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영어

Heidegger's Critique of Democracy and Aesthetic Community En Jung Lee (Yonsei University) This paper examines Heidegger's critique of democracy and the aesthetic community he proposes as an alternative. In his later period, Heidegger pointed out some problems characterizing today's democracy's and the global extension of technology. The point of his criticism is that modern thought based on the subject-object dualism determines the usage of technology, swaying the whole world in an imperialistic way. Heidegger compared this democracy as Americanism, which, according to him, has three characters. First, it shows un-conditional will to represent the world as one figure. Second, it produces democratic plebeian by joining subjectivism to objectivism. Third, coupled with Christianity, Americanism produces an a-historical atmosphere and blocks the self-questioning. The end-result of this peculiar version democracy is imperial combined with capitalism. Heidegger's 'aesthetic community' is an alternative whereby to surmount the crisis of today's democracy. He suggests that present political problems can be overcome by resorting to Art, which shares its origin with technology. In proposing this new form of community, he conceives of the possibility of producing poetic art that does not lead individuals into a mass but turns them into Etrangers, who form a commune for going back to homeland for arche. In this respect, Heidegger's aesthetic community is also the community of Etrangers who resist to be the subjects and become the Ex-sistenz for itself. This community can also be called the 'poetic community' in the sense that the language in it is not simply a tool for communication but the home of Being (das Haus des Seins) shared by all the members of the community.