In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

BEING-IN-THE-WORLD5 OF 1926 457
toward them. Thus, one's wanting-to-have-a-conscience becomes the
taking-over of that essential consciencelessness within which alone the
existential possibility of being "good" subsists.72
It is no coincidence that the word Schuld, which plays such an important
role in this part of Heidegger's book, is translated variously as "owing,"
"indebtedness," and "guilt." Only the last of these meanings, however,
helps us understand Heidegger's provocative-(un)ethical-paradox according
to which "consciencelessness" is the only means of "'being'
good." If, when we use the word "conscience," we normally mean a type
of behavior that tends to avoid any unnecessary detriment to the other,
and if, in the absence of a transcendental dimension, the nullity of human
existence does not offer any secure basis on which we could ever hope
to avoid becoming detrimental to others, then "consciencelessness" (and
being guilty of it) becomes an inevitable condition of acting (or should
we say "caring" ?)-and therefore a necessary component of any situation
in which one at least stands a chance of being "good." [see Immanence
= Transcendence (Death)) In contrast, if we define Schuld as
"indebtedness" or "owing" (an "owing," it is true, without any explicit
reference to an addressee), then Heidegger's discourse-perhaps despite
the author's intention-gives the impression that opting for authenticity
is a tribute to an unnamed transcendental authority. [see Immanence vs.
Transcendence]
For many of Heidegger's readers in the late 1920s, the question of
whether (and why) authenticity was owed may have been much less
important than it appears to us. For them, the concept of authenticityand
its illustrations: individualism and resoluteness, silence and sobriety-were
so heavily value-laden that they outshone by their sheer aesthetic
appeal whatever was evoked as inauthentic. In addition, opting for
authenticity seems to have been one of the few forms of behavior that
Heidegger associated with gender-perhaps the only important cultural
code of 1926 to which Sein und Zeit makes no explicit reference. The
convergence of the gender code with the authenticity code is marked by
the concept "affirmation of existence" (Existenzfreudigkeit), which
Heidegger uses in his correspondence with Elisabeth Blochmann, a pro-