standing-reserve

is (as the rendering of everything into endlessly transformable resources) such that it makes possible endless disaggregation, redistribution, and reaggregation... not for any specific end, but for its own sake. It is a bureaucratic distopia where there is ordering but no orderer.

But we can see now that electricity is not a perfect example of technological stuff because it ends up finally turned into light, heat, or motion to satisfy some subject's desire. Heidegger's intuition is that treating everything as standing reserve or, as we might better say, resources, makes possible endless disaggregation, redistribution, and reaggregation for its own sake. As soon as he sees that information is truly endlessly transformable Heidegger switches to computer manipulation of information as his paradigm. 'The goal of technology, Heidegger then tells us, is more and more flexibility and efficiency simply for its own sake. There is no longer, as there was in Kant, an onto-theological center that provides a goal for all activity. There is ordering but no orderer. Heidegger says: (''')

is the idea that everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering.

Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this way has its own standing. We call it the standing-reserve [Bestand, i.e. resources]. 'Heidegger seems to waver on the question whether, as technology reaches its final stage, it will accentuate subjects and objects or eliminate them. 'The subject-object relation thus reaches, for the first time, its pure 'relational,' i.e., ordering, character in which both the subject and the object are sucked up as standing-reserves. That does not mean that the subject-object relation vanishes, but rather the opposite: it now attains to its most extreme dominance. . . . . . 'a modern airliner is not an object at all, but just a flexible and efficient cog in the transportation system. Passengers are presumably not autonomous subjects either, but resources recruited by the tourist industry to fill the planes. Heidegger concludes: 'Whatever stands by in the sense of standing-reserve no longer stands over against us as object.' (Dreyfus 'Being and Power' NET).

is the idea that natural science and nuclear physics have necessarily transformed the problem of objects into the problem of orderability.

The nature [Natur] of natural science is also proposed as orderable standingreserve. The presence of nature in the thematic field of nuclear physics remains unthinkable as long as it is still represented as objectivity instead of orderability. (Heidegger: Question Concerning the Determination of the Matter for Thinking)

is that state in which subjects are rendered into resources recruited by systems. It is, for instance, when the manifold forest, with all its significance is reduced to the sole category of lumber.

when subjects are rendered into resources recruited by systems -(passengers in airliner example. . . ) . . 'Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this way has its own standing. We call it the standing-reserve [Bestand, i.e. resources]. 'Heidegger seems to waver on the question whether, as technology reaches its final stage, it will accentuate subjects and objects or eliminate them. 'The subject-object relation thus reaches, for the first time, its pure 'relational,' i.e., ordering, character in which both the subject and the object are sucked up as standing-reserves. That does not mean that the subject-object relation vanishes, but rather the opposite: it now attains to its most extreme dominance. . . . . . 'a modern airliner is not an object at all, but just a flexible and efficient cog in the transportation system. Passengers are presumably not autonomous subjects either, but resources recruited by the tourist industry to fill the planes. Heidegger concludes: 'Whatever stands by in the sense of standing-reserve no longer stands over against us as object.' (Dreyfus 'Being and Power' NET).

is the perspective of all things as resources, resources reflecting a kind of orderability which is surely the last possible phase in the historical transformation of presence.

We do not know the future. Nevertheless, in order to determine orderability as the last possible phase in the historical transformation of presence, no prophetic glimpse into the future is needed. The insight into the present day is sufficient, if only this insight, instead of describing the state of the world and the situation of human beings, looks to catch sight of the kind of the presence of human beings and of things, along with the presence of humans toward things. (Heidegger: Question Concerning the Determination of the Matter for Thinking)

is the transformation of the presence of what-is-present from objectiveness to orderability.

The transformation of the presence of what-is-present from objectiveness to orderability is, however, also the precondition for the fact that something like the cybernetic way of representation can emerge and lay claim to the role of the universal science at all. (Heidegger: Question Concerning the Determination of the Matter for Thinking)

standing reserve, n.All

standing reserve