Thiele - 1997 - Postmodernity and The Routinization of Novelty He

Northeastern Political Science Association
Postmodernity and the Routinization of Novelty: Heidegger on Boredom and Technology

Author(s): Leslie Paul Thiele
Source: Polity, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Summer, 1997), pp. 489-517
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
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Postmodernityand the
Routinizationof Novelty:
Heideggeron Boredom and Technology
Leslie Paul Thiele
University of Florida
Postmodernity is characterized by the routinization of novelty, evi-

denced in the drive for technological change that makes constant
demands on and is constantly demanded by postmodern publics and
elites. Martin Heidegger sees this technological drive as sustained by
the basic mood of our times: profound boredom. Though Heidegger's
analysis of moods, and particularly his account of boredom, have
largely been ignored, his assessment of boredom provides critical
insights into the dynamics and dangers of postmodernity. The connec-
tion between technology and boredom, Heidegger warns, undermines
the practice of philosophy and the inherently political human task of
discovering a home in the world.
Leslie Paul Thiele is Associate Professor of Political Science at the

University of Florida in Gainesville. He is the author of Friedrich
Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul (1990), Timely Meditations:
Martin Heidegger and Postmodern Politics (1995), and Thinking
Politics: Perspectives in Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern Political
Theory (1997).
Amongst the jackals, panthers, bitches,

Apes, scorpions, vultures, serpents,
Yelping, howling, snarling, groveling monsters,
In the squalid menagerie of our vices,
There is one uglier, filthier and most wicked!

Although it manages no grand gestures or screams,
It would gladly make the earth a shambles
And swallow up the world with a yawn.
Boredom!-involuntary tears burden its eye,

As it dreams of gallows and smokes its hookah.
Poit VoueXI,Nme Number 4 umr19

Polity Volume XXIX, Summer 1997

490 Heideggeron Boredomand Technology
Reader,you know this daintymonsterwell,

Hypocritereader-my match-my brother!
CharlesPierreBaudelaire,Les Fleurs du Mal
To name a sensibility,to drawits contoursand to

recountits history, requiresa deep sympathy
modified by revulsion.
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation
The termmodernistwas first used in the sixteenthcentury,often pejora-

tively, as a referenceto someone who spurnedtraditionand advocated
either new techniquesof scientificinquiryor the study and use of ver-
nacular languages rather than classical Greek or Latin. Breakingthe
chains of tradition, modernistsassumed, would progressivelyliberate
humankind,allowing it to claim its birthrightas master of its world.
Modernismwas, and remainstoday, chieflycharacterizedby rapidinno-
vation in the serviceof human power and prerogatives.
Postmodernismis modernismstrippedof teleology. It is chiefly char-
acterizedby the routinizationof novelty. The modernistfaith in progress
has beenunderminedin the postmodernworld. Yet the driveto innovate
that fired the enginesof progresshas been intensifiedand accelerated.'
Innovationnow constitutesan end in itself, unencumberedwith the bag-
gage of final purposes,ultimategoals, or cosmicdesignsfor humankind.
The routinizationof novelty is most clearly evidencedin the techno-
logical progressthat makes constant demandsupon, and is constantly
demandedby, the postmodernpublic and elites. This contemporarylust
for technologicalinnovation, MartinHeideggerargues,is symptomatic
of the "basic mood" of our age. Surprisingly,given the technological
whirlwindto which it gives rise, Heideggeridentifiesthis mood as pro-
found boredom.
The topic of boredom constitutedthe core of a lecture course that
Heideggergave in 1929-30.2It continuedto inform much of his writing
thereafter.Heideggerregardsboredom(Langeweile)and the condition
of beingbored(Sichlangweilen),as a fundamentalmood of humanbeing
(Dasein). Indeed, he insists that boredomhas becomethe pervasiveand
dominantmood of our times. As if to recallBaudelaire,Heideggercalls
1. See Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air (New York: Penguin, 1988).
2. Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude,
Solitude, trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1995).

Leslie Paul Thiele 491
boredom an "insidious creature [that] maintains its monstrous essence in

our Dasein."3
Heidegger's discussion of moods is seldom examined and his concern
with boredom has been all but ignored. While the "political significance
of boredom" in Heidegger's thought has been acknowledged, it remains
without investigation or demonstration.4 This is unfortunate, for the
analysis of moods is central to Heidegger's philosophy and his study of
boredom offers much insight into the dynamics and dangers of post-
modernity. In particular, Heidegger's writings on boredom illuminate
the nature of the technological forces that structure contemporary life.
Despite technology's vast capacity for generating novelty, it largely
operates in collusion with boredom. The drive for endless economic
growth and technological innovation that characterizes much post-
modern life, Heidegger's work suggests, is a product of boredom with
the human condition and its worldly limitations. Technology feeds off
this mood of boredom and at the same time suppresses the very oppor-
tunity for its overcoming. The collusion between technology and bore-
dom, Heidegger warns, undermines the practice of philosophy and the
human task-inherently political in nature-of discovering a home in the
world.
I. A Brief History of Boredom
Boredom is nothing new; the human condition has always been menaced
by it. Historically speaking, deep boredom-not boredom with this or
that specific activity or lack thereof, but a prevailing ennui of life itself-
has not been a burden equally borne by all. It has prevailed among ruling
classes. As Lewis Mumford observes, there was already a "colossal
capacity for enduring monotony" among the elites of ancient Egypt.
Here, as throughout other lands ancient and moder, the "boredom of
satiety" dogged upper class economies of surplus power and surplus con-
sumption.5 The ruling classes have always managed to find the time to be
profoundly bored.
Deep boredom is not the inevitable by-product of leisure. Hunter-
gatherer societies, such as the !Kung San of the Kalahari, devote only a
3. Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 79.

4. James F. Ward, Heidegger's Political Thinking (Amherst: University of Massachu-
setts Press, 1995), p. 64.
5. Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967), pp. 202, 206.

fractionof theirtime to work, usuallyless than twentyhours a week. In

comparisonto agriculturaland industrialsocieties,these hunter-gather-
ers enjoy all but a few hours each day untouchedby the hard labor of
makingends meet. Yet boredomamong such peoplesis seldomdemon-
strated.Their free time is filled with storytellingand ritual. Deep bore-
dom, it appears,is not the product of idleness per se but of a certain
formof idleness.Deepboredomis the productof idlenessthat has lost its
meaning,or ratheridlenessthat has lost its capacityto generatemeaning.
In turn, deep boredomgeneratesits own form of idleness.
To be bored is to be paralyzed:emotionally,spiritually,and perhaps
even physically. The debilitating boredom of Shakespeare'sHamlet
comes to mind. "How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable/Seem to me
all the uses of this world," Hamlet broods. The sulkingPrinceponders
and ruminates,but cannotbringhimselfto act. The world, his mindtells
him, is an enticingplace. But the worldhe experiencesin his soul is vapid
and incapableof stimulatinginterestor action. Hamlet laments,
I have of late-but whereforeI know not-lost all my mirth, for-
gone all customof exercises;and indeed,it goes so heavilywithmy
dispositionthat this goodly frame, the earth, seemsto me a sterile
promontory;this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this
brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with
golden fire-why, it appearethno other thingto me but a foul and
pestilentcongregationof vapours. What a piece of work is man!
How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and
moving,how expressand admirable!in actionhow like an angel!in
apprehensionhow like a god! the beautyof the world, the paragon
of animals!And yet, to me, whatis this quintessenceof dust?Man
delightsnot me- no, nor woman neither.(Act II, Scene 2)
So Hamlet remainsidle becausehe is bored. Time weighs most heavily
upon him.
Hamletis bored, we are led to believe,becausehe dreadsthe meaning
of a dead fatherand villainytoo close to home. Unableto confronthis
fears-and the anxietiesthey harbor-the young Princebecomespsychi-
cally and physicallyimmobilized. This is indeed the etiology of deep
boredom. It is an emotionaland spiritualparalysisthat arisesfrom the
repressionof anxiety or fear.6 Such boredom remainsunalleviatedby
opportunitiesfor the activityor companionshipwhichmay remedymore
6. See Patricia Meyer Spacks, Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 208.

