Plus ça change, plus de le même chose
Heidegger was not merely a man with a widely held view which we generally
find distasteful, or even repulsive, today. The past does not make me
squeamish or require whitewashing in the name of pc rhetoric. Nor do I
believe blindly in progress so as to believe we are so greatly improved in
character since Heidegger's time.
All That Is Great Stands In The Storm
Heidegger leap-frogged his career during the first year of the newly elected
Nazi party, as a vociferous member. Appointed Rector of University of
Freiberg the same year the National Socialists came to power, he applied
jewish cleansing laws to the student population, is known to have denounced
collegues, and gave rousing speeches about the need for unification. He
believed that the fragmentation of Germany at the time was a "forgetting of
being". He sought models for restoration to authentic / unified being in his
Greek studies. He did resign the next year, acting as Rector [chancellor]
for only 10 months. And did help a few jewish friends with letters of
recommendation. A small nod in the direction of the intellectual and
academic debt he owed to jewish scholars such as his mentor Husserl, whose
chair he was given at Freiberg.
Interestingly, it was in the years just after stepping down from being the
Rector, that Heidegger devoted himself to the origin of works of art. He
found his models in Greek antiquity. It is helpful to remember that National
Socialists were also very interested in the subject of the origins of art.
They too wished to unify and transform their being-in-the-world, so to
speak, into a great collective Dasein, modeled on certain origins in the
past.
Yes, But What Was He Saying
Having read Heidegger's Sein and Zeit many times, and later works, many too
many times [enough years ago now], particularly in the context of
Existentialism [small e is fine]. Looking back he seems nothing more than a
ontologist of the metaphysical variety, sandwiched between Husserl's far
more original Phenomenology, and the kind of ontology that could
existentially hold up to fascism: Sartre and Camus. While he made an
interesting connection between Kierkegaard [mr. multiple pseudonym] and
Husserl, his work is largely stuffy armchair dull, and repetitious when not
derivative. What is Heidegger's contribution if you take away Fichte [a
genuinely maligned philosopher because of his pan-germanic ideas],
Schelling, Kant, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzche, and most of all
Husserl? The philosopher of history, Herder [creator of the seminar as a
teaching form] both informed, and provides a great contrast. It is also easy
to speculate on how much Hannah Arendt, his mistress, had to do with Sein
und Zeit?
In any case he is ultimately a idealistic metaphysician. Which is fine if
that's what you're into. Ontology, idealism, exploration of history, and
existentialism are all extremely applicable to film theory. But as to
looking for inspiration from the origins of art, give me the usual suspects
listed above, Bergson, Deleuze, Benjamin, Pierce. Even old Wittgenstein
[whose negotiations with his own identity and ultimately Hitler's inner
circle to preserve status of his sisters so they would not have to leave
Austria] is much more interesting as far as art theory and philosophy goes.
It's not his past, it's his zeitgeist, his being-in-his-time.
Susanna Chandler
on 4/22/03 7:15 PM, richard at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Here we go again into the well trodden muck. Because H "fulfilled his role"
> in Nazi Germany we are obligated on "sufficient" grounds to discard or
> disregard his work and look elsewhere. Just as Susanna is obligated by this
> trite line of argumentation to trash Newton, Einstein, Freud, Nietzsche and
> innumerable others (including those who blatantly degrade the opposite
> gender) based on the disapproval of their perceived reprehensible
> private/public conduct.
> As for the mind-altering B/T, the lack of background (supposedly on the
> above-mentioned grounds) to apprehend its project and influence is to
> confirm an unjustifiable loss. Consider confirmation in the recommended and
> superb "silence of the limbs;.
> Regards, Richard
>
>
> Original Message -----
> From: "Joseph Billings" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 5:52 PM
> Subject: Re: Heidegger and the cinema: Susanna Chandler
>
>
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