In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

CENTER = PERIPHERY
(INFINITUDE)
The emergence of new political, economic, and cultural Centers outside
Europe, beyond the traditionally unmarked Center in relation to which
the rest of the world has been defined as Periphery [see Center vs.
Periphery], transforms the parameters of spatial perception. The other
source of dramatic change on this level of experience is the vast range of
new devices in transportation and communication, which are bringing
far-flung points on the globe closer together. [see Airplanes, Automobiles,
Elevators, Ocean Liners, Railroads, Telephones, Wireless Communication]
Martin Heidegger establishes an explicit relationship between the
new technological possibilities for bridging distances and his own analysis,
in Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), of space as a frame-condition for
human existence (Heidegger, 102ff.). Through one of those hyphenations
which are characteristic of his style as a philosopher and writer,
Heidegger turns Entfernung ("distance") into its opposite, Ent-fernung
("undoing of farness"). This wordplay leads Heidegger to the thesisanalogous
to and derived from the priority of Zuhandenheit ("ready to
hand") over Vorhandenheit ("present at hand")-that, from an existential
point of view, closeness (the result of an undoing of farness) has
priority over distance. This thesis, however, obliges Heidegger to acknowledge-not
without hesitation-that the new technologies of speed
and transmission may well converge with the existential priority of
eliminating distance: "In Dasein there is an essential tendency toward
closeness. All the ways in which we speed things up, as we are more or
364