LABYRTNTHS

A VOLUME

IN

THE

SERIES

Gritical Perspectives

on Modern Culture

Editedby DavidGross WilliamM. Johnston and

ALSO BY RICHARD WOLIN

The Termsof Cuhural Criticism: The Frankfurt School,Existentialism, Poststructuralism Qggz) The Politicsof Being: The Political Thoughtof Marrin Heid,eggerr ggo) ( Waher B enj arnin: An A est het i c of Red.e t ion $ g8z) mp
EDITOR

Karl Ltiwith, Martin Heidegger and EuropeanNihilism (rqqS) (rqgr) The Heid,egger Clntrlaersy: A Critical Read,er

LABYRINTHS
Explorations the Critical History of ldeos in
RICHARD WOLIN

University of Massachusetts Press Amherst

Copyright@ 1995 RichardWolin by All rightsreserved Printedin the United States America of t-ca5-r6844 tsnNo-87o23-989-9 (cloth);99o-z(pbk.) Designedby Mary Mendell Set in Ehrhardt by KeystoneTypesetting Inc. Printedandboundby Thomson-Shore,Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wolin, Richard. Labyrinths : explorationsin the critical history of ideas/ RichardWolin. p. cm. - (Critical perspectives modern culture) on Includesbibliographical references index. and tsnNo-87o23-989-9 (alk.paper).tsnno-87o23-ggo-2 (pbk.:alk. paper) r. PhilosophyGerman-2oth century. z. PhilosophyFrench-2oth,century. 3. Germany-Intellectuallife-zoth century. 4. France-Intellectual life-zoth century. Martin, r88g-r976-Influence. 5. Heidegger, I. Title. II. Series

83r8r.W75 1996 r93-dczo g5-ft844 CIP

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available.

In memory of Ferenc Feh6r, 1933-r994 scholar,dissident,critic, mentor

COI{TENTS

Preface Introduction: Of Labyrinths, Minotaurs, and Left Heideggerianism

lx I

PART I ControversY Kulchur Wbrs:The Modernism / Postmodernism Revisited The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism Reflections JewishSecularMessianism on Walter Benjamin Today Working through the Past:Habermasand the German Historians' Debate PART II Revolutionand the Aestheticsof Carl Schmitt: The Conservative Horror on "Over the Line": Reflections Martin Heideggerand National Socialism French Heidegger Wars Democracyand the Political in the Thought of Hannah Arendt Antihumanism in the Discourseof French PostwarTheory Deconstructionat Auschwitz: Heidegger,de Man, and the New Revisionism Afterword: Derrida on Marx, or the Perils of Left Heideggerianism Notes Index zto 23r 24r 283 r23 t42 r6z 175 ro3 r5
nn JJ

43
JJ

83

PREFACE

Labyrinths: Erplorations in the Critical History of ld,easrepresentsa settling of accounts.For the most part I have sought to bring together reflectionson a number of issuesthat have given rise to fairly intense intellectual debates in the course of recent years: the ideological basis of postmodernism, the Heidegger controversy, the de Man affair. All are issuesI perceive as being intellectually related-although too often the level of polemic has tended to that underlie the debates.I do not obscurethe deepermatters of substance expectall of my readersand critics to agreewith the positionsI've stakedout in the interpretations that follow. But I do hope that they may be challenged by the way in which I have reformulated and recontextualized the disputes at issue.At stakeis the translation and reception in a North American context of theoretical positions first articulated in a very different European (more pranco-German)milieu. Here is where I can provide someuseful specifically, correctivesand clarifications:by situating intellectual positions in their historical settings, one becomesmore aware of their multifarious ramifications. The obiective is thereby to broaden and deepena more conventionalset of theoreticalassumptions about the complex interrelation of ideas,history, and political life. Such an undertaking requiresremaining attuned to a variegated network of discursivelevels:ethical, social,philosophical,national, and historical. That these levels are often compartmentalizedand kept separate-a practice abetted by the academicdivision of labor-often makesit difficult to seefiliations that are indispensableto a fair assessment the political influof ence of ideas.It is precisely on this dimension of the "effective" history of ideas that I have elected to focus. As such, Labyrinths is in many ways a companionpieceto The Terms ofCultural Criticism,which appearedthree years and which treats a number of kindred problems and themes.If I have ago managedto make someof the ideationalcontroversies our day seemsomeof

Preface

what less labyrinthine, then I will consider my efforts in Labyrinthsto have beena success. I acknowledge enthusiasm David Grossand WillJohnston, editorsof the the of on "Critical Perspectives Modern Culture" series,for a rather inchoatebook proiect I outlined to them over a year ago. Both provided extremely useful, detailedsuggestions a first draft of the manuscript.In almostall cases,Itook on their proposalsto heart. The final conception of Lobyrinths has benefited greatly from their pertinent commentsand criticisms.My revisionsalsoprofited greatly from the directives of an anonymousreviewer from a well-known university in upstateNew York, whoseidentity hasbecomesomewhat lessof a mystery to me in recent months. Thanks are also due to my perspicuous copyeditor,Betty S. Waterhouse. I expressmy appreciation to Clark Dougan, editor of the University of Massachusetts Press,for his unwaveringsupport for the project since its inception. He has made my dealingswith the Pressat every stagea pleasant experience. A number of the chapters presented here have benefited from financial support providedby variousfellowshipagencies. Without their generous assistance, the volume would never have seencompletion. I especiallythank the Alexandervon Humboldt Stiftung, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States,all of whom provided crucial support at specificstages the project. of I also expressmy gratitude to Allen Matusow, dean of Humanities at Rice University, for his extremegenerosity helping to support the publicationof a in book that endedup being somewhatlonger than I'd originally intended. Many of the chaptershere have previously appearedin other venues.Although most of the texts havebeen substantiallyreworked,I thank the prior editors and publishersfor their kind permissionto reprint: . "Kulchur Wars:The Modernism/Postmodernism ControversyRevisited," Telos Z (+) (tq8+-8S)' g-zg; "The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism," 62, Telos66, rg (r) (1986): rrS-24; "Reflections JewishSecularMessianism," on Studies Contempora,ry in Jewry 7 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,r99r): r8696; "Walter Beniamin Today," introduction to the secondedition of Walter (Berkeleyand Los Angeles:University Benjomin:An Aesthetic Redemption of of California Press, rgg4), xix-xlviii; "Working through the Past:Habermas and the German Historians' Debate," introduction toJtirgen Habermas,The (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1989),vii-xxxi; "Carl Schmitt: Nep Conseruatism The ConservativeRevolution and thb Aestheticsof Horror," Political Theory

Preface xi zo (i (tgg:)' 424-47; "'Over the Line': Reflectionson Martin Heidegger and National Socialism," and "French Heidegger Wars," in The Heid,egger 272(Cambridge:MIT Press,rg93), r-zz a;nd A Controaersy: Critical Read,er and the Political in the Thought of Hannah Arendt," a 3oo; "Democracy lecture given at the conference "Democracy: Identity and Differencer" Villa Lanna, Prague, Czech Republic, rgg4; "Antihumanism in the Discourse of rgg5; "Deconstruction Knomled,ge,January French PostwarTheory" Common the New Revisionism,"South Central at Auschwitz: Heidegger,de Man, and Reoiepr r (r) (tgg+):2-22. I dedicate this book to the memory of FerencFeh6r,whoseuntimely deathin 1994came as a shock to his many friends, supporters,and loved ones. June Ours wasa friendship that lastedsometwelve years.It beganasan exchangeof letters about my first book on Walter Beniamin. At the time he cautioned me evaluationof Benjamin'sintellectuallegacy:we live againstmy overcharitable in a dangerously irrational age,Feri observed, and Benjamin'sthought, whose greatness beyonddispute,washardly free of suchtendencies is and risks.Since then my work has benefited considerably from his timely and rneasuredcriticisms.For what there is of value in the book that follows, I am fully in Feri's the debt. By dedicatingit to his memory,I indicate,albeitbelatedly, profundity and extent of that intellectualindebtedness. Lastly I acknowledge unstinting support of my wife, Melissa,throughthe out the various stagesof my labors. Our exuberant two-year-olds,Seth and Emma, havebeenindispensable keepingmy priorities in life in perspective. in

L A BY R IN T H S

INTRODUGTION: oF LABYBINTI{S, lllNoTAURS, AND LEFT I{EID E G GERIANISil

tr
The problematic of posthistoire not the end of history but the end of meaning.-Lutz is Niethammer, Posthistoire: Has History Cometo an End?

It maybe difficultto besurewhether is for or against rationality; thingsbecome one a little clearerwhen one understands the decisionis alsoa choicefor or against that democracy.-Tzvetan Todorov, Hunan Diaersity On With the exception of "Kulchur Wars: The Modernism/Postmodernism ControversyRevisitedr" all of the essays Labyrinths are of recent vintage. in Though written for different contextsand occasions, they are in many respects thematicallyrelated.At issueare the origins and peregrinationsof contemporary theoreticaldiscourse:more specifically, ways in which a certain Gerthe man intellectual lineage that, in its prime, displayed affinities with fascism (namely,the Nietzsche-Heidegger-Carl Schmitt connection,which, needless to say,neither can nor should be red,uced its manifest political sympathies) to was subsequently taken up by French intellectualsin the post-World War II period and, asit were,madecanonical. The intellectual filiations between the German radical-conservative critique of bourgeoiscivilization and a similar position presented the post-'68 by French Left have been increasinglynoted of late. For example,in his short book onpasthistoire Lutz Niethammer showsprovocatively how a way of thinking about history that was once peculiar to German right-wing thought has rematerialized amongpostmodernists who purportedly taketheir standon the Left. According to the paradigm of Kulturkritik represented such thinkers by as oswald Spengler,Ernst Ji.inger, and Arnold Gehlen, we have reachedthe "end of history." The institutional featuresof the capitalistWesthave"crystallized" to the point where all tracesof "otherness"-which they define aristocraticallyin terms of nobility, passion, substance, and heroism-have been life,

Introduction

banished. According to Niethammer,in the historicaloptic of postmodernism, the idea of the end of history has returned as a left-wing commonplace. The mistrust of significant historical change,as subtendedby quasi-metaphysical "metanarratives,"has becomeso pervasive,that the end of history or plsthistoire, insteadof being regardedwith suspicion,is now strangelycelebratedalongwith the by now proverbial"fragmentationof the subject"-as a perverse form of deliverance. But this standpointmerely replaces metanarratives the of old with a new one: an inverse teleology of decline has supplanted a now discredited teleology of progress.Both perspectives rely on an overarching philosophy of history that, due to its abstractness, inevitably overshootsthe complexity,specificity,and open-endedness contemporarysocialstruggles. of Adding insult to injury, a numberof theoristsof the postmoderncondition seek to include Walter Benjamin asone of their ideologicalforebears.r SecondingNiethammer's reflections,the philosopherManfred Frank emphasizes ambiguousideologicalpatrimony of Nietzsche,who amongpostthe modernists is often viewed naively as an aaant la lettre deconstructionist. However,asa result of this exclusivelytextualistunderstandingof Nietzsche's influenceand impact, the historico-politicalramificationsof his doctrinesare woefully undervalued.As Frank observes: think"Nietzsche'sdeconstructive ing remains within an epistemological framework characterized a vitalism by and a socialDarwinism specificto its time, welcomed,in particular,by the socalled'irrationalists'(from Klagesto Spenglerand Alfred Baeumler),and the extremeright (from Gentile to Rosenberg, and even the'Nouvelle Droite'of today)."2In a more polemicalvein, Frank attemptsto specifythe determinate philosophicalpedigree linking this checkeredintellectual tradition with the incorporatedso many features "French connection"that hasin recentdecades of the German "critique of reason"initiated by Nietzsche: In aspects recent French philosophy that follow structuralism we enof countera degenerate species dionysianirrationalism which (like Nietzof scheand Spenglerbeforeit) rediscovers unity and end of the Western the joyous"yes" to the savagery and cruelty of life, and tradition, calls out a its declares hatred of the achievements rationality and of the Cartesian of to cogito in hate-filledtiradesanalogous the onesone alreadyfound in the work of Klages. "Certainly," Frank continues,"most of these'newthinkers'are no more fascist than wasKlages;that doesn'tpreventthe fact that, as wasearlierthe casewith the old fGerman] right, today it is primarily the'Nouvelle Droite' that cheers it on."3

Introduction

Following a rather surprising transatlanticintellectualmigration that took placeduring the rg7os,this Germanic theoreticallineage,now outfitted with a French accent,becameensconcedin the American academy. washeraldedas It and "radical"-claims that probablysaidmore about "criticalr" "oppositional," the impoverishedstate of contemporaryAmerican radicalism(or, more precisely, about its academic displacement) than anything else. As Todd Gitlin remarked perceptively, for the last twelve years, while the Republicans have been taking over the country, the theoretical left has been taking over course syllabi in English departments.a One of the paramount ironies of the American reception of this FrancoGerman lineageis that purportedly marginal texts (by Derrida and others) cameto occupy the "center" and were soon accorded iconic status.Too often, thesetexts and their methodological prescriptionswere not so much critically appropriatedas apotheosized. questiontheir fundamentalpresuppositions To was regarded by supporters as akin to heresy-something I would discover firsthand in a rather acrimoniouspublic dispute with Derrida in the New York Reoiep of Books.s The truly outlandish aspectof this by now well-rehearseddebate lay in its denouement: urgent petition, signedby someforty Derridathe acolytes(a conspiracyof the independent-minded,as it were), claiming that the master could do no wrong. The surreal quality of this feebleappeal,signed by not a few academicnotables,lay in the following: the world was faced with Serbianethnic cleansing, famine in Africa, the unravelingof the Soviet{Jnion, an uprising in the Middle East, and the incipient democratizationof Eastern Europe, South Africa, and South America, but politically committed U.S. academics would only spring into collectiveaction should the honor and integrity of deconstruction-an academicgrowth industry-be impugned. In the end, asin the nonacademic spheres Americanlife, self-interestwill out. of The Heidegger affair emergedin the late r98os following new revelations concerningthe extent and profundity of the philosopher'sNazi attachments. One of its unintended consequences was that it highlighted the fallaciesof exclusivelytextualist readingsof philosophy.This approachhad been consecratedin the celebrated deconstructionist claim il n'y a pasdehorstexte(thereis nothing outside the text).6This view resultedin the studied neglectof those nontextualdimensions of life-history, politics, and society-that, owing to formalist prejudices,had beentraditionally downplayedby literary and philosophicalscholarship. With the controversies surrounding the Heidegger affair, one witnesseda return of the repressed:it now seemedpatently self-defeating to ignore or minimize the manifest political implications of Heidegger's thought. Similarly, it is clear why the French intellectualpublic was so taken

Introduction

abackby Heidegger'sNazi past:for decades interpretationof his work had the been governedby highly decontextualized, strictly textual readings,in consequence of which the overtly political resonances his thought (long selfof evidentto a German public) remainedundetectable. When the basisof reading becomesthe negative semiotics of Derridean grammatology,according to which one must focus on the wayhymen,tra,ce, d,ffirance,supplirnen1 and so on, ensurea priori that texts remain nonequivalentto themselves, there doesnot remain much room for political or socialconcerns.The latter are redolent of the metaphysical tyranny of the referent.The Heideggeraffair (aswell as that of Paul de Man, which quickly followed) brought about the "revengeof the referentr" as it were. One could no longer evadethe realms of politics and history entirely while still making cogent theoreticaljudgments-as many of the somewhatdesperaterearguardattempts to saveHeidegger soon proved. Often, evenmore egregiousthan the initial misreadings his thought, where of its ethical and political ambivalences atwere ignored, were the subsequent tempts to exoneratehim: to wit, Derrida's own efforts to deconstruct the oppositionbetweenNazismand non-Nazism,making Nazis suchasHeidegger into non-Nazis, and non-Nazis ("humanists" and others who had dared criticize Heidegger)into virtual or honorary Nazis.T put In the last analysis, Heideggercontroversyseverely to the test one of the the theoreticallinchpins of so-calledpoststructuralism:the embraceof philosophicalantihumanism,a singularly Heideggerianinheritance.When understoodaspart of a critique of Eurocentrism,liberalism,patriarchy,and so forth, philosophicalantihumanism-the critique of "man"-seemed a valuableconstruct. Yet, suddenly,the constellationhad changed.It was now beyond dispute that the progenitor of that critique, Heidegger,wasan avowedNazi; and that his Nazism, moreover,far from being a contingent biographicalepisode, ways.Heidegger'sFrench defenders wasrelatedto his philosophyin essential were now faced with the paradoxicaltask of demonstratingthat Heidegger's bore no relahad so readily embraced, antihumanism,which poststructuralism his Nazism. They were confronted with the even greater,countertion to intuitive challengeof showing how Heidegger'santihumanismeven laid the groundwork for a critiqueof Nazism. In order to make this work, they had to interpret the Nazisas the real humanists,and philosophicalantihumanism(or the critique of "man") as the proper antidote. Thus, as Philippe LacoueArt, and Politics: "Nazism is a humanism Labarthe informs us in Heidegger, which is, in its view,more insofarasit restsupon a determinationof humanitas powerful-i. e., more effective-than any other. "8 Fundamentally There is much one might sayaboutthe foregoingstatement.

Introduction

it seriouslymisconstrues thrust of Europeancounterrevolutionary thought, the from de Maistre to fascism,which, in a resolutelyanti-Enlightenmentspirit, stroveforcibly to eliminatethe humanisticlegacyof 1789,or, simply,European liberalism.e truth, there wasnothing remotelyhumanisticaboutthis political ln movementin any meaningful senseof the term. To interpret Nazism and its legacyas humanisticis either an intentional misreadingor crasslyideological. Here, toq at issueare the perils of an exclusivelytextualist,ahistoricalreading of Nazism and its proper historicalbackground. What hasundonedeconstructionin the eyesof many who wereoncesympathetic is that, in spite of itself, it has turned into another "ism" (as in "deconstructionism"):a veritableschool,repletewith canonicalauthorsand texts, its own entrenchedinstitutional power bases, own imperious preceptsas to its how one must go about reading a text. All of this proves that a negative semioticsof reading such as Derrida's, despite perfunctory affirmations of interpretivefree play and creativemisreadinB, be just asintolerant vis-i-vis @n competing paradigmsas other approaches criticism. Deconstruction has to passed over from a sophistic-criticalphase,which rightfully generatedmuch enthusiasm,to one that is dogmatic-authoritarian. Derrida, who ended his contentiousdebatewith Searleby prescribingan "Ethics for Discussion," has shown himself incapableof living up to his own preceptsr0-aspainfully evidencedin "Biodegradables: SevenDiary Fragments,"Derrida's overwrought response the de Man affair,wherehe did not evendeign to address critics to his by name.ll The consequences thesedevelopments the Derridean faithful will not of for necessarily easyto accept:deconstruction merelyone schoolof interpretabe is tion amongmany;neither the only school,nor, asits supportersclaim, a critical aia regia.Deconstructioncertainly hasmuch to teachus about the rhetoricity or figuration of texts, but so do other more conventional methods and approaches oppositionto which deconstruction in first esrablished itself. As such, deconstructionis part of a new constellationof critical thought;l2 taken by itself, it is far from self-sufficient.What deconstruction hasde facto achievedin the last two decades a certain academic-institutional is self-aggrandizementlittle more, little less.In this respect,its critical pretensions notwithstanding,it has failed to differentiate itself substantially from other competing ivory-tower tendencies and trends.Its institutional fate is part and parcelof a more general academicsublimation of political radicalism. From this perspective,it is far from accidentalthat, circa the mid-rg8os, as deconstruction'semancipatory rhetoric beganto ring hollow, politically oriented criticism turned toward the legacyof Foucaultand the paradigmof the New Historicism.r3

Introduction

The Heidegger affair was central in reconfiguring the shapeof contemporary theory because brought to the fore the dilemmasinvolved in the "total it critique" of Western reason,a standpoint that soon becamede rigueur for post-r968 French philosophicalradicalism.WhereasHeidegger had imbibed this standpoint via the conservativerevolutionary critique of modernity-a critique that, as the chapter on Carl Schmitt seeksto show, was avowedly fascistic-the French version claimed solidarity with a left-wing radicalism. Here, lesextr4mes touchent. se Heidegger'stotal critique of modernity was indeterminateand unnuanced. According to this perspective, modern world had succumbedto a fate of the (abandonmentby Being lSeinl) that was merely the flip total Seinsaerlassenheir (abandonmentby the gods). Following Hiilside of its tota,lGottesaerlassenheil derlin, he deemedthe contemporaryera a wholly "destitute time" (diirftiger Zeit), a forlorn epoch trapped betweenthe departureof the old gods and the "not yet" (nochnicht) of the gods to come. In "Overcoming Metaphysics" (rq+6) he describesthe present age as characterized "the collapseof the by world," "the devastationof the earth," "the unconditional objectificationof everythingpresent";in sum, it is an age of total perdition.ra.But, Pierre as Bourdieu has shown, as a piece of social analysis, Heidegger'sdescription is merely a philosophically attired version of the standard German radicalZiailisation.rs conservative denunciations a moribund and corrupt bourgeois of It is integrally relatedto the analogous inculpationsof "reason," "liberalism," and "civilization" that one finds in the writings of Klages,Jiinger, Spengler, Schmitt, Hans Freyer, and a host of other lesserknown foes of Germany's fledgling Weimar democracy. It is the same standpoint of "total critique"-of "reason," "democracy," "bourgeoissociety,"and so forth-that Heidegger'sFrench heirs haveadopted the central tenets of a in and disseminated an uncritical manner. Essentially, right-radical Kulturkritik have been assimilatedand propagated for purportthe edly left-wing ends.Either way however, goal is not so much to transform disfrom within (and who but the neoconservatives contemporarydemocracy but in cussed Chapter z would deny that it is in soreneedof transformation?), to surpassit with something totally Other: the will to power, Being, sovereignty,or dffirance. Aradical critique of reasonwill toleratenothing less. According to the standpoint of total critique, the criticisms do not redress the specificempirical failings of contemporarydemocraticpractice; instead, level. The entire set of they take aim at a more fundamental,transcendental normative valuesthat democracyprivileges-fairness, justice,equality,and so forth-are radically calledinto question,though one crucial differencedistin-

Introduction

guishes two camps.The conservative the revolutionaries the rg2osfavoreda of protofascistic Volbsgemeinschaft The poststructuralists, conversely,taking a pagefrom the writings of GeorgesBataille, favor an an-archiccommunity;they want their "unavowable" "inoperative" community to be based the values or on of "expenditure" (la d,ipense), otherness, difference.16 is in this sense or It that Derrida, in his essayon Carl Schmitt, obliquely appealsfor a conceptionof democracythat "does not yet existr" one that would orient itself "beyond the homo-fraternal and phallogocentricschema" that has been characteristicof democracy date.lT to What raisessuspicions, however, that the critique of the logosor logocenis trism on which deconstruction has staked so much was in fact initiated by Germany's young conservatives the rgzos. In fact, it was Ludwig Klages in who in Der Geist als Wid,ersacher Seele(The Intellect as Antagonist of the der Soul) first coined the term logocentrism. Some of the affinities betweenthe two approaches uncanny.They need to be explored and not wished away.With are Fredric Jameson'srecent avowal of "secret admiration" for Heidegger'sinvolvementwith the Nazis,which he finds "morally and aesthetically preferable to apolitical liberalism," they have assumedfrightening proportions.rsHere, the (self-defeating) logic of "left fascism" repeatsitself: if bourgeoissociety cannot be overthrown from the left, let it be overthrown from the right.te There is certainly nothing wrong with criticizing or calling into question rationality or reason.As Karl Popper has convincingly shown, the process. wherebyexplanations reasons doubtedor shownto be falseis intrinsic to or are the processthrough which reasonas a whole may be said to progress.20 Conversel5 to question the legitimacy of reason simpliciter suggeststhat we bid farewellto that which hasprovedthe only basis, howeverpartial and flawed,for adiudicatingquestionsof legitimacyin general.The ahernatives thar lie in the wake of the total critique of reasonhave been tried and are bleak. They have generallyappeared variationson a Nietzschean as motif that, in the r97os,was vigorously adopted by Foucault: the idea that the pill to knowledge merely a is cover for the pill to power; that claims to validity or truth are merely camouflaged or sublimated claims to power; that poweris all thereis and all thereeaer pill be. From this perspective,the question of how we define the difference between the legitimate versus illegitimate exerciseof power, a theme that subtendssome two millennia of ethico-political discourse,can no longer be raised. In the seventeenth century Hobbes, whose doctrine of the "state of nature" was much admired by both Schmitt and Nietzsche,set forth the new antinormative, modern-skeptical understanding of the relation between truth and power when he decreed,in a spirit not dissimilar to Foucault:(lq,uctoritas,

Introduction

non veritas,facit legem" (when questionsof law or political legitimacy are at issue,it is authority, not truth, that matters). In the chaptersthat follow on Martin Heideggerand Carl Schmitt, I havetried to indicatepreciselywhere a consequentabandonmentof questionspertaining to matters of validity and justificationleadswhen issues socialtheory are at stake. of Historically, the total critique of reasonhas gone hand in hand with antidemocratictendencies. Both constitute attempts to eliminate the Enlightenment's secular"religion of humanity" and reaffirm the irreducibility of othernessor difference.According to this standpoint,the attempt to subsumethe particular under the general,the spirit of universality and cosmopolitanism, must be violently rejectedas hostile to life. As Maistre, a progenitor of both counter-Enlightenmentand counterrevolutionaryideology,as well as (along withJ. G. Herder) the West'sfirst theorist of "difference," famouslyobserved: and so on. I evenknow, "In my life I haveseenFrenchmen,Italians,Russians, thanksto Montesquieu,that one can be Persian.But as for man,I declareI've neverencounteredhim; if he existshe is unknown to me."2l There are,moreover, strong political affinities between the late eighteenth-centuryrevolt againstreasonand the vitalist rebellion of a century later led by Nietzsche, Paretoand Mosca.Here, toq a protofascisSorel,and the Italian elite-theorists tic dismissalof democratic equality in favor of a return to what Nietzsche (hierarchy or rule by elites) predominated.zz celebratedasRangord,nung it In evaluatingthe implicationsof the intellectuallineageunder discussion, positions of Husserl and Heidegger when the Nazis is useful to contrast the Husserl delivereda lecseizedpower.In rg35, after an initial period of silence, ture entitled "Philosophy and the Crisis of EuropeanHumanity." The speech of displayeda clear awareness the momentoustransformation undergoneby Europe in the period of fascism'simplacablerise. Husserl presentedan unflinching defenseof the rational and universalistic aspectsof the Western of tradition. He realizedthat the governments Hitler and Mussolini, which had followers throughout Europe, posed an unprecedented attracted numerous challengeto everything that that legacy stood for. Although Husserl was not naiveabout the manifestlimitations of that tradition, his lecture wasanything but apologetic.As he remarkedat one point: "I too think that the European of crisis derivesfrom the perversions rationalism,but there is no reasonto say importancein human that rationalismis bad in itself or that it is of secondary life asa whole."z3 Heidegger,of course, had come to a seriesof very different conclusions. of These were the years in which he spoke about the "glory and greatneSs the of [German] awakening"as well as "the inner truth and greatness National

Introduction

political judgments More important, however,such occasional Socialism."z4 were rooted in a philosophicalstandpointthat increasinglydevaluedthe whole and nihilistic. Inof Western reasdnas "onto-theological"-hence, valueless of such as the following becameincreasinglyrepresentative stead,statements his position: "Thinking beginsonly when we havecome to know that reason, But, as glorified for centuries,is the most stiff-neckedadversary thought."2s of '.A recognition of the the historian of fascismZeev Sternhell has observed: that it of existence an areanot controlled by reasonand an acknowledgment cannot be explored by rational meansalone is one thing; the intellectual and political exploitationof antirationalismis quite another."26 Nor did the propagation of a radical critique of reasonand universalitytakeplacein a socialand political vacuum.Instead,if one analyzes closelythe doctrinespropoundedby the prophets of fascist ideology-the writings of Gobineau, Paretq Sorel, Jtinger, and so forth-one seesthat a rejection of the tradition of Enlightenment rationality is a sine qua non.27 would be shortsightedand dishonestto It downplay the contributions that such intellectual tendenciesmade toward paving the way for the European catastrophe. Sternhell also notes: "The As political revolt that reachedits climax in the period betweenthe two world wars (we are referring not only to fascismand Nazism but to all the expressions of the'national revolution' in France,Spain, and Portugal) would not havebeen possiblewithout a long period of intellectual preparation.The cultural revolt preceded political one in everypart of Europe.Fascismwasthe hard coreof the the cultural revolt and succeeded translatingit into a political force."28 in In his book dealingwith theseissuesDerrida seeks show not only that it to wasa surfeit of humanismthat inducedHeideggerto support Nazism 1933;he suggests that Husserl'sViennadiscourse 1935,which containsa reference of to the culture of Eskimosand Gypsiesas existing outside the Westerntradition, wasin effectequallyracist and chauvinistic.This is Derrida's way of throwing down the gauntlet to liberal humanism'sgood conscience. That Husserl, who wasJewish,sufferedpersecutionat the handsof the Nazi regime (with the full cooperation, one might add, of his former student Heidegger, in his new capacityas "Rector-Fiihrer" of Freiburg University) makessuch an equation especially macabre. Indeed, to compareHeidegger'sfanaticalsupport for Hitler ("Let not doctrinesand 'ideas'be the rules of our Being.The Ftihrer alone li the presentand future German reality and its lawr" remarksHeidegger on one occasion)2e Husserl'sextremelymodestdefenseof Westernreasonis with to equateincomparables. reveals, It one is tempted to say,a markedincomprehension of the political implications of intellectual discourse.As Tom Rockmore has correctly pointed out: "Husserl's rejection of National Socialism,

ro

Introduction

weakasit unfortunately was,shineslike a beaconin comparisonwith the more typical philosophicaleffort to embrace,or at leastto cooperatewith, Hitler's movement, above all by Martin Heidegger."30 When all is said and done, Husserlwould havebeenincapable writing linessuchasthe following,which of were part of Heidegger'slectureson logic in ry34: "Negroes are men but they haveno history. . . . Nature has its history. But then negroeswould also have history. Or does nature then have no history? It can enter into the past as somethingtransitory,but not everything that passes awayenters into history. When an airplane'spropeller turns, then nothing actually"occurs" fgeschieht]. Conversely when the same airplane takes Hitler to Mussolini, then history occurs."3l Moreover, it is important to realize that this passage, shocking though it may seem,doesnot merely representan unthinking, aphilosophical asideon Heidegger'spart; instead,when read in context, it is intended as a fundamentalillustration of Heidegger'sdoctrineof Geschichtlichkeit {'historor icity"-of the comprehension history qua "authenticity." of Heidegger's failing was not so much in having called into question the shortcomingsand inadequacies Western reason.Many other thinkers and of cultural critics of the modern era, beginning with the romantic movement, and extremesof Westhaveenhanced our consciousness concerningthe biases Inflexible rationalismis hardly preferableto dogern cultural development.32 Heidegger'sphilosophicalmissteplay in his opting, like matic irrationalism.33 so many of his countrymen and women, for a position of total critique; that is, in his assumptionthat the enterprise of reasoncould not be salvagedfrom within, but instead,neededto be castasidein favor of, ashe wasfond of calling it, an "other beginning." Without a normativepoint d'appui to rely on in the modern world of total perdition, his thinking seemedto call for the extreme that he embracedin fact. solutionsand measures But what holds for the right-wing critique of the modern world must apply The to the left-wing critique as well. Here, toq the extremesoften coalesce. of German thinkers of more closelyone examinesthe intellectual disposition the interwar generation-on both sides of the political spectrum-the more one encountersprofound generationalcommonalities.In the chapters that on follow onJewish secularmessianism, Walter Benjamin,and on the political failings,despitethe thought of Hannah Arendt, I identify similar generational are fact that my own intellectualsympathies much closerto the positionsthey represent. Although Benjamin, the Frankfurt School,and Arendt sharemany of Heiof degger'scritical positionson the inadequacies modernity and the paradigm of instrumental reason,rarely did they take thesecriticisms as far as he did;

