Heidegger And The Church Poem by gershon hepner

Although his ideas have the taint
of Nazism he is regarded
by many as a philosophic saint,
and therefore cannot be discarded
any more than those the Church
espoused while Jews were being gassed;
however much we would besmirch
them both I’m sure they’ll both outlast
their deprecators who decry
the callous disregard of both
to humane standards. Church and Hei-
degger, it seems, both plighted troth
to callous, catechistic hate,
which is today alive and well,
and does not have a sell-by date
encouraging sane men to sell
it short, and trade by being long
on love instead. The market’s weak
in love, and that for hate is strong,
and reinforced by doublespeak
that, spoken by the acolytes
of both philosophy and theo-
logy brings daily new insights
for fascism reborn as neo-.

Inspired by an article by Patricia Cohen on Martin Heidegger (“An Ethical Question: Does a Nazi Deserve a Place Among Philosophers? ” NYT, November 9,2009) :
For decades the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has been the subject of passionate debate. His critique of Western thought and technology has penetrated deeply into architecture, psychology and literary theory and inspired some of the most influential intellectual movements of the 20th century. Yet he was also a fervent Nazi. Now a soon-to-be published book in English has revived the long-running debate about whether the man can be separated from his philosophy. Drawing on new evidence, the author, Emmanuel Faye, argues fascist and racist ideas are so woven into the fabric of Heidegger’s theories that they no longer deserve to be called philosophy. As a result Mr. Faye declares, Heidegger’s works and the many fields built on them need to be re-examined lest they spread sinister ideas as dangerous to modern thought as “the Nazi movement was to the physical existence of the exterminated peoples.” First published in France in 2005, the book, “Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism Into Philosophy, ” calls on philosophy professors to treat Heidegger’s writings like hate speech. Libraries, too, should stop classifying Heidegger’s collected works (which have been sanitized and abridged by his family) as philosophy and instead include them under the history of Nazism. These measures would function as a warning label, like a skull-and-crossbones on a bottle of poison, to prevent the careless spread of his most odious ideas, which Mr. Faye lists as the exaltation of the state over the individual, the impossibility of morality, anti-humanism and racial purity. The book is the most radical attack yet on Heidegger (1889-1976) and would upend the philosophical field’s treatment of his work in the United States, and even more so in France, where Heidegger has frequently been required reading for an advanced degree. Mr. Faye, an associate professor at the University of Paris, Nanterre, not only wants to drum Heidegger from the ranks of philosophers, he wants to challenge his colleagues to rethink the very purpose of philosophy and its relationship to ethics…
Although the English text published by Yale University Press won’t be out in the United States for a few weeks, it is already making waves, as signaled by an essay in The Chronicle Review, the opinion and ideas journal of The Chronicle of Higher Education. In an essay titled “Heil Heidegger! ” Carlin Romano, a critic for The Review, called Heidegger a “Black Forest babbler” and fraud who was “overrated in his prime” and “bizarrely venerated by acolytes even now.” Few people have read the book, but the article has generated more than 150 online comments from vehement advocates and detractors, more than any other piece The Review has printed this year, said Liz McMillen, the editor. Others joined the fray. Ron Rosenbaum, the author of “Explaining Hitler, ” even extended the argument to the German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt, a former student and lover of Heidegger’s. Citing a recent essay by the historian Bernard Wasserstein, Mr. Rosenbaum wrote in Slate.com that Arendt’s thinking about the Holocaust and her famous formulation, “the banality of evil, ” were contaminated by Heidegger and other anti-Semitic writings.


11/9/09