Heidegger on Attunement and the Fundamental Mood of Boredom

[@javiphilosophy]

The irony of the rising against the machine, those who go against it end up being used as part of the machine . Yes this indeed, I agree is the Horror Vacui. The rise of Covid-19 exposed exactly this. The boredom people face with themselves as they quarantine in isolation and some even go as far mad . It seems almost impossible to engage in simple pleasures in the modern age . For if one were to engage in the sitting of silence which I deem as the most forgotten and simplest of pleasures. The average modern man twitches in agony and cannot stay with ones pure self for more than five minutes. Either this is the symptom of the machine or the attunement as Heidegger says. Maybe We are mistaken , one must not rise against the machine but change what it outputs. And for a machine to do that would be for man himself to go beyond what he is. The achievement of meaning is foundational to then proceed to go beyond oneself and only then the machine will produce what is fruitful.

[@O.G.Rose.Michelle.and.Daniel]

Your channel is a goldmine: I was unaware of Heidegger’s thinking on boredom. I always appreciated his focus on moods and insistence that moods constituted something deeper and essential versus an arbitrary expression of an emotion, and I like the thought that “boredom” is the mood of the age. It’s a great insight to note that focusing on mood is a way to skip over the “mind/body” debate. I wonder if Heidegger has similar thoughts on “health” in general, on how our health influences our experience in the world. Today, there seems to be two camps: people who don’t care about their health and people who have become obsessed with it, orientated toward their body with a “technological attitude” that is desperate for efficiency without asking “For what?” Perhaps they want to have more time for boredom? Oh goodness…both being “bored about heath” and “a technocrat about health” seems incorrect… If wonder is the birthplace of philosophy, boredom is its coffin-what a great insight you had, coupled up nicely with the observation that today we are desperate to “kill time” and how this mood paradoxically elongates time. I like the observations on the movie Network and how the system today absorbs rebellions against it (Snowpiercer is another good example), and it seems to me that this contributes to our boredom. We don’t believe we can make any real difference, so what’s the point? Let’s just hope for the weekend… I like this distinction between “deep boredom” and “entertained boredom,” and the idea that the system can’t let us feel “deep boredom” because then we would be totally useless and not contribute to the economy, system, etc. It wouldn’t do the system any good if everyone was suicidal, but it also would hurt the system if people didn’t want to consume and be entertained all the time. A strange balance must be struck. So we seem to need to learn how to use freedom to have “leisure” but not “boredom,” per se. Reminds me of Bertrand Russell’s essay. Anyway, wonderful as always.

[@JohannesNiederhauser]

Very well put! And thank you very much indeed.

[@antimocoates3741]

I feel that the resurgence in the far-right (and even far-left) can be partly explained in this desire to chase out this boredom. This can be seen through their emphasis on action, energy and idealising a pre-modern past among others. However, it fails in the attempt to properly deal with this boredom and actually perpetuates it (think of all the youtubers attacking liberalism and democracy without posing any real threat) as it is another method of trying to chase it out, albeit in a more active form than binge watching television. But these two both come from the same origin. I particulary like the idea that one instead should go through within boredom, the textured backdrop to our lives in order to achieve freedom.

[@82472tclt]

Translating "mood" to "attunement" has it light up for me much better. Would it be fair to say "Boredom is the fundamental attunement of our age". Or perhaps "Boredom is what governs the attunement of our age"?

[@JohannesNiederhauser]

Attunement is a fair translation, more fundamental perhaps. I would say boredom is the fundamental attunement.

[@82472tclt]

Classical Philosophy So your calling me boring...?

[@82472tclt]

;-)

[@naufilmanasiya1368]

I came to know about your channel from Instagram: (use right hashtags there) you can easily drive traffic here - i am digital marketer - and i like your content - so do i say

[@Cyben444]

philosophies are now ancient....AI will put new meaning into Boredom

[@JohannesNiederhauser]

This is by far the dumbest comment by anyone ever on this channel. Congratulations!