Introduction

rr

in especially Heidegger'slater work, we seea rejectionof reasonin favor of an avowedlymythological"poeticizing gnosis."3a Perhapsit wastheirJewishness, their subterranean,seldom avowed affinities to "rational religion" and the tabooagainstimages, that preventedthem from taking the final step of casting off civilizing reasonin favor of myth. Thus, as Horkheimer and Adorno insist in Dialectic of Enlightenment work that is otherwise unsparingly critical of (a modernity's historical outcome): "We are wholly convinced-and therein lies our petitio principii-that social freedom is inseparable from enlightened thought."3s Far from being an abstractnegationof Enlightenment,the Frankfurt School'sphilosophicalproject alwaysaimed at "enlightenmentabout Enlightenment": it sought to promote theoreticalreflectionon the limitations of Enlightenment for the sakeof strengtheningthe very concept.And thus they alwaysinsistedthat their "critique of enlightenment[was] intendedto prepare the way for a positiae notion of enlightenrnent which [would] releaseit from entanglement blind domination."36 in This contrastbetweenthe Frankfurt School'squalifiedcritique of reason-a critique that aims at revising and broadening,but not at dismissingthe concept-and a radical critique such as the one purveyed by Heidegger and his heirs helps us understandmore preciselywhat is at stakein the discourseof total critique. One of the main problemswith this discourseis that it fails to distinguish among rationality types: insofar as they partakeof reason,all are equally tainted, equally damnable.In the last analysis,this position, whether one finds it represented the later Heideggeror Foucault (who, in an interin view,goesso far asto conclude:ttl-a torture, c'estla roison")37 endsup subsuming all speciesof reasonunder the genusof instrumental reason.No matter whetherone consultsHeidegger'scritique of d,as (enframing),Derrida's Gestell critique of logocentrism,or Foucault'scritique of power/knowledge,the end result is the same:salvationcan never be found within a revisedconcept of reason'but only outsideit. All rationality types-theoretical-scientific,moralpractical,and aesthetic-are reducedto the sameperniciouslogocentricbases. But this narrowing of theoreticalfocus potentially excludestoo much. It is erroneous,following Heidegger'slead, to view all socialaction in the modern world (with the possibleexception of that of a few privileged Dichter and Denker)asexclusively"instrumental" or t'logocentric."The excesses instruof mental reasonin the workplace,government,and cultural life should certainly be criticized. But countervailingtendencies the realmsof politics, art, and in everydaylife must alsobe emphasized. Otherwiseone inevitablylosessight of the determinate gains of those social protest movementsthat have gone far toward redefining our contemporarynotion of the political: the struggle for

r2

Introduction

civil rights, the women'smovement,and the antiwar movement.All havebeen of guidedby a conceptof reasonthat is both practicalin the sense Kant's moral law ("Act in such a way that you alwaystreat humanity, whether in your own but alwaysat the personor in the personof any other,neversimply asa means, What we need is a theoretical same time as an end") and emancipatory.3s perspectivethat is non-one-dimensional, one that is capableof taking the of variegatednature of socialaction into account:those aspects socialaction One of the as that arepotentiallyemancipatory well asthosethat are repressive. is I havebeendiscussing that it has main problemsof the philosophicallineage ideology:the idea succumbedto the more resignedconclusionsof posthistoire the havebeenabandoned, that, in a postmodernera in which all metanarratives of utopia must also be cast aside;or the related conviction that the concept notion of emancipationitself is derisory,if not dystopian.In all of thesereto spectsit is necessary uphold the utopian aspirationsof the r96osin the face that of the fashionable,fin-de-sidcle Kulturpessimismus is so often brandished theoreticalheirs. neo-Nietzschean by that decade's

PART I

KUTCI{UR WARS: TH E ilODERlI IST/POSTUODERNISil CONTROVERSY BEVISITED

tr
Literary theory hascome to be identified with the political left; but while it is true that a good many of its practitioners hail from that region, it is much lessobvious that theory itself is an inherently radical affair. One might, indeed, argue exactly the opposite.It would be possibleto seesemiotics as the expressionof an advancedcapitalist order so saturated with codesand messages that we all now live in some vast stock exchangeof the mind in which gobbetsof packagedinformation whizz past us at every angle.Just as money breeds money in finance capitalism, having long forgotten that it was supposed to be the sign of somethingreal,so the Saussurean sign broodson itself and its fellowsin grand isolationfrom anythingaslowly asa referent.One hearsthat in the United States there is now a fairly well-beaten path from the postgraduate semiotics course to Wall Street. . . . And it is not hard to see much of what passesfor postmodernism as consumerismat the levelof the intellect.-Terry Eagleton,"Discourse and Discos" to the Collected Essays the Sociology 0n (rgzo)t Max Weber grapples with the problem of the cultural ofWorld, Religions specificity of the West. He phrases his inquiry in the following way: Why is it "that in Western civilization, and in Western civilization only cultural phenomena have appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a line of developmenr having universal significance and value"?2 He continues to cite a wealth of the rational concept, standardized methods of scientific experimentation, rational harmonious music, extensive utilization of perspective in painting, bureaucratic conduct of the orgtnizational sphere, and the systematic rational pursuit of economic affairs-that are unique to the West yet illustrative of its self-avowed universality. Yet the historical emergence of these various cultural developments by no means occurred simultaneously. It is to Judaism that we owe the advent of cultural phenomena-theology, It is well known that in his introduction

16 Kulchur Wars monotheism (or, as it has sometimesbeen termed, "rational religion"), to ancientGreecethe birth of the rational concept,to the Renaissance emerthe gence the principlesof scientificexperimentation in and perspective the arts, of and to the Reformation the appearance the Protestant ethic's inner-worldly of the asceticism, which becomes hallmark of the extraordinaryrationalizationof life-conduct characteristic the capitalistspirit. Only when all of the aforeof and combine mentioned variableshave been allowed to establishthemselves into a single comprehensive ethos-usually placedby Weber within the cateof gory of "rationalization"-does modernity in the full sense the term emerge. in And althoughit crystallizes the courseof the fifteenth, sixteenth,and sevenit teenthcenturies, attainsits definitiveform in the eighteenthcentury,with the transition from the absolutist to the democratic era. As Jiirgen Habermas has pointed out, it is during this period that the absolutebreach betweentradiFor transpires.3 it is in this agethat the transition tional and modern societies on worldviewsto thosebased de-centered based cosmological on from societies or differentiatedworldviewsoccurs.From this point on, societyis no longer that by characterized the predominanceof a single,monolithic value-system Instead, these subpervadesand structures its various partial subsystems. may now pursuetheir own inherentindependentlogics.This developsystems proliferation of autonomousvalue-spheres ment allows for an unprecedented the becomes signatureof the modern age.The primary that, in many respects, in that are released this processare those of science,moralitg value-spheres and art.a Each of these spheresbecomes"rationalized" insofar as each no longer needsto invoke a priori the authority of an antecedentand determinastandpoint to legitimate itself. Instead, each becomesselftive cosmological validating.Henceforth, the legitimacy of each is certified in terms of a set of the criteria. While in principle Weber acknowledged vainternally generated on the first lidity of all three spheres,in his scientific work he concentrated form of rationality instrumental or formal reason,whose predominancehe viewedas the defining featureof modern culture.sUltimately, he undermined his own pluralistic conceptionof modernity by judging the other two valuespheres-morality and art-in terms of criteria taken over from the scientific sphereand then branding theseasformally irrational.6Thus, for Weber,moral choicesdo not partakeof a logic of truth: they are ultimately decisionistic,a they defy rational justification. matter of pure choice.In the last analysis, to Today it would be an understatement claim that the legacyof modernity from hasfallen under suspicion;in truth, it hasfallen victim to a frontal assault of the utopian socialistsin the early nineteenth all quarters. The writings century still exuded the optimism characteristicof Enlightenment philoso-

Kulchur Wars

17

phies of history.T the end of the century such confidentexpectations, By still a driving motif in Marx's work, had succumbed the disillusionmentof "decato dence," "vitalism," and "nihilism." These intellectual currents, which dominate the fin-de-sidcle, signal a decisive historical rejection of the normative legacy of modernity. Their most formidable exponent, Nietzsche, is often celebrated the spiritual progenitorof contemporaryattemptsto escape as from the encumbrances modern rationalism8-attempts that, by virtue of this of much heraldedbreach,are associated with the bannersof postmodernity and postmodernism.e this chapter I shall focus on the third of the aforemenIn tioned three value-spheres-the sphere of aestheticrationality-in order to gaugeits significance the modernism/postmodernismdebate. in

I When we speakof art in terms of its import for the paradigmof modernity, we refer to the unfettered right of the artist to independentself-expression. We modernsassume this right to be self-evident, whereas fact it is essentially in an achievement recentorigin, postdatingcenturiesin which art wasfully impliof catedin the legitimation of what Weber termed traditional authority-be it in the form of myth (Homer's lliad), religion (medievalChristian painting), or the divine right of kings (courtly art). This embeddedness art in traditional of worldviewsis what Walter Benjamin has describedas its "cult function." To the "exhibition value" of art: the fully secularized "cult" he opposes statusit acquiresin the course of the eighteenth century, when art comes to play a constitutiverole in the formation of the bourgeoispublic sphere.l0 ln Structural Transformationof the Public SphereHabermas analyzes the essential role playedby art as a vehiclefor generatingpostconventional social identities:identities that no longer assume unquestionedvalidity of tradithe tional societalnorms and values.With special referenceto the eighteenthcentury epistolary novel, he demonstratesthe indispensable role played by fiction in the public conveyance subjective of (and thus in the proexperiences cessof identity formation) for the rising bourgeoisclass. While Habermasrecognizesthe truncated characterof the humanitarianvaluesflaunted in works such as Pamela,La Nouaelle Hdlolse and Werther-the values of love, education, and freedom remainedconfined to the private sphereof Innerlichheit or inwardness-he deemsthese values themselves authentically universalistic.lr However,he is wholly without cynicism with regardto the eighteenth-cenrury public sphereas an ideal model of communicativepraxis, despitethe fact that its original universalisticpromise is revoked once the victorious bourgeois

18 KulchurWars
class turns conservativewhen faced with'the prospect of having to extend its values beyond the boundariesof its oiwn class interests.In Habermas's account, the original promise of the bour[eois public sphere ultimately becomesa tale of lost illusions: its progressivepotential is revoked through a process increasing of commercialization, culminating in the "culture industry" of latecapitalism.r2 Habermas'sdepiction of the classical bourgeoispublic sphereis pertinent the insofar as it convincingly demonstrates impressivecommunicativepotenthesecommunicaor tials of postconventional autonomousart. Nevertheless, curtailedin the courseof the nineteenthcentury tive capacities increasingly are as autonomous art becomesprogressivelyesoteric."Esotericization" is the corollary on the autonomy side of the ledger for a bourgeoisart that, having on into "high" and "low" spheres, the oppositeside,asdioertissement, separated regressed "cult"-entertainment and amusement.Thus, in the bourgeois to era, art undergoesa processof dichotomization.Although so-calledhigh art of autonomy(the process authenremainsfaithful to the principle of aesthetic in this task at the expenseof its it tic subiectiveself-expression), succeeds which then attachesto the lower sphereof former claim to generalizability, entertainmentart.l3 The considerabletension that is generatedbetween these two spheresacmodernism. counts for the dynamism that becomesthe hallmark of aesthetic The increasingcommodificationof what was once popular culture, the vast proliferation of entertainmentmedia, compelsautonomousart to undergo a seriesof radical self-transformationsin order to remain abreastof the tide threateningto engulf it from belowand therebyremain faithful to the precepts of aestheticautonomy.The developmentalhistory of bourgeoisculture becomes a story of abandoned ideals. In literature it can be traced from the (e.g.,Goethe'sWilhelmMeister),wherethe prospectof a reconBildungsroman ciliation with reality remainsintact, to the novel of disillusionment(e.9.,Stenate dhal's TheRedand theBlack),in which the hopesof the Bildungsroman dis(Proust,Joyce)' to abandoned, the modern novel of consciousness consolately where contact with an empirical world perceivedas inimical to spirit is relinof quishedand the novelistthrown back on the resources her own subjectivity. renunciationof the bourgeoisworld of progressive entailsa Since this process "objective spirit" and correspondentsubiectivizationof narrative structure (the radicatshift from the third personsingularto first personsingularnarraon experiences" which the bourgeois tive voice),the domain of "generalizable predicated is placed at risk. This is a literary public sphere was originally tendencythat culminatesin the birth of literary modernism.Its developmental

Kulchur Wars

rg

autonomy of literself-referentiality, are defining characteristics an increased ary signifiers (writing is about words, not things in the world), disruption of ideal of the rounded, integral work. linear time, and rejectionof the classical time, in recent yearsan important controversyhasarisenover At the same the periodizationof literary modernism in relation to the so-calledavant-garde Accordingto Btirger,at spurredby PeterBiirger's TheoryoftheAaant-Gard,e.ta of is a transformation from quantity to quality within the value-sphere issue featuresof aesthetic bourgeoisautonomousart. Whereas one of the signal modernism was a concertedassaulton any and everythingtraditional-in the well-known words of Rimbaud, "Il faut Otre absolumentmoderne"-these attacks,for all their vehemence,ultimately fell short of challenging the bourgeois "institution of art" as it was originally constituted in the eighteenth century.That is, despitetheir radicalism,the works of literary modernism in the last instanceremained thoroughly aestheticist.Not sq however,the works of the historical avant-garde:futurism, constructivism, dadaism,and, most important, surrealism. For the avant-gardeis distinguished not so much by an attack on traditional works of art asby an attack on the ideal of porks of art per se,'that is, as autonomous aestheticproducts entirely separatedfrom the doautonomyitself that is called main of life-praxis.It is the principle of aesthetic into question by the historical avant-garde:the affirmative ideal of culture as a sphereof beautiful illusion in which the valuesdenied in the realm of daily or most To material life can be safelyenjoyed.rs be sure,bourgeoisaestheticism, with the mid-nineteenth century doctrine of art for art's commonly associated sake,was alwaysa phenomenonlaced with ambivalence.Affirmative though it may have been, it retained an indefeasiblecritical moment. Its harmonious to images alwaysthreatened indict the prosaicmaterialworld in which the ideal had little place.In Btirger's view, the avant-garderebelled viscerallyagainst ineffectual,aestheticistmodes of negation. And in polemical opposition, it adopted the program of a reintegration of art in the domain of life-praxis: the beautiful illusion of art should be transposedto the sphere of real life. In this sense,the avant-gardeno longer produced works of art, but instead
ttprovocations.ttl6

A few critical remarksconcerning Bi.irger'sschemeof classification in are order.rT is undoubtedly fruitful to distinguish betweenliterary modernism It and the twentieth-centuryavant-garde-a distinction often wanting in AngloAmerican criticism, where the two are usually subsumedunder the rubric of comlaunches assault traditional aesthetic an on modernism.The avant-garde And it is quite portment that modernism would find difficult to countenance. and railing againstthe apparentthat literary modernism,for all its iconoclasm

20

Kulchur Wars

constraintsof tradition, remainscommitted to several key pillars of bourgeois aestheticism-mostimportant, to the principle of the completedwork of art as an end in itself. In this respectmodernism remains consistentwith a line of development stemmingfrom art for art's sake. Nevertheless, Btirger's definition of the avant-gardeas seeking"the overcoming of art in life-praxis" is too rigid. His explanationremainsplausiblein the cases Russianconstructivismand Italian futurism, which seekto turn art of into a comrade-in-arms the processes industrializationandpolitical mobiin of lization.rsTheir links to historical programsof modernizationyield products that desperately seekto avoidbeing works of art. The samemight well be said of the dadaistready-mades and objets-trouuis (Duchamp's "fontaine"). However, once the attitude of "6pater le. bourgeois" itself becomesan aesthetic program, its provocations cease shock.It, toq soonfinds a ready-made to niche in museums, catalogues raisonn6s, and modern art history syllabi. program for merging the domainsof art and life-praxis stands The aesthetic under the sign of the ephemeral.As Adorno once remarkedwith referenceto the Brechtian aesthetics "commitment": engagedworks of art "merely asof similate themselvessedulously to the brute existenceagainst which they protest-in forms so ephemeralthat from the very first day they belongto the seminarsin which they inevitably end."le In Adorno's view ephemeralness resultswhen the conceptof the integral work of art is relinquishedfor the sake of extra-aesthetic effect. However (and this is where Biirger's analysisgoes astray), this is not the sign under which surrealism stands.Btirger fails to acknowledgethat, for all the notoriety Andr6 Breton's claim concerning the need to "practice poetry" has received,in many respectssurrealismremains faithful to the program of aestheticautonomy.To this day its works retain a type of exemplary status.Thus, in ryzg Breton sought to preservethe sovereign powers of the surrealist imagination against Aragon's willingness to place them at the beck and call of the communist movement.2O Whether one considersa poem by Eluard, a romanceby Breton, or a painting by Dali, all function at a distant removefrom the found objectsof dada.The latter possesses shock-effect a that, in most cases, dissipates after the initial act of reception. The surrealistworks (which, admittedly,havebecomein their own way "canonical") are aestheticenigmasthat invite decipherment.One need only recall that, in his "surrealism" essay, Benjamin, a prescientobserverof the Parisianavant-garde,feared that the movement would remain incapableof transcendingits "autonomous" phase,in which it lingered under the swayof romantic artistic preiudices;and that, asa result, it would be unableto accommodateitself to the "constructive,dictatorial sideof revolution [!]"21

Kulchur Wars zr surrealismproperly,in relation to both bourgeois In order to conceptualize Btirger's (art for art's sake)and the more engagedavant-garde, aestheticism autheoreticalframework would be in need of a third term: de-aestheticized that surrealism'suniquenesslies in its This categorysuggests tonomous art. of negatedthe aura of affirmation characteristic art for having simultaneously refusing to abandonthe modern requirementof art's sake,while nevertheless aestheticautonomy.This requirement ensuresthat the truth-content of surimmecurrents,will not evaporate realism,unlike that of fraternal avant-garde therefore diately in the moment of reception.Surrealismmust be understood divestsitself It attackon bourgeoisaestheticism. consciously asa still aesthetic beautiful illusion, the aura of reconciliation,projected by art for art's of the autonomy,beyond sake,while refusing to overstepthe boundariesof aesthetic to which art degenerates the status of merely a thing among things. Even Biirger, basinghimself on Benjamin'stheory of allegory,ultimately recognizes the meanssurrealismemploys to distinguish itself from "auratic" (possessing an aura) art: a renunciation of the aestheticistideal of the rounded, integral work of art in favor of the notion of the fragmentary work. In other words, still prffirsfragmenta,q/ worksof art that are nonetheless works.In this surrealism respect,it remains,in spirit and in fact, much closerto the domain of modernism proper than to its immediatehistoricalprecursor,dada. enteredinto a stateof profound crisis. In the rgsosthe historicalavant-garde as fell victim may be diagnosed follows:so dependent The dilemmato which it had it becomeon elementsof shock, provocation,scandal,and rupture that, had beenroutinized, they too would becomenew artistic oncethesetechniques a itself had becometraditional: it became new newness In conventions. essence, have been aestheticcanon, achieving a bourgeois respectabilitythat would For anathemato its original partisans.22 quite some time now, it has no longer been unusual-it has even become de rigueur-to see nonfigurative images adorning the officesof corporate presidents.One of the first to note the cooptation of modernism was Lionel Trilling, whq rather than abet the domesrefusedto teachit in university seminars.23 tication of the modernistchallenge, identity crisisis the fact that its centralprinciCompoundingthe avant-garde's ple of construction,montage,would becomethe standardmodus operandi of the advertisingindustry. In its attempts to compel the audienceto recognize would become one of its of the pseudo-uniqueness its wares, shock-effects threatened with normalizasum, the historicalavant-garde seemed staples.24In For all of thesereasons, from both aboveand below.zs tion and obsolescence thesisconcerningthe "end of artt'would seemonceagain Hegeltscontroversial to havebecomeextremelytopica1.26

22

Kulchur Wars

Of course,Hegel formulated this verdict with respectto the transition from neoclassicism romanticism.To him it had becomeapparentthat the avowto edly subjective and idiosyncraticcharacter romanticari had madethe monuof mentalism of Greek classicism forever a thing of the past. Yet art persevered and, despiteits presentcrisis,continuesto persevere. The questionthus arises: What is the status of the avant-gardelegacy in relationship to the various postmodernforms that became heir and successor? its

il Perhapsthe most basic historical point of referencefor the phenomenonof postmodernism the Americanreceptionof the Europeanavant-garde is following the Second World War. For the abstract expressionists were decisively influencedby the surrealistcommunity-in-exileduring the war years.27 Noted for the techniquesof "tachism" or "action painting," their methodsseemed to be a visual corollary to the surrealist technique of automatic writing. The emphasis conscious on constructionwasrenounced. The renunciationof figuration was carried to an extreme,and the last vestigesof "representation"or "subject matter" were extirpated (this in keepingwith an assault, dating back to cubism, on the inherent illusoriness of the striving for three-dimensionality or perspectiveon a two-dimensional surface).The aural complement to these developments was the aleatorymusic of John Cage, with its analogous penchant for compositionalcontingency. The New York Schoolremainedsufficientlyindebtedto its historicalantecedent, surrealism,to qualify asa transitionalstageon the path leadingfrom the avant-gardeto postmodernity. It maintained one foot in eachcamp,as it were. But one thing separating this schoolfrom the historicalavant-garde its lack was of concernwith the relationshipbetweenart and everyday that had beenso life central to the earliermovements. This refusalto problematizeart's relation to daily life suggestsaffinities with the more aestheticistqualities of surrealist painting. Abstract expressionism's alienation from politics and everydaylife hasits sociological origins in the one-dimensionality the cold war years. of In its rejectionof the form-giving capacities the artist via the randomness of of tachism and aleatorymusic, abstractexpressionism carried the avant-garde . attack on the romantic aestheticsof genius to an extreme. For this reason it stands under the sign of the "eclipse of subjectivity" (there is a strikingly comparabletendency in the nluueau roman), a trend that will become indefinitiveof the postmodernistsensibility.28 creasingly It is not, however,until the r96os that the phenomenonof postmodernism

Kulchur Wars 23 appearsfull-blown on the American cultural scene.Here, too, the visual arts stand in the forefront, riding the crest of momentum provided by the New York School. In this decadeit is almost impossible to keep pace with the changesin artistic iashion: pop, op, conceptual,and body art, kaleidoscopic minimalism, happenings, and so on. All of these trends reproblematize the relationshipbetweenart and daily life in a mannerreminiscentof the historical and in polemicalop(e.g.,Robert Rauschenberg's neo-dadaism) avant-garde so. At the sametime there refusal to do position to abstractexpressionism's comesto passa final breachwith the absorptionand concentrationdemanded of the viewer by modernist works of art. Few conceptualdemandsare placedon the recipient. Instead, the effect conveyed by these works is often one of of they reproducethe fleetingness dadaunadulteratedimmediacy.In essence, ism, minus the shock,which hasbecomeinstitutionalizedand domesticated. One might even go so far as to say that in this phase, the avant-garde program of the reintegrationof art and life-praxis hasbeen stoodon its head. This program aimed at the reconciliation of culture and material life once the intoxication. latter itself had beentransformedthrough the forcesof aesthetic an postmodernist art often enoughassumes ethosof cheerful adapConversely, tation. The radical oppositionalstanceadoptedby the historical avant-garde has been relinquished.A quiescent versustraditional bourgeoisaestheticism harmony and affirmation has been placed in its stead. The peaceful spirit of betweenart and reality is proclaimed.Thus, postmodernismbecoexistence havesasif the radical transformation of material life sought by the avant-garde has alreadybeen achieved.But since this is not in fact the case,what results instead is merely the false sublation of autonomousart. The new marriage betweenart and facticity can be seenin the choice of artistic subiect matter for transfigured,glorified, literally pop: the detritus of everydaylife reemerges, from which becomeindistinguishable life in Warhol's silk screens, larger than Pop's return to an ad campaign (Warhol had an early career in advertisting). new being-at-home-in-the-world.Postfiguration indicatespostmodernism's modernism has declared metanarrativesand first philosophy to be obsolete; thereby,however,it risks discarding conceptualresourcesthat might be of valuein penetratingand demystifyingthe current crisis. In the Sociologjtof Art History Arnold Hauser describesthe regressivetenof dencies pop: of Pop art deniesthe autonomyand immanence the individual work. The picture of a girl in a swimming costumeby Roy Lichtenstein showsno more individual traits than Andy Warhol's cans.Their simple unequivo-

24 Kulchur Wars cality and formulaic nature, their sharp outlines and monotones,their schematicdrawing and compositionwhich lacksany tension*everything about them contradictsthe individuality of the work of art in generaland points to its reproducibility in this particularcase. . . Pop painting thus is . not only commercialin spirit like the other forms of pop art, but alsouses techniques the commercialmedia,placards, of magazineillustrations, and newspaper advertisements.. . It doesnot dependupon the impressingof . actualarticlesbut on their schematized representation media of comin mercialadvertising.. . . Insteadof immediatereproductions,it consists of quotationsfrom a text which alreadyrepresents material of reality as the translatedinto artifacts.We can seein this second-hand retreat from the original datajust asmany signsof fear of coming into contactwith natural reality as of the expression the perceptionthat nothing is left for us of of the originality and immediacy of nature. Pop painting denies the mechanizedand standardized characterof bourgeoiscivilization, just as decisivelyasdada,but without letting the political point of the movement come to the forefront and, falling into a total nihilism in the face of the products of the system,raisessuspicion.It acceptsits forms as the elements of a milieu in which we do not necessarily take delight, but which must be accepted because there is no alternative.2e Here, Hauser has capturedthree key elementsof pop qua manifestationof postmodernism:(r) the renunciation of constitutive subjectivity and, hence, of the "individuality" of works (infinite reproducibility); (z) the reconciliation made with the world of commodity fetishism(commercialism); a pro(3) nouncedsense politico-cultural resignation(no alternatives-no sunealityof to the existingorder). At the sametime, in their proximity to massculture, in their orientation toward consumption, these works exude a pseudopopulist ethoswhich suggests that the gap between(high) art and life has beendefinitively bridged, and that aestheticcultural democracyhasbeen realizedin the hereand now Yet,beneathsuchillusionsliesthe following unwritten credo:the frivolity of a sociitd consommation d,e shotld be matchedby the frivolity of art. Though the initial influenceof postmodernismwas felt most keenly in the sphere of the visual arts, it by no means remained confined to this sphere. Instead there was scafcelyan artistic domain untouched by the new cult of aestheticimmediacy.One thinks of the neo-dadaistsculpturesof Rauschenberg, poetic "word salads'.' beat inspiration, "living theater,"the "new jourof nalism" of Tom Wolfe, the novels of William Burroughs and Donald Barthelme, the fusion of classical and pop stylesin the music of Philip Glass,as well as the ahistoricalarchitecturaleclecticismof Michael Gravesand Philip

Kulchur Wars 25 haspercepJohnson.In a spirit not dissimilar to that of Hauser,Irving Howe of the tively characterized anti-intellectualismand ahistoricismcharacteristic postmodernism: We areconfronting,then, a new phasein our culture, which in motive and spring representsa wish to shakeoff the bleeding heritageof modernism. . . . The new sensibilityis impatient with ideas.It is impatient with the only yesterday catchliterary structure of complexity and coherence, our criticism. It wantsinsteadworksof literature-though literawordsof ture may be the wrong word-that will be as absolute as the Sun' as as unarguable orgasm,asdeliciousasa lollipop. . . . It hasno tastefor that ethical nail-biting of those writers of the left who suffered defeat and would neveracceptthe narcoticof certainty.It is sick of thosemagnifications of irony that Mann gaveus, sick of thosevisions of entrapment to which Kafka led us, sick of thoseshufflingsof daily horror and gracethat Joyce left us. It breathescontempt for rationality, impatience with mind. It is bored with the past:for the pastis a fink.3O modernism has led to a correThe postmodernistdevaluationof classical sponding valorizationof massculture, especiallyamong left-wing critics uncomfortablewith modernism'selitism. Often spurredby the "cultural studies" approachof Stuart Hall and the Birmingham School,it is a position that selfconsciouslyrejectsthe Frankfurt School'spath-breakingexpos6of the "culthe Insteadof emphasizing one* ture industry" in Dialecticof Enlightenment.3r process wherebya conformist culture is unilaterally foisted upon dimensional unwitting masses,cultural studies explores the way cultural meanings are It of refiguredand transfiguredin the process being received. is allegedthat the evenrevoluimagesand meaningsof the culture industry are reappropriated, Andrew Ross in the reception processitself. Thus, in ,A/oRespect, tionized, sets forth what he calls a modest, "dialectical" reading of "popular culturel' (the preferred term among its partisans):"In short, we cannot attribute any purity of political expressionto popular culture, although we can locate its power to identify ideasand desiresthat are relatively opposed,alongsidethose that are clearly complicit, to the official culture."32Despite his attempts to advancethe terms of this debate,Ross fails to answer the question: What the happens when popular culkrre becomes officialculture?What happenswhen MTY and CNN takeon the charthe imagesof the Hollywood blockbusters, acter of a "hyper-reality," before which all traditional claims to cultural negafade into tivity, such as thoseonce stakedby modernism and the avant-garde, insignificance? from ln (Jncommon CulturesJimCollins citesa number of cultural spectacles

26

Kulchur Wars

the rgTosand r98os-The TexasChainsapMassacres, The OutlawJosey Wales, Robocop, well as Qreen's MTV video, Rad,io Gaga-which he claims have as actuallyembraced critique of one-dimensional the societyoncepurveyedby the Frankfurt School.33 The administrativeconspiracyamongelitesfrom the corporate,government,and military spheres, Collins argues, in fact becomean has obiect of polemicalattackin thesevideosand films. As true astheseallegations may be from a descriptivestandpoint,one can alsoturn the argumentaround: so formidablehavethe culture industry's powersof absorptionand co-optation becomethat they now possess foresightand wherewithalto incorporatethe the terms of their own critique. The culture industry-to be sure, no longer the monolith portrayed by Horkheimer and Adorno in the rg4os and rg5os-has beenableto detectthe changingwinds of public opinion in a post-counterculture, post-Watergateera. Correspondingly (and with negligible or dubious public impact) the critique of its own political-economic basishasbecomeone of its staples. lieu of its meaningful democratization,its impact and influIn remain thoseof an ersatzor pseudo-public ences sphere.Moreover,if one takes a closerlook at the inculpation of administrativeelites in the films praisedby Collins (Robocop Clint Eastwood's or popular,vigilantist "Dirty Harry" series), one seesthat the "criticisms" of mass society far from being by any stretch of the imagination "progressive,"are articulated from the standpoint of the highly conventional, nostalgia-ridden Americanethosof ruggedindividualism. As such,thesefilms promote a return to an earlierand simpler order of American values,one free of the demandsof political activism or racial conflict; an order of valuesthat, in its own way is hardly lessproblematicor more oriented toward emancipatorypolitical ends than the industrial-politicalnexus it seeks to indict. In part, this new valorization of popular culture stems from the correct perception that the social situation of culture has undergone a number of qualitative alterationssince the Frankfurt School'soriginal critique. Following the rg6os modern industrial societiesceased correspondto the "oneto dimensional"or "totally administeredworld" depictedby the first generation Instead,the Frankfurt School's"end of reason"prognosis of critical theorists.3a foundered as a result of the vigorous protest movementsassociated with the countercultureand the New Left. Here, the irony is that it was preciselythe critique generated Adorno, Marcuse,et al., announcingthat there was "no by exit" from the contemporaryhistoricalimpasse, that fueled the imaginationof so many political radicalsof the era. Late capitalismof the cold war era was a period of well-nigh stifling conformism and-apart from occasional rumblings on the fringes-cultural ac-

