Heidegger’s Worldview – Freedom, Control and Affectivity

The tendency of individuals to protect their own worldview by rejecting information and phenomena that cannot be reconciled with it is a significant issue in today’s polarised society. This paper aims to gain a deeper insight into this tendency towards exclusion and the impact it has on worldview by examining a particular interpretation of worldview developed in the late 1930s by Martin Heidegger. It is a radical account that portrays a highly restrictive and extremely closed-off model of worldview, within which exclusion plays a key role. The impact of this exclusion on the nature and shape of worldview is explored by analysing worldview from three distinct perspectives focusing on (1) its appearance, marked by freedom and safety, (2) its inner dynamic, marked by absolute control, and (3) its affective background, marked by frantic struggle and dread. The analysis reveals a dread-fuelled, highly reactionary, and thus extremely fragile structure that is fundamentally shaped by the endless effort to conceal the exclusion on which it is built, resulting in a complete inability to engage with that which is excluded without severely endangering the very existence of that worldview.


Introduction
In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to the role that worldviews play in various persistent issues of contemporary society, such as attitudes concerning climate change, scepticism about science, or extremist political stances. Issues of this kind seem to be resistant to rational debates and explanations, which drives the search for frameworks that ground them within a broader context of people's attitudes and convictions about the world. In many cases, this framework is found in the concept of worldview. 1 While there is no standard definition of the concept 2 and individual authors interpret it in different ways, for the purpose of this paper the following outline based on a few common features can be used. The term worldview generally denotes a comprehensive framework of both explicit and implicit convictions -encompassing, among others, religious beliefs, political and moral attitudes, societal traditions and values -which gives humans a means of making sense of the world, relating to it and navigating within it (Brandt & Crawford 2020;de Witt, 2015;Koltko-Riviera 2004, Baele et al., 2019. People tend to defend their own worldview and react in a prejudiced or even hostile manner when confronted with opposing opinions and beliefs (Brandt & Crawford 2020;Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008;van den Bos et al., 2005), often dismissing and simply excluding anything which cannot be integrated into their specific worldview (Newman et al., 2018;Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2020). Given this tendency to exclude opposing information and phenomena, conflicts connected to differences in worldviews are difficult to resolve. The more closed-off and restrictive a particular worldview is, the more pronounced this issue becomes.
In this paper, I aim to explore the issue of such exclusion from a theoretical philosophical perspective based on an early interpretation of worldview which was developed by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Despite being articulated in a very different, Heideggerian way, this concept of worldview is, from a structural point of view, quite similar to the contemporary understanding described above, encompassing most of the listed features, though in a significantly radicalised form. Developed in the 1930s, 3 Heidegger's interpretation of worldview is marked by the turmoil and hardships of those years and reflects the socio-political reality of the authoritarian Nazi regime. 4 It portrays a hostile, domineering, and aggressive way of accessing the world that is characterised by an absolute hold over those who adhere to it, a thorough rejection of any critical questioning of its own foundations, and, most importantly, a complete inability to accept, or even conceptualise anything that does not align with it. It is precisely this extreme nature that makes this concept of 1 Since the study of worldviews is currently more prominent within the social sciences than philosophy, some recent examples can be taken from social-scientific research for illustrative purposes. See, for example de Witt (2015), Baele et al. (2019), Lewandovsky & Oberauer (2021). 2 As evidenced by several attempts to systematise the widely used, yet ill-defined concept (Koltko-Riviera, 2004;Johnson et al., 2011;de Witt, 2012). 3 Heidegger developed several standalone concepts of worldview over the years, returning to the concept with starkly differing, even contradictory approaches, finally culminating in a radical criticism of worldview in the late 1930s. This paper will focus solely on this last concept of worldview, as it is the only one that portrays the radical nature that is necessary for the purpose of this paper. For a brief overview of the different forms, see Karilemla (2015). 4 This is not intended to absolve Heidegger of his involvement in the Nazi Party in the early 1930s. Nevertheless, whatever his political ambitions may have been (and whatever the reasons for his critique), it is undeniable that by the second half of the 1930s he had come to see the practical reality of the Nazi regime in a highly critical light. It is, however, true that he never renounced his early endorsement of the Nazi Party. For more on this problematic aspect of his work, specifically within the context of his engagement with worldview, see Müller (2010: 320-359). worldview interesting for the purpose of this paper. While parts of it are radicalised to such a degree that the concept can arguably not be used as an accurate description of any particular real-life worldview, such an extreme model can bring into sharper relief otherwise obscured aspects that can be present in the inner dynamic of certain worldviews. Specifically, I suggest that it is worth looking into Heidegger's concept interpreted as an extreme, almost exaggerated model of a highly restrictive and closed-off worldview. In particular, the paper will focus on a specific type of exclusion that occurs within this model, and on the way this type of exclusion, when it occurs, impacts worldview. To this end, the paper will trace the -radicalised, and thus starkly visible -relationship between worldview and that which is excluded from it. The main goal is to examine to what extent this exclusion is reflected within worldview, in what way it influences those on the inside and how this impact ultimately plays into the overall rejection of otherness.
