Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:06:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain-AT-igc.apc.org> Subject: Re: M-TH: Considerations on the Frankfurt School James, thanks for this excellent review. I do have some reservations about the ending, not that I'm against internationalism, but there is something peculiar about this turn in the argument. At 10:06 PM 9/18/97 +0100, James Heartfield wrote: >Now Tom Rockmore, who edited the English edition of Farias' book, has >returned to the fray with On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy, a >retelling of the tale that includes a critique of Heidegger's >apologists. Rockmore,like many right-wing commentators on >deconstruction, has taken advantage of the association between the >radicals and the Nazi philosopher to press home his attack. His book is >well researched, but marred by an ill-concealed motive to attack all >thoughts radical and Continental. I thought Rockmore was rotten after reading Rockmore's book on Lukacs, IRRATIONALISM, a few weeks ago. He certainly has no grasp whatever of Marx or Marxism, and seems to be a rather naive old-fashioned philosopher. >Indeed,the characteristic argument is that Heidegger's fascism was a >consequence not of his hostility to the Enlightenment tradition of >rationality, but rather of his unwillingness to make a complete break >with rationalism. >Derrida identifies Heidegger's failure to break with the Enlightenment >as his remaining commitment to humanism. And what is more conducive to fascism than slandering the Enlightenment and humanism? Mark well this strategy. >Now that fascism is discredited, irrationalists assume that fascism's >barbarism arose from its roots in rationalism, not its break from >rationalism. As it happens, the attack on Enlightenment rationality, rooted in Derrida, Rorty, and Foucault, is the centerpiece of contemporary obscurantist thought in African and Afro-American philosophy. Some of these characters openly support Heidegger and attack Marx. Here too, in spite of its cosmopolitan overtones deconstructionism serves narrow nationalism. I have already taken these charlatans head on. >The concept of specificity, as opposed to that of differance, alights on >the particular without losing sight of universality. Just what the pomos want to avoid, along with responsibility. --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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