
positionality and treatment of things as standing reserve that has been unthought. And it highlights the danger in this way of relating
to the world— particularly to man’s essence, but also to ‘the thing’ itself. Heidegger calls us to meditatively think on this culture—
think on our constant application and consumption and ‘release’ ourselves to being —before it is too late. Global
warming
cannot be prevented if we continue allowing technological devices to dominate our lives and
remain trapped in this positioned world. Everyone must step back and reflect on the
technological culture of modernity, including politicians, CEOs, and world leaders. Through
meditative thinking we will find ways to say yes and, at the same time, no to technology—
coexist with it—and appreciate the natural materials and environment from which our devices
originated. Through meditative thinking people will find ways to balance the technology that
we have today with our roles as shepherds, guardians, and thoughtful creatures inhabiting
this earth. Part of this lies in preparing the site for the clearing of Being. Saying yes and no to
technology means that our activity within such a technological world cannot be focused on
the application of things as standing reserve; rather, our essential activity of thinking will help
allow us to clear the cluttered, positioned world and let Being shine into our lives. While some
of us immersed in this 46 fast-paced, technological world may view this as a sacrifice, such
changes will actually bring us nearer to the thing, closer to our essential space, and will
preserve our environment. Without appreciating Heidegger’s call for meditative thinking and
stepping back out of our current culture, we will remain slaves to positionality and all that
comes with it, namely global warming.
 Alt Solves – Empirical

Alt has been shown empirically to work, solves back for all impacts and
accesses all advantages, Woodstock proves.
Dreyfus ’93 (October 1993, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism,
Art, Technology and Politics, file:///C:/Users/Zach/Downloads/dreyfus%20-%20Heidegger%20on
%20the%20Connection%20between%20Nihilism,%20Art,%20Technology%20and%20Politics
%20.pdf)
Heidegger calls a new god, and this is why he holds that only a god can save us . What can we do to
get what is still non-technological in our practices in focus in a non-nihilistic paradigm? Once one sees the problem, one
also sees that there is not much one can do about it. A new sense of reality is not something that can be made
the goal of a crash program like the moon flight -- another paradigm of modern technological power. A new paradigm
would have to take up practices which are now on the margin of our culture and make them
central, while de-emphasizing practices now central to our cultural self-understanding . It would
come as a surprise to the very people who participated in it, and if it worked it would become an exemplar of a new understanding
of what matters and how to act. There would, of course, be powerful forces tending to take it over and mobilize it for our
technological order, and if it failed it would necessarily be measured by our current understanding and so look ridiculous. A hint
of what such a new god might look like is offered by the music of the sixties . Bob Dylan, the Beatles,
and other rock groups became for many the articulation of new understanding of what really mattered. This new
understanding almost coalesced into a cultural paradigm in the Woodstock music festival of 1969,
where people actually lived for a few days in an understanding of being in which mainline
contemporary concerns with order, sobriety, willful activity, and flexible, efficient control
were made marginal and subservient to certain pagan practices, such as openness, enjoyment
of nature, dancing, and Dionysian ecstasy, along with neglected Christian concerns with peace,
tolerance, and non-exclusive love of one's neighbor. Technology was not smashed or denigrated,
rather all the power of electronic communications was put at the service of the music which
focused the above concerns. If enough people had recognized in Woodstock what they most cared
about and recognized that many others shared this recognition, a new understanding of being might have been
focused and stabilized. Of course, in retrospect it seems to us who are still in the grip of the technological understanding of
being that the concerns of the Woodstock generation were not organized and total enough to sustain a culture. Still we are
left with a hint of how a new cultural paradigm would work. This helps us understand that we
must foster human receptivity and preserve the endangered species of pre-technological
practices that remain in our culture, in the hope that one day they will be pulled together in a
new paradigm, rich enough and resistant enough to give a new meaningful direction to our lives.
 Alt First
Heidegger alternative thinking first
When Deontology and Utilitarianism Aren't Enough: How Heidegger's Notion of "Dwelling"
Might Help Organisational Leaders Resolve Ethical Issues D. Ladkin Journal of Business Ethics
Vol. 65, No. 1 (Apr., 2006) , pp. 87-98 Published by: Springer Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25123772
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25123772?searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DInhabiting%2Bthe%2BEarth%253A%2BHeidegger%252C
%2BEnvironmental%2BEthics%252C%2Band%2Bthe%2BMetaphysics%2Bof%2BNature%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc
%3Doff&resultItemClick=&Search=yes&searchText=Earth%253A&searchText=of&searchText=Inhabiting&searchText=Environmental&searchText=the&searchText=Heidegger
%252C&searchText=Metaphysics&searchText=Ethics%252C&searchText=Nature&searchText=and&uid=3739256&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103894712771

This paper considers an alternative approach to resolving issues experienced as having an

ethical component by those exercising leadership. whether formally or informally. within
organizations. The limitations of deontological. or principle-based ethics as well as those
grounded in consequentiality or utilitarianism include that they are experienced as being too
abstract to be usable. along with the view that the philosophical language with which they are
often presented is off-putting to those engaged in organizational life (Monast. I994: Stark. I993).
However. this paper argues that another key reason why deontology and utilitarianism often
fail leaders is that such approaches do not adequately account for the reality of leadership
practice: its contextual and contingent nature . Along with the relational dynamic which lies at
its heart. When principle- based or utilitarian approaches do not adequately address aspects of
relational practice. this paper proposes that appropriate ethical conduct might be approached
through considering what constitutes "coming into right relationship" (Cheney. 2002) between
the actors involved in a given situation. "Coming into right relationship" involves attending both
to one's own values and responses to a situation. as well as to others' who have a stake in the
consequences of decisions. But this is not a simple process of active listening or working towards
compromise. There is a particular quality to the kind of engagement suggested here,
characterized by the phenomenological notion of "dwelling" (Heidegger, 1971). At its heart,
dwelling requires actors to be willing to be influenced by, as well as to influence, the other. By
adopting a "dwelling" orientation to ethical deliberation, truly creative resolutions can result
from seemingly intransigent situations. Because of their emergent nature, the ensuing
decisions or actions could not have been foreseen at the genesis of the interaction. Before
presenting this argument more fully, the paper frames its positioning vis-a-vis leadership, and
then examines further the limitations of more traditional frameworks for dealing with the
ethical problems faced by organizational leaders.
A2:
 A2: Perm – Still Links

Permutation still links to the K because technological thought and affirmative

action cannot exist independently from metaphysics
 Thiele 95 [Professor of Political Science at University of Florida, Leslie Paul, Timely Meditations,
p.193-4, http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3235265?
uid=3739256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104377098813]
Technology is one of Heidegger's enduring and foremost concerns. Though Heidegger only explicitly
formalized this concern in his later work, he expressed his worry about the systematic rationalization of the world early on. In 1919,
Heidegger clearly described in a personal letter what over two decades later would become a preoccupation of his published work.
He writes: "Theunbridled, basically Enlightenment directive to nail life and everything living onto a
board, like things, orderly and flat, so that everything
becomes overseeable, controllable, definable, connectable, and explicable, where only many
pure and unrestrained (sit venia verbo)—`ables' exist—this directive underlies all the many quasi-
memories of life, which are being attempted today in every sphere of experience ."' For
Heidegger, the "Enlightenment directive" to control and standardize life ensues from the
metaphysical drive to objectify the world.Modern technology and metaphysics, it follows, are
largely equivalent terms (EP 93). Both arise from and evidence a refusal to think Being in their
systematic (conceptual and practical) effort to possess and master being.  Modern technology
and metaphysics stand entwined. As such, neither allows a proper perspective from which to
evaluate or overcome the other (OGS 59).Technology entices us into a productive process that
precludes questioning thought, yet only such questioning could adequately reveal the nature
of metaphysics. In turn, metaphysical humankind, engaged as a subject in the reductive objectification of being, is left little
alternative but a technological apprehension and manipulation of the world.
 A2: Perm – Generic No Solvency
Perm cant solve, the technological mindset of the 1AC will over shroud the
alternative in the instance of enacting the plan
DeLuca, Kevin. "Project MUSE - Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and
Practice." Project MUSE - Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and
Practice. N.p., 2005. Web. 27 June 2014.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/een/summary/v010/10.1deluca.html>.
Machination is unconditional controllability, the domination of all beings, the world, and
earth through calculation, acceleration, ethnicity, and giganticism. Calculation represents a
reduction of knowing to mathematics and science and a reduction of the world and earth to
what is calculable, a step taken decisively by Descartes (1999, 84-96). Machination is the "pattern of
generally calculable explainability, by which everything draws nearer to everything else
equally and becomes completely alien to itself" (1999, 92). The unrestrained domination of
machination produces a totalizing worldview that enchants: " When machination finally
dominates and permeates everything, then there are no longer any conditions by which still
actually to detect the enchantment and to protect oneself from it . The bewitchment by technicity and its
constantly self-surpassing progress are only one sign of this enchantment, by virtue of which everything presses forth into
calculation, usage, breeding, manageability, and regulation" (1999, 86-87). Heidegger prophetically predicts that machination will
produce "a gigantic progress of sciences in the future. These advancements will bring exploitation and usage of the earth as well as
rearing and training of humans into conditions that are still inconceivable today" (1999, 108). Animals and plants are reduced to
various forms of use value and, more significantly, are banished from Being-in-the-world with us: "What is a plant and an animal to
us any- more, when we take away use, embellishment, and entertainment" (1999, 194). "Nature" suffers a similar fate: "What
happens to nature in technicity, when nature is separated out from beings by the natural sciences? The growing-or better, the
simple rolling unto its end-destruction of 'nature'. . . . And finally what was left was only 'scenery' and recreational opportunity and
even this still calculated into the gigantic and arranged for the masses" (1999, 195). Under the unrestrained domination of
machination, humans suffer a "hollowing out" (1999, 91, 348) and Being-in-the-world is replaced by "adventures." (I am here
translating Erlebnis as adventure. Others translate it as lived-experience.)

Perm can’t solve—Technological thought prevents any other form of thinking

and destroys Being
McWhorter 92 [Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northeast Missouri State University,
Ladelle, Heidegger and the Earth, ed. by Ladelle McWhorter]
This managerial, technological mode of revealing, Heidegger says, is embedded in and constitutive
of Western culture and has been gathering strength for centuries. Now it  is well on its way to
extinguishing all other modes of revealing, all other ways of being human and being earth. It
will take tremendous effort to think through this danger , to think past it and beyond, tremendous courage
and resolve to allow thought of the mystery to come forth; thought of the inevitability, along with revealing, of
concealment, of loss, of ignorance;  thought of the occurring of things and their passage as
events not ultimately under human control. And of course even the call to allow this thinking - couched as it so
often must be in a grammatical imperative appealing to an agent - is itself a paradox, the first that must be faced and allowed to
speak to us and to shatter us as it scatters thinking in new directions, directions of which we have not yet dreamed, directions of
which we may never dream. And shattered we may be, for our self-understanding is at stake; in
fact, our very selves - selves engineered by the technologies of power that shaped, that are,
modernity - are at stake. Any thinking that threatens the notion of human being as modernity
has posited it – as rationally self-interested individual, as self-possessed bearer of rights and obligations, as active mental and
moral agent - is thinking that threatens our very being, the configurations of subjective existence
in our age.
Separation of the aff and the alt is key to truly affirming our Being
Marzec, Robert. "Project MUSE - An Anatomy of Empire." Project MUSE - An Anatomy of
Empire. Symploke, 2001. Web. 27 June 2014.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/symploke/summary/v009/9.1marzec.html>.
Retrieving crucial foundational shifts in history that determine the order of existence in our present marks the first aspect of this
archival study of empire, or, to use Spanos's term, "anatomy." The second involves the interrogation of not only
accepted discourses, but cutting-edge movements of critical thought as well , an aspect of scholarship
that good cautious scholars take as a principal charge. In the work of Edward Said, for instance, Spanos traces a movement of
thought that inadvertently leads to a major oversight in the field of postcolonial criticism
empowered by Said's insights. Fleshing out the influence of colonization along the full
continuum of being, Spanos throws into relief the repercussions of Said's emphasis on geopolitical imperialism and
subsequent failure to give full weight to the ontological origins of occidental imperialism. This gesture enables Spanos to reveal the
extent to which the relay of imperial ideologies is enabled by a centuries-long colonization of the notion of "truth" itself, a
colonization governed by a logic of mastery that stems from Imperial Rome and that "derives from thinking being meta-ta-physica
["above," "beyond," or "outside" things in contextual, temporal flux]." Similarly, Spanos finds it highly disabling that critics have
come to take Foucault's emphasis on the period of the Enlightenment as evidence for concluding this moment in history to be a
"mutation" in thinking resulting in Western Imperialism proper." Consequently, postcolonial theory in general heedlessly contributes
to a failure to consider the full jurisdiction of imperialism. The widespread impulse to emphasize the period of the Enlightenment as
if it were the cradle of true imperial practices is symptomatic of the very...
 A2: Perm – Doesn’t Solve GW
Perm doesn’t solve - No paradigm shift in the world of the aff – the
technological mindset quashes dissent. A cultural shift is the only way to
challenge climate change – the USFG is inadequate.
Irwin 08 [Ruth: Senior Lecturer in Ethics, Centre for Business Interdisciplinary Studies Heidegger, politics and climate change:
risking it all. 2008. P. 4-6]
Environmentalism is a vast field, and although most
of us are aware that the modern lifestyle is having
calamitous effects on various specific ecological niches, nevertheless, in general, we have found ways to shrug
our shoulders and get on with life – because we have to. At the same time, we have felt impotent on a
personal, individual level, about affecting any real change. The monolith of modern, consumer
culture has just been too immense, and too caught up in its own success story to allow any
capacity for a meaningful paradigm shift. Indeed, those elements of the population who have
endeavoured to question, challenge or offer alternatives to the modern consumer lifestyle
have been increasingly marginalized . Eccentricity used to be a common and reasonably acceptable aspect of life
through until the 1980s, when corporate culture and technologies of surveillance extended their
sphere into nearly every corner, every farmyard, every alleyway, office block and retail store,
leaving very few perches intact for erratic, unpredictable, creative or ‘mad’ behaviour (Foucault,
1992a). Traditional communities got on with living and dying according to their own customs until ‘global development’ defined
them as a poor under-class without rights (Esteva and Prakash, 1998). The
element of environmental damage that
is demanding a deep cultural shift, in ways as yet unforeseeable, is global climate warming .
Climate warming is in itself, only a segment of the problem of over-population and environmental pollution, but the scale of it, and
its global impact is bringing us up to a wall faster and more definitely than anything else we
have experienced before. Similar frustrations to the Cold War are apparent. Under the Bush Administration, the American
Federal government has refused to engage with the scientific data about climate warming or the global political pressure to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions. The
lack of commitment or leadership for change from a historically
very powerful State has allowed other nations to publicly or quietly fail to enforce the Kyoto
objectives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the levels of 1990 and preferably lower.
 A2: Perm – Reformism
The permutation lacks a radical rejection of managerialism in favor of failed
reformism
Leslie Paul Thiele, University of Florida, September 1998, “Review: Ecocritique: Contesting the
Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture, By Timothy W. Luke,” American Political Science
Review, V. 92, No.3, p. 689
Luke disparages the efforts of those who espouse individual responsibility - organizations such as the Earth Works For Luke,
however, the problem is simply that these approaches are not radical enough. "Rather than pushing for waste
elimination," Luke writes, "the Earth Works Group stands for waste reduction. Instead of advocating total economic
transformation, it accepts weak bureaucratic regulation of present-day polluting processes.
Unable to support the total reconstitution of today's productive forces, it advocates piecemeal reforms to lessen,
but never end, their most environmentally destructive activities ". Luke rejects "weak reformist strategy".
He calls instead for a radical social transformation that would yield bioregionally decentralized communities operating in "equal
partnership with Nature" (p. 208). The ultimate goal is "survivable communitarian ecologies within which people dominate neither
other human beings nor their fellow nonhuman beings" (p. xiii). Presumably these biocentric, egalitarian, protoanarchistic
communities would produce neither waste nor pollution.
 A2: Perm – Coopted
Using the state co-ops the mindset shift, causing states dominance and power
to overwhelm social change form the alt
Howard-Grenville, Jennifer. "Sign In." SagePub. Sagepub, 2006. Web. 27 June 2014.
<http://oae.sagepub.com/content/19/1/46.full.pdf%2Bhtml>.
When we focus on interpretations and actions, however, questions of relative power become
important. Seen this way, interactions between subculture groups are more about advancing
legitimate concerns and getting action on them than . - are about having other groups
internalize a particular set of norms (Bloor & Dawson, I994; Perrow, 1972). This suggests that
even a fragmented perspective on subcultures cannot be neutral on the nature of the
interaction between organizational subcultures. Systems of meaning, even those involving
ambiguity, are always enacted through structures of legitimation and domination (Gidde I984).
Historically, corporate cultures have concentrated power in away that is not conducive to
action on environmental issues (Emerson & Welford, 1997). 11% suggests that greater
attention he paid to the relative power of subcultures and its influence on the problems that
are set an the actions that are taken around particular environmental issues within
organizations
 A2: Perm – Invisibility DA
INVISIBILITY D/A - calculative thought objectifies everything, it is invisible to
itself as a mode of thinking. Calculative thought destroys questions of how to
think about the world because they cannot stand as objects to be used for a
material goal.
That means if we win any risk of a link the perm can’t access the alternative
because it is this very invisibility that risks the domination of calculative
thought.
Korous, Copeland winner, JD, Emory BA Philosophy, Become What you Are 1997 22-25
The first step in overcoming the calculative understanding of reality is to recognize that it is only one understanding among many.
This is much more difficult than it might sound. First of all, the calculative mode of revealing the world, Enframing, is something that
conceals itself in the process of revealing the world (QT 27). The mode of revealing is so pervasive that it is invisible to us, unless we
That is, as
reflect on it. When we are mired in the concerns of the everyday, Enframing is not encountered, it is only lived.
someone thinking technologically, reality reveals itself to me as a series of objects. I am
attuned to that objectness when I am engaging with the world. Precisely because Enframing is
not an object, but a mode of revealing, it itself will not show up within my observational field.
In order for me to confront technological thought for what it is, a way of revealing, I have to be prepared to
momentarily suspend my calculative mode of thinking and pursue ontological questions.
Second, the continued successes of technological thought blinds us to the fact that it is only an
interpretation of reality and not reality in itself. As Heidegger warns, "The approaching tide of technological
revolution in the atomic age could so captivate, bewitch, dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking may someday come to be
accepted and practiced as the only way of thinking “(DT 56). For every time that a scientific theory pans out, or technological
planning achieves desired ends, we are less capable of viewing technology as only one of many different ways to reveal the world.
Heidegger is not arguing that science is false or useless. In fact, he recognizes that
technological representations of reality often do allow us to make correct determinations
about the world: "In a similar way the unconcealment in accordance with which nature presents itself as a ceculable complex
of the effects of forces can indeed permit correct determinations; but precisely through these successes the danger can remain that
in the midst of all that is correct the true will withdraw" (QT 26). While it might be the case that a river that can yield a calculable
amount of hydropower, this does not mean that the river is, in its essence, a source of energy. But for every power plant built on a
river it becomes increasingly more difficult to appreciate that rivers are not primarily stockpiles of potential energy waiting to be
unleashed.
 A2: Perm –Thought Destruction DA
Though Destruction D/A - The permutation only embraces thinking as a prelude
to action, which makes meditative thinking impossible
*modified for ableist language
McWhorter 92 (Ladelle McWhorter, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Richmond, Heidegger and the Earth, pp. 3)
Heidegger's work is a call to reflect, to think in some way other than calculatively,
technologically, pragmatically. Once we begin to move with and into Heidegger's call and
begin to see our trying to seize control and solve problems as itself a problematic approach, if
we still believe that thinking's only real purpose is to function as a prelude to action, we who
attempt to think will twist within the agonizing grip of paradox, feeling nothing but
frustration, unable to conceive of ourselves as anything but [unable to act]. paralyzed. However,
as so many peoples before us have known, paradox is not only a trap; it is also a scattering point and passageway. Paradox
invites examination of its own constitution (hence of the patterns of thinking within which it occurs) and thereby
breaks a way of thinking open, revealing the configurations of power that propel it and hold it on track.
And thus it makes possible the dissipation of that power and the deflection of thinking into new paths and new possibilities .
 A2: Perm – Concealment DA
The alternative is mutually exclusive with the 1AC’s process of concealment
Ladelle McWhorter, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Northeastern Missouri State
University, 1992, Heidegger and the Earth: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, p. 5
Now, what does this mean? We know that in order to pay attention to one thing, we must stop
paying close attention to something else. In order to read philosophy we must stop reading
cereal boxes. In order to attend to the needs of students we must sacrifice some of our research
time. Allowing for one thing toreveal itself means allowing for the concealing of something else.
All revealing comes at the price of concomitant concealment. But this is more than just a kind
of Kantian acknowledgment of human limitation. Heidegger is not simply dressing up the
obvious, that is, the fact that no individual can undergo two different experiences simulta-
neously. His is not a point about human subjectivity at all. Rather, it is a point about revealing
itself. When revealing reveals itself as temporally linear and causally ordered, for example, it
cannot simultaneously reveal itself as ordered by song and unfolding in dream. Furthermore,
in revealing, revealing itself is concealed in order for what is revealed to come forth. Thus,
when revealing occurs concealing occurs as well. The two events are one and cannot be
separated .
 A2: Cede the Political
The refusal of immediate choice is precisely what gives the critique the power
to force us to re-consider our options and question the nature of the political.
This will invigorate progressive politics.
Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Poliics Wendy Brown Publisher: Princeton
University Press (January 2009) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rw47
On the one hand, critical
theory cannot let itself be bound by political exigency; indeed, it has
something of an obligation to refuse such exigency. While there are always decisive choices to
be made in the political realm (whom to vote for, what policies to support or oppose, what action to take or
defer), these very delimitations of choice are often themselves the material of critical theory.
Here we might remind ourselves that prying apart immediate political constraints from
intellectual ones is one path to being "governed a little less" in Foucault's sense . Yet allowing
thinking its wildness beyond the immediate in order to reset the possibilities of the immediate is also how this degoverning
rearticulates critical theory and politics after disarticulating them; critical theory comes back to politics offering a different sense of
the times and a different sense of time. It is also important to remember that the "immediate choices" are just that and often last no
longer than a political season (exemplified by the fact that the political conundrums with which this essay opened will be dated if not
forgotten by the time this book is published). Nor is the argument convincing that critical theory threatens the possibility of holding
back the political dark. It is difficult to name a single instance in which critical theory has killed off a progressive political project .
Critical theory is not what makes progressive political projects fail; at worst it might give them
bad conscience,.at best it renews their imaginative reach and vigor. 

Theory and politics aren’t separate. Their attempt to separate rethinking

ontology is the reason that being has been forgotten in the first place.
Spanos 2008 ( William, V. “American Exceptionalism in the Age of Globalization” p.2 )
The years following Heidegger’s announcement have borne witness to the emergence of a
number of postmodern or post-ontotheological discourses—deconstruction, genealogy, neo-
Marxism, feminism, gay criticism, new historicism, cultural criticism, postcolonialism, global
criticism, New Americanist studies, and so on—that, despite crucial resistances, have
assimilated Heidegger’s fundamental transformative disclosures in some degree or other into
their particular perspectives. These “new” discourses, in turn, have been (unevenly)
assimilated into most of the traditional disciplines of knowledge production. But have the
implications for both critique and emancipation of this potentially polyvalent revolution in
thinking been fully realized? My answer is an emphatic negative. And the reason for this failure
is that the project of thinking or rethinking the Seinsfrage has come to a premature closure.
This is not simply because of the widespread and ideologically driven identification of
Heidegger’s thought with Nazism in the wake of Victor Farias’s Heidegger et le nazisme (1987). It
is also because of the growing sense on the part of the current Left, especially in the context
of the reemergence of praxis to privileged status over “theory,” that ontology or rather onto-
logical representation is so rarefied a category of thought that it is virtually empty of, if not
hostile to, politics. In other words, the rethinking of thinking Heidegger’s interrogation of the
ontotheological tradition enabled has come to its end because the emancipatory
“postmodern” discourses that his thought catalyzed have, in putting ontological inquiry
(“theory”) in a disabling binary opposition with cultural and “worldly” political praxis, again
forgotten the question of being. In so doing, they have forfeited the advance in thinking
enabled by the Seinsfrage to those metaphysical traditionalists it was intended to disarm.
 A2: Cede the Political – Structural Violence
Focus on policy relevant theory relegates all agenda setting to policymakers,
censoring alternative views and leading to structural violence
Bilgin 05 pinar (department of international relations, bilkent university, ankara, turkey) regional security in the middle east 2005 p
49-50
The positions of Gray and Garnett regarding the theory/practice relationship are similar to that of their conception of theory. Both
authors are in favour of and open about the role theories play in informing practice. However, their conception of practice is
restricted in that they understand practice as policy-making and implementation at governmental level.
In this sense, those who do not engage in issues directly relevant for policymaking are not considered to be engaging with practice.
This position hints at a narrow view of politics where it is considered only to do with governance at the state level. This, in turn,
flows from the objectivist position adopted by the authors where the study of strategy in particular and academic
enterprise in general is viewed as a politics-free zone. This is a powerful move, for once an approach is regarded as ‘objective’,
others that are critical of it are immediately labelled at best subjective’ or ‘political’ in a derogatory
sense, and at worst ‘propaganda’. It is not only the conception of practice adopted by Gray and Garnett but also that of
theory that is restricted in that both conceive theory as ‘problem-solving theory’, in Robert Cox’s (1981) terms; it is there
to assist policy-makers in solving problems (Gray 1992: 626–31). Security Studies, in this sense, is supposed to deal with
issues that are deemed problematic by policy-makers,21 leaving untouched other issues that do not make it to governmental
agendas. This, in turn,
creates a vicious circle where issues to be put on the security agenda are
decided by policy-makers and analysed by those who they consider as ‘experts’. Those who
propound alternative views are dismissed as mere propagandists and the issues they  identified,
such as ‘structural violence’, are not allowed on security  agendas. This position is still prevalent
in certain strands of security thinking in the post-Cold War era (see, for example, Walt 1991). 
 A2: Tech Good
Technological thought makes extinction inevitable – try or die for the neg
Thiele '95 [Professor of Political Science at University of Florida (Leslie Paul, Timely Meditations,
pg. 203]
The age of planetary mastery, technological dominance, and the end of metaphysics, Heidegger
speculates, will likely endure for a long time (EP 95). Indeed, there is no certainty that, from
humanity's point of view, a succession to some other mode of revealing truth is ordained. The
technological quest may reach its climax, as it were, without us. In the absence of an
ontological reorientation, humanity would then be "left to the giddy whirl of its products so
that it may tear itself to pieces and annihilate itself in empty nothingness" (EP 87). Estimating
the likelihood of this apocalyptic conclusion is not Heidegger's concern. In any case, it is fair to
say that the physical annihilation of humanity is not Heidegger's most proximate worry.
Foremost in his mind is the ontological meaning of this potential selfannihilation. If, as
Heidegger put it, "the will to action, which here means the will to make and be effective, has
overrun and crushed thought," then our chances of escaping the catastrophic whirlwind of
enframing are slim indeed (WCT 25). The danger is that intensive technological production
may simply overpower human being's capacity for manifold modes of disclosure, displacing
the freedom inherent in philosophic thought, artistic creativity, and political action. Undeniably
technology fosters thinking, creating, and acting of sorts. Calculation, cognition, innovation, and
engineering are highly valued within technological society, though even here it is not clear that
computers and robots might not eventually displace more of these capacities than their
production demands. The real menace, however, is that social engineering would obviate
political action, endlessly innovative production would leave artistic creativity to atrophy, and
utilitarian cognition would fully displace philosophic questioning.'