Since this task requires a specific reading of Heidegger's thoughts, a few preliminary remarks concerning the analysis of his texts are in order. First of all, this particular concept of worldview has, so far, received relatively little attention, 5 perhaps in part because Heidegger did not develop it in a systematic fashion. Worldview interested him less as a phenomenon in itself and more as a counterpart to the issue which truly mattered to him, the thinking of Being. Consequently, his descriptions of the concept are scattered throughout multiple works of the time. Therefore, a major task of this paper is to piece together these statements in order to create a coherent whole. 6 Moreover, it follows from the above that Heidegger's concept is embedded in his own distinctive philosophical project that is very different from the contemporary interest in the concept of worldview. Thus, in order to fulfil the goal outlined above, it is necessary to partially disregard Heidegger's own broader aims and ambitions regarding worldview, especially its connection with the history of Being that also anchors the concept firmly within modernity. In the 1930s, Heidegger presents worldview as an exclusively modern phenomenon that cannot be found in any other era (Heidegger, 2012: 32). Furthermore, he considers worldview in the outlined sense of an absolute, domineering, and intolerant system to be representative of the entirety of the modern world; brushing aside any differences -such as the apparent contrasts between the "liberal," "Christian," and "political" worldview -as superficial outward appearances which nonetheless share the same essence (Heidegger, 2012: 22, 31-34).
In this regard, the paper deviates from Heidegger's ideas. Heidegger's critique of worldview in the 1930s essentially amounted to a critique of modernity -its values, goals, science, its approach to art and knowledge and all other spheres of life. This critique of modernity has been highly influential and valuable; however, it is not the aim of this paper to endorse it as a diagnosis of our times. In the same vein, I do not intend to present this particular model of worldview as a depiction of all of modern 5 The most notable exception being a very thorough and faithful investigation by Müller (2010: 360-410). Apart from this investigation, there are a few short summaries (Karilemla, 2015: 258-261;Naugle, 2002: 139-146;Simmons, 2006: 161-163) and, of course, the concept tends to be mentioned in the context of the lecture The Age of the World Picture as well as Heidegger's critique of modernity, but rarely interpreted as a coherent concept in its own right. 6 The analysis will focus mainly on Contributions to Philosophy (1936Philosophy ( -1938, The Age of the World Picture (1938) and the 1936 lecture on Schelling's Treatise on Human Freedom. society, as I consider Heidegger's disregard for important differences between individual worldviews -which implies, for example, that a liberal and totalitarian worldview are in essence the same (Müller, 2010: 386;Heidegger, 2012: 31f.) -likely more harmful then helpful, when regarded from a practical (rather than a Being-historical) point of view. While it is impossible for the analysis of Heidegger's writings to avoid the specific content which he ascribes to worldview, or the language he uses to describe it, these particularities are secondary for the purpose of the paper. The overall focus will be on reconstructing the general inner dynamic of exclusion as it is presented within this concept, leaving open the possibility of applying this dynamic to different contexts in future research. This reconstruction will be realised by means of three main steps: Firstly, the surface-level appearance of worldview -i.e., the view it provides to those on the inside -will be traced to gain a basis for demonstrating why exclusion is a necessary feature of worldview. This will be done by analysing the conditions that, according to Heidegger, prompted the rise of worldview in modernity. Secondly, the inner dynamic that makes this appearance possible in the first place will be brought to the forefront, emphasising the central role of exclusion and the way it impacts worldview. Thirdly, the depth of this influence will be further explored by considering the affective background of the analysed structures, highlighting the extensive scope of the imprint which the fundamental exclusion leaves upon worldview.

Freedom -the Appearance of Worldview
Heidegger argued that a number of profound changes occurred at the dawn of modernity which prompted the emergence of the so-called will to system, i.e., worldview. While Heidegger enumerates these changes in various writings in slightly different ways, they are all connected with two major breaks between the medieval and modern eras: the liberation of humanity following the decline of the influence of religious teachings (Heidegger, 1985: 31) and the new understanding of truth and knowledge that emerged around the same time (Heidegger, 2018: 66;Heidegger, 1985: 30). The two are closely intertwined, with the former being dependent on the latter, perhaps even deeper change, which provides an entirely new interpretation of the way in which the world is to be explored and studied and how information about the world is to be grounded and ordered.
For centuries, these questions lay firmly within the purview of the church and its teachings; truth was established on belief in Scripture, and the highest knowledge which one could attain was encompassed in the teachings of theology (Heidegger, 1977b: 81). However, the superiority of theology-based knowledge was not limited to strictly religious matters, as knowledge about beings in general was mainly obtained through studying the sources of divine revelation and the ecclesiastical tradition (Heidegger, 1977b: 81f.;Heidegger, 2018: 66). This foundation gave rise to a basic framework of truth and knowledge to which any understanding or experience about the world -regardless of its origin -had to conform. Purely "worldly" knowledge simply did not exist on its own, and all knowledge had to be integrated into the framework of revelation in order to gain intelligibility and justification it could never produce "for itself and of itself" through proof or experiments (Heidegger, 2018: 66).
