Sunday, August 28, 2011
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The Shadow of Heidegger
The Shadow of Heidegger
Heidegger knew how to strike hard. Germany, son, is a tardy nation. Its unity is given to it by Bismarck, economic protectionism and obligatory militarism. It was consolidated by defeating France in 1870. We were, for a long time, a people with a grand culture but without a state, without a nation. Heidegger took us to the origin; to the true origin of German greatness. He took us to the Greeks. He indicated where to put ourselves. Our place was to be in that origin, "Under the sway of the start of our historical-spiritual existence." Here he stopped (his pauses were dramatic, suffocating, no one, during their immeasurable duration, dared to breath). He looked at everyone and with his powerful, clear voice, said: "That beginning is the emergence of Greek philosophy". And later: "All science is philosophy, whether it knows it and wants it, or not. All science remains tied to that beginning of philosophy. From it, it extracts the strength of its essence". The German university had behind it its future. But that behind was Hellenic grandeur. In us, now, in our nation, it was embodied. Our people were a spiritual community and in it lived, preserving the Greek and the Germanic, united and giving life to the wronged spirit of the West. Heidegger then said a phrase of unattainable lucidity, and of ungraspable beauty: "The beginning is still on. It is not behind us like something that happened long ago, but is instead before us. The beginning, as such is the largest, it has passed earlier over everything forthcoming. The beginning has entered already into our future; it is there like a distant command that we recover once again its greatness".[Next]
I don't know if you understand him or someday you'll understand him. I don't know if those that read him some day in the future will understand him. But if Hitler returned its pride to the nation, if he got it out of its hole, out of the muddy mire of the Versailles Treaty, if he gave vitality to her industries, if he pointed to those guilty of the defeat and taught us to hate them, to abuse them, if he denounced those who profited from the nation at the cost of the people's hunger, Heidegger gave us a lineage, and aristocracy of the spirit. We, the Germans, were Hellenic. Greece was our origin and that origin, like a mandate, demanded we recover her greatness and win our own.
Heidegger -- before our shaking spirits -- had just created the Athens-Berlin axis.
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¶ 6:02 AM
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Intense, Enk.
The rise of the nazis may have seemed hellenic for Heidegger--I doubt so much for..Der Fuhrer and pals. Not sure what the exact ideology of the nazis was, apart from "Deutschland Ueber Alles"-- they did quote Nietzsche (at least the few anti-semitic sections, the Will to Power hype, etc). Yet Himmler for one seems to have an interest..in the esoteric, possibly occult--nordic paganism, etc. And as is well known most of the nazi brass were...catholics. Austrians, Bavarians etc. (excepting the fat freak Goering tho, who was...evangelische--part jewish as well, most likely--Heidegger probably knew HG, ah wager)
IMHE, they wanted to purge the semitic aspects of history and culture--so anything--which offered a justification of the noble Aryans was acceptable. Were the nazis platonic, though?? That might be debated. Socrates typically mocks the heroic militarists/generals (Alcibiades, sorts of a Goering of 400 bc or so). Athenians weren't spartans. So we might say their models were..like homeric heroes--not Socrates (and Nietzsche himself was no admirer of Plato was he).
The rise of the nazis may have seemed hellenic for Heidegger--I doubt so much for..Der Fuhrer and pals. Not sure what the exact ideology of the nazis was, apart from "Deutschland Ueber Alles"-- they did quote Nietzsche (at least the few anti-semitic sections, the Will to Power hype, etc). Yet Himmler for one seems to have an interest..in the esoteric, possibly occult--nordic paganism, etc. And as is well known most of the nazi brass were...catholics. Austrians, Bavarians etc. (excepting the fat freak Goering tho, who was...evangelische--part jewish as well, most likely--Heidegger probably knew HG, ah wager)
IMHE, they wanted to purge the semitic aspects of history and culture--so anything--which offered a justification of the noble Aryans was acceptable. Were the nazis platonic, though?? That might be debated. Socrates typically mocks the heroic militarists/generals (Alcibiades, sorts of a Goering of 400 bc or so). Athenians weren't spartans. So we might say their models were..like homeric heroes--not Socrates (and Nietzsche himself was no admirer of Plato was he).
My sense from my readings is that the Nazis had no philosophy that one can characterize as such (e.g., are they more Platonic or Aristotelian?). There were several philosophers at the time who tried to provide one for them, like MH, but the Nazis just exploited them for propaganda purposes, just as they exploited Nietzsche. Berlin sent directives to the universities telling them what passages from Nietzsche (e.g. the uber man) should be promulgated in classes. Sluga's book Heidegger's Crisis is a good source here, and includes a photo of Hitler staring wistfully at a bust of Friedrich.
Ive seen your Sluga posts on here. He sounds Kaye-like--pathos rather than Logos--but he's a UC apparatchik--so has some juice. Some of us tired of professors telling us "Nazis are evil" like in our 20s.
Feinman (and yr translations) does a better job than most philosophasters in terms of pointing out the atrocities, heroics ...tragedy, etc..and Heidegger's relation to it all, without too much pathos (but I don't think he engages in moral relativism or excuses the nazis, or Heidegger).
Feinman (and yr translations) does a better job than most philosophasters in terms of pointing out the atrocities, heroics ...tragedy, etc..and Heidegger's relation to it all, without too much pathos (but I don't think he engages in moral relativism or excuses the nazis, or Heidegger).
the nazi brass were Catholics? I think if you dig one inch below that "well known" fact you'll find the opposite ---Anyhow in keeping with the spirit of the post I thought I would take the opportunity to quote the epigrammatic inner will of GA 33, which for me is demonstrative of the fact that Heidegger's Nasizm was the inevitable consequence of an auseinandersetzung with an historical extremity:
"Perhaps some centuries later one will judge that all German philosophy finds its authentic worth in that it is a gradual recovery of the soil of antiquity, and that each claim to so called originality sounds trite and laughable in relation to the higher claim of the Germans to have reestablished the apparently broken link with the Greeks, up to now the highest type of human being" [Will to Power-Aphorism 419]
"Perhaps some centuries later one will judge that all German philosophy finds its authentic worth in that it is a gradual recovery of the soil of antiquity, and that each claim to so called originality sounds trite and laughable in relation to the higher claim of the Germans to have reestablished the apparently broken link with the Greeks, up to now the highest type of human being" [Will to Power-Aphorism 419]
GA 33? I just looked in the lectures on Metaphysics θ 1-3, and there it is in the epigraph, Will to Power-419.
So then the inner will, and consequently the "inner truth and greatness of this movement" is (was, shoulda been) the recovery of Greek soil? Clearly the message wasn't acknowledged in Berlin.
So then the inner will, and consequently the "inner truth and greatness of this movement" is (was, shoulda been) the recovery of Greek soil? Clearly the message wasn't acknowledged in Berlin.
Most of the leading nazis--Hitler, Himmler, Bormann, Heydrich-- were raised as catholics. Goering had a catholic mother. I don't mean to suggest they were good, practicing catholics, Pseudi. Merely that ..they were a product of the RCC (as are most southern germans/austrians). In the 30s Hitler also sought a Concordat with the Pope--and got it.
There's all sorts of phunn-filled information on this online, Pseudi.
Interesting Enowning factoid: Himmler's daughter "Gudrun" is still alive...and attends neo-nazi events at times, and works for the cause of ex-SS officers. Hottie
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There's all sorts of phunn-filled information on this online, Pseudi.
Interesting Enowning factoid: Himmler's daughter "Gudrun" is still alive...and attends neo-nazi events at times, and works for the cause of ex-SS officers. Hottie
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