119944351 heidegger and nazism

7/27/2019 119944351 Heidegger and Nazism

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How Stupid

Genius Can Be:

Heideggers NazismBy David E. LaneTheres too much to read so Ill give you my conclusions up

front and you decide if youd care to attend to the whole argument.

Im weighing in on the issue of Heideggers Nazism. Does his phi-

losophy lead to his politics? Is his engagement with National Social-

ism there in veiled form in his metaphysics? Jurgen Habermas and

Slavoj Zizek think so. I think the connections they draw are strained

and established by analogies. Aristotle was trying to save us time by

telling us that argument by analogy is the weakest kind.

If Heidegger were a wife-beater, or a vegetarian, or a Marxist,

I dont think the urge to discover these types of comprehensive link-

ages would be so strong. (Birchalli claims that this debates been go-

ing on since 1934!) Somehow this particular constellation - Heideg-

gers destruktion of philosophy, his Nazism, and his widespread in-

fluence - drives major continental thinkers (Lukacs, Adorno, Jaspers,

2001


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Marcuse, Derrida, etc.) to look for (and of course find) continuities in

complex patterns of Heideggers thought and life.

The issue of Heideggers Nazism gets too much attention. I

add to the bulk of paper on the subject only because, in their attemptto find the National Socialist messages between the lines of Heideg-

gers collected works, Habermas & Zizek exemplify thought proc-

esses that reward scrutiny. Their arguments are complex and sophis-

ticated, whereas I have an inelegant explanation. I think even a gen-

ius can say, do, and believe stupid things.

Thought processes that reward scrutiny requires explana-

tion. The so-called Continental thinkers have their separate, sover-eign territory & most open-minded intellectuals seem to believe bet-

ter trade between us and them would be mutually beneficial, but

thats easier said than done. The Channel is choppy.ii So-called An-

glo-analytic thinkers take forays into this territory and criticize the

locals for their barbaric practices.iii When the Continentals are ac-

cused of Unaccountability there are defenses to be marshaled on

their behalf, and Anglo-analytic thinkers suffer a counter-accusation

of Misunderstanding. These dialogues of the deaf are funny, tedious,

informative, merely stylistic, etc. by turns. Every so often someone

calls for greater unity and what that actually means is anybodys

guess. Lets seize an opportunity to take this aging bull by its horns,

which will entail saying disparaging things about both sides and

then taking the consequences. One: important analytic philosophers

were wrong. Heideggers contribution to the 20th century was cru-

cial. Two: key Continental philosophers diminish him with poorly

substantiated arguments.

The indictments of Heideggers philosophy (distinct from ac-

cusing himpersonally of being misguided, foolish, malicious, racist,


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or worse) present a unique opportunity here we may introduce

without confusion the mechanical rules of logic and inference into

their discourse. This is a show trial which we could stop using global

standards.My argument is that by those standards, these philosophi-

cal/political connections are unstable. Husserl and many analytic

thinkers have said that the non-verifiable nature of Heideggers as-

sertions endorses a rejection or diminution of reasoned discourse,

which ultimately encourages politically irresponsible thought and

behavior. & its good fodder for their argument that Heidegger was

a Nazi. On reflection, however, its silly to assert that the effort re-quired to understand Heidegger can somehow lead to covert fascism.

Such arguments are themselves not empirically validated or ade-

quately verifiable, arent tightly bound to the rules of standard rea-

soned discourse. Without contradiction, one may condemn Heideg-

gers political affiliations and censure the arguments of his critics.

Bad thinking fails on its own, however promising or positive its af-

filiations. Argumentum ad hominem is a logical fallacy regardless of

the speakers credentials or motives.iv

Habermas & Zizek are placeholders for the many different

thinkers who over-interpret Heidegger in this way; case-studies, if

you will, in a kind of over-think. To really judge the arguments its

necessary to look at specific claims made, how the arguments hold

together and how they are substantiated. Below, (Appendices H &

Z) Ill reiterate what I take to be Habermas and Zizeks main points,

and then pick them off like those little ducky targets at a carnival.

1.


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First, we should distinguish two aspects of the Heidegger

Controversy.v One part speculates (in the sense ofmining) on the

empirical details to discover the extent, intensity and dates of Hei-

deggers involvement. Derrida, in an interview entitledHeidegger,The Philosophers Hell, says

I believe in the necessity of exposing, limitlessly ifpossible, the profound adherence of the Heideg-gerian text (writings and acts) to the possibility andthe reality of Nazisms, because I believe this abysmalmonstrosity should not be classified according towell-known and finally reassuring schemasvi

I say: Get a life! Go spread joy! Be useful! For the sake of this

article lets assume that Heidegger was an unrepentant Nazi till he

died in 76 and limit our discussion to the supposed profound ad-

herence of the writings part of the Heideggerian text to Na-

zisms. This is the philosophical aspect of this debate, which ad-

dresses questions like in so far as you are learning Heideggers

post-metaphysical vocabulary, how much fascist subtext slips into

your speech and thinking?

Habermas argument largely follows the two branches of this

controversy: I) the biographical facts and II) analogies between the

philosophical ideas and suppositions about how Heidegger acted in

and reacted to the political situation.

I) is solid enough ground: the dates coincide, there are photos

of Heidegger in front of Nazi flags and texts of rabid and offensive

speeches Heidegger made, etc. But the momentum of I) is expectedto propel us to II), which is really an admixture of similarity, simul-

taneity, suggestion, and ESP. Habermass argument, built on analo-

gies, affinities, and circumstantial evidence, may be right intuitively,

as in Martys the thief - I can feel it in my bones, but lapses in stan-


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dards of proof + righteous anger fall below the thresholds that com-

mand respect in thinkers

The question that draws me is: what motivates these detailed

but tenuous Heidegger arguments? A not-terribly-sophisticated an-swer is that in the course of cultural criticism at this scale, one is

naturally obliged to account for the positions of the other active

players in the field. Simply, Habermas and Zizek further their larger

agendas by synonymizing Heidegger the Nazi with Heidegger the

Intellectual Influence, and thereby dismiss both, a kind of coup

detat on a the cultural plane.