In the world of the alt tech is still accessible, the comportment shift fixes how
we relate to it, solves back for the environmental destruction
Dreyfus ’93 (October 1993, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism,
Art, Technology and Politics,)
In the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the robot, HAL, when asked if he is happy on the mission,
says: "I'm using all my capacities to the maximum. What more could a rational entity want? "
This is a brilliant expression of what anyone would say who is in touch with our current understanding of being. We pursue the
development of our potential simply for the sake of further growth. We have no specific goals .
The human potential movement perfectly expresses this technological understanding of being, as
does the attempt to better organize the future use of our natural resources. We thus become
part of a system which no one directs but which moves towards the total mobilization and
enhancement of all beings, even us. This is why Heidegger thinks the perfectly ordered society
dedicated to the welfare of all is not the solution of our problems but the culmination of the
technological understanding of being. Heidegger, however, sees that "it would be foolish to attack
technology blindly. It would be shortsighted to condemn it as the work of the devil. We
depend on technical devices; they even challenge us to ever greater advances." (DOT 53, G 24)
Instead, Heidegger suggests that there is a way we can keep our technological devices and yet remain
true to ourselves as receivers of clearings:
We can affirm the unavoidable use of technical devices, and also deny them the right to
dominate us, and so to warp, confuse, and lay waste our nature . (DOT 54, G 24-25) To understand how this
might be possible, we need an illustration of Heidegger's important distinction between technology and the technological
understanding of being Again we can turn to Japan. In contemporary Japan traditional For us to be able to make a similar
dissociation, Heidegger holds, we
must rethink the history of being in the West. Then we will see that
although a technological understanding of being is our destiny, it is not our fate . That is, although
our understanding of things and ourselves as resources to be ordered, enhanced, and used efficiently has been building up since
Plato, we are not stuck with that understanding. Although the
technological understanding of being governs
the way things have to show up for us, we can hope for a transformation of our current
cultural clearing. Only those who think of Heidegger as opposing technology will be surprised at his next point. Once we
see that technology is our latest understanding of being, we will be grateful for it . This clearing is
the cause of our distress, yet if it were not given to us to encounter things and ourselves as resources, nothing would show up as
anything at all, and no possibilities for action would make sense. And once we realize -- in our practices, of course, not just as matter
of reflection -- that we
receive our technological understanding of being, we have stepped out of
the technological understanding of being, for we then see that what is most important in our
lives is not subject to efficient enhancement -- indeed, the drive to control everything is
precisely what we do not control. This transformation in our sense of reality -- this overcoming of thinking
in terms of values and calculation -- is precisely what Heideggerian thinking seeks to bring
about. Heidegger seeks to make us see that our practices are needed as the place where an understanding of being can establish
itself, so we can overcome our restricted modern clearing by acknowledging our essential receptivity to understandings of being
modern man must first and above all find his way back into the full breadth of the space proper to his essence. That essential space
of man's essential being receives the dimension that unites it to something beyond itself ... that is the way in which the safekeeping
of being itself is given to belong to the essence of man as the one who is needed and used by being. (QCT 39, TK 39 )
This
transformation in our understanding of being, unlike the slow process of cleaning up the
environment, which is, of course, also necessary, would take place in a sudden gestalt switch .
The turning of the danger comes to pass suddenly. In this turning, the clearing belonging to the essence of being suddenly clears
itself and lights up. (QCT 44, TK 43) The
danger -- namely that we have a leveled and concealed
understanding of being -- when grasped as the danger, becomes that which saves us . The selfsame
danger is, when it is as the danger, the saving power. (QCT 39, TK 39) This remarkable claim gives rise to two opposed ways of
understanding Heidegger's response to technology. Both interpretations agree that once one recognizes the technological
understanding of being for what it is -- an historical understanding -- one gains a free relation to it. We neither push forward
technological efficiency as our sole goal nor always resist it. If we are free of the technological imperative we can, in each case,
discuss the pros and cons. As Heidegger puts it: We
let technical devices enter our daily life, and at the same
time leave them outside, ... as things which are nothing absolute but remain dependent upon
something higher. I would call this comportment toward technology which expresses "yes"
and at the same time "no", by an old word, releasement towards things . 16 (DOT 54, G 25) One natural
way of understanding this proposal holds that once we get in the right relation to technology, viz. recognize
it as a clearing, it is revealed as just as good as any other clearing.17 Efficiency -- getting the
most out of ourselves and everything else, "being all you can be" -- is fine, as long as we see
that efficiency for its own sake is not the only end for man, dictated by reality itself , but is just our
current understanding. Heidegger seems to support this acceptance of the technological understanding of being as a way of living
with technological nihilism when he says: That which shows itself and at the same time withdraws [i.e., our understanding of being]
is the essential trait of what we call the mystery. I call the
comportment which enables us to keep open to the
meaning hidden in technology, openness to the mystery . Releasement toward things and
openness to the mystery belong together. They grant us the possibility of dwelling in the
world in a totally different way. They promise us a new ground and foundation upon which we
can stand and endure in the world of technology without being imperiled by it . Heidegger finds
essential to overcoming nihilism: embeddedness in nature, nearness or localness, and new shared
meaningful differences. Thus releasement, while giving us a free relation to technology and
protecting our nature from being distorted and distressed, cannot by itself give us any of
these.
Enframement of technology leads to the creation of a standing reserve which
puts an unreasonable demand on the entity
Backhaus 9
[Gary, Loyola College in Maryland, Department of Philosophy "Automobility: Global Warming as
Symptomatology." Sustainability 1.2 (2009): 187-208, 4/20/9.
www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability, 6/27/14, AV]
In the analysis of a later treatise, “The Question Concerning Technology”, Heidegger maintains that the essence of
technology is not something technological —its Being is not to be interpreted as itself a being (a technology). He
provides what is regarded as the (standard/accepted) correct definition of technology as a human
activity and as a means to an end. By contrast to the correct definition, Heidegger‟s analysis shows that the truth
in the revealing/unconcealment or the essence/Being of modern technology that allows for
modern technological entities to show themselves as such is a “challenging, which puts to
nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as
such. But does this not hold true for the old windmill as well? No. Its sails do indeed turn in the wind; they are left entirely to the
wind‟s blowing. But the windmill does not unlock energy from the air currents in order to store it [16]”. The challenging is a setting-
in-order, a setting upon nature, such that “the earth now reveals itself as a coal mining district” and “what the river is now, a water-
power supplier, derives from the essence of the power station [16]”. What is the character of this
unconcealment? “Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately on hand,
indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered
about in this way has its own standing. We call it standing reserve [16]”. And the challenging that claims
man to challenge nature in this way Heidegger labels, enframing. “Enframing means the gathering together of
that setting-upon that sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the real, in the
mode of ordering, as standing-reserve . Enframing means that the way of revealing that holds
sway in the essence of modern technology and that is itself nothing technological [16]”. Modern
physics, which interprets nature as a system of calculable forces is the herald of enframing. The way of Being through
which entities stand in the clearing, as technological instrumentalities, is enframing and the
way of Being of those entities is that of standing reserve.

Problem does not lie in technology but in the hostile, invasive and dangerous
practice of enframement which treats everything as a standing reserve and
dominates thought and behavior
Marx 84 [Leo, William R Kenan Professor of American Cultural History Emeritus in the Program
in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. On Heidegger's Conception of "Technology" and Its
Historical Validity. Source: The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Winter, 1984), pp. 638-652
Published by: The Massachusetts Review, Inc., http://www.jstor.org/stable/25089606, 6/27/14,
AV]
Enframing, the revealing that rules through modern technology , is far more aggressive, intrusive,
extractive, not to say rapacious than earlier modes of revealing. It is "a setting-upon, in the sense of a challenging-forth," in
effect an ordering or mobilization of every thing to stand by, to be ready for further ordering,
and thereby to serve as a "standing reserve" (pp. 16-17). Heidegger lends a dis tinctly Faustian aura to enframing,
as if it manifested a compulsion to achieve absolute, total knowledge and control of the world. The essence of modern
technology, he says, resides in enframing; what we now feel to be dangerous, threatening, even
monstrous about technology is in fact not technology per se; the threat "does not come in the
first instance from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology," but from
"the rule of Enframing" (p. 28). This rationalistic and instrumental cast of mind, or form of social practice, "threatens
to sweep man away into ordering as the sup posed single way of revealing, and so thrusts
man into the danger of the surrender of his free essence ..." (p. 32). Enframing becomes
dangerous insofar as it dominates thought and behavior , for it once was, and presumably still should be, only
one of the ways "in which the real reveals itself" (p. 23).

Production of technology is not bad. It is the imperialistic attitude towards

technology that leads to its enframement and exploitation.
Thiele 97
[Leslie Paul, Director of Sustainability Studies at the University of Florida.“Postmodernity and
the Routinization of Novelty: Heidegger on Boredom and Technology,” Polity, Vol. 29, No. 4
(Summer, 1997), pp. 489-517. Palgrave Macmillan Journals
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3235265, 6/27/14, AV]
"The emptiness of Being," Heidegger writes, "can never be filled up by the fullness of beings, especially when this emptiness can
never be experienced as such, the only way to escape it is incessantly to arrange beings in the constant possibility of being ordered
as the form of guaran- teeing aimless activity. Viewed in this way, technology is the organization of a lack."44 Technology
replaces the emptiness of Being revealed in the mood of boredom with the production and
consumption of artifacts and the unrelenting manipulation of the world. It reduces the world
to a "standing reserve" (Bestand). To avoid this reduction, Heidegger writes, we must
"overcome the compulsion to lay our hands on every- thing ."45 Though Heidegger is frequently
misinterpreted on this point, refusing to lay our hands on everything does not signal a retreat from
the world, nor even an end to the use and development of machines or other products of
technology. The problem is not the human creation and use of machines but rather the
creation and use of human machines-the making of ourselves into mere extensions of
technological forces and processes. Refusing to lay our hands on everything simply means a
halt to the imperial attitude which enframes everything, everywhere, as raw material
awaiting exploitation

Technology immoral—turns everything into an object lacking of its Being

CJE 9 (Cambridge Journal of Economics)
[“Technology, objects and things in Heidegger” ¶ Camb. J. Econ. (2009) first published online May
29, 2009 doi:10.1093/cje/bep02, AV 6/25/14]
¶ Technology turns everything into an accessible surface, devoid of distance. At times ¶ Heidegger also

shows the disturbing tendency to treat all technology as the same. This can¶ be seen in his claim that the explosion of the atomic bomb
at Hiroshima four years earlier is¶ not so important, since the real disaster happened long ago when being was forgotten in ¶ favour of presence (Heidegger, 1994, p. 6). Or, even more controversially: ‘Agriculture
is¶ now a motorized nourishment industry, essentially the same as the fabrication of corpses in ¶ gas chambers and extermination camps, the same as the blockade and starvation of ¶ nations, the same as the

In this¶ way, all objects are reduced to a single mournful feature:

fabrication of hydrogen bombs’ (Heidegger, 1994, p. 27).

their superficiality in comparison¶ with the withdrawn depth of being.¶

 A2: Tech Inevitable
It is not technology itself that destroys nature, but the way we see that tech
being used that results in destruction
Ross, 07 [Andrew Peter, PhD candidate Queens University department of philosophy,
September "Rethinking Environmental Responsibility: Heidegger, Profound Boredom and the
Alterity of Nature” https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/bitstream/1974/866/1/Ross_
Andrew_P_200709_MA.pdf]
Heidegger confirms this one-dimensional disclosure to be the plight of the natural world in his
assertion that within the Gestell, “[ N]ature becomes a gigantic gasoline station, an energy
source for modern technology and industry” (MA 50). In comparing nature to a gasoline
station, Heidegger is not simply arguing that nature shows up as a resource, but that nature
shows up as nothing but a resource : gasoline stations cannot appear as anything other than a
resource. Natural beings, then, like gasoline stations, are disclosed as entirely one-dimensional
in their being. In this manner, Heidegger offers a somewhat different interpretation of our
current “environmental crisis”. For Heidegger, humanity’s assault upon the earth lies not in
our plundering of resources or the eradication of species, but in the one-dimensional
disclosure of natural beings as nothing other than Bestand.
 A2: Tech Optimism
Tech optimism is the perfect dream of managerial control – tech optimism is
the status quo… it says that we should merely settle with technology because
“it’s the best we have”
McWhorter 1992 (Ladelle McWhorter, Professor of Philosophy at University of Richmond,
Heidegger and the Earth, pp. 8-9)
Therefore, when we react to problems like ecological crises by retreating into the familiar
discomfort of our Western sense of guilt, we are not placing ourselves in opposition to
technological thinking and its ugly consequences. On the contrary, we are simply reasserting
our technological dream of perfect managerial control. How so? Our guilt professes our enduring
faith in the managerial dream by insisting that problems - problems like oil spills, acid rain, groundwater
pollution, the extinction of whales, the destruction of the ozone, the rain forests, the wetlands - lie simply in
mismanagement or in a failure to manage (to manage ourselves in this case) and by
reaffirming to ourselves that if we had used our power to manage our behavior better in the
first place we could have avoided this mess? In other words, when we respond to Heidegger's call
by indulging in feelings of guilt about how we have been treating the object earth, we are
really just telling ourselves how truly powerful we, as agents, are. We are telling ourselves
that we really could have done differently; we had the power to make things work, if only we
had stuck closer to the principles of good management. And in so saying we are in yet a new
and more stubborn way refusing to hear the real message, the message that human beings
are not, never have been, and never can be in complete control, that the dream of that sort of
managerial omnipotence is itself the very danger of which Heidegger warns.
 A2: Management Good
Managerial policies lead to abuse for the nature in surrounding area
Seckinelgin 12-12-09
(December 12, 2009, Hakan Seckinelgin, The Environment and International Politics:
International Fisheries, Heidegger and Social Method (Routledge Research in Environmental
Politics), http://guessoumiss.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/the-environment-and-international-
politics.pdf)
The high costs of collecting data, evaluating it, maintaining surveillance over the zone and
actively enforcing the required measures in these vast zones have become problems that can
obstruct the exercise of rights recognised in the convention . Therefore, some coastal states have resorted to
cooperation in managing the zones that have been established. One of the most common forms of this, particularly in the
developing world, is the invitation of distant water fleets (DWFs) into individual zones in an attempt to benefit from their
technology. This
fact reflects the reality about the contingency of sovereign rights given to coastal
states in EEZ regimes, since it is clear that the ability of developing coastal states to make use
of their new zones is dependent upon the involvement of the industrialised fishing countries. It
may be argued that this fact underpins the EEZ regime to the extent that it was clear to the developed world from the beginning that
productive displacement was not a viable political option. If this was not the case, in parallel to the Attard argument above, a
means of leverage could have been given to the developing world which could have altered
the structure of the existing system by changing the market relations in favour of the
developing world. The language of the convention reflects these considerations as well. Throughout the
convention, marine living resources are recognised as an agent of development in the
developing world. Therefore, the industrial world has become a ‘partner’ in the development
process of those developing countries. This enables industrialised countries to keep their access to the natural
resources of developing countries due to their comparative advantage in technology and finance. The rhetoric of being
‘partners’ does not change the subtext of the countries of the industrialised world becoming
the main beneficiaries of the new regime. On the other hand, one cannot readily deny the advantages
of this situation for the developing coastal states that have benefited, usually in terms of hard
currency input to their national incomes, by capitalising on their marine resources . These linguistic
formulations of marine resources as ‘agent’ and the new relationship established are the means through
which an EEZ area becomes functional as the industrial zone that has become the engine of
development. By definition, the ecological identity, which is based on ecological life, of the resources is subsumed under the
raison d’état in relation to ‘development’. Furthermore, a problem of spatiality has been created. By conceptualising a special zone
that has a different and exclusive legal status from that of the rest of the ocean, attention has been diverted to the immediate
interest of the coastal states in their zones

Spike in Technology negatively impacts nature, empirics prove.

Seckinelgin 12-12-09
(December 12, 2009, Hakan Seckinelgin, The Environment and International Politics:
International Fisheries, Heidegger and Social Method (Routledge Research in Environmental
Politics), http://guessoumiss.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/the-environment-and-international-
politics.pdf)
The 1960s witnessed a rapid deterioration in the global fishing grounds in spite of increased
production. One of the central reasons was the unprecedented technological developments
and investment, which demanded new measures and norms in ocean governance. The other important issue was
the political change in the international arena as a result of decolonization, culminating in the
emergence of a large number of newly independent states . Territorial claims of these new states created an
important challenge to the fisheries of the major metropolitan states. It
was necessary to accommodate both the
needs of decolonized coastal states and the needs of metropolitan states without losing the
economic viability of already established fisheries in the oceans. After long discussions and negotiations
the process of establishing a new ocean governance was initiated under the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1972. It covered
a very large number of marine issues (UNCLOS III Official Text). The most important result of this has been the
creation of exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
 A2: Pragmatism
Pragmatism is synonymous to technological thought-leads to the annihilation of
Being.
Okrent ‘88 (Mark Okrent, Heidegger's Pragmatism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press),
1988 ,“Heidegger’s Pragmatism Redux” www.bates.edu/philosophy/files/2010/07/redux.pdf )
This pragmatic attitude towards linguistic meaning and conceptual content has two sides. First, pragmatists have a
distinct tendency towards verificationism. Meaning turns on the conditions under which we
would be warranted in asserting or believing that some sentence was true, or that some
attribution was appropriate, rather than depending directly on the conditions under which the
sentence was true. But this emphasis on assertibility conditions for a specification of meaning
or conceptual content is not the primary aspect of the pragmatic view of meaning. It in turn arises out of the
distinctively ‘pragmatic’ stance of the pragmatists. In general, pragmatists don’t much care about how
things ‘really and truly’ are ‘in-themselves’, if how they truly are makes no difference to our
ability to cope with the world in ways that matter to us . And, in general, a difference between two possible
ways in which something might be can make a difference to our ability to cope with things in ways that matter to us only if, now or
in the future, we could tell that those two ways in which the thing might be are different. So, given the pragmatism
expressed in the maxim I cited from Peirce, the content of a concept of an object is something
like a prediction of what we would be able to detect, that would matter to our projects,
regarding the effects of placing the object in various circumstances. Pragmatist verificationism
is thus distinguished from its positivist cousin by its distinctive kind of empiricism concerning
evidence and warrant. For the positivist, the meaning of a term or the content of a concept is fixed by the conditions under
which we would be warranted in ascribing the term or attributing the concept, just as it is for the pragmatist. But for 3 the positivist,
as heirs of the classical British empiricists, those conditions ultimately are cashed out in terms of a set of possible sensations. For
pragmatists, on the other hand, a different set of possibilities, the possible practical effects of
operations with and on objects, fix the contents of our conceptions and the meanings of our
words.Stylistically and substantively there are a great many differences between the early
20th century American pragmatists and the Heidegger of Being and Time, Heidegger was a phenomenologist,
the pragmatists were not. The pragmatists were empiricists who were suspicious of a priori investigations, Heidegger was neither an
empiricist nor suspicious, in general, of the a priori. There is an important respect in which Heidegger was an anti-naturalist; the
pragmatists could never be accused of that particular sin against modernity. Nevertheless, in my 1988 book, Heidegger’s
Pragmatism, I argued that there was a very real sense in which the early Heidegger was indeed a close kin of the American
pragmatists. In particular I argued that, regarding linguistic meaning and conceptual content, Heidegger was a pragmatic
verificationist. And I stand by that claim. There is, however, a deeper and more important agreement between the Heidegger of
Being and Time and the pragmatists, an agreement that accounts for the similarity of their views regarding linguistic meaning and
the contents of concepts. This agreement concerns what it is for an agent to be intentionally engaged with a world, or, in more
overtly Heideggerean terms, the basic constitution of the Being of Dasein. In this paper I would like to focus on this deeper similarity,
as well as on the significant respects in which Heidegger’s
brand of pragmatism concerning the structure of
intentionality differs from his American cousins.

The affirmative’s call for pragmatism is another rentrenchment of the will to

will – we think only as a preclude to action which locks out the revolutionary
potential of the alternative. The paradox of inaction is key to revealing the
power structures that hold us hostage.
McWhorter 1992 (Ladelle McWhorter, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Richmond, Heidegger and the Earth, pp.
3)
Heidegger's work is a call to reflect, to think in some way other than calculatively,
technologically, pragmatically. Once we begin to move with and into Heidegger's call and
begin to see our trying to seize control and solve problems as itself a problematic approach, if
we still believe that thinking's only real purpose is to function as a prelude to action, we who
attempt to think will twist within the agonizing grip of paradox, feeling nothing but
frustration, unable to conceive of ourselves as anything but paralyzed. However, as so many peoples
before us have known, paradox is not only a trap; it is also a scattering point and passageway. Paradox invites
examination of its own constitution (hence of the patterns of thinking within which it occurs) and thereby breaks a
way of thinking open, revealing the configurations of power that propel it and hold it on track. And
thus it makes possible the dissipation of that power and the deflection of thinking into new paths and new possibilities .

Alternative is pragmatic, just a new form of discourse

Mendieta, Eduardo. "The Meaning of Being Is the Being of Meaning." On Heidegger's Social
Pragmatism. Sagepub, Jan. 2007. Web. 28 June 2014.
Robert Brandom has broken through this impasse and offered what I think is a new Heidegger, a
Heidegger that many will claim is unrecognizable and even un-Heideggerian, but one that I think
offers a truly new departure for thinking in the decades to come. In fact, Brandom's Heidegger is
probably one of the most original, incisive, and generative readings of Heidegger to have been
produced in the last three decades, one that can be compared in originality to Derrida's and
Gadamer's respective generative readings. Yet, instead of Heidegger the prophet of extremity,
we discover a prophet of sociality and non-deviance;3 instead of a soothsayer of nihilism and
the end of philosophy, we discover a defender of normativity and discursively. Brandom's
Heidegger is not the last metaphysician of either the will to power or truth, but yet another
defender of the Enlightenment project of inferentially articulated commitment and
entitlements, or in other words, the Enlightenment project of the adjudication of authority
and responsibility for giving and asking for reasons. Brandom's Heidegger is not the Oedipal
figure that slays Kant, Hegel, and even Nietzsche on the slaughter bench of language, but yet
one more faithful laborer in the endless task of making explicit how as 'concept-mongering
creatures' we are always already caught in a process of 'deontic scorekeeping'. For Brandom's
Heidegger, succinctly put, epistemic, that is, linguistic, authority, is always and only social.
Brandom's Heidegger turns out to be another exemplary role model of the Enlightenment's
championing of what Brandom calls social and normative pragmatism.
 A2: Heidegger is a nihilist
Heidegger isn’t a nihilist
Sawiki, Jana. "Heidegger and Foucault: Escaping Technological Nihilism." Michel Foucault. Vol.
3. N.p.: Routledge, 1994. 34-66. Print.
Neither Foucault nor Heidegger is [not] a nihilist, but for different reasons. Heidegger escapes
by linking nihilism to calculative thinking and by providing, in turn, an alternative form of
thinking, through which we can uncover meaningful alternatives to present ways of being.
Foucault escapes because he is not offering a diagnosis of the whole of modern technology, or
of its overall direction, hit rather of particular practices within it. The practices of power/
knowledge do not form a systematic whole, but are instead diffused throughout social body.
(ln contrast Dreyfus describes Heidegger's salvific pre-modem ' - as dispersed by those of
modem technology.) Foucault is inventing instruments for identifying and combatting the
undesirable effects of specific practices while maintaining a skeptical attitude about the control
that he has over them.
 A2: Heidegger is a Nazi
Our alternative is a positive employment of Heidegger that allows us to criticize
the very foundations of the Nazis and move away from it.
Swazo 02 (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alaska (Norman K., Crisis Theory and
World Order: Heideggerian Reflections, p. 6)
Heidegger's thought, I submit, is not depreciated by his entanglement. Rather, one should see (as
Derrida, I think rightly, observed) that Heidegger in 1933-34 was unavoidably "caught up" in a political
commitment bound to the metaphysics of modernity , despite his own philosophical critique of modernity
and his effort to overcome the categorical commitments of modern metaphysics. It is thus that Heidegger could be
unwittingly "committed" to National Socialism in 1933-34, i.e., to nationalism and to statism, insofar as
these are metaphysically grounded categorical commitments . Yet, the later Heidegger could
see both nationalism and statism, and especially "the total state" of the twentieth
century, as inseparable from the metaphysics of modernity. He could see the need for a
political system that would come to grips with what he called "the planetary domination
of technology" and all that this implies for the technological determination of practically every feature of planetary life. As
William Spanos puts it, ... Heidegger's ontologically situated destruction of the Western philo -
sophical tradition ... can be-indeed, has been transcoded-into a profound interrogation of
the Eurocentric and hegemonic/imperial implications of the technological superstructure
of modem democratic/capitalistic societies. However limited as such by its generalized ontological focus, Heidegger's
interrogation has become acutely essential to an oppositional discourse that would counter the prevailing representation of
contemporary Western history in the aftermath of the "end" of the Cold War. I mean the representation that grossly mystifies
the epochal events of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe as the "fall of socialism" or, conversely, the "triumph of the principles
of democracy," which projects these events sensationally as the "end of history" or, alternatively, as the advent of a "new
It is in this feature of confrontation with the
world order" presided over by the spirit of the "free subject."'
planetary domination of technology that Heidegger's thought may profitably buttress the
world order comportment in its challenge to the logic of statecraft even while serving
simultaneously as a basis for theoretical critique. Specifically, the discussion I provide in Part 2 of the book
initiates a positive employment of Heidegger's thought in the context of a global political
discourse no longer committed to technocratic futurism and the technological order it
would impose.

Heidegger shouldn’t be dismissed due to his political affiliations – his thinking is

vital to philosophy and his remembrance of the question of Being is
fundamental.
Linker 5-18-14 (By Damon Linker | March 18, 2014,” Why we still need Heidegger — despite
his Nazism” http://theweek.com/article/index/258194/why-we-still-need-heidegger-mdash-
despite-his-nazism)+Even before these latest revelations, Heidegger's far-right political views, as well as previously
documented expressions of anti-Semitism, had inspired some to argue that his writings deserve to be removed from philosophy
sections of libraries and relocated to Nazi propaganda archives. No wonder some
are beating that drum even louder
now, claiming that Heidegger's diary is nothing less than a "debacle" for Continental
philosophy as a whole. I'm hardly an uncritical admirer of Heidegger or his influence. Yet I've come out strongly
against past efforts to excommunicate him from the philosophical canon, and nothing I've
read about the black notebooks changes my view of the matter. Heidegger remains one of the
greatest thinkers in the history of Western philosophy, despite his many morally and
politically execrable views. Some of Heidegger's defenders (including his student and onetime lover Hannah
Arendt) have attempted to exonerate him by arguing that he was simply a naïve fool in political matters. His
political
pronouncements therefore deserve to be ignored in favor of his vital and lasting contributions
to the revival of philosophical reflection on the meaning of Being. This line of defense might be effective
in the case of a mathematician or physicist, whose work exclusively concerns extra-human realities (numbers, equations, etc.). But
Heidegger's reflections on Being always had an inextricably human dimension. In his early
work — including the seminal Being and Time (1927) — Heidegger explored Being by way of a
relentless examination of the only entity for whom "being" can be an issue: A human being. In
his later work, he wrote obsessively about the way that science, technology, and many other
20th-century developments have led to the "oblivion of Being" in modern times. Heidegger's
thought cannot be simply or easily disentangled from his distinctive interpretation of human
existence and critique of modernity — both of which we now know overlapped in numerous
disturbing ways with the views of various reactionaries. That's why I prefer a different tack. In
my view, Heidegger's greatness lies in his relentless, stunningly radical questioning of settled
positions in the history of Western thought. Indeed, in many of the lecture courses leading up to the publication of
Being and Time, in much of that book itself, and in several other courses from the late 1920s and early '30s, Heidegger
treated philosophy as a way of life resolutely devoted both to posing radical questions and to
resisting the urge for answers. Heidegger's criticism of the history of Western thought is that
since the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have abandoned questioning in favor of
proposing answers that have become dogmas that stand in the way of genuine thinking . (This is
one reason why Heidegger called Socrates — who never wrote a word and spent his days antagonizing his fellow citizens with pesky
questions — the "purest thinker in the West.") Perhaps the most electrifying statement of this vision of philosophy can be found in a
lecture course Heidegger taught in 1929-30: Philosophy is the opposite of all comfort and assurance. It
is turbulence, the
turbulence into which [hu]man is spun, so as in this way alone to comprehend his [its]
existence without delusion. Precisely because the truth of this comprehension is something
ultimate and extreme, it constantly remains in the perilous neighborhood of supreme
uncertainty. No knower necessarily stands so close to the verge of error at every moment as
the one who philosophizes. Whoever has not yet grasped this has never yet had any
intimation of what philosophizing means.