superficial forms of boredom. The desolation of deep boredom is char-

acterized not simply by unfulfilled desire, but by the unfulfilled desire
for desire. Boredom might be described as "psychic anorexia."7 Spiritual
or emotional nourishment is needed, but the victims of boredom cannot
bring themselves to the table. All appetite for life is lost.
Psychic bulimia might be a more apt description of the problem; the
bored typically oscillate between psychic torpor and psychic bingeing.
Despite its paralyzing power, boredom does not always produce ener-
vated resignation and passivity. As often as not, it produces a fast-paced,
systematic exercise of power. Reinhard Kuhn observes that "violent and
indiscriminate action is as natural a consequence of ennui as is total inac-
tion."8 The profoundly bored often marshal a vast array of forces into
service in revenge of their condition. They may craft devious designs to
make another pay dearly for their own existential plight. Out of bore-
dom, Fyodor Dostoevsky remarks in his Notes from Underground, peo-
ple are brought to take delight in sticking pins in other people simply to
observe the reaction. "Boredom," he wryly observes, "leads to every
possible kind of ingenuity."9 As Baudelaire suggests, boredom may turn
the earth into a shambles and swallow the world with a yawn.
While the destructive potential of boredom is nothing new, the extent
of its domain is unprecedented. Boredom, despite its extended history,
achieved its notoriety only in modernity. Thus Mumford examines the
boredom of satiety of the ancient Egyptians in order to underline the
prevalence of boredom in the contemporary Western world. He suggests
that we have achieved "the peak of universal boredom ... in our own
day."10 Sean Healy comes to the same conclusion, noting that "boredom
has a history and has gradually emerged from near obscurity to center
stage. ... What was once a rare state of mind, confined at least in the
common estimation of later times to an effete elite, has now become the
common property of the bored horde."11 In the English-speaking world
the word "boredom" did not come into use until the nineteenth century,
while the verb "to bore" emerged only in the mid-eighteenth.
For the rising bourgeoisie of this period, the growth of boredom was a
subject of constant fascination and a plague to be averted at all costs.
Lord Byron poeticized in Don Juan that "Society is now one polish'd
7. Sean Healy, Boredom, Self, and Culture (Rutherford: Dickenson University Press,
1984), p. 60.
8. Reinhard Kuhn, The Demon at Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 93.
9. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (New York: Penguin, 1972), p. 33.
10. Mumford, Technics and Human Development, p. 202.
11. Healy, Boredom, Self, and Culture, p. 15.

494 Heidegger on Boredom and Technology
horde,/ Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored." Arthur
Schopenhauer pessimistically suggested in The World as Will and Idea
that human life was a continuous oscillation between pain and boredom.
Sdren Kierkegaard insisted that "Boredom is the root of all evil."'2 By
Baudelaire's and Dostoevsky's time, boredom had become one of the
gravest and most menacing forces lurking in the human psyche.
The increasing leisure of the masses proved a fertile soil for boredom's
spread. More directly, the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to find meaning
in their leisure left them vulnerable to this "dainty monster." As Alas-
dair MacIntyre writes, those who see the social world as nothing but a
"meeting place of individual wills" and the world as "an arena for the
achievement of their own satisfaction," inevitably discover that the "last
enemy is boredom."'3 A deep boredom with life seems the inevitable and
most threatening consequence of becoming modern.
The problem is not simply that modern peoples are, owing to increased
leisure, highly susceptible to bouts of boredom. The problem is that the
resources of ages past that were traditionally employed to combat bore-
dom are no longer readily available. Nietzsche wrote that for the
"majority of mortals" ascetic practices and ideals have been the "chief
weapon" in the struggle against boredom. Indeed, the suppression of
boredom was one of the primary reasons for the development of moral-
ity and religion.14Today, these means of suppression have been drained
of much of their power.
Are there substitutes to be found? Art, Nietzsche noted, might come to
serve this purpose. So might scholarly engagement, which employs books
as "fly-swatters against boredom."'5 Yet art and scholarship are less
effective means of fending off boredom than morality and religion, and
are hardly the foremost choice of the masses. A more proficient means of
combating boredom today is conspicuous consumption. A good deal of
boredom can be buried underneath a heap of newly acquired gadgets.
Boredom's tendency to ooze through the cracks, however, necessitates
12. S6ren Kierkegaard, Either/ Or, Volume One, trans. D. Swenson and L. Swenson
(Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1959), p. 285.
13. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1981), p. 24.
14. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J.
Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1967), p. 97; and see Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay
Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), pp. 295-96.
15. Friedrich Nietzsche, Humans, all too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, trans. R. J.
Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 251; and see Friedrich
Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1983), p. 172.

LesliePaul Thiele 495
an ever-growingheap. The consumersof entertainmentface the same

dynamic. Print, film, televisionand electronicmedia have accordingly
shortenedand acceleratedtheir units of stimulationin an effort to plug
the ever-reappearing holes from whichboredomissues. Soundbites and
rapidimage projectionensurea fickle attentiveness.
The most prominentideologies of the modem era-liberalism and
Marxism-assumed that technologicaldevelopmentwould yield leisure
and materialabundancewhich, in turn, would beget a revitalizedand
self-realizedsociety. In the Westernworld, this pursuitof leisure and
abundancehas been fulfilledto a greatextent. The questionon the minds
of many who remain secure in their leisured affluence, however, is
whetherthey have created "a world wherethe guaranteeof not dying
from hungeris paid for by the certaintyof dying from boredom."16One
of the chief products of Westerneconomic growth and its heightened
consumptionis a societycharacterizedby the abundanceof boredomand
the boredomwith abundance.
FrancisFukuyamafamouslydescribedthe world at the "end of his-
tory." This is a world where the "daring, courage, imagination,and
idealism"that markedhumanity'svibrantpast are replacedby economic
calculations oriented to "the satisfaction of sophisticatedconsumer
demands"and "the endlesssolvingof technicalproblems."It is "a very
sad time," Fukuyamawistfullymuses, chiefly definedby the "prospect
of centuriesof boredom."'' Indeed, boredomis increasinglyrecognized
as "a metaphorfor the postmoderncondition."18If modernitymorally
condemnedboredom,postmoderity domesticatedit. The boredomthat
plaguespostmodernlife is still fearedand resentedto be sure. But it no
longerconstitutesa moral failing as it did in the modernera. We would
no longersay, as SamuelButleronce did, that "the man who lets himself
be boredis even morecontemptiblethan the bore." We no longerbelieve
that we have an ethical obligation not to be bored. More likely, we
believethat we have a "right" not to be bored. We thus chargegovern-
ment and industrywith the task of effectivelyshieldingus from ennui.19
The prospectsfor the successfulinstitutionaland technologicalsup-
pressionof boredomare quite good. Therein,Heideggerargues,lies the
16. These words appeared as graffiti and on banners after the closing of a youth center
in Lausanne, Switzerland. They are cited in Orin Klapp, Overload and Boredom: Essays on
the Quality of Life in the Information Society (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), p. 24.
17. Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History," in The National Interest, 3 (Summer,
1989): 3, 18.
18. Spacks, Boredom, p. 260.
19. See Spacks, Boredom, p. 22. Butler's quotation is from his "Memoir of the Author"
in The Fair Haven, pseudonymously published under the name of John Pickard Owen
(London: Tribner and Company, 1873), pp. 51-52.

danger. To prepare the ground for this argument, we must first explore
Heidegger's account of moods.
II. The Power of Moods
Heidegger is perhaps best known for his notion of Being-in-the-world,

initially developed in his magnum opus, Being and Time. Being-in-the-
world is an irreducible amalgam composed of three elements: the world,
human being, and the relation of Being-in. The being-in of Dasein is
characterized as the disclosure of a "there." This disclosure occurs most
fundamentally in two ways, corresponding to the manner in which
human being becomes aware of and manifests its worldliness, namely,
understanding (Verstehen) and disposition (Beflndlichkeit). In address-
ing the notion of Being-in-the-world, scholars generally focus on the
components of Dasein and world. When the element of Being-in receives
attention, the primary focus is on understanding, probably because
Heidegger's discussion of understanding speaks most directly to the her-
meneutic and phenomenological tradition. Yet an analysis of disposition
actually takes us deeper into Heidegger's work as a whole.
"Disposition," sometimes rendered by Heidegger's translators as
"state of mind," is less a cognitive state than a sense of self and place.
For the purposes of this discussion and in keeping with Heidegger's
general usage, we may speak of a disposition as a mood. Heidegger
writes that "What we indicate ontologically by the term 'state of mind' is
ontically the most familiar and everyday sort of thing; our mood, our
Being-attuned [die Stimmung, das Gestimmtsein]."20 Our attunement or
mood is the primordial way in which our Being-in gets disclosed. Moods
indicate how we are in the world by disposing us toward the world in a
particular manner. They allow the world "to matter" to us. Ralph Waldo
Emerson well marked the pervasive effects of moods when he wrote:
"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through
them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their
own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus."21 For Heidegger,
however, a mood is not simply an "inner" event coloring and limiting
perception. Moods are the most fundamental means by which human
being actually dwells in the world. Moods, Heidegger writes, are "not
merely subjectively coloured experiences or epiphenomenal manifesta-
20. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (New
York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 172.
21. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Writings of Emerson, ed. Donald McQuade (New
York: Modern Library, 1981), p. 329.

