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Modern European Philosophy 11 – Heidegger
For this lecture, read Heidegger's Being & Time, pages 41-57.
As we discussed over the past few weeks, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were both forerunners of Heidegger and Existentialism. While Heidegger was centrally influenced by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and he used the term 'existential' to describe fundamental forms of experience, it was Sartre who called himself, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger 'Existentialists', coining this term as well as 'Existentialism' to describe the school of thought that includes all of these thinkers together. While Schopenhauer was pessimistic and skeptical about human claims to knowledge, he did not advocate a courageous leap into the creation of truth for oneself or one's culture, and so was not included amongst the forerunning Existentialists by Sartre, even though Schopenhauer clearly had an impact on Nietzsche as well as other later philosophers. In addition to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, the famed writers Dostoevsky and Kafka are often cited as central precursors of and influences on the Existentialists.
Just as Nietzsche had studied to be a Lutheran minister before turning to philosophy, Martin Heidegger (1889 – 1976) originally studied to be a Catholic theologian, but after exposure to medieval European Neoplatonism he switched to philosophy and wrote his thesis on the Neoplatonist Duns Scotus. Fun fact: Because Duns Scotus argued that all things are alive, including rocks, he was labeled an idiot, and this is where the term 'dunce' comes from (which is oddly not in spell check, perhaps because the term is no longer much in use).
Husserl, the famed phenomenologist, took Heidegger under his wing as his star pupil at the University of Freiburg, and as Husserl's phenomenology rose to fame and gathered followers Heidegger began to gather fame and followers of his own. Husserl wanted a science of the mind, a radical criticism of all philosophy and psychology up through Kant's metaphysics and Hegel's phenomenology. Husserl is famous for the idea of intentionality, that consciousness is always directed toward something or away from something, similar to Fichte's idea of Das Ich and the dynamic of assertion and resistance.
Husserl studied the various and often subtle ways we are intentional in our world. Husserl kept writing and expanding his work, but rather than develop a new alphabet of thought as he had originally intended his work snowballed out of control and continued to amass until his death. Heidegger picked up Husserl's work, but merged it with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and took it in what would later be recognized as an Existential direction. Heidegger formed his own insights based on the work of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Husserl, insights which Heidegger himself thought were similar to ancient Chinese Daoism.
Heidegger published his first and central work, Being and Time (Sein und Zeit), in 1927. Unlike the work of Nietzsche, it was immediately popular and sparked intense conversations and debates in the academic community. To this day, many consider Heidegger to be one of the most profound of philosophical geniuses, while others consider him to be a fool and a charlatan. In 2014, the controversy was rekindled by the publication of his notoriously antisemitic Black Notebooks, which we will consider in light of his political involvement with the Nazis after surveying his major philosophical ideas. Needless to say, some have argued that his ideas are independent from his politics, and others that his politics are a result of his ideas.
Heidegger argued in Being and Time that philosophy is a beginning, the way one weighs anchor while setting sail out into the vast ocean. This is similar to Schopenhauer's ship, bobbing on the stormy sea. For Heidegger, we are thrown into the world, which Heidegger calls 'thrownness', and find ourselves in an inhabited world as a 'there-being', or 'Dasein', a term Heidegger borrows from Hegel just as Sartre would later borrow the term 'existential' from Heidegger. For Heidegger, our goal is not the system of absolute knowledge and perspectives as it was for Hegel, but rather we should attain an authentic transparency of ourselves and our experiences, aware of what we are doing and why we do that rather than something else.
Heidegger asks: How do we experience reality before and as we arrange it? What is the ground of being that supports our views and values? We approach the world, each other, and objects either as closed and identified or as mysterious, uncanny and miraculous. For Heidegger, industrialization and technology have disenchanted the world, and so we must question the world and re-enchant it to live authentically, choosing ourselves as Kierkegaard said, in a world of manufactured commodities. Just as Fichte said that our reality is a social construct, and Nietzsche said that we must rise above the herd, Heidegger saw technology as the structure of the herd which holds us back.
Mystery and truth appear only in the cracks of our industrialized reality when things break or go missing. My good friend who got me interested in philosophy my freshman year of college, who was a Heideggerian, used the example of dropping the soap as you take your morning shower. Objects and persons all but disappear until they are out of place or misused, until they are problematic, and then we become conscious of them. Consider a poster on a wall that we stop seeing after awhile, which then becomes new again and leaps out if we call our attention to it. Heidegger argues that we must think about our thinking to uproot our ingrained understandings if we wish to transform them.
Heidegger argues that every revealing is a concealing, that our experience gives us the things we encounter and what they mean to us as it removes other things from sight, using the metaphor of a forest clearing, an open space that is also obscured, revealing what is within while concealing what is outside. For Heidegger, being and beings withdraw from our grasp as we grasp them, similar to Merleau-Ponty's insight that we only partly perceive things. Time continuously gives us the present as it takes the present from us. Meaning is always historical, always has 'historicity' for Heidegger, situated in its time and place.
One of Hegel's great contributions to philosophy was looking at thought as a historical process. For Heidegger, being is always bound up with time, and thus his title, Being and Time. Time is the horizon of being. Time gives us all things and then threatens to take them all away as it stretches beyond our sight and beyond death. As time and being are seen and unseen, so there can be no absolutely grounded judgment, interpretation or meaning. Care and life are always as much for oneself as much as for something else that never fully arrives, just as we never reach the horizon.
For Freud, thought is typically denial of our impulses towards sex and violence. For Heidegger, common inauthentic thought is in denial of death. We prefer to think of ourselves, others, our thoughts and our world as fixed, closed and immutable, but unfortunately they are always in motion, open, and will end. Just as Hegel argued that Kant's closed, fixed categories are dead, closure and exclusion in thought is the way we cope with the fear of death. This is similar to Lacan's idea of the development of our self-image. We are in a basic state of anxiety towards our world that extends over the horizon just as we are afraid of particular people and objects. The things in front of us distract us from our more basic and fundamental fear of the world. Nietzsche gives Heidegger much of this picture, arguing that we can ignore the void by turning to absolute immutable morality, or we can give up, find no universal meaning in life and embrace nihilism, but rather than either of these we should create our own meaning, though Nietzsche sees this as an individual activity that is corrupted by participation in social movements.
