Why was Heidegger a Nazi?

[118118]

Thanks Phil

 

[118118]

Phil, tha is very DM of you.... hehehehe

 

[118118]

sorry, you've already flagged gramscio

 

[118118]

schizophrenic derail:
hi professor dwyer. I would just like to say that you have just made me feel like a million bucks. well done.

 

[118118]

rofl

 

[118118]

i've had too much caffine and can't work on my dissertation, because, i think.

 

[ice-is-forming]

118 what are you like?

 

[likesfish]

actions on if it was a case heres the keys to dachu put the uniform on and start leading your mates to the showers 99% of humainty would tell you to go fuck yourself.
but it was'nt it was more of a gradual process and self delusion always wins out against doing the right thing

 

[kyser_soze]

Sorry, is this thread some kind of weird channeling thing? The last 10 or so posts make next to no sense whatsoever...

 

[118118]

118 what are you like?

a

(lightweight)?

 

[118118]

actions on if it was a case heres the keys to dachu put the uniform on and start leading your mates to the showers 99% of humainty would tell you to go fuck yourself.
but it was'nt it was more of a gradual process and self delusion always wins out against doing the right thing

the thing about Heidegger, is he did things that he didn't have to, he actively chose to speak out about "the glory" of ns, there was no gun held to to his. alot of his philosophy is that you choose to be the person who you are, so you would seem to be saying that his actions were nothing to do with his philosophy.

 

[nosos]

Why on earth is everyone presuming that his philosophy was responsible for his politics?

 

[nosos]

alot of his philosophy is that you choose to be the person who you are

His philosophy is a call for the realisation authenticity, for the choosing of one’s own ends rather than simply acting upon those of others. If anything, his philosophy stands squarely in opposition to his opportunistic conversion to a mass movement in the hope of jump starting a political career. He wanted to be Germany's spiritual leader.

 

[Karen Eliot]

His philosophy is a call for the realisation authenticity, for the choosing of one?s own ends rather than simply acting upon those of others. If anything, his philosophy stands squarely in opposition to his opportunistic conversion to a mass movement in the hope of jump starting a political career. He wanted to be Germany's spiritual leader.

Well, just how opportunistic it was in doubt and what has been discussed on this thread - some have argued that for him (and for Germany in his view) nazism and the things that the Nazis approach entailed was precisely a recognition of their and his collective authenticity - that's something flows directly from his philosophy. How could it not? Was his philosophy some autonomous chamber seperate from his political life and opinions? It's not that far a step from a philiosophy of (collective) authenticity to a politics of identity, and from a politics of identity...

 

[likesfish]

if you weren't heading for the camps the Nazi's looked good
got things done.
had spiffy uniforms gave Germany its pride back etc etc
Just like Stalin looked good from the west.
tyranny always looks good it you want quick results.
easy to fool yourself if you didn't go looking for the horrors that they were the answer to the problem

 

[nosos]

How could it not?

Very easily, unless you subscribe to the sort of rationalism which says that people are always self-consistent or that intelligent/thoughtful/educated people ought to know immorality when they see it (for, presumably, such immorality is seen to be somehow contrary to rationality).

 

[Karen Eliot]

Very easily, unless you subscribe to the sort of rationalism which says that people are always self-consistent or that intelligent/thoughtful/educated people ought to know immorality when they see it (for, presumably, such immorality is seen to be somehow contrary to rationality).

No, it's very easy to make a formal decleration that your philosophy and your politics are entirley seperate - it's not that easy (in fact it's impossible) to substantially seperate them, and i don't think Heidegger ever even tried, given that he used his philosophical concepts and training in support of both his decision to join the nazis and the nazi policies and approach.

 

[118118]

well, alot of people say it doesn't have anythig to do with his ploitics. but heidegger said the opposite, and don't we have a responsibility to assume that it did.
Eta:

He wanted to be Germany's spiritual leader.

sounds like this has some thing to do with his nazism.

 

[gorski]

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?d...d0e554&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e554&brand=eschol

Has anyone read this [is it worth my time], please?

Can't find a Chilean's study on him [apparently a really good one], mind...

 

[articul8]

Heidegger's thought is deeply averse to modernity and the notion its rupture from the traditional bond between 'volk' and place. His approach to language is extremely hostile to the notion of innovation and change. From this perspective I guess the appeal of fascism was about a return to 'essential' identity and a disavowal of democracy.

That said, whilst it lead to morally reprehensible political positions, it doesn't mean that his philosophy isn't worth reading (in the same sense that Carl Schmitt makes some acute political criticisms of liberal modernity- not that either can be uncritically accepted of course. For instance it made him highly conscious of dubious claims to progress made by Social Democrats and he was also critical of the instrumental attitude to nature suggested by technological discourses.