This explanation is at best partial. Their accounts, though theyculminate in dismissal, are engagements, not just farewells. Perhaps

in engagement there is at work a more general tendency we have

when, left alone with something we love, we continue to read mean-

ings in and around that something once we are done with its sur-

faces. Imagine a generic, broadly functioning urge to play with, to

texture, to layer, to interpret, to make more of what is in front of us

(even just lyrics to pop songs or the offhand comments of someone

who is meaningful to us). Could this be a way to describe the origins

of much commentary and criticism, all the way up the food chain to

philosophical works?

I am tempted to say that Habermas may be too close to this is-

sue to see the leaps his thinking takes. There is even evidence of the

emotional nature of the issue for him. Discussing his dissertation

advisors, he says:

Nobody told us about their past. We had to find outstep by step. It took me four years of studies, mostlyjust accidentally looking into books in libraries, todiscover what they had been thinking only a decadeand a half ago. Think what that meant!vii


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Think what that meant! Its a loaded exclamation point. I could

suggest that, for Habermas, the challenge to Heidegger is a displaced

reaction to his professors, a sublimation, but, as I lead you down this

path, in good faith I add: watch your step. The above suggestionabout Habermas psychological motives is untrustworthy. Because

once that door is opened, we almost cant help but look for hidden

motives in any writer while they defend or reject a system/thinker.

The door that opens supposedly reveals a primal scene of thinking -

we find ourselves looking for the real reason they argue for or

against something. Its all drama and guesswork. The result is a su-

perficial sense of certainty - it offers the reader a facile Now I get itsensation which is often a good enough substitute for proof and

analysis.

Our recapitulation of the motivation behind [Hei-deggers intellectual change] in terms of the his-tory of that period confirms the outcome of our re-construction... viii

Here, the difference between temporal and causal sequence is ig-

nored and the premise assumes its conclusion. Likewise, be suspi-

cious of all of my assertions about the motives of thinkers.

Lets experiment. Allow that the true underpinnings of all

discourse are the auto- and biographical facts of the authors who cre-

ate systems -- what was going on in Freuds life when he discovered

the death instinct? What truly inspired Meinong? --now how do we

legitimize confessions and the claims made by biographers? Shall we

wait for the biographer who convincingly tells us Im in a space

right now where its important for me to be fair? Will a personal

sense of the importance of justice qualify someone to be arbiter of the

value and true context of the facts of someone elses life? You see

the problem. But, for the sake of argument, lets stand momentarily


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on thin ice, and use that fairness scale. How does Habermas fare?

The weird irony is that this espouser of an ideal speech community

of uncoerced conversation, who believes that in a just world we must

account for the position of the alter, doesnt know how to listen.His analysis of Hegel, Nietzsche, and the deconstructionists (beyond

the scope of this essay), show the shortcomings of a man who has not

expended the energy to understand the complexities of views he in-

tends to oppose. A clear illustration of this is his refusal or inability

to read in the Heideggerian concept Dasein anything but another

name for individual subject (H, below). Habermas is out to win a

fight, and Heideggers commitment to National Socialism functionslike a vulnerable arrangement of an opponents chess pieces.ix

For Zizek, the argument for the unity of Heideggers philoso-

phy and politics is also probably strategic - the attack serves his

agenda (Z, below). But additionally, Id argue that a motive for

drawing these particular parallels and making these arguments is

aesthetic. Its like an orderly desk, or removing asymmetry by re-

framing a photograph. In the course of working through an idea its

easy to underestimate or minimize the importance of the aesthetic

dimension of our thinking, but I believe it is a type of self-

examination that is requisite for a clear intellectual conscience, and

should be laid bare for others to evaluate. In fact, that one frank self-

observation has changed the course of my entire intellectual life, and

altered every argument I make. The observation is so simple to ex-

press that the power of its truth resists communication.

Aesthetic dimension is an inappropriately abstract term. Ill

put it this way: a pre-philosophic affinity for some styles of thinking

precedes and to an extent determines whom I will read charitably

and whom I will take issue with. The appeal of Anglo-analytic phi-


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losophy is its clarity, purity, and utility; Im effortlessly tolerant of its

pedantry, its modesty, and its mania for precision. I respond to

Primo Levi; Im not so crazy about Gertrude Stein. I love Pierce and

Dewey; Being and Time goes against my grain. Im not alone in mylittle preferences. Dummett reads Frege in the best possible light and

rigorously examines Husserls flaws.x A list like this could go on and

on. How much is purely about ideas? Zizeks take on Heidegger is

parsimonious; his reading of Lacan is forgiving and expansive, so

Zizek successfully demonstrates that Lacan, read expansively, sym-

pathetically, and charitably provides a better picture than Heidegger

read narrowly. Zizek wants Lacan to be his weapon and shield whenhe enters the field of debate.xi His chosen targets (deconstructionists,

new agers, deep ecologists, Habermas, Marxists) are numerous, so he

must forge Lacans best points strong and sharp.xii The question is

Does Zizeks program indicate the same pre-philosophic matter of

preference, no more, no less?

3.