At the beginning of modernity, science takes over this position. The proper means of gaining knowledge about beings is transformed and the focus shifts towards taking measurements, conducting experiments and formulating and testing hypotheses. Throughout these processes, the need to follow the correct method is seen as paramount because it ensures that adequate results -in the best case, practically applicable ones -can be achieved (Heidegger, 2012: 115f.). These results are no longer required to conform to a basic framework of religious nature; instead, knowledge as a whole is now shaped by the so-called mathematical. Not to be confused with mathematics, the mathematical is "a definitively oriented interpretation of the nature of knowledge in general" (Heidegger, 1985: 30). More specifically, it is a "projection of the thingness of things" which "first opens a play-space within which things, i.e., facts, show themselves" (Heidegger, 2018: 62f.). What things can show themselves as is largely determined in advance by the axioms on which the projection is based (Heidegger, 2018: 63). Therefore, the mathematical projection acts as a kind of blueprint that "prescribes how each thing and all relations between things are to be construed" (Heidegger, 2018: 63).
The mathematical requires knowledge to be a unified and ordered whole based on a set of basic propositions -axioms -that are absolutely certain and require no proof outside of themselves (Heidegger, 1985: 30). This, in turn, necessitates the search for such knowledge that can provide the proof of its own certainty in itself. This piece of knowledge is crucial, since -if found -it ensures the infallibility of the entire system and becomes the "ground of all knowledge and, thus, the foundation of the truth of what is knowable" (Heidegger, 1985: 30). The actual content of this axiom, on the other hand, is of no great importance; all that matters is its absolute certainty. However, although the content of that infallible piece of knowledge is not important on principle, we know its content historically, as the desired certainty was, according to Heidegger, found in Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum". In consequence, it is the selfcertainty of human thinking which becomes the foundation of all knowledge and the measure of all truth (Heidegger, 1985: 30;Heidegger, 2018: 72).
And just as the subject moves into the spotlight regarding knowledge, it claims a central position in other aspects of life as well, for once the power of the religious order starts to fade, entirely new realms of possibility begin to open up. The church no longer enjoys a monopoly on deciding who and what humans are and what their rightful place in the world should be. Instead, the modern subject becomes its own lawgiver, free to choose its own obligations and determine that which is necessary and binding (Heidegger, 1986: 182f.). As the old constraints fall loose, the creative powers of the human being are unleashed and the "conquest of the world in knowledge and action begins" (Heidegger, 1985: 31), as humanity shapes, transforms and gains power over beings in all areas of its existence (Heidegger, 1985: 34). This boundless potential is embodied in the romantic notion of the artistic genius, who, as the sole creator of the artwork, brings forth his creation through his own sheer "genius performance" (Heidegger, 1977a: 64). This archetype of creating freely and fulfilling oneself in the creation -the "genius" -even becomes the "law of being truly human," with art itself considered as the "decisive manner of self-development of human creativity". And just as art conquers the world "for eye and ear," the modern conquest of the world permeates all other fields of human activities, from science to technology and even commerce and the economy (Heidegger, 1985: 31).
Through all of these changes, the subject ultimately takes up its position at the very centre of the world: it is the thinking subject who conquers and transforms the world, becoming its own lawgiver; it is the subject's thinking which develops into the fundamental criterion of truth. The autonomous subject stands at the centre, uninhibited by external constraints, the world right at its hand, available and malleable. Clearly, this new position of the human being cannot be reduced to the liberation of mankind from the old shackles of medieval doctrines and obligations (Heidegger, 1977b: 87). Instead, it seems that the "liberation of man to himself" (Heidegger, 1985: 31) requires not only a new way of looking at the world, but a fundamentally different way of accessing it.
It necessitates a will to open up the world as a manipulable structure, fundamentally available to the human being. Through this will, a knowing control over Being grasped as this structure -or system -is acquired, as the whole of beings is lifted into knowledge, the knowing conquest of the system even becoming the innermost law of existence of modernity (Heidegger, 1985: 32). This system is nothing less than worldview itself (Heidegger, 1985: 19). Therefore, from this perspective, worldview appears to be that which makes possible the freedom, security and power of humans in modernity; it does so by opening up a world within which they are free creators and lawgivers, shapers and conquerors, autonomous subjects unencumbered by uncertainty and limitations.

Control -the Inner Dynamic of Worldview
Although compelling, the process outlined above does little to explain how it works. This question is especially pressing given that Heidegger did not actually consider human beings to be autonomous subjects and lawgivers in the described sense. How, then, does worldview ensure that humans can view themselves and the world in that way? In order to answer this question, we need to look more closely at what worldview really is.
As is already apparent, worldview -or system or world picture, as Heidegger calls it in his 1936 lecture course on Schelling (Heidegger, 1985: 19) and the 1938 lecture The Age of the World Picture (Heidegger, 1977b: 93f.) respectively -is not merely an assortment of categories or some kind of theoretical construct applied forcibly onto the world around us. Instead, worldview denotes the "opening and holding open of the world" that is always directed and comprehended in a specific way (Heidegger, 1985: 18). It can perhaps be imagined as a type of prism through which we -always and necessarily -access the world as such in a particular manner. More specifically, worldview opens up the world as a "manipulable structure," making it fundamentally available for humans to know, shape and take charge of (Heidegger, 1985: 32).
Worldview derives its basic structure and direction from the mathematical, meaning that worldview itself is a mathematical system, founded upon a basic principle. It follows that every part of this system -of worldview -must be in accordance with that basic principle. Whatever does not conform to it, cannot be a part of worldview, and since worldview is the very opening and holding open of the world, any such nonconforming thing cannot be a part of the world at all. Thus, worldview in this peculiar Heideggerian sense has a decisive influence on what kind of world we are able to encounter, and the shape of worldview ultimately determines the shape of our world.
