they determine our existence [Dasein] in many ways, even if we cannot say precisely how.
We now ask anew: What does the fact that these diagnoses of culture find an audience among us-albeit in quite different ways-tell us about what is happening here? What is happening in the fact that this higher form of journalism fills or even altogether delimits our 'spiritual' space? Is all this merely a fashion? Is anything overcome if we seek to characterize it as 'fashionable philosophy' and thus to belittle it? We may not and do not wish to resort to such cheap means.
We said that this philosophy of culture at most sets out what is contemporary about our situation, but does not take hold of us. What is more, not only does it not succeed in grasping us, but it unties us from ourselves in imparting us a role in world history. It unties us from ourselves, and yet does so precisely as anthropology. Our flight and disorientation [Verkehrung], the illusion and our lostness become more acute. The decisive question now is: What lies behind the fact that we give ourselves this role and indeed must do so? Have we become too insignificant to ourselves, that we require a role? Why do we find no meaning for ourselves any more, i.e., no essential possibility of being? Is it because an indifference yawns at us out of all things, an indifference whose grounds we do not know? Yet who can speak in such a way when world trade, technology, and the economy seize hold of man and keep him moving? And nevertheless we seek a role for ourselves. What is happening here?, we ask anew. Must we first make ourselves interesting to ourselves again? Why must we do this? Perhaps because we ourselves have become bored with ourselves? Is man himself now supposed to have become bored with himself? Why so? Do things ultimately stand in such a way with us that a profound boredom draws back and forth like a silent fog in the abysses of Dasein?
We do not ultimately need any diagnoses or prognoses of culture in order to make sure of our situation, because they merely provide us with a role and untie us from ourselves, instead of helping us to want to find ourselves. Yet how are we to find ourselves-in some vain self-reflection, in that repugnant sniffing out of everything psychological which today has exceeded all measure? Or are we to find ourselves in such a way that we are thereby given back to ourselves, that is, given back to ourselves, so that we are given over to ourselves, given over to the task of becoming what we are?
We may not, therefore, flee from ourselves in some convoluted idle talk about culture, nor pursue ourselves in a psychology motivated by curiosity. Rather we must find ourselves by binding ourselves to our being-there [Dasein] and by letting such being-there [Da-sein] become what is singularly binding for us.
Will we find ourselves via this indication of that profound boredom, which perhaps none of us know at first? Is this questionable profound boredom actually supposed to be the sought-after fundamental attunement that must be awakened?