Most likely, what disagreement between me and Haber-

mas/Zizek comes down to is how we define our terms. To avoid the

charge of argument by analogy, they could make their argument by

neologism, i.e. claim that their nouns, as they define them, will fit

correctly into the patterns of their word arrangements. Davidson

suggests that we can keep a concept of reality in linguistic practice

and drop the notion of reference (direct correspondence between

word and thing). Rather than think of language as a great, meta-

physical entity that we all partake in (a kind of thought structuring

Uni-Mind), we think of ourselves as interpreters of other speakers

utterances, and we predict their behavior and plot their beliefs that

way, communicating without assuming shared conventional mean-


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ings. Language (capital L) is replaced by idiolects and we are all

involved in the task of translating an Others idiolect into our own. If

an Other utters something in their idiolect that doesnt exactly jive

with the same utterance in your own idiolect, than we apply a prin-ciple of charity and translate their sounds to be an accurate reading

of reality rather than get caught up in dictionary definitions. Accord-

ing to this view, only in a fraction of cases will you say something

you dont want to say, or use the wrong word, and that always takes

place on a vast grid of points of similarity.xiii

Zizek & Habermas may need this Principle of Charity to jus-

tify their condemnation of Heideggers belief in National Socialismbecause his definition bears so little resemblance to the term as used

by historians and people who lived through the nightmare. E.g., ra-

cism cannot simply be excised from the ideology, nor can centralized

government, nor can the Nazi attachment to economic and military

expansion. When Heidegger describes getting caught up, he

sounds to me like a dog at a birthday party yapping, running in cir-

cles, but not grasping a whole lot.

In his darkest lectures, rereading Being & Time to accommo-

date Hitlers message (as he understood it), Heidegger becomes a

cautionary example of what can happen if we try to both control the

interpretation of our own work and ignore the necessity for substan-

tiation of our claims.xiv

Rather than throw Being and Time in the pile with his Nazi lec-

tures at this book burning, heres how I would approach the subject.

Not only does each individual speak in an idiolect, each individual

contains multiple idiolects. Nils Bohr may be a genius in only one of

these idiolects.


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This idea needs to be surveyed from several angles, to distin-

guish it from adjacent ideas.

First I should demarcate it from psychological models that it

may resemble. Multiple idiolects should not be confused withFreuds ego/super-ego/id topography of thought. For example, ones

ethical capacities may be hyper-developed and creative expression

atrophied, but we dont need to ascribe any primal or archetypal

(Oedipal) status to that situation.

I also would like to distinguish this concept from multiple

personalities, like Sybil. Its nothing so dramatic as discreet, frag-

mentary, mutually exclusive voices in our head. Were discussing amundane, unextraordinary occurrence. But when dealing with genu-

ine polymaths we should think of them as having learned several

idiolects, as we normally think of some people as having facility with

foreign languages.

Cognitive scientists will talk about types of intelligence (spatial,

emotional, problem solving, so forth), but I lack the qualifications to

discuss this. Im speaking in smaller, more modest terms, and mul-

tiple idiolects are probably closer to what we normally call topics

than to mental faculties.

In applying this model, we have the breakdown of some tradi-

tional categories of thought. Auden discusses love in an insightful

and elegant way, but if you see a photograph of him you wonder

who dressed him in the morning. Can a man know Beauty and

choose to wear those suits? Aesthetics gets broken down. As does

Logic: using this formula we can explain why physicists with ad-

vanced mathematical skills are capable of basic flaws in symbolic

logic. The series of valid or interesting grammatical associations in

one idiolect may or may not match another, adjacent, superficially


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similar topic. (And of course there is always room for error, even

where there is fluency.)

Think of a topic, any topic, as a game that will legitimately al-

low a finite number of moves. [Topics of conversation as sub-speciesof human action are just easiest to talk about. It is also possible to

think in these terms about being adept at facial expression games, or

using the musical inflection of your voice to manipulate peoples im-

pressions, etc.] Chess may have superficial similarities to checkers;

Tommy whips my ass in checkers, but doesnt stand a chance when

we play chess.

Heres a concrete example. Michael Frayns Copenhagenleaves the several notions of uncertainty indistinct. Uncertainty in

memory has superficial features in common withHeisenbergs uncer-

tainty principle. Frayn in vain applies the thoughts and concepts ap-

propriate to one en masse to the other. The audience, in a dizzied

state of information absorption, draws their own broad, weird con-

nections. We are left buzzing, talkative, alive. Frayns real insight,

his true talent and skill is his capacity to anticipate audiences reac-

tions to entertainment that exclusively stimulates the intellect. The

treatment of the audience is demonstrably an expression of brilliance

and the treatment of the dense material (physics, history, the tricks of

memory) is often facile and broad. To explain Frayns powers and

flaws (beyond just a review of the play) I could fruitfully make use of

this division of idiolects.

Clear writing and clear speaking are necessarily the products

of clear thinking. That assertion (as well as its contrarium) hypos-

tasizes the contributing factors to insightful, compelling remarks, lo-

cating INTELLECT in a nebulous place. We may do better by concep-

tualizing clear writing as a skill, and clear speaking as complemen-


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tary (but not synonymous) skill, both of which follow their own

guidelines, guidelines which speakers and writers meet by accident,

contagion, application of effort, etc. A lucid, concise public speaker

can be almost incomprehensible on the page, and indecisive withfamily at the dinner table. Why should that situation stump us?

There must be some unity to a person is a natural counter-

assertion. I want to underscore that I am not arguing my position to

the exclusion of its opposite. Reasonably, the efficacy of any concep-

tual tool is obviously in its instances of application.

What can we do with the paradigm of multiple idiolects? In

what instances will it work better (or worse) than a more standard,holistic model of an individuals intelligence applied to different sub-

jects?

Here is one instance: the author ofBeing & Time supported

Hitler.

Appendix H

In lecture 6 ofDer philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: Zwolf

Vorlesungen xv, (PDM) Habermas tries to demonstrate how Heideg-

gers Kehre (his Turn) was motivated by his encounter with fas-

cism. To follow the basic argument, what follows is a summary, a

BEFORE/AFTER snapshot of this Kehre.

