"Man today is in flight from thinking," said philosopher Martin Heidegger in 1959. Thoughtlessness, he said, had penetrated human existence in a frightful way; all around him he felt that he had begun to see less and less of a certain kind of thinking--meditative thinking. Meditative thinking, as opposed to calculative thinking, is a product of the spiritual nature of man, and he rightfully questioned just where we would be without it. Calculative thinking also has its place and humanity owes a lot of its success to it, but Heidegger asked his audience to please consider what our age reflects, not just what it can churn out by way of machines.
His call for thought remains essential. What does our age, and our news, reflect? It reflects a time of change in many places, including at home. If man is in flight from thinking, as Heidegger says, where is he going? Where will we be without the comfort of our own minds taking us places we never knew existed? Where will we go when there is no television, no Facebook, nothing to distract us from ourselves?
We might never have to go there, but we should. Calculative thinking is central to journalism and to proving a point. But journalism it is also about keeping us thoughtful and connected to ourselves and the world, in flight from nothing.
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