Heidegger agrees that we must make our way from absolute being to nihilism and beyond to understand ourselves as essentially becoming and transformation. Out of the basic state of anxiety spring love, fear, rejoicing, suspicion, and a variety of ways we interact with our world. True freedom is realizing this and gaining self-conscious transparency. We must resist reducing ourselves, our truths and even objects as closed and "ready-to-hand" if we wish to truly live. In his famous essay on technology, Heidegger eyes a packet of soap with a printed label with suspicion, and muses that an old wooden bridge is not unsettling like a timber mill. Consider the difference between chopping down a tree oneself or shopping for plywood at Home Depot. We kill the world and ourselves continuously in the attempt to avoid death, but if we accept death and meaninglessness, we are free to choose how we give our lives meaning. If we realize we are running off into the woods to avoid being lost, we can learn to dwell in the woods comfortably as our home.
For Hegel, to recognize being is non-being is to understand becoming. For Heidegger, to recognize we, our world, and everything and everyone in it is enclosed but remains open and alive is to live authentically. To get what one truly wants, one has to accept and encompass its opposite. For Heidegger, there can be no metaphysics, either Platonic forms of the cosmos or Kantian rules of the mind such as Leibniz's rules of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. For Heidegger, there can be no complete theory about how theory is possible. This is terrible news for philosophy if it was hoping to be complete, but good news for philosophers who will always have more to do and thus can continue to eat if they can find employment in the first place.
Like Nietzsche, Heidegger argues that things can always be variously interpreted, as can the process of interpretation itself. Heidegger called this hermeneutics, a term which was originally used to refer to the interpretation of religious texts but that Heidegger applies to all interpretation of meaning. Heidegger argues that we cannot fully understand our understandings, nor would we want to. The basic way that we are in the world is only partly articulated by judgement, logic and language, only partly controlled and explicit. Like self-contradiction for Nietzsche, this is both a good and a bad thing, good when it is authentic and accepted, bad when it is inauthentic and dishonest. Our reality is unclear, not fully determined, which is what makes choices meaningful. Only the articulated part of thought, that occupied by our focus of attention, is at issue for us.
Our being, which Heidegger calls Dasein, is open-ended, always at issue for itself. We are constantly projecting ourselves into the future, and interpreting ourselves in terms of the past. Dasein is often thought of as an individual being, but it is in fact any identity an individual takes on, any 'they' in which we participate. In the same way that I propose to speak for my left hand, in one way giving it no say in the matter, but in another speaking for it as it, our projected being is social, as are our various forms of identity. To work with a group is to be the group, to assume its identity, while also ambiguously remaining an autonomous individual.
Heidegger also places emphasis on language, as we define ourselves using whatever language we use. Children learn culture and language without the need to fully articulate it as a system of explicit rules. As Hubert Dreyfus rightly points out, Heidegger's thought is very similar to the later work of Wittgenstein, which we will cover later in the course, as well as American Pragmatism. When we are not fitting together with our culture, we are uneasy even if we do not know an explicit reason we can put into words.
Dreyfus uses the example of standing too close during a conversation, which varies with culture. A professor of mine once said that at conferences, German professors are constantly moving in towards British professors, who are constantly moving away to keep social distance. Neither group needs to be aware of what they are doing to continue this endless dance. If we live in a culture in which women do not wear pants, this literally goes without saying until a woman is seen in pants, which then angers and upsets traditional people who only then articulate the practice with judgement as a rule in language.
Zizek cynically uses the example of actually explaining how one's day has been after being asked casually by a waiter, when the 'correct' reply is to simply say, "Good", regardless of how good or bad it has been. Unfortunately, we live in a culture in which things are largely ready-at-hand, and quite disposable and replaceable. Heidegger fears this, setting the stage for the Frankfurt School's fear of the culture industry and commercialism, which they considered to be the new highly evolved form of fascism.
Human being is essentially self-interpretation. We are constantly trying to close and ground our being, give ourselves a limited meaning, but this is inauthentic and ignorant, as we are interpretation and nothing more specific than this. Heidegger refers to inauthentically trying to fix one's meaning and identity as 'falling' and 'fleeing'. We can foolishly run from our true selves into socially constructed meanings as set and given, or we can take up our being as authentically open-ended. Unlike Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, however, Heidegger allows for this to be social as well as individual and still be authentic. As long as choices are recognized as open and remaining at issue, we can take social as well as individual stands authentically.
We are the others and things we live with. We automatically and unconsciously use the things that are involved in our daily routines, just as we do the social roles we inhabit. We are surrounded by equipment which we use automatically without articulation and individuation. It becomes a part of us, an extension of ourselves, as we use it. Heidegger uses the example of a walking stick, through which we feel the ground. Groups of equipment belong together in systems that, like culture and language, need never be fully understood or articulated. We best use equipment when we are not paying particular attention to it, when we and our world are in sync. It exists for us, but as "unthought", just outside of focus.
Originally, shamans were often individuals who survived near-death experiences or other ordeals, that caused them to look at the world differently. Great periods in the history of human thought often involve terrible crises and times of trouble. We only pay attention, giving things articulation and individuation, when there are problems that disrupt the flow of our practices. There can be slight problems, total breakdowns, as well as things and people completely missing. The worse the problem, the more long term planning must be involved, the more we are concerned with time. The greater the issues, the farther forward in time we must project ourselves, the larger and longer view that we must take. Heidegger uses the example of a hammer, which one could find is too heavy or light for the job at hand, or missing entirely. Things are not articulated, are not different from other things, unless we are paying attention to them. Heidegger calls the present (such as a rock) and available (such as a hammer) "modes of presencing", as well as "modes of concern".
Heidegger argues that the equipment which best allows us to be absorbed into its use while also calling our attention to the situation of its use is the sign. Signs were important for later Structuralist, Poststructuralist and Postmodern thought in France. Heidegger uses the example of a turn signal on an automobile, which seems oddly secondary to road signs, an example Wittgenstein uses around the same time writing in Britain. Signs orient us in a situation, revealing the social situation of their use to us. Later, members of the Frankfurt School such as Adorno and Marcuse consider the more problematic example of mass advertising, which they argue distracts our attention from the present social situation.
Much as Schopenhauer argued that it is conceptualization that individuates the world, creating individuals, Heidegger argues that our world is not articulated, does not consist of individual things, unless we articulate and individuate it with our thinking. Given that there are no absolute vacuums in the universe, no complete exclusive separations outside of our conceptions of exclusive difference, this is surprisingly plausible. When our absorption in the world is disturbed, things become distinguished.