tions of psychological life but rather fundamental ways of Dasein

itself."22Moods carryus into the world, and, as it were, carrythe world
within us.
As primordialontological structures,moods are not by-productsof
other human facultiessuch as the will or intellect. Moods both precede
and exceed will and intellect in their capacity to disclose the world.23
Indeed,the will receivesits impetusor inertiafrom pre-existingmoods.
What gets disclosedthroughintellect,in turn, is alreadyshapedby the
moods that accompanyall cognitivestates.24Moodsconstitutethe omni-
presentmediathroughwhich perception,volition, and cognitionoccur.
It is common to portraymoods as a kind of haze that obscuresclear
vision, blindingus to an objectivereality. Moods are actuallymore like
the air that makes hearingitself possible. Withoutthis mediumto carry
soundwaves, earswouldbe pointless.Withoutmoodsto situateus in the
worldand makeit matterto us, perceptionwouldbe anchorless,will rud-
derless,and intellectpowerless.
Moods are not cloudy occlusionsin a perceptual,volitional, or cog-
nitive state of being that otherwisewould offer undistortedaccess to
reality. Far from standingbetweenus and our world, moods are what
first and foremostbringus into the world, into our "there." It follows
that we cannot simply rid ourselves of moods through concentrated
effort of will or intellect. Heideggerstipulates:
The will can appeal to ways and means for suppressingthe bad
mood, but it cannotdirectlyawakenor createa countermood:for
moods are overcomeand transformedalwaysonly by moods. Here
it is essentialto observethat feeling is not somethingthat runsits
course in our "inner lives." It is ratherthat basic mode of our
Dasein by force of which and in accordancewith which we are
alwaysalreadyliftedbeyondourselvesinto beingas a whole, which
in this or that way mattersto us or does not matterto us. Mood is
nevermerelya way of being determinedin our innerbeing for our-
selves. . . . Mood is precisely the basic way in which we are outside
ourselves.But that is the way we are essentiallyand constantly.25

23. Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 173-76.
24. Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 389.
25. Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 1: The Will to Power as Art, trans. D. Krell (New
York: Harper and Row, 1979), p. 99. See also Martin Heidegger, Schelling's Treatise on the
Essence of Human Freedom, trans. J. Stambaugh (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985),
p. 105; and Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 175.

To say that we are essentiallyand constantlyoutside ourselvesis to say

that we are alwaysin one mood or another.Daseinliterallymeansthere-
being. The "there" of Dasein is not a geographicplace but a phenom-
enological relationship,a way of being in and belongingto the world.
Moods, as forms of attunement,facilitatethis relationshipof being in
and belonging, making the world of particularinterest or uninterest,
importor indifference,to us.
In underliningthe power of moods, Heideggersets himself againsta
long traditionof rationalistand voluntaristthought. He indicatesthat
disposition,not intellectualactivityor willfulself-direction,roots human
being most fundamentallyin its world. Moods determinenot only how
the worldmattersto us, but, to a greatextent, how this matteringwill be
played out. It is primarilythroughmoods, for example, that a human
beingbecomesawarethat it neversets its worldlystageor createsits role
from scratch.As the GermanwordBefindlichkeitindicates,a disposition
or mood indicateshow onefinds oneself. Cognitionand will often make
remarkableappearanceson our worldlystage. But moods, typicallyun-
noticed behind drawncurtains,set the stage itself, ensuringour funda-
mentalembeddednessin the world.
By establishinga resonancewith the world priorto and more funda-
mental than cognitive or volitional acts, moods evidencehuman being
as pre-scripted.Oursense of "thrownness"in the worldis primarilydis-
closed in and through moods. Heideggerwrites that "having a mood
bringsDaseinface to face with its thrownnesssuch that this thrownness
is not perceivedin itself but is disclosed far more primordiallyin 'how
one is.' Existentially, 'Being-thrown'means finding oneself in some
state-of-mindor other."26Not all our moods, however, make thrown-
ness present and palpable to us. Indeed, moods typically allow us to
avoid perceivingour finitude (Endlichkeit),the thrown, ungrounded,
and contingentnatureof our being. Heideggerwrites, "Ontologically,
we thus obtain as the first essentialcharacteristicof states-of-mindthat
they discloseDasein in its throwness,and-proximally andfor the most
part-in the mannerof an evasiveturning-away.27 Moods achievethis
evasionby insertingand maintainingus in everydayness(Alltaglichkeit),
in contrastto a self-consciouslyontologicalstate of being. One existsin
the everydayin the mode of publicness(Offentlichkeit),whichindicates
not the ontological structureof Being-with,but the unselfconsciously
experiencedlife of custom and habit that is common to all. The public


world is the world of socio-economic and political concerns that, in order

to dispatch themselves, necessarily circumvent ontological reflection.
Escape into the everyday, public world of convention and absorbed
coping is not to be deprecated as a deficient mode of human being.
Navigating worldly life efficiently is a worthy achievement, and there are
moods well suited to its various demands. Nonetheless, efficient naviga-
tions, facilitated by the predominant moods of the public world, con-
stitute a turning away from ontological questioning. Heidegger calls this
evasion a falling, effectively a falling away from ontological reflection
into everyday coping. Those states of mind through which ontological
meaning is relinquished constitute the lion's share of our moods. Most
moods obscure our finitude and essential thrownness, our incapacity to
set our own stage and comprehensively dictate our own roles, because
they seamlessly embed us in worldly life.
Moods may be understood by analogy to the theater. Theater-goers
are willing participants in make-believe. Theater immerses spectators in a
fiction while simultaneously turning them away from and facilitating
their denial of its fictitiousness. Moods are analogous to the specific
plays being performed. They situate us in and relate us to the world in
various ways. They constitute the primordial relation of our Being-in.
Most moods do so, however, in a manner that keeps us unaware of their
function and of the ontological status of our being. Only particular
moods, like particular plays-Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search
of an Author, for example-are exceptions to this rule. Pirandello's play
keeps spectators aware of the nature of the stage (as a stage) by con-
stantly transgressing the lines that separate actors and audience, theater
make-believe and real life. Similarly, while all moods reveal human being
in its "there," only particular moods disclose this "there" as a place for
the interrogation of ontological structures. As Heidegger writes, "The
'there' gets equiprimordially disclosed by one's mood in every case-or
gets closed off by it."28 All moods disclose our state of thrownness, but
only certain moods bring this thrown state into conscious experience.
Most moods, precisely by embedding us in a there, place the meaning of
our worldly being in psychic abeyance. While all moods, ontologically
surveyed, give evidence of our finite, contingent nature, only particular
moods render us acutely aware of our contingency and finitude, causing
us to feel thrown.

HI. Anxiety and Boredom

The mood Heideggeris best known for investigating,whichbecamethe
basis for much existentialistinterestin him, is anxietyor dread(Angst).
Anxiety is the disposition in which thrownnessis made self-conscious
and experiencedmost profoundly.Anxietydisallowsour everydayturn-
ing away from thrownness,maintainingthe relationof Being-inas prob-
lematic.Heideggerstatessuccinctlythat "anxiousnessas a state-of-mind
is a way of Being-in-the-world; that in the face of whichwe have anxiety
is thrown Being-in-the-world."29 When anxious, one fears nothing in
particular,nothingidentifiable.Yet there remainsa certainforeboding.
A dread of confrontingone's finitude, one's ungroundedness,persists.
The worldlystage is nervouslysensedas not of one's makingor choos-
ing. One finds oneself cast in a role beyondone's powerfully to director
control. Anxietyis perhapsbest describedas the state of uneasein which
one's "there"is revealedto be not fully one's own. One feels displaced.
The world is disclosedas foreign. Anxiety is the forebodingof home-
lessness.
Heideggerdescribesanxiety as "unheimlich."Translatorshave gen-
erallyrenderedthis as uncanny.The connotationof uneasystrangenessis
also present in the German. Literally, however, unheimlich means
unhomelike.Anxiety brings us back from our absorptionin the world
such that everydayfamiliaritycollapses.Thiscollapseof routineworldli-
ness is ontologicallydefinitive of human being. Anxiety, then, is the
mood of homelessnessthat tears one away from moods of habitual
coping.Anxietyis neithera deprivedstateof humanbeingnor a deficient
state of mind. On the contrary,from an ontologicalperspective,anxiety
is a fundamentaldisposition,a home(less)base from whichothermoods
depart.30
Being at home in the world, in the manner of feeling comfortable
withinthe weaveof convention,signalsa fleeinginto ontic familiarityin
the face of ontologicaluncanniness.Whatis dangerous,Heideggermain-
tains, is not that this flight occurs. We all necessarilylive in the manner
of everydaynessas a condition of human being, shifting for ourselves
and with others. Life itself, one might fairly say, depends upon this
ingeniousor routineself-management.At the sametime, anxietyshould
not be deprecated.It bringsto lightthe ontologicalrealityof our thrown,
ungrounded,and contingentnature.

30. Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 233-34.

We cannot achieve and should not seek a permanent escape from our
existential homelessness and the anxiety it engenders.31 Indeed, the
uniqueness and greatness of human being lies in its capacity reflectively
to experience its ungrounded contingency. What is dangerous, Heidegger
maintains, is the systematic effort to forego the struggle with contin-
gency.32 Human being oscillates between an ontic ensconcing in the
world and an ontological alienation from it. While one never truly
secures a home on this earth, the effort to discover a home (in homeless-
ness) is imperative. To abandon this effort. Heidegger suggests, is to
embrace nihilism.
Heidegger challenges us to dwell in the homelessness that anxiety
brings to light. Indeed, the "becoming at home in not being home" (das
Heimisch werden im Unheimischsein) is announced as the meaning of
our worldly dwelling. What is truly dangerous, then, is not our un-
grounded thrownness or contingent finitude, but our lack of concern for
these states of homelessness. What is dangerous is not the mood of anxi-
ety that brings us to contemplate nothingness, but the nihilistic refusal to
engage in such contemplation. This refusal is primarily evidenced today
not in everydayness per se, though Heidegger's commentators are fre-
quently mistaken on this point. Everydayness simply demonstrates the
temporary avoidance of anxiety. The refusal itself comes fully to fore
chiefly in the mood of boredom.
Heidegger identifies "deep boredom" as a pervasive indifference to
worldly existence as a whole. In deep boredom, worldly life is resisted
and resented as a burden.33No less than the anxious do the bored sense
their alienation from the world and from themselves. Unlike the anxious,
however, the bored forsake the quest for a home in the world. The world
ceases to be a home in its familiar everydayness. But it also ceases to be
an abode for ontological questioning. The absence of home is no longer
experienced as a loss.
In anxiety, one cares apprehensively for a homeless self. In the "mute
fog" of boredom, this care dissipates.34Anxious concern evaporates into
31. Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 13 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Kloster-

mann, 1983), p. 156. See also Richard Bernstein, The New Constellation: The Ethical-
Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), p. 179.
32. Martin Heidegger, The Question of Being, trans. W. Kluback and J. Wilde (New
York: Twayne Publishers, 1958), pp. 79, 97.
33. Sean Healy makes a useful distinction between deep boredom and other depressed
states of mind, observing that "the depressed feel themselves inadequate; the
hyperbored
experience the world as insufficient" (Healy, Boredom, Self, and Culture, p. 60).
34. Martin Heidegger, Existence and Being (Washington: Regnery
Gateway, 1949),
p. 334.

a sterile calm. Heidegger writes, "Why are there beings rather than
nothing.... The questionis upon us in boredom,when we are equally
removedfrom despairand joy, and everythingabout us seems so hope-
lessly commonplacethat we no longer care whether anythingis or is
not."35Anxiety is a mood that brings us "face to face with Nothing
itself." Heideggercontraststhis to profoundboredom,which"drawsall
things, all men and oneself along with them, togetherin a queerkind of
indifference.This boredomrevealswhat-isin totality.... Yetat the very
moment when our moods thus bring us face to face with what-is-in-
totalitythey hide the Nothingwe are seeking."36The dangerof boredom
is not that it confrontsus with the groundlessnessof Being. If anything,
that is its virtue. The dangerof boredomis that it stifles all ontological
questioningof this groundlessnessin the fog of indifference.
Boredomis, in itself, an anesthetizingmood. It inhibitsthought and
reducesfeelingto torpor. To psychologizeits genesis,one mightsay that
the fear of facing one's ontologicalcondition, the fear of anxietyitself,
lures one into the insensibilityof boredom. Heidegger describesthis
repressionas a form of cowardice. He writes that "An experienceof
Being as something'other'than everythingthat 'is' comes to us in anxi-
ety [Angst], providedthat we do not, from anxiety of anxiety, i.e. in
sheertimidity, shut our ears to the soundlessvoice which attunes us to
the horrorsof the abyss."37Anxietyand boredomboth confrontus with
the abyss of Being as nothingness.Both anxiety and boredombringus
face to face with the threateninginsignificanceof the finite self. In anxi-
ety, however, one experiencesa profound concern for this terrifying
mystery,a concernthat may transformitself into wonderif courageously
digested. In boredom, the mysteryis avoided by a listless or frenzied
turningaway.
Nietzschegesturedat this danger. He vividlyportraysthe confronta-
tion of nihilismin Zarathustra'sstory of the sleepingshepherd.A snake
crawlsinto a sleepingshepherd'smouth and firmlylodges itself. Awak-
ened, the horrifiedshepherdbites off the snake'shead to rid himself of
it. Thus winninghis freedom, the shepherdlaughs as only a victorious
personcan. Heideggersuggeststhat the shepherdwas assailedby nihilis-
tic boredomowingto a philosophictorpor.The "blacksnake," Heideg-
ger writes,"is drearmonotony, ultimatelythe goallessnessand meaning-
35. Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. R. Manheim (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 1.
36. Heidegger, Existence and Being, pp. 334-35.
37. Heidegger, Existence and Being, p. 354 (translation emended).

lessness of nihilism."38The shepherd'scourageto bite deeply into the

ungroundednessof life ultimatelysaves him. Today, Heideggerworries,
we lack the courageof the shepherd.Ratherthan confrontingand over-
coming deep boredom,we choose to ignore, resent, or suppressit. This
marksthe true victoryof nihilism.
Heideggerworriedthat humanity'scapacity for anxiety was waning
just as the mood of profoundboredomwaxed.The mood of anxiety,he
suggests,mightbecomecompletelyabsorbedand displacedby boredom.
Ennui would then supplantexistentialangst as the dispositionthrough
which contemporaryhuman being becomes saturatedwith its thrown-
ness. The result of this displacementwould be a "philosophicsomno-
lence whichis nihilismproper."39This, Heideggermaintains,constitutes
the chief threat to humanity.The ascendanceof boredom signifies our
incapacityto dwell in the question of Being and hence our incapacity
fully to dwellin the world.40Nihilismis profoundboredomwith a world
that has lost its meaning.More to the point, nihilismis profoundbore-
dom with a world from which human being has ceased to solicit or
demand meaning. At the heart of nihilism, the significanceof signifi-
cance itself evaporates.
IV. Boredom, Technologyand Homelessness
Busy-nessis the chief means by which everydaylife evadesontological

questioning.The everydayachievesits escape from anxious thought in
heightened worldly activity. The "tranquillity"of inauthentic Being
"drives one into ininhibited'hustle.' "41 Boredom does not preclude
such activity.Indeed,a continuousflurryof activityoften becomesbore-
dom's chief defense againstthoughtfulanxiety. The enginesof conven-
tion and coping that propel our everydaybusy-nessfind a particularly
powerful fuel in modem technology. Technology, for Heidegger,does
not referto the developmentof machines,tools, or skillsbut to the "en-
framing"(Gestell)of the world underthe imperialmandateof efficient
exploitation. Deep boredom evidences itself today not so much in
Hamlet-likebroodingas in this fast-pacedenframingof the world.
38. Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 2: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same, trans. D.
Krell (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), p. 179.
39. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 2, p. 104.
40. Martin Heidegger, The Way Back into the Ground of Metaphysics, trans. W. Kauf-
mann, in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. W. Kaufmann (New York:
Meridian Books), pp. 211-12.

