In a message dated 18/10/2004 10:51:52 GMT Standard Time,
michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Dear Michael.
Just to make it easier on my typing-fingers - If you don't mind I will
consign this letter to Fred and Suleyman too - for the same subject [substitution
of Being* for *God*] is dealt with in their messages too.
Michael:
Jud claims victory:
Jud [previously] I KNEW I was on the right track!
Michael:
[but you have never openly questioned it, so you didn't need any validation
from Helga Zepp-LaRouche]
Jud:
*Openly questioned WHAT Michael? [caps for emphasis only]
That I was on the right track? I COURSE I knew I had got Heidegger sussed
as a closet religo-freak.
As soon as I had finished the opening chapter of the Grundbegriffe I could
see that.
What I am referring to is Zepp-Larouche's insight that if you execute a
*find and replace* operation of Being and Time, and replace the word *Being*
with *God* the thing reads almost exactly the same. This is what
anti-religious assholes like *waz-iz-name* have never grasped — and that is why he was
so laughable in his hate-ridden diatribes against Anthony. The laugh is that
he is more religious than Anthony!
_http://www.schillerinstitute.com/fid_91-96/951_hzl_heidegger.html_
(http://www.schillerinstitute.com/fid_91-96/951_hzl_heidegger.html)
What is most outrageous about this [what? mP], is that Lehmann treats
Heidegger in the most objective and positive manner, as if nothing were wrong. He
says, finally, "The destruction of traditional theology through Heidegger was
shocking, obviously; but his conviction that ontology could not be based in
the traditional theological form, he had already said very clearly in Being
and Time." So, he does not find this very objectionable, that theology does not
have to explain ontology; and, he says, all the questioning of Heidegger is
in vain, if one substitutes for the word Being, the word God.
Michael:
Well, this is worth putting in a certain con-text (not fully, I need to read
the whole thing -- soon) somewhat left out in the rain by Jud: the whole
paragraph above is not written by Jud, but one Helga Zepp-LaRouche in an article
for the Schiller Institute website, reprinted from the Spring 1995 issue of
FIDELIO Magazine, entitled 'Today's Conservative Revolution and the Ideology
of the Nazis': The Case of Martin Heidegger'.
Jud:
That is PRECISELY why I provided the URL. I have also published her article
on the Anti-Heidegger section and the Athenaeum Library of my site about a
year ago, but it was only when I revisited it that I was reminded of the
*God-Being* tie-up and switch whizz. I see it all now. When Heidegger confessed
to being a *theologion* — [rather than a philosopher IMO] HE MEANT IT! But
what an INCONSISTENT theologian he was!
First, in the *Introduction to Metaphysics,* which first hit the Nazi
presses in 1944 as the Allied tanks rolled ashore in Normandy, he stated that
*Being* might well be WITHOUT entities [wrap your acrobatic shins around that one]
and that would mean without *Dasein* as one such entity.
Later however our doughty theologian rewrites creation and changed it to the
doctrine that *Being* NEVER IS WITHOUT entities.
Another example of his utter ontological confusion is his view of *language.
In B and T he is at pains to inform the PITS [people in the street] that
*language is no more that *utteredness* of discourse or speech, later however
he rushes to say that *language* is that out of which such an individual
speaks and upon which he depends in multiple ways that need describing and the
mention of *discourse* drops out of view and is replaced again by the word
*language.*
Now comes the REAL crackpottery — for a *word* becomes that *first brings a
thing into its is* — as if Auntie Annie's fur coat in the wardrobe doesn't
exist until Heidegger mouths the magic abracadabra words *fur-coat.* In the
bowels of Martin Luther - can we call this tripe PHILOSOPHY???
Michael:
She begins her article with:
"Martin Heidegger is generally known among professional philosophers in
academic circles. Many believe that he is the greatest thinker of this century.
Many French philosophers are convinced of it, and many even think that he is
the greatest thinker of all time. (After having tried to read him, I can tell
you that that is a little bit difficult to imagine, because what he has
produced is an incredible amount of gobbledygook.) His work is a symptom of our
present-day confusion"
So, the revelation concerning Lehmann, presumably a Catholic theologian, and
his thinking concerning Heidegger, is revealed by one (IMO) who is too lazy
and ignorant wrt Heidegger to even find anything other than "an incredible
amount of gobbledygook" in his writing.
