Abstract

In the manipulated world of the 20th century, man, by using deliberate thought, has degraded everything, even God, to what can be planned and computed thanks to the assistance of the mother science, namely cubernetics. This iniquitous state of affairs has arisen from metaphysics and nihilism which are closely related. ;Metaphysics can, according to Heidegger, be traced back to Plato when thought aspired to proceed from what exists to the Idea of the Good as the highest value and being. In Western thought this continued until Nietzsche who dismissed as valueless the values that had been held throughout the centuries. God, as the highest value, was declared dead. Nietzsche was the dynamite that exploded the house of values, leaving a vacuum behind. ;In the new structure of values that arose after Nietzsche thepower principle came strongly to the fore. The superman or Ubermensch seeks only to accomplish his own will, sincehe cannot tolerate not being god himself, which is why the greatest danger in the adult world of today is not the atom bomb or overpopulation or world famine or Communism or Americanism, but the fact that man has become alienated from his own being and thus leads a darkened existence. ;The "adult" human being, the "superman" and the narcissistic person is the technically manipulated person who seeks to manipulate everything, including his own humanity, by using science and technology. This manipulated existence brings about a sick world manifesting the symptoms of disease such as the crisis syndrome, the manipulation syndrome, the syndrome of change, the syndrome of the future, etc. The narcissistic person does not, however, appreciate this danger and, in fact, considers that in this way he is freeing himself from unnecessary and burdensome bonds. For this reason Heidegger describes this state as iniquitous and dangerous where distress, world anguish, is at its greatest