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Accomplishing Meaning in a Stratified World: An Existential-Phenomenological Reading ofMax Weber's 'Class, Status, Party'Author(s): Joaquin TrujilloSource: Human Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Dec., 2007), pp. 345-356Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27642807 .

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Hum Stud (2007) 30:345-356

DOI 10.1007/S10746-007-9068-3

RESEARCH PAPER

Accomplishing Meaning in a Stratified World: An Existential-Phenomenological Reading of Max

Weber's 4Class, Status, Party'

Joaqu?n Trujillo

Published online: 19 October 2007

? Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract This is an existential-phenomenological reading of Max Weber's

"Class, Status, Party" that seeks a fuller understanding of meaning accomplishment in a stratified World. I appropriate stratification as a single meaning structure

ontically defined by domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances and ontologi cally determined by the power-to-be (Seink?nnen), There-being-with-others

(Mitdasein), and potentiality (M?glichkeit). I then discuss the significance of these structures in finite transcendence (There-being, Dasein) and describe ways they

factually unfold in World achievement. I conclude with logotherapeutic reflections

concerning meaning accomplishment in a stratified World and a summary of key questions facing existential-phenomenology in light of the likelihood that There

being must embrace, indeed, live, the inherent equality of Being (Gleichheit des

Seins) among Daseins to accomplish its authenticity.

Keywords Dasein Domination Existential-phenomenology Inequality

Logotherapy Stratification There-being Weber

Introduction

We can attribute the success of Max Weber's "Class, Status, Party" (1946) partly to

his method. Weber avoids polarizing stratification into subject-object terms, front

loading his analysis with moral-analytical judgments, and encapsulating stratifica tion within the phenomenon's psychological or material workings. His approach is, in many ways, phenomenological. He may not use the language of phenom

enology, but he works to reveal stratification as it directly shows itself to be. His

goal in "Class, Status, Party," as in his other works, is not to tell us how things

J. Trujillo (El) US Department of State, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20520, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

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346 J. Trujillo

"should" be, elucidate only "this or that fact," or psychologize or measure away the

phenomenon's human significance. Instead, Weber works to describe stratifica

tion?in all its interrelations, meanings, and causes?as part of "the encompassing

reality in which we are placed" (Bendix 1962, pp. 47-47; L?with 1982, pp. 28, 69; Weber 1958, p. 183). He tries to show it to us as it actually is.

The clarity, incisiveness, and sensibility of Weber's interpretive claims combined

with his attempt to describe stratification as such encourages an existential

phenomenology reading of "Class, Status, Party" toward yielding a fuller

understanding of the phenomenon. Looking to that possibility we see that one of

the essay's central analytical challenges intersects, albeit, implicitly, one of

existential-phenomenology's defining problematics?the dynamic relation between

the commonly opposing but never separate dimensions of existence, the ontic and

the ontological. As the ontic encounter we embrace (comprehend, interpret, live) the

concrete, thing-like qualities of beings in isolation of their Being. As the ontological encounter we embrace beings as such, viz., meanings immersed within a structure of

total meaningfulness (World) we call finite transcendence or There-being (Dasein). This divide originates in the necessary way There-being must embrace things to be.

The ontic and ontological are coextensive (and not distinct) sides of existence. They are intimate moments of the "totality of what can be brought to light" and "behind"

which "nothing stands" (Heidegger 1962, pp. 25, 31). Weber, like existential

phenomenology, answers the ontic-ontological problematic by attending to the

things themselves. "Class, Status, Party" may focus on the existentiell side of

stratification, but it always does so in the context of who we are. The way Weber

identifies and discusses the things of stratification always conveys a sense of the

human reality in which they are immersed.

Weber renders stratification as "phenomena" determined by the "distribution" of

economy, social honor, and power "within a community" (Weber 1946, p. 181).

Our success usurping these things corresponds, respectively, to our class, status, and

party. This in turn determines our "life chances" (Weber 1946, p. 181). Classes are

stratified according to the influence individuals have over the "production and

acquisition of goods," status groups according to their "consumption of goods"

representing distinct "'styles of life'" (Weber 1946, pp. 187, 191, 193), and parties

according to their ability to influence "communal action" (Weber 1946, pp. 180,

194-195). In all, our future depends on our success dominating things intersub

jectively defined, valued, and distributed. Domination, intersubjectivity, and life

chances are stratification's defining existentiells. They are the phenomenon's most

common, thing-like characteristics.