Kulchur Wars

27

commodation.From this standpointthe political (antiwarmovementand feminism), social(civil rights movement),and cultural (counterculture)turbulence The socialmovements would seemvirtually unimaginable. of the next decade the of the r96oschallenged political-cultural hegemonyof the socialsystemin many constructive respects.Far from being reducible to the status of systemstabilizing "feedback loops,"3stheir legacy constitutes a watershed in contemporary political discourse.Despite the concertedattempt in the rg8os to values(cold war politics, religious fundaremobilize traditional conservative mentalism, supply-sideeconomics,a culturally conformist modernism), it is impossiblesimply to effaceor roll back this influence.The healthy cynicism raised about traditional bureaucratic party politics and an imperialist foreign poticy, the new emphasison multiculturalism and environmental limits to part of this legacy. growth-all remain a crucial and indispensable that At the sametime one must be careful not to overestimatethe advances have been made, and one must be prepared to appraisetheir fragility realistically. In the cultural domain, especially the balanceremains precarious.To that emerged be sure,the tenuousbreakthroughof oppositionalpublic spheres with the countercultureand student movementallowedfor the articulation of to paramountsocialconcerns(the challenge traditional sexroles,for example) in that led to the removalof a set of debilitating cultural taboos.Nevertheless, proliferation of a cultural pseudodemocracy many ways the result hasbeen the the of with the substance democracywithheld. We havewitnessed triumph of whereasthe authentic realization of the values cultural differencein semblance, feigned by the cultural spherein the sphereof material life itself has not come the searchfor cultural othernessor polyvalence to pass.In no small measure, has been institutionalized (the music industry representing the apotheosisof ("ours offeringus the omnipresentillusion of emancipation this phenomenon), is a culture in which anything is permitted") in order to deny more effectively its realization. I offer only the barestanecdotalevidenceof this phenomenon.Doubtless, thousandsof other examplescould be invoked. Shortly after the urban riots of in the mid-r96os, which were apotheosized Jim Morrison's hit, "Light My Fire," one of the Detroit auto manufacturers felt confident enough to utilize And The Doors'insurrectionary ode as the theme music for a televisionad.36 on a more contemporarynote: as I write (fall 1994),the Miller Brewing Company is airing a commercial featuring the Buffalo Springfield anthem, "For What It's Worth." The ad includesthe well-known lyrics: "Somethin'shappen here. What it is ain't exactly clear. . . . You better stop, children, what's that sound, everybodylook what's goin' round." The marriagebetweenrock and

28 Kulchur Wars advertisingis certainly nothing new.But this case a bit more interestingthan is most. Following the openingtwo lines just quoted, the lyrics that encapsulate the song's political message have been convenientlyelided: "There's a man with a gun over there, tellin'me what I ought to wear." The r96os abide,but Madison Avenuedictatesthe rhythms of popular memory. All of which suggests that, in the present context, one should not be too quick to consignthe Frankfurt School critique of massculture to irrelevance. The new myth propagated the culture industry pertainsto its untrammeled by pluralism: the taboosof a one-dimensional societyhavebeen lifted, and for it no theme remainstoo risqu6.Clearly,there canbe little that is authoritarianor manipulativeabouta societywith suchvastparameters cultural tolerance. of Is mass culture the phantasmagoria changing fashion, the repetition of the of always-the-same under the guiseof the "new" asdescribed Walter Benjamin by in connection with the dawn of our modern sociiti de consommation (namely, the glittering world of the Parisarcades)?37 hasit evolvedto a point where, Or asthe enthusiasts popular culture suggest, needmerely tap into the veins of we of utopian promisethat lie in wait beneaththe encrustedsurface? Today one can no longer proclaim i la Adorno that whateverembrges from the sphereof massculture is inherently retrogradeand "affirmative" (though this was a conclusionfrom which Adorno himself beganto shy awayin later years).38 be sure,thereexist significantmomentsof alterity and contestation To amid the vast expanses cultural conformism in the fields of film, literature, of and popular music, momentsthat point beyond the usual repetition-compulsion and standardization culture industry products.At the sametime, in the of last two decades the predominant tendency has been the co-optation of the oppositionalimpulsesof the counterculture.For the most part, its contentious claimshavebeentransformedinto the cultural chic ofnarcissistic, middle-class "life-styles"; its valueshave merely becomegrist for the mill of a societyof consumption,in which the goalsof vocationalsuccess of familial privatism and havetriumphed over thoseof a more engagedpublic culture. Thus, the longterm historical consequences the counterculture'sassaulton the sphereof of decayingtraditional valueshasbeena period of relativestabilization,in which the semioticsof cultural radicalism, rather than being suppressed outright, havebeen largely incorporatedwithin the value-system they sought to overturn) resulting in the semblance democratization-a pseudoculturalpluralof ism-minus the substance. Conversely, veritabletransformationof material the life asoriginally demandedby the New Left hasfailed to cometo pass. The net result of these trends has been the false sublation-or reconciliation-of the former antagonism betweenculture and materiallife. The "adversaryculture" malignedfor decades cultural conservatives virtually ceased exist.3e by has to

Kulchur Wars

29

Should these conjectures prove reliable, it would suggesta healthy skepticism about the current vogue concerningthe latently emancipatorycharacter of massculture. It is by no meansa vogueof recentvintage.Back in the early modernism and rg6osLeslie Fiedler was soundingthe death-knellof classical genresof massculture ("B" movies, singing the praisesof hitherto neglected suchas"Cross the Border-Close the novels)in essays fiction, detective science and "The New Mutants."40A Journal of Popular Culturehas emerged, Grp" imploring us to take the manifestationsof consumer culture as seriouslyas critics oncetook worksof high culture. These productsshould indeedbe taken seriously;but not quite for the rather unabashedlycelebratoryreasonsfreby quently suggested the journal's contributors.Even critics with former critsuch as Fredric Jameson,havecome around to accordical theory allegiances, ing the productsof the culture industry a degreeof utopian potential on a par massculture must be grasped"not with the worksof modernism.ForJameson) but falseconsciousness, rather as a transforas an empty distraction or'mere' which then must mational work on socialand political anxietiesand fantasies to in havesomeeffectivepresence the masscultural text in order subsequently ttutoHe concludesthat massculture containsa be'managedtor repressed."4l pian or transcendentpotential-that dimension of even the most degraded type of mass culture which remains implicitly, and no matter how faintly, negative and critical of the societal order from which, as a product and a commodity,it springs."a2 Yet, while the apostlesof popular culture are predisposedto view it as a repository of spontaneousdissent and refusal, they have been at a loss to determine whether the attitudinal changesit induces have been of sustained a PopulorCulture,JohnFiske devotes public or critical value.In (Jnderstanding girls upon viewing of chapterto the sense "empowerment" gainedby teenage Whatever the merits of such claims, one must seMadonna music videos.a3 riously question whether the proliferation of clone-like "wanna-bes," more cultural identity, furthers in firmly than ever ensconced a consumer-oriented the type of critical individuation that the notion of empowerment suggests. Moreover, other studies indicate that the attitudinal changesfostered by mass that Often it is the case culture tend to be extremelyshortJived and ephemeral. the the medium remainsthe message: audienceis not so much concernedwith the content of what it views; instead, it is simply oriented toward escape, distraction, or leisurepursuits. In this respect,one of the most time-honored and salientfeaturesof the culture industry hasnot changed:it continuesto be geared cultural hedonism.An orientation toward the valuesof an administered toward consumption and leisure remains the industrially driven spiritus et animus behind the majority of culture-industry products.

30

Kulchur Wars

Making a virtue of a necessity with regard to the omnipresence cultural of reification cannotbut strike one as a hollow solution. The mass"anxietiesand fantasies"which, accordingtoJameson,the culture industry is ableto channel and distort, can by no meanssimply be lauded in their pristine original state. They too are thoroughgoingresultsof preexistingmechanisms socialization. of To treat them as "ciphers of Utopia" is thereforemisleading:the precipitate upon decipherment-unsocialized, desire-is far from politically reliable.This program is reminiscentof the traditional socialistfaith in the immediatespontaneity of the masses; even Brecht rcalized that it was only by way of the yet avant-gardetechniquesof "alienation" and "interruption" that standardized patternsof perceptioncould be broken down, and the homiliesof epic theater conveyed. The culture of postmodernismpossesses many ambivalences. Even Warhol's iconographyof American consumerismand celebrity are replete with irony: they hold up a mirror to our own cultural narcissism and excess, daring us to recognize our own foibles,but, at the sametime, betting we won't. Thus, asnot a few critics have observed,postmodernismpractices subversionand complicity in almostthe samebreath.# Yet a number of critics haveviewed the moment of complicity as predominant. Hal Fosterlamentspostmodernism's profound ahistoricism.Marx once said,"We recognizeonly one science, science history." Fosterfearsthat the of once the past is read ahistoricallyand cultural phenomena radically deconare textualized, we will be deprived of the basis for critique, which has always dependedon an acutehistoricalunderstanding: the useof pastichein postmodernart and architecturedeprivesstylesnot only of specificcontext but also of historical sense:husked down to so many emblems,they are reproducedin the form of partial simulacra.In this sense,"history" appearsreified, fragmented, fabricated-both imploded and depleted(not only a history of vicrors,but a history in which modernism is bowdlerized). The result is a history-surrogate,at once standardand schizoid. Finally, such postmodernismis lessa dialectical supersession modernism than its old ideological of opponent,which then and now assumes form of a popular front of pre- and anti-modernist the elements.as Even Jameson'sinitial enthusiasm for postmodernism qua mass culture appearsto have undergonea substantialrevision. In a much-cited essay, he argues(somewhatdeterministically)that postmodernismis the cultural form appropriateto late capitalism.Particularlyastuteare his observations concerning postmodernism'scultural "depthlessness": studious avoidanceof the its

Kulchur Wars 3r complexities and tensionsof high modernism, its preferenceinstead for lightas ensconced a credq what Once irony becomes heartedcitation or pastiche.a6 is the point of taking seriouslythe tasksof cultural criticism or socialcontestamerely constitute a regressionto the outtion? Would not such seriousness moded modernist cult of aestheticprofundity? One of the high points of consistsof a comparisonbetweenarchetypalworks from each essay Jameson's (modernism)and Warhol's Diamond Shoes mode: Van Gogh's Peasant artistic (postmodernism).As opposedto the Van Gogh image, which inDust Shoes vites hermeneuticaldecipherment(e:g., Heidegger'sfamous commentaryin are "The Origin of the Work of Art"), Warhol'sshoes wholly inert. They tend rebuffall efforts at depth-psychologicalinterpretation or historconsciouslyto ical criticism: to Andy Warhol's "Diamond Dust Shoes"evidently no longer speaks us with any of the immediacyof Van Gogh's footgear;indeed,I am tempted to say that it doesnot really speakto us at all. Nothing in this painting organizeseven a minimal place for the viewer, who confronts it at the turning of a museum corridor gallery with all the contingencyof some natural obiect.On the levelof the content,we haveto do with inexplicable what are now far more clearly fetishes, in both the Freudian and the . Marxian Senses. . . Here, however,we have a random collection of dead obiects hanging together on the canvaslike so many turnips, as shorn of their earlier life world as the pile of shoesleft over from Auschwitz or the remainders and tokens of some incomprehensibleand tragic fire in a packeddancehall. There is thereforein Warhol no way to completethe hermeneutic gestureand restore to these odd-ments that whole larger lived context of the dancehall or the bal[. . . .47 At issueis the rampantcommodificationof life in a "societyof the spectacle" ('iA.ll life in societiesin which modern conditions of production reign anDebord), the nouncesitself as an immenseaccumulationof spectacles"-G.ry triumph of a societyin which imagessupplant the things themselves:a society in which reification has been "perfected."asThese developmentscall for vigorous critique. Instead,postmodernism,by renouncingthe depth-dimension and simof (modernist) interpretive rigor, by resting content with superficies ulacra, ends up celebratingthem. Echoing Nietzsche,postmodernismdenies announcing instead and appearance, the dialecticaltension betweenessence is that "appearance all there is." AsJamesoncontinues: Andy Warhol'swork in fact turns centrally around commodification,and the great billboard imagesof the Coca-Colabottle or the Campbell's soup

32

Kulchur Wars

can, which explicitly foreground the commodity fetishismof a transition to late capital, ought to be powerful and critical political statements. If they arenot that, then one would surelywant to know why,and one would want to begin to wonder a little more seriouslyabout the possibilitiesof political or critical art in the postmodernperiod of late capital.4e The zero-degreeaestheticof postmodernistart engenders wholesale a loss of affect.It generates surface-oriented a aesthetic universethat is conduciveto a drastic, post-Freudian withdrawal of emotional cathexis.Whereasone of modernism's signatures(in this connection,Jamesonappropriately invokes Edvard Munch's The Screoz) involved the theme of artistic alienation-the irreconcilableopposition betweenthe artistic sublime and the prosaicismof society as a whole-postmodernism does away with this antagonism.In its emotionallyflattenedlandscapes, is, as it were,deprivedof the capacityto one feel one'sown alienation.And this is the entire point of a societyof spectacles, in which cheerful imagesof adjustmentand reconciliationabound.Postmodern culture, its characteristic tropesof hypercynicismand irony notwithstanding, too readily and in good conscience buys into theseimages. StandingHegel on his headfor good,it ceaselessly proclaimsthat appearance all there is. is

THE CULTURAL POLITIGS OF

]tEocoNsEBVATlsll

reactionof the r98os would spread It was inevitablethat the neoconservative from politics to culture. It did this with a vengeance the pagesof the New in the journal of cultural criticism launched in September rg8z by Criterion, Hilton Kramer, former art critic for the Nep York Times. The ideologicalslant of the journal was boldly enunciatedin the very first number. "Standards," "valuesr"and "morality" were to be preservedover and againstthe onslaught in of countervailingtendencies: truth, tendencies that possessed dffirent standards and valuesfrom Kramer and his like-minded guardiansof cultural purity. It is fascinatingto encounterrepeatedlyin the journal's pagesthe claim that rts criteria of aestheticiudgment are nonideological-or, strictly aesthetic, hence,pure-whereas the world of art criticism at large is sullied by vulgar ideologues,politicos, and irredeemablephilistines.l The New Criterion appearedon the scene,with the banner of righteousness held high, in order, in Kramer's words, to "distinguish achievementfrom failure, to identify and uphold a standardof quality, and to speakplainly and vigorously about the problemsthat besetthe life of the arts and the life of the mind in our society." What is written in journals other than Mr. Kramer's own is blithely dismissed as "either hopelesslyignorant, deliberatelyobscurantist,commerciallycompromised,or politically motivated." Elsewhere, "criticism at everylevel . . . has almost everywheredegenerated into one or another form of ideology or publicity or someperniciouscombinationof the two."2It is indeeda night in which all cowsare black. However, the aestheticvaluespropagatedby the l{ep Criterion arewoefully predictableand familiar. Frankly, there is nothing in the least"new" about the "criteria" that are repeatedlyinvoked by Kramer et al. The journal seeksto glorify a thoroughly conventionaland eviscerated version of the modernist canon. Bourgeoishigh culture is historically rehabilitatedas an irrefragable repositoryof aesthetic integrity. Any deviationsfrom this sacrosanct tradition

34

The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism

of cultural achievement pilloried with inquisitorial zeal.Unsurprisingly,all are tracesof so-calledlow or popular culture merit only the most relentlessexcoriation.The sociohistorical conditionsthat result in the polarizationbetween high and low culture-namely the capitalistcommodificationof value, which compelsart to resort to increasingly rarefiedand hermeticmodesof expression in order to escapeintegration-remain imperceptible in Kramer's account. Given his self-understanding "cultural critic,"3 the acknowledgment as that material factors of any sort might interfere with the purity of the cultural sphere would be strictly inadmissible.Yet, as Walter Benjamin emphasized nearly fifty yearsagq "the concept of culture, as the substantiveconcept of creationswhich are consideredindependent,if not from the production processin which they originate, then from a production processin which they continue to survive, carries a fetishistic trait. Culture appearsin a reified
form.tt4

Kramer's concertedattempt to separate culture from the realm of material life reifies culture as a store of disembodied,eternal verities. Its immediate relationshipto society, life-world, and the formation of individual identities the in the sense the German Bild,ung occludedin favorof a belletristicboosterof is ism. Shorn of its experientialsubstance a formative influence on the lifeas processes individuals, culture is abstractlyworshiped,resulting in the perof petuationof the "secularreligion of artr" asBenjamintermed art for art's sake. Paradoxically, adventof secularizedart in the modern era implies a definithe tive break with the conceptof art as an object of religiousveneration.Instead, implicit in the logic of cultural secularization, culminating in so-called autonomous art, is a claim to the democratization culture. As confirmed elitists, of Kramer and his cohortsview this prospectwith dread,insofarasthe adventof a truly democratic culture (as opposedto the Hollywood/Madison Avenueadministeredvariant) would deprive them of their vaunted position of privilege.In their position, it is not hard to glimpsethe specterof (bourgeois) selfinterest intruding upon the professedimage of the disinterestedaesthete. Kramer insists repeatedlythat the New Criterion'sstandpoint is nonideological and objective,in comparisonwith the rampant left-wing politicization of culture. As opposedto suchtendencies, Kramer's journal identifieswith the its valuesof "expert intelligence,""connoisseurship that concentrates princi* pal interest on aesthetic quality" and a "cultural elitism that servesthe public interest"-presumably by continuing to allow Kramer and his fellow cognoscenti to arbitrate forcibly standardsof taste.sHowever, if ideology may be it falseconsciousness, may be safelysaidthat the definedassociallyengendered Nep Criterion is copiously ideological. Rather than taking its claims to value-

The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism 35 neutrality at face value, it is essentialto understand the journal's timely appearance the cultural sceneas part of the larger sociopoliticalphenomenon on of neoconservatism. its neverattemptedto conceal partisanship To be sure,the Nep Crherionhas ideologicalshift and its politics,an admissionthat squares for the conservative as poorly with its condemnationof competingcultural tendencies ideological. The argument cuts both ways. Throughout its pages, the standard fare of rhetoric is constantly reiterated. The absolutenegative point neoconservative cultural criticism is, of course,the political of referencefor the neoconservative upsurgeof the r96os.As Kramer remarksat one point: "We are still living in the aftermath of the insidiousassault mind that wasone of the most repulon movementof the Sixties.The cultural consequences of sivefeatures the radical of this leftward turn in our political life has been far graver than commonly supposed.In everything from the writing of textbooksto the reviewing of trade books,from the introduction of Kitsch into museumsto the decline of literacy in the schoolsto the corruption of scholarlyresearch, effect on the life of the culture hasbeenongoingand catastrophic."6 The politicization of life in the r96os becomesthe radical evil universally responsible all subsequent for cultural failings,with the possibleexceptionof New York subway system breakdowns.Curiously, Kramer writes not a word about rg8os right-wing kitsch: Red,Dapn, Rambo, the Rocky series, and so forth. Kitsch, moreover, derives from German cultural debatesof the rg2os, not the r96os;it is a phenomenon whoseorigins canbe tracedto the separation of high and low art at the closeof the eighteenthcentury. It is clear that the specterof a politically activecitizenry,standingup en masse an immoral war, to unwilling to stomacha plebiscitary democracyin which professionalpoliticiansreign, represents devastating a threat to an elitist philosophyof politics and culture, which requires insteada quiescentand pliable public. Here it is of interest to note that the neoconservative preference for government by elites pseudopopulism its rhetoric, in which the evils of "big conflicts with the of government"and "rule from Washingtontt lamented. are In his book on the neoconservatives, Peter Steinfelsdescribes key element a of their worldviewasfollows:"The current crisisis primarily a cultural crisis,a matter of values, morals, and manners. Though this crisis has causesand consequences the level of socioeconomicstructures, neoconservatism,unon like the Left, tends to think thesehaveperformed well. The problem is that our convictionshavegone slack,our morals loose,our mannerscorrupt."T Steinfels's account accordswell with the aforementionedappealto "standardsof quality" and the "valuesof high artr" the raison d'tre of the Nep Criterion.

36 The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism Yet, not only doesone find in the iournal's pagesthe predictablepaeans to the valuesof high culture, but implicit endorsements the cultural policiesof of Republicanpolitics as well. Unsurprisingly,public funding for the arts comes under heavyattack,and the private sectoris typically viewedasthe panacea for cultural as well as socialproblems.To be sure,public funding of the arts is an issuefraught with political difficulties. Ultimately, it fostersa regressionbehind the democratizution art achieved the eighteenthcentury,in the form of in of a restorationof the constraintsof artistic patronage. the sametime, when At the potential for artistic democratiz tion (i.e., the freeing of individual artists from the constraintsof traditional authority, be it courtly or religious)is negated by the subjection of all art to the requisitesof the commodity form, judiciousemploymentof public funds to shelterartists from the vicissitudes of the market hasmuch to commendit. Despitehis pretensions the contrary,it is clearthat the realmotive behind to in Kramer's scorn for public support of the arts is ideological: his view,the arts tend to be dominatedby unpatriotic leftists,and eliminating public funding for the arts is the bestway to ensurethat they arepurged.Such displaysof political paranoiahave becomeonly too typical of the neoconservative mentality,and comparableexamplesabound in the Nep Criterion. The more one reads, the more one realizes that the mission of the Nep Criterion has little to do with of promoting idealsof cultural excellence. Instead,the main preoccupation the to "The truth is, it would iournal seems be that of settling old political scores. be easierfor a camel to passthrough the eye of a needle than for a serious writer to win a major literary prize in this country today,"laments conservative Kramer at one point.s Little doeshe realize,his observation,if correct, likely imagination than about leftsaysmore about the paucity of the conservative wing conspiracies. As might be expected,the Nep Criterionline on higher educationis vintage doseof Accuracyin Academiathrown in for William Bennett,with a generous good measure. Like the authoritarianpersonalityof old, the neoconservative mentality has little tolerancefor ambiguity. The enemy must be identified ('There are three movements quickly, accurately, then presumablyrooted out. or which havereplaced, soonwill at work in Americanhumanitiesdepartments Norman the replace, ethosof the liberal humanistsof my generation,"observes Real Crisis in the Humanities Today."e Cantor in an article entitled "The of "These are Marxism, feminism, and the methodologies structuralism and deconstruction.It is to thesethree movementsand their ideologicalimplications that we must turn for areal understandingof the crisisof the humanities an There follows in essence academic today-." "hit list."lOAccording to Cantor,

The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism 37 the historians Lawrence Stone and Eugene Genovesemust be given close scrutiny. Stone,the former headof the Davis Center for Historical Studiesat (extensivepatronagepowersin the historical profession. Princeton, possesses appointment at Rochestergave him an influential posiSimilarly, Genovese's tion in the academicestablishment."One must be especiallywary of the pseudohumanistic "Western Marxism," which attemptsto "reintroduce idealism into the Marxist system" and whose central tenet is that of "cultural mediation." "Critical theory," one learns,"is now an integral part of the American university curriculum."lr What we are offered is a r98os version of a a "Marxist (or occasionally feminist) under everybed." MartinJay, Mark high on the hit list are Marxist humanistscholars Ranking Poster,EugeneLunn, and FredricJameson:"their work in intellectualhistory or literary criticism hastakenthe place,for many bright studentsin the humanthe r96os."Jourities, of the liberal-humanistscholarshipthat characterized must be carefully monitored. nals such as Social Text, Octobet and Telosalso The tone and the level of Cantor's argumentationmanifestdelusionsof paranoia reminiscentof McCarthyism. If Marxists have migrated to the univerRad,icals), neocons the sities(as,for example,RogerKimball arguesin Tenured, should be pleased.After all, what more innocuous locus could be found for political radicalsthan the ivory towersof academe? The claim that left-wing intellectuals have fostered hedonistic life-styles that haveplunged the moral fiber of the American way of life into an abyssis a mythology often associated with the long-standingkernel of neoconservative literature,l2 term in recent sociological "new class" thesis.A much-discussed the new class refers to the growing stratum of intellectuals who now find themselvesin positions of economic and political power, bolstered by the adventof a technologicallyoriented "society of information." The claim that this grouping of individuals can be said to constitute anything resemblinga "class" (the bearersof "cultural capital" in Alvin Gouldner's words,its memto bership rangesfrom university professors corporateexecutives computer to programmers)seems dubious.On the other hand, the argumentthat its mempatternsof consumptionrings true. Nevertheless, bers tend toward narcissistic the alacrity with which this group participates in life-styles oriented toward conspicuous consumptiondisqualifiesit as the subversive "adversaryculture" lore. However loosely it is defined, this new class,given of neoconservative such conformist habits of consumption, hardly standsas a repository of the radical, "post-materialistvalues" that the neoconservatives fear.l3Moreover, its orientation toward "self-actualization"(one of the distinguishingtraits of a postmaterialistvalue-orientationaccording to political scientist Ronald In-

38 The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism glehart) is usually satisfiedby a variety of fadlike, pop-psychological trends that facilitatenarcissistic withdrawal rather than activepolitical contestation. The attempt by Kramer and his cohorts to blame a hedonisticcounterculture for depletingthe moral foundationsof the late capitalistsocietyis another standardcomponentof neoconservative conventional wisdom.As originally set forth in Daniel Bell's The Cultural Contradictionsof Capitalism Qg76), this thesisholds that there is a structural incompatibility betweenthe achievement mentality of capitalism,which is based the rational forbearance on embodiedin the Protestantethig and the valuesof the cultural sphere,which promote an interest in sensualfulfillment, experientialimmediacy,and expressive rather than goal-oriented subjectivity. But the problems with this analytical schemeare twofold. First, cultural modernism's unquenchabledesire for new experiences cannot be so neatly dynamism that detachedfrom the sphere of economic action: the ceaseless necessitates dismantling of all traditional waysof life, the disruption of all the fixed valuesand norms, the obsessive concernwith progressand development at all costs-all of these valuescorrespondto the entrepreneurialethos, the Faustianstriving in which "all that is solid melts into air."ra In all these respects,the dynamism of cultural modernism-its unceasingquest for the phe"new"-merely parallelsthe dynamismof modernity as a socioeconomic is that it risks falling nomenon. However, the limitation of Bell's argument victim to a confusion of causeand effect. It uniustly condemnsthe cultural and of spherefor the attempt to provideelements sensuousness fulfillment that capitalism systematicallydenies.Moreover, the crucial economic transition from a societyof production to a societyof consumption is occluded in this that fosters an ethos of conaccount, though it is preciselythis changeover In sumer indulgenceultimately fatal to Protestantself-renunciation. all these the cultural sphereis unfairly blamed for the advent of a profligate respects, consumer ethos that was crucial to the stabilizationof crpitalism after the crisis of overproductionin rgzg.rsFrom this point on, an administrativelyengendered demand for consumer goods ("consumerism") was intended to offset future crisesof overproduction. Kramer's own accountof how the cultural sphere,under capitalism,undermines the motivational foundations of the economic sector is misleadingin Kramer would like to savetwentieth-century comparisonwith Bell's. Because modernism, euz touchstoneof aestheticvalue, from being implicated in soany link betweenthe counterculture ciopoliticalturmoil, he refusesto concede modernism.Instead,he holds r96osradicalismalone the r96osand aesthetic of brethren view as contempofor accountable what he and his neoconservative

The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism 39 rary moral laxness. Bell's accountis more honestin that it views the counterculture asmerely one in a series modernistassaults of againstthe hypocrisyand repression characteristic the culture of capitalism.Indeed,the very notion of of a counterculturemust be tracedbackto the Parisof Baudelaire and the advent of bohemianism an oppositionallife-style. as Kramer's appreciationof the modernist legacy is misleadinginsofar as it seeks preservea modernism shorn of its radical sensibilities. to The iconoclastic thrust of the modernist heritageis neutered and domesticated his acin count. By employingthe overarchingconceptof "modernism" to refer to both the literary modernism of Joyce,Proust, Woolf, Kafka, etc., as well as to the revolutionary energiesof the historical avant-garde(dadaism,futurism, expressionism, and surrealism)which, as Peter Btirger has shown, was lessconcerned with creating new literary or artistic "styles" than in challengingthe bourgeois"institution of art" in its entirety,Kramer blurs a number of crucial differencesbetween these two currents. The result is the creation of the homogeneous and aestheticallypure modernist canon in which the real social challenges posed by the modernist / avant-gardelegacy to the institutional bases the establishedsocialorder evaporatein a cloud of aestheticistaffirmaof tion. In Kramer's framework, the entire modernist heritage is viewed as a single, undifferentiated continuum-fundamentally, an extension of art for art's sake.What is lost sight of is that, given the pressingnature of the Europeancultural crisis leading up to and precipitating World War I, the aestheticist credo of I'art pour l'art (art as the realm of "beautiful illusion") became insupportable to artists on a vast scale.BecauseKramer insists upon viewing art strictly in intra-aesthetic terms, excluding all wider social and cultural mediations, he remains incapableof appreciatingthe extent to which art overlaps positively with other spheresof life, thereby actively influencing defamiliafizing, and challengingconventionalworldviews. Kramer's aestheticcanon of orthodox high modernism offers little that is surprising or controversial.He reveresC6zanne, PicassqMatisse,Mondrian, on the one hand; the abstractexpressionists Gorky, Rothkq and Motherwell on the other. He is hostile toward virtually all artistic tendenciesthat postdate abstract expressionism.Unsurprisingly, all postmodernist trends become a privileged object of scorn. Kramer is awareof the "routinization of the avanrgarde": the fact that a once adversarialculture has establisheda peaceable modus vivendi with the bourgeoissocietyit once vehementlyopposed.Yet the conclusionshe draws from this realizationare strangelyinconsistent.For the inner contradictionsof modernism-its inaccessibility, elitist self-understanding, implicit neglect of questionsof content-that led to its assimilationand

40 The Cultural Politicsof Neoconservatism rejection by the postmodernistsremain for him untroubling. Consequently, modernism'sdemiseis not merely a testamentto bourgeoissociety'scapacity elementsof modernism'sown intrinsic to assimilate difference;it alsosuggests is the failings.16 Since Kramer, however, unwilling to address shortcomingsof modernism, his perspectiveis vitiated by a bad historicism: he remains a partisanof modernism "the way it really was"-as a fossilizedobject of histormodernism'ssocialintegration, he obical veneration.Having acknowledged serves: "Yet modernism,though now stripped of the nearly absoluteauthority it formerly wielded in artistic matters, is anything but dead. It survivesas a vital tradition-the only real vital tradition that the art of our time canclaim as its own. The revengeof the Philistines is anything but complete."rTWhat Kramer fails to recognizeis that any discussionof the modern as a "tradition"-even asa "vital tradition"-remains a contradictionin terms, sinceone of of the most fundamental characteristics the modern in general is to be somethingtraditional,as the modern becomes to antithetical all tradition.Once it does in Kramer's hands, it has already lost the battle, as it were. Kramer refusesto think through the failings of modernism;r8instead,he merely regresses traditional modernist valuesin a moment of cultural insecurity. to The main problem with Kramer's approachis that it is both belletristicand affirmative.The sociallycritical role of art, which is one of its central raisons d'rre, its capacityto negatethe world asit is and thereby to provide alternative models of discourse,is wholly eclipsed in this perspective.Instead, art is reduced to the level of an innocuous,self-referentialpastimesuitablefor the enjoyment of elites.Limited to this affirmative function, art is chargedwith in providing illusory imagesof transcendence, compensationfor the failings of and deficiencies the world such as it is. Kramer believesthat by artificially elevatingart to the rarefiedsphereof "eternal cultural values"fit for consumption by the few,he can removeall suspicionof art's ideologicaltaint. The irony is that Kramer thereby only compoundsthe problem. In his schema,art is all insofalseconsciousness," the more reducedto a type of "socially engendered of far asit is entrustedwith the missionof providing a semblance reconciliation Howeveqby glossingover socialantagodespiteexistingsocialcontradictions. fully ideological. nisms with a veneerof harmony and well-being,art becomes de affirmation with art for art's sake,thepromesse Even at the zenith of aesthetic registereda moment of social protest: it containedthe promise of a bonheur better world that, in contrast to the indigent stateof the existing one, would But since Kramer serve as a powerful indictment of the latter's deficiencies. (Schein), semblance electsto bypassentirely the critical dimensionof aesthetic is left with the idea of art as rank consolationfor the shortcomingsof the one materialworld. The content of art is reducedto diversionsimpliciter.

