Passivity and leveling Husserl, Heidegger and Hugo Ball

In: Filozofija i društvo, Band 27, Heft 1, S. 225-236

Abstract

The first part of this paper explores the kinship in diagnosis of
contemporaneity of Hugo Ball and Martin Heidegger. Both thinkers recognize
leveling as an important trait of their age. In Ball?s terms, leveling is
identified with the apocalyptic abolishment of humanity. That happens by
equalizing all of human creation, which becomes possible only after the
abolishment of the hierarchy of values, thanks to which it was previously
possible to distinguish a work of art from an average work. With Heidegger,
leveling is equated with the perverted forms of curiosity. Unlike the former
forms of curiosity, coupled by the common desire for deeper insight, modern
curiosity is fairly superficial, let loose with no boundaries to all the
impressions which supersede the expected and already seen. In the second part
of the paper, Husserl?s term of passive synthesis is examined, so we can
observe the intervention of phenomenology from the perspective of
deconstruction of the effects of leveling. I conclude with a warning that we
cannot protect ourselves from the world to which we are exposed by natural
subjectivity and conventional forms of knowledge. Which insight leads us to
revert to the sources of subjectivity, the idea common to both the
avant-garde and the phenomenologists.