Hi,
I have heard and read a lot about Heidegger and Hannah Arendt,
Heideggers nazi-connections and his anti-semitism and so on. I
confess freely, I am a bit bored about these matters. I remember
Bourdieu's attempts to prove Heideggers nazism by an elaborated essay
on how MH writes about certain themes. Richard Alewyn, a professor of
german literature right here in Bonn, from where I am writing,
followed the same path (or to bo precise, he did it earlier than
Bourdieu) when he analyzed MH's essays on Hoelderlin and Johann Peter
Hebel. Farias notorious book and the discussion in france, that led
to certain fractures among french philosophers, Derrida musing about
Heidegger and the question etc. etc. I can't help feeling, that this
has not much to do with philosophy. What has been proved is, to
quote Habermas: "Heidegger was a Nazi".
He used a jargon, that was common in those days. Compare Blochs
"Spirit of Utopia" with Heideggers writings on cultural matters and
you will find certain phrases and an overall tone, that is not so much
different. (For those who read Blochs book, remember the jug on the
first pages and think about the old shoes Heidegger describes.)
The more important question, wether there are elements in Heideggers
philosophical writings, that do not merely allow engagement for
nazism, but force the follower into it, is not yet fully answered. I
have tried to answer it for myself and I came to several points I
consider important:
1. Heidegger was not an anti-semite in the stricter sense of the
word, he just felt what most germans felt: he did not care about the
jewishness of a person until he got knowledge of it, and even then he
was able to just disregard it. When he used it as an argument against
a professor in freiburg whom he wanted to be removed from his seat,
this proves, that he was just an ordinary german of 1933. This is
not good for him, it is bad for the germans of those years
2. Heideggers philosophy has no practical implications on the first
sight, but as german biographer Ruediger Safranski points out, there
is a strong anti-democratic line in Heidegger that is closely linked
to the ethics that he offers. It is very difficult to
keep these two elements apart. His anti-democratic ideas make him a
part of the mainstream in german thought of 1920's. Marxists as Bloch
, Marcuse and others had to learn a lot about stalinism to appreciate
the value of what we call western democracy today.
3. In MH's case one has to read every text under two perspectives,
first strictly philosophical, trying to ignore the personal history,
second as a personal statement of a man who has a history as a nazi.
Only a synthesis of both readings can avoid either the merely apologetical
treatment that can be found in Poeggeler or the "j'accuse" of Farias.
In short: one has to keep distance to Heidegger. One of the best
recent publications on him ist last years book by Ruediger Safranski
"Ein Meister aus Deutschland" (A master from germany). It also has a
extendend account on Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, I hoped he had
given sort of final statement, but I am afraid I am wrong.
Martin
Martin Baeuerle
Sprachlernzentrum Universitaet Bonn
0228/735368
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
I have heard and read a lot about Heidegger and Hannah Arendt,
Heideggers nazi-connections and his anti-semitism and so on. I
confess freely, I am a bit bored about these matters. I remember
Bourdieu's attempts to prove Heideggers nazism by an elaborated essay
on how MH writes about certain themes. Richard Alewyn, a professor of
german literature right here in Bonn, from where I am writing,
followed the same path (or to bo precise, he did it earlier than
Bourdieu) when he analyzed MH's essays on Hoelderlin and Johann Peter
Hebel. Farias notorious book and the discussion in france, that led
to certain fractures among french philosophers, Derrida musing about
Heidegger and the question etc. etc. I can't help feeling, that this
has not much to do with philosophy. What has been proved is, to
quote Habermas: "Heidegger was a Nazi".
He used a jargon, that was common in those days. Compare Blochs
"Spirit of Utopia" with Heideggers writings on cultural matters and
you will find certain phrases and an overall tone, that is not so much
different. (For those who read Blochs book, remember the jug on the
first pages and think about the old shoes Heidegger describes.)
The more important question, wether there are elements in Heideggers
philosophical writings, that do not merely allow engagement for
nazism, but force the follower into it, is not yet fully answered. I
have tried to answer it for myself and I came to several points I
consider important:
1. Heidegger was not an anti-semite in the stricter sense of the
word, he just felt what most germans felt: he did not care about the
jewishness of a person until he got knowledge of it, and even then he
was able to just disregard it. When he used it as an argument against
a professor in freiburg whom he wanted to be removed from his seat,
this proves, that he was just an ordinary german of 1933. This is
not good for him, it is bad for the germans of those years
2. Heideggers philosophy has no practical implications on the first
sight, but as german biographer Ruediger Safranski points out, there
is a strong anti-democratic line in Heidegger that is closely linked
to the ethics that he offers. It is very difficult to
keep these two elements apart. His anti-democratic ideas make him a
part of the mainstream in german thought of 1920's. Marxists as Bloch
, Marcuse and others had to learn a lot about stalinism to appreciate
the value of what we call western democracy today.
3. In MH's case one has to read every text under two perspectives,
first strictly philosophical, trying to ignore the personal history,
second as a personal statement of a man who has a history as a nazi.
Only a synthesis of both readings can avoid either the merely apologetical
treatment that can be found in Poeggeler or the "j'accuse" of Farias.
In short: one has to keep distance to Heidegger. One of the best
recent publications on him ist last years book by Ruediger Safranski
"Ein Meister aus Deutschland" (A master from germany). It also has a
extendend account on Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, I hoped he had
given sort of final statement, but I am afraid I am wrong.
Martin
Martin Baeuerle
Sprachlernzentrum Universitaet Bonn
0228/735368
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---