File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0311, message 56


From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 10:09:00 EST
Subject: Nietzsche/Nazism - biologism


In a message dated 07/11/2003 07:07:29 GMT Standard Time, 
m.riddoch-AT-ecu.edu.au writes:
Hi Jud,
You've surprised me, finally we have something of a dialogue, who would have 
thought it possible? I'd like to thank you in advance for actually taking the 
time to read and respond thoughtfully in your own way. Obviously we will still 
mostly completely disagree but I don't see the problem with 'robust' debates, 
I try to be honest in my dealings here but give no guarantees that my 
opinions won't piss you off :)

Hi Malcolm,
It's quite simple. You are one of the few on this list that command my 
respect and with who I feel at ease. I wish to hell I'd had a teacher/professor like 
you when I was younger. I can give no higher compliment.

Jud: [earlier]
I will remind you however that Heidegger's Nazism is for me incidental to my 
main criticism which is of his crude peasant ontology and his acceptance of 
'Being' as a given.

Malcolm:
Yes, understood, although I think actually reading Heidegger's texts will 
also benefit your rather myopic 'critique' here as well. Just my opinion mind 
you, but generally a shallow reading of a philosophy will lead to a shallow 
understanding of it, which is rather boring when you persist on spamming this list 
ad infinitum. I look forward to a more informed 'devils advocacy' from you in 
regards to Heidegger's ontology as that debating technique is a valuable 
resource for those of us opposed to it.

Jud: 
I read and have read more of him than I usually admit, as if it were perhaps 
a guilty secret, like being a crypto-pornographer.
I rationalise my hiding of my secret lusts for Heidegger as if someone said: 
'If you reckon that Heidegger is such a load of rubbish, why do you read so 
much of him?' If someone were to ask that question, I would answer that it is a 
very dangerous form of rubbish which needs to be understood in order to combat 
it, which like carelessly discarded nuclear material, can/will wreak 
long-term damage on humanity - particularly its western version.

Jud: [previously]
However ... Anything that Heidegger writes from the time of his 
resignation/dismissal from the rectorship is in my opinion not worth the paper it is 
written on.

Malcolm:
Also totally understood, although that's a rather limiting presupposition 
with which to start a reading of someone's work. For me there's just a bunch of 
philosophical text to be interpreted in one way or another.

Jud: 
I think we differ here, because I don't view ANY text postmodernistically as 
simply words on a page, or as strings of authorless symbols awaiting 
meaningful interpretation. For me any writing, whether it is the product of the 
brain/hand of a poet, a politician or a philosopher - a journalist, judge or a 
janitor writing a report on why the condominium boiler blew to blazes, is a record 
of how that individual views the world in which he finds himself and operates 
within.

The written record is stamped by his own personality. If one reads the 
janitor's report of the boiler explosion without knowing or having met the man 
himself, one is likely to get a very different impression as to the course of 
events as presented on the written page of his exculpation. If one was aware for 
example that the man had a long record of faithful service to his company, was 
of sober habits and scrupulous in his attention to detail, that he had never 
gone missing from duty, that he wasn't having an affair on the side and 
absenting himself from his post, and that he had in the past attended a boiler 
maintenance course provided by the manufacturer, and spoke well of his employers, 
then one would be more likely to accept the explanation offered by him as to the 
sudden and inexplicable malfunction of the boiler which led to its 
destruction. 

If on the other hand we were aware that on the contrary, the man was a bad 
time-keeper who frequently went absent without any explanation, was an 
inveterate liar and a womaniser, a tippler whose breath [if wrongly directed] was 
likely to remove the varnish from the banisters, and that the residents were 
continually complaining about the erratic behaviour of the heating system, then one 
would be less likely to read the text of the man's account with an uncritical 
eye, or at least one would be more likely to scrutinise it heuristically and 
consider it as possibly containing fictions. Empowered by the knowledge of the 
author there would be an attempt to juxtapose what the words on the page said 
with what is known about the writer as to his past behaviour, his attitude 
towards his job, and other people, including his wife, his employers, his 
colleagues and the residents of the condominium who were reliant on upon him for a 
dependable supply of hot water and heat. 

Personally I like to know something about the person who penned whatever I am 
reading, for me the works of Chaucer wouldn't have the same fascination if I 
was unaware of his biography, the conditions in England at the time he lived, 
his life at court and his European jaunts etc. I always feel a pang of loss 
when I read a beautiful and meaningful piece of ancient poetry and reaching the 
end see the poignant and disappointing word -  'anon.' 

