File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0109, message 104


Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:32:29 +0200
From: Michael Eldred <artefact-AT-t-online.de>
Subject: Re: Juenger-Nietzsche-Heidegger (swallowing)


Cologne 19-Sep-2001


 Von:     Rene de Bakker <rbakker-AT-bs18.bs.uva.nl> schrieb Tue, 18 Sep 2001
16:23:27 +0200:

> Risking Juenger's saying: He, who comments on himself, relapses below his
> level.
>
> Juenger: >Islam might seem to be an exception, but appearances are
> deceptive. The
> >reason is not that Islam stands outside its time: from a Titanic point of
> view, it is
> >truly contemporary.
>
> Nietzsche: "Die Zeit kommt, wo der Kampf um die Erdherrschaft gefhrt
> werden wird,
> er wird im Namen philosophischer Grundlehren gefhrt werden."
>
> Nietzsche's prognosis: the futural strife for the dominion of the earth
> will be waged
> in the name of philosophical fundamental doctrines.

Rene,
Do you have a page reference for this?

>
> If you want Heidegger without Nietzsche or nihilism you can't go further
> than BT, and also there
> he is clandestine present. One certainly cannot quote then from "Identity
> and difference".
> In the "Contributions" Nietzsche and BT belong to the transition. (Uebergang)

As I say, one does not have to swallow everything. Heidegger certainly did not
swallow Nietzsche whole, but was very, very discriminating. Only this approach
allowed him to work out a line of thought from the chaotic mess of fragments in
Nietzsche.

I prefer to leave the Titans to their own stupid and dangerous male fantasies
(e.g. "everything autocratic, masculine, conquering, domineering, all instincts
which are inherent in the highest and finest type of 'human'..." _Jenseits von
Gut und Boese_, Section 62)

Without being able to assess the context at the moment, the above Nietzsche quote
on Erdherrschaft is dangerous nonsense (like much else in Nietzsche). There can
be no struggle and never will be a struggle for dominion over the earth fought
"in the name of philosophical fundamental doctrines". Why? Because, firstly,
there is no philosophy in the genuine sense which is not somehow rooted in the
Greek tradition. Greek philosophizing (which is _questioning_) is unique and
distinct from the other teachings of wisdom and doctrines on the nature of the
world and human being in other parts of the world.

And secondly, because philosophy itself never enters an arena of struggle over
world dominion. A struggle over world dominion in the name of philosophy is not
philosophy and can only be a perversion of philosophy. Philosophy does not need
such loud struggle. Nietzsche's bombastic pronouncements and forecasts are to be
thoroughly mistrusted. Instead, I go along with Heidegger's following
characterization of how philosophy works in history:

"The single thought of a thinker in each individual case, however, is something
around which, unexpectedly and unnoticed, all beings revolve in the quietest
quiet. Thinkers are the founders of something that never becomes viewable in an
image, which can never be related historically and can never be technically
calculated; but which rules without requiring power." (Nietzsche II:475)

Thinking takes place and has its place in the "quietest quiet". A thinker's
thought percolates down in history, unfolding its hold over all beings quietly,
without anyone noticing. A thinker's fame or notoriety is always suspect because
the many are incapable of assessing a philosopher's thought.

Nietzsche at his most dangerous and bombastic:

"A declaration of war of the _higher humans_ against the masses is necessary!
Everywhere, the mediocre congregate to make themselves master! Everything which
makes [humans] soft, gentle, which brings the 'people' or the 'feminine' to the
fore, works in favour of the _suffrage universel_, i.e. the rule of _lower
humans_." (Fragment from the eighties, Schlechta S.III 430)

Nietzsche in another, more accommodating mood:

"The fact of credit, the entire world trade, the means of transport -- an
immensely mild _trust_ in people is expressed in this... This is also contributed
to by 3. the release of science from moral and religious intentions: a very good
sign which, however, is mostly falsely understood." (Fragment from the eighties,
Schlechta S.III 809)

Here Nietzsche a protagonist of world trade, praising the historical achievement
of a "colossal quantum of _humanity_" (ibid.)??

Michael
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-  artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_-_-_- artefact-AT-webcom.com
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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>
>
> ======>
> >"If Saddam can't have Bagdad, then nobody will."
>
> Didn't he make a will, some time ago?
>
> >ps Yesterday on German television: concert to honour the victims
> >in New York. On the program: Wagner, Tristan and Isolde:
> >Prelude and love-death.
> >
> >One titanic will to nothing, accompanied by the other.
>
> Nietzsche would call this: a fundamental aberrance of the instincts.
> Modern man sits on a chair, saying yes to one side and no
> to the other.
> "Horrible" and "enchanting", at the same time...!
> "Two souls are dwelling in my breast", what a martyr that once was.
> Now there is room for seven of 'm, without even being noticed.
>
> r
>
> -----------------------------------
> drs. Ren de Bakker
> Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
> Afdeling Catalogisering
> tel. 020-5252368
>




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