The temptation to stop here, further elucidate stratification's existentiells, and

reduce them to an ontic causa sui is automatic to thinking. Existentiell interpreta

tions are practical. They lend immediate clarity, specificity, and concreteness to

understanding. Relying on them only, however, we tend to limit our power to

comprehend phenomena as they truly are. Studies that exaggerate the ontic side

of the World ultimately de-humanize existence by rendering it in incomplete and

sub-human terms (Frankl 1988, p. 18). Weber likely never intended this, and

appears to have intentionally avoided it. "Class, Status, Party" may imply, more

than state, stratification's ontological significance, but it neither detracts nor directs

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Accomplishing Meaning in a Stratified World 347

us away from its existential context. It relays stratification's ontological meaning

through its method, the accuracy of its ontic claims, and the balance and sensibility of its descriptive analysis.

Existential-phenomenology gives us a way to explore more explicitly stratifica

tion's average side. It reveals domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances

as ontic types underwritten by three corresponding ontological structures: the

power-to-be (Seinkonnen), There-being-with-others (Mitdasein), and potentiality

(M?glichkeit). Seinkonnen, Mitdasein, and M?glichkeit are the possibility of

domination, intersubjectivity, and life chances. They clear they way for stratifica

tion's existentiells to be. The goals here are to disclose further that clearing

(Lichtung), distill the interplay of stratification's ontic and ontological components, and describe meaning accomplishment in a stratified World.

Domination and the Power-to-be

Class, status, and party signify and structure the World. They subsume a major part

of the beings Dasein most needs to accomplish itself. Our class, status, and party

correspond to our command over economy, social honor, and power. Dasein must

dominate these things to be. Controlling them determines what we do, where we

live, whom we meet, and how we get along in life. Our success usurping the beings

of economy, social honor, and power determines our situation (and future), even

when "it is not obvious at first sight" (Weber 1978, p. 941). These things fill and

order everyday life. They are the beings that we most are and seek to be.

Domination shows itself as a concrete manifestation of Seinkonnen?the power

to-be, or There-being's spontaneous drive or compulsion "to salvage itself, to

(continue to) be." There-being's "indigence toward an unattainable completeness"

propels that power (Richardson 1967, pp. 38, 40). There-being always strives to

fulfill itself. It incessantly projects who it is (indigence), and comes to pass as its

project (unattainable completeness.) Seinkonnen bridges the absence of meaning to

the impossibility of There-being's completeness. It impels Concern (Sorge), or the

already-There given (facticity, Faktizitdt) task of to-be (existentiality, Existen

zialitdt) (Kovacs 1990, pp. 48, 93). Concern is what to-be most means; it is the

Being of Dasein. There-being is the task to complete itself. The force it applies to

that assignment is the power-to-be. The fact that There-being's completeness is

unattainable perpetuates its task as already-There.

Concern embraces Seinkonnen within the moments of disposition

(Befindlichkeit), comprehension (Verstehen), and logos (Rede). There-being does not constitute beings. It brings them out of concealment. That bringing forth

(happening) is what beings are. It is their truth. Dasein comprehends the Being of

beings because it is the way things manifest themselves. "It is the light in which existents become intelligible" (Levinas 1969, p. 42). There-being's radical finitude

compels Dasein to take a position in/toward/as that light. The way things are makes a difference to Dasein because Dasein cannot be all things at all times. It must

selectively engage the World to actualize its defining possibilities in the context of

its defining impossibilities. There-being is meaningfully incomplete; comprehension

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348 J. Trujillo

is inherently limited; There-being dies, and finally; Dasein can only be what beings are. Existentiality reacts to the truth (Being) of beings, not truth to existentiality.

There-being may cover, ignore, work around, distort, disclose, and live the truth, but

it cannot change the way things are just as they are in themselves. There-being is to

be-in-comportment-with-beings it depends on but can never fully control. It is

essentially referred (angewiesen) to things, hence "referentially dependent upon them," and can "never become either by culture or by technicity completely their

master" (Richardson 1967, p. 37).

