In the beginning
This article introduces Heidegger's "Sein und Zeit" ("Being and time") and Machiavelli's "Il Principe" ("The Prince").
Heidegger, Sein und Zeit
There are two useful ebooks.
Sein und Zeit - sein_und_zeit.pdf
https://taradajko.org/get/books/sein_und_zeit.pdf
Being and Time (Macquarrie & Robinson, trans.) - Heidegger-Martin-Being-and-Time-trans.-Macquarrie-Robinson-Blackwell-1962.pdf
http://pdf-objects.com/files/Heidegger-Martin-Being-and-Time-trans.-Macquarrie-Robinson-Blackwell-1962.pdf
I'm interested in an idea of "das Man".
The argument on "das Man" is developed in section 27 "Das alltägliche Selbstsein und das Man" (Everyday Being-one's-Self and the "They").
So I read only that part.
Das Man hat selbst eigene Weisen zu sein. Die genannte Tendenz des Mitseins, die wir die Abständigkeit nannten, gründet darin, daß das Miteinandersein als solches die Durchschnittlichkeit besorgt. Sie ist ein existenzialer Charakter des Man. Dem Man geht es in seinem Sein wesentlich um sie. Deshalb hält es sich faktisch in der Durchschnittlichkeit dessen, was sich gehört, was man gelten läßt und was nicht, dem man Erfolg zubilligt, dem man ihn versagt. Diese Durchschnittlichkeit in der Vorzeichnung dessen, was gewagt werden kann und darf, wacht über jede sich vordrängende Ausnahme. Jeder Vorrang wird geräuschlos niedergehalten. Alles Ursprüngliche ist über Nacht als längst bekannt geglättet. Alles Erkämpfte wird handlich. Jedes Geheimnis verliert seine Kraft. Die Sorge der Durchschnittlichkeit enthüllt wieder eine wesenhafte Tendenz des Daseins, die wir die Einebnung aller Seinsmöglichkeiten nennen.
Translation:
The "they" has its own ways in which to be. That tendency of Being with which we have called "distantiality" is grounded in the fact that Being-with-one-another concerns itself as such with averageness, which is an existential characteristic of the "they". The "they", in its Being, essentially makes an issue of this. Thus the "they" maintains itself factically in the averageness of that which belongs to it, of that which it regards as valid and that which it does not, and of that to which it grants success and that to which it denies it. In this averageness with which it prescribes what can and may be ventured, it keeps watch over everything exceptional that thrusts itself to the fore. Every kind of priority gets noiselessly suppressed. Overnight, everything that is primordial gets glossed over as something that has long been well known. Everything gained by a struggle becomes just something to be manipulated. Every secret loses its force. This care of averageness reveals in turn an essential tendency of Dasein which we call the "levelling down" [Einebnung] of all possibilities of Being.
The next of the next paragraph says
Das Man ist überall dabei, doch so, daß es sich auch schon immer davongeschlichen hat, wo das Dasein auf Entscheidung drängt. Weil das Man jedoch alles Urteilen und Entscheiden vorgibt, nimmt es dem jeweiligen Dasein die Verantwortlichkeit ab. Das Man kann es sich gleichsam leisten, daß »man« sich ständig auf es beruft. Es kann am leichtesten alles verantworten, weil keiner es ist, der für etwas einzustehen braucht. Das Man »war« es immer und doch kann gesagt werden, »keiner« ist es gewesen. In der Alltäglichkeit des Daseins wird das meiste durch das, von dem wir sagen müssen, keiner war es.
The "they" is there alongside everywhere [ist iiberall dabei] , but in such a manner that it has always stolen away whenever Dasein presses for a decision. Yet because the "they" presents every judgment and decision as its own, it deprives the particular Dasein of its answerability. The "they" can, as it were, manage to have 'them' constantly invoking it. 1 It can be answerable for everything most easily, because it is not someone who needs to vouch for anything. It 'was' always the "they" who did it, and yet it can be said that it has been 'no one'. In Dasein's everydayness the agency through which most things come about is one of which we must say that "it was no one".
Essentially, "das Man" has averageness and is irresponsible as opposed to Dasein.
Due to its irresponsibility, ironically, "It can be answerable for everything most easily".
In a sense, the "they" might be thought as anonymous.
Machiavelli, Il Principe
There are also two useful ebooks or pages.
Il Principe - t324.pdf
http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/pdf/Volume_4/t324.pdf
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - Free Ebook
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232
Section 1
Machiavelli adopts the dualism.
Tutti li stati, tutti e’ dominii che hanno avuto et hanno imperio sopra li uomini, sono stati e sono o repubbliche o principati.
All states, all powers, that have held and hold rule over men have been and are either republics or principalities.
Any political form of power is either a republic or a monarchy.
Section 2
Section 2 explains why a monarchy has a tendency to continue over generations.
Dico, adunque, che nelli stati ereditarii et assuefatti al sangue del loro principe sono assai minori difficultà a mantenerli che ne’ nuovi;
I say at once there are fewer difficulties in holding hereditary states, and those long accustomed to the family of their prince, than new ones;
Section 5
The theme of section 5 is conquest.
Quando quelli stati che s’acquistano, come è detto, sono consueti a vivere con le loro legge et in libertà, a volerli tenere, ci sono tre modi: el primo, ruinarle; l’altro, andarvi ad abitare personalmente; el terzo, lasciarle vivere con le sua legge, traendone una pensione e creandovi drento uno stato di pochi che te le conservino amiche.
Whenever those states which have been acquired as stated have been accustomed to live under their own laws and in freedom, there are three courses for those who wish to hold them: the first is to ruin them, the next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit them to live under their own laws, drawing a tribute, and establishing within it an oligarchy which will keep it friendly to you.
Three ways of governing existing countries are presented.
- Ruin or destruction,
- Immigration,
- Establishment a new (puppet) government.
Summary
We learned the concept of das Man by M. Heidegger and the sections 1, 2, 5 of Il Principe by N. Machiavelli.