Being & Time claims to pose the philosophical question that

has been forgotten or dismissed in our time, What is it to be? The

point of departure for this inquiry will be the entity that can pose

such a question, Dasein (or Here-being). Here-being is a way of

discussing human life without relying on the subject/object relation-

ship exemplified by Cartesian philosophy: thephenomenological

method allows us to look at the substance of Being unprejudiced by


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our usual categories of thought. Heideggers move is to transpose

epistemological issues to the level of ontology. So if we softly inter-

rogate phenomena into yielding the structures that human life must

always have, we discover first that in-use is a better way of de-scribing the common content of experience than the more habitual

object in front of me. As I type, the phenomena that concerns me is

the unwinding sentence on the computer screen, more than I am a

thinking subject (the Cartesian cogito) in relation to an object (the

keyboard) that I engage by typing on it. The relationship of self-to-

object is generally reserved for moments when the something goes

wrong (the keys stick, I have misplaced the keyboard), when I haveto examine the thing or find it. Rather than define KEYBOARD as

thing that I impose a utility on, keyboard primarily fits in to pro-

jects and so implies a stand always-already taken on existence.

The keyboard writes the paper that I give to people to communicate

my thoughts because I subscribe to the value placed on being a pro-

ductive intellectual in a certain discursive community. World is

the totality of these engagements, i.e. Dasein has a world and thereby

discloses beings (with a small b) like keyboards. The always-

present series of intersecting and increasingly encompassing pro-

jects is how World is uncovered, and life is not well described nor

completely described as the conscious engagements of a thinking

subject. A doctor enters a classroom and spots the kids who may

have Attention Deficit Disorder; a plasterer enters the same room

and sees damage to the walls; these sensitivities are first and fore-

most the products of the repetition of prior projects, not spontaneous

thought in an environment with objective qualities. Every speech act

or activity or mood shift is potentially an occasion to unwrap the

phenomenological package that constitutes our lives, the projects


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that define us. On the condition, of course, that we not remain com-

pletely immersed in the particular mood or particular project or in

our habits of thought for conceptualizing them. Because defining

ones self as a Doctor or a Plasterer is still at the ontic level rolesone may inhabit. Analyzed properly (phenomenologically), there are

formal, ontological structures of Being that our projects and relation-

ships can lead us to:

Here-being is always with others (even solitude is a de-ficient mode of being-with-others)

Dasein always has social practices and institutions in placebefore we get there (throwness)

Dasein always cares and always takes some stand onwhat is it to be?

(Heidegger in his grave groans at my bullet points of existence. My

characterization, my methods, criteria and perhaps my entire life are

precisely what Heidegger might consider enemies of real think-

ing.)

The structure of Here-being prevents us from confusing

Dasein as the ground of presence with Dasein as the transcendent possibil-ity of world becauseDasein is constitutionally in-the-world, and al-

ways already engaged in projects and caring. We dont have the op-

tion of not disclosing World. However, we are constitutionally in-

clined to ignore our distinct role as the ground for the disclosure of

Being. Instead we think of ourselves, not as perpetually posing and

answering the question of Being, revealing World, but as things

spiritual or mental things who then somehow interact with matter.

Heidegger seems constitutionally incapable of making matters

plain, so his Kehre goes unacknowledged and unexplained (certain

features of it are generally agreed upon in the secondary literature).

Less obscure is the output from 33-34, in which Heidegger speaks of


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the Dasein of the German people and seems to associate authentic

being-with with National Socialism, so that the Nazis raise to the level

of explicitness our ontological structure. He backpedals within a

year. Later, he will make cryptic, abrasive remarks, conceding thatNational Socialism took a wrong turn, always missing the point of

his critics, never openly acknowledging or directly addressing his

mistakes.

Around 1949, Heidegger, banned from teaching at a univer-

sity, delivers a series of lectures to a room full of non-academics that

become the basis of later essays, (The Question Concerning Technol-

ogy, etc.) The question is still the analysis of Being, but the projec-tive, active character of Dasein is absent as the ground for the pres-

ence of Being in this approach. Not just absent, it seems to function

negatively: modern, scientific, Western Man, good, bourgeois, liberal,

humanist Man, desiring to master and understand everything,

clouds over the face of Being.

Being reveals Itself differently to different eras and peoples,

via different languages (Language is the House of Being, and Being

moves through them like the universe through Zodiacal houses in

months that last as long as civilizations). Being has been and can al-

ways be other than what it reveals itself as to us, so temporality

functions in this thinking as the Shepherd of Being, and Being

itself mutates; it has a history. Everything we (we = moderns) can

experience think is an instance of Beings (currently technological

form of) self-revelation.

Technology is not under our control. Properly understood,

technology is the frame through which Man sees himself and his

world, our thoughts condition of possibility. Man does not speak

language so much as language speaks Man, provides access to cer-


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tain dimensions of Being (man as the measure for all things, e.g.). All

politicians, academics, army generals, and priests share the unques-

tioned horizon of our eras particular mode of self-revelation of Be-

ing.Self-revelation and, simultaneously, self-concealment: Being is

characterized for us mostly by its current state of withdrawal. What

we have been left with instead is manipulable standing reserve,

Life and World waiting for us to mold and master. Western philoso-

phy and its ungrateful, now grown children (Psychology, Sociology,

Science, etc.), and all they offer, rob us of the primal experience of

Being. What can be done?What can be done?? Even the question reveals our epochs

misguided preconceptions of our role, as if we could simply apply

ourselves and Being would show Itself. We have lost attentiveness to

Being, and real thinking has been replaced by the application of phi-

losophical formulas, (idiocy, like psychoanalysis and linguistic phi-

losophy), and a tradition of metaphysics that is incapable of respond-

ing to our current epochs Being. Heidegger prowls along the limits

of communication, searching for a new language in which he can

discuss the preparedness for thinking, and even suggests that si-

lence may be the only mode for its communication. Only a god can

save us now, and He will not come at our entreating, but only when

we have learned to be receptive. Its an apocalyptic opera of despair

and resignation that may have to be performed in silence.