As has been stated above, the axiom of the mathematical system can be found historically in the self-certainty of human knowledge. However, it should be added here that the status of being the guarantee of knowledge and truth bears more than a mere epistemological significance. Instead, the basic principle becomes a kind of tribunal upon which fundamental questions -questions such as what belongs to beings as such, what is the thingness of things, what is at all -must be decided (Heidegger, 2018: 73;Heidegger, 1985: 30f.). As Heidegger argues, "only what is true can be acknowledged as truly existent" (Heidegger, 1985: 30). Consequently, since the basic principle and criterion of truth is the cogito -sum, the "self-certainty of human thinking becomes the court of judgement which decides what can be and cannot be, even more, what Being means in general" (Heidegger, 1985: 30f.).
This process elevates the subject to a kind of relational centre of all beings. Only that which is capable of being experienced by humans -becoming the object of their lived experience (das Erlebbare) -is deemed as actually being (Heidegger, 2012: 102). As a result, there can be nothing in the world that is fundamentally beyond the grasp of the human mind. Everything that is represents a sum of potential experiences: everything can be studied, explored, or simply consumed and enjoyed by the human being, otherwise it would not even be considered existent. Simultaneously, this provides an initial explanation of how -or, perhaps more fittingly, in what sense -humans gain the power to conquer and freely transform the world. Worldview opens the world in such a way that anything humans are able to encounter can be understood and therefore used, manipulated and transformed creatively. Anything which fails to meet these criteria simply cannot be considered part of the world in the first place. Under these circumstances, the world becomes a transparent system devoid of anything fundamentally uncontrollable.
However, there is an obvious problem with this approach. Worldview, understood this way, represents a narrow and restricted interpretation of beings. But while it does not allow for anything radically different to appear in the world, it cannot make all that which falls into this category simply disappear altogether. It seems that sooner or later the incompleteness and narrowness of worldview would have to become apparent, breaking the illusion of human dominion over the world. This truly seems to be an issue, given that the kind of limitation described above is not, in Heidegger's opinion, limited to things that humans can encounter. It also affects their own experience, since worldview "sets it on a definite path and within a determinate range" (Heidegger, 2012: 31), constraining the vast multitude of possible experiences. More specifically, worldview permits only those experiences that are compatible with it, simultaneously ensuring that no one can have any genuine experience, that is, such experience that could lead to stumbling across the incompleteness of worldview and consequently calling worldview itself into question (Heidegger, 2012: 31).
In fact, a similar pattern occurs with regard to any new possibilities, as Heidegger demonstrates by contrasting worldview with philosophy. Whereas philosophy is always fundamentally open to overcoming itself, worldview holds fast to the answers and possibilities it already has in order to remain "one with itself," unable to afford the openness that philosophy possesses (Heidegger, 2012: 31;Rae, 2013: 241). According to Heidegger, regardless of the form that worldview takes, the mistrust against philosophy is always just as strong -all worldviews are the same at the core, all are "necessarily confining and domineering" (Heidegger, 2012:31), and by necessity they all thwart genuine thinking and questioning in order to protect themselves (Heidegger, 2012: 33). Moreover, this hermetic character of worldview as a system closed-off from anything different or new, insisting on a single narrow path of experience and interpretation of beings, is not, from the standpoint of worldview, considered a weakness; on the contrary, it is seen as a positive strength (Heidegger, 2012: 31).
Worldview cannot afford any openness towards change precisely because it is fundamentally exclusive, rejecting anything that cannot be integrated into the system built upon one basic principle, even considering such things as hostile and degrading (Heidegger, 2012: 33). It is necessarily exclusive and must be so in order to provide the freedom and safety that humans enjoy in the modern world. Moreover, exclusion in this sense cannot be reduced to the act of drawing boundaries that distinguish a particular worldview from all else -though such an act is common to all orders (Waldenfels, 2004: 71f.) -nor to the process of choosing one possibility while excluding others. Instead, it is about keeping up an illusion, a warped picture of reality, by restricting every aspect of human life. Therefore, this exclusion not only delineates an (unconceptualisable) outside, but heavily impacts the inside of worldview, specifically -and this is crucial -to keep that illusion intact. A better idea of the full extent and depth of this impact can be gained by tracing it all the way to the innermost dynamic of worldview that is encapsulated within its very essence.
In Contributions to Philosophy Heidegger claims that the essence of worldview consists of two intertwined, though seemingly contradictory, aspects -machination and lived experience (Erlebnis) (Heidegger, 2012: 33). From these two aspects, machination mostly reflects and further fleshes out the description of worldview which has been provided so far. Heidegger describes machination as a "mode of the essential occurrence of being" (Heidegger, 2012: 99) linked with constant presence (Heidegger, 2012: 85) which interprets beings as "representable and represented," meaning that only that which can be represented (vorgestellt) is a being; thus, anything that is a being is accessible to the human mind for "opinion and calculation" (Heidegger, 2012: 86). At the same time, machination is linked with the conviction that anything can be made providing that there is a will to do so. Beings are therefore also accessible in the sense that they are providable as they can simply be produced (Heidegger, 2012: 86). This is in tune with Heidegger's characterisation of the modern will to system, and the freedom to conquer, shape and creatively transform the world in all aspects of human conduct. In modernity, the world is available to humans and their boundless creativity; similarly, machination itself is unencumbered by any bounds, intolerant of any true opposition. Anything that may seem to place limitations upon this freedom is "merely material for further work, an impetus to prog-ress, and an opportunity for expansion and augmentation" (Heidegger, 2012: 86). There are no true questions that would require the questioning of worldview as such. Instead, there are only difficulties and problems that can be easily overcome within worldview, merely "tasks that have not yet been worked out" (Heidegger, 2012: 86).