Heidegger’s political disposition and philosophy are not linked, ignorant to not
test the philosophical discourse
Ree 5-12-14
(Jonathan Ree, In defence of Heidegger by Jonathan Rée / MARCH 12, 2014,
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/art-books/in-defence-of-heidegger/#.U6uD3fkvlUx) The
German philosopher Martin Heidegger died nearly 40 years ago, but his work has never stopped making the headlines: not because
of his ideas, but because of his association with Nazism. The
latest stage of the controversy (well covered here and
here by Jonathan Derbyshire) has been occasioned by prepublication hype for an edition of the
Schwarzen Hefte, a 1000 page transcript of the little notebooks bound in black covers, in which he jotted down
observations for most of his life. According to the pre-publicity, these notebooks show that
Heidegger was a deep-dyed anti-Semite, and suggest that no self-respecting thinker should
touch him with a bargepole. I can’t say that I agree. 1. In the first place, it’s common knowledge
that, as well as being a member of the Nazi party for many years, Heidegger was an anti-Semite. Not a violent
one, but the sort of cultural anti-Semite (DH Lawrence, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound) often found in the 1920s and 30s, not
only in Germany but throughout Europe and America. For good measure, I guess he was also a womaniser and a male chauvinist pig.
The question is whether these facts are a reason for avoiding his works, or whether we can in fact read him without putting our
political purity in danger. I think that those
who say that because he was anti-Semitic we should not read
his philosophy show a deep ignorance about the whole tradition of writing and reading
philosophy. The point about philosophy is not that it offers an anthology of opinions congenial
to us, which we can dip into to find illustrations of what you might call greeting card
sentiments. Philosophy is about learning to be aware of problems in your own thinking where
you might not have suspected them. It offers its readers an intellectual boot camp, where
every sentence is a challenge, to be negotiated with care. The greatest philosophers may well be wrong: the
point of recognising them as great is not to subordinate yourself to them, but to challenge yourself to work out exactly where they
go wrong

Philosophy not impacted by Anti-Sematic views, even Jewish critical theorists

can attest to the brilliance of his ideologies
Cobbley 5-12-14 (May 12th 2014 “In praise of Heidegger, the Nazi”, Ben Cobbley is a journalist with around twelve years of
experience,http://afreeleftblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/in-praise-of-heidegger-nazi.htmlThis is not to say there are no linkages
between Heidegger’s philosophy and his politics of the 1930s. As Richard Polt has written: “It is disturbing to watch Heidegger
use concepts from Being and Time to justify an authoritarian and nationalistic vision – vague though this vision is. He obviously had
was also determinedly antagonistic to liberal
high hopes for Nazism, of a peculiarly metaphysical kind.” He
democracy, and though he always rejected biologism and racism, it nevertheless didn’t stop him from pinning
his hopes for a rebirth of German national spirit on Nazism, despite repeated attacks on Jews by Nazis both before and after Hitler
came to power. Some of Heidegger’s critics and attackers have also made a lot of his conception of human ‘authenticity’ from
Division II of Being and Time (which I have not read). It is true that a set idea of an ‘authentic’ human person as against an
‘inauthentic’ person (who goes along with the way things are done) can be taken in an authoritarian direction. But the
idea of a
genuine ‘authentic’ human entity seems to contradict the conception of human being in
Division I as always ‘falling’ into the world, into customary habits and shared ways of being .
From reading these passages in Division I, I took the idea that authenticity was something we could reach towards, but never get to.
Nevertheless these ideas of authenticity have proved highly influential, though mostly so on
the existentialist left of politics, with Jean-Paul Sartre perhaps the most notable appropriator
of them (though not in ways of which Heidegger himself approved). Jewish thinkers including Hannah Arendt
and Jacques Derrida have acknowledged their profound debt to Heidegger, as have others on
the broader left including Michel Foucault – who admitted that great influence on his
deathbed. Myself, I find great inspiration from Heidegger in many areas, including in thinking about democracy, which he
disdained. Heidegger laid great emphasis on letting entities (or beings) show themselves (we might say metaphorically ‘to breathe’)
rather than us forcing our understandings upon them; in his later writings he used the term wesen (literally ‘to essence’ or perhaps
better, ‘to show of its essence’) to describe this. This is a form of freedom he is describing, and it is a powerful one .
It is also
powerful when looking at how we regard the wider natural world, with many 'green' thinkers
including Tom Greaves having been profoundly influenced by his writings .

Heidegger’s anti-Semitism is over hyped, his philosophy is based upon his

mentor, which far pre-dates Nazi regime
Cobbley 5-12-14
(May 12th 2014 “In praise of Heidegger, the Nazi”, Ben Cobbley is a journalist with around twelve
years of experience,http://afreeleftblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/in-praise-of-heidegger-
nazi.html)The philosopher Martin Heidegger was a Nazi. He was a member of the party from 1st May 1933, ten days after
becoming Rector of Freiburg University and three months after the Nazis took power in Germany, to the end of World War II. This is
problematic for the likes of me who have been profoundly influenced by Heidegger’s writings and find beautiful, even magical,
insights in them. (For me, reading Division I of Being and Time, though slow and painstaking, was like turning a light on to the world
as it really is.)
Recently, with his so-called ‘black notebooks’ apparently revealing deeper anti-
Semitism than was previously thought, attacks on Heidegger and his philosophy for being Nazi
have reached a crescendo. The Guardian for example published this article, entitled:
‘Heidegger's 'black notebooks' reveal antisemitism at core of his philosophy’ . That piece and, it
seems, the notebooks themselves, reveal nothing of the sort –though to begin with it is a strange idea that
the core of someone’s philosophy is not mentioned in their actual philosophical writings. However Heidegger himself
does indeed seem to have been a rather soft cultural anti-Semite who saw Jewish culture as
uniquely suited to the rootless, calculating technologically-driven modernity which he disliked. But the
Guardian’s and other articles in recent times have shown there is a big drive not just to
condemn Heidegger for this but also to invalidate his whole philosophy on the basis of him
being, in the words of one of my interlocutors on Twitter, a ‘nazi philosopher’. These views need
to be challenged and debunked as the absurdities they are. Helpfully, Heidegger himself provides
some good tools to do that – specifically in his core focus on ‘the question of being’ (what ‘is’)
and on ‘phenomena’ (how beings and entities reveal themselves to us). The latter is constitutive of
phenomenology, a practice which Heidegger inherited from his mentor Edmund Husserl, and
offers us a more interesting and useful version of ‘sticking to the facts’ which doesn’t preclude
subjective human experience.

Heidegger’s anti-sematic ideologies have been known for 70 years – that

doesn’t mean we still can’t learn from him
Losurdo 5-19-14
(Wednesday 19 March 2014 09.01 EDT, Domenico Losurdo is professor of philosophy at the
University of Urbino, Italy, “Heidegger's black notebooks aren't that surprising”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/19/heidegger-german-philosopher-
black-books-not-surprising-nazi)The black notebooks theorise in explicit fashion the importance of the "racial principle"
and, even if in a contorted manner, justify the Third Reich's race laws. Here, we do find undoubtedly new material
(indeed, material of great interest) adding to what we knew already. But one already famous, perhaps
infamous letter, should not be forgotten. It was Heidegger's wife who sent it on 29 April 1933,
albeit with the agreement of her husband, who was at the time also the rector of the University of Freiburg. The
recipient was the wife of Edmund Husserl, Heidegger's teacher. This letter expressed his consent to the "hard
new law, rational from Germans' point of view", which excluded Jews from university
teaching, including Gerhart Husserl, son of the illustrious philosopher of the same name, who
as a Jew was stripped of his civil law chair at the university, despite being a wounded veteran
of the first world war. In this context, we must add also the testimony of Karl Jaspers, according to whom Heidegger drew
attention to the "dangerous international association of Jewry" soon after the Nazi conquest of power . The outcry over the
black notebooks is thus unjustified, but it would be all the more unjustified to imagine a
mythical, eternally irredeemable Germany, ignoring the historical context in which
Heidegger's life and work were situated. His Judeophobia came at a moment when across the
west as a whole, on both sides of the Atlantic, there was a widespread view that the true
culprits for the October Revolution were Jews. Indeed, in 1920 car tycoon Henry Ford wrote that this event had
a racial and not political origin, and, though making use of humanitarian and socialist language, it in fact expressed the
Jewish race's aspiration for world domination. It is worth noting that it was Ford's picture that
had pride of place in Hitler's study and not Heidegger's: the origins of nazism and the
ideological motives inspiring it were not exclusively German. Secondly, as the black notebooks
confirm, although Heidegger was a Nazi to the end this does not mean that nothing can be
learned from him. Germany is the country that perhaps more than any other has had to
struggle with imperial universalism, often the synonym of universal interventionism : leaving aside
the ancient Romans and the expeditions of the Emperor Augustus, we ought to bear in mind that first Napoleon III in 1870-1 and
then the entente powers in 1914-18 waged war in the name of the expansion of "civilisation" or "democracy", in each case in the
name of "universal" values. Thisexplains the aggressive, reactionary anti-universalism in Germany
that found its first expression in Nietzsche and then, above all, in Heidegger and Schmitt, both
of whom supported the Third Reich. This is a tragedy and an infamy that certainly leaves aggressive, reactionary anti-
universalism with much to answer; but it does not in any way absolve western imperial universalism of
its own responsibility and crimes.
 A2: Alt is Anthropocentric
Our alternative actively seeks to break down the binaries that reinforce
anthropocentric thought.
DeLuca 05 Associate Professor of Speech Communication in the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia,
Indiana University Press, “Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking Environmental Theory and Practice,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ethics_and_the_environment/v010/10.1deluca.html
in environmental circles it is still a
The first stasis point revolves around humanity's relation to nature. To put it plainly,
Cartesian world, wherein the founding act is human thinking (cogito ergo sum) and the  earth
is object to humanity's subject. This position is clear in mainstream environmentalism, where
humans act to save the object earth and, fundamentally, this action is motivated by the
subject's self-interest. So, we must save the rain forests because they contain potential medical resources and because they
alleviate global warming Now certainly this base anthropocentrism has come under attack from
various radical environmentalisms that posit biocentrism or ecocentrism. I would argue,
however, that these anti-anthropocentric positions have not escaped the gravity of
Cartesianism. This is evident at both theoretical and practical levels. Theoretically, in the effort to avoid the stain of
anthropocentrism all beings are posited as having equal intrinsic worth/value and difference is leveled. The banana slug is equal to
homo sapiens. There are problems with this. Most obviously, the concept of intrinsic worth/value is philosophically incoherent—
worth/value by definition is always relational. More significantly for this discussion, to posit intrinsic worth/value is to deny the
ecological insight that all beings are constituted in relation to other beings and their environment. Further, to deny difference is to
blunt analysis of our current situation and to deny the differential levels of effects different species have. Homo sapiens is not
another type of slug and must be analyzed with that awareness. In practice, radical groups, most notably Earth First!, often
demonize humans as a cancer on the planet. As the metaphor suggests, humans are seen as somehow different from all other forms
of life, an alien other, not a part but apart. Even more significantly, the metaphor of cancer suggests humans to be active subjects
preying on the object earth. Indeed, the problem with humanity, as with the cancer cell, is that it is too active.
Although radical groups offer a different valuation, note that this position does not trouble the terms of Cartesianism. The
dichotomies subject-object, human-animal, culture-nature, civilization-wilderness, remain
intact. The active subject humanity threatens the object earth . The statsis point in actual environmental
debates revolves around reform and radical environmental groups dismissing each other's seemingly oppositional positions as,
respectively, anthropocentic and compromised versus misanthropic and unrealistic, while remaining oblivious to the underlying
Cartesian presuppositions they both share. In other words, reform
environmentalists privilege humanity while
radical environmentalists demonize humanity. In this morality play on the fate of the  planet,
humanity, whether hero or villain, is the actor. Heidegger's thinking on the subject-object dichotomy, Descartes,
and the phenomenology of the structure of reality offer a useful lever with which to displace these dichotomies and challenge the
traditional ontology that undergirds and girdles environmental thinking. Citing the Cartesian ontology of the world as dominant,
Heidegger in Being and Time works to "demonstrate explicitly not only that Descartes'
conception of the world is ontologically defective, but that his Interpretation and the
foundations on which it is based have led him to  pass over both the phenomenon of the world
and the Being of those entities within-the-world which are proximally ready-to-hand" (1962,
128). Briefly, Heidegger critiques Descartes for positing a "bare subject without a world" (1962, 192) and for relying on mathematics,
which produces the sort of Reality it can grasp, thus "the kind of Being which belongs to sensuous perception is obliterated, and so is
any possibility that the entities encountered in such perception should be grasped in their Being" (1962, 130). Descartes' ontology
presumes the dynamic of an isolated subject grasping mathematically world as object. Arguably, it is this perspective that is at the
root of the environmental crisis, for the world is reduced to an object laid out before me and I am reduced to a detached subject
that has only a use-relation to a dead world. Heidegger disdains "the Cartesian approach of positing a subject one can come across
in isolation" (1962, 248) and rejects the "perennial philosophical quest to prove that an 'external world' is present-at-hand" (1962,
250). Instead, Heidegger offers a different foundational starting point: "The Interpretation of the world begins, in the first instance,
with some entity within-the-world, so that the phenomenon of the world in general no longer comes into view" (1962, 122).
Humanity is never the isolated subject that surveys and grasps the world-as-object displayed before it. Heidegger continues: "Our
investigation takes its orientation from Being-in-the-World—that basic state of Dasein by
which every mode of its being gets co-determined " (1962, 153). Heidegger concludes: "In clarifying Being-in-the-
world we have shown that a bare subject without a world never 'is' proximally, nor is it ever given"(1962, 152). Heidegger explicitly
clarifies this point in response to Descartes: "If the 'cogito sum' is to serve as the point of departure for the existential analytic of
Dasein, then it needs to be turned around, and furthermore its content needs new ontologico-phenomenal confirmation. The 'sum'
is then asserted first, and indeed in the sense that "I am in a world." As such an entity, 'I am' in the possibility of Being towards
various ways of comporting myself—namely, cogitationes—as ways of Being alongside entities within the world" (1962, 254).
Heidegger, then, is suggesting a Copernican revolution with respect to humanity's relation to the world, for it is never a matter of
"to" but "in." Humanity is never a subject over and against or above the world apart from the world; rather, the subject is always in
the world, a part of the world, and, indeed, is constituted by relations in the world. Further, in an important point that is not so clear
in Being and Time but that becomes evident in later writings, "I am in the world" on earth, that Being-in-the-world is always already
Being-in-the-world on earth. Earth is "that on which and in which man bases his dwelling.... Upon the earth and in it, historically man
grounds his dwelling in the world.... The world grounds itself on the earth, and earth juts through world" (1993, 169, 171, 172). In
displacing the subject-object dichotomy that so circumscribes environmental theory and practice, Heidegger's thought opens up a
horizon of possibilities of other ways/beginnings/trajectories for environmentalism. What would it mean to approach all
environmental issues from a fundamental understanding of Being-in-the-world on earth?
Framework
 Knowledge Production ROB
The role of the ballot becomes a negotiation of knowledge, a deciding of axes
and boundaries. Evaluate our critique by its ability to reorient political
perception and action.
Bleiker 2000 (Roland, coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program @ U of Queensland, Popular Dissent, Human
Agency, and Global Politics, )
Describing, explaining and prescribing may be less unproblematic processes of evaluation, but only at first sight. If
one
abandons the notion of Truth, the idea that an event can be apprehended as part of a natural order, authentically and
scientifically, as something that exists independently of the meaning we have given it – if one abandons this separation of
object and subject, then the process of judging a particular approach to describing and
explaining an event becomes a very muddled affair. There is no longer an objective measuring
device that can set the standard to evaluate whether or not a particular insight into an event,
such as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, is true or false. The very nature of a past event
becomes indeterminate insofar as its identification is dependent upon ever-changing forms of
linguistic expressions that imbue the event with meaning .56 The inability to determine objective meanings is
also the reason why various critical international relations scholars stress that there can be no ultimate way of assessing human
agency. Roxanne Doty, for instance, believes that the agent–structure debate ‘encounters an aporia, i.e., a self-engendered paradox
beyond which it cannot press’. This is to say that the debate is fundamentally undecidable, and that theorists who engage in it ‘can
claim no scientific, objective grounds for determining whether the force of agency or that of structure is operative at any single
instant’.57 Hollis and Smith pursue a similar line of argument. They emphasise that there are always two stories to tell – neither of
which is likely ever to have the last word – an inside story and an outside story, one about agents and another about structures, one
epistemological and the other ontological, one about understanding and one about explaining international relations.58 The value of
an insight cannot be evaluated in relation to a set of objectively existing criteria. But this does not mean that all insights have the
same value. Not every perception is equally perceptive. Not every thought is equally thoughtful. Not every action is equally
justifiable. How,
then, can one judge? Determining the value of a particular insight or action is
always a process of negotiating knowledge, of deciding where its rotating axes should be
placed and how its outer boundaries should be drawn. The actual act of judging can thus be
made in reference to the very process of negotiating knowledge. The contribution of the
present approach to understanding transversal dissent could, for instance, be evaluated by its
ability to demonstrate that a rethinking of the agency problematique has revealed different
insights into global politics. The key question then revolves around whether or not a particular
international event, like the fall of the Berlin Wall, appears in a new light once it is being
scrutinised by an approach that pays attention to factors that had hitherto been ignored.
Expressed in other words, knowledge about agency can be evaluated by its ability to orient
and reorient our perceptions of events and the political actions that issue from them. The lyrical
world, once more, offers valuable insight. Rene´ Char: A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Only traces bring about
dreams.
 Ontology First
Ontology comes first-takes into account prior questions
*Gender paraphrased
Waterhouse, 81 (Roger, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Department of History,
Philosophy, and Geography, Missouri Western State University, 1981, “A Heidegger Critique”, Pg
241)
Heidegger's central vision in Being and Time is that an adequate philosophical account of human existence must
treat [hu]man as a whole, not merely as a knowing consciousness. There can be no doubt that
this is right. In making this claim Heidegger is advancing a powerful criticism against his philosophical predecessors, and most immediately
against Husserl. Of course, it was not Husserl’s prime purpose to give a philosophical account of human existence, any more than it was Descartes’s or
Kant’s. Like them, Husserl was more concerned about knowledge and truth, and how certainty could be established. But also like them, he implicitly
gave an account of how human beings are, which concentrated centrally on their capacity to discover knowledge. By contrast, Heidegger
says
that man’s being-in-the-world precedes the establishment of knowledge; that knowing is a
‘founded’ mode of being-in-the-world. This sounds right. Certainly, it is true of the development
of an individual child: at birth he cannot properly be said to ‘know’ anything, if knowing is
taken in the sense of‘ ‘objective’ knowledge so hallowed by the philosophical tradition . In a similar
sense it seems true of the historical development of culture. Nobody worried very much about ‘objective’ knowledge before Descartes, or at least
before the beginnings of the scientific ‘revolution’ in the latter half of the sixteenth century. And we have no good reason to suppose that ‘knowledge’
was considered as, in any sense, a problem until shortly before Socrates. Distinctions between knowledge, understanding, practical ability, or wisdom,
we can suppose to have arisen quite late in our history -— and certainly long after homo sapiens (so-called) began to exist. So in both historical’ senses,
that of the individual and that of culture, we
can concede that human existence preceded knowing, and
knowing was never more one way of being in the world.

Ontology comes first – key to all decision making

Dillon’99 (Michael, Professor of Politics at the University of Lancaster, 1999, Moral Spaces Pg. 97-98)
Heirs to all this, we find ourselves in the turbulent and now globalized wake of its confluence. As Heidegger-himself an especially revealing figure of the
deep and mutual implication of the philosophical and the political4-never tired of pointing out, the relevance of ontology to all
other kinds of thinking is fundamental and inescapable. For one cannot say anything about any-thing that is, without
always already having made assumptions about the is as such. Any mode of thought, in short, always already carries an ontology sequestered within it.
What this ontological turn does to other-regional-modes of thought is to challenge the
ontology within which they operate. The implications of that review reverberate throughout
the entire mode of thought, demanding a reappraisal as fundamental as the reappraisal ontology has demanded of philosophy .
With ontology at issue, the entire foundations or underpinnings of any mode of thought are
rendered problematic. This applies as much to any modern discipline of thought as it does to the question of moder-nity as such, with the
exception, it seems, of science, which, having long ago given up the ontological questioning of when it called itself natural philosophy, appears now, in
its industrialized and corporatized form, to be invulnerable to ontological perturbation. With its foundations at issue, the very authority of a mode of
thought and the ways in which it characterizes the critical issues of freedom and judgment (of what kind of universe human beings inhabit, how they
inhabit it, and what counts as reliable knowledge for them in it) is also put in question. The very ways in which Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other
continental philosophers challenged Western ontology, simultaneously, therefore reposed the fundamental and inescapable
difficulty, or aporia, for human being of decision and judgment. In other words, whatever
ontology you subscribe to, knowingly or unknowingly, as a human being you still have to act.
Whether or not you know or acknowledge it, the ontology you subscribe to will construe the
problem of action for you in one way rather than another. You may think ontology is some
arcane question of philosophy, but Nietz-sche and Heidegger showed that it intimately shapes
not only a way of thinking, but a way of being, a form of life. Decision, a fortiori political decision, in short, is no mere
technique. It is instead a way of being that bears an understanding of Being, and of the fundaments of the human way of being within it . This

applies indeed applies most, to those mock -innocent political slaves who claim only to be
technocrats of decision making.
Ontology is a prior question- without it leads to nothing but technological
thought
Irwin 2010 (January 10th, 2010, Climate Change and Heidegger's Philosophy of Science, Ruth Irwin, Auckland University of
Technology, volume 11, issue 1, file:///C:/Users/Zach/Downloads/irwin%20-%20Climate%20Change%20and%20Heidegger's
%20Philosophy%20of%20Science%20.pdf)That is, the world view reaches for a certain interpretation of things. Things only merge
from the background and register if they slot into the expectations defined by the world view. In short, techne allows Being to 'show
forth', to use Heidegger's terminology.
In Being and Time Heidegger tries to disintegrate the solipsist
division operating in Idealist philosophy between subjects and objects, or humanity and
physics or Being. He does this by showing how equipment 'worlds', contributing to self-
understanding of each of us in a largely unconsidered way. Long before we can reflect with
language (re-presenting things with names, shadowing the being of beings with words) we are shaped into
technologically savvy people. By 1954, when “A Question Concerning Technology” appeared, Heidegger took the
conception of a technological world in a more cynical way. He now argued that equipment
does not just surround us in a relatively benign manner. It forges our subjectivity. We are
under the illusion that we are 'in control' of technology and by extension, in control of nature .
But this assumption is actually a result of the metaphysical world view of modernity that has alienated us from nature, making us
forget the question of Being and forget what makes us meaningful. Heidegger shows how every element of nature and humanity
becomes integrated into a framework of modern utility. Whereas
once the river might symbolise a boundary
between one principality and another, or afford a good fishing spot, or a restful place to
contemplate, the river has become something different within the new horizon of technology .
The technological Gestell requires the river to produce some element for consumption in the machinery of production. Thus, the
river serves a hydro-dam, or links one population to another, or it is sold as a 'tourist spot' .
All of these functions of the
river co-opt it into ongoing (or potential) utilitarian value. Heidegger argues that the
technological Gestell challenges forth Being in an abrupt and inconsiderate manner . In earlier
times, the waterwheel let the river flow at its own pace. In our times, the hydro power station is part of a more invasive shaping of
the river; the power station is at a Essays Philos (2010) 11:1 Irwin | 27 dam; and the river flow discharged from the resulting pool is
regulated at a pace dictated by human needs, not by seasonal flow volume. Earlier understandings of the river might have been
somewhat utilitarian, too, but with a qualitative difference. In feudal times the river may have been diverted for a mill. The mill did
not work all the time, it was in operation when the harvest came in, and when the river was full enou gh to drive the water wheel.
Storage of ground wheat was limited, and the locals supplied by the mill were heavily reliant on the vagaries of each season .
Modern understandings of the river reduce it to utilitarian considerations. Storage capacity
has changed completely. Electricity makes the mill operate year round. The mill no longer needs proximity to the river as
electricity is networked far and wide. Intermodal transport allows grain from around the world to be ground; seasonal shifts have
become irrelevant. Flour is consistently available regardless of season, to a widely distributed set of 'consumers.' There are obvious
benefits to the economic distribution of goods. Storage and transportation have allowed locals to be free of the constraints of their
own ecosystems.

You must evaluate Ontology first, only by opening ourselves up to the mystery
of our being and letting go the desire to reveal the truth can we become fully
human.
Jerome 92 [Miller, Professor of Philosophy at Salisbury State University in Maryland, In the
Throe of Wonder: Intimations of the Sacred in a Post-Modern World pg. 197-198, 1992]
This is a question each must answer for herself since it involves nothing less than deciding
whether to be oneself. In my judgment, no one can take seriously the whole process of
intelligent inquiry and rational reflection which culminates in making judgments and not
take seriously those primal experiences in which all inquiry originates. To be fully
intelligent, fully rational, we must side with wonder and against the self- evidence of the
present- at- hand, with horror and against the recoil that wants to flee from nothingness, with awe and against the
self- importance that refuses to acknowledge the possibility of there being a reality
greater than ourselves. The decision to trust these experiences as the primal sources of
knowing is more crucial than our affirmation of any proposition . For theories and
propositions themselves owe their existence to the creative eros of intelligence which is
itself set in motion by the unknown which these experiences alone make accessible to us.
None of the specific realizations to which inquiry leads us, no matter how important they
may be, can rival the transformative effect of our primal decision to turn from the given to
the eros of questioning. That turn is our fundamental conversion. But the distinguishing
characteristic of this conversion is that instead of providing us with an unshakable foundation of an
unquestionable truth on which to base all we think and do, it pulls all foundation out from under
us and throws what we thought were our certainties into question. It requires our giving
up all the hope we ever had of grounding our thought on an arche that can be known
directly, without having to trust ourselves to the uncontrollable, unpredictable throe of inquiry . To
make this conversion is not to acquire a dogma but to become a questioner . But we cannot enter fully
into the ordeal of questioning unless we allow ourselves to be bound by its own immanent
imperatives. If we leave our safe harbor and venture into the unknown which both fascinates and
horrifies, we cannot possibly know where we are going. But exploring is different from pointless
drifting- not because the explorer has a destination but because her movement is governed by the
throe of the unknown itself. The fact that the given does not provide us with an immovable truth on
which to erect the edifice of our thought does not mean, as the pragmatists of post- modern culture
claim, that the idea of truth itself has to be jettisoned . Indeed, it is only our habit of equating truth
with the given which would lead us to jump to that conclusion. But if being is not the given, is not
the from- which of wonder, horror, or awe, if, rather, being is the unknown toward- which
of all our questions, then the knowledge of being becomes possible only when we
relinquish our hold on the given and open ourselves to those truths which cannot be
reached except by trusting the eros of inquiry. The post- modern dismissal of truth as a
philosophical objective, far from demonstrating a radically deconstructive approach to traditional
foundationalism, only confirms that the post- modern pragmatist remains wedded to its
presuppositions. He has simply despaired of achieving what the foundationalist still hopes to
accomplish. The underlying cause of such despair is our refusal to give up the dream of
having the truth given to us. To relinquish that dream is a kind of death, and requires a willingness
to suffer nothingness. Such suffering is intrinsic to the very nature of the turn- we cannot make the
turn unless we experience it. In the experience of wonder, nothingness remains implicit; in horror it
becomes conscious and is explicitly addressed; in awe it is fully acknowledged and finally embraced .
Immanent within each of these experiences is an imperative to let go of that from which
they wrench us. Thus we can become explorers only to the degree that we are willing to
surrender our hold on life. That we can live fully only by letting go of everything and
becoming destitute, that our enthusiasm for life can be heartfelt only if our hearts are broken open-
this is the paradox which lies at the crux of that turn which is constitutive of our very being, the turn
which, when we make it, engages us in the throe of questioning and so converts us into lovers of
wisdom. To surrender to that throe unconditionally, to be willing to follow it wherever it
leads is not an imperative just for the philosopher. It is the only way to be fully human.