While it appears that our world consists of individual things that are exclusive, whether or not we are paying attention to them, this is only because anything that comes to our attention is then distinguished and individuated, unlike the majority of our experience which lies just outside of our attention but is still part of our experience. Similarly, while we imagine that there is always a particular number of chairs in a classroom, this particular number does not exist for those in the room until there is a concern about them that requires they be counted.
Just as for Hegel reality is both subjective and objective together, a social construction, for Heidegger the world is not dictated by the subject, but neither is the subject dictated by the world. Both are in a symbiotic relationship of mutual affectation. Heidegger argues that we can inauthentically ignore the role of the subject, and believe our world to be simply objective, or we can inauthentically ignore the role of the world, and believe our world to be simply subjective, but if we grasp things authentically we understand that each is empowered to codetermine the other.
Our environment determines us, but we can recreate our environment. While a sign directs us, orienting us in our shared world, we can, individually or socially, ignore or redesign (not "read de sign"), and can reappropriate our equipment and social roles. This recalls the work of the Dada artists, some of the first modern artists, who as Heidegger wrote Being and Time were recontextualizing familiar objects as art, as well as question social roles by making them obscure and obscene.
For Heidegger, knowing is primarily a familiar how, not a given what. Outside of a context of use, structures and measurements are meaningless. Things are meaningful for us only given what we have done and what we are going to do. A hammer is only useful given that it has been located, materials for its use have been gathered, there are hours in the day left, and it is not lunchtime. Similarly, Wittgenstein uses the example of the brake lever of a train cabin, arguing that it is meaningless when detached from its complex situation. Heidegger is adding time to this picture, as our situation is also a temporal situation.
Times are socially coordinated, such that activities have appropriate times as well as appropriate scopes of time which are not simply given in the world, or entirely determined by a culture or an individual, but codetermined by the interaction. I could decide all on my own to use a hammer to build a bookcase, but I will have difficulties if I decide to build it at night over my neighbors' objections. The possibilities are not entirely enclosed, but relatively disclosed, and we are constantly moving from one situation to another, with different concerns and expectations. We share space and time publicly and privately, without any complete gap between these two. Our concerns conform to and are opposed to the concerns of others, and this determines how we experience space and time.
Heidegger calls this "distancing", the process by which we are near to that which concerns us and far from that which does not concern us. 'Near' and 'far' here are super-spatial, not merely concerned with physical distance in space but with the focus of our concern across time, space and the social. We are 'near' to "where our mind is", and far from where it isn't. Consider that intimacy is called being close to another, or the song title, "I Left my Heart in San Francisco". Heidegger says that Dasein is essentially "distantial", becoming whatever it is concerned with, as it is its concerns. We make things present to us regardless of distance in space or length in time. Consider that when we say, 'humanity' or 'science', we are bringing before ourselves, as ourselves, countless people and things that span continents and millenia. Recall that Merleau-Ponty, who was very influenced by Heidegger along with his friend Sartre, recognized that we use the word 'grasp' to signify understanding. Heidegger argues that the ground beneath our feet, which we use but does not concern us, is more distant from us than the friend we wave to from across the street.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 – 1961 CE) is a Phenomenologist influenced by Hegel, Marx, Husserl and Heidegger, and was a member of Sartre's inner circle along with Simone De Beauvoir and Fanon. Merleau-Ponty's central work, The Phenomenology of Perception (1945), is an attempt to bring attention to the body as the site of experience, the body-subject, against Descartes' mind-body dualism. Just as Locke said that it is hard to see the eye as well as understand our capacity to understand, Merleau-Ponty argued that the body is often ignored, even as all phenomena are known to us through our bodily senses, particularly vision, sound and touch. We commune with our senses, and through our senses with others. Our subjectivity is corporeal, as our world is framed by our body.
Just as Locke, Hume and other Empiricists argued that we get our abstract ideas from our experiences in the sensual world, Merleau-Ponty argued that we get our understanding of perspective from our early sensual experience. Perspective is our reality, and any projection of reality outside our perspective is itself projected perspectivally. When we imagine objectivity, we imagine a human-like view that exceeds our own. Our world, and the things that inhabit it, are open ended. The world does not have definite boundaries, nor is there a closed set of things. This does not make the world or the things in it meaningless, but it does leave their meanings open-ended. Heidegger argued that this is what keeps many of us from having the courage to lead meaningful lives.
Merleau-Ponty's idea of embodied consciousness influenced two famous Berkeley scholars, the feminist philosopher Judith Butler and the cognitive linguist George Lakoff. Butler argues that gender is a performance, acting as a body in a cultural situation. We are how we act, as it is action that gives life and gender meaning. Just as Hume argued that you cannot derive an ought from an is, the fact that I am male does not tell me what I should do as one. Should I wear pants, or a utility kilt? Should I drink fancy beer, or go vegan? My physiology does not determine how I should act, what I should wear, or how I should treat others, either male or female. Thus, when I choose to say, "Yeah, bro!" and high-five people like it is going out of style (I don't actually do this) I am performing masculinity, what it is to be a man, as I understand it and choose to enact it.
Lakoff argues that across cultures we frame experience in terms of metaphors based on shared human bodily existence. Affection and excitement are warm, indifference and calm are cool. Good is up, while bad is down. Important is big, and insignificant is small. Similarity and intimacy is close, and difference and the unfamiliar are far. Good is fragrant and sweet, and bad is stinky, bitter and sour. Order is clean, and disorder is messy. Easy is light, and difficult is heavy. Concepts and understandings are containers, help is support, time and change are motions, purpose is a destination, knowing is seeing, and understanding is grasping. We find ancient Chinese philosophers and modern day Americans using these same metaphorical conceptions, as general human existence is quite similar regardless of cultural variation.
For Heidegger, we are thrown into a world occupied already by a 'They', which we are a part of even as we are opposed to it in our individuality. Consider the expression, "You know what they say". Like Fichte, Heidegger believes that we can participate in the They authentically, as a true calling and creation of new meaning, but also like Kierkegaard, Heidegger argues that that the They can easily make us inauthentic, presenting us with meanings that we are afraid to question, making us feel bound to conform, enraptured by culture as an open opportunity.