Heideggerobservesthat we are increasinglyreluctantto "stationour-

selvesin the stormof Being.Yet everythingtoday betraysthe fact that we
bestir ourselvesonly to drive storms away. We organize all available
means for cloudseedingand stormdispersalin orderto have calm in the
face of the storm. But this calm is no tranquillity.It is only anesthesia;
more precisely,the narcotizationof anxietyin the face of thinking."42
In other words, technological hyperactivityensures that philosophic
thought seldom surfacesand that existentialanxiety never gains sway.
Vast in its reach and furious in its pace, moderntechnologicalactivity
provesthe most effectivemeansof dissipatingthe stormof Being.It also
allows us to bearthe burdenof boredomin relativecomfort, even with a
heightenedsense of excitement.
Each age, Heideggerindicates, is dominatedby a basic mood that
structuresits development.Boredom is the basic mood of the techno-
logical age. It accompaniesanotherbasicmood of the times-horror-a
state of spiritualshell-shockthat, no less than boredom,paralyzesone in
the face of uttermeaninglessness.Horror(Erschreckung) is an appropri-
ate, but often repressed,reactionto the experienceof a nihilisticworldin
which everythingis permitted.Its relationshipto boredom is comple-
mentary. A deep, pervasiveboredom, a boredomwith life and being,
may induce forms of nihilistic behavior-as Dostoevsky graphically
observes-to which horror seems the only appropriate,if ineffective,
response.43
John StuartMill describedhis own time as "destituteof faith, but ter-
rified at skepticism."Faith may indeed be scarcetoday. But terror at
skepticismis increasinglyabsent in the postmodernworld. Such terror
has been largely replacedwith technologicalpreoccupations.From an
ontic perspective,technologyis tremendouslycreativeand its productive
capacitiesgive no indicationof abating.Froman ontologicalviewpoint,
however, the totalizingreach of modern technologyreveals a nihilistic
core. Modern technology belies a vast and powerful ordering of an
absence,an absencethat can find no correctivein the over-productionof
things.
"The emptinessof Being," Heideggerwrites, "can neverbe filled up
by the fullness of beings, especiallywhen this emptinesscan never be
experiencedas such, the only way to escapeit is incessantlyto arrange
42. Martin Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking, trans. D. Krell and F. Capuzzi (New
York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 78.
43. On the historicity of moods for Heidegger, see Michael Zimmerman, Heidegger's
Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, Art (Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 1990), p. 115.

beingsin the constantpossibilityof beingorderedas the form of guaran-

teeingaimlessactivity.Viewedin this way, technologyis the organization
of a lack."44Technologyreplacesthe emptinessof Beingrevealedin the
mood of boredomwith the productionand consumptionof artifactsand
the unrelentingmanipulationof the world. It reducesthe world to a
"standing reserve" (Bestand). To avoid this reduction, Heidegger
writes, we must "overcomethe compulsionto lay our hands on every-
thing."45Though Heideggeris frequentlymisinterpretedon this point,
refusingto lay our handson everythingdoes not signala retreatfromthe
world, nor even an end to the use and developmentof machinesor other
productsof technology.The problemis not the humancreationand use
of machinesbut ratherthe creation and use of human machines-the
making of ourselvesinto mere extensionsof technologicalforces and
processes.Refusingto lay our hands on everythingsimplymeansa halt
to the imperialattitudewhich enframeseverything,everywhere,as raw
materialawaitingexploitation.
The link between modern technology and deep boredom is perhaps
best illustratedby examiningtheircommonrelationto time. The essence
of technologicalactivityis efficiency. Its goal is to achievegiven ends-
such as the productionof energy,artifacts, knowledge,wealth, power,
or pleasure-with a minimum expenditure of resources. Foremost
amongtheseresourcesis time itself. Moderntechnologyassailstimein its
effort to speedthroughatomic, global, and cosmic space, and by accel-
eratingdailyroutinesand functions.This victoryovertime bearsa price:
humanitycomes to relate to time as an obstacle and antagonist, as a
recalcitrantforce that demandsharnessing.The effect of technological
innovation, in other words, is not so much the saving of time as its
conquest.
Human being is a dwelling in time, a disclosive being-in-the-word.
Humanbeing's "letting-becomepresent,"Heideggerwrites, "is nothing
otherthantime itself."46Yet one cannottrulydwellin time if one orients
oneself to it as a hostile force to be overcomeor a fleetingexternalityto
be capturedand put to work.47In fosteringan antagonisticorientationto
time, technology disruptsour worldliness.In the same vein, boredom
44. Martin Heidegger, The End of Philosophy, trans. J. Stambaugh (New York: Harper
and Row, 1973), p. 107.
45. Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 3: The Will to Power as Knowledge and Meta-
physics, trans. J. Stambaugh, D. Krell, and F. Capuzzi (New York: Harper and Row,
1987), pp. 180-81.
46. Martin Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, trans. T. Kisiel
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), pp. 213-14.
47. Heidegger, History of the Concept of Time, pp. 227, 319-20.

makes our timely Being-in-the-worldonerousand the world's potential

for timelydisclosurea matterof indifference.Consequently,time weighs
most heavilyon the bored. It is an object of resistanceand resentment.
Profound boredomsignifiesan unwillingness,timidity,or incapacityto
experienceBeing as time.
With this in mind, Heideggeridentifies the thought of the eternal
recurrence-Nietzsche called it "the heaviest weight"-as a historic
watershed. On one side stand the profoundly bored, for whom time
monotonouslyunderlinesits own meaninglessnesswithout end. On the
other side stand those dwellingin time, for whom each moment bears
supremesignificancein its mysteriousdisclosureof Being. The eternal
recurrenceis a criticalthought experimentbecauseit effectivelygauges
the depthsof its thinker.Intellectually,the thoughtof the eternalrecur-
renceis the same for all: the endlessrepetitionof the same sequenceof
events. The existential reactions particularindividuals have to this
thought, however,may be antipodal.
Those sufferingfrom a profoundboredomperceivea life forevercir-
cling in time as the ultimatehorror,concluding:"Everythingis nought,
indifferent, so that nothing is worthwhile-it is all alike." Anxious
wonder,on the otherhand, maytransformthis samethoughtinto a cele-
bration of caring, promptingthe affirmation: "Everythingrecurs, it
dependson each moment,everythingmatters-it is all alike."48 To over-
come the thought of the eternal recurrence,Nietzsche suggests, is to
overcome nihilism. Such overcoming, Heideggergoes on to stipulate,
dependson our capacityto establisha disclosiverelationshipwith time,
distinctfrom the attemptto possessand masterit. Establishingthis dis-
closive relationshipdependson the moods one can musterand sustain.
But moods, we remember,cannotbe summoned,installed,or dismissed
at will. In contrastto Nietzsche, Heidegger maintainsthat one cannot
establish a proper relationship with time through sheer volition.
Nietzsche imagined the overcoming of the heaviest weight in heroic
terms. Accordingto Heidegger,this is a tragicallyflawed project. The
heroic attemptto mastertime can only be sustainedby the very will to
power that inhibitsour capacityfully to dwell in time.
Time is on the run for postmodernhumanity.Ourendlessstrugglefor
efficiency, a fierce battle with time, yields philosophic narcosis. The
flurryof technology,enchantingin its power, provesanesthetizingin its
effects. The victoryof technologyis thus a Pyrrhicone. One of the chief
spoils of technologicalbattle is the (mass)productionof leisure. Hence
each successfulstruggleonly servesto enlargethe scope of the war. The
48. Heidegger, Nietzsche: Eternal Recurrence of the Same, p. 182.

increasein "spare"time marksan extensionand intensificationof bore-

dom's domain,which, in turn, solicitsan extensionandintensificationof
technologicalactivityto alleviatethe tedium. The spiralwidens.
Heideggerwarnsthat no amount of technologicalactivitycan satiate
the existential hunger that it conspires to ignore. He describes the
dilemmaat length:
The man of today has no moretime for anything,and yet, whenhe
has free time, it immediatelybecomestoo long. He must kill long
periodsof time by whilingthemawaythroughpastimes ... In this
"ennui" nothingapealsto us anymore,everythinghas as much or
as littlevalueas everythingelse, becausea deepboredompenetrates
our existenceto the core. Is this possiblyour final condition,that a
deep boredom,like an insidiousfog, creepsto and fro in the bot-
tomlessdepthsof our existence?... For the fundamentalbut hard-
ly noticed mood of deep boredomis probablywhat drivesus into
all the time-killingthat the strange, the exciting, the bewitching
offers us daily in our alienation. . . . What is more, probably this
deep boredom-in the form of the passionfor killingtime-is the
hidden, unavowedpull of the homeland,pushedaside but still in-
escapable: the hidden homesickness. . . . Probably these belong
together:the alienationof the technologicalworld and the deep
boredomthat is the hiddenpull of a sought-forhomeland.For no
technological equipment nor any of its achievementsor aids,
neitherthe powers of inventionpushed to their limits nor endless
activityhave the power to give us homeland,i.e., that which sus-
tains and determinesand lets us growin the core of our existence.49
Boredomis the mood of the technologicalage becausethe moderntech-
nological driveis both the symptomand contributingcause of our com-
placencyin homelessness.Its unceasingsearch for efficiency marksan
attemptto escapethe contingencyand finitudeof humanbeing through
the possessivemasteryof time. Spiritualnomadismand the constantflux
of innovationreplacesthe patient task of discoveringand caringfor a
temporalabode in the world.
Heidegger'sthoughtsin thesemattersrecallKierkegaard'sdistinction
between boredom and the idleness that begets philosophiccontempla-
tion. Kierkegaardmaintainsthat
49. MartinHeidegger,"Messkirch'sSeventhCentennial,"Listening,8 (1973): 50-51

(translationemended).