There-being's fallenness (Verfallenheit), the "not-to-be" of its "inauthentic

self," heightens its dependence on things. Fallenness is a positive expression of

There-being's Being. It is the daily, requisite preoccupation with the ontic World.

"There-being is lost in the World and fallen because of its factual (concrete) being in the World" (Kovacs 1990, p. 87). There-being, the being defined by its concern

about Being, typically forgoes its prerogative to an inordinate attention to things.

There-being's dependence on beings irresistibly draws it into a mode of to-be where

it forgets its transcendence.

Concern spatially and temporally de-distances itself from a being when it

dominates it. The more complete There-being's command of a being, the greater the

de-distancing. There-being comes to pass more nearly as a thing's meaning (Being)

when it controls it. The being's significance falls within There-being's spatial

temporal reach when Dasein dominates its presence. It enfolds the thing's

significance into its "self." The meaning of the being comes to pass as a project that

responds to There-being's call. It answers to existentiality. There-being can task the

thing at the time and place of its choosing. Class is the range of commercial opportunities available to a person at a given

moment. It is an individual's financial future. Our location in economy determines our class. "Property" (the "possession of goods and opportunities for income") or

"lack of property" sets that location (Weber 1946, p. 181). When we own things we control their future. When we control the future of things we depend on we

determine our fate. The "equivalence" of money to property is grounded in the

control it gives over things (Weber 1946, p. 182). Indeed, money not only grants that power; in a more average sense it is that power. The spontaneous use of money

and its association with so many aspects of daily life has made its significance more

ontological than ontic. The quality of my health, home, family, entertainment,

relationships, and retirement depend on how much money I have and how I spend it.

Money has come to mean the freedom-to-be. It is Dasein*s Being-free to choose and

seize itself (Heidegger 1962, p. 232; Richardson 1967, p. 187). Money is power in

that with it I can get the things I need to do, done. Money allows me accomplish

myself; it lets me be the future I project here, now.

Domination plays a less explicit, but equally important role in the constitution of

status (Weber 1946, p. 186). Status is fixed principally in symbols and indicators,

beings intersubjectively recognized, generally only partially understood, and not

always officially defined. We wear (command) the symbols and indicators of social

honor; post titles and degrees; celebrate positions, and; embrace and bare things,

places, and events that legitimize our location in the World. We seek and value the

beings of social honor because they highlight, compliment, and convey who we are

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or want to be through the "distance and exclusiveness" they confer (Weber 1946,

p. 191). When There-being commands the existentiells that signify status it frees

itself to be their honor. It de-distances itself from social honor and comes to pass as

its meaning when it dominates its symbols and indicators. My ability to gain social

honor depends on my success commanding the things people hold in high regard. Parties require a leader, goal, and community of followers. They are social

"structures struggling for domination" (Weber 1946, p. 195). They act to acquire social power toward achieving a communal goal. That aim, as Weber puts it, may be

a cause, such as a "program for ideal or material purposes," or personal goal,

including "sinecures, power, and from these honor for the leader and the followers

of the party" (1946, p. 194). Leaders aim to recruit, persuade, influence, command

or force followers toward achieving their party's goals (Weber 1946, p. 194). But followers exist in their own right. Their possibilities, like a leader's, impel

them to be. Followers only give themselves to a cause to the extent that it advocates

their existence. Not only do leaders have to accomplish their party's goals to be,

they have to be in such a way that followers can accomplish themselves. The

structure of power in parties leans toward reciprocity of World-building (weltbil

dend) between leaders and followers. To the extent that leaders embrace their

party's objectives, pursue power for personal gain, or wrap their lives around

leading, their existentiality is contingent on the Concern of followers. This inclines

parties toward dispersion and instability. Rarely do people voluntarily stay long on

the same existentiell-existential page if they do not stand to gain something specific, concrete, and immediate. Absorbed with engaging the close, day-in-day-out

exigencies that define everyday life, followers are often apathetic about fulfilling

responsibilities to someone to accomplish a communal goal that usually only benefits them indirectly. They also jockey to usurp party leadership, resist authority, and neglect a party's rules to benefit. In general, people tend only to work to achieve

what they want, care little about what others want, or forget their obligations once

they get what they want?unless something motivates them otherwise. Faced with

the incessant challenge of managing the often precarious, dispassionate, conflicting, or competing existentialities of party members, leaders often have to leverage a

"legal order" to guarantee their power over a community. If possible they "will use

physical or psychical compulsion with the intention of obtaining conformity with"

the party's "order, or of inflicting sanctions for infringement of it." The legal order,

although not the ultimate source of a leader's power, typically "enhances the

chance" that a leader can "hold power." (Weber 1946, pp. 180-181).