Heidegger argues that Descartes, as well as the solipsist, are aware of and argue for their own isolated existence, for their own self-certainty apart from the They, only when they consider the issue a philosophical problem. Before we do philosophy and consider the self as an abstract individuated conception, the They is just as primordial to our world as our individual selves. In fact, Heidegger goes so far as to say that our world and our own selves are more the They then they are anything else. We are as certain of others as we are of ourselves, and only question the existence of others (like the solipsist) or question the existence of ourselves (like the Buddhist) when we engage in deep philosophical questioning.
Because we are what we do, we and our world are our opportunities, conditioned by our culture, and these can be lived as an open question or a closed fixture. The fact that much of our experience is unthought is both a blessing and a curse. While we would not want to continuously rethink everything, the unthought conceals itself as unthought, and so we may not get around to rethinking it. Similarly, the fact that we are a part of the They is both a blessing and a curse, as the They is central to our experience.
While our social world gives us all of our opportunities, including countless pieces of equipment that are designed for anyone to use and social roles that many can enact, we might be afraid to question our relationship to the They, as if via distancing we question the They too much, we feel that we have lost our ground, the bedrock of all meaning. However, if we look at things as open and symbiotic, we realize that neither the They nor our own selves can give complete grounding to any meaning. Just as Nietzsche argued, if we face this courageously, this is the greatest opportunity for the creation and recreation of meaning.
Heidegger says that there are various moods or attunements by which we experience the world. Moods can be individual or social, the mood of a classroom, a culture, or an age. Consider German pessimism, and how it affected popular culture and intellectual thought for a certain culture at a particular historical period. In his later thought, Heidegger claimed that the ancient Greeks experienced the world primarily as wonder, that modern society experiences the world primarily as anxiety, and that Germans should seek to recreate the mood of the ancient Greeks for themselves, to re-enchant a world enclosed by technology and information. Consider the hippies in the wake of the Vietnam war. Moods determine how things are for us, determine our relationship to them and what opportunities they present us with. Like Nietzsche, Heidegger is critical of the idea that we can be objective and escape our moods, and both argue that a great scientist should be attuned to the mood of discovery and expectation of new opportunity.
Heidegger does not give a complete catalog of moods, but he does distinguish fear from anxiety. We fear particular things and flee from them, but anxiety has no object. We experience anxiety when we do not know what to do, when our situation breaks down and opportunities evaporate. Consider that if a child is kidnapped, the world of the parent, with all of its opportunities, evaporates and one is left in anxiety with no opportunities to turn away from it.
Heidegger argues that in anxiety we face the total groundlessness of our world and all possible meaning. Just like Nietzsche, who argued we must have the courage to face the void and then create for ourselves, Heidegger argues that we can run from anxiety by finding something to fear, or we can face it, learning to transform it into excitement, a fearless calm that is ready for gaining or losing any particular opportunity. Many scholars have compared this to Buddhist enlightenment, while many others have attempted to draw distinctions. It is known that Heidegger had a copy of the Dao De Jing in his personal library, quoted Zhuangzi, my favorite Chinese philosopher, to a gathering after lecturing on Being-with-others (Mitsein) and wrote passages that are similar to or lifted from Daoist texts.
The joy that results from this acceptance is the ability to appreciate the world as open and groundless just as it is learning to dwell in a world that is endlessly questionable. The earth is not grounded, but floating in space. One is able to see more opportunity for growth and overturning than before, which is why philosophy should not grounded in metaphysics, science should not be grounded in fact, and both should be partly grounded as open-ended theory. In every situation there are unique opportunities that have never been present before. In his later work, Heidegger sought how this could be greater achieved for a culture, as he hoped that the modern Germans would return to the ancient Greek mood of awe. Unfortunately, ancient Germanic culture was largely obliterated by the Romans, or Heidegger might have well wondered how to return to the mood of the ancient Germans.
The Great Depression of the 1920s and 30s was the time when Heidegger did his critical writing and gained fame and position, a time when many feared the fall of Western European civilization. Heidegger, like Rousseau and Nietzsche, was an anti-modernist anti-technology romantic who spoke of Greece as a more glorious and meaningful time. Like Fichte, a German nationalist and antisemite, Heidegger idealized the simplicity of the German common Volk. For a period of seven years, from 1931 to 1938, Heidegger was a member and supporter of the fascist Nazi party as it rose to power and took authoritarian control of Germany and Austria. Though he eventually came to doubt the party, spoke critically of its development and was put under surveillance by the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police), he enthusiastically embraced their rise and seizure of power, spoke at propaganda rallies in several cities, and openly spoke of the Nazis as a rebirth of Western civilization.
How is it that he believed the Nazis, a fascist regime enthusiastic about racism, censorship, and brutality were a magnificent chance for questioning, renewal and transformation? Heidegger told the Allied Denazification committee that he had hoped the Nazis would drop the racism eventually. Heidegger had, in the early 30s, been having an affair with a Jewish student named Hannah Arendt, who went on to become a major political philosopher and supporter of Heidegger. Sadly, while Arendt stood up for Heidegger, arguing that his philosophy did not lead to fascism or antisemitism, the recent publication of the Black Notebooks, which contain antisemitic passages, have called all of this back into question. After writing Being and Time, Heidegger's thinking grew progressively unhinged as he supported the Nazi movement.
Arendt became famous, for some infamous, for her idea of the banality of evil. Watching the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Arendt argued that the terrible atrocities of modern times, such as the industrialized genocide at Auschwitz, was carried out not by demons or monsters, but bureaucrats and accountants. Ironically, the trial is an excellent example of what Heidegger stood against, being an unquestioning cog in a machine, while also being symbolic of the brutality of the Nazi regime Heidegger supported. As for myself, I always admired the anti-racism of Nietzsche and found the affinity Heidegger had for Germans and Greeks disturbing. Thankfully, another thinker, this time French, came along who loved Heidegger's thought but hated the racism of both the Germans and French.
Jean Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980), pronounced, 'Sart', though the British pronounce it 'Sar-truh', who coined the term 'Existentialism', is often known better as an author of novels and plays than as a philosopher in Britain and America. This is in part political. With Stalin's brutal dictatorship in Russia, many European intellectuals had to choose whether to continue to be Marxists or to abandon Communism all together, often remaining socialists, but identifying as 'post-Marxists' who no longer have faith in the entirely planned economy of Communism.