Jud:
The gobbledygook is ultimately understandable — but it remains childish
jargon in the sense that though it is very *babyish,* it is deliberately dense,
like a precociously aware, but language-deficient child, charging about the
nursery mouthing repetitious, meandering, inanities and chalk-boarding the most
badly written text I have ever encountered in all my life as a reader [and
I've had nine children of my own.]
Michael:
This absence of any genuine critical stance (one that would bother to read
and re-read the works of philosophy as something necessarily difficult and
possibly confusing, especially for those with singularly diminished imagination
and hermeneutical skill or even desire; one that has always already set out
to add her two-pennies'-worth to the Heidegger-bashing industry). Given her
uttermost present-day confusion
(blinded by the {IMO} jealous hatred of Heidegger's thinking, presumably:
it's too difficult for me to understand, thus it must be rubbish out to insult
me, thus I must bash it in order to retain my pride in my self and have
something to say at all costs), it is perhaps reasonable that I find her
characterisation of Heidegger through Lehmann in the quote above difficult to
understand. In particular, the last sentence:
Jud:
You have missed the whole point Michael, [although I do have some sympathy
with your criticism of Zepp-LaRouche]
I am not particularly interested in what she has to say about Heidegger
other that her noticing the prudent observation of the theologically -minded
Lehmann which amounts to the *revelation* that *Being* is just a codeword
for God.
Michael:
"and, he [Lehmann] says, all the questioning of Heidegger is in vain, if one
substitutes for the word Being, the word God."
What is this supposed to be saying? [a genuine question]
Jud:
As I say above — *Being* is just a codeword for God. Which is so OBVIOUS
that even someone with double-bottle-tops for lenses should be able to see it.
Michael:
I find it extremely difficult, in my 'present-day confusion', to render
significance to the statements of a Heidegger 'critic' who begins the way she
does with the statement that all Heidegger wrote was gobbledegook -- one
presumes she must have gobbled up most of it in order to be able to make such a
knowledgable claim, but I would hazard a guess that she did not, apart from some
kind of predatorial key-word speed-reading {i. e., not reading at all} of the
already foretold juicy-bits.
Jud:
Like all who dip their pens in the cloaca of the Heidegger Industry - she
has to earn a crust I suppose. ;-)
Michael:
If Heidegger indeed writes nothing but masses of nonsense, then why bother
with his thinking as if it were significant? this surely makes dunces of such
'critics' (to be so bothering with self-claimed nonsense).
Jud:
People worry about its effects on society. One may think government [any
government] policy is *masses of damaging nonsense* - but that does not say that
the damaging nonsense should be ignored. This is how Anti-Heideggerians
feel about the Heideggerian zombification of western philosophy.
Michael:
As for the business of substitutions for be-ing: why consider any such
substitutions? Be-ing, if it is anything, is not a thing, is not any thing,
Jud:
Neither is *God* — but think of all the TROUBLE the notion causes - First
the synagogues are vandalised and set on fire then five churches attacked
yesterday — what happens tomorrow — the skinheads will be attacking British
mosques next and then the balloon will go up? Evil just CANNOT be ignored. We
CANNOT just look the other way or sit on the fence — an occupation which you
have [in good faith I am sure — but naively] elevated to some kind of moral
highground.
Michael:
[referring to *Being*] ..and thus metaphorisation is denied it; be-ing is
the uniquely unique and thus its 'word', "be-ing" can not be the name of any
thing, it being the very possibility for naming and metaphorisation. Of course,
one can play the game of cheery substitutions such as "god", "cause",
"consciousness", "spirit", etc, etc: but that is just unserious wholly metaphysical
play. Whatever game Helga Zepp-LaRouche is playing, it is hard to take
seriously her (obviously pre-determined) conclusions and amassed arguments
(although I could try if anyone wants...) when all she has 'read' of Heidegger, is
masses of "gobbledegook" amounting to "a symptom of our present-day confusion"
[perhaps read "*her* present-day confusion"].
Jud:
Your constant plain that the gerundial freak *Being* is *untouchable* in an
Eliot Ness sort of way] is just a cop-out. You continually refer to
something which you openly admit has the same status as a metaphor — but the whole
POINT of my posting is to inform those whose bottle-tops are just TOO thick to
see through that *Being* is a METAPHOR FOR *GOD.*
Which is EXACTLY what I suggested years ago!
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
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