From: "Stuart Elden" <stuartelden-AT-btconnect.com>
Subject: RE: H in the Media
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 21:55:43 +0100


Thanks for this Michael.

Continental, or sometimes, even sillier from a British mouth, 'European'
philosophy, is usually seen as opposed to 'analytic' or 'Anglo-American'
philosophy. Of the latter 'type', the first is both misleading and clearly
not limited to this vein; the second is simply wrong both because key
influences, Frege say, or Wittgenstein were neither Anglo or American, and
because this type of philosophy is practised much more widely than the
Anglophone world...

But I guess you already knew that

To my mind, some of the most interesting work is disrupting this division.
In a forthcoming review of Stephen Mulhall's new book (Inheritance and
Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
2001) I suggest that "it transcends the Anglo-American/Continental 'divide'
by ignoring it, and considering writers who would ordinarily be put on
different sides". There are flaws in Mulhall's book, but that isn't one of
them. There's others doing similarly useful work.

Stuart


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
[mailto:owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Michael
Eldred
Sent: 26 June 2003 16:40
To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: H in the Media


Cologne 26-Jun-2003

Pete and Stuart,
Thanks for that.

I think this highlights the dangers of Heidegger's (and more generally:
philosophers') diagnoses of current world history (in Heidegger's case: a
diagnosis from the history of being). Heidegger's short-circuited
pronouncements
on contemporary world history have a strange paucity and a touch of personal
paranoia and prejudice. He is too close to events. More than that: such
pronouncements contradict entirely his thinking of the history of being,
according to which it is the simple and above all _hidden_ history of the
West.

What is the counterpart to so-called Continental philosophy? Insular
philosophy?
When I hear British intellectuals talking (I don't mean you, Stuart), I
often
have the impression that the closedness to 'Continental' thinking is aptly
described by the epithet 'insular'.

If the Left (i.e. Marx-based thinking) is able to jump into bed with the
thinking of being, that is already a danger signal, for neither really
understands the other.

Re anti-Americanism: as Heidegger never tires in pointing out -- all 'anti-'
remains within the same.

Another snippet from Heidegger at his worst:
"If 'Communism' is the metaphysical constitution of the peoples in the last
section of the consummation of the modern age, then this means that it had
to
put its essence into power, although still covertly, already at the
beginning of
the modern age. Politically this took place in the modern history of the
English
state. Thought with regard to its essence and leaving aside the appropriate
contemporary forms of government, society and faith, this state is _the
same_ as
the state of the united Soviet Republics, only with the difference that
there a
gigantic distortion into the illusion of morality and education of the
peoples
(Voelkererziehung) makes every employment of force (Gewalt) innocuous and
self-evident, whereas here the 'consciousness' of the modern age unmasks
itself
more ruthlessly in its own essence of power (Machtwesen), although not
without
appealing to making the peoples happy (Voelkerbeglueckung). The
bourgeois-Christian form of English 'Bolshevism' is the most dangerous.
Without
its annihilation, the modern age will continue to be maintained.(j)
(j) noted on typescript: I.e. its consummation will be delayed" (Entwurf zu
_Koinon_. Zur Geschichte des Seyns GA69:208f Text from 1939/40)

As a German citizen after the war, however, Heidegger had a great fear of
the
USSR and appreciated US protection, i.e. for him as a political individual
it
makes a _difference_ on which side of the "same" he lives his life.

Germany suffered its demise as the "land of poets and thinkers" not in
succumbing to the seductive superficiality of America, but in a process of
irrevocable self-destruction through National Socialism. As far as thinking
goes, perhaps this historical demise means that Germany, albeit covertly,
has
already long since passed on the baton in the relay of world-historical
thinking. Where will it pop up next?

As for Europe "find[ing] its identity in becoming a "pole of opposition" to
America", the only thing the (northern) Europeans, and especially the
Germans,
have come up with as retort is the social-democratic Sozialstaat, i.e. the
social-welfare state, currently well in decline. Such a Sozialstaat as the
state
of affairs for maintaining the average life of the average citizen, was
anathema
to both Heidegger and Nietzsche. Both misrecognized that the averageness of
everyday life coexists alongside whatever greatness a society allows to
subsist
in its interstices. Apart from that, the social-democratic construction of
the
"social market economy" (soziale Marktwirtschaft) is a compromise formation
based on the illusion that capitalist markets are planable and
cybernetically
controllable or can be made subject to moral-social imperatives and
priorities.

Michael
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-  artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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Stuart Elden schrieb   Thu, 26 Jun 2003 08:44:22 +0100:

> The link at the bottom explains it. The author is James W. Ceaser, a
> professor at University of Virginia, and generally a specialist in US
> presidential elections. But he's also the author of a book called
> Reconstructing America: The Symbol of America in Modern Thought (Yale
> University Press, 1997). It's a good read - looks at how America is used
in
> the work of various 'continental' theorists, aside from Heidegger others
> including Derrida and Baudrillard are treated. I read it a couple of years
> ago when I was at UVa for a summer. This paper is very similar to the
> arguments there, with a new contemporary spin. I met Ceaser briefly when I
> gave a research paper there. He seemed a nice guy, although we disagreed
on
> a lot.
>
> Stuart
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>       Datum:
>             Wed, 25 Jun 2003 23:54:26 -0700 (PDT)
>         Von:
>             That Pete <that_pete-AT-yahoo.com>
> > The fifth and final stratum in the construction of the concept of
> > anti-Americanism - and the one that still most powerfully influences
> > contemporary discourse on America - was the creation of the philosopher
> Martin
> > Heidegger. Like his predecessors in Germany, Heidegger once offered a
> > technical
> > or philosophical definition of the concept of Americanism, apart, as it
> were,
> > from the United States. Americanism is "the still unfolding and not yet
> full
> > or
> > completed essence of the emerging monstrousness of modern times." But
> > Heidegger
> > in this case clearly was less interested in definitions than in
fashioning
> a
> > symbol - something more vivid and human than "technologism." In a word -
> and
> > the word was Heidegger's - America was katestrophenhaft, the site of
> > catastrophe.
> >
> > In his earliest and perhaps best known passages on America, Heidegger in
> 1935
> > echoed the prevalent view of Europe being in a "middle" position:
> >
> > Europe lies today in a great pincer, squeezed between Russia on the one
> side
> > and America on the other. From a metaphysical point of view, Russia and
> > America
> > are the same, with the same dreary technological frenzy and the same
> > unrestricted organization of the average man.
> > Even though European thinkers, as the originators of modern science,
were
> > largely responsible for this development, Europe, with its pull of
> tradition,
> > had managed to stop well short of its full implementation. It was in
> America
> > and Russia that the idea of quantity divorced from quality had taken
over
> and
> > grown, as Heidegger put it, "into a boundless et cetera of indifference
> and
> > always the sameness." The result in both countries was "an active
> onslaught
> > that destroys all rank and every world creating impulse.... This is the
> > onslaught of what we call the demonic, in the sense of destructive
evil."
> >
> > America and the Soviet Union comprised, one might say, the axis of evil.
> But
> > America, in Heidegger's view, represented the greater and more
significant
> > threat, as "Bolshevism is only a variant of Americanism." In a kind of
> > overture
> > to the Left after the Second World War, Heidegger spoke of entering into
a
> > "dialogue" with Marxism, which was possible because of its sensitivity
to
> the
> > general idea of history. A similar encounter with Americanism was out of
> the
> > question, as America was without a genuine sense of history. Americanism
> was
> > "the most dangerous form of boundlessness, because it appears in a
middle
> > class
> > way of life mixed with Christianity, and all this in an atmosphere that
> lacks
> > completely any sense of history." When the United States declared war on
> > Germany, Heidegger wrote: "We know today that the Anglo Saxon world of
> > Americanism is resolved to destroy Europe.... The entry of America into
> this
> > world war is not an entry into history, but is already the last American
> act
> > of
> > American absence of historical sense."
> >
> > In creating this symbol of America, Heidegger managed to include within
it
> > many
> > of the problems or maladies of modern times, from the rise of
> instantaneous
> > global communication, to an indifference to the environment, to the
> reduction
> > of culture to a commodity for consumption. He was especially interested
in
> > consumerism, which he thought was emblematic of the spirit of his age:
> > "Consumption for the sake of consumption is the sole procedure that
> > distinctively characterizes the history of a world that has become an
> > unworld.... Being today means being replaceable." America was the home
of
> this
> > way of thinking; it was the very embodiment of the reign of the ersatz,
> > encouraging the absorption of the unique and authentic into the uniform
> and
> > the
> > standard. Heidegger cited a passage from the German poet Rainer Maria
> Rilke:
> >
> > Now is emerging from out of America pure undifferentiated things, mere
> things
> > of appearance, sham articles.... A house in the American understanding,
an
> > American apple or an American vine has nothing in common with the house,
> the
> > fruit, or the grape that had been adopted in the hopes and thoughts of
our
> > forefathers.
> > Following Nietzsche, Heidegger depicted America as an invasive force
> taking
> > over the soul of Europe, sapping it of its depth and spirit: "The
> surrender of
> > the German essence to Americanism has already gone so far as on occasion
> to
> > produce the disastrous effect that Germany actually feels herself
ashamed
> that
> > her people were once considered to be 'the people of poetry and
thought.'"
> > Europe was almost dead, but not quite. It might still put itself in the
> > position of being ready to receive what Heidegger called "the
Happening,"
> but
> > only if it were able to summon the interior strength to reject
Americanism
> and
> > push it back to the other hemisphere.
> >
> > Heidegger's political views are commonly deplored today because of his
> early
> > and open support of Nazism, and many suppose that his influence on
> subsequent
> > political thought in Europe has been meager. Yet nothing could be
further
> from
> > the truth. Heidegger's major ideas were sufficiently protean that with a
> bit
> > of
> > tinkering they could easily be adopted by the Left. Following the war,
> > Heidegger's thought, shorn of its national socialism but fortified in
its
> > anti-Americanism, was embraced by many on the left, often without
> attribution.
> > Through the writings of thinkers like John-Paul Sartre,
"Heideggerianism"
> was
> > married to communism, and this odd coupling became the core of the
> > intellectual
> > Left in Europe for the next generation. Communist parties, for their own
> > obvious purposes, seized on the weapon of anti-Americanism. They
employed
> it
> > with such frequency and efficacy that it widely came to be thought of as
a
> > creation of communism that would vanish if ever communism should cease.
> The
> > collapse of communism has served, on the contrary, to reveal the true
> depth
> > and
> > strength of anti-Americanism. Uncoupled from communism, which gave it a
> > certain
> > strength but also placed limits on its appeal, anti-Americanism has
worked
> its
> > way more than ever before into the mainstream of European thought.
> >
> > Only one claw of the infamous Heideggerian pincer now remains, one clear
> force
> > threatening Europe. If Europe once found identity in being in "the
middle"
> (or
> > as a "third force"), many argue today that it must find its identity in
> > becoming a "pole of opposition" to America (and the leader of a "second
> > force"). Emmanuel Todd develops this logic in his book, arguing that
> Europe
> > should put together a new "entente" with Russia and Japan that would
serve
> as
> > a
> > counterforce to the American empire.
> >
> > http://www.thepublicinterest.com/current/article1.html
> >
>







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