Considering the relationship with “Being” is a prerequisite to solving any

relationships between human beings.
Rae 10 [Gavin, PhD in Philosophy, The University of Warwick “Re-Thinking the Human:
Heidegger, Fundamental Ontology, and Humanism” Hum Stud (2010) 33:23–39]
At the start of his seminal work on Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, Hubert Dreyfus notes that ‘‘ Heidegger claims that
the tradition has misdescribed and misinterpreted human being . Therefore, as a first step in his project, he
attempts to work out a fresh analysis of what it is to be human’’ (1991, p. 1). Importantly, however, while the human being
plays a crucially important role in Heidegger’s project, it does not have fundamental importance; as we will see, a study of
the human being is a necessary precursor to the study of that which Heidegger holds to be fundamentally
important: being. Heidegger’s attempt to re-think the human being in-line with the question of being leads
him to criticise traditional conceptions of the human on two related accounts: first, that they forget the
question of being; and secondly, that they are underpinned by a binary logic that forestalls any
thinking of being. To correct what he sees as the fundamental failing of traditional accounts of the human being,
Heidegger, in Being and Time, emphasises the primary importance of being. However, the means through which
being can be understood is by first analysing a specific type of being, namely, the human being; what Heidegger calls ‘‘Dasein’’
(1962, p. 27). This brings Heidegger to propose an ontological analysis of the human being as the means to understand being.
As Tom Rockmore (1995, pp. 95–96) notes, however, frequently the second movement to being was forgotten or ignored and
Heidegger’s thought was interpreted as a philosophical anthropology of the human being. For Heidegger, however, while
philosophical anthropology can tell us something about the human being, it can not tell us the
whole truth. Disclosing the truth about the human being requires that the being of the human
being be disclosed. But Heidegger does not simply suggest that traditional philosophical accounts of the human
being have forgotten and/or ignored the question of being. He goes further by suggesting that traditional philosophical
accounts of the human being cannot think of being because their thinking is constrained within a
logic of binary oppositions. Most notable of these binary oppositions is that between essence and
existence. For Heidegger, the human being has traditionally been thought to possess a fixed defining
essence that either determines human being or that exists as a potential to be made actual. The
problem with this conception of the human being is , according to Heidegger, that it fails to understand
that the human being is defined by existential ‘‘possibility’’ (1962, p. 33). Its existential possibility means that
the truth of the human being cannot be captured within fixed conceptual boundaries; the open-ended ‘‘nature’’ of the human
being is defined by its ‘‘existence’’ (Heidegger 1962, pp. 32, 68). However, the problem with defining the human being in
terms of its existence was that it appeared to many commentators that Heidegger was simply inverting the privileging of
essence constitutive of traditional conceptions of the human being. Such thinking misinterprets Heidegger’s thought. It
assumes that Heidegger’s notion of existence is the existence that has been thought to exist in opposition to essence. For
Heidegger, defining the human being by its existence does not mean that the human being is simply defined by its actions; by
existence, Heidegger means something very specific. This specificity can only be understood by remembering his privileging of
being. Defining the human being by its existence means, for Heidegger, not that the human being is
what it does, but that the human being exists in such a relation to being that it, and it alone
amongst beings, is able to disclose being.
 A2: Owen
Owen concludes neg –we should rethink the traditional structures that
underline IR
Owen ‘2 - Professor of Social and Political Philosophy in the Division of Politics and International Relations at the University of
Southampton (David, “Reorienting International Relations: On Pragmatism, Pluralism and Practical Reasoning”, Millennium: Journal
of International Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3)
The first dimension concerns the relationship between positivist IR theory and postmodernist IR ‘theory’ (and the examples illustrate
the claims concerning pluralism and factionalism made in the introduction to this section). It is exhibited when we read Walt warning
of the danger of postmodernism as a kind of theoretical decadence since ‘issues of peace and war are too important for the field [of
IR] to be diverted into a prolix and self-indulgent discourse that is divorced from the real world’,12 or find Keohane asserting sniffily
that Neither neorealist
nor neoliberal institutionalists are content with interpreting texts: both sets of theorists
believe that there is an international political reality that can be partly understood, even if it
will always remain to some extent veiled.13 We should be wary of such denunciations precisely because the issue at
stake for the practitioners of this ‘prolix and self-indulgent discourse’ is the picturing of international politics and the implications of
this picturing for the epistemic
and ethical framing of the discipline, namely, the constitution of what phenomena are
are not
appropriate objects of theoretical or other forms of enquiry. The kind of accounts provided by practitioners of this type
competing theories (hence Keohane’s complaint) but conceptual reproblematisations of the background that
informs theory construction, namely, the distinctions, concepts, assumptions, inferences and assertability warrants that
are taken for granted in the course of the debate between, for example, neorealists and neoliberal institutionalists (hence the point-
missing character of Keohane’s complaint). Thus, for example, Michael Shapiro writes: The global system of sovereign states has
been familiar both structurally and symbolically in the daily acts of imagination through which space and human identity are
construed. The persistence of this international imaginary has helped to support the political privilege of sovereignty affiliations and
territorialities. In recent years, however, a variety of disciplines have offered conceptualizations that challenge the familiar, bordered
world of the discourse of international relations.14 The point of these remarks is to call critically into question the background
picture (or, to use another term of art, the horizon) against which the disciplinary discourse and practices of IR are conducted in
order to make this background itself an object of reflection and evaluation. In a similar vein, Rob Walker argues: Under the present
circumstances the question ‘What is to be done?’ invites a degree of arrogance that is all too
visible in the behaviour of the dominant political forces of our time. . . . The most pressing
questions of the age call not only for concrete policy options to be offered to existing elites and institutions, but also, and
more crucially, for a serious rethinking of the ways in which it is possible for human beings to live together.15 The aim of
these comments is to draw to our attention the easily forgotten fact that our existing ways of picturing international politics emerge
from, and in relation to, the very practices of international politics with which they are engaged and it is entirely plausible (on
standard Humean grounds) that, under changing conditions of political activity, these ways of guiding reflection and action
may lose their epistemic and/or ethical value such that a deeper interrogation of the terms of international
politics is required. Whether or not one agrees with Walker that this is currently required, it is a perfectly reasonable issue to
raise. After all, as Quentin Skinner has recently reminded us, it is remarkably difficult to avoid falling under the spell of our own
intellectual heritage. . . . As we analyse and reflect on our normative concepts, it
is easy to become bewitched into
believing that the ways of thinking about them bequeathed to us by the mainstream of our intellectual traditions
must be the ways of thinking about them.16 In this respect, one effect of the kind of challenge posed by postmodernists like
Michael Shapiro and Rob Walker is to prevent us from becoming too readily bewitched.
 A2: Ethics Before Ontology
Embracing of the alternative does not estrange us from reality or deny the
ability to take action – Alternatively such a path forces us to remain aware of
those situations and events around us that demand response
Pezze 2006 (Barbara Dalle , PhD in Philosophy by the University of Hong. Heidegger on Gelassenheit, ISSN 1393-614X, Minerva -
An Internet Journal of Philosophy 10 (2006): 94-122 )
Meditative thinking does not mean being detached from reality or, as Heidegger says,
“floating unaware above reality” (1966b, p. 46). It is also inappropriate to consider it as a useless
kind of thinking, by stating that it is of no use in practical affairs or in business. These
considerations, Heidegger states, are just “excuses” that, if on one hand appears to legitimize
avoiding any engagement with this kind of thinking, on the other hand attests that meditative
thinking “does not just happen by itself any more than does calculative thinking” (1966b, p. 46-47).
Meditative thinking requires effort, commitment, determination, care, practice, but at the same time, it must “be able to bide its
time, to await as does the farmer, whether the seed will come up and ripen” (Heidegger 1966b, p. 47). Meditative thinking
does not estrange us from reality. On the contrary, it keeps us extremely focused on our
reality, on the hic et nunc of our being, ‘existence’. To enact meditative thinking, Heidegger says that we need to dwell on what
lies close and meditate on what is closest; upon that which concerns us, each one of us, here and now; here, on this patch of home
By remaining focused on the moment, we “notice”
ground; now, in the present hour of history. (1966b, p. 47)
aspects of our reality and we keep them in mind. We then “remember” elements, events, circumstances related
to them. This invite us to “think further”, and by doing so we clarify, discern, elements that pertain to our situation. Through this
process we “grow thoughtful”, and this generates questions that further deepen our thinking and awareness of the roots of what
moved us to think; and that was just something barely noticed before. An attempt to enact meditative thinking is carried out by
Heidegger himself when, during the "Memorial Address," he tries to conduct the audience from a situation where they are passive
'consumers' of the address to a situation in which they actually meditate and think about what is going on, beyond the simple event
of commemoration. What follows is a long quotation which I think can give us a picture of what the process of meditative thinking is
about: What does this celebration suggest to us, in case we are ready to meditate? Then we notice that a work of art has flowered in
the ground of our homeland. As we hold this simple fact in mind, we cannot help remembering at once that during the last two
centuries great poets and thinkers have been brought forth from the Swabian land. Thinking about it further makes clear at once
that Central Germany is likewise such a land, and so are East Prussia, Silesia, and Bohemia. We grow thoughtful and ask: does not
the flourishing of any genuine work depend upon its roots in a native soil? Johann Peter Hebel once wrote: “We are plants which —
whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not — must with our roots rise out of the earth in order to bloom in the ether”…
 Discourse First

Discourse should be evaluated first because language changes the way we view
the world, the way we act, and our viewpoints on certain ideologies.
Meisner ’95 (Mark S. Meisner, Executive Director of the International Environmental
Communication Association, 1995, Metaphors of Nature: Old Vinegar in New Bottles? Accessed
6/26/2014
Language is a central part of how humans view and act in the world . It is both a tool we use and a place
where we live. Through the study of language we can learn about ourselves, and in this case, specifically about our relationships to
the non-human world. So it is not that I think language is the problem that needs fixing. I prefer to think of it (with apologies to
Susan Sontag (1978) and an awareness of the problems with the metaphor) as a sort of contagious symptom of an underlying
disease. Treating language will not make the anthropocentric-resourcist ideology and its behavioural, economic and structural
manifestations go away. But language
is a sign of something wrong and it is a way to get the people
concerned to think about the issues. By “language” I simply mean words and ways of arranging them. I therefore
distinguish between what people mean to say (propositional content), and how they say it (lexical and syntactic choices). For
example, if a supporter of deep ecology were to say: “The natural resources should be conserved for their own sakes,” I would ask if
“natural resources” was an appropriate label for facets of nature ([because] it denies their independence from human valuation),
and whether “conserved” was an appropriate verb for what we need to do for nature, in the context of arguing for nature for its
own sake. In this example there is a contradiction between the message being attempted and the message implied in the word
choices. Thus, the language is an issue in such a statement. To be so, it must be considered in light of its contexts: the speaker and
their philosophical or political position, their propositions, and the discursive communities in which they participate. The relationship
between language and worldview is complex and uncertain. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis asserts the theories of linguistic
determinism and relativity (Whorf, 1956). Though the strong version of this theory is not widely accepted, a weaker version is (e.g.
Fowler, 1991; Lakoff, 1987). So, as Paul Chilton (1988, 47) puts it, “instead of making absolute claims about the necessary
determination of all thought by all aspects of language, it is more useful to ask which parts of language influence which speakers in
which contexts and to what degree.” In other words, we can say that language does not necessarily determine thought, but rather
affects it; language does not set the limits of thought, but it does guide it in certain directions. This view is supported by Wendy
Martyna who says of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: “it has come to be generally accepted in its moderate version: that language may
influence, rather than determine, thought and behaviour patterns” (1983, 34). Language
is the dominant medium
with which ideas of nature are constructed and maintained . Through language we encode,
reinforce and legitimate categories, values, concepts, and feelings relating to the natural world.
Since words carry values, the words we choose to name and characterize nature are a
significant part of how we view it. Furthermore, language allows for multiple interpretations of meaning, and for
ambiguities and manipulation. It also serves a powerful legitimating function and can tend to reinforce hegemonic ideologies.
However, it is also a creative resource and provides opportunities for change and transformation. Language,
thought,
feeling, and worldview are then mutually shaping dimensions of an ongoing process of
perception, conceptualization, representation, construction, legitimation, reproduction, and
sometimes transformation of ideologies. There is no such thing as neutral language

Evaluate Discourse first, it is necessary to change our world

Shapiro ’88 (Michael J Shapiro, Department of political science at university of Hawaii, the
politics of representation, Pg 12-13.)
The idea of phenomena making their way into speech is another conception of language and
meaning that introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure, who bases meaning no on the relationship
between word and object but on the relational structure of signifiers. For those influenced by
the Sausserean linguistic tradition, in which meaning is based on the structure of the difference
among signifiers rather than the word-object relationship, the signifier preceded the signified.
This implies that those phenomena (signified) about which we have understandings take on
meaning in the context of signifying practices. Christian Metz has represented this precedence
of the signifying practice in the knowledge process with a remark on how the love
experienced by some men [or women] is predicated on a mental projection about its
endurance. He state, Far from the strength of their love guaranteeing it a real future, the
psychical representation of that future is the prior condition for the full amorous potency in
the present. Whatever credence one might give to this particular view-that is the network of
signifiers in which love and an imagined future participate that produces the phenomenon we
identify as love- the epistemological implication is clear, and understanding of the phenomena
about which we speak is not to be gained by formulating precise, technical rules to translate
ideas into observations or to translate ideas into observations or to translate observations
into the conscious intentions of actors. What is to be recovered is a nonconcious set of
linguistic practices, which operate not as determined underlying structures ( the position of
traditional structralists), but as concealed acts of exclusion and repression, responsible for the
recognized authoritative discursive practices. Once we are alerted to this intimate relationship
between language and practice, our attention is turned more toward the operation of
discursive economies, and we are in a position to regard the things in the world-the unities,
equivalences, and coherences represented by prevailing speech practices- as the imposition of
a form on an otherwise chaotic experience, as a reality contrived and produced in intimate
association with human practices, not as something natural transcendental

Language has a direct tie to the Being the discourse of the 1ac should be
rejected if it enables the annihilation of being
Hatab ‘12 (Lawrence, “From Animal to Dasein: Heidegger and Evolutionary Biology”, Heidegger on Science edited by Trish
Glazebrook, Project Muse Pg 109-110)
I close with a brief consideration of perhaps the most important topic of¶ all in this matter, the question of language, which
unfortunately I cannot¶ address adequately within the limits of this chapter. It
is common to see¶ language as the
distinguishing mark of the human species. In fact, without¶ language there would be no human
culture at all. This is the spirit of¶ Heidegger’s remark that language is the “house of being” and that
humans¶ dwell in this house (GA 9, 313). Language is the environment in which¶ the world opens
up for human beings, and it too exhibits a circularity¶ that eludes explication. Any attempt to “explain” language or connect
it with prelinguistic elements must employ language to do so. Even “nonverbal” ¶ comprehensions or experiences bank on having
been oriented into a¶ language-laden environment from the first moments of life. ¶ I would like to suggest ways in which language
can be implicated in¶ the openness that Heidegger insists marks the human world. To begin, as ¶ suggested above, language is the
very shaping of the human world from the¶ start. And in everyday linguistic practices and exchanges,
we take language¶ to
be spontaneously disclosive of things. In direct conversations I simply¶ understand immediately the
disclosive effects of speech without marking a¶ difference between the speech and its reference. Or if someone is
verbally¶ helping me learn a practical task, guiding my actions and pointing out¶ aspects of the practice as we go along, I am
immersed in this disclosive ¶ field without noticing “words” as distinct from “referents” (or puzzling as to¶ how words relate to their
referents). In this respect there is a “fit” between ¶ language and the world. And yet, there is a difference
between verbal utterances¶ per se and the subject of utterances, and it is this differentiated relation¶ that makes possible the
openness of language, particularly in terms¶ of temporality. Words give a presence to things that can be
retained in¶ the absence of things. It is this presencing of absence that makes possible¶ the stretches of temporal
understanding that far exceed any primitive time¶ sense that animals might possess. With words I can retain the past
and¶ project the future in vivid detail, and I can be released from the actual by¶ envisioning the possible, I can
scan temporal dimensions to compare present¶ experience with past experience and uncover
alternative futures based¶ on the comparison. All of this is made possible by the differential fitness of¶ language.
Without fitness, speech about the past or future would not register. ¶ Without difference,
speech would be trapped in actuality.¶ Differential space is what opens up language (and the
world) and¶ makes possible the dynamic openness of human language that does not¶ seem evident in
animal calls and their functions. In addition to temporal¶ extension, consider examples of openness such as metaphor,
comparisons,¶ distinctions, negations, new or extended uses, misuses, deceit, asking questions, ¶ and meaningful silences.23 All this
indicates that the human linguistic¶ environment is animated by traversals of otherness exceeding immediate¶ states, which strictly
empirical descriptions cannot convey. Interestingly, ¶ linguistic research shows that one of the few universals across different¶
human languages is the capacity for negation, and that expressing negation is¶ essential to language.24 Negative dimensions, of
course, are the core of Heidegger’s¶ phenomenology, which articulates how nonbeing is not the opposite ¶ of being, since absence is
intrinsic to the rich scope of world-disclosure (cf.¶ GA 24, 443/311–12; GA 9, 113–20). In light of the phenomenological¶ negativity¶
of language, from an evolutionary standpoint it is difficult to conceive ¶ how animal sounds and calls approximated or inched their
way toward this surpassing dimension of language. It may be that the differential fitness¶ of language itself opened up the
dimensions of Dasein’s radical finitude, as¶ Heidegger understands it. But it is a puzzle to envision how mere sounds ¶ “evolved” to
the point where language as fitting and as different emerged¶ in some contiguous sense. The puzzle can be aggravated by noticing
that¶ my posing this question as a problem presupposes my already having been¶ outfitted by language as a differential dynamic.
And what about the as as¶ such? What “is” the “as”? Can we take the “as” as, well, what? At this ¶ point one appreciates the aptness
of Wittgenstein’s appeal for silence, or¶ more positively, Heidegger’s talk of the self-showing marvel of being that is ¶ simply
bounded by concealment and thereby not susceptible to explication.¶ However
human life has emerged from the
earth, the very powers that let¶ us explore this question cannot themselves be tracked in the
earth.

As defined by Heidegger/Aristotle, discourse is a pre-requisite to ontology

Escudero ’13 (Summer 2013,http://www.heideggercircle.org/Gatherings2013-01Adrian.pdf,
Heidegger on Discourse and Idle Talk: The Role of Aristotelian Rhetoric Jesús Adrián Escudero)
Heidegger translates the definition of the human as (ζῷον λόγον ἔχον) in the sense that “the human being is a
living thing that has its genuine being-there in conversation and in discourse” (GA 18: 108/74), one can perhaps
better understand the background idea which is hidden behind the Heideggerian image. If we wanted to translate this
image into contemporary terms, we could say without any great di1culty that any person
carries out its existence by discursive and communicative means, and can carry it out either
appropriately or inappropriately. With this general argument as a base, the present work is structured in two parts as
follows. First, special attention is given to the significance of the revaluation of Aristotelian rhetoric that we find in the
aforementioned lectures of 1924, Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy. The interpretation of Aristotle in these lectures not only
allows us to better understand the role of attunement and of discourse in Being and Time, but it also calls into question some
interpretations which accuse Heidegger of totally disregarding ethics and politics. Unlike Platonic dialectics which focuses on the
connection between discourse and the truth off statements, Heidegger
emphasizes that Aristotelian rhetoric
explicitly places itself on the level of the communicability of what the speaker says to her
audience. In accordance with this theory, the element of reference of discourse is not the
universe of pure thought, but rather the realm of opinions and the communal system of
beliefs which thus become the basic criterion for human understanding . In this way, opinion (δόξα) and
belief (πίστις) contain, as does idle talk (Gerede), which Heidegger addresses in Being and Time, an eminently positive sense, insofar
as they open up the world to us and reveal us to others through the common element of language (λόγος). And, second, it is shown
how Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle’s λόγος helps him understand speech not only as language or
discourse but also as the ontological condition of speaking in and of itself. People are able to
speak of the same things due to the fact that they share a common natural language ; in this sense,
people are able to talk about something that they are not directly familiar with firsthand. But on the other hand, they run the risk of
becoming trapped in the snares of public opinion and, consequently, of never achieving a genuine understanding of things. In Being
and Time, Heidegger
analyzes the positive and negative consequences of this occurrence in his
detailed phenomenological interpretation of everyday discourse, which is given the technical
name of “idle talk” (Gerede)
 Enframing First
Enframing is a prior question – it conceals itself and therefore blinds us to the
fact that it skews our answers to questions. Until we understand how the world
is enframed our answers to all other questions will be slanted by technology
*gender paraphrased
Korous, Copeland winner, JD, Emory BA Philosophy, Become What you Are 1997 22-25
The first step in overcoming the calculative understanding of reality is to recognize that it is
only one understanding among many. This is much more difficult than it might sound. First of all, the calculative
mode of revealing the world, Enframing, is something that conceals itself in the process of revealing the
world (QT 27). The mode of revealing is so pervasive that it is invisible to us, unless we reflect on it. When
we are mired in the concerns of the everyday, Enframing is not encountered, it is only lived.
That is, as someone thinking technologically, reality reveals itself to me as a series of objects. I
am attuned to that objectness when I am engaging with the world. Precisely because
Enframing is not an object, but a mode of revealing, it itself will not show up within my
observational field. In order for me to confront technological thought for what it is, a way of
revealing, I have to be prepared to momentarily suspend my calculative mode of thinking and
pursue ontological questions. Second, the continued successes of technological thought blinds us to
the fact that it is only an interpretation of reality and not reality in itself. As Heidegger warns, "The
approaching tide of technological revolution in the atomic age could so captivate, bewitch,
dazzle, and beguile [hu]man that calculative thinking may someday come to be accepted and
practiced as the only way of thinking “(DT 56)
 A2: Extinction First
Death is the ground of freedom in life—our decisions have no meaning if they
are not framed by human finitude. Treating death as a mere event to be
avoided reduces our ability to freedom to mere calculation. Rather dead than
ontologically damned, then.
Dillon 1996 [Michael, professor Politics and International Relations at the University of
Lancaster, The Politics of Security, pp. 82-84]
Whereas tragic denial is willful blindness to this conflict, ‘to go through life with one’s eyes open’
means ‘to see tragic denial shape the entire morphological scope of the law’ .14 To go through life
with one’s eyes open requires a commitment, The topos of encounter 83 also, however, to explore the
tragic topos of the encounter that human being has in its own being of obligatory freedom with the
uncanniness of Being as such, and the demitted call of Justice which resounds throughout it. Such is the special
place of the political that political thought has to think: ‘it is more salutary for thinking to wander in
estrangement than to establish itself in the comprehensible’ .15 It is a matter for it, then, of remaining faithful
to phenomena as they constantly and continuously display this occulting phenomenalising manifested through a temporal
being freed by birth into no escape from death, continuously challenged to accord Justice to that condition in the living of it,
distinguished by always already knowing beforehand the not-mere in the there of its very own there-being. It is precisely
here also that the uncanny question of Otherness arises, because: From the singularity of being
follows the singularity of Not belonging to it , and consequently the singularity of the other. The one and the
other are binding.16 Yes and No, in short, are equi-primordial, co-originary. Yes, there is manifestation and,
No, there is…what? Something absolutely crucial arises now because the ‘No’ here is no simple no, no mere symmetrical
dialectical negation of the—‘No, there is no manifestation’—capable of realising some final synthesis. Rather, it is the ‘No’ of
—‘No there is no manifestation of manifestation’— in which the superfluity of the very absence of manifestation, its retraction
or withdrawal as Heidegger calls it, is what makes way for beings to have their very possibility to be at all. Withdrawal it has to
be, then, if the overdose of manifesting is to be liminal rather than terminal. For if we were always already in receipt of the full
dose, let alone overdosed, what would there be left for us to have and to be, to do and to see? If our standing was
already commanded or guaranteed—rather than given to be assumed—why should we have to
stand at all? Underway through time’s making way—the taking place of Being—human being has to
find its own way of way-making consonant with the uncanny challenge to be of its specific and
concrete, historical passage in truth. Born to die we always already pre-hend this No in every Yes—
this Not-being in anything and everything—by virtue of our very own mortal existing. For we die.
Just as visibility never becomes visible, manifestation never becomes manifest. And yet we are
manifest because we dwell in manifestation. There has, therefore, to be visibility for things to
appear, manifesting for things to stand-out, which is not itself a thing. This is what Heidegger
means when he says that Being is Nothing. This is what he means when he talks of the withdrawal or the retraction
of Being. There has similarly to be Being for beings to be, but Being is never manifested as such, for that would be the final trip.
Co-originary, the No and the Yes of the Being of being which we experience in and as our existence
—our own standing-out in Being, in which the hiddenness of Being takes place, stands-out, in its
hiddenness through its questioning by us— are not, however, co-equal. Equiprimordial but without
equipoise, there is a radical asymmetry in which the No outweighs the Yes. For, remember, the No
—or to be precise, the Not—is no simple negation. Recall how Heidegger insists upon it as
superfluity, as the possible that always already stands higher than the actual, as that the essence of
which is ‘to come’; which, like death is for us, dis-locates, dispossesses, individualises and
singularises. For born free there is no way out, either, of our mortality and no one can suffer
anyone else’s death. Only I can die my death. Knowing that singularises me, removes me from the
world and deprives me of any certain meaning other than that of the opaque mystery of not being.
And whereas this has often been taken to be either a mystical and mystifying anthropology or,
worse still, another account of atomistic individuality, it is of course neither. For this singular being
singularised by its birthing-towards-death (its mortal natality and natal mortality) is nonetheless
also, it has to be recalled, a being-in-the-world and a being-with-others in unassimilable Otherness .
However much the paths of Heidegger’s thought may wind through singularisation, world, the other, the four-fold and the very
uncanniness which being there at all brings to light, there is no remit for forgetting that it is this composite uncanny
phenomenolising—in which human beings share an integral and, as far as we know distinctively responsible, share—which is at
issue.
 A2: Policymaking Good
Strict policymaking fails to change the status quo. However, our writings and
teachings inform policy making, which makes exposing their frameworks
dynamics of power a critical prerequisite for effective policymaking
Edkins and Zehfuss 2005 [Jenny and Maja, Generalizing the International, Review of International Studies (32, 451-
472) ]
What we are attempting in this article is an intervention that demonstrates how the illusion of the
sovereign state in an insecure and anarchic international system is sustained and how it might be
challenged. It seems to us that this has become important in the present circumstances. The focus on security and the
dilemma of security versus freedom that is set out in debates immediately after September 11th
presents an apparent choice as the focus for dissent, while concealing the extent to which thinking is thereby
confined to a specific agenda. Our argument will be that this approach relies on a particular picture of the political world that has
been reflected within the discipline of international relations, a picture of a world of sovereign states. We have a responsibility as
scholars; we are not insulated from the policy world. What we discuss may not, and indeed does not, have a direct
impact on what happens in the policy world, this is clear, but our writings and our teaching do
have an input in terms of the creation and reproduction of pictures of the world that inform
policy and set the contours of policy debates.21 Moreover, the discipline within which we are
situated is one which depends itself on a particular view of the world - a view that sees the international
as a realm of politics distinct from the domestic - the same view of the world as the one that underpins thinking on
security and defence in the US administration.22 In this article then we develop an analysis of the ways
in which thinking in terms of international relations and a system of states forecloses certain
possibilities from the start, and how it might look to think about politics and the international
differently. Our chosen point of intervention is to examine how IR thinking works; by showing how this
thinking operates, and how it relies on certain analytical moves and particular categorisations and dichotomies,
we hope to demonstrate that it is not the only way that world politics could be thought through. Identifying the
underpinnings of existing frameworks is an important preliminary before new thinking can be
fully effective and is itself a first move in dislodging these underpinnings.