The Cultural Politics of Neoconservatism 4r missionall along has Here a curiousirony entersinto play.Kramer's avowed beento redeemart from the basedomain of "low" culture, to savehigh art from he to the clutchesof "philistines" and "kitsch." Yet, because remainsso averse all experience, of consideringeither the cognitiveor socialdimensions aesthetic he is left with is art asa variety of kitsch-a conclusionimplicit in his imageof art asa diversion from the realm of material interests(albeit,an exalteddiversion). Kramer's appreciation of art returns aestheticsto the sphere of the culinary or "banausic."In his hands high art becomesmerely the flip side of culture-industry pap.It becomes object of consumptionfor cultural elitesan but an object of consumption nevertheless. This debasement art echoes of clearly in Kramer's notion of "connoisseurshipr"le from which is inseparable associations with the culinary sphere.Moreover,in Kramer's conceptionof the art critic as connoisseur, tainted origins of bourgeoiscriticism-its ninethe teenth-centurylinks to the realm of commodity consumption-are discernible: the idea of the critic as a "purveyor of cultural goodsr"who assists consumers to discriminatein their choiceamong the available cultural commodities.The critic who fancieshimself abovethe fray of commodificationis ultimately fully judgmentsare suprain leaguewith it. He attemptsto assertthat his estimable historical-hence, nonideological and sovereign-when in fact they are,like all "socialfacts," thoroughly mediatedby the valuesof the reigning socialtotality. As Adorno has remarkedof such cultural critics: "The prerogatives inforof mation and position permit them to expresstheir opinion as if it were objectivity. But it is solelythe objectivityof the ruling mind. They help to weave the veil. . . . If cultural criticism, evenat its best with Val6ry,sideswith conservatism, it is because its unconscious of adherence a notion of culture, which, to during the era of late capitalism,aimsat a form of property which is stableand independentof stock-marketfluctuations. "20 But perhaps the greatestdeficiency of affirmative cultural criticism is its shameless fetishizationof the conceptof culture itself: its treatmentof culture as somethingindependent,divorced from the life-process society.In truth, of culture is valuableonly when it remainstrue to its implicit critical capacities. Its independence from societyallowsit the breathing-space required to reflect on societywith critical acumen,rather than to turn its backon the socialworld in the celebrationof eternal verities. Indeed, it is preciselywhen viewedsub specium aeternis that culture becomes truth ideological, window-dressing in the that lends a false veil of humanity to an otherwise inhuman society.What becomesunconscionable about affirmative cultural criticism is that "where there is despairand measureless misery,[the cultural critic] sees only spiritual phenomena, stateof man's consciousness, decline of norms."21 this the the In conceptionof the missionof criticism, culture becomes high-brow consolation

42

The Cultural Politics of Neoconservatism

for the anguish of worldly suffering- a d,iaertissement sophisticates.This for view is only a hair's breadth removedfrom the connoisseurship "serious for music" displayedby Nazi concentrationcamp administratorsafter a busy day stoking the ovens. These are the circumstances which Adorno alluded when he reflected to on the possibilitiesof writing poetry after Auschwitz.2z After the Holocaust, would not every trace of affirmative sentiment be guilty of providing false Nevertheless, Adorno was quick to point out that to despairof consolation? culture would in the end be tantamountto surrenderingto the forcesof barbathat the rism, which culture must strive to offset.It is preciselyfor suchreasons conceptof culture must be savedfrom the clutchesof Kramer and his kind.

REFTECTIONS 01{ JEWISH SECULAR MESSlAt{tsll

tr
The pastcarrieswith it a temporalindex by which it is referred to redemption.There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expectedon earth. Like every generation that precededus, we havebeen endowed with a peak messianicpower, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settledcheaply.-Walter Beniamin, "Theses on the Philosophyof History" It seemsto me particularly noteworthy that the messianicidea, the third element in that trilogy of Creation, Revelation, and Redemption, exercisesunbroken and vital power eventoday.Creation, so closelylinked to the conviction of the existence God, has to of an extraordinary extent recededor vanishedfrom contemporary consciousness. Outside the fundamentalist minority, Revelation persists only in enlightened or mystical reinterpretations which, no matter how legitimate they may be, no longer possess the original vehemencewhich promoted its enormous influence in the history of religion. Yet the messianic ideahasmaintainedpreciselythis vehemence. Despiteall attenuations it hasproveditself an ideaof highesteffectiveness relevance-evenin its secularized and forms. It was better able to stand a reinterpretation into the secularrealm than the other ideas'Whereasmore than roo yearsago such reinterpretation was still regardedas an utter falsificationof the Jewish idea of Redemption and messianism-and fust by rhe defendersof the historical school in Judaism-it has becomethe center of great visions in the presentage.-Gershom Scholem,"ReflectionsonJewish rheology"

I In a celebrated essay, IsaacDeutscherdescribes prominent Jewishpersonala ity-type, the "non-JewishJew." the modern era the non-JewishJew been In has responsible a unique and productive extensionof the Jewish sensibilityto for the realm of secularconcerns. According to Deutscher:

44

Reflections onJewish SecularMessianism

The Jewish heretic who transcends Jewry belongsto a Jewish tradition. You may, if you like, seeAkher la Mid,rashheretic] as a prototype of these great revolutionariesof modern thought: Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Rosa Luxemburg Trotsky and Freud. You may, if you wish tq place them within aJewishtradition. They all went beyond the boundaries ofJewry. They all found Jewry too narroq too archaic,and too constricting.They all looked for idealsand fulfillment beyondit, and they representthe sum of and substance much that is greatestin modern thought, the sum and that havetakenplacein philossubstance the most profound upheavals of economics, ophy,sociology, and politics in the last three centuries.r of For Deutscher,it is not the Jewishness the forenamedthinkers that actheir claim countsfor their statusasintellectualinnovators.Instead,in his eyes, may be best understoodin terms of their havingmadea definitive to greatness break with their Jewishpast.Indeed,the first three he nameswereall converts to Christianity. And the author of The Future of an lllusiln nevermade a secret of his equationof religion with superstitionsimpliciter.InDeutscher'sestimation, therefore (and it is at this point that the selectivityof his list begins to becomeapparent),these cosmopolitanintellectualswere able to achieverenown and influence only insofar as they were able to transcenl their own and must be explainedsociologically not in Hence, their greatness Jewishness. religious sensibility to the realm of secular terms of the transposition of a affairs. Spinoza'spantheism,Heine's solidarity with the persecutedand opof pressed,Marx's longing for a this-worldly transcendence alienation-all explainedin terms of theJew'straditional position on the sociocultural may be fringe. Their geniusmay be explainedexternally,as a by-product of the proIn tagonists'socialsituatedness. Deutscher'sview the deracinated Jew,forced la to the cultural margin, becomesasit were an internationalist aaa,nt lettre.As he explains: They were a priori exceptional in that as Jews they dwelt on the borderlines of various civilizations, religions, and national cultures. They were born and brought up on the borderlinesof various epochs.Their mind matured where the most diverse cultural influencescrossedand fertilized each other. They lived on the margins of in the nooks and nations.Each of them was in societyand yet cranniesof their respective not in it, of it and yer not of it. It was this that enabledthem to rise in thought abovetheir societies,above their nations, above their times and generations, and to strike out mentally into wide new horizons and far into the future.2

Reflections onJewish SecularMessianism 45 There can be no arguing with the descriptivecogencyof Deutscher's account. Similar interpretationsconcerningthe historical uniqueness Jewish of intellectuallife havebeen proffered often enough in the past. Still, it is those componentsof the non-JewishJew's experiencethat Deutscher intentionally passes over in silencethat one would like to know more about. Can one really understand the non-JewishJew by abstracting from all religious contents, influences, and motifs, howeverbroadly thesemight be conceived? Deutscherrules out the possibilityof an affirmativeanswerto this question. His worldview,one suspects, has been preformed. His own internationalism and progressivism suggest that the attempt to provide a positiveanswerto the questionjust posedwould be retrograde.In his view, only by freeing himself from what is specificallyJewish theJew truly be fulfilled. In this way alone can can he attain the statusof humanity in general,or, what Marx referred to as Deutscher persistsin the belief that the definitive answerto "species-being." theJewishquestionwasprovided by the young Marx inhisJugend,schrift the of sametitle: the self-sacrifice Jewishidentity on the altar of a socialistfuture. of However,asthe century drawsto a close,can we not detectin Marx's answerto theJewishquestionof some r50 yearsago more than a faint anticipationof the handling of the "minorities question" in EasternEurope's now obsoletePeople's Republics?

tl Were Deutscher to haveexpandedhis list of non-Jewish Jewsto include that generationof uniquely gifted, Central Europeanapostles messianic of socialism who came of age at the time of World War I-a list that would include Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Gustav Landauer, Georg Luk6cs, Herbert Marcuse, as well as other membersof the Frankfurt School-he might have beenmore hard-pressed makegoodhis atheological to For he then explanation. would havebeencompelledto explainwhat Scholem,in "ReflectionsonJewish Theology," calls the peculiar resilienceof the messianicidea. According to Scholem, this was an idea that maintained its vehemence insofar as it "was better able to stand a reinterpretation into the secularrealm than the other ideas."3 its pure form, this Central Europeanintellectualtype might bestbe In describedby the term Bloch applied to the sixteenth-centurychampion of radicalsocialreform, Thomas Mtinzer: they weretheologians reaolution. of How can one accountfor the fact that the messianic idea wasableto renew its effectivenessand relevance at this particular iuncture in the history of EuropeanJewry by undergoing a fundamental modification; namely,by be-

46

Reflections onJewish SecularMessianism

coming secularized? What were the peculiar affinities between messianism, socialism,and the Central EuropeanJewish intelligentsiathat brought forth this historically unprecedentedsynthesis of theological and revolutionary motifs? And, given that the hopes for historical-messianic renewalsharedby this generationof intellectualswere so brutally quashedby the parallel triumphs of Nazism and Stalinism, is there any possibility that this vision of utopian fulfillment canprovide inspiration for our own very different historical circumstances?

ill The socialsituation of Central EuropeanJewry that figuresso prominently in the portrait of the non-JewishJew sketchedby Deutscher is a factor that no analyst concerned with the phenomenon of Jewish secular messianismcan afford to ignore.Were one to require further proof of this thesis,one needonly examine matters from the ercnegatiaostandpoint of the Western European spirit are to be countries,in which virtually no tracesof this secularmessianic found.aWhereascirca rgoo, postrevolutionarypromisesof universalequality had gone far toward alleviating the plight of Western European Jews, the all assimilationistdreamsof their Central Europeancounterpartsseemed but dashed amid recurrent waves of increasingly virulent anti-Semitism. As a result, for Central EuropeanJewry the liberal option seemedto have played to itself out, and the historicalalternatives appeared be the either,/or of socialism or Zionism. Thus, at a time when hopesfor assimilationwere dashed,the only possibilitiesseemedto lie either in the radical political transformationof existing Central European societies-which the socialistshoped would be a prelude to the radical transformation of the world itself-or the pursuit of a Jewishidentity elsewhere. The historical dynamic behind such thinking hasbeen describedby Anson Rabinbach: In the yearsapproachingthe First World War, the self-confidenceand the by securityof GermanJewry waschallenged a newJewishsensibilitythat and Messianicin both tone and canbe described at onceradical,secular as content. What this new Jewish ethosrefusedto acceptwas aboveall the optimism of the generationof German Jewsnurtured on the conceptof by Bildungasthe GermanJewishmystique.They wereprofoundly shaken of the German upper political anti-Semitism and the anti-liberal spirit which for them called into question the political and cultural classes, epoch.Especiallyirksomewasthe of assumptions the post-emancipation

Reflections onJewish SecularMessianism 47 belief that there wasno contradiction betwee Deutschtumand n Jud,enturn; that secularizationand liberalism would permit the cultural integration of Jewsinto the national community.s But this explanationitself needsexplaining.In the fifty yearsprior to World War I the Central European monarchies underwent an unprecedentedeconomic transformation.Within this relativelybrief spanof time, Germany,for example (the changeswere not quite so far-reaching in the caseof AustriaHungary), vaulted from a predominantlyagrariannation to one of the world's leadingindustrial producers.Nor would thesechanges leavethe foundationsof traditional German social structure unaffected.Whereas in r87o, some 70 percentof PrussianJewslived in small villages,by ry27, this wastrue of only r5 percent.6 Clearly many Jewshad taken advantage the new opportunities of for social mobility and professionaladvancementprovided by Germany's industrial revolution. At the same time, Jews increasingly took the blame for in changes German societythat had upsetthe traditional classstructure.Thus, the evils of industrializationand urbanizationwere unjustly attributed to unnatural Jewish influences.Nor was this new wave of anti-Jewishsentiment confinedto so-calledtraditional or "vulgar" anti-Semitism.It wassharedby a large segmentof the German Bild,ungsbiirgertunr, well as the mandarin intelas ligentsia, which had suffereda decline of status and influence asa result of the triumph of commercialand material valuesthat were part and parcelof Germany'srapid economicexpansion.

tv
Lukics's prefaceto The Theoryof the Nooel $96z) provides important insight into the intellectualorigins ofJewish secularmessianism. There he coins the phrase"romantic anti-capitalism"to describe generation German intelleca of tuals who were psychologically traumatizedby the repercussions rapid inof dustrialization.In response, they focusednostalgicallyon the prospectsfor a restorationof precapitalist socialrelations.As Fritz Ringer hasobserved, "The German academicsrelated to the [economic] dislocation with such desperate intensity that the specterof a 'soulless'modern agecameto haunt everything they saidand wrote, no matter what the subject.By the early rg2osthey were deeply convincedthat they were living through a profound crisis, a 'crisis of culturer' of 'learning,' of 'valuesr'or of the 'spirit.' "7 For this generation,the distinction between Gerneinscha/i md Gesellschaft popularized by Tiinnies' r887 classic work of this title possessed type of canonicalstatus.s a Luk6cs characterizes legacyof his ryrg-r; study asfollows: the

48

Reflections onJewish SecularMessianism

The Theoryof the Noael is not conservativebut subversivein nature, even if basedon a highly naive and totally unfounded utopianism-the hope that a natural life worthy of man can spring from the disintegration of capitalismand the destruction,seenasidentical with that disintegration, of the lifelessand life-denyingsocialand economiccategories. The standpoint of the work aimed at a fusion of "left" ethics and "right" epistemology(ontology,etc.). . . . From the rgzos onwards this view was to play an increasinglyimportant role. We need only think of Milnzer als Ernst Bloch's Der Geistder (Itopie (r9r8, ry4) and Thomas beginningsof Theologe Reaolution, Walter Benjamin, even of the d,er of Theodor W. Adorno. etc.e Luk6cs's characterizationof the romantic anti-capitalist type clarifies several ironically worldview.For one, it suggests ambiguitiesof the secularmessianic spirit (of course,Luk6cs'sown of that the representatives the secularmessianic nameshould be addedto the list) sharean affinity with the German conservaextive mandarin intelligentsiafrom which they were rather systematically cluded. Both groups were profoundly influenced by the Kultur / Ziailisation dichotomg where Kultur symbolized the predominanceof higher, spiritual with the crude materialistic orientation values and Ziailisation wasassociated capitalistWest.Both groupstendedto conflatethe political and of the decadent economic aspectsof "liberalism." As a result a vehement denunciation of capitalismfrequentlyentailedan equallyunnuancedrejectionof parliamentary of government.Because this concertedmutual reiectionof political liberalism, neither party would prove a likely candidateto come to the aid of Germany's fledgling Weimar Republic. In both its "left" and "right" variants,therefore, bore the marks and prejudicesof Germany'sstathe romantic anti-capitalists tus as a "belatednation": aboveall, a principled, existentialrefusalto adaptto the demandsof political modernity.r0 But of equal interest in Lukics's remarks is his characterizationof the (and by extension,that of Benjamin, perspectiveof The Theoryof the |r,loael Bloch, and the others) as "subversive"-a claim that could certainly not be Undoubtedly,it wasthis dimenmadeon behalfof the mandarinintelligentsia. that made it an object of fascinationto a more recent sion of their thought generationof critical intellectuals.Out of this multifacetedcollectiveoeuvre critique of capitalistcivilization a emerges remarkablydramaticand persuasive in virtually all its aspects. standthe Lukics describes intellectualorientation of the secularmessianic With this epistemology. point as a combination of "left" ethics and "right"

Reflections onJewish SecularMessianism 49 verdict (despiteits manifest polemical intentions) he reachesan essentialinThe "left ethics" derive from remainsundeveloped. sight, which nevertheless of leadingcontemporarytheoreticians revolutionarysocialism.Their point of departurewasnot the deterministicMarxism of the SecondInternational, but the "left-wing communism"of GustavLandauer,Sorel,and the Dutch council communists,whoseviews the Bolshevikswould soon view as heretical."Right epistemology"harks back to the emancipatorythrust of the Jewishmessianic idea. Thus, only when these two factors-revolutionary socialism and the idea-are thought of in tandem can the radical trajectory of Jewish messianic be secularmessianism fully appreciated.

v
It was in the writings of Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch that the idea of secular messianismachievedits full radicality. As Rabinbach has observed, "There were others,of course,who embodiedthe new Jewish spirit, but only Bloch and Benjamin-initially without any mutual influence-brought, in varying degrees,a self-consciously Jewish and radical messianismto their i political and intellectualconcerns."r The historical sourcesfor this secularmessianic renewalare variegated.Of no small importance was Franz Rosenzweig's (rgr6), The Star of Redemption which brought renewedattention to the redemptiveaspects the Jewishreliof gious tradition. Of greater significance, however,were Martin Buber's Three Speeches Judaism (rgo9, rgrr). Buber's emphasison the existential and on mysticalcomponents ofJewishreligiosity,his critique of the staleconventionof the rational-rabbinicaltradition, established terms of debatefor an entire the generation of Jews interested in probing the spiritual implications of their faith. The direct influenceof Buber's writings on the early Benjamin hasbeen well documented.l2 Finally, both Benjamin and Bloch were well acquainted with the work of Franz von Baader,in whosewritings the cabalistictradition figured prominently.13 The content of the Jewishmessianic idea has beenbest describedby Scholem. At its center lies the delicatetension betweena restorativeand a utopian dimension.As Scholemnotes,"the messianic idea crystallizesonly out of the two of them together. . . . [E]ven the restorative force hasa utopian factor, and in utopianism restorativefactors are at work." Thus, the messianic idea "can take on the form of the vision of a new content which is to be realized in a future that will in fact be nothing other than the restorationof what is ancient, bringing backthat which had beenlost; the idealcontentof the pastat the same

onJewish SecularMessianism 50 Reflections time deliversthe basisfor the vision of the future." Still, while the vision of the new order receives inspiration from the old, "even this old order doesnot its consistof the actualpast; rather, it is a past transformedand transfiguredin a dreambrightenedby the rays of utopianism."ra return home through human "The world is not true, but it will successfully truth," declaresBloch.rs"Origin is the goal," proclaims beings and through Benjamin, citing Karl Kraus. In both of theseremarksthere echoesthe mesthis sianicimageof redemptionasa recapturedpast.Yet, asScholemindicates, primal past-an "original leap" or "LJrsprung"-is not something that one of intendsto restoreto its pristine,original condition. Instead,the very process conjuring forth the past in a contemporaryhistorical setting servesto activate in dormant potentialsthat lie concealed the past. The past is not and release of merely recaptured;it is rendereddynamic-in the sense a living traditionas a result of this fructifying contact with the utopian potentials that are secretlyat work in the historicalpresent. ideaamid the profane But the desireto realizethe sublimity of the messianic a continuum of historicallife immediatelypresents dilemmaboth epistemological and theologicalin nature. Those who dwell in this continuum can have only the dimmest presentimentof the manner in which the messianicidea proceedaccording might apply to the realm of secularaffairs:the two spheres of to entirely different, evenmutually opposed,logics.In truth, the categories age of the reasonand logic fail to conceptualize consequences the messianic for present.When viewed in relation to the customaryconceptsof the historical the human understanding, redemption proves to be a category of absolute thus, there is no prospectof bringing about an organic transitranscendence; prethe historical and messianiceras.There are no (HegeJian) tion between cepts of mediation that would be capableof bridging the gap. Scholem explains the absolute dichotomy between the profane and mesof sianicspheres life in the following vivid account: It is precisely the lack of transition between history and the redemption by which is alwaysstressed the prophets and apocalyptists.The Bible and writers know of no progressin history leading to the the apocalyptic redemption. Redemption is not the product of immanent developments such as we find it in modern Western reinterpretations of messianism since the Enlightenment where, secularizedas the belief in progress, still displayedunbroken and immensevigor. It is rathertranmessianism breakingin upon history, on intrusion in phich history itself perscendence it in transformed itsruin because is struckby a beamof light shininginto ishes, it from an outsidesource.. . . The apocalyptistshave always cherished a

onJewish SecularMessianism 5r Reflections view of the world. Their optimism, their hope,is not directed pessimistic to whar history will bring forth, but to that which will arisein its ruin, free at last and undisguised.16 And thus, "there can be no preparationfor the Messiah.He comessuddenly, and preciselywhen he is leastexpectedor when hope hasbeen unannounced, Or, long abandoned."rT asBenjaminputs it in his "Theseson the Philosophyof History" for theJews,"every secondof time wasthe strait gatethrough which the Messiahmight enter."r8

vl The messianic idea tended to catalyze the Jewish imagination in times of such as the expulsion from Spain in hardship or catastrophe, unprecedented 1492,in whose wake the Lurianic cabalawas composed.As Scholem reminds us, 'Jewish messianismis in its origins and by its nature-this cannot be the sufficiently emphasized-a theory of catastrophe. stresses revolution[It] ary, cataclysmicelement in the transition from every historical present to the future."re The neo-Kantian Ernst Cassirerviewedall such reliance messianic It on myth and supernatural imagery as historical regression.2o is clear, however,that at unusually trying moments in the life of theJewish people,when the traditional, rational content of Judaism failed to addresstheir true spiritual idea provided a crucial elementof cultural and religious needs,the messianic Through it alonecouldJewsseeminglyrender comprehensiblecohesiveness. of and bearable-historicalexperiences disproportionateseverity. The proliferation of secular messianismcirca World War I undoubtedly derives from an analogoushistorical dynamic. As hopes for Jewish equality in Central Europe were crushed, and thus prospects for a secular,this-worldly of solution to the Jewish question blocked, only a recrudescence messianic to offer new hope. The Great War itself, moreover, was a Sentiment seemed cataclysmthat shook the very foundationsof post-EnlightenmentEuropean The secularheirs of the messianictradition were among those self-confidence. who sought to give new meaning to this waning spiritual legacy. Yet, the prerequisite for the resurgenceof messianiclonging in a secular guise was the viability of the "socialistidea." Only when the redemptiveimpulse of traditional Jewish messianism encounteredthe socialistbelief in the imminence of a secularmillennium were the foundationsof modern messiaThose twin descendants the Enlightenment,utopian of nism truly established. socialismand historical materialism, both believedthey could discern the contours of a societyof freedom, solidarity, and plenty. However, theorists such as

onJewish SecularMessianism Sz Reflections Bloch and Benjamin (as well as Luk6cs, in his own fashion) were soon convinced that an infusion of messianicthought alone could rescuethe socialist idea from the crisis of Marxism that was evident in the reformist characterof the contemporarysocialistparties.As Bloch observes, Marxism, "the econin omy has beensublated,but the soul and the faith it was to make room for are missing." "The soul, the Messiah, the Apocalypsewhich representsthe act of awakeningin totality-these impart the ultimate impulses to action and thought, and constitutethe a priori of all politics and culture."2rAnd, asis well known, in r94o Benjamin recommendsthat historical materialism"enlist the services theology" should it wish to be victorious.22 of What Scholemrefers to as the "revolutionary,cataclysmic element" in the transition from the profane era of history to the sublimity of the messianic future plays a prominent role in the thinking of both Benjamin and Bloch. Thus, for example,in his "Theologico-PoliticalFragment" (a fascinating gloss on Geistder Utopie)Benjamin identifies the "cardinal merit" of Bloch's rgr8 work as its having "repudiated with utmost vehemence the political significance theocracy."z3 of Theocracysuggests that the messianic kingdom could be within the profanecontinuum of history.But, as Beniamin points out rcalized emphatically,"nothing historical can relate itself on its own account to anything messianic." The method of world politics, therefore,must be nihilism: it must promote the downfall and ruination of all that is merely historical, forsaken,and profane.2a Only in this way can the path to the messianic future be cleared.Consequently, their "revolutionary nihilism," both Benjamin and in Bloch find inspiration in the doctrinesof Sorel. Benjamin praisesSorel'snotion of revolutionaryor "law-creatingviolence,"which he contrastsfavorably idea of "law-preservingviolence" that characterizes with the conservative the modern state.2s And in a celebratedbon mot, Bloch characterizes ethical the stanceappropriateto the presentage as the "categoricalimperative with revolverin hand."26 Via the influenceof Benjamin, the standpointof secularmessianism would come to play an important role in the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. The rejectionof progressivist, evolutionaryphilosophies history in Dialectic of of Enlightenment bearsthe distinct tracesof the messianic critique of the homogeneous and empty continuum of historical life developedby Benfamin. Like Beniamin,and in contrastto Marx and Hegel, the critical theoristsceased to believein the historical prospectsof redemption. The positive side of the idea-such asexplicit or allegorical messianic visionsof redemption-is lacking in their work. Both Horkheimer and Adorno thereby alwaysmaintainedre(tabooagainstimages). Bilderuerbot spectfor the antimessianic Nevertheless Adorno's work the messianic in strategyof negativetheology

onJewish SecularMessianism 53 Reflections the remainsprominent. Negative theology suggests unredeemed-and unreprofanecontinuum of historicallife. Adorno, howof deemable-character the of to ever,proceeds historicizethis idea:his concepts the "totally administered world" or "context of total delusion" refer to a specifichistoricalperiod: twenthat, the immanent tieth-century state capitalism. Negative theology suggests suspended,the nature of rehistorical dynamic toward freedom having been demption canonly be deducedex negotioo:thrtis, by completelyreversingthe signsof the degradedhistorical present.Only when we realizeAdorno's proto found indebtedness negativetheologyasa theoreticalstrategycanwe appreciate the brilliance, unrelenting severity,and truly radical character of his cultural criticism. of The passage his work that best conveysthis weak messianicapproach appearsat the end of Minima Moralia, where Adorno observes:"The only philosophy which can be responsiblypracticed in the face of despair is the from the artempt to contemplateall things as they would presentthemselves hasno light but that shedon the world standpointof redemption.Knowledge must be by redemption:all elseis reconstruction,mere technique.Perspectives the and estrange world, revealit to be, with its rifts and fashionedthat displace indigent and distorted as it will appearone day in the messianic crevices,as without velleity or violence,entirely from felt light. To gain such perspectives contactwith its obiects-this aloneis the taskof thought.'27

vtl rescuedso much of the Jewish Ironically, it was the man who single-handedly heritagefrom the oblivion of forgetting,GershomScholem,who was messianic impose often quickestto warn of the dangersthat lurk in attemptsto recklessly As perspective the courseof secularevents. he remarksin a ry7 5 on a messianic price the Jewish people have interview: "I've defined what I thought was the A paid for messianism. very high price. Somepeoplehavewrongly takenthis to I mean that I am an antimessianist. havea strong inclination toward it. I have not given up on it. But it may be that my writings havespurred peopleto say the idea because price wastoo high." that I am aJew who reiectsthe messianic and He continues:"I think that the failure to distinguishbetweenmessianism secularmovementsis apt to trip up movementsof this sort. Such a mix-up a becomes destructiveelement.The misapplicationof messianicphraseology injected a false note into the minds and self-image of the devoteesof those t'28 secularmovements. The messianicidea in its modern secularguise has provided a wealth of

onJewish SecularMessianism 54 Reflections insight and illumination concerningsomeof the contradictionsand dilemmas of contemporaryhuman life. Above all, it hasencouraged men and women to confront a seriesof troubling existential questions concerning the irrational, transcendence, and hope that have been repressedand rejected by modern rational and scientifichabits of thought. It would be a rationalist delusion to think that these questionswould recedefrom human consciousness their of own accord; or that they, toq would prove pliable material for contemporary methodsof socialengineering. keepingtheseso-called In ultimate questionsof human existence the fore of modern historicalconsciousness,Jewish to secular messianismhasaccordednew relevanceand meaning to a variety of traditional religiouspreoccupations. Nevertheless, reservationsindicated by Scholem concerninga premathe ture effacementof the boundary separatingthe messianicfrom the historical seemwell placed.As a telos transcendingcontemporaryhistorical consciousnessthat descends the latter suddenlyfrom above, messianic on the categoryof redemptionknowsno compromises with the merely incrementalgainsof secular historicallife. From this privileged,suprahistorical vantagepoint, all that is historical-customs, morality,political forms, and so forth-deserves "merely" simply to perish. Scholemhasalludedto the prominenceof the catastrophic or apocalyptical character of salvation in the messianic tradition. And we have seenhow both Benjamin and Bloch, borrowing a page from Sorel, were attracted to the "purifying" capacities violence.Here, of course,there is a of perfect fit betweenmessianismand the modern revolutionary tradition as a whole, as it descends from Robespierre and the Jacobins.2e Scholempoints As Beniamin,especially his later writings, too readily collapsed barrier out, in the separatingreligious and political concepts;a charge that, mutatis mutandis, could be made with respectto the other apostles revolutionarymessianism: of Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adornq and Herbert Marcuse.The compellingcritique of a "damagedlife" (Adorno) that emergedfrom their work is purchased no at smallcost:a potentiallyruinous confusionof theological and historicallevelsof in analysis, consequence which prospects incrementalhumanbetterment for of in the here and now are discountedand undervalued. The problem is one that Benjamin recognized in the aforementioned "Theologico-Political Fragment": "The quest of free humanity for happiness runs counter to the messianic In direction."30 other words, the endsof human freedom and socialutopia often operateat cross-purposes. as one seesso Yet, often in the course of Jewish history, for this Benerationof political apocalyptists, the taboo against graven imageshasproved difficult to respect.