Albert Camus (1913 – 1960), a friend of Sartre, author of The Stranger and The Rebel, chose to abandon Marxism, while Sartre decided to continue to identify with Marxism and Communism, continuing to believe that violent revolution was unfortunately necessary and in the interests of the common people. Camus was often called an Existentialist, but he rejected the label and called himself an absurdist, like the Dada and Surrealist artists. In his novel The Stranger, his most famous work, a man is put on trial for killing an Arab teenager who tried to stab him. The judge and jury are not vindictive, as the Arab is a stranger to their culture, but then when it is revealed that the man never truly loved his mother, who was distant and cold to him, and that he did not really feel anything when she died, they turn against him and give him a harsh sentence, as he is now the stranger. This fits nicely with the way that Sartre turned the thinking of Heidegger about inauthenticity and technology towards social roles and racism.
Sartre saw his own philosophy as an extension of the work of Heidegger. In response to Heidegger's Being and Time, Sartre wrote his Being and Nothingness. In it, he argues like Heidegger that the basic condition of humanity is anxiety, inauthentically interpreted as fear of particulars in the face of the indefinite unknown, and that much of the time we avoid this deeper fear by trying to keep what we like and avoid what we hate. In the process, we become ignorant of ourselves, of the world, and of our relationships with our fellow human beings. However, while Heidegger stressed our involvement and entanglement with the world, Sartre, following Kierkegaard, stressed our alienation and isolation in a world that offers no solid answers, leading many to consider Existentialism equivalent to nihilism.
Sartre, as a Heideggerian, argues that there is a consistent way that we inauthentically try to avoid the dynamic life of our relationships with others, both those with whom we are intimate (family, friends, partners) and those whom we pass on the street or encounter in a shop. Sartre uses his famous example of the cafe waiter to illustrate. Sartre did much of his writing in the cafes of Paris, and he describes the scene as if he is witnessing it firsthand. The waiter in a cafe plays his role, over-emphasizing the rigidity and seriousness of the gestures, the bows, the distribution and collecting of menus, the seriousness with which orders are taken, to define himself as a waiter, filling his role. We and he come to see him as a waiter and not as a human being.
The waiter becomes a robot, and his individuality disappears, both for our and his comfort. We find it easier to interact with a role than with the actor as a person, and the actor finds it easier to lose themselves in the role than to try to retain individuality while serving in their position. Recall Zizek's earlier example, which seems lifted straight from Sartre. For Sartre, it becomes easy for us to lose sight of the situation as a whole, that this is not a waiter in essence but a human being playing the role of a waiter. While it would be tiresome to say, "Excuse me, authentic human individual playing the temporary role of a waiter, can I have another espresso?", our substitution of the word 'waiter' for the individual does violence to our awareness of the situation.
Sartre wrote Antisemitism and Jew in 1944, as Paris was liberated from the Nazis. Like Nietzsche, Sartre argues that racism, that which the Nazis had for Jews as well as that which the French had and have for North African Arabs and native Africans, is a similar violent inauthentic effort to box up the other rather than deal with the complexity of our fellow human beings. Camus, Sartre's former friend, was white and French but raised in Algiers, North Africa, and witnessed this racism firsthand, which is why it is central to the Stranger.
In his play No Exit, Sartre's main character famously says, "Hell is other people". We are constantly faced with others who do and do not know themselves as we do and do not know ourselves. Like the horizon of time for Heidegger, the 'Other' threatens to give us new strange meaning while taking our meaning away. To face this authentically is to have a good and positive faith in life and the creation of meaning. To have what Sartre calls "bad faith" is to trust that meanings are closed and dead, that the waiter is nothing more to oneself than a waiter, that the Jew, Arab or African is nothing more to oneself or one's nation than simply 'Other' with no relation.
Sartre, like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, believed that art can liberate us from the common human condition, however most art is inauthentic. Much literature reinforces our prejudices and ideas, giving us a shallow and false substitute for meaning in an increasingly mechanized and commodified world. Sartre sought to write and entertain in ways that opened up audiences to examine themselves, their world, and each other with new possibilities of meaning and activity. This is as true of the individual, who could come to identify with the waiter as a friend, as it is of society, which could come to identify with the marginalized and oppressed. Rather than hold up barriers between self and other, we must, as Hegel argues, seek resolution of contradictions not merely to gain the powers of reason, but to be truly alive. This is why Sartre joined Foucault in the streets of Paris in the sixties, to change what the Frankfurt School called the Establishment.
Sartre's circle of fellow Existentialists included Merleau-Ponty, whom we have already discussed, as well as Simone De Beauvoir and Franz Fanon. Simone De Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) was a novelist and philosopher who had a central impact on the second wave of feminism that rose in the 50s and 60s. She studied mathematics and philosophy, writing her thesis on Leibniz. She began teaching at the same school as Merleau-Ponty, and then took the top test for philosophy in France, placing second just after Sartre. The two became close, and Sartre asked her to marry him, but instead the two shared a lifelong open relationship, never sharing a house or having children. Some have argued that Sartre took many of his best ideas from discussions with her, presenting them as his own. Today, the two are buried next to each other.
De Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex in France in 1949, arguing that women had been marginalized as the mysterious yet inferior Hegelian 'Other', and that, just like in marginalization of ethnic groups and the poor, women were cast as irrational and so their voices and problems went unheard and disregarded. Famously arguing that one is not born a woman but becomes one, she argued as an Existentialist that women must recreate their identity, choosing themselves as individuals as Kierkegaard would have it. For this, she is known as the founder of Existential Feminism, or Feminist Existentialism, both terms in use. Judith Butler, one of the most famous feminist philosophers today, similarly argues that gender is a performance.
Franz Fanon (1925 – 1961) began his career in psychiatry and became a revolutionary whose writings are a central source for Postcolonialism, sometimes called Neocolonialism. While Colonialism is the term for Western Europeans creating empires out of colonies and islands far away from their homelands, today we live in a world that is legally decolonized but remains largely in colonial form. Fanon was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, a French colony. Though middle class, he witnessed the racist brutality of the French military toward the African population who were descended from slaves brought by the French to Martinique to work on plantations. Fanon went to France and studied psychology and medicine, becoming a doctor and psychiatrist. He also studied philosophy, and attended lectures by Merleau-Ponty. Later, he ran a hospital in Algiers, applied experimental methods in anti-racist psychiatry, and supported the Algerian rebels against French colonialism.