Now, if we (im)properly understand Heideggers shift to his

later philosophy, we can move forward. This is the story Habermas

tells:

Heidegger had treated the whole framework ofBeing& Time without any obvious change up to 1933.


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Then he suddenly gave it a collectivist turn: Daseinwas no longer this poorindividual hanging in theairnow Dasein was the Dasein of the people.[H]e gave to Being & Time a national-revolutionaryreading. He had the nutty idea that he, as a spiritual

leader, could set himself at the head of the wholemovement. You have to be brought up in a GermanGymnasium to have such notions. After a year ortwohe became disillusioned. What ifBeing &Time identified with the movement from which henow retreated - were affected and discredited?Given Heideggers personality structure, one solu-tion was to interpret what had happened as an objec-tive, fatal mistake, one for which he was no longerresponsible as a person. You can trace the lines

where he took this way out. It is these external rea-sons that lie significantly behind the emergence ofthe later idea of the history of Being.xvi

So Heideggers later philosophy amounts to justification for the claim

that he did not originate in his consciousness a Nazi affiliation, but

Being somehow spoke thusly through him.

The issue here is establishing the firm continuity between phi-

losophical shifts and political involvement. The burden of proof is

with Habermas. Alternative explanations abound. Many philoso-

phers (Wittgenstein, Putnam, Foucault, e.g.) also have mid-career

transformations, and their shifts wont necessarily involve political

explanations. Heideggers Kehre has also been ascribed to his famili-

arity with the thinking of the pro-war lunatic and historicist, Ernst

Jnger. Jnger pointed out that in-use (exploitable), is not a uni-

versal constant (an ontological) way of conceptualizing things, its aparticularly modern perspective: previous epochs used different

categories (the gifts of God, e.g.). Historicizing our ontological struc-

ture radically alters possible phenomenological analyses. A thinker,

like anyone else, can experience all types of crises, shifts and realiza-


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tions; a change could be precipitated simply by intellectual and phi-

losophical maturation, or a random insight that snowballs.

Habermas degree of familiarity with both the philosophy and

the life of Heidegger can almost convince us that this continuity isburied just below the facts and self-evident once pointed out. But

analysis of this putative continuity is not compelling analysis of Hei-

deggers philosophy. Its an interesting and even credible connec-

tion, but its credibility never moves beyond possible to become

necessary or, an even better criterion, illuminating. If I do see

the politics rumbling under the surface its because I have suc-

cumbed to Habermas suggestion, which has the same force that arumor has, not because its a smooth connection. When I first read

Heidegger I wasnt aware he was a Nazi, and I dont know if its

humanly possible to derive that fact without receiving additional

biographical information. Herbert Marcuse, who sat in the same

room as him, couldnt tell.xvii

Here is Habermas maneuver:

Our recapitulation of the motivation behind the Ke-hre in terms of the history of that period confirms theoutcome of our reconstruction of its internal theo-retical development. xviii

In this recapitulation (in terms of the history of that period)

and in the prior quote (you can trace the lines where he took this

way out, given Heideggers personality, you have to be brought

up in a German Gymnasium to have such notions, these external

reason lie significantly behind) all of the evidence presented is, at

best, circumstantial. Put yourself in the hot-seat. Will you go

through philosophical transformations? What would be the best way

to describe the change?


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Before we were born we were spoken about. After we die we

are spoken about. We are born into language, which reveals to us

some of Being and conceals most. Are these the thoughts of a Nazi?

Yes. Are these necessarily the thoughts of a Nazi? No. And theydont sound at all like Nazi ideology. The actual state of things has

been mistaken here for their sufficient cause.

In the absence of a KO we can use Poppers criteria: if no evi-

dence could disprove the argument, nothing has been proved.xix I

can see know way of disproving Habermas assertions on the phi-

losophical level (one might argue with his biographical facts).

We may also use a pragmatists measure to judge particularsof Habermas argument: what are the practical implications of ac-

cepting his characterization of Heidegger? By this standard we

should dismiss the political/philosophical connection because the

perspective from which we see the least value in Heideggers phi-

losophy is through his offensive political engagements. If expressed

as choice: either read Heideggers later essays as evasions, regrets

and mistakes of a man writ vaguely; or read them as potentially

valuable philosophy. Details of interest in Heideggers essays may

lose relevance when they dont jive with the skewed and harmful

biographical picture.

It is wise also to remember why we are discussing this issue in

the first place: it is because Heidegger was often insightful and inter-

esting on a range of abstract topics. Heidegger is taught in universi-

ties, gets translated, retranslated, and goes through multiple print-

ings because certain dispositions enrich their lives by contemplating

what he had to say.

The pragmatists measure is more like a scale than a ruler:

we have to place weight on both sides to determine the true value of


20/33

an argument, and I have so far only stressed the shortcomings. There

is some clumsiness to individual arguments made by Habermas, but

there is also elegance to his overall story and his clear sense of mis-

sion.The central point ofPDM is reiterated in practice by each lec-

ture; there is nothing incidental about the books conceptual struc-

ture. Habermas has an indestructible faith in the Enlightenment no-

tion that bad, incorrect ideas eventually get discredited and replaced

by more rational ones, but he replaces the Scientist in Nature para-

digm for deducing truth with a paradigm ofDebate Teams. Habermas

says what he has to say by critique one voice (dissenting, in thiscase) among many. Each lecture is a procedurally consistent gesture,

an example of communicative reason in action. Hes not trying to tell

THE story of modern philosophy; PDM does not attempt to define the

topography and genealogy of current philosophical thought (there

are no lectures on seminal thinkers such as Wittgenstein or Husserl,

e.g.). Instead he intends to combat rival trends in thought, namely

French post-structuralism, which (according to him) relinquishes the

concept of progress entirely, and so loses any normative standards

by which one could conduct coherent critique. Habermas seeks to

reform the notion of rational thought and action because, though

Derrida and Foucault may offer us gleaming, sharp tools for criticism

of common notions, practices and institutions, they dont follow up

with a programmatic response to our social ills, they offer little hope.