WALTER BEl{JA IIIN TODAY

m
I

One of the key concepts in the thought of the later Beniamin is that of Ahtualitrit or (cumbersomely translatedinto English) "contemporaryrelevance." The first collection of essaysdevoted to an understanding of his work, Zur Aktualitrit Walter Benjamins, highlighted precisely this dimension of his thought.t Like the "truth-content" of the work of art, on which Beniamin reflects in his essayon Goethe's ElectiaeAfinities, his relevanceis not something that is simply aorhanden, immediately available. Benjamin'scase, or In toq "truth-content" comes only by way of an outer veneer,a ((material conHere, material content refers to the fact that his oeuvre was tent" (Sachgeholr). conceivedunder a very preciseset of historical circumstances: tumultuous the yearsspanningthe outbreakof two catastrophic world wars; a period in whose aftermath many of the self-evidences Europeancivilization were seemingly of left hangingby a thread;an era dominatedby the political extremes Commuof nism and fascism,for which the survival of democracyseemed best remote. at Is it, then, any wonder that from Benjamin's very earliest intellectual stirrings eschatological motifs occupied a position of prominence in his thought? Indeed,a profound spirit of apocalyptical imminencepervades both his youthful and mature writings. Ours, conversely, an epoch that has seentoo much of apocalypse-world is war, death camps,the Soviet Gulag, Hiroshima, Vietnam. It is an age understandablywearyof fanciful, eschatological political claims.It is an era that has becomeenlightened-or so one would like to believe-about the folly and zeal of political theology:the notion that the kingdom of endsmight be realizedon earth via secular political means.We have become properly mistrustful of redemptory political paradigms.2 Kantian terms, the excesses political In of messianism havetaught us to be wary of all attempts to fuse the "noumenal" and "phenomenal" realms. Indeed, the idea that the foremost issue in the

56 Walter BenjaminToday domain of secular political life is justice or fairness,and that questionsof salvationmust be relegatedto the private sphereas the provinceof individual conscience, one of the quintessential is legacies political modernity.3 of As Irving Wohlfarth has pointed out: "To apply Benjaminiancategories to the present without also trying to rethink them in the light of intervening history is . . . not merely to remain trapped within the coordinatesof his thought, but to arrest the recastingprocessthat it sought to initiate."a His is caveat directedto thosewho succumbto an ever-present dangerof Benjamin scholarship:the danger of overidentification.Those who seek to follow in Benjamin'sfootstepsrun the risk of becomingmesmerizedby the aura of his life and thought. Before they can be appropriated,his ideasmust be subjected to an alienation-effect; their spell must be broken, they must be stripped of their aura. To this end, they must be unflinchingly brought into contact with other intellectual traditions as well as new historical circumstances. Only through such a confrontation might they prove their worth. The greatest disservice one could do to Beniamin'stheoreticalinitiativeswould be to accord them the statusof receivedwisdom, to assimilate them uncritically or wholesale.His mode of thinking, both alluring and elusive,invites commentaryand exegesis, which must not be confusedwith adulation. For all of thesereasons, attempt to appropriateBeniamin'sintellectual the legacyunder dramaticallydifferent historicalcircumstances far from simple. is To begin with, one would haveto do justiceto the fact that his interpretationof history remainsinalienablyweddedto a problematicof unremitting cataclysm and catastrophe, the following observations as indicate: That things havegone this far ai the catastrophe. is Catastrophe not what threatens to occur at any given moment but what is given at any given moment.s If the abolition of the bourgeoisie not completedby an almostcalculable is moment in economicand technicaldevelopment(a moment signaledby inflation and poison-gas the warfare),all is lost. Before the sparkreaches dynamite,the lighted fusemust be cut.6 Counterpart to fAuguste] Blanqui's worldview; the universeis a locus of perpetualcatastrophe.T And in his legendary discussionof the "angel of history"-perhaps the a defining imageof his entire work-Benjamin affirms that "where we perceive chain of events fthe angel] seesone single catastrophewhich keeps piling wreckageupon wreckageand hurls it in front of his feet."8He identifies the storm responsiblefor this catastrophesimply with "progress." Hence, for

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Benjamin, it is the responsibility of the critic to "brush history against the grain." For if left to itself, the immanent courseof history will never produce redemption. That is why the historical materialistmust "blast open the continuum of history." Only in this way can she activateits veiled redemptory potentials,which Benjamin (with a clear allusion to the mystical nunc stans) associates withJetztzeit or the "time of the now." To be sure,there are certain strainsof postmodernistthought that approximate Beniamin's bleak understanding of history as a Verfallsgeschichte t or image of a "carceralsocietg" say,or "history of decline": Foucault'scheerless Baudrillard'sconceptof the omnipresence "simulacra." But often they purof vey inordinately dispirited images of contemporary society that are wholly denudedof the utopian sensibilityinfusing Beniamin'swork.e At leastBenjamin tried to uphold a vision of utopian possibilitythat resides landscape the historicalpresent.Postmodernbeyondthe fallen and desolate of ism, conversely, fetishizing the notion of posthistoire, by conveys sensethat all a future elements the pastfor the sakeof an emancipated of attemptsto actualize (historicism" are a priori consignedto failure. For example,the concept of proper to postmodernarchitecturaltheory intendslessa meaningfulactualization of the past than an avowedlyrandom historical pillaging of it. In Benjaminian terms, the past is less "cited" as a "now-time" ("a sign of messianic of cessation happening")tothan as a purely ornamentaladornment. The end is versionof the modern. result in most cases a reaestheticized With postmodernism,moreover,the very concept of emancipationis releBut thereby,too, gatedto the dustbin of unserviceable metaphysical concepts. is and appearance abandistinction betweenessence the crucial metaphysical doned. Once theseterms are relinquished,one risks surrenderingthe capacity as to makesignificantconceptualdistinctions.For postmodernism, wasalready is true in Nietzsche,appearance all there is. For Benjamin, conversely appearance the realm of "phantasmagoria": bespeaks spell of commodity is it the fetishism, that degenerate utopia of perpetual consumption that must be demystifiedand surmounted.But then, sinceBeniaminnevermadea secretof his predilectionfor metaphysical, eventheologicalmodesof thought, the attempt to reconcilehis thinking with the antimetaphysical stanceof postmodernism hasalwaysbeensomewhatstrained.rr in SinceBenjaminwasengaged some0f the pivotalaesthetic controversies of our time, he is at presenta logical candidatefor inclusion in the burgeoning cultural studiescanon.Yet it may be that the attempt to understandcontemporary culture in accordance with Beniamin'seschatological theory of history(state which is predicated on the notion of the present as a perpetual of emergency"-obfuscatesmore than it clarifies.For while in r94o, following

58 Walter Benjamin Today Nazism'sinitial successes, Benjamin could with someplausibility characterize "the'state ofemergency'in which we live [as]not the exceptionbut the rule,"r2 this claim canat besthavemetaphorical meaningwhen appliedto the historical present.l3 Conversely, today the "state of emergency"is understoodliterally if rather than metaphorically, one risks systematically underestimating existthe ing possibilities political intervention and criticism. The result canbe-and for often is-a paralysisand marginalizationof left-wing oppositionalpractice.A position that proceedsfrom the assumptionthat the capitaliststate is inherently fascistor totalitarian is predestinedto inefficacy.Moreover, it commits the mistakeof generalizing suchconceptsto the point wherethey are rendered both trivial and meaningless-precisely oppositeof the effectthat an underthe standingof totalitarianpolitical forms should strive to promote. If Benjamin'seschatological temperamentplaceshim at odds with the modestpolitical aimsof contemporarydemocraticpractice,it nevertheless serves as an important corrective to the postmodernistembraceof posthistoire.ra Postmodernismhasnot only abandoned In "metanarratives." its anti-Hegelianism, it has also rejectedone of the basic premisesof dialecticalthought: the idea that, despiteits apparentindigence,the contemporarysocialsituation might yield something qualitatively better. The desire to perceive hope beyond despair-a central feature of Benjamin's redemptory approach to cultural history-is a sentimentalien to the disillusionedmood of postmodernity.The very concept of posthistoire suggests that the Enlightenment project of reconciling history and reason(a project that still finds a prominent echoin Hegel's thought) is illusory if not dystopian.Yet not evenBenjamin, for all his reservations about "progress,"wassoantagonistically disposed towardEnlightenment ideals.He went so far as to provide himself with the following methodological watchword for the Passagenmerk, that would have been worthy of Kant or one Condorcet:"To makearablefieldswherepreviouslyonly.madness grew.Going forward with the sharpaxeof reason,refusingto look left or right, in order not to succumbto the horror that beckonsfrom the depths of the primeval forest. The entire ground must be madearableby reasonin order to be purified from the jungle of delusion and myth. That is what I would like to accomplishfor the nineteenthcentury."ls

tl Because Beniamin'sintellectualsensibilitywasprofoundly shapedby the experienceof the interwar years,it was conditioned by an acutesense historical of collapse that parallelsNietzsche's lessapocalyptical no diagnosis "European of

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nihilism" in The Will to Power."What does nihilism mean?" inquires Nietz'why?' The sche. " That the highestaaluesdeaaluatethemselaes. aim is lacking; And with this summary pronouncementon the utter unfinds no answer."l6 tenability of inherited European values,Nietzsche initiated a line of radical Kulturkritik thatwould often prove as influential for those on the left as on the right.17 It is far from surprising, therefore, that in the notes and drafts to the PasBeniamin betraysa fascinationfor Nietzsche'sdoctrine of eternal sagenmerh, for It recurrence. wasan ideahe thought he could makeserviceable his critique in of nineteenth-centuryhistorical consciousness: it he found an appropriate antidote to the bourgeoisbelief in progressin an epoch-the era of imperialism or high capitalism-where there was no longer anything "progressive"about the rule of this class.Moreover, it was an idea that seemedin accord with Beniamin'sown conceptionof the nineteenth century as the site of a mythic proliferation of commodity fetishism: a "phantasmagoria."Like Benjamin, Nietzsche was a staunch critic of historicism. Yet, for this reason(and due to the archaicizing predilections of his thought), he glorified the mythological implications of eternal recurrence.Conversely,although Beniamin believed a that the conceptexpressed fundamentaltruth about the nature of bourgeois compulsionsof the comsociety(as a societythat, owing to the inescapable modity form, remained essentiallyindebted to myth), for him it was a truth from which humanity needed to be free. Hence, the great methodological emphasisin the ArcadesProject on the idea of awakening-awakeningfrom a dreamor from the compulsionsof myth. Benjamin'sfascinationwith the conceptof "nihilism" helps us accountfor the peculiar relationship in his thinking between periods of "decline" and suggestive the doctrinesof negativetheology. of "redemption"-an association One of the first to perceivethe import of thesetwo poles in his thought was that "an apocalypticelementof destructiveGershom Scholem,who observes undergonein his writing by the mesnessis preservedin the metamorphosis sianicidea. . . . The noble and positivepower of destruction-too long (in his view) denieddue recognitionthanksto the one-sided,undialectical,and diletof tantish apotheosis 'creativity'-now becomesan aspectof redemption."l8 goesfar toward explaining moreover, The relationbetweenthesetwo concepts, betweenhis theologithe-at first glancepeculiar-link he alwaysemphasized cally oriented rgz5 Origin of German Tragic Drarno and the quasi-Marxist Arcades Project.reBoth works seek to highlight manifestationsof cultural decline (mourning-plays and arcades)in order to cull from them dormant potentialsfor transcendence.

6o Walter BenjaminToday One might say that, in a Nietzscheanspirit, Benjamin identifies with the doctrines of "active nihilism": the conviction that if something is falling, it should be given a final push.z0 Only at the point where the process cultural of decayis consummated might a dialecticalreversal occur.Already in his surrealism essay(tgzg), Benjamin speaks rhapsodicallyof "the Satanismof a Rimbaud and a Lautr6amont." Along with Dostoyevsky, their writings givebirth to "the cult of evil as a political device . . . to disinfect and isolate against all moralizing dilettantism."2rTheir work represents thoroughgoingrenunciaa tion of the "affirmative characterof culture" (Marcuse)as practicedby bourgeoisaestheticism. breaksdefinitivelywith a cultural practice,from romantiIt cism to art for art's sake,that providesthe literary precipitateof experience in recompense the experience'itself. standsas a subterranean, for It nonliterary literary complement (insofar as their works have ceasedto be "literature") to the wave of anarchismthat first made its appearance mid-nineteenthin century Europe.For it wasthe anarchists who first initiated a conceptof radical freedom that expressed total refusalto compromisewith the blandishments a of the existing socialregime.In sum,,their work signifiesthe adventof a spirit of intransigent cuhuralnihilism,in consequence which bourgeois beginsto of art divest itself of its "aura": the idea that the beautiful illusion of art is meant to provide aestheticcompensationfor society's failings. Their attitude would culminate in the tradition-shattering ethos of the twentieth-century avantgardes: dadaism,futurism, and, of course,surrealism.Of Breton and company Benjamin famously observes:"No one before these visionariesand augurs perceivedhow destitution-not only socialbut architectonic,the poverty of interiors, enslavedand enslavingobjects-can be suddenly transformed into reoolutionary nihilism";zz thatis, into an attitude of thoroughgoingand uncompromising cultural radicalism. It is the samesensibility that provokesBenjamin'sprofound identification with the "destructivecharacter"who appreciates "how immenselythe world is simplified when tested for its worthiness for destruction." The destructive characteris anything but goal-orientedand is devoid of an overarchingvision of the way the world should be. "He has few needs,and the leastof them is to know what will replacewhat has been destroyed."23 was in the samespirit It that he enthusiastically cited a remark of Adolf Loos: "If human work consists only of destruction,it is truly human, natural, noble work."24 These sentimentsalso account for what Benjamin found attractive about his communist politics. From the very beginning,he acknowledged profound Nor washe at all movedby communism'scrude disinterestin communistgoals. epistemologicalstance.On one occasionhe openly mocks the "inadequate materialistmetaphysic"of diamat ("dialecticalmaterialism"),which, needless

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to say,remainedincompatiblewith Beniamin'sabiding interestin the relationlnstead,Communismattractedhim asan ship betweenpolitics and theology.zs approachto political radicalism,asa form of "activism" that valuedaction for its own sake.Moreover, in Beniamin's eyes it was a politics that viewed the totality of inherited social forms nihilistically, with a view to their imminent destruction. Benjamin would employ the theme of "anthropologictrlnihilism" as one of the subheadings for the Arcades Proiect. He was aware, however, that by proximity flirting with this problematichis thought had enteredinto dangerous to a fascistsensibility that had alreadytriumphed in Germany and Italy and that threatenedto engulf Europe. Fascism,toq placedgreat emphasison the need to destroy: an avowedlynihilistic "aestheticsof horror" formed a key Hence, Benjamin saw the need to discomponent of the fascistworldview.26 revolutionary" tendencies-his inclination to view tancehis own t'conservative prerequisitefor cultural renewal-from those radicaldestructionasa necessary such as Gottfried Benn, C. J. Jung, Ernst of his protofascistcontemporaries Jiinger, Ludwig Klages,and Carl Schmitt. Thus, to the anthropologicalnihilism of the conservativerevslutionaries, materialism." Not his Beniamin counterposes own notion of !'anthropological of only wasthis theory intended asa counterweightto the "aesthetics horror" et purveyedby Benn,Ji,inger, al.; it wasalsomeantasa forceful reioinder to the of valuesof Westernhumanismas propagatedby the representatives German idealism. The eventsleading up to World War I had shown how readily the German idealisttradition could be chauvinisticallyreinterpreted;for example, in the concept of Germany qua Kulturnation, which the mandarin intelligentsia employedasa justificationfor Germany'sentitlementto geopoliticalhegemony within Europe.27 Anthropological materialismwas Benjamin's way of attempting to substitute, as he put it, a "more real humanism" for the bankrupt, sham humanism whose ineffectuality under current historical circumstancesseemed selfevident.It wasa way of denigratinghumanity in its current, degradedstatein renewal;just as,accordorder to preparethe ground for its final, eschatological ing to Benjamin, in order "to understand a humanity that proves itself by destruction," one must appreciateKlee's AngelusNotsus,"who preferred to free men by taking from them, rather than make them happy by giving to on them."28These remarks,from Benjamin'sessay Karl Kraus, representan complementto his discussion the angelof history in the "Theses" of essential and demonstratehow integral the relationship between destruction and renewalwasfor his thought. materialismdiffered from the As a basisfor real humanism,anthropological

6z

Walter Benjamin Today

scientificmaterialismof orthodox Marxism. Benjamin had alreadyintroduced the concept in his surrealismessay, fount of so much of his later thought. the He associates with the "nihilistic poetics" of Biichner, Nietzsche,Rimbaud, it and, of course,the surrealiststhemselves. such, it is essentialto the key As conceptof that essay: profaneillumination. It expresses Beniamin's"revisionist" conclusion that revolution is less a question of socializingthe meansof production than a matter of bodily collectiveexaltation; in essence, society must become"surrealizedr"it must becomea collectiae locus ofprofone illumination. As Benjamin concludeshis essay:"Only when in technologybody and imageso interpenetrate that all revolutionarytensionbecomes bodily collective innervation, and all the bodily innervationsof the collectivebecomerevolutionary discharge,has reality transcendeditself to the extent demandedby the Communist Manifesta."It is the tradition of anthropologicalmaterialism,culminating in the surrealisteffort to effacethe boundaries separating and life, art that alone has realizedconcretelywhat it might mean "to win the energies of intoxicationfor the revolution."2e An interest in the relation between"revolution" and "intoxication" gets to the very heart of Benjamin'scultural-revolutionaryprogram for the Arcades Project. It also goes far toward explaining why his momentous encounter with surrealismin the r92os would becomethe key influencein defining that program.

ill The proximity in which Benjamin'sdestructive-regenerative critique standsto analogous tendencies the German Right bearsfurther examination.It is a on proximity that hasbeenwidely noted but rarely analyzedin detail. Perhaps the first to detectits import was Scholem,who onceobservedthat Beniamin "had an extraordinarily preciseand delicatefeel for the subversive elementsin the oeuare great authors.He wasable to perceivethe subterranean of rumbling of revolution evenin the case authorswhoseworldviewbore reactionarytraits; of generallyhe waskeenlyawareof what he called'the strangeinterplay between reactionarytheory and revolutionarypractice."'30 Habermashaspointed to a similar phenomenon: Benjamin'smarkedfascination with authors and ideasthat had becomestandardpoints of referencefor the right-wing critique of modern society:"Benjamin, who uncoveredthe prehistoric world by way of Bachofen,knew [Alfred] Schuler,appreciated Klages, and corresponded with Carl Schmitt-this Benjamin,asaJewishintellectualin rg2osBerlin, could still not ignorewherehis (and our) enemies stood."This in-

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sight leadsHabermasto concludethat Benjamin'stheory of experience would revolutionaryhermeneutic.tt3l be bestdescribed a "conservative as Like Bloch, Benjamin realizedthat the left's unreflectiveprogressivism was in danger of neglecting the value of those "noncontemporaneous" elements whoserevolutionary promise wasbeing commandeered the forcesof politiby pertainingto the valuesof tradition, Gemeinschaft, cal reaction:elements myth, religiosity and so forth; elementsthat had beenbrusquelymarginalizedby the rush toward modernity, which, in his view, left the world a disenchanted, impoverished, place.It was,therefore,only natural that well-nigh meaningless Benjamin would seekto mobilize potentials for the critique of modernity that had been provided by reactionary thinkers. They alone rcalized the latent capacityto heal the laceratedsocialtotality of modernity. Such an allianceof convenience suggested itself to Benjamin insofar as the right-wing critique of l'Zivilisation" (a characteristicterm of disparagement a generationthat for grew up under the tutelage of Nietzsche and Spengler,though one that Benjamin carefully avoided) proved more intransigent, more thoroughgoing, and lesswilling to compromisewith the normative presuppositions the modern of world than left-wing criticism. In the last analysis, both SocialDemocratsand Communists(let alone liberals and "mere" democrats,whq from the rarified standpoint of theologicalcriticism, are hardly worth mentioning) proved overenamoredwith the logic of "progress," with which Beniamin believed one needed to break at all costs-even that of forming problematical theoretical alliances. To be sure, Benjamin went to great lengths to transform elementsof the conservativerevolutionary critique of modernity in order to make them serviceablefor a left-wing political agenda.But with the advantageof historical distance,one realizesjust how much of an overlap exists betweenthe cultural left and right in the caseof the interwar generation. For critically minded German intellectuals of this period, the vitalistic critique of Ziailisation had becomean obligatoryintellectualrite of passage. It is in this spirit that recent critics havejustifiably tried to show the parallels betweenLebensphilosophie the philosophy of history adumbrated by Horkand heimer and Adornoin Dialecticof Enlightenment.It would be wrong to emphasize the similaritiesat the expense the differences: of unlessthesedifferences, which are no lessimportant, are taken into account,the two approaches risk becomingin essence same,"which is far from being the case.32 in fact But "the both Klages and Dialectic of Enlightenment purvey an anthropologically rooted critique of civilization, in which the central culprit is "ratiocination"-a faculty that placeshumanity at odds with both inner and outer nature. In essence,

64 Walter BenjaminToday contemporarycivilization suffers from an excess "intellect" over "life." A of reconciliationwith nature-both inner and outer-is the telosthat guidesboth approache to Kulturbritik.33 s These sentiments, from being alien to Benjamin, are central to his work far (see, example, important fragment,(On the Doctrine of the Similar"). I for the havearguedelsewhere that the philosophyof history of Dialecticof Entightenment is, via the mediation of Adornq a specificallyBenjaminianinheritance.3a The critique of progress,the understandingof history as loss and decline,as well as the central theme concerningthe interrelationshipbetweenenlightenment and myth, would be inconceivable without the precedentof his "Theses on the Philosophyof History" and other texts. But unlessone specifies preciselywhat aspects the vitalist critique Benof jamin deemedworthy of appropriation, one risks proceedingby insinuation rather than sound argument. For example,we know that his theory of the "decline of the aura" wasin part derivedfrom a member of the George-circle, Alfred Schuler.Yet, in Benjamin'swork Schuler'sideasappearradicallytransformed, to the point where Schuler'spredominantlymythologicalinterpretation of it is barely visible. A similar claim can be made in the caseof what Benjamin may havefound of value in the work of Carl Schmitt. Schmitt's work emphasizes the parumountcy of the "state of exception" (Ausnahmezustand) determining sovin ereignty.It wasan approachthat Benjamin found methodologically suggestive for understandingthe endemic political instability depicted in seventeenthcentury tragic drama. Yet, the existence a fairly ingratiating r93o letter to of Schmitt notwithstanding,to claim that Benjamin'sunderstandingof contemporary politics was substantively indebted to Schmitt (asindeed somehave)is to exaggerate.3l But in the caseof Benjamin and Klages, there is something much more essentialat stake.Benjamin was an enthusiastof Klages early on. In r9r3 Klages delivereda famous lecture on "Man and Earth" at Hohe Meissner,a legendaryGerman youth movementsite. Because its provocative of anticivilizational and ecological themes, the lecture subsequently acquired canonical statusamong youth movementmembers.Benjamin visited Klagesin Munich the next year and invited him to speakto the Berlin youth movement group (the Free Student Society)over which Benjamin presided. Benjamin later developeda keen interest in Klages's tgzz work On CosmogonicEros, praising the book in a letter to Klages of the following year. Moreover,his essay onJohannJakobBachofen(rqSS)is punctuatedby a long According to Klages whom he praiseson a number of counts.36 discussionof

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in Klagesdevelops Benjamin, the chthonic theory of archaicimages((Irbild,er) his ryzz work standsopposedto "representations"or the domain of the rapertain to the "intellect" (Geist), which is tional concept. Representations by characterized "utilitarian views" and an interest in "usurpation." The imof age,converselgis a direct expression the soul and relatesto the domain of "symbolic intelligence."As such,it standsopposedto the abstractintellectualof ism of the rational concept,which, from the perspective Lebensphilosophie, bourgeoisZiailisotion.On all represents basisof a mechanisticand soulless the thesepoints, it would seem,Benjamin could not be more in agreementwith Klages. It is not hard to discern what it was about the vitalistic critique of modern life Benjamin sought to appropriate for the ends of left-wing Kulturbritik. (he Despite his explicit reservations about Klages'sperspective calls it a "system without issue that losesitself in a threatening prophecy addressed a to humanity that has alloweditself to be misled by the insinuationsof the intellect"), he concludeshis discussionwith the following words of praise: "It is true that despiteits provocative and sinister side,this philosophy by virtue of the shrewdness its analyses, profundity of its views,and the level of its of the is discussions, infinitely superior to the appropriationsof Bachofenthat have beenattemptedby the officialprofessors German fascism."37 of Beniamin would remark to Adorno that the Bachofenmanuscript,in which he attempts to work out in detail his relation to Klages,bore great relevance to their most intimate sharedtheoreticalconcerns["Es lieBe sich bei dieser Gelegegenheit viel zu unsereneigenstenDingen sagen"].38 And in an earlier letter, Adorno had alreadynoted that Klages's"doctrine of the 'phenomenon' in the'Reality of Images'[a chapterfrom volume 3 of TheIntellectasAntagonist of the Soulf standsin the closestproximity to our questions."3e goeson to He observethat "it is preciselyhere that the boundary line betweenarchaicand dialecticalimageslies, or, as I once stipulated againstBrecht, a materialistic theoryof ideas." In essence, the successof Benjamin and Adorno's mutual philosophical project hinged on a successful materialistarticulation of the doctrine of dialectical images. wasKlageswho, asAdorno acknowledges the lines just cited, It in had unquestionably gonethe farthestin the direction of outlining a doctrine of imagesthat wasdecidedlyopposedto the predominant,rationalistapproaches to the theory of knowledge:neo-Kantianism,positivism,and scientificMarxism. Yet in his theory such imagesappeared eternal,timelessembodiments as of the human soul.With Klages,the imagepossessed avowedlytranshistorian cal, mythologicalstatus.For Benjamin and Adornq therefore,the key to re-

66 Walter BenjaminToday deeming Klages'stheory lay in historicizing the doctrine of images:to break decisivelywith their timeless, ahistorical,mythologicalcharacterby saturating them with historical content. Whereas Klages and other representatives of Lebensphilosophie viewed the contemporary cultural crisis as the manifestation of an eternal cosmological struggle between"reason" and "lifer" Adorno and Benjaminsoughtto give the crisishistoricaldefinition and scopeby revealing it as a crisis of capitalism.To the imagistic theory of truth per se,however, they had few specificobjections.Instead,they viewedit as a valuableepistemological alternative to the fatal rational-scientific biasesof late capitalist society. In this approach,one sees in nucethe methodological plan for Beniamin's in ArcadesProject as well asAdorno's own mature theory of knowledge-which, following Benjamin's lead, he would characterizeas thinking in "constellations."a0Itshould comeaslittle surprise,then, if Benjamin,in one of the more revealing(if characteristically terse)methodological directivesfor the Arcades Project, remarks: "to link heightened visuality lAnschaulichkeitl with the Marxist method" (Gesammelte Schrffien,5:578).Here, "visuality" signifiesa clearreference the theory of images. to And thus, one of the conceptualkeys to the project's completion lay in a nature,Benof risky merger of Marx and Klages.Because their nondiscursive jamin viewed imagesas potentially superior to rational theoriesof cognition, which only aggravatethe post-Enlightenmentmarch of "disenchantment." Yet, the important twist added by Benjamin's theory of modernity suggests of that, contra Weberand Marx, the disenchantment the world is accompanied of by by a reenchontrnent: a resurgence mythological forces in modern garb. This reenchantmentof the world was integrally related to the quasi-utopian wish-imagesthat pervadedthe phenomenalmanifestations,the cultural supersuchasworld exhibitions,iron structure,of modern capitalism:manifestations interiors, museums,lighting, photography-not to constructions,panoramas, of dream-images nineteenththe mention the arcades themselves, consummate century commodity culture. ln Dialectic of Enlightenment,Horkheimer and Adorno would explicitly adopt Benjamin'sview concerning the entwinementof myth and Enlighteninto myth ment, arguing that in the modern era Enlightenment degenerates (e.g., the myth of "scientific progress"), just as myth is already a form of Enlightenment (an early form of world-demystification).Yet, in Beniamin's of the case, ideaof a recrudescence mythical elementsin the modern era wasa concept of distinctly Klagean provenance. For Klages, the archaic images correspondedto a primeval soul-world that stood opposedto the progressive in disintegration of experience modernity. However,owing to this atrophy of

Walter Beniamin TodaY 67 under presentsocialconditions theseimageswere only accessible experience, trances'or when mind wascaughtoffguard: in daydreams, once the conscious patterns of rational confronted with experiencesthat disrupted the normal a thought. In his essay"On Dream-Consciousnessr" work that Beniamin admired,arKlages sought to provide a phenomenologicalaccountof the everyday that could lead to renewedcontactwith archaicimages: circumstances if in the stillnessof the night we hearan automobilepassby and the sound gradually trails offinto the distance;when viewing fireworks from afar or noiselesssheet-tightning; when returning to one's native surroundings after a several year interim marked by a perhaps stormy life; or, con. versely,when visiting placesof uncommon strangeness; . . often when that one hasa compartmentto oneself;occittravelingby train, assuming of sionally in moments of great exhaustion,of hopelessdespondency, unbearablepain, aswell asusually after taking whatevertype of narcotic.az as Here, moreover,the parallel withJiinger's theory of experience, developed quite relevant.All three, BenHeart, is in books such as TheAd,oenturesome Klages,andJtinger,wereconcernedwith the diminution of the potential iamin, for qualitative experiencefollowing the world-historical transition from GeLlke Benjamin, Jtinger feared that an increasingly to meinschaft Geselkchaft. mechanizedmodern cosmosand the progressiveindustrialization of the lifeworld would banish prospects for superior, self-transformative experiences. Karl-Heinz Bohrer has convincingly shown how Benjamin's identification with the shock-aestheticsof the twentieth-century avant-garde resembles Jtinger's attraction to extreme situations (GrenzJiille),rapture, and transgression-whose paramount instancewasproximity to death in war. Axel Honneth hascommentedon the parallelsbetweenthe In a recent essay, "anthropologicalmaterialism" on which the theories of experienceof both are BenjaminandJi.inger based: Jtinger's anthropological materialism seized on extraordinary states, which, as in Beniamin, are circumscribed with the help of categories casuallyadopted from Bergson: in situations of danger, which originate in from the child's natural helplessness, the warrior's confrontation with the dangerof being killed, and for those intoxicatedin the maelstromof the lossof self-in thesesituationsa seriesof self-evidentvaluesor "standards of the heart" are revealedfrom the magical perspective.. . . These moments of magicalrapture havea privileged status.. . . Again and again, Jiinger's diary-like notes end in the description of corresponding situa-

68 Walter Benjamin Today tions of magicalrapture: intoxication, sleep,and the dangerof dying are for him keys to that one experiencethat in a unique way establishes a correspondence betweensoul and world because is not shapedby an it attitude of instrumentalcontrol.a3 Of course,Jiinger and Benjamintaketheir concernfor the atrophy of historical experience radically different directions.As an aristocraticradicalin the in tradition of Nietzsche,#Jiinger's magicalrealism pushesin the direction of a restorationof the valuesof socialhierarchy and martial heroism.Only at the end of TheAd,aenturesorne doeshe divulge the figure on whom he places Heart his hopes:the "Prussiananarchist."'l{.rmed only with the categorical imperative of the heart," he roams through the forlorn landscapeof the historical present as the apocalyptic standard-bearer a new social order.as The of In Worker Gglz) Ji.ingerarguesthat an enfeebledmodernity can be redeemed only if societyas a whole is reorganizedalong military lines. Beniamin finds this line of thinking abhorrently fascistic,as his scathingreview of the r93o anthology edited by Jiinger, War and, Warriors("Theories of German Fascism") suggests.a6Instead, placeshis hopein a messianic he theory of historya marriage,asit were,of cabala and Marx-whereby the promisesof redeemed life are generalized and renderedprofane. At the sametime, both Benjamin and Jtinger are convincedthat a surfeit of (a consciousness peculiarly modern affliction; in The Genealogy Morals, of Nietzsche already speaksof the virtues of "active forgetting") works to the of whoseprerequisiteseemsto disadvantage heightenedstatesof experience, be a capacity to dissolvethe self in ever greater experiential totalities: the (Klages),the Parmenidean "one," "collectiveunconscious"(Jung), the cosmos and so forth. In his remarkson Freud and Bergsonin "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire," Benjamin makespreciselythis point. He lamentsthe fact that in the modern must be enhancedas a defenseagainstthe world the powersof consciousness (a problem that is especially acute in the modern meshocksof everydaylife As tropolis, the locus classicus shockexperience). a result of this need for a of for capacities our constantlyvigilant consciousness, natural and spontaneous are diminished. experience necessarily that This diminishment accountsfor the great methodologicalsignificance memory in Benjaminattaches the celebrationof involuntary (nonconscious) to labor of involuntary memory canrecovermemory Proust.Only the systematic traces that have been lost to consciousremembranceowing to the instituthat modern society has become.It tionalized struggle for self-preservation

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alsoaccountsfor the importance of Bergson(who occupiesa similar niche of honor inJiinger's work), who wasthe first to considermemory asthe key to the (though Beniamin would sharply criticize Bergson'saltheory of experience genuinehistoricalexperience). ienation from According to Beniamin, the attempt to wrest a genuineconcept of experiin encefrom the benumbinguniformity of modern Ziailisotionhasproceeded which extols two opposeddirections.The first stems from I ebensphilosophie, aversionto featuresare: (r) a steadfast the notion of Erlebni* Its characteristic and concerns;and (z) a correspondingtendency to categories sociohistorical seek refuge in the manifestly ahistoricalspheresof nature and myth (a late culminate in the docinheritanceof German romanticism).These tendencies trines ofJung and Klageswhq Beniamin observes, "made common causewith fascism." "Towering above this literature," he counters, "is Bergson'searly that it regards monumentalwork, Matter and Memory. . .. The title suggests for memory asdecisive the philosophicalpattern of experience. the structureof Experience is indeed a matter of tradition, in collective existenceas in private life." Proust is the proper heir to Bergson:he realizedthat, whereas experian is finite, "a rememberedevent is infinite becauseit is key to enced event everything that happenedafter it and before it."a7 In the Arcades Proiect, Benjamin sought to use rapidly fading historical memoriesas preciselysuch a key. It is at this point that the dilemma involved in Benjamin's later theory of experience, whoseconsummationwas to have been the ArcadesProject, becomesclear.The dilemmamay be statedasfollows.Benjamin'sproject focused on a critique of modernity from the standpointof a theory of experience. To this end, he receivedvery little theoreticalaid and comfort from thinkers on the left. Instead,their Panglossian conviction that "history was on their side" (in the "Thesesr" Benjamin causticallyobserves that "nothing has corrupted the German working classso much as the notion that it was moving with the current") showed that they were committed to an Enlightenment vision of progress that, in its essentials,barely differed from the bourgeois worldview they were seekingto counter. Moreover, the "cult of labor" that had been established the SocialDemocrats(and prescientlyexposedby Marx in his by "Critique of the Gotha Program") amounted to little more than a socialist version of the Protestantethic. Benjamin found the alacrity with which the establishedleft-wing parties proclaimed the exploitation of nature as a desirable and valid goal especiallyappalling.It represented betrayalof the nona instrumental, poetic vision of a reconciliationbetweenhumanity and nature that had beenproposedby utopian socialists suchasFourier.

