Date: Wed, 27 Jan 99 20:25:59 -0500
Subject: Re:  Heidegger in Germany


In <01J71EG3CC0I9C04W6-AT-delphi.com>, on 01/27/99 
   at 03, GBORGERSON-AT-delphi.com said:

(please excuse cutting for sake of brevity...)

>	That we may not live up to our best behavior despite our thinking is not
>a problem for me,as a psychologist I see it everyday, quite often when I
>look in the mirror. However, most of us think about our political
>affliations before we make a committment. I can't believe that Heidegger
>didn't think deeply before he comitted himself and he had to have thought
>that there was some affinity between his thought and National Socialism.
>I also can't believe that he couldn't see the direction of some of this
>movement, clearly, he was politically astute enough to negociate through
>the politics of the university system. The question is what connection
>did Heidegger see between his thought and the though represented by
>National Socialism? I'm not convinced yet by Henk that this is basically
>a facist political philosophy, but I'm not convinced that it isn't free
>from it either. I not looking for a perfect philosophical system, I gave
>up that hope 28 years ago. I don't think that either you Paul, or 
>Micheal believe that Heidegger is without flaw. We don't have to call it
>"wrong" if you don't want to, Paul. But I do think that Henk's point
>still is strong and needs to be answered clearly. What was the connection
>between Heidegger's thought and the thought represented by National
>Socialism?

A quote and a few thoughts ...

     "Once one has grasped the finitude of one's existence, it snatches
one back from the endless multiplicity of possibilities which offer
themselves as closest to one - those of comfortableness, shirking, and
taking things lightly - and brings Dasein into the simplicity of its fate
[Schicksals].  This is how we designate Dasein's primordial historizing,
which lies in authentic resoluteness and in which Dasein hands itself down
to itself, free for death, in a possibility which it has inherited and yet
has chosen.
     "Dasein can be reached by the blows of fate only because in the
depths of its Being Dasein is fate in the sense we have described. 
Existing fatefully in the resoluteness which hands itself down, Dasein has
been disclosed as Being-in-the-world both for the 'fortunate'
circumstances which 'come its way' and for the cruelty of accidents.  Fate
does not arise from the clashing together of events and circumstances. 
Even one who is irresolute gets driven about by these - more so than one
who has chosen; and yet he can 'have' no fate.
     "If Dasein, by anticipation, lets Death become powerful in itself,
then, as free for death, Dasein understands itself in its own superior
power, the power of its finite freedom, so that in this freedom, which
'is' only in its having chosen to make such a choice, it can take over the
powerlessness of abandonment to its having done so, and can thus come to
have a clear vision for the accidents of the Situation that has been
disclosed.  But if fateful Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, exists
essentially in Being-with-Others, its historizing is a co-historizing and
is determinative for it as Destiny [Geschick].  This is how we designate
the historizing of the community, of a people.  Destiny is not something
that puts itself together out of individual fates, any more than
Being-with-one-another can be conceived as the occurring together of
several Subjects.  Our fates have already been guided in advance, in our
Being with one another in the same world and in our resoluteness for
definite possibilities.  Only in communicating and in struggling does the
power of destiny become free.  Dasein's fateful destiny in and with its
'generation' goes to make up the full authentic historizing of Dasein." 
(SuZ, 384-385)

     First I would correct your question to "What was the connection
between Heidegger's thought and the rhetoric propagated by early National
Socialism.  As it existed and developed there was very little 'thought' in
National Socialism altogether, it was mostly just thuggery.  

     The similarity not only between Heidegger's discourse and the
rhetoric of early National Socialism, but between this discourse and other
political rhetoric including that of Madison, Lenin (for any Marxists out
there remember that the Bolsheviks were also known as the National
Socialist Party in Russia), and others to me points to one reason not only
for Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism but for the early
popularity of the National Socialist call.  In their rhetoric they
captured something that speaks to a great many people, because it resounds
with what they know but haven't articulated in their own being.  If you're
looking for a 'danger', besides the one Michael E. pointed out (that
philosophy cannot be "short-circuited" into politics), there's also the
danger that what attracts followers to a political party or system may not
be the core of what that party/system is about, or that early ideas and
rhetoric may fall by the wayside because, where violence is necessary, the
thug is advantageous.

    The problem remains, that the 'melting pot' and 'global man' do not
address the love of one's people, the love of one's homeland, and one's
feeling that one's 'destiny' is inextricably entwined with that of one's
language and heritage, and the alienation one feels without the
realization of that interconnectedness.   Canada's ideal of
multiculturalism - equality between citizens who retain their own heritage
as "Irish-Canadians" and "Pakistani-Canadians" grew out of that
realization, and yet it often in practice leads to a sanitized "theme
park" of different cultures.  And even it is only possible so far under
the protective umbrella of a Pax Americana that is just another offshoot
of the Pax Romana (sent via the British Empire and the Catholic Empire
that preceded it). The rhetoric of the First Nations people in Canada
often smacks of Nazism, talking as they do of keeping the race pure - as
do the "pur-laine" ideals of the Quebecois.  But while, and only while,
they offer those ideals only as individual decisions to be made, and not
forcibly entrenched; and while and only while, they maintain and
strengthen their heritage in order to take their place with others in the
world, and not to take power over others in the world, there is little I
can say to condemn them except to correct the biologism inherent in the
idea of 'race', and correct it to a 'heritage' that they want to maintain. 


    In my own thinking, limited as it is, Heidegger has helped to clarify
numerous issues and positions in both philosophy and politics, especially
where thinking about those issues has not led me to a definite position,
but a holding open of possibilities that are contingent upon events that I
cannot predict in advance.  The results of Heidegger's sojourn into the
'definite' possibiliities of his political day, as well as those of Marx,
have been to me both a warning that politics always requires the "yes, but
only so far as" kind of thinking, and a clarion bell that in spite of
this, and in spite of the fact that in any situation we cannot have all
the answers, we have to make decisions and act upon them.  

Cheers etc
Andrew Glynn
 
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aglynn-AT-idirect.com
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