In Fanon's Damned of the Earth, which was published in 1961 just before his death, Fanon argued that colonialism had taught oppressed people to interiorize racism such that they considered themselves bad and ugly and thus became self-destructive and violent against their fellow oppressed people. Fanon, in accord with the Existentialism of Nietzsche and Sartre, saw racism as a form of lying to oneself to avoid the endless transformation of our existence and the questioning gaze of the Other. The black body and mind is devalued to affirm and celebrate the West, white culture and achievements including colonial control of the globe. His writings have been an inspiration to many anti-racist and anti-establishment groups, including the Black Panthers of Oakland.


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Made from 100% Cotton, this black t-shirt features that super-keen-neato Green Lantern Symbol! As a Green Lantern, you've spent time creating green, hard-light "For Sale" signs and placing them in the front yard of your insane, geriatric neighbor's home. It's funny to watch from outer space when strangers knock on her door wanting to see the place. She mews like a cat, this woman. Of course, you can't hang out in Earth's orbit all day looking at your neighborhood through a giant, green telescope! As a Green Lantern, you have a space sector to protect and....well, you would like to be able to go home and use the garbage disposal without having her quack like a duck or throw plates at the wall! Wear the t-shirt. And it's ok to abuse the power a bit and create a giant, green squirrel to rummage through her garbage!
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Traffic Movie Review
Story Line
Karthik (Sachin) an aspiring TV journalist starts his first job for an interview with Superstar Gautham Krishna (Prakash Raj) about his new film. Radhika introduced as Gautham's wife. On the same day Traffic Constable Satyamoorthy (Cheran) joins back on duty after getting suspended from service for taking bribes. Where Doctor Robin (Prasanna) celebrating his first wedding anniversary. Unfortunately Karthik and his friend Ajmal traveling on bike are met with an accident near Traffic signals. Karthik goes into coma due to brain hemorrhage although kept alive using ventilator. Meanwhile Gautham's ill daughter's heart condition becomes worse and urgently needs a heart transplant. Karthik's parents agree to donate their son's heart. Is Gautam's daughter saved?. What happened at Kodada in under two hours during the rush traffic? What City Police Commissioner Sundara Pandian (R. Sarathkumar) is asked to carry out the mission. How Traffic constable Satyamoorthy involved in the story? Must be watched on big screens…………
Plus Points
Second Half
Background Score.
Minus Points
Slow Pace
Lack of commercial elements
Telugu spectators encourage unique concepts with gripping screenplay and Traffic would definitely please us. Rather dubbing the film into Telugu it would have been better if Makers would have remake this product in Telugu with Telugu stars in the lead roles. The positives of Traffic are Performances; Second half, BGM and Climax with Message. Overall, Traffic is quite an interesting, offbeat film with decent thrills in the second half.
Technical Aspects
Background score is extraordinary. Cinematography is in sync with the story. Editing makes one feel that it could have been crispier. Production values in the film are good.
Final talk
Traffic is a good suspense drama that will keep you engaged for two hours.
The Rating
2.75 out of 5
Click Here to More Traffic Movie


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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}I was walking in the parking lots at Retail Park, Beacon Bay, East London, today, 29 March 2012, at approximately 11h45, when the driver ofa white vehicle, with registration number CA904773, came speeding around thecorner and narrowly missed me. As I was already in the road crossing tothe other side, he should have stopped. I could have been severely injured as he was driving at aconsiderable speed.
|Report ID:
|Crime Category:
|Reckless Driving
|Eastern Cape
|East London
|Beacon Bay
|Retail Park, Beacon Bay, East London
|Crime Date/Time:
|29 Mar 2012, 00:03 AM
|Reported By:
|Reported Date:
|29 Mar 2012, 12:03 PM
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Sharon Gillman's 'Tuppence' collection for Moda is inspired by imagery of an afternoon drinking tea in the garden, of cobbled paths leading to a country cottage, and flowerbeds filled with cabbage roses and tulips. This is a quilting-weight cotton that can be used of course for patchwork and quilting, but also dressmaking (lined or unlined), linings, cushions, bed linen and backed curtains.
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|Unraveling the Secrets of the Past: Contested versions of Nuclear Testing in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan
Cynthia Werner and Kathleen Purvis-Roberts
Unraveling the Secrets of the Past: Contested versions of Nuclear Testing in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan
November 28, 2005
The people of Kazakhstan have been grappling with the legacy of nuclear testing for over a decade. The different versions of the past are hotly contested when it comes to issues of the Soviet government's culpability. Did the government take proper precautions to limit radiation dose exposures, or did it knowingly expose its own citizens to harmful levels of radiation? If the tests exposed people to dangerous levels, did the government do this intentionally in order to test the effects of radiation on human health? And did it do so covertly in a way that limited people's knowledge of nuclear testing and the risk of radiation?
This paper addresses these questions from three different perspectives. First, it describes the perspective of nuclear scientists who designed and executed these nuclear tests in Kazakhstan. In recent publications and personal interviews, these scientists have defended their actions in the name of national security and claimed that the certain precautions accompanied the tests to limit impacts to the health and environment. Second, it presents the arguments made by medical researchers in Kazakhstan who stress the harmful health impacts of nuclear testing. Finally, it describes the perspective of Kazakh and Russian villagers who lived near the test site. Although the individual stories vary, most villagers do not feel that the government adequately protected them, and many believe that it used them as guinea pigs.
National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER) is a non-profit organization created in 1978 to develop and sustain long-term, high-quality programs for post-doctoral research on the social, political, economic, environmental, and historical development of Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe. More
Doctors' and Parents' Perspectives on Communication Regarding HPV Vaccination in Bulgaria
Elitsa Dimitrova, Yulia Panayotova, Anna Alexandrova-Karamanova, and Irina Todorova
Contextual Constitution of Behavior: Introducing the HPV Vaccine in Eastern Europe
Irina Todorova and Adrian Baban
The Readers of Novyi Mir, 1948-1969: A Social Portrait
Denis Kozlov


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Click Here for the National Deafblind Awareness Month calendar of events
The Senate
May 26, 2015
Motion to Take Notice of the Month of June as the Birth Month of Helen Keller and to Recognize it as "Deaf-Blind Awareness Month"—Debate Adjourned
Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Government), pursuant to notice of May 6, 2015, moved:
That the Senate take notice of the month of June as the birth month of Helen Keller, who is renowned around the world for her perseverance and achievements and who, as a person who was deaf-blind, is an inspiration to us all and, in particular, to members of the deaf-blind community; and
That the Senate recognize the month of June as "Deaf-Blind Awareness Month", to promote public awareness of deaf-blind issues and to recognize the contributions of Canadians who are deaf-blind.