PS I'd recommend Miguel de Bestigui [sp?] - "Heidegger and the Political"

 

[gorski]

Indeed, he was rhetorically all for a dialogue with Marx[ism], as the only one worth debating with but never responded to Horkheimer/Adorno challenge!

Adorno openly asks [him] where this need for [absolute] “firm” ground comes from. My professors used to provoke him into the debate about the notion of historicity [which he (allegedly) brought about and contributed to its research the most, at least initially] and why does it seem like it's only the Past coming to us from the Future [Sein und Zeit] and so forth... Never a response, they whined...

On a curious note: he was the most vehement reader of Praxis, the Zagreb based [mainly] philosophical magazine [my professors used to run], that started from the Left but everyone was there - a wide spectrum of people from the Left and the Right, plus the Liberal Centre, as it were. He would subscribe years ahead, even... To the Korcula Summer School he would send his right hand man, Eugen Fink and his possy. Bloch, Marcuse, Habermas, Lefebvre, Kosik, Bernstein and just about everybody who was somebody used to come together and if they couldn't [like Lukacs, who was old and frail by then] would send papers...

P.S. Is that the Chilean guy? Sounds like it. If so - that's the famous study on Heidegger, I think...

 

[articul8]

I think I'm right in saying that Marcuse was a Heideggerian in his early years, and it continued to exert a certain influence when combined with a certain Marxian thinking.

Adorno's critique of Heidegger is pretty much bang on, if you ask me.

"Historicity" is apparently factored into MH's writing, but only in a hypostatised form - We aren't just thrown into history. History is already "thrown into us" - the history of forms of subjectivity is necessary for the recognition (necessarily Other derived, social) of our Being, which is the only recognition of Being that we can have. All the rest is mystical bollocks. Which is why Marcuse - despite his political differences from Heidegger - threatens to lapse into hippy-druggy appeals to a more "natural" sense of being, whereas Adorno understands that nature and history are indivisably bound up historically.

 

[118118]

We aren't just thrown into history. History is already "thrown into us" - the history of forms of subjectivity is necessary for the recognition (necessarily Other derived, social) of our Being, which is the only recognition of Being that we can have. All the rest is mystical bollocks.

eh?

 

[118118]

[/quote]the Past coming to us from the Future [Sein und Zeit][/quote]also, while there may be a very slight sense of this, as far as i remember we relaize our fate (the future) thru being dispoed toward tradition (the past). which sounds like the opposite to what you are saying.

 

[articul8]

Well yes, I'm disagreeing with Heidegger's whole approach - by pointing out that subjectivity is necessarily historically mediated and hence open to radical reconstruction in moments of historical possibility.

Heidegger's approach is semi-mystical as it renders itself awestruck in the face of the primordiality of Being. (For him) the specific futurity towards which Being is oriented is already pre-given from the beginning.

 

[118118]

Well yes, I'm disagreeing with Heidegger's whole approach - by pointing out that subjectivity is necessarily historically mediated and hence open to radical reconstruction in moments of historical possibility.

Heidegger's approach is semi-mystical as it renders itself awestruck in the face of the primordiality of Being. (For him) the specific futurity towards which Being is oriented is already pre-given from the beginning.

no that doesn't make sense either if it does make sense, i don't think its true.

 

[118118]

in sein und zeit i'm not sure if being is more primordial than dasein. also, we are thrown into looking into the past and from this we look into the future, so futurity is not pregiven. and h doesn't talk about subjectivity.

i could be wrong on all the accoiunts, but i'll be happy to talk thru if i have time today.

 

[articul8]

in sein und zeit i'm not sure if being is more primordial than dasein. also, we are thrown into looking into the past and from this we look into the future, so futurity is not pregiven. and h doesn't talk about subjectivity.

i could be wrong on all the accoiunts, but i'll be happy to talk thru if i have time today.

First up dasein wouldn't be thinkable without "sein", that's what i meant by primordial. On the question of futurity, I think that Heidegger is breaking from linear model of temporality (in a way reminiscent of Nietzsche's cyclical model of Eternal Return). The Being (ontology) into which dasein in thrown already includes the dimension of historicity and futurity which is why H. can't really fathom the significance of the Event as rupture. All particular events within the ontological framework H. constitutes are merely 'ontic'.

As for subjectivity, of course H doesn't accept the subject as the ground of philosophical truth. But he refuses to acknowledge that all concepts (including neologisms which do the work of established concepts) are freighted with a historical content which becomes sedimented at the same time as a particular model of subjectivity emerges.

 

[118118]

well, whislt i acknowledge that you must know what you are talking about (e.g. i dont know what a liner mode of temporality is), i disagree. are these mostly adorno's opinions?

i mean that i don't think your criticisms are very useful.

i'll have to check books to make sure i don't agree, maybe later

 

[118118]

so basically you're saying that he does not ground historicity on subjectivity. like i say: what do you expect?!