Intersubjectivity and There-being-with-others

Class, status, and party are patterns of intersubjective significance. They are systems

of public meaning. Phenomenology calls these (and all) public meanings "institutionalizations" and "legitimations." Institutionalizations are the ontic-what

of stratification. They are the learned, taken-for-granted, often thing-like phenom

ena that are the beings of class, status, and party. Legitimations are the ontic-why of

that "what." They are institutionalizations that explain and justify class, status, and

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350 J. Trujillo

party (Berger and Luckmann 1966, pp. 55-56, 61-62). These switch roles, of

course, depending on their context. For example, money is both an institutional

ization and legitimation. At the same time controlling money may help determine a

person's location in an economy, status group, and party; the goal of controlling

money also justifies these phenomena. People often participate in an economy to

earn money, seek status because it facilitates their access to money, or pursue power

to secure money.

The terms "institutionalization" and "legitimation" denote phenomena whose

meaning we intersubjectively create, convey, and comprehend. They make no

distinction?noematic, noetic or otherwise?among the things they indicate, the

significance we attach to those things, or their World context. "Institutionalization"

and "legitimation" signify the Being of public beings, indivisibly. A luxury car, for

example, is neither only a known automobile (intentional object), the knowing of an

automobile (intending act), nor a unity of the first held against the second

(intentionality). It is all these things at once as they unfold in finite transcendence.

The car has a design, composition, purpose, cost, and level of performance; it is

powerful, sexy, sophisticated, fun, and exhilarating; it conveys affluence and

professional success; it invites me to buy and drive it; it makes sense in the context

of what I do, who I want to be, and my relations with others; its Being is who I am.

When I buy this car I appropriate its thingliness as part my transcendence. I enfold

it, as a phenomenon, into my "self." I know that people who see me driving it will

likely comprehend it the same way I do, and admire and respect me for owning it. In a general way, they will assign to me the honor they comprehend owning the car

warrants. This example applies to most of the publicly understood things we control

in the presence of others, such as money, watches, uniforms, diplomas, houses,

titles, and people. The more we participate in these institutionalizations and

legitimations as the way things have been, are, and will be, the more we take their

total meaning for granted and come to pass as the economy, status, and power they

convey.

Institutionalizations and legitimations can only happen because existence is-to

be-There-with-others. Mitdasein is the phenomenal space where class, status, and

party manifest. It is the opportunity of their being. Stratification's institutionaliza

tions and legitimations only make sense because the "other" is given with the

World equal to There-being in its facticity, existentiality, and fallenness. The

"other" is also "characterized by the 'to-be' (Sein), by the 'there' (da), and by

the 'with' (mit)." It "is another There-being that belongs to the World of my There

being (Kovacs 1990, p. 73). The "other" immanently is, has been, and will be There

with Dasein alike in its finite transcendence. It is because the "other" can enter into

(be) the truth of beings that it holds intersubjective significance to There-being. Stock markets evidence Mitdasein in class. The stock market is an "instrument."

Its wherefore is human existence. People design stock markets for people to create,

manage, and control property. I plan, invest, and speculate in the context of the

preconceptual understanding that there is a World with "others" like my "self,"

existentially vested in its existentiell outcome. Investors might question if others

will invest, but they do not question that they will seek to be. They assume that to

the best of their knowledge, ability, and intent they will calculate their investments

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to maximize their gains and minimize their losses. The idea that you will miss a

financial opportunity, the price of your stock will rise or fall, and you are competing

against a community of investors rests on the originary assumptions that "others"

are There in the same way as "you" are.

