From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 12:51:57 EST
Subject: Questions



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Subj: [Abhinavagupta] Fwd: QUESTIONS Date: 05/01/2003 10:55:55 GMT Standard
Time From: gospode-AT-yahoo.com (Gary C. Moore) Reply-to:
Abhinavagupta-AT-yahoogroups.com To: Abhinavagupta-AT-yahoogroups.com CC:
studyofexistentialism-AT-yahoogroups.com

"Gary C. Moore" <gospode-AT-yahoo.com wrote:

Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 02:47:03 -0800 (PST) From: "Gary C. Moore" <
gospode-AT-yahoo.com Subject: QUESTIONS To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
CC: heidegger-dialognet-AT-yahoogroups.com

Dear Jud,

Questions:

1.  What do you think of anarchism? Is there any way it can even exist in
reality? HOW can there even be a WAY of 'designing' an 'anarchist' society?
Do you know Nestor Makhno?

Hi Gary,
Greetings for 2003!
Sorry for the hiatus and delay in answering your last message. In a large
over-extended family like mine one tends to dwell in a kind of tinselled
alcoholic daze of handshaking and blubbery kisses until about this point in
the New Year.  I did fire off a piece on =E2=80=9CBeing=E2=80=9D being a figment of the
imagination to the Heidi list as a New Year present while their heads were
still a bit muzzy from altar wine, but it was something I wrote earlier on
the train down south over the holiday period. All this stuff Prince Peter
Kropotkin wrote about =E2=80=9CMutual Aid=E2=80=9D sounds very attractive (Galton too).  I
read it as a young communist in an effort to understand them, and how on
earth           they could expect to smash capitalism if they were all
running around in disorganised circles. From what I've read they made a good
fist of it in the Spanish Civil War however.

Kropotkin mentions the bees and the ants all working together in mutual
harmony for the good of the colony, and cites it as a good example of
co-operation as opposed to individual effort for the self.
An entomologist friend told me that on the contrary the life in a beehive is
more like Dachau or Belsen, and the social set-up is fascist in the extreme. 
If there is not enough pollen around one year - the weaker foragers are
ruthlessly eliminated etc.

I think that the concept of anarchism in a bit Garden of Edenish - a paradise
to dream about and no more.  It is against human nature [whatever that is?]
though in a couple of hundred years in the future it may be possiblewhen the
machines do all the work and the wholw population of the earth is drugged-up
to the eyeballs and existing on McDonalds Metaphysical Munch-burgers
delivered by robots.  It would need controls however to ensure some lunatic
started to take advantage of us while we were mooning around.  Nestor Makho
[wonderful name] was a Ukrainian rebel leader of nationalist tendencies. 
Apart from being a handy guy with the old pistoleros, I don't think that he
ever wrote anything worth reading -  or if he was even literate.  I am joking
here of course, and the library at Kiev is probably bursting with tomes by
him on every subject under the sun, including bee-society and the communal
aspects of the family formicidae [or =E2=80=9Cpismires=E2=80=9D as we English used to call
them.  I must do a search on the net for info on him.

2.  How does Lenin's "withering away of the state" compare to anarchism? I
understand it is dependent idealistically on the ending of classes and class
warfare, but that is not sufficient in itself. Pragmatically, class structure
itself, pragmatically as seen in the USSR merely destroys one privileged
class to replace it with another. And, in saying that, Stalin comes to mind:
he was automatically destroying not only the old class system but also the
new class system as it came into being. Is this really how he understood it?
Does this not also revolve back to the problem of the 'anarchist' state?

Jud:
Lenin's dream was that the socialist state would be so sucessful in
increasing the methods and volume of production that there would be so much
available commodities that the prices would drop and everyone would just
consume what they needed -  =E2=80=9Ceach according to his or her needs=E2=80=9D and no
more. As it happened the socialist economy did make tremendous strides in the
early years with wholesale industrialisation and electrification and the
building of dams etc.  Education was the most dramatic success story of
course.  The trouble was that all this happened against a background of mass
starvation, the wholesale deportation of the Kulaks [peasant landowning
farmers] and whole nations being moved huge distances from their original
homelands.





Not much Leninist "withering away of the state=E2=80=9D could take place against this
background.

I was a Trotskyist at this time as you know [we are all young once] and our
general criticism of Stalin was not so much of his ruthlessness, but that his
ruthlessness was directed against the wrong people,and should have been
focussed on the foreign capitalist states that surrounded the young Soviet
Union by fermenting and exporting the revolution.  Of course there was a lot
of personal animosity between Trotsky and Stalin too [hence the ice-pick in
the back of Leon's head] and Trotsky accused Stalin of creating a
self-perpetuating bureaucracy.  Lenin's dream of a land of plenty with
everyone behaving him or herself and treating others with understanding and
compassion etc. is very much the sort of thing that Kropotkin  [and too a
certain extent Tolstoy too] had in mind.  I am reminded of H.G.Wells: =E2=80=9CThe
Time Machine=E2=80=9D where there is an effete class of fruitarian intellectual
living in beautiful palaces in the sunshine, while in the dark caves
underground a brutish ape-like troglodytes blunder around in the dark -
except that in Lenin's story there is no brutes below only the multiple
mango-munchers above.
Wells was said to have got the idea for this two tier society from looking
down upon the brutish Victorian workmen who were digging out the shafts and
tunnels for the London Underground railway system.