The policy making process is always bound up within discourse- they cannot
escape the ways in which their knowledge has been produced
Backstrand and Lovbrand 06 (Karin and Eva, Wallenberg Research Fellow at MIT, post-
doctoral fellow in Sweden, “Planting Trees to Mitigate Climate Change: Contested Discourses of
Ecological Modernization, Green Governmentality and Civic Environmentalism,” Global
Environmental Politics, 6.1)
Secondly, the exercise of power is closely tied to the production of knowledge, which in turn can
sustain a discourse. Hence, discourses are embedded in power relations, “as historically variable ways of specifying
knowledge and truth—what is possible to speak at a given moment.”4 Discourses as “knowledge regimes” bring us squarely to the
role of science. In expert-driven global environmental change research especially, modern scientiªc knowledge, tech- niques,
practices and institutions enable the production and maintenance of discourses. Thirdly, in line with argumentative discourse
analysis, we
subscribe to a conception of discourse that bridges the gap between the linguistic
aspects and institutional dimensions of policy-making. In this vein discourse analysis can be
brought to the forefront of the analysis of power and policy. Policies are not neutral tools but
rather a product of discursive struggles. Accordingly, policy discourses favor certain
descriptions of reality, empower certain actors while marginalizing others. The concept of
discourse institutionalization is useful as it refers to the transformation of discourse into
institutional phenomena.5 Fourthly, we align ourselves with a discourse analysis that includes a notion of agency. Recent
studies have advanced concepts such as “discourse coalition” and “knowledge broker” to highlight how agents are embedded in
discourses.6 In this perspective, discourses are inconceivable without discoursing subjects or agents that interpret, articulate and
reproduce storylines congruent with certain discourses. We use the concept of discursive agent and argue that political power
stems from the ability to articulate and set the term for the discourse.
 A2: We Have Experts

Reliance on the “they-say” of “the experts” forecloses our possibility of thinking

and authentic encounters with things themselves. “Letting go” of our passive
and unquestioning acceptance of “expert” authority is a prerequisite condition
for the radical transformation in which allows dwelling to be possible
Stenstad 2006 (Gail, professor in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at East Tennessee State University, associate
editor of Heidegger Studies, and a member of the board of directors of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy.
“Transformations Thinking After Heidegger” University of Wisconsin Press. Page(s) 134-135)
our tendency to grasp and cling, to reduce everything
Heidegger is here attempting to provoke us to see how
possible to an idea or a concept, prevents us not only from staying with things but from even
genuinely encountering them in the first place. I have already, more than once, spoken of releasement
toward things as being applicable to letting go of this obsessive tendency to grasp at concepts.
But there is more that we need to release if we hope to learn to dwell, to stay with things long
enough to hear what they say to us. We must let go of our reliance on “the experts.” I am not
advocating some kind of reactive, wholesale rejection of science. Some of the best
contemporary science is not nearly as rigid and limiting as what we are presented with in the
popular science and “the studies” presented to us in the media. What I am suggesting is that
we let go of (and at times this might mean forcefully tossing out) our passive, unquestioning
acceptance of anything that is presented to us as expert opinion, as authoritatively reflecting
what “they say.” As early as Being and Time Heidegger let us know some of the ways that we are shaped,
constrained, closed in, and closed off by this “they.” We can become and in fact ordinarily are
so molded that our very “self” becomes, effectively, a “they-self.” The they-self does not
think, not in the sense in which we are now using that word. The theyself goes rather
mindlessly about its business, business that has also been laid out for it by “them.” Stop and
think: How much of what we call our beliefs, our ideas, our values, and our lifestyle comes not
only from the Western philosophical tradition but also from Wall Street,Madison Avenue, and
Washington, D.C.? In its interactions with things the they-self is incapable of face-to-face
encounter, of hearing what things say, of heeding any intimations of timing-spacing-thinging.
The they-self does not even have the time to stop and pause long enough to wonder about
this, being herded about and channeled within the framework of public time, clock time. The
theyself is incapable of dwelling unless it can undergo radical transformation.
 A2: Positivism
Your assumption that a policy alternative is required embraces policy positivism
—its another link. And, immanent critique is the alternative to policy
positivism, so we solve this argument
Mutimer 2000. (David, the weapons state: proliferation and the framing of security, boulder:
lynne rienner, p 158-159)
The analysis presented in this book therefore has policy implications that are not far removed from the traditional writing on
weapons in general and on nuclear weapons in particular. I am extremely wary of pronouncing policy advice ,
however, for a number of reasons. Hugh Gusterson expressed a similar unease in his marvelous study of a U.S. nuclear weapons
laboratory: ¶ The analysis of this historical moment offered here departs from most recent writing on nuclear weapons issues in
that it does not adopt a stance of what one might call "policy positivism." In fact it seeks to
problematize such a stance. Policy positivism is the doctrine that there is a single best, or most
"realistic," set of policies in regard to nuclear weapons and that it is the purpose of public
policy debate and expert discourse on nuclear weapons, through the power of reason, to
finally determine what those policies are.2 ¶ Such policy positivism underpins the debates
over proliferation. At its most abstract, the question is whether proliferation is beneficial or
harmful. More commonly, the questions are, which area is ripe for a global agreement, how can supplier controls be
strengthened, and what place does military force have in countering proliferation. For a positivist debate of this kind
to occur, a great number of things need to be taken for granted , and it is those taken-for-granted
assumptions that I have aimed to expose in this book. The danger of policy prescription lies in the possibility
of reifying another set of contingencies, proposing the wholesale replacing of one image by
another for no reason other than that I prefer it. Nevertheless, it is difficult to write on a question as central to
contemporary policy as weapons proliferation is without falling into some form of policy prescription. Indeed, it might be thought in
some ways irresponsible not to state my case on weapons, having spent so much time decrying the )?apon state produced by
"proliferation." ¶ The
heart of any move away from "proliferation" must consist of two related
processes. The first is breaking the linkage between weapons and technology in the framing of
security problems; the second is to redirect the security gaze to weapons themselves. These
processes confront the most problematic feature of the "proliferation" frame: the way in
which technology, rather than the possession of arms, is demonized. The question is how to move in that
direction from the starting point of where we are today, and it is a difficult question. The story of the CTBT is salutary in this regard,
revealing the way in which meanings are transformed in practice. A 40-year history of the C'fBT framed in terms of "disarmament"
was overturned in favor of a "proliferation" framing-with disastrous consequences. Nevertheless, there are immanent possibilities
for change.
 A2: Predictions
Their predictions are inaccurate scare tactics. Their apocalyptic representations
reinforce status quo institutions resulting in culture of fear and makes public
sphere deliberation and cultural change impossible – this is the conclusion to the
Kurasawa article.
Kurasawa 04, (Fuyuki, Assistant Prof. of Sociology at York University, Cautionary Tales, Constellations Vol. 11, No. 4,
Blackwell Synergy)
In a word, then, procrastination makes little sense for three principal reasons: it exponentially raises the costs of eventual future action; it reduces
preventive options; and it erodes their effectiveness. With the foreclosing of long-range alternatives, later generations may be left with a single course
of action, namely, that of merely reacting to large-scale emergencies as they arise. We need only think of how it gradually becomes more difficult to
control climate change, let alone reverse it, or to halt mass atrocities once they are underway. Preventive foresight is grounded in the opposite logic,
whereby the decision to work through perils today greatly enhances both the subsequent room for maneuver and the chances of success.
Humanitarian, environmental, and techno-scientific activists have convincingly shown that we cannot afford not to engage in preventive labor.
Moreover, I would contend that farsighted cosmopolitanism is not as remote or idealistic a prospect as it appears to some, for as Falk writes, ―[g]lobal
justice between temporal communities, however, actually seems to be increasing, as evidenced by various expressions of greater sensitivity to past
injustices and future dangers.‖36 Global civil society may well be helping a new generational self-conception take root, according to which we view
ourselves as the provisional caretakers of our planetary commons. Out of our sense of responsibility for the well-being of those who will follow us, we
come to be more concerned about the here and now. IV. Towards an Autonomous Future Up to this point, I have tried to demonstrate that
transnational socio-political relations are nurturing a thriving culture and infrastructure of prevention from below, which challenges presumptions
about the inscrutability of the future (II) and a stance of indifference toward it (III). Nonetheless, unless and until it is substantively ‗filled in,‘ the
argument is vulnerable to misappropriation since farsightedness does not in and of itself ensure emancipatory outcomes. Therefore, this section
proposes to specify normative criteria and participatory procedures through which citizens can determine the ‗reasonableness,‘ legitimacy, and
effectiveness of competing dystopian visions in order to arrive at a socially self-instituting future. Foremost among
the possible
distortions of farsightedness is alarmism, the manufacturing of unwarranted and unfounded
doomsday scenarios. State and market institutions may seek to produce a culture of fear by
deliberately stretching interpretations of reality beyond the limits of the plausible so as to
exaggerate the prospects of impending catastrophes, or yet again, by intentionally promoting
certain prognoses over others for instrumental purposes. Accordingly, regressive dystopias can
operate as Trojan horses advancing political agendas or commercial interests that would
otherwise be susceptible to public scrutiny and opposition. Instances of this kind of
manipulation of the dystopian imaginary are plentiful: the invasion of Iraq in the name of
fighting terrorism and an imminent threat of use of ‗weapons of mass destruction ‘; the severe
curtailing of American civil liberties amidst fears of a collapse of ‗homeland security‘; the neoliberal dismantling of the welfare state
as the only remedy for an ideologically constructed fiscal crisis; the conservative expansion of policing and incarceration due to
supposedly spiraling crime waves; and so forth. Alarmism constructs and codes the future in particular ways, producing or
reinforcing certain crisis narratives, belief structures, and rhetorical conventions. As m uch as alarmist ideas beget a culture of fear, the
reverse is no less true. If fear-mongering is a misappropriation of preventive foresight, resignation about the future represents a problematic outgrowth
of the popular acknowledgment of global perils. Some believe that the world to come is so uncertain and dangerous that we should not attempt to
modify the course of history; the future will look after itself for better or worse, regardless of what we do or wish. One version of this argument consists
in a complacent optimism perceiving the future as fated to be better than either the past or the present. Frequently accompanying it is a self-deluding
denial of what is plausible (‗the world will not be so bad after all‘), or a naively Panglossian pragmatism (‗things will work themselves out in spite of
everything, because humankind always finds ways to survive‘).37 Much more common, however, is the opposite reaction, a fatalistic pessimism
reconciled to the idea that the future will be necessarily worse than what preceded it. This is sustained by a tragic chronological framework according
to which humanity is doomed to decay, or a cyclical one of the endless repetition of the mistakes of the past. On top of their dubious assessments of
what is to come, alarmism and resignation would, if widely accepted, undermine a viable practice of
farsightedness. Indeed, both of them encourage public disengagement from deliberation about scenarios for the future, a
process that appears to be dangerous, pointless, or unnecessary. The resulting ‗depublicization‘ of debate leaves
dominant groups and institutions (the state, the market, techno-science) in charge of sorting
out the future for the rest of us, thus effectively producing a heteronomous social order. How,
then, can we support a democratic process of prevention from below? The answer, I think, lies in cultivating the public capacity for critical judgment
and deliberation, so that participants in global civil society subject all claims about potential catastrophes to examination, evaluation, and contestation.
Two normative concepts are particularly well suited to grounding these tasks: the precautionary principle and global justice.
***AFF***
 Perm – Pragmatism
Perm is best, recognizes the flaws of the policy without sacrificing pragmatism
Kidner 01 (David, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Nottingham Trent, 2001 Nature and Psyche,
p. 19)
Recognizing that the building blocks out of which we attempt to construct a defense of the natural world may have the
character of ideological Trojan horses, directing our theories in directions that are ultimately ineffective, does not mean that we
should, or can, avoid them altogether. Unless we are to remain silent, then we have to use whatever
materials are available to us, even if these are ideologically tainted. But they need to be
used in full recognition of their ideological implications so that we minimize the extent to
which they covertly determine the form of our theorizing and the conclusions we arrive at
– suggesting a provisional, tongue-in-cheek stance that is quick to sense divergence from
our intuitions. In this book, I will – initially at least – use inverted commas to signal particularly problematic terms; but the
reader will not doubt soon be able to imagine them around many others as well.

Environmental pragmatism is a reflexive enterprise that constantly question its

assumptions through a combination of pluralism and workability to make
decisions
Jeffrey G. York, research assistant at the Batten Institute at the University of Virginia’s Darden
School of Business and is a Ph.D. candidate in Entrepreneurship, Business Ethics and Strategy,
2009, “Pragmatic Sustainability: Translating Environmental Ethics into Competitive Advantage,”
Journal of Business Ethics, 85:97–109
The pragmatic approach allows us to shed the weight of utilitarian or deontological principles
and rather focus directly on the task at hand. Pragmatism argues against the concept of
ideology on immovable principles, but rather embraces an approach of multi-perspective
pluralism, which allows the integration and valuation of multiple perspectives. These perspectives
are driven by the cultural inheritance of the actor, the other members of the community, and experiences from which they have
established principles. The moral role of each individual is to begin with the societal norms ‘‘embedded as they are in institutions
and in the habits of life’’ as a hypothesis for testing, not to assume ‘‘they are imbedded in the nature of things’’. In
deciding
which perspectives to value, workability is the main criteria; we should begin with our current
values, but continuously question whether these ideas help us in moving toward our stated
goals. The pragmatic approach to decision making involves a process of constantly evaluating
and evolving our personal perspective and seeking to ensure accommodation of the broader
community’s perspective. Pragmatism does not embrace moral relativity and simply says ‘‘anything
goes’’ from an ethical perspective; rather, it is focused on maintaining and building upon our historical
knowledge while constantly questioning our assumptions and beliefs in light of new
information. Figure 1 illustrates this process.

The plan and alternative are not philosophically incompatible. Environmental

pragmatism uses pluralism in philosophy as a basis for policy decisions
Derk Breslau, Ethics Department University Utrecht, June 2012, Master Thesis Applied Ethics,
“People Vs. Wildlife: A Pragmatic Approach to Environmental Decision-Making, pp.25-26,
http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/255186]
Despite all the critical remarks there is something to be said for a pragmatic approach to environmental issues. In our constant
strive to organize our relationship towards nature, it is valuable to have a justification for the
protection and preservation of nature. Environmental pragmatism is a theory that is able to
construct arguments which are philosophically based but which also might appeal to policy
making decisions. It is also able to explain why the political debate around the natural environment is always going to be
strangled with different angles and perspectives. We need a public discussion because there are different positions in society and
there is not one clearly better or more valid than the other. To construct a fair and just process, different positions have to be
considered and weighed to strive for agreement and compromise. For this reason the framework of pluralism
and the focus on public discussion are the best way to tackle problems in society and
problems of conflict between wildlife and nature. It might have arbitrary and subjective tendencies because it
only looks at the workable solutions based on experience and public discourse. On the other hand it is realistic in the sense
that it reflects political argumentation as it is and always will be. It eventually tries to
construct the best arguments based on persuasive values to change something in the relation
we have with nature.

Pragmatic Action first

Zittoun, Philippe. The Political Process of Policymaking: A Pragmatic Approach to Public Policy.
N.p.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Print. Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy.
According to Charles Peirce, pragmatism is primarily a method that clarifies concepts. He
therefore proposes a "pragmatic maxim" based on the expected practical effects: "Consider
what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our
conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of
the object" (Peirce, 1878, p. 286). Consequently, Peirce argues that the concept "hard" in "a
diamond is hard" suggests a specific practice, that of scratching a diamond against other
substances in order to materialize this hardness by observing the effects of this scratching. In
other words, according to Peirce, the meaning of a concept can only be measured by its uses
and the identification of its practical consequences. This method is therefore less interested in
defining truth than in proposing the conditions for its validity. This means that we should
avoid considering concepts as having their own internal meaning to which we can gain access
through intuition, but rather, identify a series of operations with practical results. As Stephane
Malderieux Summaries no idea is clear in itself and by itself, but it becomes clear if we develop
it taking into account its practical effects (James, 1995)
 Perm – Do Both
Perm do both: Tetris Proves we can have both pragmatic and episteic actions
WIlliams, Garry. "Pragmatic and Epistemic Action." Minds and Brains. Philosophy and
Psychology, 20 Feb. 2008. Web. 28 June 2014.
Kirsh and Maglio found that advanced Tetris players perform a variety of epistemic actions to
reduce their internal computational effort. In contrast to less-advanced players who rotate the
zoids in their head, advanced players would physically rotate the zoids. This seemingly simple
action changes the way the mind handles the computational task of rotating the zoids in the
game and thus allows the player to manipulate the virtual world with more reliability and
speed. Such data suggests that standard theoretical frameworks in cognitive science might not
be enough to explain the full extant to which humans utilize the external environment in ways
that alter their mental landscape to improve cognitive performance. Instead of breaking up the
world into a dualism of physical space and information-processing space, it might be more
theoretically useful to have a more unified and fluid space where both pragmatic and
epistemic actions can take place. This approach gives more credence to the idea that we are
fundamentally in the world, embedded and embodied, with a perceptual and cognitive
repertoire that doesn’t make hard and fast distinctions between the inner and outer realms.

Perm do both: Heideggerian releasement is an affirmative argument: we can

establish a free relation to technology through thinking, so the action of the
plan is not implicated by their link.
Godzinski 5 (Ronald Jr., Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, “(En)Framing Heidegger’s
Philosophy of Technology,” Essays in Philosophy, Vol. 6, No. 1,
humboldt.edu/~essays/godzinski.html)
In a related vein, the previous claim that everything within the natural world gives itself over to us, as standing-reserve is, for
Heidegger, a phenomenological claim. As a purely phenomenological claim, Heidegger is not making an evaluative assertion about
the status of modern technology and our comportment toward things that are treated as standing-reserve. Perhaps following the
regressive method that Husserl used in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology ,
Heidegger
presents us with a purely descriptive account of modern technology that seems to be value
neutral. In truth, he acknowledges that technology is not intrinsically dangerous or evil. 17
Even Heidegger’s infamous “Memorial Address”18 supports this idea:¶ For all of us, the
arrangements, devices, and machinery of technology are to a greater or lesser extent
indispensable. It would be foolish to attack technology blindly. It would be shortsighted to
condemn it as the work of the devil.19 ¶ When understood within this particular context, Heidegger is
neither praising nor demonizing modern technology. Of course the same would have to be said about
technological objects that were purported to be intrinsically good, as well. Hence, the potential value that any
technical device might have would be contingent upon its context of use. From a Heideggerian
standpoint, it would be inappropriate to claim that any technical device is intrinsically good or
evil.20 ¶ In “The Question Concerning Technology,” Heidegger makes the phenomenological observation that we master nature
because we respond to nature’s call to requisition it. We do this primarily because this is how we have been called by Being. We use
things as standing-reserve since they give themselves as standing-reserve—everything gives itself to be used. Even when we are not
openly trying to master nature, Heidegger would nonetheless contend that we are still responding to its call. The revealing is not
something that we do strictly on our own accord, without first hearing nature’s call. In this sense, we cannot be held accountable for
modern technology, since this is something that just happens in the context of western culture: ¶ When man…reveals that which
presences, he merely responds to the call of unconcealment even when he contradicts it. Thus when man, investigating, observing,
ensnares nature as an area of his own conceiving, he has already been claimed by a way of revealing that challenges him to
approach nature as an object of research, until even the object disappears into the objectlessness of standing-reserve. Modern
technology as an ordering revealing is, then, no merely human doing.21 ¶ The challenge which directs us to order the self-revealing
as standing-reserve, is nothing other than what Heidegger calls “enframing” [Gestell].22 Enframing, or Gestell, is the essence of
modern technology. From Heidegger’s perspective, enframing is the way in which truth reveals itself
as standing-reserve. We simply cannot avoid its influence or sway. One is already in a
relationship with it, so it is not a matter of whether or not I will respond to it. Rather, it is a
matter of how I will respond to it. More importantly, our response to the challenge that
enframing emits, is neither completely predetermined nor free.¶ Heidegger recognizes that an
authentic notion of freedom will be open to the essencing of technology. Thus, a genuine and
free relationship to technology will be one that is open to the essencing of technology. This
type of openness to the presencing of technology is called Gelassenheit, or releasement: ¶ We
can use technical devices, and yet with the proper use also keep ourselves so free of them,
that we may let go of them at any time…. We can affirm the unavoidable use of technical
devices, and also deny them the right to dominate us, and so to warp, confuse, and lay waste
our nature…. I would call this comportment toward technology which expresses “yes” and at the same time “no,” by an old
word, releasement toward things.23 ¶ In the movement of Gelassenheit, one enters into a free
relationship with technology which is not founded upon domination and mastery. 24 On the
contrary, an authentic relationship to technology is one that is simply beyond our control .25
Paradoxically, a relationship which is exemplified by releasement continually uses things as
standing-reserve, while avoiding the danger of being taken as standing-reserve , although Heidegger
certainly keeps a watchful eye out for the ultimate danger that rests within the ordering of standing-reserve. That is, if we,
ourselves, get ordered or dominated by the things that we in turn are trying to order and dominate, then we will encounter the
danger, to the extent that the sending or presencing of Being gets closed off and concealed from us. 26
 Reform Solves
Standing reserve of technology not permanent—reform can lead to positive
change and progress
Tabachnick 7
[David Edward, “Heidegger's Essentialist Responses to the Challenge of Technology” ¶ Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue
canadienne de science politique, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Jun., 2007), pp. 487-505, 6/25/14, AV] ¶ Interestingly, Feenberg also argues that
while Heidegger's "standing ¶ reserve" criticism or the "modern obsession with efficiency" may be an ¶
accurate description of many if not most contemporary technologies, it ¶ does not necessarily
describe the way technology must and always be. ¶ "The 'essence' of actual technology, as we encounter it in all
its com ¶ plexity," Feenberg argues, "is not simply an orientation toward effi ¶ ciency" (1999: x). For him, the efficiency
obsession and all the negative ¶ consequences that go along with it stems not from some
abstract meta ¶ physical turn in Western civilization but from the actual design and use ¶
context of technological devices. In other words, even though Feenberg ¶ and Heidegger may agree that "real
dangers do lurk in modern technol ¶ ogy" (1999: x) they disagree on the source of that danger . And, because ¶
Feenberg identifies the source in existent and adaptable social struc ¶ tures, his philosophy of
technology allows for positive change and ¶ progress, whereas he sees no clear political or
social project that comes out of Heidegger's critique. Feenberg decides that "in Heidegger the most ¶
one can hope for is a 'free relation to technology,' a salutary change in ¶ attitude" (2005: 98) and
"Heidegger calls for resignation and passivity ¶ (Gelassenheit) rather than an active program of
reform" (1999: 184). ¶
 Alt is Utopian
The alt is utopian and fails, it leads to no change, just our inevitable destruction
James, Simon Paul (2001) Heidegger and Environmental Ethics, Durham theses, Durham
Univeristy. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3958/
Cites: Herman Phiipse
... Heidegger's critique of technology cannot lead to fruitful action or critical discussion; it can
only lead to quietism. Heidegger claims that the age of technology is a fate, so that it would be
naive to think that we could avert destruction and meaninglessness by any concrete
measures. The only thing that he advises us to do is to wait and to attempt to relate to Being
by thought. Heidegger's seemingly 'deep' critique of technology is nothing but pseudo-
religious quietism disguised as a radical critique. The morally undesirable effect of this critique
is that it condemns all real and fruitful criticisms of technology as superficial, naïve, and
insufficiently
 Alt  Annihilation
Letting beings be” permits ultimate violence to occur. Heidegger ignores the
fact that not reacting in the face of nuclear escalation makes the Alt culpable
for annihilation.
Santoni 85 [Ronald E. Santoni, Phil. Prof @ Denison, 1985, Nuclear War, ed. Fox and Groarke, p.
156-7]
To be sure, Fox sees the need for our undergoing “certain fundamental changes” in our “thinking, beliefs, attitudes, values” and
Zimmerman calls for a “paradigm shift” in our thinking about ourselves, other, and the
Earth. But it is not clear that what either offers as suggestions for what we can, must, or should
do in the face of a runaway arms race are sufficient to “wind down” the arms race before it
leads to omnicide. In spite of the importance of Fox’s analysis and reminders it is not clear that “admitting our (nuclear)
fear and anxiety” to ourselves and “identifying the mechanisms that dull or mask our emotional and other responses” represent
much more than examples of basic, often. stated principles of psychotherapy. Being aware of the psychological maneuvers that
keep us numb to nuclear reality may well be the road to transcending them but it must only be a “first step” (as Fox
acknowledges), during which we Simultaneously act to eliminate nuclear threats, break our complicity with the ams race, get rid
of arsenals of genocidal weaponry, and create conditions for international goodwill, mutual trust, and creative interdependence.
Similarly, in
respect to Zimmerman: in spite of the challenging Heideggerian insights he brings
out regarding what motivates the arms race, many questions may be raised about his
prescribed “solutions.” Given our need for a paradigm shift in our (distorted)
understanding of ourselves and the rest of being, are we merely left “to prepare for a
possible shift in our self-understanding? (italics mine)? Is this all we can do? Is it necessarily
the case that such a shift “cannot come as a result of our own will?” – and work – but only from
“a destiny outside our control?” Does this mean we leave to God the matter of bringing
about a paradigm shift? Granted our fears and the importance of not being controlled by fears, as well as our
“anthropocentric leanings,” should we be as cautious as Zimmerman suggests about out disposition “to want to do something”
In spite of the importance of our taking on the
or “to act decisively in the face of the current threat?”
anxiety of our finitude and our present limitation, does it follow that “we should be willing
for the worst (i.e. an all-out nuclear war) to occur”? Zimmerman wrongly, I contend, equates
“resistance” with “denial” when he says that “as long as we resist and deny the possibility
of nuclear war, that possibility will persist and grow stronger.” He also wrongly perceives
“resistance” as presupposing a clinging to the “order of things that now prevails.”
Resistance connotes opposing, and striving to defeat a prevailing state of affairs that would
allow or encourage the “worst to occur.” I submit, against Zimmerman, that we should not , in any
sense, be willing for nuclear war or omnicide to occur. (This is not to suggest that we should be numb to
the possibility of its occurrence.) Despite Zimmerman’s elaborations and refinements his Heideggerian notion of
“letting beings be” continues to be too permissive in this regard. In my judgment, an individual’s
decision not to act against and resist his or her government’s preparations for nuclear
holocaust is, as I have argued elsewhere, to be an early accomplice to the most horrendous crime
against life imaginable – its annihilation. The Nuremburg tradition calls not only for a new
way of thinking, a “new internationalism” in which we all become co-nurturers of the whole
planet, but for resolute actions that will sever our complicity with nuclear criminality and
the genocidal arms race, and work to achieve a future which we can no longer assume. We must not only
“come face to face with the unthinkable in image and thought” (Fox) but must act now - with a “new
consciousness” and conscience - to prevent the unthinkable, by cleansing the earth of nuclear weaponry. Only when that
is achieved will ultimate violence be removed as the final arbiter of our planet’s fate.
 Link Defense

Heidegger is unable to distinguish between forms of technology due to a flawed

theory of agency.
Rockmore 97 (Tom, Professor of Philosophy Duquesne University, On Heidegger's Nazism and
Philosophy, Toward Criticism of Heidegger’s View of Technology p. 233-4, 1997)
The main defect of Heidegger's theory of technology lies in his arbitrary, unjustified assumption of a
particular theory of agency as its basis. The problem of agency, or subjectivity, is an important philosophical theme.
The part of the modern philosophical tradition stemming from Descartes can be understood as an ongoing effort to
comprehend the subject, initially as a kind of epistemological placeholder, an ultimately bare posit, such as the Cartesian cogito
or the Kantian transcendental unity of apperception, and later as a social being in the views of Fichte, Hegel, and Marx.
Heidegger's nonanthropological analysis of technology differs in a fundamental way from the
average interpretation of technology, whether as instrumental or applied science, which
presupposes that technology yields to an anthropological approach. In his early thought, Heidegger utilizes
the concept of Being as a pole of attraction, much as the Aristotelian God, which acts in that it is desired. In his later thought,
Heidegger rethinks Being as an event (Ereignis ) acting upon us, for instance as sending or granting various capacities to art,
technology, and so on. Heidegger's extension of his theory of Being to the phenomenon of technology is problematic. A line of
argument acceptable within the context of his thought of Being is not necessarily acceptable when considered on its own
merits. Even if, for purposes of argument, we grant the correctness of Heidegger's later view of Being against the background
of his position, and the correctness of his extension of his view of Being as a theory of technology, it does not follow that we
need accept his view of technology. Heidegger "derives" his understanding of technology from his
understanding of Being, but he provides no reason to accept his view of technology as such. The view of
Being as agent which follows from the evolution of his position is not supported by his analysis of technology. To put the same
point differently: Heidegger holds that phenomenology is concerned with disclosing what is concealed; unfortunately,
Heidegger does not disclose his transhuman concept of Being as agent within, but rather imposes it upon, technology .
Heidegger's arbitrary conception of agency leads to a number of difficulties in his understanding of
technology. First, there is an evident inability to differentiate forms of technology. A theory of
technology must be able to distinguish among different forms of technology. There are obvious
differences between the horse-drawn plow and the tractor, the spear and the atom bomb, the
abacus and the computer, the movable-type printing press and the linotype machine, and so on. Each pair illustrates the
difference between an earlier and a later way to perform the same or similar tasks. In each case, later technology builds on and
improves the performance of earlier types of technology. The chronologically later kinds of technology in these examples are
also technologically more sophisticated and, in that sense, technologically more advanced. Since Heidegger apparently
condemns modern technology as such, he does not, and in fact is unable to, introduce such routine
distinctions. But such distinctions are not merely a useless finesse; they are rather necessary in order to
make a choice of the means as a function of the end in view.