Nonetheless, machination remains virtually invisible regardless of the wide scope of its influence. Heidegger calls this the first law of machination and claims that the more machination unfolds and takes effect, the more "obstinately and machinationally" it conceals itself as such (Heidegger, 2012: 100). More specifically, machination conceals itself in the modern age by hiding behind objectivity, that is, by claiming that it represents a neutral and direct stance towards beings, showing them in such a way that allows them to be experienced equally by all (Vernon, 2008: 112). In other words, it conceals the impact that its own interpretation of beings has on the world of modernity by denying that such an interpretation exists in the first place.
Still, there remains an issue. As was mentioned above, the seeming boundlessness of options available in machination is only achieved by pre-emptively reducing the scope of what is possible, what can be encountered in the world and what experiences can be had, resulting in a world which, although manipulable, is severely curtailed. While this deficiency is not actually visible within worldview, it seems to be at least felt in some sense. As Heidegger puts it in Contributions to Philosophy, even in an age that is devoid of true questions, question-worthiness cannot be destroyed entirely (Heidegger, 2012: 87); there remains perhaps some sense of mystery (Heidegger, 2012: 87), of something that is not in itself rational and thus cannot be calculated through reason (Heidegger, 1984: 141). Since this lingering sense of question-worthiness cannot merely be denied outright, worldview deals with it in a different manner -allowing it, but in a form that makes it innocuous or even domesticated (de Jong, 2020: 210f.). This is where lived experience comes into play. In lived experience that mysterythe "exciting, provocative, stunning, and enchanting" -becomes public and accessible to all (Heidegger, 2012: 87). In a world devoid of any deep otherness, of anything truly unexpected and uncalculated, lived experience -the thrill of a spectacle (Heidegger, 1984: 141f.) -provides an element of excitement, a peak experience (Dreyfus, 1993: 292). However, it is not only cheap spectacles that provide this thrill, but also other aspects of life which are seemingly much deeper. Religiosity, for example, becomes a lived experience too (Heidegger, 1977b: 76), transformed into a source of intense feeling intended to fill the void. Nevertheless, no matter how thrilling an experience may be or how deep it appears, it never ventures beyond machination. Lived experience ultimately remains entrenched in the centrality of the subject, who is simply flicking through the catalogue of available options in search of some distraction from the boredom of the world. Rather than being able to endanger machination, lived experience actually helps to conceal it, expanding it and allowing it to gain an even firmer grip on human life (Heidegger, 2012: 100;Heidegger, 1984: 141).
In sum, lived experience and machination are inextricably linked, and the latter could not last without the former. Machination provides a sense of security, since every being is always already discovered within it as something manageable, calculable and producible. With enough effort anything can be achieved and known; every experience or being one may encounter is, at least to some degree, expected and familiar. The safety of this orderly world is so comforting that, according to Heidegger, any true question-worthiness that might disrupt it is branded "as downright deviltry" (Heidegger, 2012: 86). At the same time, however, this safety makes the world predictable, rendering it boring and empty which could, in turn, endanger it. Maybe in an entirely cold and calculable world humans would become dissatisfied, feeling some kind of deprivation, and start to question worldview as such. Lived experience balances out this deficiency by providing pleasure and excitement in our experience with the world, thereby making any true questioning appear obsolete (Vallega-Neu, 2003: 61).
At this point it is worth bringing into focus what the twofold essence described above reveals about the overall inner dynamic of worldview. One side of the dynamic is marked by the controlling and calculating approach to beings that is characteristic of machination. The other, perhaps more interesting side, represented by lived experience, concerns the effort to conceal any inconsistencies that might arise on account of the first side. A closer look at lived experience reveals that two separate processes are involved in this effort: (1) the attempt to reinterpret a threatening phenomenon -the lingering sense of question-worthiness and mystery -in such a way that it does after all fit into the system and can be safely included within it, and (2) the attempt to cover up the emptiness of worldview through the thrill of lived experience. Given that this dynamic is an integral part of the very essence of worldview, it may be reasonably expected that these two processes are not limited to lived experience and are present throughout worldview. An in-depth analysis of this suggestion would go beyond the scope of this paper, yet we can briefly sketch that this is, indeed, the case, using two intertwined examples from Heidegger's thinking.
The first process can be found, for example, in the modern reinterpretation of moods that presents them as "weak, erratic, unclear, and dull" (Heidegger, 2012: 19). As is well known, Heidegger ascribed an extraordinary importance to mood. In his view, moods enable us to be affected by the world around us, thereby allowing us to relate to the world in the first place (Heidegger, 2006: 137-139). Simultaneously, he believed that some moods -so called fundamental attunements (Grundstimmungen) -are able to break through our everyday immersion in our surroundings and create a free space for thought and decision-making that would otherwise be impossible to achieve (Heidegger, 2006: 184-191, 342-344). Moods like this might even be able to break through the bonds of worldview. However, while the idea of moods having such power might seem almost nonsensical, Heidegger argues that it appears so precisely because the meaning of moods has been severely restricted in modernity. They have been reduced to the status of a secondary phenomenon that merely accompanies human behaviour (Heidegger, 2012: 28), colouring our experience in specific wayswith joyful moods lighting up the world around us and sad ones weighing us down.