She said: Honourable senators, I rise today to ask for your support to recognize the month of June as Deaf-Blind Awareness Month in Canada. I had the honour to introduce this motion back in 2013, but the session ended prior to its adoption. Therefore, today, Senator Jim Munson and I are pleased to bring forward this motion once again.
In May, we recognize National Vision Health Month as a result of the leadership of our former colleague Senator Asha Seth. This motion to recognize June as Deaf-Blind Awareness Month will build even greater awareness about those who live with deaf-blindness and will celebrate the life of their greatest inspiration, Helen Keller.
June 27 is Helen Keller Day, which was enacted by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, on the day of her birthday. As many of you know, Helen Keller's journey is an inspiration to many, as she triumphed over adversity and went from a world of silence and darkness to vision and advocacy.
Honourable senators, I rise once again in the hope that we recognize deaf-blind awareness and the challenges deaf-blind citizens experience in Canada from coast to coast to coast. I will quote former Ontario MPP David Young, whose private member's bill created Deaf-Blind Awareness Month in Ontario, to describe why a month like this is so essential:
. . . I believe this legislation is a step in the right direction to further improve the lives of deaf-blind Ontarians. With June declared Deaf-Blind Awareness Month, it will appear on every politician's calendar and many will make that extra effort to promote this cause in their communities. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.
Honourable senators, we now have the opportunity to recognize the month of June as we take important steps in raising awareness among Canadians. In doing so, we recognize the strength, courage and perseverance that deaf-blind people show every day in living their lives and facing their daily challenges. A month dedicated to honouring them will mean so much to them, their families and those who work closely with them.
The number of people who live with deaf-blind challenges in Canada is significant. Statistics Canada reports that there are approximately 69,700 Canadians over the age of 12 living with the dual disability of deafness and blindness or a combination of both vision and hearing losses that limit their everyday activities. Only 3,000 of these have been acknowledged by the organizations providing intervenor services.
I would once again like to describe three important terms to better understand the deaf-blind community. The first is a person with deaf-blindness, which is unique and separate from deafness or blindness on their own. A person living with this disability is an individual with a considerable degree of loss in sight and hearing, the combination of which results in significant difficulties in assessing information and in pursuing educational, vocational, recreational and social goals. An individual with the combined losses of hearing and vision requires specialized services, including adapted communication methods.
The second term is "intervenor." Intervenors are specially trained to act as the eyes and ears of an individual who is deaf-blind. The intervenor's job can include providing access to information — auditory, visual or tactile — by means of a variety of communication methods, acting as a sighted guide. Some methods of communication include tactile signing systems, Braille, large print and communication boards. In fact, I met an intervenor at the May event on the Hill and was amazed at how the hand becomes a typewriter, so to speak. The role they play is essential to a deaf-blind person being able to access the world — to be able to see and experience life through these intervenors.
The third item is "intervenor service," the provision of a professional service, paid or voluntary, that facilitates interactions of persons who are deaf-blind with other people, places and environment. Our former colleague Senator Vim Kochhar cofounded the Canadian Helen Keller Centre and Rotary Cheshire Homes, which are two examples of excellent facilities. In fact, Rotary Cheshire Homes is said to be the only facility in the world where those who are deaf-blind can live independently.
I wish to recognize Senator Jim Munson who is also a champion of this cause and the co-sponsor of this motion once again.
Honourable senators, there are many deaf-blind persons around the world who have overcome adversity and achieved leaps and bounds like Helen Keller. The determination of people living with deaf-blindness and all those who dedicate their time to working with them leave me inspired. It is my hope that we can unanimously pass this motion to endorse June as Deaf-Blind Awareness Month. I urge all honourable senators to support this motion.
Thank you.
Hon. Jim Munson: Honourable senators, it is my pleasure today to express support for Senator Martin's motion to recognize June as Deaf-Blind Awareness Month. The purpose of this motion, as Senator Martin put it, is to raise public awareness of the issues impacting people with deaf-blindness and to recognize the contribution of these people to our society.
Helen Keller was born in June, so it is appropriate to select the month to direct our attention and energies to learning about this particular disability and inciting Canadians to do the same. For many of us, the inspiring story of Helen Keller is a reason we know anything at all not only about the challenges of being deaf-blind, but also about the human capacity to overcome them. This woman, after all, broke through the walls of limited vision and near silence to establish connections with people, her community, the world and future generations like us. A writer, an activist and a humanitarian, Helen Keller is today, almost 50 years after her death, an example of hope, heroism and the reason a motion like Senator Martin's should be supported.
Overcoming adversity is, by nature, difficult. Overcoming adversity alone — well, I doubt that is even possible.
We are fortunate as parliamentarians to have a public profile. We are well-positioned to nudge social issues like those related to deaf-blindness into the light. Earlier today, we saw former Senator Asha Seth with us. Look what she has done, as well, with her inspiration and passion in this regard. She is still passionate about the issue, as we look at her good work at the Canadian Helen Keller Centre.
We talk about our good friends. There was Vim and now there's Jim. Vim Kochhar has already cleared the path for us. You certainly couldn't say no to Senator Kochhar. For more than 30 years, he has been helping those with deaf-blindness through activities that bring real, meaningful improvements to their lives. In the 1980s, he was instrumental in raising the necessary funds and bringing plans to provide housing for deaf-blind people to fruition. As Senator Martin said, I'm referring to the Rotary Cheshire Homes. It is the only facility in the world that specifically enables deaf-blind people to live independently.
The Great Valentine Gala also bears Vim's distinct stamp. Since 1984, he has been doing the front-line work, putting on this annual fundraising event to benefit people with disabilities.
Currently, there are almost 70,000 deaf-blind people over the age of 12 in Canada. The prevalence of this dual disability is surprising to me. In part, that is because I know little about deaf-blindness; I need to know more. I work so much in so many other areas dealing with disabilities that this is the one that caught my imagination. It is the influence of senators like Senators Martin, Kochhar and Seth that has spurred me on to talk about this particular area of life.
I hate to look at the word "dis-." I look at the "ability." I don't like that "dis-" word, but it seems to be in our vocabulary.
I understand that disabilities limit people in their everyday activities. Here, I can apply what I know of some other disabilities to appreciate the emotional, financial and other hardships these limitations create. I can also apply my insights into the experiences of people with disabilities to appreciate that limitations like these betray what our society is failing to do in the interests of deaf-blind people.