Idlenessis not an evil; indeedone may say that everyhumanbeing

who lacksa sense for idlenessprovesthat his consciousnesshas not
yet been elevated to the level of the humane. There is a restless
activitywhich excludesa man from the world of the spirit, setting
him in class with the brutes,whose instinctsimpel them alwaysto
be on the move .... Everyonewho feels boredcriesout for change.
. . . One tires of living in the country and moves to the city; one
tires of one's nativeland, and travelsabroad;one is europamude,
and goes to America,and so on; finallyone indulgesin a sentimen-
tal hope of endlessjourneyingsfrom star to star.50
Kierkegaarduncoversthe (post)moderndynamic.Yethe undulyslanders

the "brutes." Not burdenedwith the task of finding meaningin life,
animalshave no need to escape from its meaninglessness.They do not
exhibitthe deep boredomto whichhumansare preynor the hyperactivity
that servesas its analgesic.
Heideggeragrees that our technologicaljourneys often demonstrate
less a courageousseekingthan a timid fleeing. Boredom,technologyand
homelessnessevidencea singularinterdependence.5' Moderntechnology
in
-chiefly displayed the rapid production and consumptionof com-
modities, information and media, and transportation-ensures that
everymomentof the day is spokenfor. It ensuresthat we shallnot be left
waiting."Fly the Concordearoundthe World," advertisementurges.
an
"The futureway to fly-Now. Everythingelse is boring."52Abandoning
the presentfor the futureand the nearfor the far-killing time and con-
queringspace-we embracetechnologyas a meansof escapingboredom.
Lives chiefly consumedby technologicaldiversionsbecome immuneto
the philosophical wonder at Being itself. Overstimulatedby techno-
logical wizardryand deafenedby the noise of the media(which, Heideg-
ger observes,its "almosttake[n]for the voice of God"), contemporary
humanitybecomesboredwith "the simple."53The enigmaof our earthly
being ceasesto meritreflection.The task of seekinga home in this mys-
tery is abandoned.
50. Kierkegaard, Either/ Or, Volume One, pp. 285, 287.

51. Martin Heidegger, "Homeland," Listening, 6 (1971): 237.
52. Quoted in Spacks, Boredom, p. 249.
53. Martin Heidegger, "The Pathway," in Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker, ed.
Thomas Sheehan (Chicago: Precedent Publishing, 1981), pp. 70-71.

V. Facing up to Boredom:The Philosophicaland Political Stakes

For all his criticismof boredom, Heideggeris not suggestingthat we
expungethis dangerousmood. Indeed,suppressingor escapingboredom
is preciselywhat Heideggerdecries.Boredom,even profoundboredom,
is an unavoidablepart of human being. It evidences our capacity to
experiencethe nothingnessof Being, even if only in the mode of turning
away from it. What Nietzsche says of nihilism, we might then say of
boredom:the task is to digest it, and only thus to leave it behind."5The
challengeis not to escapeor suppressboredombut to overcomeit. One
only ever overcomesboredomby passing(repeatedly)throughit.
Yet even talk of overcomingboredommay mislead. The attemptto
master any mood, in the sense of conqueringit, is largely destructive.
Moods are not masteredby will and suppression.Insteadof suppressing
boredomand other moods, Heideggerstipulates,we need to "awaken"
to them. We must learnto acknowledgeand "wait" throughboredom.
Boredomis truly overcomeonly when it is courageouslyand patiently
exploredand endured.
Heidegger'soriginalinterestin moods stems from his interestin the
mood of philosophic inquiry, that is to say, the mood of awe and
wonder.Philosophy,Heideggerwas wont to say, is not only or even pri-
marilydefinedby whatone inquiresabout, but by how one inquires.The
how pertainsto the fundamentalmood out of whichquestioningarises.55
The philosophicmood is a waitful disposition. Philosophyis a patient
inquiryof the mysterious,a pious questioning.Profound boredom, in
contrast,correspondsto "the lack of mysteryin our Dasein."56 Perhaps
bettersaid, it correspondsto our lack of concernfor this mystery.None-
theless,the experienceof boredomallows us the opportunityto discover
just how fundamentalthat mysteryis by revealingits absencein us, by
revealingour turningaway from it. What becomes disclosedwhen we
awakento this dangerousmood is a way of our being-in-the-world that
underlinesits own limitations.
The benefit of boredom, then, is the opportunityit allows us to
awakento its natureand understandits threat. What Heideggersaid of
technology, employingHolderlin'swords, might well be said of bore-
dom: "Wheredangeris, growsthe savingpoweralso."57If we awakento
54. FriedrichNietzsche,The Willto Power,trans.WalterKaufmannandR. J. Holling-

dale (New York:Vintage, 1967),p. 3.
55. Heidegger,FundamentalConceptsof Metaphysics,p. 57.
57. MartinHeidegger,The QuestionConcerningTechnologyand OtherEssays, trans.
W. Lovitt (New York:Harperand Row, 1977),p. 28.

the mood of boredom,if we learnhow to wait throughit, we may redis-

cover and reaffirma philosophicpath. Waitingis not a passivestate of
being. It is an activeendeavor,a questioningof our beingin time. Wait-
ing is groundedin an openingto this mystery.58 By waitingthroughbore-
dom, we rediscoverthe natureof our temporalworldliness.
In the "hasteto react"to boredom,in the fearfulunwillingnessto give
it "space," we deny ourselves such insight.59We typically counteract
boredomby "welcoming... preoccupations."In this way we "pass the
time, in orderto masterit." We driveboredomawayby drivingtime on.
Yet any effort to "kill time" obscuresthe essenceof humanbeing, which
is defined as a being-in-time.60 The commonunderstandingof boredom
is that it is "a sign of shallowness."Boredomis assumedto beliethe lack
of "a propertask" for one's life. Hence its modern,moral condemna-
tion. This understanding,Heideggerwrites, "suppressesprofound bore-
dom ... so that one can pounceuponit withinthe field of the busyactiv-
ity of Daseinin its superficiality."61 A moralistic,fearfulrelationshipto
boredom undermines its potential. The technologicaldomesticationof
boredomfaresno better. In both cases, "optimal"experienceis assumed
to be evidencedonly when one is completelyabsorbedby activity. The
individual who fills life with such "flow," we are told, is "seldom
anxious" and is "neverbored."62 The real existentialproblem,Heideg-
ger insistsin contrast,is not boredomper se but "evasionin theface of
boredom."63Profound boredom, Heideggerstipulates, "only becomes
awake if we do not counteract it."4 Suppressingboredom is anti-
philosophical.
There is a common tendency to attributeboredom to others while
denyingit in oneself. In his headiermoments, Nietzschehimself insists
that life is "a hundredtimes too shortto be-bored in it."65Only those
hankeringfor eternal life, he chides, could find their earthly sojourn
tedious. Nietzscheadmits, however,that boredomalso finds its victims
among "higher types." The difference is that they learn to digest it,
musteringthe courage needed to allow themselvesto be bored. "For
58. Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, pp. 161, 351.

59. Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, pp. 132, 166.
60. Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, pp. 78, 80, 93.
61. Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, pp. 158-59.
62. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York:
Harper and Row, 1990), p. 209.
65. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York:
Penguin, 1972), p. 138.

thinkers and all sensitive spirits," Nietzsche writes, "boredom is that dis-
agreeable 'windless calm' of the soul that precedes a happy voyage and
cheerful winds. They have to bear it and must wait for its effect on them.
... To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar, no less than work without
pleasure."66 What Nietzsche describes as vulgar and what Kierkegaard
describes as brutish, Heidegger describes as dangerous: namely, the
habitual use of technology or other mental or physical distractions as
means of suppressing boredom.
The evasion of boredom may be a relatively harmless and perhaps
needful activity on occasion. Abraham Maslow's theory of need gratifi-
cation, for instance, suggests that boredom with the pursuit of lower
needs and desires for physical security or a sense of belonging may stimu-
late individuals to pursue higher needs and desires for self-actualiza-
tion.67 Certainly avoiding less profound states of boredom-the "super-
ficial" boredom of becoming bored by some specific thing-is in itself
rather benign. The routine evasion or suppression of superficial forms of
boredom, however, may prevent more profound and more philosophi-
cally instructive forms from arising.68 The real danger, in any case, is
that in the contemporary world the evasion and suppression of all forms
of boredom has become not only customary but institutionalized. A con-
stant supply of novelty is demanded to allow our escape from the loom-
ing menace of becoming bored with our thoughts and ourselves.
Arnold Behlen speaks of post-history as the condition in which "prog-
ress becomes routine." Commenting on this feature of contemporary
times, Gianni Vattimo writes that "in a consumer society continual
renewal (of clothes, tools, buildings) is already required physiologically
for the system simply to survive. What is new is not in the least 'revolu-
tionary' or subversive; it is what allows things to stay the same."69
Routinization of novelty has become a defining characteristic of the age.
The postmodern world evidences an addiction to the steady supply of
innovation that ensues from technological growth. The institutional
satisfaction of the postmodern public's hunger for novelty is a systematic
suppression of boredom.
As with all addictions, there is the danger of an overdose. Even for the
intensely curious, the distractions of the technological world may on
66. Nietzsche,The Gay Science,p. 108 (emphasisadded).