I think this is perhaps because I am a person who pursues independent thought 
or action, and prefers to relate to each human being on a one to one basis 
rather than view things Daseinically as some notional idea of 'the human 
condition'. For me one of the most dispiriting aspects of Heideggerianism is its 
anti-individuation - it's emphasis on the downgrading of 'I' in favour of the 'We' 
of the herd and the glorification of the state - a state in which the 
individual is buried in the remuda as a pack-horse of the spread which has no worth 
other than as a cog in that state - a state in which individualism is to be 
suffocated for the benefit of a future 'destiny' - a teleological entrepot 
cleansed [by fumigation] of its 'metropolitan 'creepy-crawlies, its sexual oddities 
and maverick hedgehog-eaters. [Gypsies] 

Apply the exploding-boiler principle to Heidegger and to your poets, 
politicians and philosophers, your journalists, judges and Jesuits and one is much 
more likely to be able to see into the text, not just to 'read between the 
lines,' but to wriggle and squeeze through the cognitive convolvulaceae with which 
the writer entwines and obfuscates his motives and apologies.

A juryman is far more likely to arrive at a verdict of not guilty, if he is 
unaware that the record of the accused included seven previous convictions for 
the same crime, and this is the reason why prior to the revelations regarding 
Heidegger's political past, and his treatment of others, that a completely 
erroneous assessment of the man and the real nature of his Herdistic philosophy 
was promulgated by those that knew, and his work of Throngism was disseminated 
and accepted by the Heideggerian establishment.

Post-Farias, people approach him differently and notice and are on the 
lookout for things that went unnoticed previously.  His Nazi involvement was 
Heidegger's bursting boiler, and the escaping stinging steam still strips away the 
skin of his malefic Hannibal Lectorian mask.

Malcolm:
The question of the author's truth and falsehood is always there, and in the 
interests of critical reading I too think it's important not to abrogate one's 
own responsibility to think things through by just taking any philosopher at 
their word. But your stance is just the opposite sort of dogma to that of a 
'rote Heideggerian'. Then again, if that's your thing who am I to argue?

Jud:
The two extreme positions are different in that I have proof he was a liar, 
and they have no proof that he spoke the truth.

Jud:
[Previously]
To equate one's own self with the historical constitution of a global truth 
is to think in the manner of a person suffering from monomania surely?

Malcolm:
Dunno really, although I can see the sense in it. We're all good moderns, all 
brought up learning the 3 R's, all initiated into the dominant ideology of 
our nation, and all placed at the service of the state and take up our part in 
the technological ordering of our everyday lives. Heidegger's just suggesting 
that this sort of world ordering has a historical provenance, and that its 
order is based on the way the human understanding has been historically 
constituted. Not in itself a particularly controversial notion, but he takes it to a 
phenomenological extreme in suggesting that the historical order is nothing 
rationally set up by us humans, and the origin of human understanding is itself not 
something rationally constructed by us either. Our rational understanding is 
a consequence or reflection of the way we already understand the world, an 
originary understanding that is not itself fully understood as yet.

Jud:
This I see as being fully in accord with his anti-individualism - the notion 
that ABOVE the individual citizen there is an independent abstraction called 
'the state,' and that above the individual human being there is an independent 
abstraction called the 'human condition' exemplified and characterised by the 
Daseinic everyman thrown into an interaction with a previously provided 
historical provenance furnished by those deserving Daseinic millions who have gone 
before and laid the railroad lines which will take him from parturition to 
putrefaction. 

I would have hoped, and I was originally drawn to an examination of Heidegger 
on the basis of my perception of existentialism a philosophy, which 
emphasizes freedom of choice from, established rail-routes and mores and the positing 
of a personal, individualistic humanistic responsibility.
I understand now why Heidegger denied that his philosophy was 'existential,' 
for there is nothing remotely individualistic about it at all - it is an 
outlook upon the world which Nietzsche himself vilified - it is no more than a 
sophisticated version of Herdism - the subjugation of the self to the flock, and 
the submission of the ruck before the will of the strongest male - the 
historical Honcho-Herdsman Hitler.
I am encouraged in this view by a perceptive recent post by Doc Eldred, in 
which he points out Heidegger's notion of the 'I' and the 'We.'
My 'ontological reading of it is that we are asked to conclude that the 
meaning of: 

'Only on the ground of a self is there a struggle for ranking between I and 
You and We." 

Is that if the 'self' is suppressed, then the 'struggle' for ranking will 
cease between You and I, and our new-forged togetherness will be manifested in 
the 'We' of the German state.

Jud:[Previously]
Openess to truth - what nonsense is this if the a priori belief is that that 
one's own self knowledge is in strict correspondence to some global veracity?