While moods, in this understanding, still play a role in human lives, they are devoid of any profound meaning, as is apparent when we consider that we are generally encouraged to make the effort to simply "shake off" a "bad" mood, to engage in some activity that will "take our minds of it" or perhaps put us in a "better" or "more productive" mood. This idea is presented lucidly in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, in which Heidegger notes that this is the exact stance that modern society has adopted towards boredom, considering it as a "disturbing, unpleasant, and unbearable" (Heidegger, 1995: 158) state that affects only those who fail to set themselves adequate goals and tasks with which to fill their days productively. Boredom is denounced as a sign of shallowness and superficiality, which in turn motivates people to suppress it through relentless activity (Heidegger, 1995: 158f.). Moods are not allowed to simply happen, grip us and possibly disrupt the orderly structure of worldview; they are instead grasped as something that can be produced and discarded at will. Thus, rather than being a potential threat to worldview, they become fully integrated in the ways of the machinational and the Erlebnis-mindset.
Simultaneously, we see another major aspect of human life enter the picture. If boredom is suppressed because even just feeling it is perceived as a failure on the part of the individual, then this means that values play an important part in suppressing it: staying active and busy is considered a more valuable way of conducting oneself than perhaps exploring the depths of a mood and what it reveals. Moreover, values are also connected to the second process seen in lived experience. Specifically, Heidegger considers values and the highest goals of humanity to be a reaction to the dimly perceived loss of fullness and depth that comes about as a result of beings becoming mere objects of the subject's perception (Heidegger, 1977b: 101;Müller, 2010: 379). In his view, even the highest and most noble values are nothing more than a powerless and flimsy attempt to mask the flatness and groundlessness of being in modernity (Heidegger, 1977b: 102;Heidegger, 1999: 116f.). Far from opposing machination, thinking in values is firmly rooted in its logic; values effectively serve as labels that allow us to rate and catalogue both the world around us and our own actions according to the criterion of worthiness (Heidegger, 1977b: 102;Heidegger, 1998: 39).
In sum, all of the ideas, values and goals set forth by worldview are little more than tools serving machination (Heidegger, 1999: 117) -guiding human behaviour in ways that fortify it, masking its emptiness, trying to create a semblance of richness, fullness and meaning where none exist. Meanwhile, according to Heidegger, modernity is saturated with value thinking, and values are promoted to its highest goals (Müller, 2010: 378f.). This means that large and important parts of modern society are dedicated entirely to covering up its own hollowness and lack of meaning. And all the while, this fundamental function of values remains hidden from sight.
In view of these two examples, we may affirm, with some caution, that the patterns present within the essence of worldview do indeed repeat themselves throughout the world which it opens. A twofold dynamic emerges: exclusion creates a fundamental lack within worldview -a lack to which worldview, in turn, reacts. This compensatory relationship between worldview and that which is excluded from it is inscribed in its very essence, embodied in the dichotomy between machination and lived experience and is, therefore, vital to what worldview is as such. It follows that exclusion is not merely an isolated -albeit necessary -feature of worldview; instead, the entire structure of worldview is determined by exclusion and the effort it takes to make it possible and keep it hidden.
So far, it seems that the mechanisms that shield worldview from the excluded exterior are highly efficient. Since worldview is the very means of accessing and understanding the world, it is almost inconceivable that it would be possible to gain any kind of critical distance from it. It guides human experience and conduct in such a way as to thwart any worldview-threatening experience; it bars anything that does not conform to it from being part of the world at all and, in consequence, makes it impossible to even think about anything radically different in a clear and coherent manner. It may therefore seem that worldview deals with the excluded efficiently, once and for all. The resulting world is one in which nothing is fundamentally impossible and where the human mind sees itself as capable of solving any remaining problems and mysteries, thereby ensuring a transparent order. A world seemingly filled with high goals and strong values which fulfil the need for meaning; exciting and pleasurable enough to keep people content. A restricted world, perhaps, but one which is, nonetheless, secure, pleasant and comfortable.

Affectivity -the Foundation of Worldview
It is not, however, quite as peaceful as that. There is a fundamental schism in the seemingly ordered -although totalizing and oppressive -structure of worldview. This schism is already visible in the twofold essence of worldview comprised of machination and lived experience. Ultimately, their relationship cannot be reduced to one in which lived experience brings back a domesticated sense of mystery into a disenchanted and therefore boring world. Because machination and lived experience are to some extent contradictory, even if only on a superficial level, they drive each other further and further into extremes (Heidegger, 2012: 105). The more intensely life becomes entangled in lived experience, the greater the influence of machination becomes -and the greater the emptiness and neediness that drove the human being towards lived experience in the first place. Simultaneously, the need for "an ever greater, ever more unprecedented, and ever more loudly proclaimed" lived experience becomes more pressing still (Heidegger, 2012: 87;Vernon, 2008: 114f.). This dynamic can never reach a point at which it can rest, a point of real stability. It can only move on, ever increasing, with the need to cover up the gaping emptiness becoming ever more urgent, the attempts to do so slowly growing into an "outyelling, and mere blind screaming, in the wail of which one crows over oneself and deludes oneself in order to escape the hollowness of beings" (Heidegger, 2012: 103).
