Kit, Die Frage nach der Technik

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Hi all,

Congratulations on the first succesful read through of ATD- an amazing
achievement!

Something about Kit caught my inner eye-

p98:

               It could have been a religion...someplace a
               window opened up for him into the Invisible,
               and a voice...whispered to him, saying, "Water
               falls, electricity flows- one flow becomes another,
               and thence into light. So is altitude transformed
               continuously into light." It had not been a dream...
               but it represented a jump from one place to
               another with who knew what perilous aether
               opening up between and beneath. He saw it...

p.1070 (quite a jump!):

              ...they went into a steep stomach-lifting dive...
              They were soon going so fast something
              happened to time, and maybe they'd slipped
              for a short interval into the Future...Kit could
              see the appeal. Of course he could. Pure
              velocity. The incorporation of death into what
              otherwise would only be a carnival ride...Kit
              risked a look over at Renzo, demented...he
              was being metamorphosed into something else...
              a case of possession. Kit had a velocity-given
              illumination then. It was all political.

cf:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology:

  Hydroelectric Power Plant v. The Water Wheel

   Heidegger employs these two man-made inventions as examples of how
    technology has fundamentally altered man's relationship not only to 
the
    earth, but also to Being itself...Man has set about to challenge 
nature,
    and therefore, modern technology is the means and activity through 
which
    this challenge comes into existence. The following passage truly 
captures
   the heart of what Heidegger means by this challenge:

    "The hydroelectric plant is set into the current of the Rhine. It 
sets the Rhine
    to supplying its hydraulic pressure, which then sets the turbines 
turning. This
    turning sets those machines in motion whose thrust sets going the 
electric
    current for which the long-distance power station and its network of 
cables are
    set up to dispatch electricity. In the context of the interlocking 
processes
    pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical energy, even the 
Rhine itself
   appears to be something at our command."

    ...In one sense, the water wheel comes from an older or primordial 
period of
    Being whereby man merely sought to use the distinctive forces of 
nature in a
   more harmonious fashion when compared to the monstrosity that is the
   hydroelectric power plant...


Despite Kit's attempts at objectivity, and his dismissive 
characterization of Renzo,
he seems to have transfenestrated through his own window of 
illumination and
become possessed by the same current.