If Habermas chooses to include a lecture on (the arguably marginal)

Bataille, while ignoring Frege (a major figure), the strategy is to

demonstrate the miscalculations and overstatements of his

opponents intellectual influences. Habermas attack on Heidegger

aids his agenda in so far as Heidegger was an influence on Derrida


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agenda in so far as Heidegger was an influence on Derrida and Fou-

cault.

In PDM, Habermas reveals an underlying structural similarity

in the idea systems of modern major thinkers and can level the samecriticism at each of them. A formative, influential element of their

systems has to come from outside of it. (Forgive the jargon:) Fou-

caults epistemic shifts fall on history like meteors from space; Der-

ridas archewriting descends to actual linguistic expression like God

comes to Charlton Heston in Cecil B. DeMilles movie; Being speaks

through us in Heidegger like a rambling ventriloquist we never meet.

By contrast, for Habermas, all criticism as well as all assertion sits inthe context of an intersubjectively engaged speech community shar-

ing a lifeworld. The appeal is that this maximizes our participation

in transformation of the world. We may forgive blemishes (his mis-

readings) if we love the face (the basic argument).

We have arrived at one more standard to use against Haber-

mas conclusions, a standard provided by Habermas theory of inter-

subjective validity claims. This is grossly oversimplified but, accord-

ing to him, every utterance is a truth claim (speech act T) and Tis al-

ways implicitly or explicitly tied to an affirmation or negation made

by a hearer ofT. Tis generally not evaluated by comparing the

statement to prevailing conditions in the world, but by the reasons

the speaker gives or could give to support their claims. These rea-

sons are evaluated in terms of their intersubjective acceptability: do

we agree that they are good reasons for holding Tto be valid? The

medium in which good reasons climb or float to the top is argumen-

tation, provided that winners of arguments are not simply the loud-

est voices or the toughest speakers, but those with the best reasons.


22/33

Universal agreement among uncoerced speakers and hearers is the

ideal implied by each T.

Habermas raises this process to the level of self-consciousness

in his writings. He asserts that he has taken other philosophers posi-tions seriously and offered contrasting, better ideas of his own, a

claim which, according to his system, is then open to our further in-

tersubjective scrutiny in so far as we adopt this model for the argu-

mentative procedure for evaluating reasons in support of validity

claims. In this system we get plenty of room to maneuver as long as

Habermas calls the tune. Ill dance, but Habermas (like most of us)

doesnt really grasp what is most beautiful and fertile about himself.The intersubjective model of truth determination he endorses should

properly encourage a strengthening of the discursive field, should

properly result in sincere efforts to present potential reasons for

holding ideas, even opposing ideas. If it can not offer an honest ac-

count of the effects ideas have on their hearers it merely inspires par-

tisanship in the philosophical community, reifying positions already

held; we are then no better than lawyers in our search for truth.

Consequently, Habermas finds himself immersed in disputes

with Rorty, Gadamer, deconstructionists, Dieter Heinrich general

discourse, sophisticated, but not much more relevant to the outside

world than East Coast vs. West Coast Rap. As he practices it, the im-

perative to discredit, coupled with an ungenerous flattening of

others philosophical ideas, impoverishes and distorts the realm of

discourse, promoting a tense, one-sided atmosphere, a state of phi-

losophical one-upmanship in which care and quality of scholarship

are compromised. Habermas is open to such criticisms as his thesis

is false in its generality, that he holistically levelscomplicated re-

lationships and that he has surrendered to uninhibited skepticism


23/33

instead of weighing the grounds that cast doubt of this skepticism.xx

Inferior summaries of profound philosophy will be among the bad

ideas lost over time. That is, assuming time proves Habermas correct

and not merely a persuasive influence in the power struggles in andaround the concept of truth as we currently practice it.

Appendix Z

Zizeks argument about Heideggers Nazism, which is not

really an argument so much as a series of assertions, is part of an

agenda which really is an argument against serious excesses in a half

dozen schools of thought. Scholars of the last few generations, as amatter of course, dismiss Cartesian subjectivity, which underlies

many of our political and social staples (individual rights and re-

sponsibilities, private enterprise, the idea of a social contract, etc.).

[T]he New Age obscurantist (who wants to super-sede the Cartesian paradigm towards a new holisticapproach) and the postmodern deconstructionist (forwhom the Cartesian subject is a discursive fiction);

the Habermasian theorist of communication (whoinsists on a shift from Cartesian monological subjec-tivity to discursive intersubjectivity) and the Hei-deggerian proponent of the thought of Being (whostresses the need to traverse the horizon of modernsubjectivity culminating in current ravaging nihil-ism); the cognitive scientist (who endeavors to proveempirically that there is no unique sense of the Self,just a pandemonium of competing forces) and theDeep Ecologist (who blames Cartesian mechanistmaterialism for providing the philosophical founda-tion for the ruthless exploitation of nature); the criti-cal (post-)Marxist (who insists that the illusory free-dom of the bourgeois thinking subject is rooted inclass division) and the feminist (who emphasizesthat the allegedly sexless cogito is in fact a male pa-triarchal formation). Where is the academic orienta-tion which has not been accused by its opponents of


24/33

not yet properly disowning the Cartesian heritage?And which has not hurled back the branding re-proach of Cartesian subjectivity against its moreradical critics, as well as its reactionary adversar-ies?xxi

For Zizek, knee-jerk anti-Cartesian rhetoric is limiting if not

dangerous. He casts himself in the role of corrective for this general

trend. As in Habermas critique, Heideggers Nazism is too piquant

an ingredient for Zizek not to throw in:

