Habitation

"Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts their petty misery
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!
Whose agonies are evils of a day—
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.» —Lord Byron—

I. Habitation Means Habituation

Hannah Arendt (1906-48/1) wrote that men [live on the earth and] inhabit the world.

What does this mean?

It means

(1) that we inhabit the world. The world is a matter of habit. We are in the world in habituation.

(2) that the world inhabits us. The world is in us who inhabit it. Without us there is no world.

It follows that the world we inhabit—and inhabits us—habituates us.

II. Thoughtless World

If the world we inhabit—and inhabits us—is thoughtless, this thoughtlessness habituates us into being thoughtless.

In such a world, because thoughtlessness is so habitual, the inhabitants are habituated thereto, that nobody thinks.

Can we overcome habituation?

We cannot.

III. Thoughtful Habituation

However, our habituation can be thoughtful.

In thoughtful habituation the world's thoughtlessness no longer habituates us thoughtlessly.

In thoughtful habituation the world's thoughtlessness is to us no longer habitual.

How does thoughtful habituation differ from thoughtless habituation?

IV. Masterered and Masterful Habituations

In thoughtless habituation our habits are thoughtless. If the world we inhabit—and inhabits us—is thoughtless our habits become thoughtless.

The world masters our habits.

In thoughtful habituation our habits are thoughtful. If the world we inhabit—and inhabits us—is thoughtless our habits do not become thoughtless.

Our habits master the world.

V. Mastery Means Containment

Martin Heidegger (1889-49/1) observed that man is man and not animal in so far as he is world-rich.

It is tempting to add

(1) that man is man and not animal when his habituation is thoughtful for then his habits master the world and he is world-rich. He is world-rich because his habits master the world; therefore his habits contain the world but the world does not contain them.

(2) that man is animal and not man when his habituation is thoughtless for then his habits are mastered by the world and he is world-poor. He is world-poor because the world masters his habits; therefore the world contains his habits but they contain no world.

In other words:

VI. A Warriors' Religion

The world itself habituates in non-thought. Enowning can only be a warriors' religion, Roman, since its truth requires mastery of our habituation through thought, therefore also of the world which invites each and everyone to thoughtlessness. Those who let themselves be habituated in this way by the world, paradoxically, are poor-in-world, animal, since their habits do not contain the world through mastery but to the contrary are contained in it. 4/6/0/2