3.  As to Marx, he has always seemed extremely vague in what I have read
about any 'communist' state. However, when I state it this way, I see at
least part of the problem since any 'communist' state is, in a definite and
practical way, indefinable in the present but is the result of a historical
process. But then does that not then go directly to the same problem as the
'anarchist' state has?

Jud:
Yes I agree Marx did not delve much or prognosticate on what the future state
would be like, but seemed to concentrate more with an analysis of the way the
material dialectic between classes worked, and what drove the wheels of
industry and the tensions that followed from that dynamic, and its
consequences for the weaker elements in society.  Now and again he came up
with some good lines from amongst the dry as dust economic prose:

I think that:=E2=80=9D Workers of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your
chains!=E2=80=9D is a wonderful bit of nineteenth century rhetoric which deserves
more than one exclamation mark. I remember an Eisenstein film [probably the
Battleship Potemtkin] in which a rebel sailor shouts:
=E2=80=9CTo the barricades!=E2=80=9D [one exclamation mark] then again -=20=E2=80=9CTo the barricades!!
=E2=80=9D [two exclamation marks] and one more - =E2=80=9CTo the barricades!!!=E2=80=9D [three
exclamation marks.



4.  Somewhat off the mark but not really as "How can it be?" -- In an
ontological ethics of pure honesty, I would not say "Heidegger was evil
because he was a Nazi" but "Heidegger was evil because he was dishonest about
being a Nazi." (This would also include his overall methodology inclusive of
all his work, but in this fashion: Heidegger does make honest,
straightforward, rational statement that would and could be the basis of a
real philosophy -- BUT he does not make these statements in a prominent
fashion and he does not connect them up coherently himself, though he may --
but then again he may not -- he may really intend for you to work this
through absolutely and totally by yourself -- which, of course in the end,
absolutely leaves him out of your process completely as discardable trash.)



Jud:

Firstly I do not think that there is such a thing as: =E2=80=9Dan ontological ethics
of pure honesty.=E2=80=9D  For me ontology is the study of the nature of being and
existence. In other words for me to even begin to discuss the subject of
being and existence I have got to make the concession of accepting that there
IS such a thing as being and existence, which are concepts which I don't
believe in, choosing instead to hold that the only things that exist are
existents and the only things that be are beings.



It is like arguing with a Christian - atheists like me are the ones who have
to concede the possibility of the perceived truths in the Bible in order to
say such things as: =E2=80=9CWell if Noah did this=E2=80=A6or that.=E2=80=9D which is tantamount to
accepting that there was such a boatbuilder in the first place.

 Having said all that and getting back to an Heidegger's ontological ethics
of pure honesty - I don't think that ontology has anything to do with honesty
or strictly speaking any other aspect of human behaviour which are much more
competantly covered by the other sciences.  My understanding of ontology is
that it concentrates on simple existence and existential states or modalities
and how the human mind deals with those distinctions linguistically and
mentally, rather than whether someone told a lie or confessed he chopped a
tree down..
I do not think that a consideration of honesty or evil (or any other abstract
noun or gerundial construction) has any place at all in the consideration of
the fact that entities exist in the first place and the WAY that they exist
[without going into needless modalic details] in the second place.

To dwell for a moment on Heidegger the man.  I don't think for one moment
that he manages to exclude his political beliefs from his philosophy [read
the inaugural rectoral address] I believe that his natural guile and
dishonesty  - serial betrayal of wife, friends, colleagues and lies to the
de-Nazification committee  [now on my experiential website at:  <A HREF="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/  ">
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/</A>  ] can partially explain=20his
wariness and the distancing of himself from the implications of his writings.
I believe that you are too generous in believing that Heidegger intended us
to work this through absolutely and totally by ourselves.  I believe that he
later realised the untenable ontological problems, which the Daseinic
mechanism trailed in its miserable wake, and withdrew into his philosophical
shell and left the mess for us to clean up behind him.

The bottom line? This was no attempt by Heidegger to appear as the 
mysterious magister - like some cloaked Goebellic figure delivering messages
swirled in mist - but a guy out of his cognitive  depth.  The only honest
thing he ever wrote as far as I can see was his confession that he didn't
understand the BE word [is]  and an account of that [Gespracht mit Herr
Heidegger) is also on my website in the Anti-Heidegger section.

>From my point of view, once [like me] you have discarded his Grundbegriffe
[his basic concepts] the whole of Being and Time and his other writings are
reduced to disposable rubbish, like reading a travel brochure about a place
you don't like and will never visit, for unlike other books written by people
whose ideas one rejects, none of his writing has any literary merit to
sustain one as one wades thigh high through the mucilaginous adobe of his
execrable prose and  the laughable and soon yawn-provoking allusions to
so-called: "Being."  I mean one might not believe in the sentiments to be
found in Pilgrim's Progress, but one can delight in the wonderful
understatement and economy of style of Bunyan in his eighteenth century
English religious masterpiece.  Unfortunately Heidegger's text has no such
redeeming features to enliven the boredom of his repetitive transcendentalist
misconceived dirge.


