40 Ponderings XII–XV [50–51]

31
The unconditioned order of unrestricted power, in the form of a com-
prehensive instituting of all possibilities of the empowerment of power,
is in itself already a definitive derangement into the irredeemable.

32
Is Germany the land of the Germans, is its history borne by the
grounding of the Germans in their essence, or are the Germans not
rather expending themselves in mere diffusion and dispersion for the
development of the highest form of the unleashing of all instituted
powers of machination?

74 33
There are some who never come to die their own death; others die
their own death often.

34
“Radicalism” is of a genuine essence as the preservation of the origin.
To preserve, however, is neither to retain some already available pos-
session nor to bring forward historiologically something from the past.
To preserve the origin, the primal leap, means to venture the leap
which in the first beginning of the history of being leapt ahead of
everything futural and thereby had to disappear at once in all suc-
ceeding things and in their claims. “Revolutions” are sham forms of
“radicalism” and quickly drive on to the now first unleashed power
of what was revolted against. In times opposed to essential decisions,
meditation must be awake to the simple essence of history, history
which is “authentically” only a beginning. Yet the entanglement in
historiology and in its distorted forms of propaganda and anestheti-
zation scarcely still allows the correct appraisal from which we could
experience the importance of the knowledge of the essence of “radi-
calism.” All historiological instruction and all “transverse,” selected,
illustrated reportage concerning “world history” are groundless and
75 misleading if the | basic relation to history is lacking. That relation is
rooted in the event whereby the essence of the human being, as the
steward of beyng, becomes question-worthy in some respect or other
and the advent of the decisions comes about. “Theological” interpre-
tations of history are as superficial as “political” ones, “cultural-
 Ponderings XII [52–53] 41

teleological” interpretations no less superficial than “economic” ones,

and interpretations in terms of the “historiology of the spirit” super-
ficial the same way “racial” ones are. The grounds are entirely pro-
vided by “metaphysics”—yet the latter obstructs the basic relation to
history by veiling the human essence inasmuch as it constantly iden-
tifies the human being merely as an animal, whether through a super-
structure above animality (spirit and immortal soul) or through the
retraction of reason and consciousness into pure “life.” In every case,
the misrecognition of the stewardship of beyng is essential and is so
most of all when the relation of humans to beings (in any form of the
subject-object relation) is still conceded. Metaphysics turns itself into
the domain of the emergence of sham forms of “radicalism” that suc-
ceed one another at an ever more rapid pace. To be sure, most wretched
are ultimately the attempts to make metaphysical radicalism (in the-
ology, politics, etc.) harmless through compromises and through eva-
sions into traditions.
Previously, thinkers could set down their thoughts in a “work” and 76
develop them therein according to the model of scientific treatises or
poetic narratives. In the future, thought must become a course of
thought leading not from beings to beyng, but from beyng into its truth.
And the course is in any case only the approach run for the leap which
uniquely allows beyng as abyss to be reached in the leap. As long as
knowledge of this kind of thinking and the capacity for it are not
roused up, all “new” thoughts are lost and remain a poor imitation of
metaphysics or, at most, an inversion of metaphysics and a flight
from it.

35
The power of machination—the eradication even of Godlessness, the
anthropomorphizing of the human being into the animal, the exploi-
tation of the earth, the calculation of the world—has passed over into
a state of definitiveness; distinctions of peoples, nations, and cultures
are now mere facades. No measures could be taken to impede or check
machination. Never before in human history has being, so uncondi-
tionally, uniformly, | in frantic onslaught, and yet completely hidden 77
behind currently pursued beings, compelled the whole of beings into
decisionlessness. Never before, accordingly, for those who know, have
such acuity and simplicity of a moment of the history of beyng ever
been attained. Never before, through a globally instituted and con-
tinuously increasing fear of “wars,” of losses, of diminutions of power,
and of economic failures (through the fear of beings), has the anxiety