Similar statements can be found throughout Contributions to Philosophy. Heidegger repeatedly mentions a dread that seems to fuel much of the activity of worldview. He speaks of a "dread of questioning" (Heidegger, 2012: 93) that spurs the flight into machination in order to evade genuine knowledge and meditation, replacing them with a "blind mania for 'what is true'" (Heidegger, 2012: 93). He also claims there is a "dread of all decisive domains and of their opening" (Heidegger, 2012: 109) that leads to ignoring the goal-lessness of modern humanity, remaining within the decisions always already made in worldview and daring not to question them; instead finding comfort in the "blaring drunkenness on lived experience" (lärmende "Erlebnis"-Trunkenboldigkeit) (Heidegger, 1989: 139) and the blindness it offers. In the same vein, there is also an alarming "dread of becoming bored with oneself" (Heidegger, 2012: 96) in the increasingly empty and meaningless world, filled only with artificial semblances of worth and meaning. It pushes humans towards ever more ingenious activities and evokes a constant restlessness intended to stave off the impending boredom. Indeed, dread appears to lie deeply within the modern worldview, pervading it through and through: "The dread of beyng was never as great as it is today. Proof: the gigantic arrangements aimed at out-screaming this dread" (Heidegger, 2012: 109f.).
These statements may seem out of place given the coldly calculative and controlling character of worldview outlined in the previous chapter. Although it was clear that worldview fortifies itself through certain restrictions and illusions about the nature of the world it opens, there still remained a distinct calculative efficiency in these measures. Strong expressions like blind screaming, out-yelling and out-screaming of dread or blaring drunkenness on lived experience (Heidegger, 2012: 109) do not fit neatly into this narrative and suggest that there is much more going on behind the rational and calculating façade of worldview than first appears.
What exactly that is may become clearer when we consider what all of these dread-inducing phenomena have in common. Specifically, within the context of Heidegger's thinking they all seem to have the power to break through the control of worldview in one way or another. For example, genuine questioning and the courage to make genuine decisions would call into question the pre-existing decisions that are always already in place in worldview and shatter the illusion that they are a matter of course. Genuine knowledge and meditation about Being and nothingness would reveal the artificial narrowness of worldview's interpretation of beings and, in consequence, the illusory character of the power it grants the modern human. As for boredom, as a fundamental attunement of modernity it could lead to Being surfacing even in a world ruled by the forgottenness of Being. In sum, all of the above represents a significant threat to worldview as such. Consequently, what these aspects also have in common is the fact that they are excluded from worldview, avoided or thwarted by it, at least in their proper form.
Thus, while that which is excluded cannot be experienced nor even contemplated in the world, it remains just outside its limits as a constant threat. Not a specific, defined threat since that kind of conceptualisation would only be possible if it were part of worldview. Instead, it is perceived through an uncertain sense of dread and privation, perhaps as nothing more than as a threat, some fundamental otherness which is at odds with the familiar system. The analysis of the inner dynamic of worldview has already shown some instances where the excluded was somehow felt, as in the case of the lingering sense of question-worthiness. Considering Heidegger's much broader statements on the dread that pervades worldview and the effort to counteract it, it now seems that all of modern society is in some sense a reaction to this fundamental feeling of absence.
These ideas are reminiscent of Heidegger's analysis of boredom in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, towards the end of which he poses the question of whether all of the society of his era, in all of its goals and works and ideas, was not fundamentally concerned with suppressing boredom -the mood that, if it arose, would reveal the emptiness and meaninglessness of all this conduct (Heidegger, 1995: 166).
A similar theme appears in Contributions to Philosophy where Heidegger claims that we "dread and abhor" (scheuen und verabscheuen) nothingness and therefore "devote ourselves to its condemnation" (Heidegger, 2012: 378;Heidegger, 1989: 480). Nonetheless, this flight from nothingness is merely part of our "avoidance of the venture of that truth" which would expose the "triviality and superfluousness" of all of our high ideals and the goals that we have set ourselves in an effort to give meaning to our actions (Heidegger, 2012: 378). In short, our dread of nothingness is intimately connected with our desire to avoid uncovering that which we perhaps always already dimly feel -that everything we do is meaningless, precisely because a great deal of it is simply designed to cover up the emptiness of the modern world.
It should be remembered that there are never any neutral starting points in Heidegger's thinking; there are no metaphorical crossroads at which humans can decide rationally where to go next. This means that the modern worldview is, in a way, always already in place in modernity; modern humans always already perceive themselves as autonomous subjects and the world as fundamentally understandable. They always already live in a society that is in large parts dedicated to masking the emptiness of their world, especially those parts that are considered important and valuable, such as its culture, goals and highest values. All of this is built upon the narrow interpretation of beings as a whole that worldview provides and is, consequently, threatened whenever worldview is threatened.
It seems that beyond the desire for mastering the world and unleashing the creative potential of the human being -beyond the will to system -lurks a fundamentally affective ground upon which modernity unfolds; a ground marked by the threat of boredom, a pervasive dread of anything that might cause the system to collapse and a manic, screaming rush of activity aimed at out-yelling all of it. From this perspective it also appears that the control which worldview entails not only concerns the attempt to conquer the world and gain power over it, but also, to a great extent, relates to the subject's desperate attempt to keep power over its view of self, of its place in the world, its values and even its identity as such, even at the cost of severely curtailing one's own experience, possibilities and life itself.
