Heidegger's dog whistles
January 11, 2015
Review of Emmanuel Faye's HEIDEGGER: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy
MARTIN HEIDEGGER’s affections for Hitler and the National Socialists have been long beyond dispute, but what his supporters have continued to believe is that the philosopher went through a bit of a funny “turn” at the time of the infamous Rektoratsrede in 1933. Naive in the realm of politics, he foolishly descended from his ivory tower and gave his seal of approval to philistine Nazi doctrine. The story is that as soon as he realised he had made a mistake, as soon as he ascertained the blockheadedness of Nazi ideologies, he retreated back into the academy, mocked and chastened and never to dabble in politics ever again.
The view was summed up by U.S. philosopher Richard Rorty, who said there was no “essential” Heidegger that drove his politics, his philosophy and his personality. “You cannot learn much about the value of Heidegger’s views on truth and rationality from the fact that he was a Nazi,” Rorty wrote.
Emmanuel Faye’s version is significantly different. In an eviscerating analysis, Faye makes it very clear that Nazism was “always already” present in Heidegger’s opaque theories. As early as 1909 he was associating himself with preposterous and sinister sects like the Gralbund. Even in his magnum opus Sein und Zeit, which is stripped of any overt anti-Semitism and German chauvinism, there are traces of Heidegger’s dialogues and affiliations with extreme right-wing figures, especially in its use of terms like Bodenlosigkeit, or “soillessness” - clearly a dog-whistle anti-Semitic jibe smuggled into what has long been regarded as one of the most important works of twentieth century philosophy. Heidegger was no naif, says Faye. He knew exactly what he was doing throughout, and made no explicit attempt to dissociate himself from Hitler throughout his long and privileged life.
None of this is exactly new. We knew Heidegger was a bastard. A great philosopher but a terrible human being, said George Steiner, one of Heidegger's admirers. But what we didn’t want to admit was the way his ultra-reactionary politics infiltrated his philosophy. Philosophy was supposed to be more than personality. It wasn’t supposed to be used to serve political agendas: on the contrary, it was supposed to undercut them, to expose the magma beneath all our ordinary assumptions.
For decades the French made Heidegger the centre of their attention, knowing full well of his Nazi associations but assuming that there was still something salvageable, a realm of “pure” thought that was cut off from the surface noise of the Third Reich. But it is Faye's contention that there is nothing to be salvaged. Heidegger’s philosophy expressed utter contempt for the individual. He wasn’t led astray in his attempt to “implant” or “ground” his theories in Nazi ideology. The Nazism was there from the beginning in the form of a profoundly anti-human, pro-state vision.
Faye’s thesis is devastating, coruscating, partisan, and thoroughly convincing. Heidegger was not merely an instinctive Nazi, but also a cunning and conniving bastard who deliberately smuggled Nazi ideas into his philosophy by stealth. The “back from Syracuse” argument - in which a chastened and disabused Heidegger returns home with his tail between his legs having realised that the Nazis were nothing more than barbarians - has now surely been completely obliterated.
