EXCERPT In 1953 Martin Heidegger delivered his famous lecture ‘Die Frage nach der Technik’, in which he announced that the essence of modern technology is nothing technological, but rather enframing (Ge-stell)—a transformation of the relation between man and the world such that every being is reduced to the status of ‘standing-reserve’ or ‘stock’ (Bestand), something that can be measured, calculated, and exploited. Heidegger’s critique of modern technology opened up a new awareness of technological power, which had already been interrogated by fellow German writers such as Ernst Jünger and Oswald Spengler. Heidegger’s writings following ‘the turn’ (die Kehre) in his thought (usually dated around 1930), and this text in particular, portray the shift from technē as poiesis or bringing forth (Hervorbringen) to technology as Gestell, seen as a necessary consequence of Western metaphysics, and a destiny which demands a new form of thinking: the thinking of the question of the truth of Being. Heidegger’s critique found a receptive audience among Eastern thinkers—most notably in the teachings of the Kyoto School, as well as in the Daoist critique of technical rationality, which identifies Heidegger’s Gelassenheit with the classical Daoist concept of wu wei or ‘non-action’. This receptivity is understandable for several reasons.…