Heidegger’s view of technology is too narrow – it is unable to understand the

specific forms of technological achievement.
Rockmore 97 (Tom, Professor of Philosophy Duquesne University, On Heidegger's Nazism and
Philosophy, Toward Criticism of Heidegger’s View of Technology p. 236, 1997)
Fifth, Heidegger's understanding of technology is overly abstract . Technology presupposes a multiply
determined environment, with social, political, historical, and other components. Heidegger offers us a theory of technology as
such. But there is no technology in general; there are only instantiations of forms of technology , such as
those required to produce steam engines, lasers, supersonic airplanes, and so on. Technological achievements need
to be grasped in the wider context in which they arise. One does not need to be a technological nominalist to
hold that if anything like a general theory of technology is possible, it can only be based on the concrete analysis of specific
technological forms. Heidegger is concerned with the history of ontology, but he is apparently unconcerned with
the historical manifestation of technological being.
 ! D – Standing Reserve

Treating oceans as a standing reserve under stewardship is essential to

economic growth and ecological sustainability for future generations
Leon E. Panetta, Chair, Pew Ocean Commission, May 2003, America’s Living Oceans, A Report
to the Nation, Recommendations for a New Ocean Policy, pp. ix-x
The fundamental conclusion of the Pew Oceans Commission is that this nation needs to ensure
healthy, productive, and resilient marine ecosystems for present and future generations. In
the long term, economic sustainability depends on ecological sustainability. To achieve and
maintain healthy ecosystems requires that we change our perspective and extend an ethic of
stewardship and responsibility toward the oceans. Most importantly, we must treat our
oceans as a public trust. The oceans are a vast public domain that is vitally important to our
environmental and economic security as a nation. The public has entrusted the government
with the stewardship of our oceans, and the government should exercise its authority with a
broad sense of responsibility toward all citizens and their long-term interests. These changes
in our perspective must be reflected in a reformed U.S. ocean policy. National ocean policy
and governance must be realigned to reflect and apply principles of ecosystem health and
integrity, sustainability, and precaution. We must redefine our relationship with the ocean to
reflect an understanding of the land-sea connection and organize institutions and forums
capable of managing on an ecosystem basis. These forums must be accessible, inclusive, and
accountable. Decisions should be founded upon the best available science and flow from
processes that are equitable, transparent, and collaborative.
 Tech Good
Heidegger concludes modern technology does not objectify nature
Dreyfus 96 [Hubert, “Being and Power: Heidegger and Foucault” University of California
Berkeley http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/html/paper_being.html]
In his final analysis of technology, Heidegger is critical of those who, still caught in the
subject/object picture, think that technology is dangerous because it embodies
instrumental reason. Modern technology, he insists, is "something completely different
and therefore new." Heidegger describes the hydroelectric power station on the Rhine as
his paradigm technological device because for him electricity is the paradigm technological
stuff. He says: The revealing that rules throughout modern technology has the character
of a setting-upon, in the sense of a challenging-forth. That challenging happens in that the
energy concealed in nature is unlocked, what is unlocked is transformed, what is
transformed is stored up, what is stored up is, in turn, distributed, and what is distributed is
switched about ever anew. But we can see now that electricity is not a perfect example of
technological stuff because it ends up finally turned into light, heat, or motion to satisfy some
subject’s desire. Heidegger’s intuition is that treating everything as standing reserve or, as
we might better say, resources, makes possible endless disaggregation, redistribution, and
reaggregation for its own sake. As soon as he sees that information is truly endlessly
transformable Heidegger switches to computer manipulation of information as his paradigm.
The goal of technology, Heidegger then tells us, is more and more flexibility and efficiency
simply for its own sake. There is no longer , as there was in Kant, an onto-theological center
that provides a goal for all activity. There is ordering but no orderer. Heidegger says:
Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand
there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this
way has its own standing. We call it the standing-reserve [Bestand, i.e. resources].
 Tech Thought Inevitable
Tech thought is inevitable
Kateb, professor of politics – Princeton, ‘97
(George, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_/ai_19952031)
But the question arises as to where a genuine principle of limitation on technological endeavor would come from. It
is scarcely
conceivable that Western humanity--and by now most of humanity, because of their pleasures and interests and their
own passions and desires and motives--would halt the technological project . Even if, by some change of heart,
Western humanity could adopt an altered relation to reality and human beings, how could it be
enforced and allowed to yield its effects? The technological project can be stopped only by
some global catastrophe that it had helped to cause or was powerless to avoid. Heidegger's teasing invocation
of the idea that a saving remedy grows with the worst danger is useless . In any case, no one
would want the technological project halted, if the only way was a global catastrophe. Perhaps even the
survivors would not want to block its reemergence . As for our generation and the indefinite future, many of us
are prepared to say that there are many things we wish that modern science did not know or is likely to find out and many things we
wish that modern technology did not know how to do. When referring in 1955 to the new sciences of life, Heidegger says We do not
stop to consider that an attack with technological means is being prepared upon the life and nature of man compared with which
the explosion of the hydrogen bomb means little. For precisely if the hydrogen bombs do not explode and human life on earth is
preserved, an uncanny change in the world moves upon us (1966, p. 52). The implication is that it is less bad for the human status
or stature and for the human relation to reality that there be nuclear destruction than that (what we today call) genetic engineering
should go from success to success. To
such lengths can a mind push itself when it marvels first at the
passions, drives, and motives that are implicated in modern technology, and then marvels at
the feats of technological prowess. The sense of wonder is entangled with a feeling of horror. We are
past even the sublime, as conceptualized under the influence of Milton's imagination of Satan and Hell. It is plain that
so much of the spirit of the West is invested in modern technology . We have referred to anger,
alienation, resentment. But that cannot be the whole story. Other considerations we can mention include the
following: a taste for virtuosity, skill for its own sake, an enlarged fascination with technique in itself,
and, along with these, an aesthetic craving to make matter or nature beautiful or more beautiful; and then,
too, sheer exhilaration, a questing, adventurous spirit that is reckless, heedless of danger, finding in obstacles opportunities for self-
overcoming, for daring, for the very sort of daring that Heidegger praises so eloquently when in 1935 he discusses the Greek world
in An Introduction to Metaphysics (1961, esp. pp. 123-39). All these considerations move away from anger,
anxiety, resentment, and so on. The truth of the matter, I think, is that the project of modern technology, just like
that of modern science, must attract a turbulence of response. The very passions and drives and motives that
look almost villainous or hypermasculine simultaneously look like marks of the highest human
aspiration, or, at the least, are not to be cut loose from the highest human aspiration.

Calculative thought is inevitable – it is the only way to truly understand the full
horror of a situation since it is impossible to access anything but the symptoms.
Santilli, Professor of Philosophy at Sienna College, ‘3 [Paul, Radical Evil, Subjection, and Alain
Badiou’s Ethic of the Truth Event, World Congress of The International Society for Universal
Dialogue, May 18-22, p. 20-21, http://www.isud.org/papers/pdfs/Santilli.pdf]
From the standpoint of an ethics of subjection there is even something unnecessary or superfluous about the void of
suffering in the subject bearers of evil. For Levinas, the return to being from the ethical encounter with the face and
its infinite depths is fraught with the danger the subject will reduce the other to a "like-me," totalizing and violating
the space of absolute alterity. As Chalier puts it, "Levinas conceives of the moral subject's awakening, or the
emergence of the human in being, as a response to that pre-originary subjection which is not a happenstance of
being."28 But if there really is something inaccessible about suffering itself, about the 'other' side of what is
manifestly finite, subjected, and damaged, then to a certain extent it is irrelevant to ethics, as irrelevant as the
judgment of moral progress in the subject-agent. Let me take the parent-child relation again as an example .
Suppose the child to exhibit the symptoms of an illness. Are not the proper "ethical" questions
for the parent to ask questions of measure and mathematical multiples: How high is the fever? How
long has it lasted? How far is the hospital? Can she get out of bed? Has this happened before? These are the
questions of the doctor, the rescue squads and the police. They are questions about being,
about detail, causes and effects. Ethically our response to the needs of must be reduced to a
positivity simply because we have access to nothing but the symptoms, which are like mine. Our
primary moral responsibility is to treat the symptoms that show up in being, not the radically
other with whom I cannot identify. Say we observe someone whose hands have been chopped off with a machete.
How would we characterize this? Would it not be slightly absurd to say, "He had his limbs severed and he suffered,"
as though the cruel amputation were not horror enough. Think of the idiocy in the common platitude: "She died of
cancer, but thank God, she did not suffer", as though the devastating annihilation of the human by a tumor were not
evil itself. For ethics, then, the only suffering that matters are the visible effects of the onslaught of
the world. All other suffering is excessive and inaccessible. Therefore, it is in being, indeed in
the midst of the most elemental facts about ourselves and other people, that we ethically
encounter others by responding to their needs and helping them as best we can. It is precisely
by identifying being and not pretending that we know any thing about suffering, other than it
is a hollow in the midst of being, that we can act responsibly. What worries me about Levinas is that
by going beyond being to what he regards as the ethics of absolute alterity, he risks allowing the sheer, almost banal
facticity of suffering to be swallowed in the infinite depths of transcendence. Indeed, it seems to me that Levinas too
often over emphasizes the importance of the emergence of the subject and the inner good in the ethical encounter,
as though the point of meeting the suffering human being was to come to an awareness of the good within oneself
and not to heal and repair. I agree with Chalier's observation that Levinas's "analyses adopt the point of view
of the moral subject, not that of a person who might be the object of its solicitude."29 Ethics
has limits; there are situations like the Holocaust where to speak of a moral responsibility to
heal and repair seems pathetic. But an ethics that would be oriented to the vulnerabilities of
the subjected (which are others, of course, but also myself) needs to address the mutilation,
dismemberment, the chronology of torture, the numbers incarcerated, the look of the bodies,
the narratives, the blood counts, the mines knives, machetes, and poisons. Evil really is all
that. When the mind does its work, it plunges into being, into mathematical multiples and
starts counting the cells, the graveyards, and bullet wounds. Rational practical deliberation is
always about the facts that encircle the void inaccessible to deliberation and practical
reason.30

Tech is inevitable and useful to transform human societies

Trafimow 2/27
[David, Social Psychology at New Mexico State University “Is It Inevitable that Societies Exploit
Useful Technologies?” Frontiers in Psychology, 2/27/14. Accessed 6/28/14, AV]
In some applied areas of psychology—particularly engineering psychology,
human factors psychology, and related areas—a common underlying assumption is that it
is inevitable that people will seize upon useful new technologies and exploit them with
dispatch, though some have suggested more complex points of view (Davis, 1993). In
turn, useful technologies transform human societies (Woolgar, 2009). It is easy to provide
examples that confirm this assumption. Furthermore, it is difficult to list counterexamples,
which serves to further fix the assumption in the minds of those researchers who are at
the intersection of humans and technology.
 Tech Optimism
Tech optimism based on empirical research is good – prefer specific experts
Krier ’85 (James E., Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, “The Un-Easy Case for Technological
Optimism,” Michigan Law Review, Vol. 84, No. 3; December 1985, pp. 405-429)
A technological optimist is not simply a person with unqualified enthusiasm about technological
promise. Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was an enthusiast, but he was not a technological optimist as the term is currently used. Saint-
Simon, rather, was a utopian who happened to attach his vision to technocratic expertise.4 He was the forefather of Technocracy, an
active utopian movement in the 1930s and one not entirely dead even today.5 Technological optimists are not utopians, but
something less - let us say quasi-utopians, after a recent usage (applied to himself) of Robert Dahl's.6 Unlike any self-respecting pure
utopian, quasi-utopians (and technological optimists) seek not perfection but tolerable imperfection, tolerable
because it is better than anything else they consider attainable though not nearly as good as lots of alternatives that can be
imagined. But technological optimists are also something more than mere be- lievers, or faddists, or techniks.7 Their
views are
rigorously formulated, grounded in an apparent reality, based on knowledge and experience,
and artfully defended. There are no crazies among the best of the optimists; they are conservative, respected
experts who command enormous authority. They have a very specific position namely , "that
exponential technological growth will allow us to expand resources ahead of exponentially
increasing demands."8

Technology isn’t innately bad-Moral technology solves for ethical reasons

Sparrow ’14 (Sparrow, R. 2014. (Im)Moral technology? Thought experiments and the future of
“mind control”. In Akira Akayabashi (ed) The Future of Bioethics: International Dialogues.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 113-119).In any case, the concern that biological interventions
to shape motivation and behaviour threaten freedom and autonomy is not exhausted by
arguments in metaphysics or philosophy of mind. The tension between God’s omnipotence and
man’s freedom is a matter of politics as much – or perhaps even more – than metaphysics. In
asking whether someone is free we are also asking whether they may appropriately be held
responsible for their actions. Savulescu, Douglas, and Persson concede this when they admit
that biomedical interventions to reshape the behaviour or motivations of other people constrain
their freedom if they cause them to act or feel differently than they would otherwise have been
inclined to do. Yet Savulescu et al. try to temper the opposition between freedom and moral
enhancement by discussing the case of a hypothetical – and frankly fantastic – “moral
technology”, which would only intervene to prevent people forming the desire to carry out
seriously immoral actions. By reducing the number of seriously immoral actions in societies in
which it were introduced without significantly reducing people’s freedom, such a device would,
they suggest, constitute a powerful technology of moral enhancement. In most cases, they
argue, when people chose to act morally they would also be doing so freely: in just a few cases
would individuals’ moral choices results from the coercive power of the magical moral
technology. However, Savulescu and his co-authors here underestimate the tension between
the power of some and the freedom of others. This tension is highlighted by the notion of
“freedom as non-domination” that has been developed by Philip Pettit (1997) in the course of
his explorations of the philosophical foundations of republicanism. Pettit argues convincingly
that citizens of a society run by a benevolent dictator are, in an important sense, not free even if
the dictator is genuinely benevolent and chooses never to exercise his dictatorial powers. To
return to the case that so exercised Milton, if God could have intervened to prevent Man’s fall,
but didn’t, then God seems equally responsible for the fall as Adam and Eve. God’s power – and
not just God’s exercise of his powers – is incompatible with human freedom. Similarly, given
that people who are subject to the magical “moral technology” are not free to do anything
other than act morally this suggests that there is an important sense in which they do not act
freely even when they choose to act in such a way as the technology does not intervene.
Savulescu, Douglas, and Persson’s argument therefore fails the second test that arguments
involving thought experiments must pass: it does not convincingly establish their central claim
even in the context of the hypothetical technology they discuss. 4 Having said that, I do want to
acknowledge that Savulescu and his co-authors succeed in establishing that biomedical
manipulation of oneself is compatible with autonomy and may even promote it by making it
easier for us to realise our higher order goals. This is a not-uninteresting result and should
indeed serve to undermine some of the reflexive hostility that the very idea of moral
enhancement currently tends to evoke. Nevertheless, the “Ulysses and the Sirens” type cases
that Savulescu, Douglas, and Persson discuss are a special case and leave the larger argument
about the ethics of enhancing other people untouched.
 Management Good
Management good
Palumbi, Stephen. (n.d.): n. pag. Managing for Ocean Biodiversity to Sustain Marine
Ecosysytem Services. The Ecological Society of America, 18 Sept. 2008. Web. 24 June 2014
compelling evidence is accumulating from terrestrial, ¶ freshwater, and marine systems to
suggest that sustainable ecosystem services depend upon a diverse biota (Daily er al. 199?;
Loreau er al. 2001; Tllman et al. 2001; Wall et al. 2004; MA 2005; Sala and Knowltcm 2006;
Worm et aL 2006; Butler et al. 2007: Hector and Bogchl 200?). In principle, such knowledge
should be useful in¶ guiding a national ocean policy that maintains the services provided by
oceans into the Future. But does knowing the link between diversity and services usefully
inform policy? We argue that management to sustain biodiversity could provide a critical
foundation for a practical, ecosystem based management (EBM) approach to the oceans.¶
Globally. 60% of ecosystem services are degraded (MA 2005). These ecosystems provide food,
shelter, recycling, and other support mechanisms that human communities require. but
fundamental services are declining as ecosystems are unraveled by human impacts (Palmer et
aL 2004). Marine ecosystems (Figure l) provide a constellation of services: they produce fond,
receive and assimilate wastes, protect shorelines from storms, regulate the climate and
atmosphere, generate tourism income, and provide recreational opportunities (Covich et al.
2004; MA 2005). The extraordinary diversity of the world’s oceans – across the different levels
of ecosystems, habitats, species, functional roles. and genetic diversity (Carpenter et (11. 2006;
Sala and Knowlton 2006) - and the interconnections of marine. coastal, freshwater, and
terrestrial ecosystems make managing ocean ecosystem crucial for long-term prosperity:
Although degradation of ecosystems might be reversed through appropriate policies (MA 2005),
there are substantial gaps in our understanding of ecosystem processes (Carpenter el al. 2006),
which impact practical ideas about implementing policy. ¶ EBM involves incorporating knowledge
of ecosystem processes into management, but defining EBM and specifying how it can be
implemented has been difficult. particularly for marine ecosystems (Arkema et 01. 2006).
Grurnbine (1994) surveyed 33 definitions of EBM, and Arkema er al. (2006) detailed 17.

Management Good (Oceans)

Ocean management policies are crucial to reverse current degradation and

ensure long-term sustainability
Brittin 13 [Rachel: Pew Oceans Commission, June 3, 2013, “Future of America’s Oceans: Better
or Worse?” Pew Oceans Commission,
http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/future-of-americas-oceans-
better-or-worse-85899479449]
Our oceans today appear to be undergoing fundamental changes from many directions. Today
and in the decade ahead, the United States needs to pursue a holistic, ecosystem-based
approach to managing our fisheries to help build resilience in our oceans and respond to
existing and future global threats such as the shift of fish toward the poles and deeper as
ocean waters warm. This includes:  Providing stronger legal authority to protect essential fish
habitats and minimize nontarget catch. Requiring forward-thinking plans to restore and
maintain healthy and resilient ocean ecosystems.  Safeguarding forage fish—such as menhaden
and sardines, which help form the foundation of the ocean food web—from unsustainable
exploitation. Preventing the expansion of fishing into new areas and on species until adequate
science and ecosystem protection measures are in place. Incredible challenges lie ahead for
preserving our marine environment and sustainably managing our ocean resources. But if we
remain committed to sound science and long-term sustainability—the vision of the Pew
Oceans Commission a decade ago—we can ensure that our oceans stay bountiful and beautiful
for generations to come.
 Management K2 Solve GW
Only foresighted management can solve global warming – the impact is the
case
Berg 08 [Robert, Senior Advisor World Federation of United Nations Associations, 2008,
Governing in a World of Climate Change, http://www.wfuna.org/atf/cf/%7B84F00800-D85E-
4952-9E61-D991E657A458%7D/BobBerg'sNewPaper.doc]
If, as Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen states, humanity is now in the Anthropocene Epoch
where forever more humanity must manage the environment, the scientific community for
centuries to come must take a leading social and institutional role. This places a completely
new responsibility on national and global scientific academies. It implies a constructive,
serious and sustained dialogue with the public as well as with political leadership. Frankly,
few scientific academies are yet up to this task. Building the capacity of scientists to respond
If governments and foundations are far-sighted, they will help ensure that national
scientific academies are strengthened so that they can become responsible partners in
forming public policies in response to climate change.   Each ecological setting will need
specific responses calling for national academies and academic centers to partner with
national policy makers.  The Open Society Institute and others are working to strengthen
scientific communities, but it is important that scientific communities take even greater
leading roles.

Environmental management solves extinction

Soule ‘95 Michael E., Professor and Chair of Environmental Studies, UC-Santa Cruz, REINVITING NATURE? RESPONSES TO
POSTMODERN DECONSTRUCTION, Eds: Michael E. Soule and Gary Lease, p. 159-160
Should We Actively Manage Wildlands and Wild Waters? The decision has already been made in most places. Some of the
ecological myths discussed here contain, either explicitly or implicitly, the idea that nature is self-regulating
and capable of caring for itself. This notion leads to the theory of management known as benign neglect
– nature will do fine, thank you, if human beings just leave it alone. Indeed, a century ago, a
hands-off policy was the best policy. Now it is not. Given natures`s current fragmented and
stressed condition, neglect will result in an accelerating spiral of deterioration. Once people
create large gaps in forests, isolate and disturb habitats, pollute, overexploit, and introduce species
from other continents, the viability of many ecosystems and native species is compromised, resiliency
dissipates, and diversity can collapse. When artificial disturbance reaches a certain threshold, even small changes can
produce large effects, and these will be compounded by climate change. For example, a storm that would be considered normal and
beneficial may, following widespread clearcutting, cause disastrous blow-downs, landslides, and erosion. If global warming occurs,
tropical storms are predicted to have greater force than now. Homeostasis,
balance, and Gaia are dangerous
models when applied at the wrong spatial and temporal scales. Even fifty years ago, neglect might have
been the best medicine, but that was a world with a lot more big, unhumanized, connected spaces, a world with one-third the
number of people, and a world largely unaffected by chain saws, bulldozers, pesticides, and exotic, weedy species. The
alternative to neglect is active caring – in today`s parlance, an affirmative approach to wildlands: to
maintain and restore them, to become stewards, accepting all the domineering baggage that word carries. Until
humans are able to control their numbers and their technologies, management is the only viable alternative to
massive attrition of living nature. But management activities are variable in intensity, something that antimanagement
purists ignore. In general, the greater the disturbance and the smaller the habitat remnant, the more intense the management must
be. So if we must manage, where do we look for ethical guidance?
 Management Inevitable
Management is inevitable- it’s only a question of what kind of intervention is
used. Past interventions will result in extinction unless actively reversed
Levy 99[ PhD @ Centre for Critical Theory at Monash Neil, “Discourses of the Environment,” ed:
Eric Darier, p. 215]
If the ‘technological fix’ is unlikely to be more successful than strategies of limitation of our
use of resources, we are, nevertheless unable simply to leave the environment as it is.
There is a real and pressing need for space, and more accurate, technical and scientific
information about the non-human world. For we are faced with a situation in which the
processes we have already set in train will continue to impact upon that world, and
therefore us for centuries. It is therefore necessary, not only to stop cutting down the rain
forests, but to develop real, concrete proposals for action, to reverse or at least limit the
effects of our previous interventions. Moreover, there is another reason why our behavior
towards the non-human cannot simply be a matter of leaving it as it is, at least in so far as
our goals are not only environmental but also involve social justice. For if we simply preserve
what remains to us of wilderness, of the countryside and of park land, we also preserve
patterns of very unequal access to their resources and their consolations (Soper 1995:
207).in fact, we risk exacerbating these inequalities. It is not us, but the poor of Brazil, who
will bear the brunt of the misery which would result from a strictly enforced policy of leaving
the Amazonian rain forest untouched, in the absence of alternative means of providing for
their livelihood. It is the development of policies to provide such ecologically sustainable
alternatives which we require, as well as the development of technical means for replacing
our current greenhouse gas-emitting sources of energy. Such policies and proposals for
concrete action must be formulated by ecologists, environmentalists, people with expertise
concerning the functioning of ecosystems and the impact which our actions have upon them.
Such proposals are, therefore, very much the province of Foucault’s specific intellectual, the
one who works ‘within specific sectors, at the precise points where their own conditions of
life or work situate them’ (Foucault 1980g: 126). For who could be more fittingly described as
‘the strategists of life and death’ than these environmentalists? After the end of the Cold
War, it is in this sphere, more than any other, that man’s ‘politics places his existence as a
living being in question’ (Foucault 1976: 143). For it is in facing the consequences of our
intervention in the non-human world that the hate of our species, and of those with whom
we share this planet, will be decided?
 Management Inevitable (Oceans)
Ocean management is inevitable.
John Marra, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, July 14, 2005,
“When will we tame the oceans?,” Nature, Vol. 436, pp. 175-176.
There is no question that these are significant problems to overcome; such environmental ills
echo those visited on the land since the advent of farming. But if we recognize that
domestication of the ocean is starting to happen, we can craft a research agenda to mitigate
the problems and maintain both economic and ecological sustainability. Research questions
for the mariculture industry span basic and applied research, and policy — from marine
biology and physical oceanography, to engineering and the law. Which fish species can be
adapted to captivity, that is, domesticated throughout their life cycle? How can their health and
diets be maintained? Are there alternatives to the small pelagics currently fed to farmed fish,
such as by-catch? Where should mariculture systems be situated, in terms of ocean dynamics
and the surface wave environment? How should they be constructed and maintained?
Answering these questions in turn raises legal and policy concerns. One solution to many of
the problems associated with coastal mariculture is to move the systems further offshore —
to the waters of the outer continental shelves, and beyond to the open ocean. Generally,
offshore systems cause less coastal pollution, but can dramatically increase costs. Nevertheless,
pilot projects under development illustrate the potential for creative solutions.
 Turn – Totalitarianism