70 Walter BenjaminToday It is a stark and incontestable reality that Benjamin found he had more in common with the theoreticalstrategies right-wing intellectualsthan he did of with contemporaries the left. If one were interestedin an uncompromising on critique of modernity from the standpoint of the diminurion of experiential (a wholeness standpointwhich, to be sure,alwaysentaileda somewhat romanticizedvision of the past),the position represented Weimar'snumerousand by influential Ziailisationshritiher("critics of civilization") seemed havemuch to to recommend it. Early on, Beniamin would in a letter to Scholem speakof a "theoretical confrontation with Bachofenand Klages [as] indispensable."a8 A, few yearslater he would characterize The Intellect as theAntagonistof the Soul as "a great philosophicalwork," despitethe avowedlyanti-Semitic leaningsof the book'sauthor.ae Benjamin's concept of the "collective unconscious"-one of the methodologicalkeys to the ArcadesProject-was explicitly derived from Jung. In the mid-rg3os, as the fascisticimplications of Jung's theoriesbecameapparent, Benjamin cameto view a theoreticalself-clarificationvis-i-vis Jung as an imperativetask.He alludesto this project in a ry37letter to Scholem:"I wish to securecertain methodologicalfundamentsof 'Paris Arcades'via a confrontation with the theoriesof Jung-especially those of the archaicimage and the collectiveunconscious."S0 proposedstudy of the differences His his separating utilization of theseconceptsfrom that ofJung and Klages was rebuffed by the Institute for SocialResearch. Undoubtedly Horkheimer et al. were convinced that an engagement withJung and Klages,evenfor the sakeof broadeningthe potentials of left-wing Kulturkritik, was wholly unacceptable under current historical circumstances, which the link betweenvitalism and fascistideolin Adorno had already vehementlycriticized ogy were present for all to see.sr Benjamin's uncritical reliance on their theories in "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (the Arcades Expos6)-especially with referenceto Benjamin's attempt to view the classless societyof prehistory as a "golden age"l of "Thus disenchantment the dialecticalimage leadsdirectly to purely mythical thinking, and here Klagesappears a danger,as did Jung earlier."s2 as To say that Benjamin found many aspectsof the national revolutionary critique of modernity methodologicallycongenial,that he perceivedfigures such asJurg, Klages, Schuler,and Max Kommerell (the latter three were all membersof the George-Kreri)s3 kindred intellectual spirits, should not be as that the ArcadesProiectwasinherently flawed.Though he treatedasevidence their views,they were by no meansthe only major influences:the assimilated Proust, and Baudelairewere equally signifithe surrealists, utopian socialists, cant. In different ways, all contributed to Benjamin's unique and brilliant

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program of the rg3os:a secularredemption of modern mythology; a research materialistrecoveryof the phenomenalmanifestations the nineteenthcenof tury " dreaming-collective. "sa Moreover, Benjamin hardly appropriatedthe doctrinesof the Weimar Republic's antidemocraticintellectualstel quel.Instead,he sought to transform them in accordance with his own idiosyncratic theoretical perspectiveand needs.He was convinced that their theories had addressed problem of the the breakdownof experiencein the modern world in a way that the intellectual paradigms of Enlightenment provenance-neo-Kantianism, social scientific empiricism, logical positivism, historicism, and so forth-had not. The antiintellectual intellectuals of Germany's conservativerevolution agreed that "thinking wasno longer the highestvocationof humanity,rather experiencing, feeling,seeing. . . and the actualizationofmyth."ss From his earliest writings on experience,knowledge,and language,Benjamin displayeda considerable measure sympathyfor such views,though he of was also keenly aware of their destructive potential. This accountsfor his figurativeor "imagistic" recasting the theory of knowledge the Trauerspiel of in book asa theory ofconstellations. similar impulseexplainshis relianceon the A dialecticalimageasthe methodological crux of the ArcadesProject:in his view, a theory of knowledge that wasgraphicallyorientedpossessed distinct epistea mologicaladvantage over approaches that relied on discursiveor propositional truth alone.From the standpoint of the philosophy of life, therefore,one could accede realmsof experience to and knowledgethat exclusivelyrational modes of cognition had, to their own detriment, left unexplored. In all of these respects, is clear that the vitalist fascinationwith archaicimages,the unconit scious,dreams,shocks,collectiveforms of experience, and statesof ecstasy in which the unity of the self dissolves, represented Benjamin an important for complement to what he found of value in the profane illuminations of the surrealists. Reactionary thought, toq contained"energiesof intoxication" that needed to be won over for the revolution. But in this case,it would not be a Reaolution Rechts (revolution from the right).s6 oon Could the effort to recasthistorical materialism as a theory of experiencebe successful? Would it be possibleto weld together two perspectives that have traditionally beenat odds without succumbingto the risks,asBeniamin saysin his surrealismessay, a "poetic politics"? of Many havebeenskepticalof suchattempts.In his extremelylucid evaluation of Benjamin'sthought and legacy,Habermasexpresses dissentingview.The a attempt to reconcile historical materialism and a redemptory hermeneutics must fail, he observes, "becausethe materialist theory of socialdevelopment

72 Walter BeniaminToday cannot simply be fitted into the anarchical conception of now-times lJetztzeitenfthat intermittently breakthrough fate asif from above. Historical materialism, which reckons on progressivesteps not only in the dimension of productive forces but in that of domination as well, cannot be coveredover with an anti-evolutionaryconceptionof history aswith a monk's cowl."57 In other words, in his writings of the rg3osBenjamin tried to reconcilethe irreconcilable:a theory that takes claims concerning progressivehistorical developmentseriously (claims for which Benjamin certainly did not show that much patience)and a messianic view of history that believes, conversely, as only those breakthroughsare meaningful that present themselves ruptures with the continuum of history as it has been constituted thus far. In Habermas's view, then, a theory of experienceand historical materialism are not however,when inherently incompatible.They do operateat cross-purposes, both are subtendedby a messianicperspectivethat perceivesthe realms of historical and messianictime as constitutionally opposed. Benjamin could potentialson which counter(and does)by claiming that the messianic-utopian focuses wholly immanentand thus in no are a materialisttheory of experience way dependenton a deus ex machina,such as "the coming of the Messiah." of The description of "now-time" as a moment of "messianiccessation happening" in the "Theses on the Philosophy of History" must therefore be Even if this claim were true, it still leavesunanunderstoodmetaphorically. sweredHabermas'sinitial questionas to whether a theory that is so antithetically disposedtoward the claimsof socialevolution-on which, clearly,Marxism stakesso much-can be reconciled with historical materialism as it has beentraditionally conceived. In order to answerthe questionof whether Benjamin'stheory of experience remains ultimately compatiblewith the claims of Marxist thought, we must turn to a considerationof the thirteen-yearundertaking that Benjamin hoped the would reconcilethesetwo approaches: ArcadesProiect.

tv
The hermeneutic difficulties of approaching the Arcades Proiect are compounded by its status as a torso. The editors of Beniamin's collectedworks It insinuatea falseintegrity by referring to it asthe "Passagen-Werk." would be in perhaps more accuratelydubbed the "Passagen-Arbeit" order to suggest that, instead of constituting a whole, it representsa work-in-progress' on which Benjamin labored fitfully from rgzT until shortly before his death in September rg4o (moreover,this was the designationthat Beniamin himself usedin his letters to describehis study).

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There are those who would like, following a well-establishedGerman literary tradition, to celebrateits fragmentariness; attitude that would seem an especiallyapt in the caseof Benjamin, for whom a preoccupationwith fragments and ruins became, it were,a literary signature.Yet, to romanticizeits as inconsummate character serves only to further mystify a document whose hermeticism implores sober decoding.Otherwise one risks consigning Beniamin's oeuvreto the belle-lettrismhe deplored. The text is patently unreconstructable a whole. Many of its "files" (Konas aoluten)-in all, thirty-five, organizedaccordingto subject-headings-consist largely of uncommentedcitations that Benjamin intended either as references or materialultimately to be incorporatedinto the finished version.Beniamin's (e.9.:"The dialecticalimage is a flashingimage.Thus, the own commentaries past must be seizedas a flashing image in the now of recognizability")s8 are characteristically lapidary, but, for that reason, far from easy to decipher. Though the massive quantitiesof citationshe assembled highly suggestive, are it is largely a matter of conjectureas to how they would havebeen fashioned into a coherentwhole. For that matter, there has been ample speculation,far from irrelevant, as to whether the proiect, which had gone through so many alterationsin methodology, form, and substance, in principle completable, was so refractory and unwieldy had thosevastquantitiesof citationsbecome. A minor scholarlytempestwas unleashedwhen two researchers, upon perusing a batch of newly discoveredBenjamin manuscriptsfound among the literary estateof GeorgesBataille,concludedthat, in the late r93os,Benjamin had simply aband'oned work on the Arcades Project and instead decided to concentratehis energiesexclusivelyon the Baudelairebook. As evidencefor their case,they contended that as of 1938, Benjamin's notes were entered exclusivelyunder the Baudelairerubric (file J).5e These claims havebeen vigorously contestedby the editors of Benjamin's collectedworks and others.60 Yet, what one can indeed conclude from an examinationof Benjamin'sParis manuscripts that the ArcadesProjectwasevenfurther awayfrom completion is than expected: the 6oo-oddtitles Benjamin had inventoriedin the courseof of his many yearsof research, only one-third had been consulted;and, of these, only fifty or so had actually been incorporated in the "Notes and Materials" sectionof the Passagenwerk.6r Whereasin the rg35 "Expos6" the work on Baudelaireconstitutedonly one chapteramong six (the other five were arcades, panoramas, world exhibitions, the interior, and barricades), 1937,at rhe urging of the Institute for social in Research, grew into a separate it book, only one part of which waseverbrought to completion ("Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire"). Susan BuckMorss speculates that Benjamin wasso committed to the ArcadesProject that

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all six chaptersmight haveeventuallybeen turned into independentbooks.62 But consideringthat only one-third of the Baudelairestudy was ever written, what chancemight he havestood of completing,along with it, five additional Passagenmerh-derived monographs,even had his material conditions of life beenoptimal? Moreover,in evaluatingthe project one must keep in mind that Benjamin's own intentions changedseveral times.The first surrealist-inspired versionwas called "Paris Arcades:A Dialectical Fantasy."There Benjamin refers to the arcades "the architecturalconstructionsin which we relive,asif in a dream, as just asthe embryoin the womb relives the life of our parentsand grandparents, the life of animals."63 theseearly notes for the ArcadesProject, Benjamin In seemedmuch more infatuated with the manifest content of his material-its potential for enchantmenti la surrealism-than with the moment of revoluBut the essential tionary awakening. conceptionof the nineteenthcentury asa modern mythology was in place. Unlike bourgeoisand Marxist theories of Beniamin history that viewed technology as emancipatoryand progressive, in for of viewedit asresponsible a recrudescence myth. It succeeded creatinga a dream-landscape and consciousness, type of kitsch-dominated,retrograde the utopia.The moment of "ambiguity" would provecrucial, sinceit expressed purely and simply regresfact that this modern mythology wasnot something sive;it containeda utopian moment.It wasthe duty of the historicalmaterialist role of the dialectical to flush out this element.Therein lay the indispensable and revolutionary relation to the past. image. It would establisha unique historicism,which aimed Unlike the positivistmentality of nineteenth-century at a reconstructionof the past as such, the dialecticalimage sought to situate the past in relationshipto the revolutionaryneedsof the historical present.It of was concernedwith the "actualization" (Wrgegenmrirtigung) the past rather than re-creatingit "as it really was." his In the early rg3os Benjamin had virtually ceased labors on the "Paris his work in 1934,his conception had changed Arcades." When he resumed dramatically.The earlier subtitle, "A Dialectical Fantasy" had been dropped. Whereasthe first version of the project had focusedexclusivelyon the arcades, while still central,weredemotedto merely in the new formulation, the arcades, one chapteramongsix. Moreover,in its new incarnation,"Paris,Capitalof the Nineteenth Century," the project took on a less literary and more historical focus.Beniamin seemeddetermined not to allow himself to succumb,as had to the surrealists, the magic spell of modern mythology.This was a spell that neededto be broken; at the sametime, to break the spell entailed a profound redemptorymoment. Qua fairy tale, modernity containeda promiseof happinessit fell to the critic to redeem.

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But the questionremains:Did Benjamin in his unfinishedmasterworkever really free himself from an infatuation with the modern mythology that had beenincited by the worksof surrealistauthorssuchasBreton, Aragon, and othto ers?Were his dialecticalimagessufficientlydisenchanted actually breahthe magic spell?Or did they merely perpetuate therebypurveyinga type of "enit, chantmentto the secondpower"?These are difficult questionsto answergiven the inconsummatestatusof the ArcadesProiect. But they are nonetheless inif escapable one is to accede the essence what Benjaminhopedto achieve. to of We know that Beniamin, inspired by the surrealists,had intended $montage" as the proiect'smethodological key.Montage-a iuxtapositionof disparate elements,in which no one element takesprecedence over another-was meant as the organizing principle of the dialectical images.Benjamin had alwaysbeenunambiguous this point: on Method of this work: literary montage.I have nothing to say.Only to show. I will make off with nothing valuable and allow myself no clever turns of phrase.Only the refuseand waste:which I will not inventory but insteadallow to comeinto their own in the only way possible: will make I useof them. This work must raise the art of citing without quotation marks to the highestlevel.Its theory is most intimately linked to that of montage.tr Preciselywhat Benjamin might have meant by "literary montage" as an organizing principle is open to interpretation. Adorno understood this idea quite literally, thereby confirming his direst fears:that Benjamin intended to construct the ArcadesProiect asa montageof citationsdivestedof supporting commentary. retrospect,this view seems In untenable, leastof all insofaras not the arcades-related texts that havesurvived,such as "The Parisof the Second Empire in Baudelaire" (which Benjamin once referred to as a ((miniature model" of the ArcadesProject) are hardly devoid of commentary(though it certainly remainssparse).65 Nevertheless, Adorno's misgivingsabout the potential for abusethat lay in an excessive relianceon montagewere well founded. They addressthe fact that at times Benjamin tended to view the theoreticalimplications of his material (the "refuseand waste"he refersto above)asnearly self-evident, which wasfar from true. When Adorno in the late r94osfirst gainedaccess the "Notes and to Material" to the ArcadesProject,he expressed thesereservations quite pointedly in a letter to Scholem: At the beginningof the previousyear [1948]I finally receivedthe arcades material that had been hidden in the BibliothdqueNationale.Last sum-

76 Walter Beniamin Today mer I workedthrough the materialexhaustively, problemsarosethat I and must discusswith you. The most difficult aspect is the extraordinary inattention to theoreticallyformulated ideasas opposedto the enormous store of excerpts.That may in part be explainedfrom the idea that was explicitly expressed one occasion(and which to me is problematical) on that the work should be merely "assembled" compiled fmontierenf;thatis, from citations, such that the theory leaps forth without one having to append it as interpretation. Were that to have been possible,only Benjamin himself would have been able to accomplish it; whereasI have alwaysbeenfaithful to the standpointof the Hegelianphenomenology of spirit, accordingto which the movementof the concept,of the matter at hand, is coincident with the explicit thought processof the reflecting subject.Only the authority of sacredtexts would stand as a refutation of this conception,and the Arcadesproject hasavoidedpreciselythis idea.If one takes,asI would like, the montageideanot entirely d,la lettre,it could haveeasilyturned out that Benjamin'sideascould havebeenformed from countless citations. A further difficulty consistsin the fact that although there exists a generalplan for the work and a careful ordering of the materialaccording there is no really detailedschemathat, for example, to subiect headings, havepermitted one to completethe constructionasBeniamin had would publication of the material intended. On the other hand, the unorganized would not in the leastbe helpful, insofaras,asthings now stand,in no way doesthe intention leap forth.66 the Even had Benjamin abandoned ideaof montagein the strict sense-that is, as a theoreticallyunadulteratedaftLy of citations-as now seemslikely, it was far from clear that the basic theoretical difficulties of the work would On therebyhavebeenresolved. the one hand, asAdorno points out in his letter, compilaonly the late Benjamin himself could havereconstitutedthe massive he tion of data as a meaningfulwhole. The ordering schemas left behind-the two versionsof "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century" aswell asthe some thirty-five subject headingsto the "Notes and Materials" section-remained too fragmentaryor allusiveto serveasa reliableguide. Moreover, it seemsthat even though in the course of his researchBeniamin may haverealizedthe potential risks involved in pure montage,he was never able to distancehimself sufficiently from his fascinationwith this principle, (surrealism,Soviet which had becomethe hallmark of the r92os avant-garde film, etc.).

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In his correspondence the mid-r93os, a relatedmethodological of keyword began to crop up: construction. As he remarks in a 1935 letter to Gretel Adorno: the "constructiveelement" would form the necessary complementto the compilation of materials.This wasalsohis response Theodor Adorno's to objectionsto the division of chaptersin the 1935Expos6:"The arrangement [of the chapters]lacksthe constructivemoment. . . . The constructivemoment signifiesfor this book what the philosopher'sstonemeansfor alchemy."67 That Benjamin insistedon drawing analogies with medievalscienceto explain what wasat stakein the ArcadesProject did not bode well for its fidelity to materialistprinciples.It alsoillustratessomeof the perils of an approachthat is committed to thinking in images: their indeterminacycannotcompensate for conceptualfailings.In the last analysis, "construction" merely referred to the arrangement materials. of Fundamentally, wasasascetic it toward commentary as was montage.Moreover, the directivesBenjamin gave as to how such an arrangementshould proceed ("Articulating the past historically means . seizinghold of a memory as it flaresup in a moment of danger") for their part lackedspecificity.68 The materialistturn he sought to give conceptstaken over from Jung and Klages,which were of central theoreticalimportance to the ArcadesProject, would also prove ineffective.Jung's theory of the "collective unconscious" would play a key role in the 1935 Expos6, as would the notion of dreamconsciousness, which seemedto be derived in equal measurefrom surrealism, Klages,and Bloch. Benjamin wasclearly enamoredwith Marx's famousclaim in a letter to Rugethat "the world haslong beendreamingof somethingthat it canpossess reality only if it becomes in conscious it." He citesit approvingly of in the sectionon "Theory of Knowledge" in the ArcadesProjectand goeson to claim that "The utilization of dream elementsin awakeningis the textbook example of dialectical thought."6eHis theory of dream-consciousness has much in common with Bloch's notion of "dreaming toward the future." It is preciselyin this sense that he employsMichelet's saying "Every epochdreams its successor," a motto to introduce the central statementof method in the as Expos6. The allegory-laden,commodity utopias of the nineteenth century engendered proliferation of dream- and wish-images, phantasmagoria, a a that humanity would be able to "possess reality only if it becomesconsciousof in it." Benjamin associated act of "becomingconscious"with the moment of the awakeningfrom the dream; it was an act that at the same time, entailed a realizationof the utopian potential containedin the dream. In this way, Benjamin sought to recastthe relationship betweenbaseand superstructure orthodoxMarxism. No longer wasthe superstructurea mere in

78 Walter Benjamin Today reflectionof the base.Instead,it appeared its "expression"'70 expression, as an however, that proved in crucial aspectsto be in ad,aance the base,insofar of its as, qua phantasmagoria, wish-imagesforeshadowthe utopia of a classless society. Here is how Benjamin sought to fuse togetherthe conceptsof wish-image, dream,collectiveunconscious, and classless societyin the 1935Expos6: To the form of the new meansof production, which to begin with is still dominated by the old (Marx), there correspondimagesin the collective in consciousness which the new and the old are intermingled. These images are wish-images,and in them the collective seeksnot only to transfigure,but also to transcend,the immaturity of thb socialproduct and the deficienciesof the social order of production. In these wishimagesthere alsoemerges vigorousaspirationto breakwith what is out* a with the most recent past.These tendendated-which means,however, which gains its initial stimulus from the new, cies turn the image-fantasy, back upon the primal past. In the dream in which every epoch seesin it, imagesthe epoch which is to succeed the latter appearscoupled with of society.The experiences elementsof prehistory-that is, of a classless this society,which have their store-placein the collectiveunconscious, interact with the new to give birth to the utopiaswhich leavetheir traces in a thousandconfigurationsof life, from permanentbuildings to ephemeral fashions.Tr Beniamin viewed it as his task in the Arcades Proiect to unlock, via the employment of dialecticalimages,the utopian potential that lay dormant in the phenomenalmanifestationsof nineteenth-centurycultural life. Whereas in Klageshad soughtto highlight the recurrenceofarchaicimages modern life, the imagesfrom the primal pastthat Benjamin soughtto cull werethe purportsociety.But the theory of the transedly "materialist" imagesof a classless Klagean. The historical persistenceof archaic images was, in its essence, societyhad been stored in the "collectiveunconof memory-traces a classless of scious" (J.rnS)and were then reactivatedin the phantasmagoria high capitalitself tasksthat it can solve. ism. Marx once observedthat humanity only sets Benjamin believedthat its most valuablepotentialsfirst appeared(albeit encoded) in dream form. If the phenomenalforms of nineteenth-centurylife a represented collectivedream,then Benjamin'sArcadesProiect wasa type of e monumental Tr aumd utung. As the r93osdrew to a close,the prospectthat Benjamin'swork would havea The rising tide of European fascism historical effect dwindled considerably.

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deprived Beniamin's study of its anticipatedaudience,just as it would soon deprivehim of his life. As the parameters historicalpossibilitynarrowed,the of eschatological motifs in his thought took on increasingprominence. His ideas would be received,if at all, only by an unnamedfuture witness.Of course,this eschatologicalfocus would culminate in the "Theses on the Philosophy of History," which, as a strategyof historical remembrance amid catastrophe, is intimately relatedto the concernsof the ArcadesProject.T2 In his notes to the Passagenwerk Beniamin never made an effort to conceal the centrality of theologicalconcerns.In his reflectionson theory of knowledge,he observes: "My thought is relatedto theologyasa blotter is to ink. It is totally absorbed it. If it were up to the blotter, however, by nothing of what has been written would remain"73-an indication of both the extraordinary power and the dangersof the theological understandingof history to which Beniamin had been so profoundly attractedsince his youth. The centrality of theology alsomeant that the questionof redemption was foremostto him in his understandingof the past.Among the "elementaryprinciplesof historicalmaterialism" he lists the following bold claim: "The object of history is that for which knowledgeenactsits redemption f,Rettungl. . The authentic conceptionof .. historicaltime is wholly basedon the imageof salvationf,Erliisung]."7a In the "Theses" Beniamin would speakof a "secret agreement" that exists between"past generations and the presentone." He emphasizes that,.the past carrieswith it a temporalindex by which it is referredto redemption."Ts This is the reason he insisted on the methodologicalprimacy of remembrance,as opposedto a conceptof "progress"that would be superficiallyfuture-oriented. He investedthis faculty with profound theologicalpowers,for only via remembrance could the "secret agreement"betweengenerations(i.e., betweenthe living and the departed) be redeemed.Through it alone could criticism reactivate that "temporal index of redemption" that lay dormant in the past. For similar reasonshe would insist that socialismis "nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberatedgrandchildren."T6 The versionof historicalmaterialismthat Benjaminenvisioned-one whose victory, accordingto the imagery of Thesis r, was contingent upon enlisting "the servicesof theology"-was, therefore,eschatological the strong sense. in The lines between the dawning of a classlesssociety and the advent of the Messiah were blurred to the point where the claims of Marxism overlapped with thoseof the LastJudgmenr: the wicked would be duly punishedand the righteous dead would be resurrected. It is fair to conclude that when in the course of his reflections on the philosophy of history Beniamin invoked the coming of the messianic era

8o Walter Benjamin Today ("every secondof time [is] the strait gate through which the Messiah might rter")77 he was not speakingmetaphorically.In the notes to the Arcades Project he insists that the dialectical recuperation of cultural history must reach a point where "the entire past has been brought into the presentin a historicalapocatastasis"'78 is, a messianic retrievalof everythingand everythat one. His intentions were not merely directed toward a revamped historical materialism,but toward a full-blown political messianism: In the Jewishapocalypticand Neoplatonic-Gnostictraditions, apocatastasis refers to the restoration of an original paradisiacalstate brought about by the coming of the Messiah.With this restoration,things would that charresumetheir proper relationsto eachother, the displacements acterizedthe "dream condition of the world" would be undone.The goal of Benjamin's "dialectics of cultural history" is thus the abolition of the prevailing context of expressionin favor of the original context of Being. . . . Thus Benjamin transfers the catastrophicand redemptive into elementscoexistentin the apocalypticdoctrine of apo'catastasis the secularrealm of history.ie redemptory force It was preciselythis tendencyto attribute eschatological, in to the powersof theory that would lead to misunderstandings his dealings In with the more empirically oriented Institute for SocialResearch. a letter of would attempt to temper Beniamin'sinclination the late r93os, Horkheimer reminder: "Past grandiositywith the following hardheaded toward speculative injustice has occurred and is done with. The slain are really slain. . . . If one seriously,then one must believein the Last takesthe idea of openendedness Judgment . . . the injustice, horror, and pain of the past are irreparable."To which Benjamin offers the following unrepentantresponse: The correctiveto this way of thinking lies in the conviction that history is What sciencehas not only a sciencebut also a form of remembrance. 'established' can make Remembrance modified by remembrance. can be the concluded (happiness) into somethingconcludedand the openended This is theology; however,in re(suffering) into somethingopenended. that forbids us from conceivinghistory we membrance havean experience fundamentally atheologicatly,even though we would hardly be able to write it in theologicalconceptsthat are immediatelytheological.8o Benjamin'sshift in the late rg3os toward an avowedlyapocalyptical-messievidentin his seconddraft of the ArcadesExpos6, is anic perspective especially written in 1939. In the later version the section on "Daguerre or the Panoramas" was deleted,leavingfive insteadof six proiectedchapters.More im-

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portant, though, Benjaminaddeda new introduction and conclusion,which in the estimation of the editors of his works, "contain . . . perhapsBenjamin's most lucid remarksconcerningthe theoreticalgoalsof the Possagenwerk."sr Of greatest theoreticalsignificance the new versionwereBenjamin'smedin itationson a relativelyobscureprison-writing by the professional revolutionary Auguste Blanqui. The text, entitled L'iterniti par lesastres, becamefor Benjamin an intellectualdiscoveryof the highestorder. He describes momenhis tous first encounterwith it in aJanuaryr93g letter to Horkheimer: One must concedethat on first glance the text seemsinept and banal. Still, the awkwardreflectionsof an autodidactcontainedin the first part are preparation for speculationabout the universethat no one but this great revolutionarycould provide. If hell is a theologicalobject, then one could call such speculationtheological.The view of the world that Blanqui outlines is infernal, insofar as he takeshis data from the mechanistic natural science bourgeois of society;it is at the sametime a complementto the societythat Blanqui in the twilight of his life was forced to recognize asvictoriousover himself.What is so disturbing is that this sketchlacksall irony. It presentsan image of unreservedsubmissionlwrwerfungl Its theme, eternal recurrence, has the most remarkable connection to Nietzsche.s2 What Benjamin found of great value in Blanqui's otherwiseunexceptional treatisewashis vision of contemporarysocietyascharacterized,by infernalan mythologicalcompulsion-to-repeat-hencethe affinitieswith Nietzsche'sdoctrine of eternal recurrence.This was of course a theme that stood in close proximity to one of the ArcadesProject'smain concerns:to portray the cultural superstructure high capitalismasa type of modern mythology,thereby of unmaskingthe secretaffinitiesbetweenmodernity and prehistory. Blanqui wrote this extremely dispirited texr in fi72 while imprisoned in Fort du Taureau following the suppressionof the Paris Commune. It is the testimonyof a beatenman, one who hasrecentlyseenhis most cherishedhopes for humanity'sfuture brutally crushed.Undoubtedly,Benjamin found himself attracted to Blanqui's cosmic pessimismfor reasonsthat were as much biographicalas theoretical:the sense hopelessness pervades of that Blanqui's text wasone with which Benjamin identified profoundly. The key passage this fableof eternalrecurrence in readsasfollows:..There is no progress. . . What we call progress immured on eachplanetand vanishes . is with it. Everywhereand always,the samedrama, the samedecor.on the same narrow stage'a clamoroushumanity, infatuated with its greatness, believing itself to be the entire universeand living in its immenseprison, soon about to

8z

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sink with the globe that has brought the burden of its pride into such a contemptuousstate.The samemonotony,the sameimmobilism on the other stars. The universerepeatsitself endlesslyand runs in place.Eternity plays imperturbably in the infinity of its representations."s3 For Beniamin, Blanqui's vision represented profound confirmation of the a theory of history of the ArcadesProject-a portrait of the phantasmagoria of modernity asgovernedby a hellish-mythological compulsionto repeat:"Blanqui's cosmic speculationteaches that humanity will be prey to the anxiety of myth for so long as the phantasmagoria has a place in it.?"n According to Benjamin, the failure of the nineteenthcentury-and, by implication, of the twentieth aswell-was that, "The century did not know how to respondto the That is, it allowed new technologicalinnovationswith a new socialorder."8s potentialsembodiedin the new forcesof production to remain trapped in the of outmoded (capitalist)relationsof production. The cultural expressions this societywere ableto proiect a utopian future, albeit, in a distorteddream-form. In the ArcadesProject, Benjamin sought as it were to capture the "rational In kernel" of these utopian wish-imagesand dream-states. his valorization gloom, the signatureinterrelationshipin of Blanqui's profound cosmological his work between decline and salvation- Verfall and Erliisung-is once again plainly manifest. theory of history to bear on the courseof The attempt to bring a messianic secular world history is fraught with danger. This is not the locus where Benjamin'sactuality should be sought out today.Beniamin dwelled amid exceedingly dark times. He thought that an infusion of secularmessianismwould for help historical materialismcompensate its intrinsic theoreticalrigidity as imminent revolutionary possibility. To think about the well as for the lack of prospectsfor socialchangein such terms today would for the most part lead astray.Beniamin'sboyhood friend Scholem,who went on to becomethe century's greatestauthority on the tradition of Jewish Messianism,well under"I stoodthe dangersinherent in conflatingthe secularand the messianic: think movementsis that the failure to distinguish between messianismand secular a apt to trip up movementsof this sort. Such a mix-up becomes destructive of messianicphraseologyiniected a false note element. This misapplication of into the minds and self-imageof the devotees thosesecularmovements."86 Conversely,to reassertBeniamin's lifelong, frenetic quest for happinessand constitutedsocietywould of fulfillment pithin the parameters a democratically be an achievementworth emulating. Until such a condition hasbeenachieved, the actualityof his thought will remain keen.

