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Heidegger ... was member of the Nazi party throughout the war, in good standing at the beginning and bad standing at the end, but he never rebelled or retracted publicly -- complicated person. He was not just another member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, he was Rector of Heidelberg University while Hitler was gambolling about Europe. Is "complicated person" what we're calling them these days? I can think of other words... There are two ideas of deconstruction I find useful.
The first is basically Nietzsche,... If it's from Nietzsche, then it isn't from deconstruction at all, so why attribute it to them? If instead you are saying that these are all ideas of deconstruction, then you're being arbitrary, I think. Walter Kaufmann, N's greatest interpreter and translator, attacked academics who did what I think you're doing here. They would perform exegeses of N's texts and then, oh happy day, find that N. supported their ideas in a preliminary way, then cite him as an authority and attach him to their ideology. So when the Libertarians have an "objective" system that shows that markets are best in an objective way... they are all just protecting their jobs. Umm, what jobs? The fraction of libertarians who get remunerated for their political beliefs is damn small. Since libertarian views are outside the mainstream, in some environments there is actually a real danger of being punished for refusing to conform to the norms of whatever sub-group the libertarian finds himself in. It's much easier in life to run with the herd. You don't end up being lunch as often. The deeper problem with your comment is that you seem to be implying that N. was a relativist. He wasn't. See John T. Wilcox, Truth and Value in Nietzsche: A Study of His Metaethics and Epistemology, for a solid refutation of this (common) claim. Every metaphysics hides an implicit morality of the universe, and every morality hides an implicit and very down-to-earth will to power, and this will to power is a good thing and the drive of Life itself manifesting in human ideas. N's big example is Judeo-Christianity, and how by inventing a selfless morality a bunch of folks took over Western Civilization in very concrete ways. I could "deconstruct" this all night long, but I'll keep this short. 1) N's ideas on the will to power were never fully worked out and settled, so it's difficult to say with certainty what he believed in many cases regarding W2P. That said, he seemed to believe that... 2) W2P isn't good or a bad thing, it just is, like gravity. Our moralities are reflections of some inner drives, all of which are manifestations of W2P. Those moralities that derive from an inner sense of fullness and overflowing N. judges to be good. Those moralities that derive from an inner sense of deficiency, self-loathing, and especially revenge, N. judges to be bad. 3) The early Jews and Christians were heavily persecuted by (variously) the Pharaohs and the Romans. The "slave moralities" they invented were quite different from the "master moralities" of the aristocratic Greeks. Slave moralities are motivated, at their core, by a drive for revenge against the people who brutalize them. Since they are slaves, they don't have power in this life to take their revenge, so they invent another life (the afterlife, the Thousand Year Reich, the Age of New Socialist Man, the Dar al Islam) in which they will enjoy pure happiness and 76 virgins and the "evil ones" (Pharaohs, Romans, Jews, Capitalist Exploiters, Infidels, the One Percent) will suffer (the Fires of Hell, Zyklon B, beheadings, property nationalization, starvation by Maoists (my wife had fun with this one), execution by the Khmer Rouge, etc.) It's fascinating to watch all of this play out in America today, with Obama explicitly calling last October for his supporters (the core of which are the descendants of slaves who were brutalized by their owners) to "vote for revenge", the coming glorious age of Hope and Change, the coming destruction of the evil One Percenters (as soon as Obama and his fellow One Percenters finish their golf games on Martha's Vineyard), etc. [I suppose we should cheer up. I mean it's not like he's running a massive surveillance state and murdering American citizens and foreign innocents via drone strikes without judicial review while his propaganda media manufactures consent for his policies.] And now I too should get on with my life... |
He was rector for a year and then resigned. He kept his party membership current though. He spent the last years of the war digging trenches, so he wasn't inner circle in the least.