teleological” interpretations no less superficial than “economic” ones, and interpretations in terms of the “historiology of the spirit” superficial the same way “racial” ones are. The grounds are entirely provided by “metaphysics”—yet the latter obstructs the basic relation to history by veiling the human essence inasmuch as it constantly identifies the human being merely as an animal, whether through a superstructure above animality (spirit and immortal soul) or through the retraction of reason and consciousness into pure “life.” In every case, the misrecognition of the stewardship of beyng is essential and is so most of all when the relation of humans to beings (in any form of the subject-object relation) is still conceded. Metaphysics turns itself into the domain of the emergence of sham forms of “radicalism” that succeed one another at an ever more rapid pace. To be sure, most wretched are ultimately the attempts to make metaphysical radicalism (in theology, politics, etc.) harmless through compromises and through evasions into traditions.
Previously, thinkers could set down their thoughts in a “work” and develop them therein according to the model of scientific treatises or poetic narratives. In the future, thought must become a course of thought leading not from beings to beyng, but from beyng into its truth. And the course is in any case only the approach run for the leap which uniquely allows beyng as abyss to be reached in the leap. As long as knowledge of this kind of thinking and the capacity for it are not roused up, all “new” thoughts are lost and remain a poor imitation of metaphysics or, at most, an inversion of metaphysics and a flight from it.
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The power of machination—the eradication even of Godlessness, the anthropomorphizing of the human being into the animal, the exploitation of the earth, the calculation of the world—has passed over into a state of definitiveness; distinctions of peoples, nations, and cultures are now mere facades. No measures could be taken to impede or check machination. Never before in human history has being, so unconditionally, uniformly, | in frantic onslaught, and yet completely hidden behind currently pursued beings, compelled the whole of beings into decisionlessness. Never before, accordingly, for those who know, have such acuity and simplicity of a moment of the history of beyng ever been attained. Never before, through a globally instituted and continuously increasing fear of “wars,” of losses, of diminutions of power, and of economic failures (through the fear of beings), has the anxiety