Development and distress

Concluding remarks

pp. 275-303

in: , Heidegger and development in the global south, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

This chapter dwells on two themes related to the idea of development as good life variously conceived as opposed to the post-war conception of developmentalism understood as the ontic planetary concretion of technological understanding of Being as such. Firstly, it dwells on the notion of the lack of distress in distress as the global entrenchment of technological nihilism continues unabated. The absence of ontological distress is developed in the chapter in relation to the infeasibility of the promise of establishing the developmental society globally, the implausibility of justice for the global south and the improbability of the hope of social emancipation for people everywhere. Secondly, the chapter dwells on Heidegger's insistence that the still inconceivable power of salvation from global technological nihilism can arise only from the Grecian world. It is argued that this claim can be best understood in terms of the inherent violence of enframing. This chapter stresses the difficulties of succeeding with alternative proposals of development.