- WORKING TI{ROUGH TI{E PAST: HABERilAS AND THE GERUAN HISTORIA N ' S DISPUTE

tr
There are not two Germanies,an evil and a good, but only one, which, through devil's cunning, transformed its best into evil . . .-Thomas Mann, Germanyand the Germans,

(rq+s)
pithin democracy I consider continued potentially the existence NationalSocialism of more threatening than the continuedexistence fascisttendencies of against democMean?" to Adornq "What DoesComing Termswith thePast racy.-Theodor The r98os were extremely significant in the political life of the Federal Republic of Germany.In rg8z thirteen yearsof SocialDemocraticrule Qg6g-82) came to an end in favor of a coalition headed by the conservative Christian Democrats.Led by ChancellorHelmut Kohl, the Christian Democrats have subsequently beenreturned to office(alongwith their junior partners,the Free Democrats),in 1987,r99r, and 1994.In many waysthis political rransformation of the rgSos signified a delayed confirmation of the Tend,enzpend,e or ideologicalshift first visiblein Germany in the mid-rg7os. At issuein the Historians'Debateis Germany'sAuforbeitung Vergangheit der or "coming to terms with the past." For years, the "German question" as perceivedby politicians of Western Europe had been, "How can German aggressiveness curbed?" But after 1945,this question took on an entirely be different, more sinister meaning.It was rephrasedto read, "How could the nation of Goethe,Kant, and Schiller becomethe perpetratorof 'crimesagainst humanity?"' or simply, "How wasAuschwitz possible?" one could justifiably saythat the very "soul" of the nation wasat stakein the answerto this question. The developmentof a healthy,nonpathological national identity would seem contingenton the forthright acknowledgment thoseaspects the German of of tradition that facilitated the catastrophe 1933-45. And that is why recent of efforts on the part of certain German historians-bolstered by an era of neo-

84 Working through the Past conservativestabilization-to circumvent the problem of "coming to terms with the past" are so disturbing.What is new about this situation is not simply the attempt to provide dishonestand evasive answersto the "German question" as statedabove,but to declarethe very posing of the questionitself null and void. Historically, the problem of coming to terms with the past hasnot beenan easyone.In the first decade and a half of the FederalRepublic'sexistence-the so-calledlatency period of the Adenaueryears,which lasted from 1949until r963-the nation as a whole did very little of it. Instead,the Nazi experience was regardedas a Betriebsunfall, "industrial accident," for which no one an Very little aboutthe Third Reichwas could be saidto beardirect responsibility. when questionsof historical culpability On taught in schools. thoseoccasions did arise,the "captive nation" theory was frequently invoked: it was the evil genius,Hitler, who had seizedcontrol of the German nation and led it to ruin; an explanationthat convenientlyabsolvedrank-and-file Germans from their Nazi As shareof responsibility for the catastrophe. the cold war progressed, quickly forgotten. Suddenly,the anti-Communismof ex-Naziswas pastswere Many of theseattitudeswere directly perceivedas a valuableideologicalasset. fosteredby the occupyingAllies, whosesightswere now fixed on the enemyto the East. to Fundamentally,the wrong lessonseemed havebeenlearnedfrom twelve yearsof Nazi rule. There was not only a rejection of the jingoistic-genocidal misery for the politics, (that had, after all, brought in its wakeunprecedented reject politics in totq which, in the postto Germans,too); the nation seemed These Hitler era, seemedirrevocablycontaminatedby the Nazi experience. which were yearsof overwhelmingpolitical apathy.German political energies, had oncebeenso robust,wereentirely sublimatedtoward the endsof economic reconstruction.The result is well known: the creationof the Wirtschaftswund,er or economicmiracle,which catapultedthe FederalRepublic,within yearsof its foundation,to the position of one of the world's leadingindustrial powers.But do democraticsocieties not come into being overnight. And many featuresof the Adenauerregime-the political docility of the generalpopulace,the fact that so many officials from the Nazi yearsreadily found positions of power and influence in his government-suggested that the essentialstructure of the traditional "Obrigkeitsstaat"(the authoritarian state of Bismarckianvintage) Thus, for remainedin placebeneaththe veneerof democraticrespectability.l example,in their classicstudy The Ciaic Culture,Almond and Verba were able to show the deep ambivalencefelt by most Germans toward democratic politics-a form of governmentthat, after all, they had beencompelledto adoptby the victors.z

Working through the Past 85 studies Such conclusionswere generallyconfirmed by social-psychological of German characterstructure in the rgsos. In his incisive analysisof the results of one such study, Theodor Adorno noted that many of the attitudes displayedrevealedcharactertraits that were highly neurotic: "defensivegestures when one isn't attacked;massiveaffect in situations that do not fully warrant it; lack of affect in the face of the most seriousmatters; and often simply a repressionof what wasknown or half-known."3Insteadof coming to through a seriesof terms with the past, the latter was consistentlyrepressed familiar rationtlizations:only five, not six million Jewshad beenkilled; Dresden was as bad as Auschwitz; the politics of the cold war era confirmed what Hitler had alwayssaid about communism, which, in retrospect,justified the war he launchedin the East-from hereit is a short step to the conclusionthat Hitler was right about a number of other matters as well; the fate of the "Eastern Germans" (thosedriven from the easternterritories at the war's end) wascomparable that of theJews;and so forth. to The inability of the German nation during these years to expresshonest grief or remorsewas brilliantly satirizedin a scenefrom Gi.inter Grass's The Tin Drum, where peoplerequire onion-cutting ceremonies help them shed to tears.As one pair of critics astutelyobservedregarding the German national characterof the postwaryears:"there is a determining connectionbetweenthe political and socialimmobilism and provincialismprevailingin WestGermany and the stubbornly maintainedreiectionof memories,in particular the blocking of any sense involvementin the eventsof the Nazi pastthat arenow being of so strenuouslydenied."a Certainly, much has changedin Germany since this initial period, largely through the efforts of the generationof the rg6os.Refusingto remain satisfied with the strategy of repressionpursued by their parents,younger Germans pressedforcefully for answersto the most troubling questionsabout the nation's past.sHowever, just at the point when one is tempted to believe that genuineprogresshas been made concerning the confrontation with the Nazi years,one runs acrossstudies such as Dieter Bossman'sWasich iiber Ad,olf Hitler gehiirt habe(What I have heard about Adotf Hitler; Frankfurt, $77), revealingastonishingignoranceamong German youth concerningtheir recent past.For example,upon being askedwhat Hitler had done to theJews,someof Bossman's young interviewees respondedasfollows: "Those who were against him, he calledNazis; he put the Nazis into gaschambers"(thirteen-year-old); "I think he also killed someJews" (thirteen-year-old);"He murdered some (fifteen-year-old); "Hitler washimself aJew" (sixteen-year-old). 5o,oooJews The work of mourning is essential not as penance, but as a prelude to the formation of autonomousand mature identities for both nationsand the indi-

86 Working through the Past viduals who composethem. As Freud showedin his classicstudy,"Mourning and Melancholia," unlessthe labor of mourning has been successfully completed-that is, unless the past has been sincerely come to terms withindividuals exhibit a marked incapacity to live in the present.Instead, they betray a melancholicfixation on their lossthat preventsthem from getting on with the business life. The neurotic symptom-formationsthat result, suchas of thosedescribedby Adorno above,can be readily transmitted to the characterstructuresof future generations, which only further compoundsthe difficulty of confronting the historical trauma that wounded the "collective ego." And thus, the injusticesof the past tend to fade into oblivion-unmourned, and thus uncomprehended. Instancesof collectiverepressionare, moreover,far from innocent. They prevent the deformations of national characterand social structure that facilitated a pathological course of development-such as mass acquiescence to genocide and terror-from coming to light. Insteadtheseabnormalities remain buried deep within the recesses the collectivepsyche,from which they may of reemergeat some later date in historically altered form. In German$ these deformationsare often discussed terms of the persistence authoritarian in of patternsof behaviorthat are a holdoverfrom traditional, predemocratic forms of socialorganization.6 So long as this incapacity to confront the past exists,there results an inability to live realisticallyin the present.Thus, historically,one of the salient featuresof Germany as a nation has been a tendencytoward a militant exaggerationof the virtues of nationalismasa way of compensating its relatively for late and precariousattainment of nationhood under Bismarckin r87r. Or, as it Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich have expressed in their landmark postwar German characterstructure, TheInobility to Mourn: "Worldstudy of of redeemingdreamsof ancient greatness arisein peoplesin whom the sense feelingsof impotenceand rage."7 havingbeenleft behind by history evokes Such infantile fantasiesof collectiveomnipotencehave led, on not a few to occasions, false estimationsof national strength and to some correspondthat haveled national defeats. Unless the historical reasons ingly catastrophic to disasterhavebeen explored, unlessthe labor of coming to terms with the past hasbeen undertaken in earnest,one risks reenactingthe historical cycle as a type of collectiverepetition-compulsion:one proceedsto invent new,more to sophisticatedrationalizationsand defenses protect the idealizedimage of greatness from the traumaticblowsit hasmost recentlyendured. national Thus, in the immediate postwar period, the theory arosethat it was the German leadersalonewho were to blamefor the most heinousof Nazi crimes,

Working through the Past 87 thereby absolving rank-and-file Germans from responsibility.In truth, of course,the German populace had given their full and enthusiastic support to Hitler's war aims and policies;and without the alacritousand dedicatedcooperation of large segmentsof German society-from industrialists and the judiciary to public officialsand railway personnel-the Third Reich and its atrocities would hardly havebeenpossible.s It is within the context of this long-standingattempt to deny the Nazi pastas well as its possible repercussionsfor postwar German society-that the in adversaries the Historians' Debatemust be underargumentsof Habermas's stood.e Their efforts to trivialize and thus, finally to have quit with, past German sins signify much more than a dubious act of historical reinterpretation: they constitute a calculatedrewriting of history by virtue of which, as Adorno opines,"the murderedare to be cheatedevenout of the one thing that can our powerlessness grant them: remembrance."l0 It is also important to recognize that the revisionist standpoint did not materialize overnight and by chance.Rather, it complemented a carefully orchestratedcampaignon the part of the ruling Christian Democratic coalition to removeonceand for all the stigmaof the Nazi era, which wasperceivedasa troublesomeblot on the honor of the nation. Thus, the cry heard frequently during the courseof the 1986-87 election campaignwas that Germany must oncemore becomea "normal nation," a nation without a troublesome past.ll The centerpiece this process "normalization" wasto havebeenthe visit of of of the American president to the German military cemetery at Bitburg on May 8, 1985,the fortieth anniversary the end of the SecondWorld War and of Nazi dictatorship.Kohl, who had beenshunnedat the Allies'commemorathe tion of the landingsat Normandy the previous year (as would again occur in June 1994),had obtained a small degreeof consolationin a ceremonywith PresidentMitterrand at the site of Verdun, which thus becamea type of dress rehearsalfor Bitburg. However,it was the Second,not the First World War that weighedheavily on the German conscienie. Bitburg was to have symbolized the end of Germany's pariah status and return to the fold of political normalcy-a coupde thid,trethat was to receive international sanction by virtue of the presenceof Ronald Reagan,the "leader of the Free World." However,as is by now well known, the whole affair backfired spectacularlyonce it was discoveredthat forty-seven SS members were also buried there.r2What was intended as a contrived display of German normalcy was thus transformed into a prime exampleof that country's inclination toward grievouslapsesof historical memory.r3Moreover, the American presidentonly compoundedthe difficulties of

88 Working through the Past the situation by making a seriesof embarrassing gaffes:he tried to justify his decisionto visit the Bergen-Belsen concentrationcamp on the morning of his Bitburg trip with the explanationthat the men buried in the two gravesites were both "victims"-a macabreequation of victims and perpetrators,to say the least.Then he made the inexplicableclaim that "the German peoplehave very few alive that remember even the war, and certainly none that were adults and participatingin any way." Reagan himself wasin his thirties during World War II. Unflustered by the Bitburg debacle,the Christian Democratic leadership continued to make "normalization" one of the focal points of the 1987federal election campaign.Such was the intention of CDU parliamentarypresident Alfred Dregger, as he arguedvchementlyagainstdistinguishingbetweenthe victims and perpetratorsof Nazism in a debatebefore the Bundestagover a new war memorial.laIn a similar vein, Franz-Josef Strauss,headof the Chris(the Bavarianallies of the Christian Democrats),repeattian SocialistUnion that Germany must "emerge from the edly urged in his campaignaddresses ruins of the Third Reich and becomea normal nation again." in adversaries the To many historiansin the West,the claimsof Habermas's A Historians' Debate have been perceivedas neonationalistprovocations.rs goodexampleof such provocationis the rationalefor historicalstudy provided one of the leadingmembersof the revisionistcontingent. by Michael Sti.irmer, that it falls due believes Sti.irmer,a speechwriterfor Kohl and a CDU adviser, for to historiansto provide compensations the potentially confusing array of value-choicesthat have arisen with the decline of religion and the rise of What is neededin order to staveoffcrisesof socialintegramodern secularism. tion is a "higher sourceof meaning,which, after lthe declineof] religion, only the nation and patriotism were able to provide." Hence, for Sti.irmer,it is the by task of the historian to assistin the renewal of national self-confidence positiaeimagesof the past. In his eyes,the historical professionis providing For "in a land motivated by the "establishmentof inner-worldly meaning."r6 without history, whoeverfills memory, coins the concepts,and interprets the past,wins the future."lT Reiches und das des In his Zweierlei [Intergang: Die Zerschlagung Deutschen (Tho types of defeat: The destruction of the Ende deseuropriischen Judentuzs German Reich and the end of EuropeanJewry), AndreasHillgruber suggests that, while scrutinizing Germany's collapsein the East toward the end of World War II, a historian is facedwith the choiceof "identifying" with one of three parties:Hitler, the victorious Red Army, or the German army trying to defend the civilian population from being overrun by Soviet troops.rsIn his

Working through the Past 89 fighting the the eyes, choiceis self-evident: braveGerman soldiers,desperately to savethe fatherland from the atrocities of the Red Army, win hands down. It is almostasthough Hillgruber wereattempting to apply literally the "irositive" approachto historical study recommendedby his colleagueSttirmer. But as Habermaspoints out in his essay'tpologetic Tendencies,"Hillgruber in effectpresents with a seriesof falsechoices: us why is it the obligation of the responsible historianto "identify" with any of the historicalprotagonistslre In fact, is it not her responsibility(in this case, someforty yearsafter the events in question haveoccurred), insteadof playing favorites,to arrive at an independent and morally appropriateverdict regardingeventsof the past?Moreover, Hillgruber cansucceed his choiceof "protagonists"only by abstractingfrom in someextremelygruesomefacts:it wasthe same"heroic" German army in the East that established manyJewishghettosfrom which the concentrationcamp victims were chosen,provided logistical support to the SS Einsatzgruppen chargedwith exterminatingthe Jews,that was responsible the shootingof for thousands ofJews in Serbiaand Poland,and in whosehandssometwo million Soviet prisoners of war perished during the course of the war, either from famineor starvation.2c wasthis army that, asan integral part of Hitler's plans It Europeandomination, servedas the guarantorand accompliceto all Nazi for atrocitiesin easternEurope, from massexterminationsto the sadisticenslavement of the populationsof the occupiedterritories.The sadirony to Hillgruin ber's thesis,of course,is that it was the brutal war of aggression the East launchedby the German army,a war that resultedin the deathof sometwenty million Sovietsoldiersand civilians,that provokedthe Red Army's revengeon German soil. that havearisenin the debate In addition to the important materialquestions of concerningthe mannerin which crucial episodes the German pastshould be interpreted,equally important issuesconcerningthe integrity and function of scholarshipin a democraticsocietyhaveemerged.Should the primary role of historicalstudy in a democracy to facilitatesocialintegration via the "estabbe lishment of inner-worldly meaning," as Sttirmer claims; an approach that results in the creation of positive imagesof the past?Or should scholarship assume more skepticaland critical attitude vis-i-vis the commonplaces a a of national past for which Auschwitz has become the unavoidable metaphor, therebyassisting concretelyin the process "coming to terms with the pastl" of Compelling support for the historical importance of the critical approachto historical scholarshiphas been provided by Detlev Peukert, whq in a recent essay, arguedthat what was historically new about the Nazi genocidewas has that it received a theoretical grounding through a determinate conception of

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"positive" science;namely, the idea of basing scienceon racial categories.2r Habermas's specific fear is that by subordinating scientific criteria to an identity-securing function, historical study risks falling behind conventionalstandards of liberal scholarship,resulting in the production of neonationalist "court-histories."Indeed,the very ideachampionedby Hillgruber that a historian must in someway identify with historicalprotagonists represents throwa backto the empathichistoriographyof German historicism:a schoolformed in the German mandarin tradition, for which the writing of history from a national point of view wasa common phenomenon.22 of by However,the most sensational the theses espoused Habermas'sopponents in the debatewere undoubtedly those set forth by the Berlin historian in and former Heideggerstudent Ernst Nolte. In an article that first appeared propaEnglish, Nolte had stoopedto reviving a choicebit of Nazi anti-Semitic gandafrom the early daysof the war: a September1939declarationbyJewish Agency PresidentChaim Weizmannurging Jews to support the causeof democracy in the impending world war justified Hitler's treating them as prisMoreover,in the courseof the deportations. onersof war aswell assubsequent thoughtsame article, Nolte encouragesreaders to engagein the tasteless experimentof trying to imaginewhat the history of Israel would look like were Here, Nolte wishesto suggestby it written by victorious PLO conquerors.23 analogythat the history of the FederalRepublic,which, following Nuremberg hasemphasized German historicalresponsibilityand war guilt, hasessentially by the victors. Such inculpation has deprived Germany of its been written capacityto act effectively in the historical present. But it was Nolte's contention in a June 6, 1986,article that the atrocities perpetratedby Hitler at Auschwitz weremerely an understandable, exaggerif to ated, response a "more original Asiatic deed"-the Red Terror during the RussianCivil War-of which Hitler considered himself a potentialvictim, that proved the most offensiveand ominousof the revisionistclaims.Nolte's argument proceeds follows: as It is a surprising deficiencyof the literature on National Socialismthat it doesnot want to know or believeto what extent everythingthat National Socialismlater did-with the exceptionof the technicalmethod of gassing-was already describedin the extensivefSoviet] literature of the did early rgzos.. . . Did not the National Socialists, not Hitler commit an he deed, only perhapsbecause and his kind consideredthem"Asiatic" selves as potential or real victims of an 'l{siatic" deed? Was not the "Gulag Archipelago" more original than Auschwitz?Was not the "class

Working through the Past gr murder" of the Bolsheviksthe logicaland factualprius of the "race murder" of the National Socialists?24 As Nolte statesin conclusion:the singularity of the Nazi crimes "does not alter the fact that the so-called [sir] annihilation of the Jews during the Third Reich was a reaction or a distorted copy and not a first act or an original."zs Nolte goes on to enumerate an entire series of twentieth-century crimes in comparisonwith which the uniqueness the Holocaustis reducedto a mere of technologicalinnovation, the gas chambers.By articulating these positions, Nolte succeededin according a semblanceof respectability to points of view that heretoforehad only surfacedon the fringesof the German extremeright. As Habermasis quick to point out, there is a method behind Nolte's madness.With the strokeof a pen, the singularity of the Nazi atrocitiesis denied: they are reduced to the statusof a "copycat" crime, and, at that, merely one among many. The gist of Nolte's transparent efforts to rewrite the saga of Auschwitz may be read as follows: why continue to blame the Germans?The And, after all, during the war we werefighting Communistsdid it first anyway. on the right side-at leastin the East. In making such arguments Nolte takes no cognizanceof the historical uniquenessof the Holocaust. For the first time in history (and what one can only hope will be the last), a regime cameto the sovereign conclusionthat an entire group of people-the Jews-should ceaseto exist; that every man, women, and child belonging to this group should be targeted for extermination. Once this policy was put into effect, there was nothing unsystematic or haphazard about it. It wasindeedintended to be comprehensive: "total" and a "final" solution to theJewishquestion. In the face of Nolte's revisionist arguments, Habermas's responsewas guided by an awareness that it is Germany's willingness to deal forthrightly with the dark sideof its national pastthat will determinethe moral fiber of the nation in the future. Only the "analytical powers of remembrance" can break the nightmarishgrip of the pastover Germany'spresent.As he remarksin "On the Public Use of History": The more a collectiveform of life maintainsitself through the usurpation and destruction of the lives of others, the greater is the burden of reconciliation, the labor of mourning and critical self-examination, that falls due to succeedinggenerations.And doesn't this precept itself forbid the attempt to downplayour undeniableresponsibilitythrough levelingcomparisons? . . We in Germany . . . must keepalivethe remembrance the . of suffering of those who were slaughteredby German hands. Those who

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died haveall the more a claim to the weakanamnestic powerof a solidarity that those who were born later can preserveonly in the medium of analways to be renewed, often despairing, yet always present-remembrance. If we brush aside this Benjaminian bequest,Jewish citizensincluding the sons, daughters,and grandchildren of those who were murdered-would no longer be ableto breathein our country.26 One of the key theoreticalargumentsHabermasmobilizesin his refutation of the revisionistposition is the distinction betweenconventional and postconventionalidentities.2T Within the frameworkof developmental psychology, the formation of a postconventional identity indicatesthat an individual has acquired a capacityto evaluatehis moral convictionsin terms of generalethical maxims. Thus, beliefs concerningright and wrong are no longer decidedby immediateand particularisticpoints of reference-the standpointof one'speer group or nation-but instead by appeal to universal principles. Habermas viewsthe revisionists'desire a return to a conventional for nationalidentity asa potentialregression gainsthe FederalRepublichasmade behind the precarious asa democraticnation sinceits inception forty-five yearsago. The "conventionalist" perspectivecomes through most forcefully in the positionsof Hillgruber and Sttirmer, whoseargumentsbetray no small measure of nostalgiafor a highly mythologizedimage of the old German Reich: Germany as masterof Mitteleuropa,, capableof mediating the interestsof the nations to the West and East.28 Their contributions to the debateare reminisargumentfor a GermanSonderbepucentof the traditional nineteenth-century tltein, suggestinga "special" historical course of developmentfor Germany Eastand West.2e The samenostalgia alsoimplicit in Nolte's desireto is between minimize the historical significanceof Auschwitz, thus paving the way for Germany'sreturn to the statusof a "normal nation." But the bankruptcyof the Sonderbemutltein argument was definitively proved at Stalingrad and Auschof witz-the very namesare infamous.In defiance this historicallesson,one of the main strategiesof Nolte and company has been to downplay the importance of the years 1933-45 in relation to the overall "positive" trajectory of German history asa whole.In fact, in his more recentwork, Nolte hascharacterizedthe entire ry4-45 period asa thirty-year "Europeancivil war" in order But, as to imply equal culpability among the fascistand democraticnations.30 this chapter'sopening citation from Thomas Mann reminds us, the desireto differentiatein cut-and-driedfashionbetween"good" and "bad" Germaniesis basedon a dichotomy that fails to hold up under closerhistoricalscrutiny. It is for this reasonthat Habermasemphaticallyinsists:"That the Federal

Working through the Past 93 to Republicopeneditself without reservation the political culture of the Westis great intellectual accomplishmentof the postwar Period.rrt He is conthe vinced that attempts to revive neonationalistdogmas-whose disastrousoutcomes,moreover,are a painful matter of historical record-must be combated by the "only kind of patriotism that does not alienateus from the west": a Such allepatriotism toward the "principles of a democraticconstitution."32 giances, orientedtoward "principles" rather than "ethnicity," would constitute the basis for a "postconventionalpatriotism." The constitutional state may political consciousness, insofar therefore be viewed as a form of postcnnaentional (correspondingto a as the inherent distinction between "law" and "right" broader distinction between"fact" and "norm") mandatesthat all concrete legislationbe evaluatedin light of universalnormative preceptsembodiedin the constitution itself. the Habermasassociates revisionistoffensivein the Historians'Debate with backlashagainst the alternative,environmental,and antia neoconservative that crestedin the mid-rg8os. Of course,neoconservatism nuclearmovements over the hasbeena phenomenoncommon to virtually all Westerndemocracies course of the last decade.But, as Habermas explains in "Neoconservative Cultural Criticism in the U.S. and West Germany," the peculiaritiesof the German version are especiallyworthy of note, insofar as its roots are to be found in proto-fascist ideologiesthat date from the pre-war era.33 In a r984 interview,Habermasrecountedhis shockasa university studentin the late rg4os upon learning of the continuities betweenthe leading intellectuals of the pre- and postwar eras. Many, including severalof Habermas's had been enthusiasticsupportersof the National Socialistregime.3a teachers, of Although sincethat time a new generation thinkers hascometo prominence FederalRepublic, antidemocraticintellectual habits have been slow to in the although the transition to democracyhas been grudgingly die. In most cases, accepted(something that could not have been said for the advocatesof a during the daysof the Weimar Republic),the dissonances German Sonderweg of modernity are perceivedas placing such great burdenson the adaptational capacitiesof social actors, that the preservationof "order" (as opposed to "freedom") has becomethe foremost value in contemporary political life.3s political expressions this mania One of the concreteand highly controversial of (vocational proscription) first decreed for order was the notorious Berufsaerbat in rg7z, which aimedat excludingpolitical extremists, sympathizers,rndother from the German civil service.36 undesirables Those who are perceivedas the intellectualand cultural standard-bearers modernity (e.9.,artistsand critical of intellectuals)come in for more than their fair shareof the blamefor failuresof

94 Working through the Pasr socialintegration. But in this way, as Habermasshows,the neoconservatives confuse causeand effect: disturbancesof social integration that have their sourcein shortcomingsof economicand political subsystems mistakenly are attributed to avant-garde artistsand a "new class"of freethinkers. It is considerations preciselythis naturethat dominatethe historiographiof cal concernsof Sti,irmerand Hillgruber, in whoseeyeshistory must takeon the affirmativefunction of reinforcing national consensus. Habermasremarks: As see "The neoconservatives their role, on the one hand, in the mobilization of pastswhich can be acceptedapprovingly and, on the other, in the neutralization of those pastswhich would only provokecriticism and rejection."37 The currency of Ord,nungsdenken-a belief in "order" as a primary political valuein contemporaryGermany,evidentin an at times maniacal preoccupation with questionsof internal security,is reminiscentof the typical historical justifications of a paternalistic Obrigkeitsstaat during the Second Empire. Its popularity cannot but provoke grave suspicionsconcerningthe prominenceof regressive tendencies the political culture of the FederalRepublic.At the time in of the "German autumn" (tglZ), ChancellorHelmut Schmidt was compelled to wonder aloud whether the West Germans have "in their souls" a certain Such "hysteria for order" (Ord,nungshysterie).38 a belief might help to account for the continued prominence of the authoritarian political doctrines of Carl Schmitt in contemporaryGermany.3e Since German reunification in the fall of rg9o, the spectersraised by the Historians' Debate have becomeeven more real. It has becomecommon to refer to the Wend,e neonationalist shift of German political culture sincethe or two Germaniesbecameone, as decades repressed of German patriotism suddenly came to the fore. Following reunification, a spateof articles appeared suggestingthat Germany must have the courageto becomea "nationtt once again,and that rank-and-fileGermansmust havethe courageto be "Germans" The new Germany,it is argued,must be capable assumingresponagain.ao of sibilitieson the Europeanand internationalpolitical stagecommensurate with its size and economicmight. Many of the claimsof Hillgruber, Stiirmer, and, to a lesserextent, Nolte, havegaineda new leaseon life. Indeed, a frequently raisedcomplaint is that a German nation abnormally preoccupiedwith traumas of its past will be unable to act effectively in the future. The terms in which this debateover the future of German identity have that, asa rule, the word "nation" beenphrasedare causefor concern.It seems has been used as shorthand to connote the terms of a "conventional" rather In than a "postconventional"national consciousness. public debatesthe relatively liberal political culture of West Germany has increasinglybeen viewed

Working through the Past 95 influencedby the with suspicion.Was it not, its detractorsclaim, excessively "Western" political culture of the victors and occupiers,aswell asby returned alien And aren't such cultural influencesessentially 6migr6s? German-Jewish return now that the to "authentic" German traditions, to which one should Correspondartificial situation of a divided Germany has been overcome?ar ingly, a concerted effort has been made to rehabilitate a purportedly "unblemished" German conservatism,such as that espousedby the national conservativesand conservativerevolutionariesduring the Weimar period (e.9., Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger,and ErnstJiinger). That there wasa considerable degree of overlap between their worldview and that of the Nazis is convenientlyomitted. Jiinger, at the ripe ageof 98, recently presidedover the opening of the VeniceBiennale,bantering about the new battle between"gods and titans" that would mark the twenty-first century.Along with this recent resurgenceof a young conservativementality there has been a relativization of Nazism's misdeedsas well as a chauvinistic celebrationof the virtues of "Deutschtum" or "Germanness"-throwbacks that call for a heightening of critical vigilance. Not only has there been a notable resurgenceof vicious right-wing extremism (as a result of which innocent foreign residents have either been driven from their homesor killed); but this new German racism hasbeenjustified by recent governmentpoliciesand proclamations. Thus, in June 1993,the German parliament,with the support of the SocialDemocraticdelegates, voted for a constitutional amendment to alter the terms of Germany's asylum law, previously the most liberal in Europe. In an insensitiverebuke to Germany's 7,ooo,oooforeign residents,ChancellorKohl has repeatedlystatedthat Germany is not an "immigration nation." To this day,Germany is the only maior European nation where citizenship is awardedon the basisof / s sanguinis. Thus, residentsof Turkish origin who havebeen born and raised in Germany must formally apply for German citizenship, whereasso-called Volksdeutsche, or foreign nationals of German ancestry,can quality for citizenship immediately.Theseattitudesand policiessuggest that althoughthe vigilantistmethods chosenby the extremeright might be slightly excessive, their xenophobic aim to rid Germany of foreign influencesis one that the ruling powers fundamentally embrace. The sea-change German political culture initiated in the in courseof the Historians'debateis one that should be monitored closely. Since the early r98os, Habermas has shown considerableinterest in exploring the possible links betweenthe politics of neoconservatism the philosophiand cal implicationsof what is known as postmodernism. his view,it is far from In