Gary:
Now, the seeming problem with an ontological ethics of honesty is, "If
Heidegger is honest about being a Nazi, then he is alright."

Jud:
No, he is not alright, whether he admits [admitted] the full involvement [
which will come out one day I feel sure] he had with the higher echelons of
the Nazi society and government, or whether he concealed and lied about how
deeply involved he was [which he did.]
As I wrote to someone privately recently:

I consider Heidegger to be one of the most evil and corrupt figures of the
twentieth century, who laid the bounty of his intellectual gift as a bouquet
at the jack-booted feet of the fuehrer, a leader whose aim was to dominate
the west and impose his hateful system of racial subjugation upon its
populations and carry out the wholesale extermination of some quite large
sections of European society who had contributed so much to the culture of
our societies.

Quite apart of what happened to my own family, friends and countrymen and my
own beloved city as a result of the actions of the machine to which Heidegger
gave his full and enthusiastic support, I have made a long and deep study of
the interwar period in Germany - the film industry - the popular magazines -
the radio broadcasts - the newspapers - the posters - the meetings - the
reports by foreign journalists, visitors and observers, and the fact is that
NOBODY who lived in that society could [or can] claim that they were unaware
of the racial and anti-Semitic nature of what National Socialism stood for,
and what the likely future held for those Jews who lived and worked in
Germany [many of whom who had fought for Germany in WW One] and the
surrounding countries which were under German influence, or likely to come
under direct German influence and control in the [then] near future.

Gary:
However, being in the "right" has not only nothing do with an ethics of
honesty but is diametrically opposed to the very 'idea' of honesty as simple
honesty cannot have Platonic Ideas or "the Right and True cause." Honesty
simply and purely means you accept the consequences of your actions.

Jud:
As is well known I am very suspicious of abstract nouns and always handle
them with kid gloves and a protective face-mask.  The trouble was no doubt
that Heidegger's version of =E2=80=9CHonesty" didn't correspond with the versions of
the meaning of the word held by the vast majority of others.
Hiding away in the mental home after the Allied occupation gave him plenty of
time to concoct various lies, such as one mentioned on the Heidegger list
recently, that he only joined the Nazi party in order that he could change it
from the inside. That might be a good bit of advice for our police forces
though?   The coppers could all join the Mafia or the Yardie gangs so that
they could reform ithem from the inside?

Anyway back to Heidegger in his white-walled clinic.  I have no doubt that he
actually started to BELIEVE his own lies.  One I caught him out on recently
was his statement that he agreed to join the Nazi Party only on the
understanding that he did no work for the party over and above his academic
duties and a few months after he said he made that proviso he travelled over
a hundred miles to Leipzig and was the guest of honour at a Nazi rally to
pledge allegiance to Hitler and repudiate the Versailles Treaty. His photo
surrounded by Nazi thugs and his speech of adoration for Hitler is on my
website under Heidegger's Lie.


Gary:
That is, if you say "I am a Nazi!" or "I am a Communist!" you should realize
you are liable to 'good' and 'bad' -- 'advantageous' and detrimental' (but to
or for what or whom EXACTLY AND PRECISELY? "

Jud:
I have never covered up the fact that I am an ex-communist even when, prior
to my retirement I applied [and succeeded] in getting a job as a liaison
officer and business advisor for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.  But
then again, unlike Heidegger I had nothing to be ashamed of - like for
instance having a lifelong friend who was involved in the organisation of the
trains that took people away to the camps for instance and with who he
maintained a cordial relationship after the war.

Gary:
My self" is still a whole crowd of people, many of whom you do not like.) --
results. And that is all. There can be no over-riding justification of
honesty that is outside of honesty or, of course, 'honesty' ceases to be
honest. Which brings us, once again, to Doctor. Hannibal Lector (Thomas
Harris), master of psychology and philosophy. I have become even more
enthralled with the Florentine detective's meditation on Marcus Aurelius in
HANNIBAL.

So . . . . What do you think?

Jud:
For me the 'consolation of philosophy' is what sweetens these last years of
mine.  I have discussed Lector's honesty in being dishonest before.  I am
unattracted to the honesty of selfishness at the expense of the infliction of
untold horrors on other people - another reason I detest Heidegger.
In the last analysis [clich=C3=A9] it is the fact that Heidegger was clearly such
a sensitive and educated man that is the gruesome aspect of his character -
the fact that a cultured man -  a man clearly capable of empathy could go
along with the horrors of the Nazi belief system and actually encourage
others in rhetorical rabble-rousing speeches to do the same.  I can never
countenance that and nor should anybody else.

Warm wishes,

PS.
As usual please understand that none of my opinions concerning Slybeggar are
in any way directed towards you personally   or to anybody else [except the
Monster of Marburg of course.]  :-)


Best wishes,

Jud Evans.





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