67. AbrahamMaslow, Towarda Psychologyof Being, 2nd ed. (New York: D. Van
Nostrand,1968),pp. 55-58.
69. Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1985),p. 7.

occasion prove overwhelming.Faced with an "informationoverload,"

for instance,denizensof the postmodernworldmay find it necessaryto
shieldthemselvesperiodicallyfrom the constantbarrageof data.70 Ironi-
cally, boredomitself generallyprovidesthe neededprophylactic.Just as
one may embracetechnologicaldistractionsto alleviateboredom,so one
may embraceboredomfor its analgesicpowersin the face of incessant
technological change. Boredom protects us from technological over-
stimulation, serving as a safety valve against the pressuresof surplus
production and consumption. Importantly, this defensive boredom,
having servedits purpose as a narcotic, eventuallyreassertsitself as a
stimulant.The threat of unalleviatedboredomthrustsus back into the
flurryof technologicallife. The cyclecontinues,perhapsso systematical-
ly as to form seamlessdispositionsthat meld philosophic somnolence
with technologicalhyperactivity,a sort of fitful sleepwalking.Boredom
becomes the habitualand hegemonic,which is to say unacknowledged
and unchallenged,mood of the technologicalage.
In one of the very few analysesof Heidegger'swritingson boredom,
ParvisEmadarguesthat boredomstandsopposedto technologgyowing
to its capacityto disclosebeing as a whole. Emadwritesthat "boredom
is one significantway of gaining access, in thinking, to the realm of
Dasein and its essentialmeaning.This accessto Dasein is probablythe
only alternativeto technologicalrationality.Whenwe are overwhelmed
by boredom,technologicalrationalityis confrontedwith somethingthat
it cannotmanageand control. Existingin sucha disposition,we are with
one strokeremovedfromthe dominationof technology."71Emadrightly
points out that boredomallows us accessto the meaningof Dasein. But
he fails to recognizethat boredom disclosesBeing only in the mode of
our turningawayfromit. Technologyfacilitatesthis avoidance.It allows
respitefrom and alleviatesthe discomfortof boredomthroughthe man-
ufactureof novelty and the killing of time. The ease with which people
may sit mesmerizedfor hoursin front of video game screensexemplifies
the symbioticrelationshipboredomestablisheswith technology.In post-
modernity,this relationshipis pervasive.
Heideggerdoes not counselus to retaliateagainstthe widespreadalli-
ance of boredom and technology by popularizingphilosophy. That
would be perverseand futile. Given the properconditions,philosophic
thought may grow. It cannot, under any circumstances,be manufac-
70. The term is Orin Klapp's. He identifies boredom as "having a defensive function as
a barrier against noise" (Klapp, Overload and Boredom, p. 9).
71. Parvis Emad, "Boredom as Limit and Disposition," in Heidegger Studies, 1 (1985):
64.

tured.Whilethe wellspringof philosophymightbe mademoreaccessible

to all, everyonecannot be made to drink. Awakeningto and waiting
throughmoods of boredomremainsan individualendeavor.The task at
hand, then, is not to mobilize the masses for ontological questioning.
Rather,the challengeis to understandthe political, economic, and cul-
tural meansby which distractionsfrom such questioningare mobilized
for the masses.In the postmodernworld, the meansof suppressingbore-
dom have become socially entrenched.They are systematicallypropa-
gated and collectivelyengaged.Whatis neededin this contextis critique
of the institutionallyroutinizedways by which boredomis evaded. The
Roman emperorsused circusesto occupy their subjects'attentionsand
stem the politicaldangersof idleness.Technologicalinnovationservesa
similarfunctiontoday. The forumof technologicalinnovation,however,
is ubiquitous.
We live today in a "fast-paced"world that demands"accelerated"
lifestyles.Timeis less and less somethingthat happensto us. It is increas-
ingly "managed"by us and for us. Time, in otherwords,has beentrans-
formed into standing reserve.Treatedlike any other resource,time is
efficientlyused and used up. To this end, muchof our time is givenover
to gainfulemployment.Time not consumedby work is mostly managed
for us by the entertainment,recreation, and information industries.
Indeed, even our educationalinstitutionshave come to serve this pur-
pose. A primarytask of educationtoday is to managestudents'time and
to train studentsin the variousarts of time management.
Underswayof suchtechnologicalrelationships,time not appropriated
to work is spent in otherways. Leisureor idlenessis typicallygiven over
to some form of consumption-of food, merchandise,entertainment,
recreation,or information. Aristotle insisted that leisure, which arises
only after basic needs (bread) are secured and remains distinct from
entertainmentor recreation(circuses),is intrinsicto the good life. Indeed
leisureor idleness, as Kierkegaardand Nietzscheobserve,is a necessary
condition for philosophy. This unspent, unmanagedtime allows us to
remainthoughtfullyawareof the enigmaticnatureof our being in time.
Yet idlenessalwayscourtsthe threatof boredom.Boredomis the menace
foreverlurkingwithinthe folds of leisure.Idlenessthus becomesa threat
in a world given over to the systematicsuppressionof boredom.
Idlenessand boredomrepresentglitchesin the system,glitchesthat call
for increasedand acceleratedintegrationof the bored and potentially
bored (the idle) into the institutionalnetworks of time management.
Evenmonasticlife, long held to epitomizethe contemplative'sdangerous
but necessarydancewith boredom,has succumbedto the quickenedpace
of post-industriallife. Monks today are "alwaysrushingaround," one

Benedictine laments, noting that their schedules are no different from

those of lay people. Another monastic observes that "the institutions we
work for no longer are satisfied with part of our time and interest. They
now want our souls."72 That this accelerated lifestyle is justified in eco-
nomic terms only underscores the usurpation of life's philosophic and
spiritual regimes by the forces of production.
To speak of the suppression of boredom as Heidegger's chief concern
is imprecise. His concern, in large part, is the suppression of the oppor-
tunities for boredom. He is worried about the ubiquitous managing and
mastering of time that precludes any occasion for boredom to arise.
Heidegger argues, as did Nietzsche before him, that we should not
deprive ourselves of all opportunity to be bored-lest we never discover
the leisurely, non-manipulative relationship to time necessary for philo-
sophic thought. Philosophy demands a waitful dwelling in time. Philoso-
phy only truly happens when time is neither fully accounted for nor
willed away nor even willed prolonged. Philosophic thought, Heidegger
states, is thought of time and/as Being. One cannot simultaneously think
time and possessively master it.
This is not to say that the experience of boredom is to be warmly wel-
comed. Profound boredom is a desensitizing and thought-stopping
mood, and it is, Heidegger warns, dangerously proliferating in our day.
But technological distractions that suppress boredom only alleviate the
symptoms of the mood while exacerbating its cause. The proffered cure
is worse than the disease. Preserving islands of leisure from the rising tide
of time management is therefore crucial; for the practice of philosophy
and the project of discovering a home in the world depends upon our
developing the capacity and willingness to let time be.
This act of preservation is, in a limited but significant way, political in
nature. Politics, Aristotle affirmed, is the master science because politics
orders the social realm as a whole, securing the public and private space
and safeguarding the liberty necessary for diverse activities and relation-
ships. Politics does not determine how various human endeavors, such as
religious worship, economic enterprise, artistic creation, technological
craftmanship, or philosophical reflection are to proceed within their
legitimate domains. Politics does demarcate and safeguard the ap-
propriate boundaries of these endeavors. Aristotle maintained that
political community originally arises to secure the necessities of life, but
it is maintained to allow the good life. Leisure is intrinsic to the good life.
72. From the National Catholic Reporter (September 6, 1996), excerpted as "Monks in
Overdrive," Utne Reader, February 1997, p. 32.

