38 • Only a God Can Save Us: Der Spiegel's Interview
H: I would like to say that the literature I have in mind is not nihilistic in the way that I think of nihilism.
S: You obviously envisage, and this is what you have already said, a world movement which either leads up to or has already led up to the absolute technological state.
H: Yes.
S: Good. Now the question naturally comes up: can the individual in any way influence this network of inevitabilities, or could philosophy influence it, or could both together influence it inasmuch as philosophy could guide the individual or several individuals toward a specific action?
H: Let me respond briefly and somewhat ponderously, but from long reflection: philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. This is not only true of philosophy, but of all merely human thought and endeavor. Only a god can save us. The sole possibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and poetizing, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god in the time of foundering (Untergang); for in the face of the god who is absent, we founder.
S: Is there a connection between your thinking and the emergence of this god? Is there in your view a causal connection? Do you think that we can think god into being here with us?
H: We can not think him into being here; we can at most awaken the readiness of expectation.
S: But are we able to help?
H: The preparation of a readiness may be the first step. The world cannot be what it is or the way that it is through man, but neither can it be without man. According to my view this is connected with the fact that what I name with the word Being, a word which is of long standing, traditional, multifaceted and worn out, needs man for its revelation, preservation and formation. I see the essence of technology in what I call the frame (das Ge-Stell), an expression which has often been laughed at and is perhaps somewhat clumsy. The frame holding sway means: the essence of man is framed, claimed and challenged by a power which manifests itself in the essence of technology, a power which man himself does not control. To help with this realization is all that one can expect of thought. Philosophy is at an end.