If one endorses Heideggers deconstruction of themetaphysics of subjectivity, does one not thus un-dermine the very possibility of a philosophically

grounded democratic resistance to the totalitarianhorrors of the 20th century? Habermas answeris adefinitive and pathetic Yes! Heideggeri-answould retort that one cannot simply opposedemocratic subjectivity to its totalitarian excess,sincephenomena like totalitarianism are effec-tively grounded in modern subjectivity [O]ur the-sis will be that Lacan succeeds where Habermas andother defenders of the subjectfail: the Lacanian(re)reading of the problematic of subjectiv-ityenables us not only to delineate contours of anotion of subjectivity that does not fit the frame ofHeideggers notion of the nihilism inherent to mod-ern subjectivity, but also to locate the point of inher-ent failure of Heideggers philosophical edifice, up tothe often-discussed question of the eventual phi-losophical roots of his Nazi engagement.xxii

Lets get down to the eventual philosophical roots. Search-

ing the text for evidence, we find on offer assertions:

Heidegger did not engage in the Nazi political pro-ject in spite of his ontological philosophical ap-proach, but because of it; this engagement was notbeneath his philosophical level on the contrary, ifone is to understand Heidegger, the key point is tograsp the complicity (in Hegelese: speculative iden-


25/33

tity) between the elevation above ontic concerns andthe passionate ontic Nazi political engagement.xxiii

The implication is that if you see the alleged complicity as simply an

affinity or an analogy, you dont understand Heidegger.

The key point is and not in spite ofbut because is coer-

cive language, not conclusive. The language reveals the quality of

his argument:

does not the opposition between the modernanonymous dispersed society ofpeople busy fol-lowing their everyday preoccupations, and the Peo-ple authentically assuming its Destiny, resonate withthe opposition between the decadent modern

Americanized civilization of frenetic false activityand the conservative authentic response to it?xxiv

The verb is, (in case you lost it), resonate. The philosophical and

political continuity here amounts to does not [this] resonate with

[that]? In what instances can we condemn by criterion of resem-

blance?

Propositions without real demonstration are a stylistic quality

Zizek shares with Heidegger. We have instead mostly artificial

proofs: ethos (he establishes his good credentials as a well-read intel-

lectual),pathos (Zizek is provocative, unexpected, charming and

funny, which puts us in a mood receptive to his arguments); and lo-

gos (the grammatical shape of an argument implies that something

has been proven). But whereas Heidegger insists his assertions have

greater descriptive value than mere deduction or induction could

have, Zizek seems to want us to avoid sensible answers because he

has something more interesting and complicated to offer.

As opposed to clear and rigorous ideas, Zizek advances com-

plex, more-radical-than-thou ideas, which have their design and in-

tricacy as their own end. It is a goal for philosophy and a style of


26/33

thinking I am sympathetic towards even if I am critical of particular

shapes it takes. Zizek often succeeds, seduces and entertains, and I

think of him as an artist, an artist with a palette of Kant, Marx, David

Lynch, and heavy on the Lacan. Ill return to this point at the end.Several times, as if to preclude commonly accepted or com-

monsensical views, Zizek warns the reader away: Here one must

not fall in to the trap that caught the Heideggerans What trap?

Heideggers defendersdismissed [his] Nazi engagement as a sim-

ple anomaly in blatant contradiction to his thought, which teaches us

not to confuse ontological horizon with ontic choices. Why arent

Heideggers defenders presenting viable explanations? No furtherreasons are given, as if none are required. Maze designers cant con-

sider the possibility of a straight route, or even just one simple turn.

What remains unthoughtis the hidden complicitybetween the ontological indifference towards con-crete social systems (capitalism, Fascism, Commu-nism), in so far as they all belong to the same horizonof modern technology, and the secret privileging of aconcrete sociopolitical model (Nazism with Heideg-

ger, Communism with some Heideggerian Marx-ists) as closer to the ontological truth of our ep-och.xxv

To put this in another context, horizon of modern technol-

ogy is from later Heidegger (circa Question Concerning Technology,

1955) and the privileging ofNazism takes place officially for the

two years of his involvement (34 - 36) and maybe a secret privileg-

ing long after. Any complicity between a philosophical statement Imake today and a political thought I had twenty years ago would,

yes, be hidden, perhaps even from me. Think what kind of intellec-

tual familiarity is necessary to find that thread, to substantiate such

an assertion. Possible strategies for Zizek: Heidegger doesnt ac-


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knowledge the ruptures between his earlier and later writingsxxvi -

perhaps Zizek is playing along. Or he could be flattening out the

phases of Heideggers career because hidden complicity is more fun

than an outright distinction. Or he may be privy to evidence thathes not offering and Im not aware of. Or perhaps hes just been

careless. Grasping a Zizek argument is a little like squeezing clay:

squishy, sensuous, irregular in shape, and a welcomed messy break

from normal activity. Nonetheless, he gives us the following in the

grammatical shape of a conclusion, one can see now:

One can now see the ideological trap that caughtHeidegger. [He] repeats the elementary ideologicalgesture of maintaining an inner distance towards theideological text of claiming that there is somethingmore beneath it, a non-ideological kernel: ideologyexerts its hold over us by means of this very insis-tence that the Cause we adhere to is not merelyideological.

The word ideological, repeated six times in the above sen-

tence, serves Zizeks argument by focusing our concentration on a

political/social dimension. One assertion of Heideggers, impossible

to contemplate simultaneously with Zizeks social emphasis, is that

the question of Being operates somewhat autonomously, transcends

our historical and political particulars. Being, approached as an issue

and as a question, is a high point of civilizations, a rare flower that

buds only occasionally atop the stem of a culture. The ontological

starting point is, for Heidegger, incompatible with the histori-

cal/political.