Heideggerian philosophy allows for the potential for a totalitarian dictatorship,

let Hitler become his “new god”
Dreyfus ’93 (October 1993, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism,
Art, Technology and Politics, file:///C:/Users/Zach/Downloads/dreyfus%20-%20Heidegger%20on
%20the%20Connection%20between%20Nihilism,%20Art,%20Technology%20and%20Politics
%20.pdf)
It follows for Heidegger that our deepest needs will be satisfied and our distress overcome
only when our culture gets a new center. Our current condition is defined by the absence of a
god: The era is defined by the god's failure to arrive, by the "default of god." But the default of
god ... does not deny that the Christian relationship with God lives on in individuals and in the
churches; still less does it assess this relationship negatively. The default of god means that no
god any longer gathers men and things unto himself, visibly and unequivocally, and by such
gathering disposes of the world's history and man's sojourn in it. (PLT 91, G 5 269)Heidegger's
personal mistake comes from having thought that Hitler or National Socialism was such a god.
Yet, Heidegger had already, in "The Origin of the Work of Art," developed criteria that could
serve to determine whether a charismatic leader or movement deserved our allegiance. He
stresses there that a true work of art must set up a struggle between earth and world. That is, a
true work of art does not make everything explicit and systematic. It generates and supports
resistance to total mobilization. Yet, Heidegger chose to support a totalitarian leader who
denied the truth of all conflicting views and was dedicated to bringing everything under
control. Heidegger no doubt interpreted Hitler as setting up some sort of appropriate struggle.
Unfortunately, there is no interpretation-free criterion for testing a new god, and such
mistakes are always possible. Heidegger's philosophy, then, is dangerous because it seeks to
convince us that only a god - a charismatic figure or some other culturally renewing event --
can save us from falling into contented nihilism. It exposes us to the risk of committing
ourselves to some demonic renewing event or movement. What sort of claim is Heidegger
making when he tells us that enlightenment welfare and dignity are not enough and that only a
god can save us? How can one justify or criticize Heidegger when he reads our current condition
as the absence of god and our current distress as a sign of the greatest danger? --for only such a
reading of the present age justifies risking commitment to some new cultural paradigm.
 Cede the Political
The alt cedes the political.
Weinberger 92 [Jerry, Professor of Political Science Michigan State University, “Politics and
the Problem of Technology: An Essay on Heidegger and the Tradition of Political Philosophy”,
The American Political Science Review Vol. 86, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 112-127]
In other words, we would have to show that Heideggerian being, which grants a causeless and "tactical" play
of its domains, cannot account for the genuine gravity of political life-for how the elements of
experience contend against each other, as we see in the challenge of thought to faith, the tension
between private and public life, the conflicts between morality and politics, the difference between
the good and the just, and so on. We would have to show that such contention is possible only insofar as their
elements are related causally and hierarchically, so that each by its very nature claims an authority, beyond the con- tingencies
of any given world, to order the others. And we would have to see that however much the fact of such contention calls forth
our efforts to overcome it by way of making and knowing, both making and knowing are even at their best the very source of
this contention. Nature, as I propose to think about it, is beyond any project for conquest. Technology could, of course,
simply destroy the natural soul by making it either subhuman or godlike; but it could never wholly stamp the human
species because it cannot supply all of the needs that the soul has spontaneously (or by nature), such as
the desire for noble preeminence. I Consequently, the harder technology presses, the more intensely we sense a "problem"
with it. l am suggesting that the problem o technology is most fully understood when we approach it through the old-fashioned
question of natural justice that transcends any given political conventions. I am thus suggesting that no era’s thinking and
practice is so finite and self-contained that it can be wholly stamped bv technology and that we do
not have to recur to Heideggerian being to see the limits of the stamp. But I am also suggesting that such
direction as nature gives to our groping for justice will never satisfy the demands of everyday politics and morality; for that
direction consists in the limited extent to which the widest opening of our eyes can cure the blindnesses of political life. All this
is to say that we can choose against Heidegger only by showing that our view inclines us best to see unblinkingly the fissures
within political life and to resist the dogmatic partisanship that is inseparable from tt-'ctme and peicsis. Is it possible that for all
its extraordinary power, the Heideggerian attempt to grasp the character of thought and art results in an
equally extraordinary obtuseness toward the nature of political life ? I would argue that both anticipatory
resoluteness and Gelassenheit do just this: the former tempts us to a spurious unity of such things as work, thought, and war;
and the latter tempts us to the sgurious disconnectedness of these same phenomena. Z Is it thus possible that
Heideggerian being is itself a danger of technology, which always (like morality) tempts us vainly to try
to jump out of our political skins? My argument is that if we own up to what it means to be human, the
answer is a provisional yes. But if we need further proof that the homely problems of political life just
will not go away, that there really are not that many of them, and that we deny this at our peril, perhaps we need only
relearn how to look right under our noses . There is nothing more technological than the idea that a
metaphysical tradition - some rational system could wholly stamp an age and its practical life. This
is, however, just what Heidegger’s account of technology would have us believe . And yet Heidegger's
accounts of Gestcll and Bestmtd do help us to think about what is so disturbing about modern technology-its tendency to deny
the objects of the soul's desire, the noble and beautiful things that are in essence both rare and elusive. ln thinking about
technology, we discover that not the stamp of meta- physics but the political problems within which thought arises out of
production is turned toward a mysterious but necessary whole and is always pre- carious. Technology is indeed a
danger that saves: it compels us to think anew about the meaning of nature. But if, in grasping
technology, we owe anything to Heidegger (and we certainly do) it is that Heidegger helps us to see how technology turns us
away from Heidegger.” I suspect that such a turn will require us to admit that we cannot escape the question of the
highest good and that while neither politics nor justice is that highest good, we cannot think it apart
from the moral demands for justice that frame political life and any questioning about being and the
soul.
 Heidegger is a Nazi.
Nazism infects Heidegger’s philosophy – recent publication proves
Wolin April 23, 2014 (Richard Wolin, June 2nd 2014 National Socialism, World Jewry, and
the History of Being: Heidegger’s Black Notebooks By Richard Wolin | Summer 2014,
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Public-Programming/Calendar/Detail?id=24775, Richard Wolin is
distinguished professor of history, political science, and comparative literature at the CUNY
Graduate Center)
Heidegger’s critique of theories of knowledge that abstract from the actual conditions of human existence in Being and Time and
other early works is deeply original and remains important. As Emmanuel Levinas perspicaciously recognized early on, by taking
“Being-in-the-world,” rather than Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, as its point of departure, Heidegger’s
philosophy of
existence was able to revolutionize the enterprise of transcendental philosophy. But it is also
not hard to see how, in the philosopher’s own mind, many of the aforementioned,
overlapping philosophical and cultural themes became confusedly intertwined . Thus if modernity
was a “fall” from the grace of origins and if the main culprit was the implacable triumph of Western rationalism, it seemed to follow
that the Jews were behind it. Hence from the very beginning, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology was profoundly and irredeemably
ideological. Heidegger’schampions have long claimed that his anti-Semitism is a later and
somewhat equivocal development, a regrettable lapse that the Master himself quickly
corrected, with no intrinsic or essential connection to the majesty of his thought. Now that
these anti-Semitic transgressions have been acknowledged, we are repeatedly told, we can
safely go back to imbibing his portentous pronouncements concerning the ill effects of
technology and the forlorn condition of modern man. But the critical point to keep in mind is
that Heidegger’s radical critique of reason, of subjectivity, of modern technology, and of
Western civilization’s downfall are all part of a world view—whose individual components are
historically and thematically inseparable—that rejected reason, democracy, and individualism .
As Heidegger avows in the Black Notebooks, in a passage that is replete with anti-Semitic
stereotypes: Contemporary Jewry’s . . . increase in power finds its basis in the fact that
Western metaphysics—above all, in its modern incarnation—offers fertile ground for the
dissemination of an empty rationality and calculability, which in this way gains a foothold in
“spirit,” without ever being able to grasp from within the hidden realms of decision.
Heidegger concludes this litany of invective by declaring that, “The more original and
primordial that future decisions and questioning become, the more they will remain
inaccessible to this ‘race’”—that is, the Jews . He wrote these words circa 1939. In his time as Rektor-Führer of the
University of Freiburg, Heidegger had proposed a series of political changes that would bring German higher education in line with
the values of “existential rootedness” (Bodenständigkeit). He emphasized and celebrated the idea of “service”: military service, labor
service, and service in knowledge. Labor, in particular, would help cure German students of excessive intellectualism and re-channel
their energies toward the values of the “national community” (Volksgemeinschaft). In
all of these respects, Heidegger
saw crucial existential affinities between his philosophy and the Nazi ideology of Volk,
Gemeinschaft, Führertum (leadership), hierarchy, destiny, and Kampf,or struggle . As he would later
declare in the Black Notebooks, “The higher compulsion [Zwang] of the earth” is only realized “in the world-shaping power [Macht]
of a Volk.” It is worth noting that many of these Nazi or proto-Nazi ideals had previously surfaced in Being and Time in connection
with Heidegger’s discussion of “historicity.” Thus
already during the late 1920s, among Heidegger’s criteria
for authentic historical existence were fidelity to the Volk, allegiance to one’s “generation,”
loyalty to a historical “community” (Gemeinschaft), the capacity to “choose one’s hero,” and an ability to heed the
summons of destiny. In this regard, one of the main obstacles to accepting Heidegger’s philosophy of existence is that, historicity, as
Heidegger defines it, is inextricably tied to his idea of the Volk, and to the entire array of racist and anti-democratic prejudices that
accompany it. Only Völker (peoples) can be “historical,” in Heidegger’s sense, since they alone are rooted in soil and place and
possess a common bloodline. As Heidegger observes at one point: “The voice of blood derives from the fundamental mood of man,
and the shaping of our Dasein through labor is integrally related to this process.” Moral and legal conceptions that are opposed to
the Volk-idea, including democracy and human rights, are mere disembodied abstractions. In the Black Notebooks, these concerns
become obsessional. The attempt by Heidegger’s defenders to separate his philosophy from his political views (or even to delineate
between his early and late philosophy) necessarily comes to grief. It founders owing to the nature of Heidegger’s philosophy itself,
which takes its bearings and inspiration from the historical situatedness of Dasein. Even
before he joined the Nazi
Party, Heidegger’s thought was saturated with völkisch ideological themes. Parts of Being and
Time express the same anti-liberal, proto-fascist perspective as Oswald Spengler and other
contemporary German thinkers, including Carl Schmitt and Ernst Jünger. The major difference is that
Heidegger’s anti-democratic sentiments are masked in the discourse of fundamental ontology .
In the Black Notebooks the question of Being becomes a springboard for Heidegger’s intemperate judgments concerning the politics
of the 1930s. No matter where Heidegger trains his gaze, he perceives the same manifestations of
historico-ontological degeneracy, the same fateful hypostatization and disqualification of
Being. His preferred term to describe this condition of cultural decline is Machenschaft, which can be approximately rendered as
“machination,” while also suggesting both “fabrication” and “manufacture.” Heidegger’s lamentation against such machination
pervaded his work in the 1930s. Russia and America are the same, with the same dreary technological frenzy and the same
unrestricted organization of the average man. The lives of men . . . slide into a world which lacked the depth from out of which the
essential always comes . . . The prevailing dimension became that of extension and number. Intelligence no longer meant a wealth of
talent, lavishly spent, but only what could be learned by everyone . . . This
is the onslaught of what we call the
demonic (in the sense of destructive evil). Here, as in many other instances, Heidegger’s
history of Being threatens to lapse into inverted theology, with an apocalyptic punchline . He
really has nothing to tell us about Russia under Stalin or America at the time of the New Deal (though he may tell us more than he
realizes about Germany under Hitler). It seems that everything “essential” has been determined in advance by the inchoate and
mysterious “sendings of Being.” Here it is worth recalling Heidegger’s declaration in the “Letter on Humanism” that, from the
standpoint of fundamental ontology, human will counts for naught. As Jürgen Habermas has written: The propositionally contentless
speech about Being [demands] resignation to fate. Its practical-political side consists in . . . a diffuse readiness to obey . . . an auratic
but indeterminate authority. The rhetoric of the later Heidegger compensates for the propositional content that the text itself
refuses: It attunes and trains its addressees in their dealings with pseudo-sacral powers. page from Heidegger's Black Notebooks
Pages from one of Martin Heidegger’s Black Notebooks from 1931 to 1941, recently published in Germany for the first time.
(Courtesy of Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach.) In the Black Notebooks Heidegger’s misplaced reverence for Being qua “destiny”
occasionally reaches absurd proportions.
For instance he attributes numinous power to names that begin
with the letter H: Heraclitus, Hölderlin, and Hegel. But Hitler would also seem to belong to the list, as would, of
course, Heidegger. Heidegger also indulges in baseless numerological prophesizing, conjecturing that a final “decision”
(Entscheidung) on the planetary reign of “Americanism” will come to pass in 2300. He also predicts that in the year 2327 his own
name will re-emerge from the oblivion of forgetting, that is, on the 400th anniversary of the publication of Being and Time .
Heidegger believed that the Soviet Union, America, and England, as embodiments of
Machenschaft, were expressions of the spirit of “World Jewry”—“a human type whose world
historical goal is the uprooting of all beings from Being. ” According to Heidegger, the problem with
Machenschaft “is that it leads to total deracination, resulting in the self-alienation of peoples .”
He continues: Whereas “World Jewry which is everywhere ungraspable, does not need to resort to
arms”—since, presumably, it has stealthily infiltrated all global centers of power—
“conversely, we Germans sacrifice the most racially gifted representatives of our Volk .” In other
words, according to Heidegger, “World Jewry” had everything to gain from World War II without
having wagered a thing. In Heidegger’s view, another hypocritical aspect of World Jewry is that, whereas “since
time immemorial, the Jews, relying on their express talents for calculation, have ‘lived’
according to the principle of race, they now seek to defend themselves against that same
principle’s unrestricted application”—a reference to the Nazis’ draconian and persecutory racial
legislation. Time and again, Heidegger asserts that an international Jewish conspiracy is
responsible for secretly orchestrating a world-historical process of deracination—the
alienation of the world’s peoples from their rootedness in soil. For this reason, Heidegger believed that
National Socialism’s racial persecution of the Jews was essentially a case of self-defense. In his treatise on the “history of Being” he
contends that,
“It would be important to enquire about the basis of [World] Jewry’s unique
predisposition toward planetary criminality [planetärisches Verbrechertum].” The Black Notebooks confirm the
extent to which, during the 1930s, Heidegger’s philosophical language had imbibed the National Socialist rhetoric of “struggle” and
“annihilation” (Kampf und Vernichtung).
“Everything,” he writes, “must be [exposed to] total
devastation, preceded by the annihilation . . . of ‘Culture .’” On another occasion, he says that, “Truth is
not for everyone, but only for the strong.” By way of illustration, Heidegger praises the
“violent ones [die Gewalttätige] . . . who use force to become preeminent in historical Being.” In the
Black Notebookshe endorses the practice of a kind of philosophical “breeding” (Züchtung), claiming, “The breeding of
higher and of the highest modalities of thought is of primary importance—more so than the
mere communication of knowledge (Kenntnismitteilung).” Expressing contempt for the German university, Heidegger
declares that, “Two years of military service is better preparation for the sciences than four semesters of ‘study.’” The Black
Notebooks are meant to stake out, he writes, “stealthy advance and rearguard positions” (unscheinbare Vorposten—und
Nachhutstellungen) in the struggle to achieve a mode of “original questioning” (anfängliche Fragen). “Every [authentic] philosophy is
in-human,” Heidegger proclaims—“a consuming fire.” During the late 1930s, as Nazi aggression precipitated a series of crises
pushing Europe toward the precipice of war, the ideological fervor of Heidegger’s political judgments escalated accordingly. By
propagating the debased, technical-instrumental values of “welfare,” “reason,” and “culture,” the “Western Revolutions” gave rise
to the impersonal “despotism of No One—the unadulterated . . . empowerment of limitless planning and calculation” that holds
sway in the contemporary world. Implausibly, Heidegger describes Bolshevism as the culmination of the English Revolution: “The
character of modernity is the total and unrelenting fabrication (Machenschaft) of all Being
 Heidegger Sucks
Not even Heiddeger can explain what the alt does
Acumensch. "Hyperborea: Heidegger Wrong On Technology." Hyperborea: Heidegger Wrong
On Technology. Hyperborea, 8 Oct. 2007. Web. 28 June 2014.
It has occurred to me that Heidegger was deeply wrong about technology. He identifies in The
Question Concerning Technology human developments and extensions as the essential and
decisive factor underlying all other dilemmas and conflicts. It constitutes a profound and
"supreme danger," he says, in these "needy times" to which "everywhere we remain unfree and
chained... whether we passionately affirm or deny it." As Heidegger suggests, it is precisely
within the danger of technology that the possibility of a "saving grace" emerges out of a new
disclosure of Being. What is this possibility? Heidegger here is uncertain . Perhaps it is the
technological singularity? But for Heidegger it almost sounds religious, and it has been said that
forking through his work is something seemingly Christian. Yet the same could be said about
Hegel, who most recent scholars, like the late Robert Solomon, argue that he was in fact deeply
atheist. Heidegger is right about one thing, and that's the liberatory capacity of technology, as
evidenced by the last quarter of the 20th Century.
Framework
 Ocean Policy Debate Key
Debates about ocean policy have the unique chance of sparking the advocacy
necessary to save the oceans
Greely 2008 (Teresa [University of South Florida]; Ocean literacy and reasoning about ocean
issues: The influence of content, experience and morality; Graduate Theses and Dissertations;
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/271; kdf)
Ocean issues with conceptual ties to science and a global society have captured the attention,
imagination, and concern of an international audience. Global climate change, natural disasters, over
fishing, marine pollution, freshwater shortages, groundwater contamination, economic trade and commerce, marine mammal
stranding, and decreased biodiversity are just a few of the ocean issues highlighted in our media
and conversations. The ocean shapes our weather, links us to other nations, and is crucial to
our national security. From the life-giving rain that nourishes crops and our bodies, to life-saving medicines; from the fish
that come from the ocean, to the goods that are transported on the sea’s surface--- the ocean plays a role in our lives in some way
everyday (NOAA, 1998). The American public values the ocean and considers protecting it to be a
fundamental responsibility, but its understanding of why we need the ocean is superficial
(Belden, Russonello & Stewart, 1999). However, a broad disconnect exists between what scientist know and
the public understands about the ocean. The ocean , more than any other single ecosystem , has social
and personal relevance to all persons . In the 21st century we will look increasingly to the ocean to meet our
everyday needs and future sustainability. Thus, there is a critical need to advance ocean literacy within our
nation, especially among youth and young adults . It has been estimated that less than 2% of all
American adults are environmentally literate (NEETF, 2005). Results from a series of ocean and coastal literacy
surveys (AAAS, 2004; Belden, et al., 1999; Steel, Smith, Opsommer, Curiel & Warner-Steel, 2005) of American adults reveal similar
findings. Surveys demonstrated that in the 1990’s the public valued the ocean and expressed emotional and recreational
connections, however, awareness about ocean health was low. A decade later Americans had an increased sense of urgency about
ocean issues and were willing to support actions to protect the oceans even when the tradeoffs of higher prices at the supermarket,
fewer recreational choices, and increased government spending were presented (AAAS, 2004). While most Americans surveyed
agree that humans are impacting the health of the ocean more than one-third felt that they cannot make a difference. In contrast, a
survey of youth reveals strong feelings about environmental issues and the confidence that they can make a difference (AZA, 2003).
Collectively, these studies reveal that the public is not well equipped with knowledge about ocean issues. This implies that the public
needs access to better ocean information delivered in the most effective manner. The component lacking for both adults and youth
is a baseline of ocean knowledge--- literacy about the oceans to balance the emotive factors exhibited through care, concern and
connection with the ocean. The interdependence between humans and the ocean is at the heart of ocean literacy. Cudaback (2006)
believes that given the declining quality of the marine environment (Pew Ocean Commission, 2003), ocean educators have the
responsibility to teach not only the science of the ocean, but also the interdependence with humans. Ocean literacy is especially
significant, as we implement a first-ever national ocean policy to halt the steady decline of our nation’s ocean and coasts via the
Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century (U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004). The need for ocean education and literacy that goes
beyond emotive factors is critical and relevant towards preparing our students, teachers, and citizens to regularly contribute to
ocean decisions and socioscientific issues that impact their health and well being on Earth. “The biggest barriers to increasing
commitment to ocean protection are Americans’ lack of awareness of the condition of the oceans and of their own role in damaging
the oceans,” (Belden, et al., 1999).
The challenge for ocean educators is to explicitly state the
connections between the ocean and daily decisions and actions of people. People enjoy the
beauty of the ocean and the bounty of its waters, but may not understand that their everyday
actions such as boating, construction, improper waste disposal, or ignoring protected areas, can impact the ocean and
its resources. More than one-half of the US population lives within 200 miles of the ocean. Long-term planning for growth,
development and use of coastal areas is key to the continued productivity of the ocean (NOAA, 1998). Because the ocean is
inextricably interconnected to students’ lives it provides a significant context for
socioscientific issues that foster decision making, human interactions, and environmental
stewardship. Ocean literacy encompasses the tenets of scientific literacy which is defined by national standards, as the ability to
make informed decisions regarding scientific issues of particular social importance (AAAS, 1993; NRC, 1996, 2000). As such, scientific
literacy encompasses both cognitive (e.g. knowledge skills) and affective (e.g., emotions, values, morals, culture) processes. Science
standards were designed to guide our nation toward a scientifically literate society and provide criteria to judge progress toward a
national vision of science literacy (NRC, 1996). Although
standards for science teaching andliteracy are
established, the fundamental and critical role of the ocean is not emphasized.

High school students should seize every opportunity to discuss ocean policy- it’s
the only way to stave off extinction
Greely 2008 (Teresa [University of South Florida]; Ocean literacy and reasoning about ocean
issues: The influence of content, experience and morality; Graduate Theses and Dissertations;
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/271; kdf)
This research emerged from a wave of recent interest in promoting ocean literacy on a national level (AAAS, 2004; COSEE, 2005;
National Geographic Society, 2006; Pew Ocean Commission, 2003; Schroedinger et al., 2006; US Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004).
I constructed an operational meaning of the term ocean literacy. Currently,
K-12 students and our citizenry at
large are under-prepared to contribute individual or societal decisions about our oceans, due
to limited ocean knowledge from which to make socioscientific decisions. Any conversation
about scientific literacy for our citizenry that does not include ocean literacy as a pivotal focus
will fall short of literacy goals for all students by neglecting the planet’s largest environment.
The ocean environment is bountiful with opportunities to engage in ocean-related socioscientific issues (OSSI) meaningful to the life
experiences of most citizens. By providing ocean content, learning experiences, and socioscientific case studies students and citizens
can contribute to the social, economic, and cultural development of an ocean literate society permeated with global implications.
The ocean sustains life on Earth and everyone is responsible for caring for the ocean.
Individual and collective actions are needed to effectively manage ocean resources for all
(National Geographic Society, 2006). I examined the influence of an informal learning experience to advance ocean literacy and
reasoning about ocean socioscientific issues. Specifically, my
research described what understanding youth
currently hold about the ocean (content), how they 31 feel toward the ocean environment
(environmental attitudes), and how these feelings and understanding are organized when reasoning
about ocean issues (environmental morality). It is hoped that this baseline study will provide standardized measures where
possible that can be replicated by other researchers. As others conduct similar ocean literacy empirical research, a set of studies that
build on each other will be established. This investigation adopts the following position on ocean literacy. An ocean literate person is
an individual equipped to use ocean knowledge, to engage in oral or written discussion about the oceans (e.g., support a position), to
understand the changes made to the ocean through human activity, and to apply ocean knowledge through actions as citizen,
steward or consumer. In as much as educational research supports one’s knowledge as a significant
component of scientific literacy and reasoning, the significance as relates to ocean literacy is
not known. On a theoretical level it is reasonable to propose that acquisition of content knowledge and social considerations
will contribute to ocean literacy and reasoning about ocean socioscientific issues. I propose that the development of
ocean literacy may advance functional scientific literacy through an integrated knowledge
base, practice doing and reasoning about science, and opportunities for social action . Ocean
socioscientific issues (OSSI) may have relevance to a broader audience of learners than current socioscientific issues reported in the
literature. Finally,
ocean literacy may advance science literacy by lessening the gap between public
knowledge and the frontiers of scientific inquiry. While there is a paucity of educational research regarding
ocean literacy and reasoning, my findings contribute more generally to the pedagogy of classroom practice 32 and curriculum.
Specifically, my research identified current ocean content that advances ocean literacy based on the formal and informal ocean
learning experiences examined. In addition, a preliminary metric to evaluate conceptual understanding was developed. Classroom
practice and curriculum will be further enriched with the addition of developmentally appropriate ocean socioscientific issues via
case studies implemented during my study. Ultimately, ocean
literacy research provides (a) ocean science
content and experiences as part of a 21st century integrated science curriculum, and (b)
opportunities to engage in ocean socioscientific issues (OSSI) meaningful to the life
experiences of most citizens.
 Policymaking K2 GW
Political action is key and proven to work to stop climate change
Government of Canada. "Reducing Greenhouse Gases." Government of Canada,
Environment Canada. Canadian Government, 11 Apr. 2014. Web. 28 June 2014.
<http://climatechange.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=4FE85A4C-1>.
The Government of Canada is committed to addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while
keeping the Canadian economy strong. We are achieving success - from 2005 to 2012, Canadian
GHG emissions have decreased by 5.1 per cent while the economy has grown by 10.6 per cent.
The 2013 Canada’s Emissions Trends report estimates that, as a result of the combined efforts
of federal, provincial and territorial governments, consumers and businesses, GHG emissions
in 2020 will be 734 megatonnes (Mt). This is 128 Mt lower than where emissions would be in
2020 if no action were taken to reduce GHGs since 2005.
 Ontology Not First
Ontological questions are unable to escape themselves
Levinas and Nemo 85 (Emmanuel, professor of philosophy, and Philippe, professor of new
philosophy, Ethics and Infinity, pg. 6-7
Are we not in need of still more precautions? Must we not step back from this question to raise another, to recognize the
obvious circularity of asking what is the “What is . .?“ question? It seems to beg the question. Is our new suspicion, then, that
Heidegger begs the question of metaphysics when he asks “What is poetry?” or “What is
thinking?”? Yet his thought is insistently anti-metaphysical. Why, then, does he retain the
metaphysical question par excellence? Aware of just such an objection, he proposes,
against the vicious circle of the petitio principi, an alternative, productive circularity:
hermeneutic questioning. To ask “What is. . .?“ does not partake of onto-theo-logy if one acknowledges (1) that the answer can
never be fixed absolutely, but calls essentially, endlessly, for additional “What is . . .?“ questions. Dialectical refinement here
replaces vicious circularity. Further, beyond the openmindedness called for by dialectical refinement, hermeneutic questioning
(2) insists on avoiding subjective impositions, on avoiding reading into rather than harkening to things. One must harken to the
But do the refinement and care of the
things themselves, ultimately to being, in a careful attunement to what is.
hermeneutic question — which succeed in avoiding ontotheo-logy succeed in avoiding all viciousness?
Certainly they convert a simple fallacy into a productive inquiry, they open a path for thought. But is it not the case that
however much refinement and care one brings to bear, to ask what something is leads to asking what something else is, and so
on and so forth, ad infinitum? What is disturbing in this is not so much the infinity of interpretive
depth, which has the virtue of escaping onto-theo-logy and remaining true to the way things are, to the phenomena, the
coming to be and passing away of being. Rather, the problem lies in the influence the endlessly open horizon of such thinking
exerts on the way of such thought. That is, the
problem lies in what seems to be the very virtue of hermeneutic thought,
the doggedness of the “What is . . .?“ question, in its inability to escape itself, to
namely,
escape being and essence.

Ontology is silly and irrelevant to resolution of the political- the alt fails
Gathman 9 [http://limitedinc.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialectics-of-diddling.html
Professional editor, translator, publishes pieces in salon.com and Austin Chronicle]
IT – and I will interrupt the continuity of this post in the very first sentence to say that I, at least, refuse to identify the semi-
autonomous heteronym, Infinite Thought, with the semi-autonomous philosopher, Nina, so this is about IT – recently wrote a post
that makes an oblique but telling point against the current fashion for returning to things as they are via some kind of speculative
realist ontology. As she notes, this gesture seems to go along with a taste for a politics that is so catastrophic as to be an excuse for
no politics. “proliferating ontologies is simply not the point - further, what use is it if it simply becomes
a race to the bottom to prove that every entity is as meaningless as every other (besides, the
Atomists did it better). Confronting 'what is' has to mean accepting a certain break between the natural and the artificial, even if this
break is itself artificial. Ontology is play-science for philosophers ; I'm pretty much convinced when Badiou argues
that mathematics has better ways of conceiving it than philosophy does and that, besides, ontology is not the point. What
happens, or what does not happen, should be what concerns us: philosophers sometimes
pride themselves on their ignorance of world affairs, again like watered-down Heideggarians ,
no matter how hostile they think they are to him, pretending that all that history and politics
stuff is so, like, ontic, we're working on something much more important here.” Being the Derridean
type, I expect that any attempt to create another, better ontology will produce the kinds of double
binds that Derrida so expertly fished out of phenomenology. There have been a lot of replies to I.T.'s post. I thought the most
interesting one was by Speculative Heresy, because he makes it clear that Speculative Realism is a return to a distinction that was
popular among the analytic philosophers in the 50s, where a value neutral view of philosophy as a technique supposedly precluded
the relevance of any political conclusions from conceptual analysis, and at worst blocked the advance of philosophy as a science.
Here, the part of the natural is played by the question, which apparently asks itself in the void: “Which is to say that philosophy
and politics are born of two different questions: ‘what is it?’ and ‘what to do?’ The latter,
political, question need never concern itself with the former question.” IT rightly sees this reverence
for the question in itself, and its supposedly fortunate alignment with the disciplines we all know and love, with their different
mailboxes in the university, as a very Heideggerian gesture. And, as an empirical fact of intellectual history, it is very
curious to think that a discipline is “born” from a syntactical unit peculiar to certain languages. Again, we run into a very old
thematic, in which the question giving "birth" is entangled in the parallel series of logos and the body, in which each
becomes a privileged metaphor for the other. There's nothing more political than this.

