Wednesday, September 17, 2014

"Everydayness": Heidegger on death and Kevin Garnett playing a midseason game in Charlotte

<< crossposted on '30 Home Games' blog
An aging Kevin Garnett VS Charlotte's Cody Zeller.  
What does champion NBA power forward Kevin Garnett have to do with influential thinker Martin Heidegger? Authors Daniel M. Klein and Thomas Cathcart in their humorous book on the philosophy of death finds a way to explain Heidegger's often complicated ideas via a basketball analogy
Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates:
Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
Ch 4. Heideggerty-Dog, Ziggity-Boom, What You Do to Me
Look at it this way: Say you're Kevin Garnett and this is Game 7 of the NBA Finals. You're going to play with way more intensity, way more energy, way more life, than in one of those dreary Thursday night midseason games in Charlotte. Heidegger called the latter "everydayness," and he put it down as the ultimate drag. So let's face it squarely, Daryl, this -- right here, right now -- is Game 7 of the Finals, and what a joy it is to be here!

For Heidegger, the worst possible news would be that our souls are immortal. That would condemn us to a never-ending string of those Thursday night games in Charlotte.
My only quibble is the use of Garnett for the example. He's arguably the most consistent and unfailingly intense player currently in the L.

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