Subject: Re: Heidegger in Germany
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 21:31:10 +0100


Henk,

> What
>I miss, is a self-critical attempt on his side to put his thinking back
>on the right track. That is what one may expect of a thinker. If Petzet
>is to be believed Heidegger's only concern after the war was for his own
>well-being.


But dear Bob, just read (!) what H. wrote 1942 on Hitler: "Der Fuehrer ist
der Aerger,..."
all this (Parr. XXVI of the essays: _Ueberwindung der Metaphysik_ published
in Vortraege und Aufsaetze, Vol 1., pp. 63ff)
This are text which are never (!) cited by people who said H. did not put
his thinking back on the right track... Or read the Nietzsche Vorlesunen
etc. etc. What he did not, was going to TV and saying: I was between
1.1.1933 and ... 1936 wrong, and so on... (on this, see Derrida)
The problem is in my view, to we (!) deal with his thinking now (!): In my
opinion (and I agree with Michael E.), German intellectuals are not grown up
to take him (his thinking, the matters to which he pointed to) seriously,
they take him as _a dead dog_ (wie ein toter Hund)., so _um so schlimmer for
the Germans_...
Think what Jaspers said immediately after his Rektoratsrede: he found it OK!
It is our (!) complex: to have fear to be treated as Heideggerians... but
this is just psychological repression (in the Freudian sense)
We (!) want to think _clean_... What is at stake is our (!) relation to H.,
not H. _as such_ and, the less, his private shame. We should discuss on the
way his thinking first re-acted to NS and then acted on it and on what is
still going on. Otherwise we will always return to a pseudo historical
debate...
>
>I believe that one should take Heidegger's entanglement with National
>Socialism seriously. His thinking went wrong somewhere and somehow.
>Someone should show where and how. It is a pity that "fundamentalist"
>Heidegger criticism and "fundamentalist" Heidegger apologetics have one
>thing in common: the refusal to take this where and how seriously. They
>wage a battle of the Somme, fighting in trenches for every centimeter of
>ground - as if Heidegger's thinking were a closed system.
>


there is no fundamentalism in my position: I _just_ want to point to our own
apology


>I do not think that writing about Heidegger is easy, in Germany or
>elsewhere on the continent. The demonstration asked is not just a ritual
>one. Fascistoid ideology should be met head on. And that is a tall
>order. For two reasons. German culture is an integral part of
>continental culture. The two cannot be separated. Fascism has usurped
>this culture - and it is still unclear (read Sluga's excellent account)
>if there are enough defences in continental culture against fascism.
>This may be different for trans-atlantics or those at the other side of
>the Canal who always lived and will remain living in splendid isolation.
>


we have discussed some times american imperialism in this list (see what Bob
says about capitalism, Tom about violence etc. etc.) I do not want to
consider this as: well you say this, we say that and so on. But fascism is
still there in many cultures and parts of the world. I think that _purisms_
(and _puritanisms_) of many kinds (religious, political etc:) are form of
fundamentalism. Europe and the european culture (to which America belongs
to, and England too...) is still rooted in metaphysics (this is H.
diagnostic and the (one) way of moving away from it...).


>And fundamentalist Heideggerians refuse to answer these two questions:
>where and how did it go wrong? They defend Heidegger's thoughts and
>actions as Heidegger defended himself: the idiots are sitting at the
>other side of the table. They keep repeating his thoughts and have
>stopped thinking - the worst possible recommendation for his
>philosophy.



he went wrong in his radicality and in trans-posing this radicality of
thinking into the political arena
or: what may be true in philosophical thinking is not politically oportune
and viable. He did not make this difference (_draw a difference_ according
to G. Spencer Brown), as so many other _great_ philosophers (including those
who choose the _right_ political party; Socrates was very conscious of this,
I believe). There is something similar here as with the relation between
politics and theology, or do I see it wrong?
Rafael


>
>Henk
>
>
>
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