All of the above may elicit both a sense of despair and one of hope. On the one hand, if the struggle for control is fuelled by the dread of losing one's very sense of self, the struggle to keep the threat at bay will be fought all the harder, and there can be little chance of a peaceful resolution. On the other hand, the frantic effort to conceal the emptiness of worldview also shows that the excluded is constantly present within worldview in a very real sense. It reveals that worldview is not as absolute as it may initially appear. That which is excluded is not some distant threat that can be confronted in a straightforward manner through perfectly adequate countermeasures. Worldview may prohibit anything radically different from being conceptualised, but it cannot prevent it from being present in some way. In consequence, it is pervaded through and through by a dread stemming from the constant threat of that which is missing. The missing leaves an imprint on worldview and is present precisely through its absence, materialised in a multitude of practices intended to mask that absence. Perhaps that imprint could serve as an anchor to ground the attempt to at least explore the limits of worldview, if not step beyond it. At the very least we can state that a persistent destabilising factor remains present in worldview -and therefore a persistent possibility of change.

Conclusion
The main concern of this paper was what kind of impact the tendency towards excluding otherness, in the sense that is explicated within Heidegger's theory, has on worldview itself, whether -and in what way -it is reflected on the inside of worldview, in its structure, values and beliefs, and how this impact is connected to the overall rejection of otherness. The findings can now be summarised.
Worldview, as Heidegger explored it in the late 1930s, opens up an illusory world -a world of security, certainty, freedom and creative power. It does so by barring anything that might disturb this picture from entering the world in the first place. Consequently, the world which is opened up by worldview is, from the outset, based on exclusion. This exclusion is not primarily aimed against anything; its main goal is simply to allow the illusion of worldview to take hold. Because of this specific purpose, the exclusion can never be acknowledged, for if it were, the illusion would become apparent and crumble -and along with it everything that it has brought forth.
Therefore, it is vital for the continued existence of worldview that this fundamental exclusion remains hidden, and accordingly, a great deal of effort is devoted to this task. Within Heidegger's model, this effort reaches as deep as the very essence of worldview, which is formed around this exact issue -with thrilling and intoxicating lived experience preventing a potentially disillusioning experience of the flat and restricted world of machination. Moreover, as became clear in the course of the analysis, this pattern is repeated throughout worldview. In the end, the exclusion required for upholding the surface-level appearance of worldview is so extensive that major aspects of worldview are dedicated to simply compensating for the resulting loss and smoothing over any inconsistencies. This applies to the highest goals and values of society, as well as significant parts of the lives, experiences and everyday conduct of those who adhere to the worldview.
Ultimately, this twofold process of excluding and compensating for the excluded renders worldview highly fragile, as it leaves a multitude of traces throughout the world, all of them potentially leading to that which is absent. There is an ever-present danger that all the practices, values and ideas that have evolved around the attempt to cover up the original exclusion might at some point be revealed as purely reactionary and therefore meaningless. This is especially problematic given that the measures designed to conceal the exclusion and its consequences are by no means perfect, as is evidenced by the pervasive sense of dread. If there already is a strong, albeit not explicitly realised sense of something being wrong, these measures may paradoxically become a liability to worldview. In the end, it is not just the exclusion itself that needs to remain hidden -but also the vast effort to hide the exclusion.
Furthermore, the pervasive dread of the disruption of worldview, which would also entail a disruption of one's view of self, turned out to be the driving force behind the desire to retain a tight control over all aspects of human life. Simultaneously, it is precisely the attempt to prevent these disruptions that makes worldview so fragile in the first place. In summary, the entire dynamic of exclusion forms a vicious circle: the dread of disruption fuels the effort to exclude and conceal anything that might threaten worldview; yet this effort ultimately only increases the fragility of worldview, thereby amplifying the underlying dread. Over time, critical thought regarding any aspect of worldview becomes impossible, and any openness towards otherness far too dangerous, as the increasingly unstable structure spirals into ever more extreme exclusion.
With regard to breaking through this destructive dynamic, an important question for future research is whether -and how -all those traces left by the effort to hide the exclusion can be utilised to conceptualise that which is excluded from worldview. This would also require further elaboration of the specific ways in which exclusion occurs within worldview, significantly expanding the brief outline concerning lived experience, values and moods which has been provided in this paper. Furthermore, it would be desirable to enrich the concept through a confrontation with other philosophical perspectives, in order to develop a more complex model that could eventually be disengaged from Heidegger's particular ideas and stand on its own.
Finally, these ideas remain theoretical in nature, being based on a philosophical concept of worldview. As stated in the beginning, this particular model is rather extreme: worldview not only allows one to make sense of the world and navigate within it but represents the very opening of the world; the excluded is absolutely incomprehensible to one on the inside; and most of what happens within it is nothing more than a reaction to that basic exclusion, making any encounter with the excluded a devastating threat. All of these features would undoubtedly be significantly less pronounced in any potential real-life scenario. Applying this hypothetical dynamic to real-life cases, carefully accounting for their nuance and diversity, would, however, go beyond the scope of this paper and remains a task for future research. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/.