The same holds true for status. There-being cannot derive social honor from cats,

dogs, trees, or rocks. It can only derive it from "others" like itself, beings innately

driven to manifest the truth of beings. Honor, as "dignity" or the "right way" of

Being, is that truth. It is the way human beings "should be." Viewed phenome

nologically, there is no higher standard for the "should" of honor than truth?the

way things show themselves in their unconcealment. Human beings cannot be more

"dignified" and "right" than the truth. They enter into the truth when they re-collect

and re-solve themselves to being who they authentically are, sc, the truth (Being) of

beings. There-being preconceptually knows itself and the "other" as the possibility of truth. It understands that each and every There-being is the same potential for

truth. Because There-being is the Being of beings it can manifest the way things are

(logos, Rede)', because There-being can manifest the way things are it can project

how they "should be" (comprehension, Verstehen); because the "other" is

existentially given with the World There-being projects a "should be" (disposition,

Befindlichkeit). Honor is the mode of Being that comes to pass when There-being re-collects and re-solves itself to the truth in the context of the World where

"others" are already-There.

Social honor is honor in a reified mode. When There-being is social honor it

objectifies the transcendence of the "self" and "other" over against a "quality"

assigned to an unnamed "plurality" (Weber 1946, p. 187). It instrumentalizes itself

to a socially defined "external" measure whose authorship it spontaneously

attributes to the anonymous "they" (das Man), the "always already surrendered" to

"who" of everyday existence that is nobody and everybody (Heidegger 1962,

pp. 165-166; Kovacs 1990, p. 75). This does not necessarily preclude status as a

pathway to authenticity. There are types of social honor defined by a commitment to

existentiells (e.g., honesty, perseverance, bravery, sacrifice, love) that can free

There-being's ontological dynamism. These meanings press transcendence to

liberate itself from the existentiells (e.g., prejudice, neglect, double-mindedness) that commonly suppress authenticity. There-being can live social honor toward its

own, genuine possibilities.

Social honor can, and often does, challenge authenticity, however, when There

being measures its situation against the body, including the bodies of the parents who bore it. The body is unlike other indicators of status. There-being cannot decide

the body's basic appearance. It is thrown into it. There-being can care for its body;

but it cannot constitute it. It can decide its relationship with its parents; but it cannot

choose them. There-being permanently references the body "as a focal point of

living meanings" that define its "self (Merleau-Ponty 1967, p. 151). The body is

given to There-being as a "living connection" with nature (Merleau-Ponty 1967,

p. 205). There-being is its body. The Dasein that attaches social honor to the body gauges permanent aspects of existence vis-?-vis an arbitrary, human standard, and

encounters itself and the "other" as things. This by itself is not uncommon. We

pretty much all do this, to different degrees, most of the time without serious

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352 J. Trujillo

social consequence and as part of normal contradiction of the "other" standing before There-being as an "in-itself" and "for himself (Merleau-Ponty 1967,

p. 349). When There-being reifies transcendence against the body and lives that meaning

in its day-in-day-out engagement with "others" who also live it, however, Dasein

typically drives the World to "extreme consequences" (Berger and Yllberg 1965,

p. 200; Weber 1946, p. 189). Caste societies exemplify these moments. There

Dasein objectifies and measures existence according to the social honor it attaches to the permanent indicators of race, ethnicity, or gender; alienates itself from the

standards it creates and imposes; and radically grows its tendency to embrace almost

everyone as things that it assesses largely against their thingliness. Castes engender a disposition that thoroughly discounts the "for-himself." The propensity of the

everyday Dasein to appropriate itself and "others" as objects among objects radically increases when There-being lives the institutionalizations and legitima tions of class. Castes transform "the horizontal and unconnected coexistence of

ethnically segregated groups" into a rigid "vertical social system of super- and sub

ordination" (Weber 1946, p. 189). They produce a World inordinately defined by the impossibility of There-being's possibility.

Parties substantially express There-being's interpersonal constitution. This

applies to the full range of group interaction, from "social club" to "state,"

"enduring" or "ephemeral" structures, and the use of "naked violence of any sort to

canvassing for votes with coarse or subtle means: money, social influence, the force

of speech, suggestion, clumsy hoax, and so on to the rougher or artful tactics of

obstruction in parliamentary bodies." Parties aim at the existentiell other (e.g.,

friends, family, neighbors, business associates, fellow citizens). They always act

"toward influencing a communal action no matter what its content may be," and

conceptually "presuppose a comprehensive societalization" (Weber 1946, pp. 194

195). The basis of that presupposition is the existential "other." People always direct communal action from the preconceptual (ontological) understanding that the

"other" is There, equal in Being to There-being, existentially driven to share in the

truth of Being. Seeking the reasons behind communal action yields several quick answers, such

as the desire to enhance security, life, and the common good. These goals are

ontically valid and structure transcendence in important ways. But why build life?