Ontology doesn’t come first: exclusionary to some principles

Norton 96 [Professor of Philosophy at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Bryan, “Environmental Pragmatism,” Edited by Light and Katz, pg. 106]
Thus ends my explanation of, and please for, a practical environmental ethic that seeks to integrate pluralistic principles across
multiple levels/dynamics. Rather than reducing pluralistic principles by relating them to an
underlying value theory that recognizes only economic preferences or “inherent” value as the ontological
stuff that unifies all moral judgments. I have sought integration of multiple values on three irreducible
scales of human concern and valuation, choosing pluralism over monism, and attempting to integrate
values within an ecologically informed, multi-scalar model of the human habitat . I believe that
the non-ontological, pluralistic approach to values can better express the inductively based values and
management approach of Leopold’s land ethic, which can be seen as a precursor to the tradition of adaptive
management. And, if the problem of environmentalism is the need to support rationally the goals of environmental protection
– the problem Callicott misconceived as the need for a realist moral ontology to establish the “objectivity” of environmental
goals – then I endorse the broadly Darwinian approach to both epistemology and morals proposed by the American
pragmatists. The environmental community is the community of inquirers ; it is the community of
inquirers that, for better or worse, must struggle, immediately as individuals and indefinitely as a community, both to survive
and to know. In this struggle useful knowledge will be information about how to survive in a rapidly evolving culture and
habitat. It is in this sense that human actors are a part of multi-layered nature; our actions have impacts on multiple dynamics
and multiple scales. We humans will understand our moral responsibilities only if we
understand the consequences of our action as they unfold on multiple scales; and the human
community will only survive to further evolve and adapt if we learn to achieve individual welfare
and justice in the present in ways that are less disruptive of the processes , evolving on larger
spatio-temporal scales, essential to human and ecological communities .
 Existence Before Ontology
Existence is a pre-requisite to ontology.
Wapner 03 [Paul, Associate professor and director of the Global Environmental Policy Program
at American University, DISSENT, Winter,
http://www.dissentmgazine.org/menutest/artiles/wi03/wapner.htm
The third response to eco-criticism would require critics to acknowledge the ways in which they themselves silence nature and
then to respect the sheer otherness of the nonhuman world. Postmodernism prides itself on criticizing the
urge toward mastery that characterizes modernity. But isn't mastery exactly what
postmodernism is exerting as it captures the nonhuman world within its own conceptual
domain? Doesn't postmodern cultural criticism deepen the modernist urge toward mastery by eliminating the ontological weight
of the nonhuman world? What else could it mean to assert that there is no such thing as nature? I have
already suggested the postmodernist response: yes, recognizing the social construction of "nature" does deny the self-
expression of the nonhuman world, hut how would we know what such self-expression means? Indeed, nature doesn't speak;
rather, some person always speaks on nature's behalf, and whatever that person says is, as we all know, a social construction. All
attempts to listen to nature are social constructions-except one. Even
the most radical postmodernist must
acknowledge the distinction between physical existence and non-existence . As I have said,
postmodernists accept that there is a physical substratum to the phenomenal world even if they argue about the different
meanings wc ascribe to it. This acknowledgment of physical existence is crucial. We
can't ascribe meaning to that
which doesn't appear What doesn't exist can manifest no character . Put differently, yes, the
postmodernist should rightly worry about interpreting nature's expressions. And all of us should be wary of those who claim to speak
on nature's behalf (including environmentalists who do that). But we
need not doubt the simple idea that a
prerequisite of expression is existence. This in turn suggests that preserving the nonhuman
world-in all its diverse embodiments-must be seen by eco-critics as a fundamental good. Eco-critics
must be supporters, in some fashion, of environmental preservation.
 Ontological Focus Bad
Prioritizing Ontology prevents change to current atrocities
Jarvis 00 [Darryl S. L. Natl. U of Singapore “international relations and the challenge of
postmodernism p 128-129]
More is the pity that such irrational and obviously abstruse debate should so occupy us at a time of great global
turmoil. That it does and continues to do so reflects our lack of judicious criteria for evaluating
theory and, more importantly, the lack of attachment theorists have to the real world. Certainly
it is right and proper that we ponder the depths of our theoretical imaginations, engage in epistemological and
ontological debate, and analyze the sociology of our knowledge.37 But to suppose that this is the only
task of international theory, let alone the most important one, smacks of intellectual elitism and
displays a certain contempt for those who search for guidance in their daily struggles as actors in international politics. What
does Ashley's project, his deconstructive efforts, or valiant fight against positivism say to the truly
marginalized, oppressed, and destitute? How does it help solve the plight of the poor, the
displaced refugees, the casualties of war, or the emigres of death squads? Does it in any way speak
to those whose actions and thoughts comprise the policy and practice of international
relations? On all these questions one must answer no. This is not to say, of course, that all theory should be judged by its
technical rationality and problem-solving capacity as Ashley forcefully argues. But to suppose that problem-solving
technical theory is not necessary—or is in some way bad—is a contemptuous position that
abrogates any hope of solving some of the nightmarish realities that millions confront
daily. As Holsri argues, we need ask of these theorists and their theories the ultimate question, "So what?" To what
purpose do they deconstruct, problematize, destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittle modernist and rationalist
approaches? Does this get us any further, make the world any better, or enhance the human
condition? In what sense can this "debate toward [a] bottomless pit of epistemology and metaphysics" be judged pertinent,
relevant, helpful, or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be scholastically excited by abstract and recondite
debate.

Ontology doesn’t come first – the alt is nihilism – internal link turns value to life
Fain 11 [Lecturer in the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies at Harvard University, Ph.D. in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
(Lucas, March 2011, The Review of Metaphysics, “Heidegger's Cartesian nihilism,” Academic OneFile)
That Heidegger transforms happiness, classically understood as the completion of human nature, into the
anxiety of being-towards-death may be deduced from the fact that it is death which signifies
Dasein's "authentic potentiality-for-being-a-whole," (45) with the consequence that ethical
virtue is replaced by Dasein's pure resolve in the face of nothing . That Heidegger's conception of care may
likewise be construed as an impoverished version of the Platonic doctrine of eros is plainly evident by its purely formal structure,
which renders it devoid of any capacity to rank-order objects of desire. (46) By way of contrast, Platonic
eros moves
hierarchically between the human and the divine (that is to say, between the base and the
noble), whereas Heideggerian care moves horizontally, we should even say "horizonally," in
the sense that "the ontological meaning of care is temporality ," and "the existential-temporal condition of
the possibility of the world lies in the fact that temporality, as an ecstatical unity [of future, past, and, present], has something like a
horizon." (47) That horizon is circumscribed by Dasein's thrownness into the future, and Dasein's ownmost future is, of course, its
death. Hence we read, "The primary phenomenon of primordial and authentic temporality is the future," and "The ecstatical
character of the primordial future lies precisely in the fact that the future closes one's potentiality-for-being." (48) It
is
therefore through Dasein's resolute anticipation of its death that the meaning of being reveals
itself as the "temporalizing of temporality." (49) But temporality reduced to itself is stripped of
all love, beauty, and value. It means simply the opening up of one's future possibilities, which
is to say that the authentic meaning of being is without value, and being without value is
meaningless, which is finally to say that the meaning of being terminates in nihilism . (50)
Heideggerian fundamental ontology does not therefore escape from Nietzschean chaos.
Rather, it returns us to it, only without the noble illusion that life requires us to make it
lovable. (51) And this remains the case no matter whether we prefer the early language of
"resoluteness" or Heidegger's later "turn" into Gelassenheit or "releasement." For insofar as
Heidegger's turn (Kehre) is meant to free the meaning of being from its attachment to any notion of active or passive willing, for
example, of the kind indicated by the language of resolution, it
releases us ever deeper into the nullity within
which the world comes to presence. (52) So much for the meaning of being. Despite his revolutionary proclamations,
Heidegger holds us in a double bind. On the one hand, the history of metaphysics (and its completion in the era of modern
technology) (53) grips us in a nihilistic forgetting of the question of being. On the other hand, fundamental ontology
empties the meaning of being of value, and this too is nihilism. (54) What matters in the last analysis,
however, is not whether Heidegger is a nihilist, but whether his teaching is the true teaching. And
if, as Leo Strauss once said, our capacity to evaluate Heidegger's teaching comes down to a question
of competence, our measure of competence depends on our capacity for valuation , or more
accurately, for prudential judgment or a capacity to discern what makes it right. (55) Yet, on the basis of Heidegger's
existential analysis, there can be no such ground of legitimation apart from the pure instance
of resolution (Entschluss). And this is because fundamental ontology cannot tell us on the basis of
its questioning into being why such questioning should be desirable, or why we should want
to invoke a spiritual revolution that founds itself on the abstract question of being. Instead,
there must be some more primordial notion of the good that first directs us to the question of
being--as Nietzsche would say, to the question of being as a value. In saying this, however, I do hot wish to suggest that there
must be some objective or quasi-objective standard of the good that is somehow "out there" waiting to be discovered, as if it were a
vein of gold embedded in the rock. Yet it is plainly evident that a more primordial access to the good must underlie any capacity for
rank-ordering values or existential possibilities, and it is precisely this feature of human experience that fundamental ontology
abandons or occludes by abstracting the question of being from the so-called ontic or inauthentic dimension of ordinary experience.
Stated simply, there is no reason why the question of being should be foundational for the future
of philosophy. Yet it must be said that Heidegger never relinquished his revolutionary aspirations for bringing metaphysics to
its end. For as clearly as the text of 1927 stated the need to put the future of philosophy on "new foundations" (neue Fundamente),
(56) Heidegger persisted up to and through 1959 in the hope that the turn to the question of being would promise a "new ground
and foundation" (neuen Grand und Boden) upon which it might be possible to confront the epoch of metaphysical nihilism. (57) Of
course, it
may be entirely true that our releasement into the mystery of being grants us "the
possibility of dwelling in the world in a totally different way ." (58) The question is why this
should be at all desirable, especially if the thinking of being expires in nihilism. And it is here that we
find Heidegger without argument. As we read in a relevant passage from the "Letter on Humanism" of 1949: Whether the realm of
the truth of being is a blind alley or whether it is the free space in which freedom conserves its essence is something each one may
judge after he himself has tried to go the designated way, or even better, after he has gone a better way, that is, a way befitting the
question. (59) I note in passing that we shall also have to judge whether the essence of freedom is itself a blind alley. But this just
affirms my larger point. Heidegger returns us to the question of competence. But since fundamental ontology cannot stand the
question of competence, we
are left simply with a decision that leaves the future of philosophy
hanging on the angst-ridden resolve that affirms itself in the face of death . (60) And this is
Cartesianism all over again, in the sense that Heidegger's subordination of ethics to ontology--
the decisive severing of the human relation to the good from the foundations of philosophy--
amounts to the most radical late modern expression of the Cartesian legacy. Rather than
saving us from our fall into modern decadence, Heidegger's thought results finally in a
deepening of the modern crisis.
 Ontological Focus Destroys Ethics
Heideggerian philosophies abandon ethics and moral responsibility in favor of
ontological “Being”
Rockmore 97 [Tom, Professor of Philosophy Duquesne University, On Heidegger's Nazism and
Philosophy, Toward Criticism of Heidegger’s View of Technology p. 238, 1997]
The ethical implications of Heidegger's view of technology are perhaps less visible but even more
important than the political ones. There is a continuous line of argument leading from the Enlightenment
commitment to reason to the insistence on responsibility as the condition of morality, which peaks in Kant's ethical theory.
When Heidegger attributes ultimate causal authority to Being, he clearly reverses the Enlightenment view that through the
exercise of reason human being can attain dominion over the world and itself. In the final analysis, if Heidegger is correct,
human actions depend on the gift of Being, hence on a suprahuman form of agency. Heidegger's insistence on Being
as the final causal agent signals an abandonment of the idea of ethical responsibility . If
responsibility presupposes autonomy, and autonomy presupposes freedom, then to embrace Being
as the ultimate explanatory principle is tantamount to casting off the idea of ethical responsibility,
the possibility of any moral accountability whatsoever. Heidegger's rejection of the idea of
responsibility other than through the commitment to Being is incompatible with the assumption of
personal moral accountability. This consequence, which follows rigorously from his position, calls for two comments.
First, it in part explains his failure ever to take a public position on the well-known atrocities
perpetrated by the Nazi movement to which he turned. If one's ontological analysis does not
support the concept of personal responsibility, then one does not need to react on the personal
level to what, from Heidegger's perspective, can be attributed to Being. Second, Heidegger's rejection of personal
responsiblity in his later thought denies a fundamental tenet of his own earlier position. In Being and Time , Heidegger
maintained that authenticity required a resolute choice of oneself. But if choice depends on Being, then in the final
analysis, as Heidegger clearly saw, the only choice is the choice for or against Being.
 A2: Epistemology
Epistemology doesn’t determine reality – we can have a flawed epistemology
but still prescribe good actions.
Wight, University of Exeter School of Humanities and social sciences politics department, ‘7
[Colin, “Inside the epistemological cave all bets are off”
http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/jird/jird_200703_v10n1_d.pdf, p.43-46, accessed 10-22-11, TAP]
In some respects, this might seem to place me close to the position that Kratochwil suggests is absurd. For is not my position a form
of ‘anything goes’? Well, again agreeing with Kratochwil that we should reject traditional logic and its associated yes or no answers, I
will reply both yes and no. 10 Yes, it is an ‘anything goes’ position insofar as I reject
outright that we need to commit
ourselves to any particular epistemological position in advance of making or judging particular
knowledge claims. I can see no good reason for giving any specific epistemological standpoint
a position of a priori privilege. But I can also answer no because this position does not mean that we are
unable to make informed judgements on the basis of the evidence for the claim . The fact that
philosophers have been unable to provide secure foundations for one or other epistemological stance does not alter the fact that we
continue to use these positions to get along in the world. In this respect, I agree completely with Kratochwil’s claim (2007: 11) that
both absolute certainty and absolute doubt are impossible positions to hold, and that we ‘go
on’in a situation located somewhere in between . It may be philosophically naıve of me to claim that if I wish to
know how many cars are parked in my drive, then the easiest way is to probably go and look. But I can do this without needing
philosophy to prove empiricism infallible. Equally, in certain circumstances I might be able to ascertain how many cars are in my
drive without looking; if, for example, I know that at time T1 that there were three cars and that one went away at time T2, then, if
asked at time T3 (assuming these events are sequential), I have a legitimate case to say ‘two’. Of course, in either case, I could still be
wrong but the point is that the claim about the existence of a certain number of cars can justifiably be supported on various
epistemological grounds and we do not know in advance which will be the most appropriate. Hence the context in which the claim
emerges is also an important aspect of its validity. In both cases, there
is no doubt that observation or the
process of rational deduction is theoretically laden, but to say that our concepts help carve up
the world in certain ways is not to accept that they either determine the physicality of what
exists or can, in all cases, stop an object from existing. 11 Again, in some respects, my position might appear to
be quite close to Kratochwil’s pragmatist alternative. After all, pragmatists generally argue that we should do
what works. There are certainly aspects of Kratochwil’s position that do suggest some
affinities with my notion of epistemological opportunism. Thus, for example, he argues that ‘each science
provides its own court and judges the appropriateness of its own methods and practices’(Kratochwil 2007: 12). This is, indeed, the
position scientific realists adopt in relation to epistemological and methodological matters, although Kratochwil seems to reject that
scientific realism out of hand. 12 But it is not clear why each science would need to judge the appropriateness of its own methods
and practices unless there are some fundamental ontological differences that distinguish the object of study; which is exactly why
scientific realists insist that ontology forms the starting point of all enquiry, not the a priori commitment to a set of scientific
methods. According to the positivist view of science, there is a general set of rules, procedures and axioms which, when taken
together, constitute the ‘scientific method’. Although the various strands of positivism disagree over the exact form of these axioms,
the need to define them is common to all versions (Halfpenny 1982). For scientific realists, on the other hand, there can be no
‘scientific method’because differing phenomena will require differing modes of investigation and perhaps different models of
explanation. This argument is embedded in the differing ontological domains that concern the individual sciences. Hence there can
be no scientific method as such, since differing object domains will require methods appropriate to their study and a range of
epistemological supports. Kratochwil’s position is very different. He accepts that we have to ‘search for viable criteria of assessment
of our theories’(Kratochwil 2007: 1), but exactly which criteria does he suggest? First, he explicitly rejects the notion that the world
itself will play any role, arguing that ‘if we recognize the constitutive nature of our concepts then we have to accept that we never
‘‘test’’ against the ‘‘real world’’ but only against other more or less-articulated theories’ (Kratochwil 2007: 3). The use of ‘never’is a
very strong statement and seems to rule out any role for empirical research. 13 Of course, Kratochwil may argue that by ‘real
world’he does not mean the world of experience but some Platonic realm beyond experience. But, in so doing, he would be aligning
himself with the positivists who also denied the possibility of accessing reality beyond that which can be experienced. Equally, of
course, the empirical is part of the real world even if it does not exhaust it. Ultimately I think Kratochwil, like the positivists, does
treat the world as the ‘world of experience’. This means that he has a very philosophically idealist notion of the real world, which
also means that rather than transcending the materialist/idealist dichotomy, he is clearly on one side of it. 14 There is, however,
some confusion regarding this issue. For example, despite
claiming that the objects of experience are the
result of our constructions and interests, he also argues that no one really contests the claim
that there is a common substratum to these objects (Kratochwil 2007: 6). Equally in previous work he has
claimed that no one seriously doubts the existence of an independent world (Kratochwil 2000: 91). Given these claims, it seems that
the point he is trying to make is the relatively uncontested idea that we
describe the world in certain ways and
that those descriptions play a role, perhaps even determine, in how we interact with the
world. I know of no one who would object to this, but this is a long way from the claim that we construct objects in a physical
sense, by describing them in particular ways, or that the world plays no role in terms of the assessment of our claims. To illustrate
this issue he uses the example of a table, which he claims is something entirely different to a ‘physicist, the chemist, the cabinet
maker, the user, or the art historian’(Kratochwil 2007: 6). Now, of course, how we use a table, or how we describe it
is almost exclusively a matter of our discourses and interests . No one doubts this. Nor does anyone doubt
that objects can be described in a number of differing ways. Yet the fact still remains that in order for any object to
function as a table it needs to have a set of properties such that it can fulfill that role. Hence,
we construct tables out of materials, such as wood, that have the properties of being able to
support objects placed on them. No matter how creative we are within our community of
rule-following scientists, we are not yet able to construct tables out of water . 15 Thus, the
world itself simply cannot be discarded in the manner Kratochwil suggests. One can think of many such examples
where the world does in a very real and important sense talk to us: penalizing any attempt to put out fires using petrol rather than
water for example; attempting to run our cars by packing them with environmental waste; or attempting to feed the starving of the
world on fresh air as opposed to substances that provide nutritional value. 16 If Kratochwil’s idealist metaphysics were correct, all of
these should be possible as long as we have an interest in achieving them, and providing enough of a given community followed the
rules governing this process. The nature of matter itself, however, seems to block this move, which, because we continuously
interact with the material world, cannot be simply described, as Kratochwil does, as ‘irrelevant’(Kratochwil 2007: 6). In a very
meaningful and practical sense the world does communicate with us, accepting or rejecting our attempts to fashion it in ways to suit
our interests on the basis of its specific modes of being (Pickering 1995). Likewise, when physicists or chemists interact with a table
they generally do so in terms of it being a table, to place computers on, etc. 17 Similarly, art historians also relate to tables as tables
and only treat particular tables with additional properties as ‘art objects’. And it is not just any table that can function as a work of
art, but only a table that does indeed possess certain properties that match it to the rules that determine what constitutes an ‘art
object’. Without this, just about any table would do and the notion of forgery in art would be redundant. Of course, these issues are
infinitely more complicated in the social world where existence is dependent upon language and concepts. 18 Nonetheless, even in
this realm existential claims made by theorists in academia are not a necessary, or sufficient, element to bring social objects into
being, and nor do academic claims to the contrary stop particular social
objects from existing. Social objects
existed long before institutionally located social scientists attempted to describe them . Equally, in
order to transcend the materialism/idealism dichotomy, we should be wary of embracing too sharp a distinction between natural
and social processes. Accordingly, it is the case that human patterns of behaviour are impacting on global environmental processes
in ways we have yet to fully understand and these processes will continue irrespective of whether we reach an intersubjective
agreement on what they mean. And, of course, these same human-influenced processes will react back on social life in unforeseen
ways, again often irrespective of our descriptions of them. 19

Prioritizing epistemology reifies, rewards extremism and causes self-serving

scholarship.
Lake, Jerri-Ann and Gary E. Jacobs Professor of Social Sciences and Distinguished Professor of
Political Science at the University of California – San Diego, ‘11
[David, “Why ‘‘isms’’ Are Evil: Theory, Epistemology, and Academic Sects as Impediments to
Understanding and Progress”, International Studies Quarterly, 2011, 55, 465-480, RSR]
The question of epistemology in international studies suffers from the same pathologies for
theories outlined earlier, and which I need not repeat here. We reify each approach, reward extremism, fail to
specify research designs completely, apply epistemologies selectively where they are most
likely to work, and then claim universality. Through these pathologies, we not only create academic
religions of different theories but also become committed to academic sects with different
epistemologies. Like our theories, these epistemologies have become increasingly politicized and
used as criteria and even weapons in power struggles within the discipline . Gatekeepers increasingly
use one’s adherence to this or that epistemological religion to determine who gets hired where, who gets access to resources, and
who is accepted in various professional networks. We
increasingly talk and interact only with others of our
same epistemological persuasion. Yet, although it may disappoint partisans, I can think of no objective
reason to prefer one epistemology over another. Rather, the choice of epistemology by scholars
appears to be largely subjective. We appear to be drawn to one or the other approach by intuition: one form of
explanation simply feels right. Some are satisfied only when an event is placed in its full historical perspective with all the
conjunctures and counterfactuals accounted for. Others are satisfied only when events accord with an appropriately derived
hypothesis that has passed many demanding experimental tests. For myself, I read a lot in history—far more than I read in political
science—and benefit from and enjoy these mostly narrative accounts immensely. But at the same time, I am usually not persuaded
by causal claims that lack well-specified theories and experimental tests. In turn, while most of my own research has focused on the
history of US foreign policy, the cases are treated within a nomological approach (see Lake 1988, 1999). One
can move
across the divide without finding the causal claims on the other side especially satisfying .
 Util
Utilitarianism is the best form
Anderson, Kerby. "Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number - Probe
Ministries." Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number - Probe Ministries. Probe
Ministry, 2004. Web. 28 June 2014.
<http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4224805/k.B792/Utilitarianism_The_Greatest_G
ood_for_the_Greatest_Number.htm>.
Why did utilitarianism become popular? There are a number of reasons for its appeal. First, it is
a relatively simple ethical system to apply. To determine whether an action is moral you
merely have to calculate the good and bad consequences that will result from a particular
action. If the good outweighs the bad, then the action is moral. Second, utilitarianism avoids
the need to appeal to divine revelation. Many adherents to this ethical system are looking for
a way to live a moral life apart from the Bible and a belief in God. The system replaces
revelation with reason. Logic rather than an adherence to biblical principles guides the ethical
decision-making of a utilitarian. Third, most people already use a form of utilitarianism in their
daily decisions. We make lots of non-moral decisions every day based upon consequences. At
the checkout line, we try to find the shortest line so we can get out the door more quickly. We
make most of our financial decisions (writing checks, buying merchandise, etc.) on a utilitarian
calculus of cost and benefits. So making moral decisions using utilitarianism seems like a
natural extension of our daily decision-making procedures.
 Consequentialism
Consequentialism is impartial—rejects all forms of egoism, ethnocentrism,
racism
Bergström 96
[Lars, (Stockholm University). “Reflections on Consequentialism” Theoria, Vol. 62, Part 1-2, 1996,
pp.74-94. 6/28/14, AV]
(i) Consequentialism is morally attractive. In the first place, it may even seem intuitively
self-evident that we should always act so as to achieve the best possible outcome. What
could be better? Besides, if we think more specifically of classical utilitarianism, as a main
version of consequentialism, this is morally attractive in at least two different respects. First,
it stresses the way people (or sentient beings, in general) are affected by our actions. What
matters is the welfare or the preferences of everyone to whom our actions make a difference.
This is surely very important. It expresses a generalized version of the idea that one should
treat others as one would like others to treat oneself. Second, it is completely impartial. It
rejects all forms of egoism, ethnocentrism, and racism. It is also temporally impartial. Future
generations have the same weight in a consequentialist calculus as our own generation (other
things being equal).

Consequentialism can solve any moral conflict

Bergström 96
[Lars, (Stockholm University). “Reflections on Consequentialism” Theoria, Vol. 62, Part 1-2, 1996,
pp.74-94. 6/28/14, AV]
(ii) Consequentialism solves moral conflicts. In ordinary life, moral considerations
sometimes point in different direction. Those are the very situation in which a moral theory
is most needed. When different moral rules give different directions, there is a moral
conflict. We need to know how to handle such conflicts. Consequentialism presents a
general solution to such conflicts. This solution may be hard to identify in practice, but it is
at least a solution. According to consequentialism there is always an answer to hard moral
questions.

Consequentialism has a definitive answer unlike vague alternative views

Bergström 96
[Lars, (Stockholm University). “Reflections on Consequentialism” Theoria, Vol. 62, Part 1-2, 1996,
pp.74-94. 6/28/14, AV]
(iii) Consequentialism is a bold conjecture. For one thing, it is bold in the sense that it is ¶ simple
and has very broad scope. Maybe it can also be said to be "bold" in a sense similar to ¶ that
stressed by Karl Popper for scientific theories, ¶ namely that it contradicts earlier ¶ theories while
at the same time explaining their relative success. Consequentialists often ¶ claim that many
moral principles, which are strictly speaking incompatible with ¶ consequentialism, can actually
be given a consequentialist motivation if they are interpreted ¶ as useful approximations to
be used in practice. Also consequentialism can be said to be ¶ bold in the sense that it has
more content than many alternative views. Alternative theories, ¶ such as Kantianism, Christian
ethics, existentialism, natural right theories, and so on, seem ¶ to give rather indeterminate
answers to actual moral problems. Consequentialism, on the ¶ other hand, has a definite
answer to every question concerning the moral rightness of ¶ actions.

Consequentialism solves—best moral theory

Bergström 96
[Lars, (Stockholm University). “Reflections on Consequentialism” Theoria, Vol. 62, Part 1-2, 1996,
pp.74-94. 6/28/14, AV]
(iv) Consequentialism is theoretically fruitful. In the development of moral philosophy
since the time of Sidgwick, say, utilitarianism and consequentialism in general has played a
major part. It has been theoretically very fruitful in the sense that it has stimulated
philosophers to work out details and answer difficult objections. It has given rise to a many
interesting problems and to a lot of professional discussion. In recent years, John Rawls's
theory has also been very influential, but on the whole I think it is fair to say that
consequentialism has been more theoretically fruitful, in our time, than any other moral
theory.

Consequentialism claims most advantages—best theory so far

Bergström 96
[Lars, (Stockholm University). “Reflections on Consequentialism” Theoria, Vol. 62, Part 1-2, 1996,
pp.74-94. 6/28/14, AV]
(v) Consequentialism is our best theory so far. Even if consequentialism is not a
completely satisfactory theory, it nevertheless seems to better than the currently available
alternative theories of rightness. It is better, I think, in virtue of the considerations (i)
through (iv) above. Moreover, it seems reasonable to hold on to a theory which is better than
any known alternative, even if the theory itself is problematic in many ways. This seems to
be a good strategy in science, and I think it can be applied in ethics as well (provided, of
course, that the theory solves some important problems). It is better to have a theory with
some advantages than no theory at all, and the more advantages the better.
 Solving GW First
Warming related extinction would include much suffering of children and of the
poor, making solving it a pre-requisite question to any instance of loss of being
Snow, Deborah, and Peter Hannam. "Climate Change Could Make Humans Extinct, Warns
Health Expert." The Sydney Morning Herald. The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 Mar. 2014. Web. 26
June 2014. <http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-could-
make-humans-extinct-warns-health-expert-20140330-35rus.html>
''Human-driven climate change poses a great threat, unprecedented in type and scale, to
wellbeing, health and perhaps even to human survival,'' they write. They predict that the
greatest challenges will come from undernutrition and impaired child development from
reduced food yields; hospitalisations and deaths due to intense heatwaves, fires and other
weather-related disasters; and the spread of infectious diseases. They warn the ''largest
impacts'' will be on poorer and vulnerable populations, winding back recent hard-won gains of
social development programs. Projecting to an average global warming of 4 degrees by 2100,
they say ''people won't be able to cope, let alone work productively, in the hottest parts of the
year''. They say that action on climate change would produce ''extremely large health benefits'',
which would greatly outweigh the costs of curbing emission growth.

Linear analysis is key to solving biodiversity impacts

Ferguson, Jake M., and José M. Ponciano. "Predicting the Process of Extinction in
Experimental Microcosms and Accounting for Interspecific Interactions in Single-species Time
Series." - Ferguson. Wiley Library, 2 May 2014. Web. 28 June 2014.
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12227/full>.
One of the most important modelling applications in conservation ecology is predicting future
population abundances. The practice of population viability analysis (PVA) connects stochastic
population models to data and is used to understand the factors limiting population growth
and to assess risk of extinction or falling beneath a certain abundance (e.g. Shaffer 1981;
Staples et al. 2005). Despite a body of well-developed theory on population regulation, there
has been relatively little work validating quantitative predictions of PVA models and methods
(but see attempts by Brook et al. 2000; Lindenmayer et al. 2003). This is of particular
importance for species of conservation concern where little data may be in hand regarding
life-history details and knowledge of the underlying biological processes is limited. In these
cases, ecologists often rely on very basic populations models of growth, density dependence,
and variability to make predictions.