George Steiner

Thought I'd quickly find out whether there was anything of particular interest in Heideggar's "Being and Time" so read the Wiki entry. Only to find George Steiner being a penis:

"The critic George Steiner argues that Being and Time is a product of the crisis of German culture following Germany's defeat in World War I. In this respect Steiner compared it to Ernst Bloch's The Spirit of Utopia (1918), Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West (1918), Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption (1921), Karl Barth's The Epistle to the Romans (1922), and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925).^[5]"

And Mr Steiner should be reminded that everything produced by Jews post 1945 results from the crisis in Jewish culture following the Holocaust.

It's always a shot in one's own foot when we try to relativise material to a particular society. If Mr Steiner wants to say something of universal validity, he needs to acknowledge that in other people as well.

For reference the Time bit:

Time[edit]

Heidegger believes that time finds its meaning in death, according to Michael Kelley. That is, time is understood only from a finite or mortal vantage. Dasein's fundamental characteristic and mode of "being-in-the-world" is temporal: Having been "thrown" into a world implies a "pastness" in its being. "The present is the nodal moment which makes past and future intelligible," writes Lilian Alweiss.^[17] Dasein occupies itself with the present tasks required by goals it has projected on the future. ^[18]

Dasein as an intertwined subject/object cannot be separated from its objective "historicality," a concept Heidegger credits in the text to Wilhelm Dilthey. Dasein is "stretched along" temporally between birth and death, and thrown into its world; into its future possibilities which Dasein is charged with assuming. Dasein's access to this world and these possibilities is always via a history and a tradition-- or "world historicality".

Can't help but think this account talks about Dasein like it is just a person. Aren't we supposed to be dissecting the structure of Being here? Hmm not sure the Wiki entry is very commanding, will have to look at the text itself a translation of which happens to be on my bookshelf...