More seems to be at stake than a party's goals. Existential analysis shows communal

action to be one of the more important ways There-being dispels ambiguity, lessens

anxiety (Angst), and builds World. Communal action helps There-being accomplish an existence that better advocates who it is while pushing away the non-sense that

delimits its transcendence. It facilitates the projection of Dasein's comprehension of

Being into/unto/as the World such that it brings the There of its to-be closer to its

"self." Parties open the way for There-being to be "at home" in the World (Levinas 1969, p. 37). They charge the World with a greater sense of progress, permanence,

and understanding than is generally available to the There-being independently searching for originary meaning. World becomes more secure, permanent, and

congenial when There-being shares Concern. It comes to pass more readily as a

place where Dasein "can" (Levinas 1969, p. 37).

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Life-chances and Potentiality

Weber describes class as the "typical chance for a supply of goods, external living conditions, and personal life experiences" contingent on the power to command

"income." "It is the most elemental economic fact," he explains, "that the way in

which the distribution among a plurality of people meeting competitively in the

market for the purpose of exchange, in itself creates specific life chances" (1946,

p. 181). Though they aim at different objects, status and party share in the same

dynamic. Status is "every typical component of the life fate of men that is

determined by a specific, positive or negative, social estimation of honor" (Weber 1946, pp. 186-187). Parties reflect "the chance of a man or a number of men to

realize their own will in a communal action over against the resistance of others

who are participating in the action" (Weber 1946, p. 180). All three phenomena contribute to opportunity. Life-chances (fate) are contingent on There-being's

ability to control the objects of economy, social honor, and power. We enhance Weber's interpretation of life-chances when we appropriate it within

the existential-phenomenological notion of potentiality (M?glichkeit). To-be is

always being-toward. Dasein is its life-chances, its future, its own possibilities.

There-being is the self-projecting project that comes to pass now as its potential-to be, or potentiality. There-being does not have potentiality; rather, it is its

potentiality (Richardson 1967, p. 39). Transcendence is a dynamic, unfolding horizon of projected ontic-ontological possibilities. That horizon constitutes There

being's "self." Existentiality targets these possibilities by unremittingly projecting itself toward their actualization. Who There-being is, wants, can, and should be

constitute the forward-end terms of its transcendence. When Dasein actualizes its

potentiality it frees itself to be its "self."

The existential analytic shows a direct correlation between There-being's location in an economy, status group, and party and its ability to free its potentiality.

Economy, social honor, and power are Dasein's central means of self-actualization.

There-being commonly exercises its existentiality through these beings. It strives to

control these things to be its "self." Class, status, and party engender a range of

thoughts, feelings, and dispositions (lifestyles) typical to their ontic determinants

and commonly associated with distinct lifestyles. Wealth, honor, and power tend to

deliver a person to security, happiness, freedom, recognition, companionship,

health, entertainment, influence, and life. Poverty, dishonor, and impotence often

lead to insecurity, despair, fear, contempt, isolation, disease, frustration, servitude,

and death. Dasein's ability to free its potentiality through economy, social honor, and power commonly determines whether it will come to pass as one or another of

these contrasting situations.

Conclusion

Stratification's authority over existence emerges from the dynamic interplay

between its ontic and ontological components. There-being encounters class, status,

and party as things that are already-There. There-being is thrown into a World

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354 J. Trujillo

whose meaning is ordered by the unequal distribution of economy, social honor, and

power. These things structure total meaningfulness. There-being commonly lives

them to achieve its "self." The opportunity of these things being, however, is

ontological. Class, status, and party unfold within the existential space of

Seink?nnen, Mitdasein, and M?glichkeit. The power-to-be, There-being-with

others, and potentiality are the clearings where class, status, and party manifest.

At the same time There-being relies on economy, social honor, and communal

action to be, domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances emerge from the truth of

Dasein.