What we have here is a foundational issue: which of the Sci-

ences or Humanities gets to be the ground on which others can be

built. Heidegger wants to put Philosophy (as he practices it) firmly

in the chair at the head the table, while different disciplines (Physics,


28/33

Sociology, Economics, etc.) also have their eye on it. If we subject

Heideggers pov to socio-historico-poltico-analysis, we have adopted

an incompatible filter. Regardless of who has the better vantage

point, the Historian or the Existentialist, Zizek has put us on a trackwhere we cannot sympathize with Heideggers perspective. Once

we have precluded the possibility of adopting fundamental ontology

as our starting point, Zizek is free to play in the practical shortcom-

ings of Heideggers thinking.

[T]he disappointed Heidegger turns away from ac-tive engagement in the Nazi move-mentbecausehe expectedthat it should legiti-

mize itself through direct awareness of its innergreatness.xxvii

The Nazis pursued a racist ideology rather than do what Heidegger

wanted them to do, which is effectively a betrayal. (Heidegger told

Ernst Jnger that he would apologize for his Nazi past when Hitler

came back to life and apologized to himxxviii). How does this connect

to his philosophy? Heideggers expectation

is in itself profoundly metaphysicalthe gap sepa-rating direct ideological legitimization from its innergreatness is constitutive, a positive condition of itsfunctioning. Ontological insight necessarily entailsontic blindness and vice versa to be effective at theontic level, one must disregard the ontological hori-zon of ones activity.xxix

This assertion of Zizeks especially requires unpacking. An impor-

tant metaphor for the Enlightenment was to cast light over areas of

thinking where superstition and ignorance had reigned. Heidegger

argues (sensibly but without substantiation) that intense light creates

deep shadow, metaphorically, that some knowledge occludes some

other. If we accept Technology we lose Awe, a plus somewhere is a

minus elsewhere, intellectually speaking. So if we think on the big-


29/33

gest scale, posing the questions of being and non-being, we thereby

lose other insight, presumably into practical matters. So while Hei-

degger conducts formal exploration into strata of existence, he corre-

spondingly misses the cruelty and horror brewing over Europe. Still,however, there is no attempt on Zizeks part to convincingly connect

the offensive politics to the philosophical ideas or their influence, no

link between this speculative identity and the vre. He sews a

sleeve but never attaches it to the garment.

Moreover, this perspective strikes me as a better argument for

the other side. Some topics are idioi topoi useful in a special area of

knowledge, and not koinoi topoi, useful in all kinds of arguments.Therefore, Heideggers metaphysical expectation could better be

described as ignorance, as I suggest.

To sum, for Zizek, borrowing a metaphor/tool from Heideg-

gers later philosophy to build an elaborate conceptual framework in

which to criticize his befuddled political thinking is better than rec-

ognizing a simple contradiction in Heideggers thoughts (not to

confuse ontological horizon with ontic choices). Moreover, for him

it is better than accepting Heidegger at face value when he calls his

involvement a Dummheit (a stupidity), which is what I am apt to ac-

cept.

As for the ideological trap Zizek describes, I guess I fall into

it, too, along with millions of others. Ill accept that the inner great-

ness of liberal democracy is betrayed by narrow-minded, short-

sighted politicians lacking imagination and resolve at a decisive

world-historical moment. That tirade gets repeated by millions, not

just by the occasional deluded Nazi phenomenologists, whether or

not we have all been conned into faith in the non-ideological ker-

nel of our Cause. Judge the claim, Americans, aside from being fed


30/33

up, are too lazy and stupid to lead their leaders to pass even com-

monsensical legislation, let alone embrace the resolve necessary to

alleviate human suffering on a global scale. This state of affairs be-

trays the inner greatness of participatory democracy. Does thatclaim maintain an inner distance towards the ideological text? Id

argue that inner greatness doesnt entail non-ideological. Per-

haps Im nave.

Applying to Zizeks insights criteria that I would expect of

Habermas (non-verifiability, or an arguments pragmatic implica-

tions) would not be fair, though I do think, ultimately, we have to

either write him off as infotainment or evaluate the energy-required-to-digest-to-nutritive-value ratio in a meaningful way. That question

is beyond me, because, (especially after this exercise), I will never

take the time required to master Zizeks output to be informed and

fair, and Im even inclined to feel pity towards the grad students who

will throw a decade of their lives into the attempt. Let us say, instead

that, for him, we can use authorizing criteria, (as opposed to guaran-

teeing criteriaxxx), as we might when evaluating aesthetic assertions,

or when deciding whether or not a child should go to school if s/he

claims that they dont feel well.

So lets think of Zizek as a choreographer of thoughts. The

undergraduate or intelligent layman following Zizeks steps is in a

whirlwind, rapid reversal after reversal after paradox, leaping to

conclusions and landing where they never would have thought to

go, freezing into strange postures and grimaces at the end of chap-

ters. Zizek doesnt need to be terse, but reversals get monotonous.

Paradoxes, chiasmus and unexpected connections are best when bro-

ken up by frequent instances of compelling argumentation to create

the verisimilitude of conviction necessary for the reader to take to


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heart the authors ideas. It is as an artist, as a choreographer, that I

take issue with Zizek.

Why bother taking issue with an artist? Why not, as with mu-

sic, simply ignore what you dont enjoy? The answer is that this par-ticular issue is cold water in my face. Even if I like Zizeks general

view and style, this subject sobers me right up. The stakes are raised

around this topic, this topic that should remind us that, though we

may be smart enough to follow their arguments, if we dont keep our

heads we become enthusiastic and impressionable smart dupes.

Heideggers students had a responsibility to look past his aura, look

straight into the eyes of their influence, and keep him honest and ac-countable. We (we: consumers of intellectual/cultural material)

are in the same position as Heideggers students.

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