As Senator Martin has said, only 3,000 deaf-blind people have been identified as clients of organizations that help them interact with other people, places and environments. That is 3,000 out of 70,000 deaf-blind people. Think about it. In terms of the fundamental rights we all have to live as fully as possible and to realize our potential, this is a travesty.
In terms of what Senator Martin is proposing in her motion to recognize June as deaf-blind awareness month, these numbers are a starting point for us all. We can begin to change the odds by learning about deaf-blindness and the real life experiences of people with this distinct disability.
Unwilling to simply tuck the few facts I know away, I'm inspired by what I glean from them. It is clear to see there is so much work ahead for us if we are to set this imbalance right.
Senator Martin, I thank you personally for your motion and your determination to get it passed. It is simple. I hope we can do it faster than my autism bill, which took three years, but was still worth it. Every minute, every day, it is worth it to do these things, because people do pay attention.
If I can get in a plug on autism, there is more money than ever before in the last decade and people are doing better things. The same thing should be happening here. Your motion is a simple and straightforward request.
I am sure all honourable senators can see clearly the moral and social purpose of this measure. I urge you to join us in supporting it.
Thank you very much.
(On motion of Senator Fraser, debate adjourned.)
The Senate
May 28, 2015
Motion to Take Notice of the Month of June as the Birth Month of Helen Keller and to Recognize it as "Deaf-Blind Awareness Month" Adopted
On the Order:
Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Martin, seconded by the Honourable Senator Munson:
That the Senate take notice of the month of June as the birth month of Helen Keller, who is renowned around the world for her perseverance and achievements and who, as a person who was deaf-blind, is an inspiration to us all and, in particular, to members of the deaf-blind community; and
That the Senate recognize the month of June as "Deaf-Blind Awareness Month", to promote public awareness of deaf-blind issues and to recognize the contributions of Canadians who are deaf-blind.
Hon. Joan Fraser (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I am very pleased to speak in favour of Senator Martin's motion that we recognize the month of June as speech and hearing awareness month — I'm sorry, as deaf-blind awareness month. Speech and hearing is a separate matter that I'm going to get to in a moment. It is deaf-blind awareness month.
I was deeply moved, as I'm sure we all were, to listen to Senator Martin and Senator Munson as they spoke about something most of us probably did not know, which is the great numbers of people in Canada who suffer from deaf-blindness — nearly 70,000 Canadians, of whom apparently only maybe 3,000 are enrolled in programs getting the help they need.
The month of June was chosen because it's Helen Keller's birth month. I am sure we all remember, most of us, seeing years ago now the incredible film, The Miracle Worker, showing how Helen Keller, a child who was blind and deaf and lost, living basically like an animal, was saved by the work of what we now call an intervenor, Anne Sullivan. Thanks to that intervention, that long patient work, Helen Keller was able to overcome the terrible isolation in which she lived and become a beacon of hope and an inspiration for people all over the world, not just because she learned to speak and talk but because she had, once she was able to show it, such a wonderful mind that she could apply to the great issues of the day. She was truly an inspiring figure.
Not everybody is born with the mighty brain that she was able to put to such good use. Not everybody has the good fortunate to have parents who can afford to have a full-time carer, as Helen Keller did, to bring her out of her prison. That's why we need to take a collective sense of responsibility for helping people who suffer from this unimaginably lonely condition. They may not all be Helen Kellers, but every one of them can contribute to the betterment of our society, and it begins with awareness.
I think it would be really terrific if today, on our last sitting in May, we recognize June as deaf-blind awareness month. But before we leave the month of May, I would like to remind all colleagues that the month of May has been designated by Speech-Language and Audiology Canada as speech and hearing month. Speech-Language and Audiology Canada is an organization representing about 6,000 professionals in the field of speech and hearing loss across Canada. Every year, in the month of May, they have a specific campaign to raise awareness and get help for some element of speech and hearing difficulties.
This year, I think we in the Senate may have a particular interest. This year, their focus was on communication, health and aging. I don't know how many of us know that people who have hearing loss are two to five times more likely than others to develop dementia. We know that hearing loss is the third most prevalent chronic condition, behind arthritis and hypertension, and yet only one in five people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually uses one.
To have lost your hearing or never to have had your hearing is not as bad as to have lost both your hearing and your sight or never to have had your hearing and your sight, but to have lost your hearing is also a terrible factor of isolation. I sometimes think that if I had to choose between the two, I would almost rather be blind.
We see it. We sometimes feel it ourselves. As we age, we're more and more likely to feel it. When you're deaf, it's very difficult to be part of the communications network of the people around you. It starts out with not quite catching what they say, not quite understanding the joke because you didn't quite get the punch line, and then it progresses until there you are, surrounded by people who think you look normal but cut off from them by an invisible wall.
I'm sure most of us here today remember our former colleague Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier, who was my seatmate for several years. He was deaf, and he was very much alone in the Senate Chamber despite his years of extraordinary parliamentary service. He was functionally alone here until the Senate figured out a computer system that would allow him to receive the stenographer's debates on a computer screen. The whole world opened up to him.
Even so, I mean, I respected Senator Gauthier and I liked him, but I can't say I communicated much with him. I was sitting beside a man who was incapable of hearing a word I said. Then I had a colleague who used to send me written jokes and I started passing them on to Senator Gauthier. He could read — oh boy, could he read — and his world lit up. He would giggle and that brought home to me, as much as anything ever has, how alone he was when he was deprived of the written word, even though he could see everything.
Thanks to help from people like the members of Speech-Language & Audiology Canada, some people can achieve miraculous progress. I once met a man who had been born totally deaf and who spoke fluent English, French and Spanish. I think he was working on his fourth language when I met him.
All things are possible if you have the determination, the resources and the talent. But how many of us have all of those things and, in particular, how many have the resources they need?
So let us move forward into June, thinking about deaf-blindness. I thank Senator Martin and Senator Munson again for bringing this terrible condition to our attention. But let us also think about the month of May. Remember that the campaign this year was about communication and aging, which is something we all need to pay attention to, colleagues.
Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.
Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Government): I thank the Honourable Senator Fraser for her statement, as well as her support, and to all honourable senators for supporting the motion. I also wish to acknowledge once again Senator Jim Munson for being the co-sponsor of this motion.
The Hon. the Speaker: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
(Motion agreed to.)
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