Although economy, social honor, and power make the World ontically richer,

their availability is finite and distribution unequal. There is only so much of these

things to go around. Adding to these limitations is the fact that their value tends to

increase as their availability decreases. Typically, the less there is of economy,

social honor, and power the more they are valued, and those who command them are

generally not predisposed to renounce their claims for the sake of equality. This

doubles Dasein's immanent challenge. Not only is There-being defined by an

absence of meaning, it is also thrown into a World where it is must overcome

indigence in things. If There-being is to achieve itself in a stratified World, some

command over economy, social honor, and power is indispensable (Frankl 1988,

p. 35).

Dasein leans toward frustration and despair when it both fails to command

economy, social honor, and power and reifies itself to class, status, and party. Self

reification in the face of chronic absence engenders a "place" (St?tte) where There

being finds it exceedingly tough to get ahead. This does not preclude the possibility of worthwhile meaningfulness, however. There-being is always free to decide who

it is. It can choose its attitude toward its itself despite its ontic challenges (Frankl 1988, p. 17). The chance of wresting meaning from a World defined by its

existentiell limitations is always available to Dasein. There-being can make

existence meaningful not only through what it achieves but also through the "stand"

it takes toward a fate it "no longer can change" (Frankl 1967b, p. 5). Dasein can

derive originary meaning from its legitimate and illegitimate struggle against the

ontic challenges inherent to a stratified World. Sometimes winning is all in the way we fight.

The quality of There-being's comprehension of Being is paramount to its

authenticity. There-being overcomes its "finiteness" to the extent that it appropri

ates it (Frankl 1967a, p. 34, 1967c, p. 86). Prevailing against the despondency that

commonly results from the failure to overcome the prohibitions of class, status, and

party often requires that There-being understand, identify, and choose its fate in

light of the World's ontic limitations. There-being frees itself from the double-binds

that class, status, and party impose on it when it lives a commitment to its primacy.

It re-collects and re-solves itself to itself and sets transcendence in a more secure

"place." There-being's authenticity, and not the measure of class, status, and party,

comes to pass as the principal "meaning of life" when Dasein commits itself to

living who it genuinely is. But what of the There-being born to poverty, indignity, and powerlessness and

without the dispositional, emotional, or intellectual capacity to improve its

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situation? This question is intrinsic to the existential-phenomenological analysis of

stratification. There-beings may be equal in Being (Gleichheit des Seins) but they are not equally endowed in concrete circumstance or the ability to comprehend and

manage transcendence. There-being is also a product of its biological, psycholog

ical, and social-cultural circumstances. It lives an inescapable ontic-ontological

determinism. A stratified World augments these limitations. The Dasein intractably defined by its existentiell-existential limitations is not only ontically denied a more

favorable distribution of meaning, it is also ontologically preprohibited from

improving its situation.

Viewed in the context of achieving a fuller understanding and expression of

human Being, the notion of helping the economically, socially, and politically destitute overcome their situation challenges existential-phenomenology with

several key questions. Given the equality of Being that exists among There-beings,

is equal participation in total meaningfulness an existential? Must There-being help the "other" free its power-to-be in order to achieve its own authenticity? The

understanding of transcendence as There-being-with-others indicates that there may

be a preconceptual impulse to factually realize the equality immanent to There

beings and, furthermore, Dasein must live that equality to accomplish itself more

genuinely. If this is true, how can There-being help the "other" equally participate in a stratified World without compromising its own existentiality? More specifically,

how can There-being ontically achieve authentic solicitude (F?rsorge), the way of

Being that forges ahead of the "other" in "his existentiell dynamism to be and to

become" (Kovacs 1990, pp. 48, 93), in a World propelled by existentiality, oriented

by mineness, and structured by its constraints?

These questions are clearly more common than their phrasing might indicate.

They define much of our thinking about society, economy, politics, religion and,

most importantly, each other. This gives them an average relevance. It also points to

their deeper meaning. The fact that questions of equality are so universal and

tenacious suggests that they may mark the course of our comprehension of

Being and even point to our destiny (Geschick). The fact that we have not yet arrived at any definite solutions could also mean that we are not ready to embrace

their truth in light of the ontic limitations that unremittingly challenge our power to

be. Instead, final answers to question of equality appear to lie beyond our

immediate, historical reach, just There, awaiting resolution within the unfolding

concern for Being.

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