Speakingto its integrityand preservingits potential is a task political

theoristsmay well assume.
The managementof public moods is the age-old trade of politicians.
Accordingto Heidegger,Aristotle's Rhetoricwas "the first systematic
hermeneutic"of public life and its moods. Publicness,he writes, "not
only has in generalits own way of havinga mood, but needsmoods and
'makes'them for itself. It is into such a mood and out of such a mood
that the oratorspeaks. He mustunderstandthe possibilitiesof moods in
orderto rouse them and guide them aright."73Political speechtakes on
the task of fostering and managingpublic moods in order to lay the
ground for action (or inaction). A superlativeexampleof such mood-
makingis providedby the speechesThucydidesputs in the mouthsof his
protagonists,speechesthat typicallyset the stage for collectiveaction.
Politicians,whetherthey know it or not, speak to the moods of their
constituents.Most politicianstoday, regardlessof their location on the
ideologicalspectrum,extol the virtuesof endlesseconomicand techno-
logical growth. Contemporarypolitical speech, in other words, largely
feeds upon and stimulatesthe pervasivehungerfor novelty. Politicians
thus engagedare effectivelyrousingand guidingthe mood of boredom.
They may capitalizeon their constituents'desireto escapeboredomby
integratingthem into the technologicalmainstreamor mobilizingthem
into collectiveactivities.It is temptingto speculatethat Heideggerhim-
self was escapinghis own boredom(withmetaphysics)by wayof political
involvementsin 1933. Certainlya more nuancedexplanationof Heideg-
ger's embraceof Nazismis calledfor.74Yet the possibilityis realenough.
Wars, pogroms and grandioseplans for culturalrenewaland national
resurgencehave often servedthe purposeof distractinga people from its
anxietiesand boredom.One mightview the contemporarydrivefor end-
less economic and technologicalgrowth as a war against nature and
humanlimitationspawnedfrom the angstand ennuiof worldlyfinitude.
The managementand manipulationof boredomis very much a political
concern.
VI. Conclusion
As the century, and some speculatehistory itself, draws to a close, it
becomesapparentthat the "formerAge of Anxietyhas givenway to the
Age of Boredom."75The philosophic signs of these times are every-
74. See Leslie Paul Thiele, Timely Meditations: Martin Heidegger and Postmodern Poli-
tics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
75. Haskell Bernstein, quoted in Spacks, Boredom, p. 3.

where. Even the death of God has become all too "familiar." It can no
longer "move" us.76In the postmodernworld, the "shock effect" of
nihilismhas become"boringand uninteresting."77 Armedwiththe most
up-to-date boredom-swatters, the Last Man announces his indifference
to unanswerablequestions,and blinks.
Today we experienceboredom chiefly in flight from it, a flight that
precludesits overcoming.Heideggerapplaudsthe courageneededto face
boredomsquarely.In the absenceof such courage,he warns,we will be
deliveredover to the technologicalforces that increasinglyregulateour
world and our time. For those who would consumetheirboredomaway
with acquisitionsand distractions,an acceleratinglevel of consumption
becomesunavoidable.The ecologicalrepercussionsof this overconsump-
tion are evident.
Once noveltyis routinized,increasinglyintensestimulimust be found
to achievethe samelevel of pleasure,complacency,or relief. Thatis pre-
cisely how Nietzschedescribedthe moderndiseaseof decadence.As the
routinizationof novelty intensifies, the danger arises that the human
condition itself will become too dull, too lackingin innovation,to sus-
tain interest. "I think they're great," an Americanhigh-schoolsenior
said about the latest generationof computers."It's like anotherhuman
being but more up-to-date."78Like many other modern technological
innovations,computerswere originallyhailed as devicesthat would lift
the burdenof laborfromthe humananimal,allowingit the leisureto dis-
cover its full potential.The specternow looms that technologicalpoten-
tial alone is capableof sustainingour interest.Oncethe humancondition
is experiencedas insufficientlyup-to-dateto hold our attention,philoso-
phy necessarilygives way to engineering.
Technologicaldevelopmentis not wholly drivenby the imperativeof
innovation. It is also stimulatedby the need to solve concreteproblems.
Indeed, technologyhas becomethe primaryproblemsolver of our age.
Heideggercertainlyrecognizedthis fact. Perhaps,then, we should not
stigmatizetechnologyas an innovativetemptressbut hail it insteadas an
irreplaceabletool. Yet the problemsthat "need" to be solved by tech-
nology today arethemselveslargelythe creations(thatis to say, the side-
effects) of earliertechnologicalinnovations.The engineeringof solutions
76. Maurice Blanchot, "The Limits of Experience: Nihilism," in The New Nietzsche:
Contemporary Styles of Interpretation, ed. David Allison (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977),
p. 121.
77. Cornel West, Afterword to Post-analytic Philosophy, ed. John Rajchman and
Cornel West (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), p. 259.
78. "Must love that computer," Gainesville Sun, April 16, 1995, p. 6G.

to worldlyproblems,therefore,might simply be the mask that the rou-

tinizationof novelty wears.
The real question, in any case, is not how we define technologybut
how technologycomes to define us. When a humanbeing is fundamen-
tally identifiedas a technologicalproblemsolver (or even a conceptual
problem solver, as pragmatistssuggest), the opportunityfor a philo-
sophic life is already largely lost. Philosophicallyspeaking, the most
enduringenigma-the natureof humanbeing in time-is not a techno-
logical problemin searchof a solution. It is, as Heideggertriedto dem-
onstrate,a way of life solicitous of patient disclosure.
Philosophicthought begins with the uneasy and awe-inspiringques-
tion: why is there somethingratherthan nothing? The sterile calm of
boredomdeliversus from such questioning.If a terriblewondermarked
the genesisof philosophyin the ancientworld, then the postmodernpro-
liferationof boredommay signalits contemporaryclosure.This growing
invulnerabilityto philosophictraumasignalsa flight from the challenge
of discoveringand cultivatinga worldly and timely abode. Heidegger
fearedthat the mood of boredomwould be revealedas humanity'sfinal
condition,that the waterof philosophiclife wouldbecometoo blandfor
tongues jaded by the taste of constant innovation.Even more, he wor-
riedthat the technologicalsuppressionof all opportunitiesfor the awak-
ening of boredomwould destroythe conditionsfor philosophicthought
and underminethe humancapacityto discovera homein the world. One
suspects,however,that in the postmodernworldthereisn't time for such
worries.


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Northeastern Political Science Association

Postmodernity and the Routinization of Novelty: Heidegger on Boredom and Technology

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Postmodernity is characterized by the routinization of novelty, evi-

Leslie Paul Thiele is Associate Professor of Political Science at the

Amongst the jackals, panthers, bitches,

There is one uglier, filthier and most wicked!

Boredom!-involuntary tears burden its eye,

Poit VoueXI,Nme Number 4 umr19

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Reader,you know this daintymonsterwell,

To name a sensibility,to drawits contoursand to

The termmodernistwas first used in the sixteenthcentury,often pejora-

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boredom an "insidious creature [that] maintains its monstrous essence in

I. A Brief History of Boredom

3. Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 79.

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fractionof theirtime to work, usuallyless than twentyhours a week. In

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:38:22 PM

superficial forms of boredom. The desolation of deep boredom is char-

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:38:22 PM

This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:38:22 PM

an ever-growingheap. The consumersof entertainmentface the same

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II. The Power of Moods

Heidegger is perhaps best known for his notion of Being-in-the-world,

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tions of psychological life but rather fundamental ways of Dasein

22. Heidegger, Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, p. 283.

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To say that we are essentiallyand constantlyoutside ourselvesis to say

26. Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 389.

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world is the world of socio-economic and political concerns that, in order

28. Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 389.

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HI. Anxiety and Boredom

29. Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 235.

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31. Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 13 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Kloster-

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35. Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. R. Manheim (New

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lessness of nihilism."38The shepherd'scourageto bite deeply into the

IV. Boredom, Technologyand Homelessness

Busy-nessis the chief means by which everydaylife evadesontological

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Heideggerobservesthat we are increasinglyreluctantto "stationour-

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beingsin the constantpossibilityof beingorderedas the form of guaran-

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makes our timely Being-in-the-worldonerousand the world's potential

48. Heidegger, Nietzsche: Eternal Recurrence of the Same, p. 182.

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increasein "spare"time marksan extensionand intensificationof bore-

49. MartinHeidegger,"Messkirch'sSeventhCentennial,"Listening,8 (1973): 50-51

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Idlenessis not an evil; indeedone may say that everyhumanbeing

Kierkegaarduncoversthe (post)moderndynamic.Yethe undulyslanders

50. Kierkegaard, Either/ Or, Volume One, pp. 285, 287.

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V. Facing up to Boredom:The Philosophicaland Political Stakes