Malcolm:
>From Heidegger's perspective the 'strict correspondence to some global 
veracity' is precisely the problem of modernity and its nihilism because through it 
modern humanity believes it knows what is true, rationality and objectivity 
are the consequences and foundation of this belief, along with our scientific 
technological world order. It is a phenomenological proposition that this belief 
is not a fundamental truth but is derived from the origin of human 
understanding which is itself not fully understood. You yourself claim to fully 
understand what the term 'being' means, yet if you would care to take part in the 
phenomenological thought experiment you would have to open this belief, a form of 
faith, up to question. You would have to take an openness towards what we mean 
by the term 'truth'. Some claim that this 'openness' and 'questionability' 
are the starting point for any sort of philosophy, but I don't expect you to 
agree, for you everything is already nicely sorted.

Jud:
But my denial of the notion of 'Being' is as far as I know unique? At least I 
know that I arrived at where I am under my own philosophical steam - for I 
have never encountered or alighted at any 'anti-Being way stations' during my 
journey. Leastways I haven't come across another thinker who does other than 
accept the notion of 'Being' [existence] as a given of world ordering, as part 
and parcel of humanity's historical: 'that's the way things are buddy' 
provenance.  For me the unreflective acceptance and non-questioning of 'Being' by 
philosophers is precisely the problem of modernity and its numbing nihilism, 
because through it the brighter ones amongst modern humanity believes it knows that 
the notion, the problem, the understanding of so-called 'Being' is a true 
notion and a true problem. Conversely the vast unthinking mass of humanity has 
internalised 'Being' unquestionably, and doesn't give it a second thought. 

If follows that to display an openess rather than a hostility towards the 
notion of 'Being' would be to become part of Heidegger's Herd he calls the  'We' 
- to join the ruminants in the meadows of munching mediocrity quietly and 
unreflectively grazing whilst waiting to be 'serviced' under the watchful eye of 
the dominant male - be that male Hitler, Bush, Blair Aron or Arafat.

Jud:[Previously] 
He is obviously open only to his own perceptions of truth as espied through 
the eyeglass of his own ultra-right preconceptions.

Malcolm:
The same is true of everyone, and we are all free to question everyone else's 
opinions, as you do all the time, and as Heidegger himself said was the 
responsibility of all thought. For me, there was Heidegger the man, and then there 
is what he wrote. The text is something I can tear apart and interpret for 
myself, the man is lost to history and all we have left is biographical hearsay 
and historiographical 'facts'. 

Jud:
See my piece on the exploding boiler and the heuristic aftermath.

Malcolm:
All we can both do is read and interpret, but our motivations and backgrounds 
are different and we will read something different into the texts. You choose 
to read them through the lens of your 'ultra-right preconceptions', and you 
are free to do so. 

Jud:
You jest of course? Me - a rightist?

Malcolm:
I'd be pleased if you recognised my freedom to read different truths into 
what is essentially a bunch of words on a page, even if you don't understand what 
I write here, or why.

Jud:
Of course I recognise your right to read different truths into anything you 
read, for unlike Heidegger I do not advocate the suffocation of individual 
freedom for the greater good of the state or the commonality. I understand very 
well what you write here Malcolm, though I do admit that I scratch my head when 
it comes to understanding why you believe in the Heideggerian stuff that you 
do.
The equation: 'Malcolm's intelligence = a belief in Heideggerianism' just 
doesn't make sense to me at all.

Jud: [previously]
How can one approach art or anything else if the belief is that one already 
equates one's own self with the historical constitution of a global truth, or 
one's own self-understanding has already been historically constituted in terms 
of a rationality and its objectivity? In this way 'openness' to anything has 
been strangled at birth.

Malcolm:
Your misunderstanding is perfect here, and you have beautifully restated 
Heidegger's explicit problem concerning the question of being. How can we be open 
to truth if modernity has already closed off any possible access to even 
positing the question about the origin of truth? 

Jud:
For me Heidegger is the chief culprit in clanging the doors shut upon any 
possible access to the question about the nature of actuality, and securely 
locking the access doors too. He is the main man pedalling the historically 
constituted notions of 'Being' as a rational and objective given. 
He goes to great lengths and asks continuously about the 'question of Being' 
and the 'problem of Being' and the difficulties of understanding Being' BUT 
NOT ONCE does he rise above such mediocrity and question IF THERE IS SUCH A 
THING AS 'BEING' IN THE FIRST PLACE. In the same way, his followers on this list 
and elsewhere will argue with each other until the cows come home on precisely 
how the describe Being and how to characterise it's 'fleeting indeterminacy' 
but never once in all the years I have been on this list or travelled the 
masses of Heideggerian writings on the WWW have I ever encountered one of them 
actually questioning whether the chimera of 'Being' is no more than a fanciful way 
of alluding to the constantly changing cavalcade of human experiences and our 
perceptions of the actuality of ourselves in relation to our fellows and  of 
the entities that surround us in our encounters in the world.

End of Part One

Cheers,

Jud.

<A HREF="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ ">http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/</A> 
Jud Evans - ANALYTICAL INDICANT THEORY.
<A HREF="http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com">http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com</A>


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