96 Working through the Past coincidentalthat what wereperhapsthe two most significantintellectualtrends of the rgSosemergedand flourishedconcomitantly. His earliestthoughts on the relationshipbetweenthe two date back to an influential essay r98o that appearedin English under the title "Modernity of versusPostmodernity."42 This article wasitself a meditationon the conception of modernity advancedin the recently completed Theory of Communicatiae Action as it pertained to the contemporarypolitical spectrum. In concluding the essay, differentiates he betweenthree typesof conservatism: "old conservatism," which longs for a return to premodern forms of life; "new conservatism," which acceptsthe economicand technologicalfeaturesof modernity, while attempting to minimize the potentially explosiveelementsof cultural modernism;and finally, "young conservatism,"which he associates with postmodernism. Habermas'shistorical point of referencefor "young conservatism"is the generation of conservativerevolutionary thinkers who dominated German intellectuallife during the rg2os.Their foremostrepresentatives were Ludwig Klages, Carl Schmitt, the Jiinger brothers, and Oswald Spengler.Like the postmodernistsof today, they were all immensely influenced by Nietzsche. Their writings werecharacterized an uncompromisingcritique of the modby ern agethat often relied on the strategyof rehabilitatingarchaicconcepts:for example,Klages'sidea of the "archaic image" or Ernst Jtinger'snotion of the "warrior." As the following remarks show, Habermas perceivessignificant commonalitiesbetweenthe young conservatives the rgzos and contempoof rary postmodernism.By virtue of a sharedarchaismand aestheticism, both groups seek to break free of the normative presuppositionsof modernity: autonomoussubjectivity,liberal-democraticforms of government,a rational theory of knowledge, and so forth. of The youngconseraatiaes embracethe fundamentalexperience aesthetic modernity-the disclosureof a de-centeredsubjectivity,freed from all from all imperatives constraintsof rational cognition and purposiveness, of labor and utility-and in this way breakout of the modern world. They thereby ground an intransigentanti-modernismthrough a modernist atpowers of the imagination, the titude. They transposethe spontaneous experienceof self and affectivity, into the remote and the archaic; and in to manicheanfashion, they counterpose instrumental reasona principle Bevia only accessible "evocation":be it the will to power or sovereignty, ing or the Dionysian power of the poetic. In France this trend leadsfrom GeorgesBatailleto Foucaultand Derrida. The spirit lGeist]of Nietzsche in that wasre-awakened the rgTosof coursehoversover them all.a3

Working through the Past 97 critique are complex.They presuppose of The theoreticalbases Habermas's Action and the theory of modernity developedin Theory of Communicatiae the foreshadow lectureseriesthat wasfirst publishedin r985 as ThePhilosophiNevertheless, sinceHabermas'scritique of neoconof cal Discourse Mod,erziry. relation to his interpretation of postmodernism servatismstandsin integral (see, for example, the essays"Modern and Postmodern Architecture" and of "Following the Arrow into the Heart of the Present"),a brief discussion the conceptualfoundationsof his position will facilitateunderstandingof the bases of his political judgments. Habermas'stheory of modernity builds on Max Weber'sconceptionof the "differentiation of the spheres":for Weber,modernity is chiefly characterized of by the proliferation of "independent logics" in the value-spheres science/ the morality /law,,and art.# In premodern societies, development technology, of autonomouscultural sphereswas hindered by the predominanceof allencompassing, "cosmologicalworldviews" (religion, myth), in terms of which all social claims to value and meaning were forced to legitimate themselves. becomeselfOnly sincethe Enlightenmenthavi theseindividual value-spheres that legitimating,'as is, for the first time in history, the realms of science,moraf ity, and art havebeenin a position to developtheir own inherent meanings. On the one hand, the gainsof modernity havebeenindisputable:the instituuniversalisticmorality, and autonomous tionalization of professionalscience, for haveled to innumerablecultural benefits;our capacities technicalexperart tise, political iustice/ethical fairness,and aestheticexperiencehaveno doubt Habermas rnlst ernIt been tremendouslyenhanced. is thispoint that separates phaticallyfrom thepostmod,ernists: believesthat to fall behind the threshold he of possibility represented the cultural achievements modernity can only by of result in "regression": the specieswould literally have to "unlearn" valuable cultural skills that wereonly acquiredvery late and with greatdifficulty. And it is preciselysuch "regressiveinclinations" among the postmoderniststhat he singlesout for pointed criticism. By generalizingan aesthetic critique of modernity (first elaborated the late nineteenthcentury by the artistic avant-garde in and Nietzsche),the postmodernists showthemselves capable understanding of the modern age solelyin terms of oneof its aspects: aspectof instrumental the rea,son, which then must be combatedat all costsvia the (aesthetic) media of provocation,transgression, play.In this way,they may be considered and heirs to Nietzsche's"total critique" of modern values.Like Nietzsche,they reiect the method of "immanent critique," insofaras they proceedfrom the assumption that the valuesof modernity are irreparablycorrupt.a6 What is lost above all in the heady whirl of postmodernjouissance a is capacity to appreciatethe universalisticethical qualities of modernity. It is

98 Working through the Past facileto summarilydismissthe latter as"instrumental," sincetheir very basisis the (Kantian) notion of treatingother personsas"ends in themselves." And for this reason,Habermascan justifiably accuse postmodernists representthe of ing a disguised, profound antimodernism: yet because their criticismsof modernity as a "generalizedinstrumentalism" are so reductive,their "program" is governedby an irrepressiblelonging to be free of the requirementsof modernity at all costs,with the "aestheticmoment" asthe solepossible survivor. On the other hand, Habermashimself hasbeenextremelycritical of the developmentaltraiectory of modernity as an empirical socialformation. Hence, he believes that, historicallyspeaking, normativepotentialshavebeeninadeits quately realized. Above all, the various sphereshave not developedin an equitablefashion.Instead,the cognitive-instrumental spherehasattainedpredominanceat the expense the other two spheres, of which in turn find themselvesmarginalized. Instrumental reason,in alliance with the forces of the penetrates sphereof everythe economyand stateadministration,increasingly day human life-the "life-world"-resulting in the creationof "social patholIn not ogies."The basisof the life-world is intersubjectivity, formal reason. the governed by an orientation toward reaching an life-world, social action is (i.e., und,erstand,ing communicativereason),not by a functionalist orientation (i.e., the ends-means rationality of instrumental reason).The toward success latter thereforeviolatesthe inner logic of the former by attempting to subject it to alien, "functionalist" imperativesthat derive from the administrativeeconomicsphere.The term Habermashas coined to describethis processis felicitous: the colonizationof the life-world.a7 Habermas It is thispoint that separates mosternphatically from the neocunseraa,tiues.They wish to preserveone-sidedlythe economic,technical,and manof agerialachievements modernity at the expenseof its ethical and aesthetic From their standpoint,the bureaucraticcolonizationof the lifecomponents. By world is a positive development. extendingthe functionalist logics of economic and administrativerationality to the life-world, technocraticimperapolitical are tives of system-maintenance furthered. Thus, neoconservative views incline toward a theory of governmentby formally trained elites.From popular or democratic"inputs" with regard to governmental this perspective, decision-makinghaving their origin in the life-world are perceivedas an unnecessary strain on the imperativesof efficientpolitical "management." and of It is at this point that aspects the neoconservative young conservative to (or postmodernist)position intersect,aspotentialcomplements one another under the conditions of late capitalism.For if the latter's main contribution to without spirit has the courseof Westerncultural development been"specialists

Working through the Past gg without heart" (Weber)(i.e., reifiedpersonalitytypesand social and sensualists relationsthat correspondto them), then the global assaultagainstmodernity undertakenby the posunodernists under the bannerof d.ffirancewould appear to be a logical historical outgrowth of and responseto this trend. That is, pseudoradicalism postmodernism("pseudoradical"because the aestheticist of for thoroughly depoliticized) may be viewed asa type of historicrl compensation the overwhelmingpressures "theoreticaland practical rationalism" (Weber of again)that havebeenimposedby modernity asa socialformation. In Heideggerian parlance,the postmodernist celebrationsof jouissance thereby serveas a kind of "releasement" from the hyper-rationalized life-world of late capitalism. Yet, as a type of "compensationr"such celebrations ultimately havea systemstabilizingeffect,insofarasthey provide apparentoutlets for frustration while leaving the technical-politicalinfrastructure of the system itself essentially untouched. The postmodernistshave been correctly characterizedby Habermas as "young conservativesr"inasmuch as they have abandonedany hopes of conscious social change.Indeed, the word "emancipation" seemsto have been stricken from their vocabulary.Instead, their aestheticistperspectiveis content to fall behind the achievements modernity.As Habermaswarns:"The rejecof tion of cultural modernity and the admiration for capitalistmodernization[on the part of the neoconservatives] will corroborate a general anti-modernism ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater. If modernity had nothing to offer besidethe praisesof neoconservative apologetics, one could understand why parts of today'sintellectualyouth are returning (via Derrida and Heidegger) to Nietzsche,searchingfor salvationin the portentous moods of cultic rejuvenationof a young conservatism yet distortedby compromise."4s not Habermas'salternativeto the extremesof neo- and young conservatism is political subcultures the rebirth of autonomous willing to struggle for the creation of new life-forms; life-forms that stand in opposition to the increasingpressuresof bureaucratic colonizationaswell asthe postmodernistdesireto return to a premodern condition of cultural de-differentiation."Success" for these political subcultureswould meanthe creationof new forms of socialsolidarity capable linking "socialmodernizationto other, of non-capitalistpaths." It is an alternativethat can come to fruition only if "the life-world can developout of itself institutions which restrict the systematic inner dynamicof economicand administrative systemsof action" : At issue are the integrity and autonomy of lifestyles, for example, the protectionof traditionally established sub-culturesor the alterationof the

roo

Working through the Past

grammar of dated forms of life. In the micro-areas of communication . . . autonomouspublic spherescan take shapethat enter into exchangewith one anotherassoonasthey makeuseof the potentialfor selforganization and for the self-organizedemployment of communications media. Forms of self-organization strengthenthe collectivecapabilityto act below the threshold at which organizationalgoals become detached from the orientations and attitudes of the organizationmembers and imperativesof independent becomedependenton the self-maintenance organizations. . . Autonomous public sphereswould have to attain a combinationof power and intelligent self-limitation that would makethe self-regulating mechanisms the stateand economysufficientlysensitive of to the goal-orientedresults of radically democraticformation of public will.ae With thesewords from "The New Obscurity,"Habermasarticulates vision a of radical democraticpractice which, coming amidst a chorus of fin-de-sidcle pessimism,one cannot but admire. As he has demonstratedin his contributions to the Historians' Debate, there is still much to be accomplishedto contemporarynay-sayers the contrary-for the ethico-politicalprogram of the Enlightenment, out of which that same radical democratic spirit first inspiration can be found in his emerged.As a new millennium approaches, program of a "socialtheory with a practicalintent" temperedby the genuinely egalitariansentimentthat in "discoursesof Enlightenment,there can only be participants."

PART

CARL SGHIIITT: TI{E CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION AND TIIE AESTH ETIGS OF HORROR

tr
Carl Schmitt's polemical discussionof political Romanticism concealsthe aestheticizing oscillationsof his own political thought. In this respect,toq a kinship of spirit with the fascistintelligentsia revealsitself.-Ji.irgen Habermas, "The Horrors of Autonomy: Carl Schmitt in English" The pinnacle of great politics is the moment in which the enemy comes into view in concrete clarity as the enemy.-Carl Schmitt, The Concept the Political (tgrl) of

I Only months after Hitler's accession power,the eminently citablepolitical to philosopherand iurist Carl Schmitt, in the ominously titled Staat, Bemegung, Volk, deliveredone of his better known dicta. On January30, 1933,observes Schmitt, "one can saythat, 'Hegel died."'r In the vast literature on Schmitt's role in the National Socialistconquestof power,one can find many glosses on this one remark,which indeedspeaks volumes. But let us at the outsetbe sureto catch Schmitt'smeaning. For Schmitt quickly reminds us what he does zat intend by this pronouncement: doesnot meanto impugn the hallowedtradihe tion of German 4tatisme, that is, of German "philosophies of stater" among which Schmitt would like to number his own contributions to the annalsof political thought. Instead, it is Hegel qua philosopher of the "bureaucratic class" or Beomtenstaat that has been definitively surpassed with Hitler's triumph; "bureaucracy"(cf. Max Weber'scharacterization "legal-bureaucratic of domination")2is, accordingto its essence) bourgeoisform of rule. As such, a this classof civil servants(which Hegel in the Rechtsphilosophie the "unidubs versalclass")represents impermissibledrag on the sovereignty the execuan of tive authority. For Schmitt, its characteristicmode of functioning basedon rules and proceduresthat are fixed, preestablished, and calculable,qualifiesit as

ro4

Carl Schmitt

the very embodiment of bourgeoisnormalcy-precisely that "bourgeoisnormalcy" that Schmitt stroveto transcendand destroyin virtually everythinghe thought and wrote during the rgzos. The very essence the bureaucratic of conductof businessisreaerence thenorm; a standpointthat could not existin for greatertensionwith the philosophyof Schmitt himself, whom we know to be a philosopherof the exception-of theAusnahmezustand. thus, in the eyesof And Schmitt, Hegel had set an ignominious precedentby accordingthis putative in universalclassa position of preeminence his political thought, insofarasthe primacy of the bureaucracy authority. tendsto supplantsovereign But behind this critique of Hegel and the provocative claim that Hitler's rise coincideswith Hegel's metaphoricaldeath (a claim that, while true, should paceSchmitt, little causefor celebration),lies a further indicthave offered., perceived an advocate of as ment. In the remarkscited, Hegel is simultaneously the Rechtsstaat, "constitutionalism" and "rule of law." Therefore, in the of history of German political thought, the doctrinesof this very German philosopher prove to be somethingof a Trojan horse: they representa primary avenuevia which "alien," bourgeois forms of political life have infiltrated healthy and autochthonousGerman traditions, one of whose distinguishing features an authoritarianrejectionof constitutionalismand all it implies.The is political thought of Hegel thus representsa threat-and now we encounter anotherone of Schmitt's key terms from the rg2os-to German homogeneity. Schmitt's poignant observationconcerningthe relationshipbetweenHegel the and Hitler thus expresses idea that one tradition in German cultural lifethe tradition of German idealism-has cometo an end. A new setof principles, (and homogeneity all it implies for the political basedon the categoryof aolkisch future of Germany), has arisen to take its place.3Or, to expressthe same thought in other terms: a tradition basedon the concept of Wrnunft (reason) has given way to a political systemwhosenew raison d'6tre is the principle of embodimentwasthe Fiihrerprinzip, consummate authoritariandecision-whcjse the ideologicalbasisof this post-Hegelianstate. Schmitt's insight remainsa in sourceof fascinationowing to its uncannyprescience: a statementof a few of to words, he manages expressthe quintessence someone hundred yearsof German historical development.At the sametime, this remark also remains of as worthy of attentioninsofarasit serves a prism through which the vagaries an intellectualbiography come into unique focus:it represents Schmitt's own with declarationof his satietywith Germany'sprior experiments unambiguous constitutional governmentand of his longing for a "total" or Fiihrerstaatin of which the ambivalences the parliamentarysystemwould be abolishedonce however,it suggestshow readily Schmitt personally and for all. Above all,

Carl Schmitt

ro5

of madethe transition from one of the most influential intellectualantagonists Weimar democracyto a wholehearted supporterof the National Socialistrevolution. Herein lies what one might refer to asthe "paradoxof Carl Schmitt": a man whq in the wordsof Hannah Arendt, wasa "convincedNazir" yet "whose very ingenioustheoriesabout the end of democracyand legal governmentstill makearrestingreading."a The focal point of our inquiry will be the distinctive intellectual habitus (Bourdieu) that facilitatedSchmitt's alacritoustransformationfrom respected Weimar jurist and academician "CrownJurist of the Third Reich." As a key to to understandingthe intellectual basisof Schmitt's political views, I suggest the importance of his elective affinities with the generation of conservative revolutionarythinkers, whoseworldview wasso decisivein turning the tide of public opinion againstthe fledgling Weimar Republic.As the political theorist Kurt Sontheimer has noted: "It is hardly a matter of controversytoday that certain ideologicalpredispositions German thought generally, in but particularly in the intellectualand political climate of the Weimar Republic,induced a large number of German electorsunder the Weimar Republic to considerthe National Socialistmovementaslessproblematicthan it turned out to be." And eventhough the Nazis and conservative revolutionaries failed to seeeyeto eye plans for a "new Germany" were sufficiently on many points, their respective closethat a comparisonbetweenthem is ableto "throw light on the intellectual atmospherein which, when National Socialismarose,it could seem to be a more or less presentable doctrine." Hence, "National Socialism . . . derived profit from thinkers like OswaldSpengler, considerable Moeller van den Bruck and Ernst Jtinger," despite their later parting of the ways.sIt would not be much of an exaggeration label this intellectual movement "protofascistic"; to in many ways, its generalideologicaleffect consistedin providing a type of "spiritual preparation"for the National Socialisttriumph. Schmitt himself was, properly speaking,never an active member of the revolutionary movement.It would be fair to say that the major conservative differencebetweenSchmitt and this like-minded, influential group of rightwing intellectualsconcerneda matter of form rather than substance: unlike jourSchmitt, most of whosewritings appearedin scholarlyand professional nals,the conservative revolutionaries were,to a man, nonacademics, who made namesfor themselves Publizisten; as that is, as "political writers" in that same kaleidoscopicand febrile world of Weimar Offenttichkeitthatwas the object of so much scorn in their work. But Schmitt's status as a "fellow traveler" in relation to the movement'smain journals (e.g.,Hans Zehrer's influential Dle Tat), activities, and circlesnotwithstanding,his profound intellectualaffinities

r06

Carl Schmitt

with this group of convinced antirepublicansare impossibleto deny; to the point where,in the secondary literature, it hasbecomemore common than not to simply include him asa bona fide memberof the group.6 The intellectualhabitussharedby Schmitt and the conservative revolutionariesis in no small measureof Nietzschean derivation.Both subscribed the to immoderateverdict registeredby Nietzscheon the totality of inherited Western values:thosevalueswereessentially nihilistic.Liberalism, democracy, utilitarianism,individualism,and Enlightenmentrationalismwere the characteristic belief-structuresof the decadentcapitalistWest; they were manifestations of a superficial and materialistic Ziuilisation, which failed to measureup to the sublimity of German Kultur. In opposition to a bourgeoissocietyviewed as being in an advancedstate of decomposition,Schmitt and the conservative revolutionaries counterposed Nietzschean the rites of "active nihilism"; or, in Nietzsche's terms, whateveris alreadyfalling shouldbe givena final push. One of the patentedconceptualoppositionsproper to the conservative revolutionary habitus was that betweenthe "hero" (or "soldier") and the "bourgeois." Whereas the former thrives on risk, danger, and uncertainty, the life of the This concepbourgeoisis devotedto petty calculations utility and security.T of in tual oppositionwould occupycenter-stage what wasperhapsthe most influential conservative revolutionary publication of the entire Weimar period, the Ernst Jiinger's rg3z Der Arbeiter,where the opposition assumes form of a contrastbetween"the worker-soldier"and "the bourgeois."And if one turns, for example, to what is arguably Schmitt's maior work of the rgzos, The of Concept thePolitical(rgr7), where the controversial "friend-enemy" distinction is codified as the raison d'tre of politics, it is difficult to ignore the profound conservativerevolutionary resonances Schmitt's argument. Inof deed, it would seem that such "resonances"permeate Schmitt's attempt to justify politics primarily in mortial terrns;that is, in light of the ultimate eventuality or (to utilize Schmitt's own terminology) Ernstfall of "battle" (Kampfl
or ttwar.t'

Once the conservativerevolutionary dimension of Schmitt's thought is brought to light, it will become clear that the continuities in his pre- and post-r933 political philosophy are stronger than the discontinuities. Yet, Schmitt's own path of developmentfrom archfoe of Weimar democracyto seriesof intellectual "convinced Nazi" (Arendt) is mediated by a successive transformations that attest to his growing political radicalization during the rg2os and early rg3os. He follows a route that is both predictableand sui generis:"predictable" inasmuchas it wasa route traveledby an entire generaand nationalist intellectualsduring tion of like-minded German conservative

Carl Schmitt

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the interwar period; sui generis,insofar as there remainsan irreducible originality and perspicacity to the various Zeitdiagnosen proffered by Schmitt during the rg2os,in comparisonwith the at times hackneyed and familiar formulations of his conservativerevolutionary contemporaries. The oxymoronic designation"conservativerevolutionary" is meant to distinguish the radical turn taken during the interwar period by right-of-center German intellectualsfrom the stanceof their "traditional conservative"counterparts, who longed for a restoration of the imagined glories of the earlier Germanic Reichs and generally stressedthe desirability of a return ro premodern forms of socialorder (e.g.,Tiinnies'sGemeinschaft)based the aristoon cratic considerationsof rank and privilege. The conservativerevolutionaries (and this is true of Jtinger, Moeller van den Bruck, and Schmitt) conversely concluded from the German defeat in the Great War that if Germany were to be successful the next major Europeanconflagration,premodern or tradiin tional solutionswould not suffice.Instead,what was necessary was "modernization"; yet, a form of modernization that was at the same time compatible with the (albeitmythologized)traditional German valuesof heroism,"will" (as opposed to "reason"), Kultur, and hierarchy. In sum, what was desired was a rnodern community. Jeffrey Herf has stressed his book on the subject,at As in issueis not Germany'srejection of modernity, but instead its selectizte embrace of mod,ernity.s That is, the ultimate triumph of National Socialism,far from being characterized a disdainof modernity tout court, wasmarkedsimultaby neouslyby an assimilationof "technologicalmodernity" and a repudiation of what one might call "political modernity": the valuesof political liberalism as they emerge from the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century. This "selective embrace" describes the essenceof the German Sond,erweg.. Germany's "special path" to modernity that is neither Western (in the senseof England and France)nor Eastern(in the sense Russia). of Schmitt begins his intellectual careerin the rgros as traditional conservative; namely,as a Catholic philosopher of state. As such, his early writings revolvedaround a version of political authoritarianismin which the idea of a strong state was defendedat all costsagainst the threat of liberal encroachments. In his most significant work of the decade, The Valueofthe State and the Signfficance the Ind,iaidual (tgt4), the balancebetweenthe two cenrralconof cepts,stateand individual, is struck one-sidedlyin favor of the former term. For Schmitt, the state,in executingits law-promulgatingprerogatives, cannot countenance any opposition. The uncompromising,antiliberal conclusionhe draws from this observationis that "no individual can haveautonomy within the state."eOr, as Schmitt unambiguouslystateselsewhere the samework: in

r08

Carl Schmitt

the "the individual" is merely "a meansto the essence, state is what is most important."r0Thus, althoughSchmitt displayedlittle inclination for the brand of fingoistic nationalismso prevalentamong his German academicmandarin brethren during the war years, as Joseph Bendersky has observed,"it was precisely on the point of authoritarianismvs. liberal individualism that the viewsof many Catholics[suchasSchmitt] and thoseof non-Catholicconservativescoincided."ll it But, like other German conservatives, was Schmitt's innate antipathy to liberal democraticforms of government,coupled with the political turmoil of the Weimar Republic, that facilitated his transformation from a traditional revolutionary."To be sure,a full accountof the to conservative a "conservative revolutionary conversionwould necessiintricaciesof Schmitt's conservative year-by-year accountof his political thought during the Weimar period, tare a during which Schmitt's intellectual output was nothing if not prolific (he published virtually a book a year). Instead, for the sakeof concision,and in revolutionaryhaborder to highlight our chosenleitmotif of the "conservative on three aspectsof Schmitt's intellectual itusr" I have elected to concentrate process for formation that prove essential understandingthe aforementioned of political rransformation:(r) his sympathieswith the vitalist (lebensphilosophisch)critiqueof modern rationalism;(z) what one might call Schmitt's "phiassimlosophyof history" during theseyears;and (3) Schmitt's protofascistic revolutionarydoctrine of the "total state."All three ilation of the conservative moreover, integrally interrelated. are aspects,

tl The vitalist critique of Enlightenment rationalism is of Nietzscheanprovenance.In opposition to the traditional philosophicalimageof man quaanimol his rationalis,Nietzschecounterposes vision of "Life [as]will to power'"r2And the courseof this "transvaluationof all values,"the heretoforemarginalized in forcesof life, will, affect, and passionshould reclaim the position of primacy they once enjoyedbefore the triumph of "Socratism." It is in preciselythis that in the future, we philosophizewith our spirit that Nietzscherecommends For with clncepts. in the culture of "Europeannihilism" that fficts insteadof of has triumphed with the Enlightenment, "the essence life, its nill to pzner, is priority of the spontaignored," arguesNietzsche;"one overlooksthe essential form-giving forcesthat give new interpretations expansive, neous,aggressive, and directions."l3 the power and influence this NietzIt would be difficult to overestimate

Carl Schmitt

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schean critique exercised over an entire generationof antidemocraticGerman intellectuals during the r92os. The anticivilizational ethos that pervades Spengler's The Decline of the West-the defenseof "blood and tradition" against the much-lamented triumph of forces of societal rationalizationwould be unthinkable without that dimension of vitalistic Kulturbritik to which Nietzsche'swork gave consummateexpression.ra Nor would it seem that the doctrinesof Klages,asembodiedin the title of his magnumopus from the lateWeimar period, TheIntellectasAntagonist theSoul (tgzg-3r), would of have captured the mood of the times as well as they did had it not been for the irrevocableprecedentset by Nietzsche'swork. Indeed, the central opposition between "life' and "intellect," as articulated by Klages and so many other German "anti-intellectualintellectuals"during the interwar period, represents an unmistakably Nietzschean inheritance. While the conservativerevolutionary componentsof Schmitt's worldview have been frequently noted, the paramount role played by the philosophy of life (aboveall, by the conceptof cultural criticism proper to Lebensphilosophie) in his political thought has escaped the attention of most critics. But a full understanding Schmitt's statusasa radicalconservative of intellectualis inseparablefrom an appreciationof this hitherto neglected aspectof his work. In point of fact, the influencesof "philosophy of life"-a movement that would feed directly into the Existenzphilosophie crazeof the rg2os (Heidegger, etc.)-are readily discerniblein Schmitt's pre-Weimarwritings. In one Jaspers, (tgrz), Schmitt is concerned of his first published works, Law and, Jud,gment with demonstratingthe impossibility of understandingthe legalorder in exclurationalist terms, as a self-sufficientsystem of legal norms d la "legal siz:ely positivism." It is alongtheselines that Schmitt arguesthat in a particular case, a correct decision cannot be reached solely via a processof deduction or generalization from existing legal precedents norms. Instead,he contends, or is always a moment of irreducibleparticularity to each casethat defies .there subsumptionunder generalprinciples. And it is preciselythis aspectof legal judgment that Schmitt finds most interesting and significant.He goeson to coin a phrasefor this "extralegal" dimension:the moment of "concreteindifference,"the dimension of adjudicationthat transcends previouslyestabthe lished legal norm. In essence, moment of "concrete indifference" reprethe sentsfor Schmitt a type of vital substrate, elementof "pure life," that stands an foreveropposedto the formalism of law as such.And thus, at the very heart of bourgeoissociety, legalsystem,one finds an elementof "existentialparticuits larity" that defiesthe coherence rationalist syllogizingor formal reason. of The concept"concreteindifference"is of more than passinginterestinsofar

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as it provesa crucial harbinger of Schmitt's later decisionistictheory of sovof ereignty.In its devaluation the adequacy existinglegalnorms asa basisfor of judicial decision-making, categoryof "concreteindifference"points toward the itself as o self-sfficient and irreducthe imperatioenature of thejuridical decision ible basisof adjudication.The vitalist dimension of Schmitt's early philosophy of law betraysitself in his thoroughgoingdenigrationof "legal normativisln"for norms are a product of abstract Intelligenz, and, as such, lebensfeind,lich of (hostileto life)-and the concomitantbelief that the decisionaloneis capable of bridging the gap betweenthe abstractness law and the fullnessof life. The vitalist sympathiesof Schmitt's early work becomefull-blown in his writings of the rg2os.Here, the key text is Political Theolog ftgzz),,in which Schmitt formulateshis decisionisttheory of politics. Or, as he remarksin the work's oft-cited first sentence: "Sovereignis he who decidesover the stateof s zus exceptionlAusn hme t and]."1 a One is tempted to claim that from this initial, terseyet lapidary definition of sovereignty, may deducethe totality of Schmitt's mature political thought. one It containswhat we know to be the two keywordsof his political philosophy during theseyears:"decision" and the "exception." Both in Schmitt's lexicon are far from value-neutralor merely descriptiveconcepts.Instead,they both entail a strong evaluativecomponent; they are accordedan unambiguously positivevaluein the economyof his thought. And thus, one of the signatures of Schmitt's political thinking during the Weimaryearswill be a privileging of the Ausnahmezustand "state of exception"vis-i-vis political normalcy. or Schmitt's celebrationof the state of exceptionover conditions of political normalcy (which Schmitt essentially equateswith the reign of "legal positivism" or, more generally, with "parliamentarianism")hasits basisin the vitalist critique of Enlightenment rationalism. In his initial justification of the Ausnahmezustand Political Theology,Schmitt leavesno doubt concerning the in historical pedigreeof such concepts.Following the well-known definition of sovereignty cited above,he immediatelyunderscores statusasa "borderline its concept"-a Grenzbegrifr concept"pertaining to the outermostsphere."l6 t It is precisely this fascinationwith "extreme" or "boundary situations" (what Karl Jasperscalls Grenzsituationen)-those unique moments of extreme peril or dangerthat becomea type of existential"proving ground" for "authentic" individuals-that standsas one of the hallmarks of the sweepingcritique of in "everydayness"proffered by Lebensphilosophie all its variants. In the Grenzsituation, "Dasein glimpses transcendence and is thereby transformed from rT possible real Existenz." By accordingprimacy to the "stateof exception".as to opposedto political normalcy,Schmitt tries to invest the emergencysituation with a higher, existential significanceand meaning.

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According to the inner logic of this conceptual scheme, the Ausnahmezuthe standbecomes basisfor apoliticsof authenticity.Incontrastto conditionsof political normalcy,which representthe unexaltedreign of the "average,"the "mediocre," and the "everydayr" the state of exception proves capableof reincorporating a dimension of heroism and greatnessso sorely lacking in the routinized, bourgeoisconduct of political life. Consequently,the superiority of the state as ultimate, decisionistic arbiter over the emergencysituation is a matter that, in Schmitt's eyes,need not be argued for. According to Schmitt, "Every rationalist interpretationfalsffies the the immediacy ffi."t8 Instead, in his view, the state possesses status of a of fundamental, irrefragable, existentialaerity, as does the category of "life" in Nietzsche's philosophy. Or, as Schmitt remarks with characteristic pith in Political Theology, of "The existence the stateis undoubted proof of its superiority over the validity of the legalnorm." And thus, "the decision[on the state of exception] becomesinstantly independent of argumentativesubstantiation and receives autonomous an value."le But asFranz Neumann observesin Behemoth, given the fundamental lack of coherenceof Nazi ideology, the rationales provided for totalitarian practice were often couched specificallyin "vitalist" or "existential" terms. In Neumann'swords, of [Given the incoherence Nazi ideology,]what is left as justification for the fGrassdeutsche] Reich?Not racism, not the idea of the Holy Roman Empire, and certainly not some democratic nonsenselike popular sovereigntyor self-determination. Only the Reich itself remains.It is its own justification.The philosophicalroots of the argumentare to be found in the existential philosophy of Heidegger.Transferred to the realm of politics, existentialismargues that power and might are true: power is a sufficient theoreticalbasefor more power.20 ln Political Theology,Schmitt is quite forthright concerning the vitalistic bases his political thought. As he observes of earlyon: "Preciselyaphilosophy of concrete must not withdraw from the exception and the extreme case,but life must be interestedin it to the highestdegree."2r issuein this judgment are At "existential" considerations-the "choicett of a "worldview"-that simultaneously express an aesthetic sensibility; namely, an "aesthetics of horror" (Asthetik desSchreckezs), which has been defined by Karl Heinz Bohrer as propagatinga temporal semantics "rupturer" "discontinuity,ttand "shock." of According to Bohrer,whereas this modernistaesthetic "suddenness" (Pliitzof lichkeit) is primarily of Nietzscheanprovenance, is "renewed in the rgzos it through the works of Max Scheler,Carl Schmitt, and Martin Heidegger."22

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Only in light of this vitalist intellectualhistorical lineageand the aesthetics of rupture that underlie it doesSchmitt's partisanshipfor the exceptionover the norm first becomefully intelligible. Hence, what is important is not merely that the exceptionpresents itself assuperiorto the norm. Rather,the temporal semantics discontinuity and horror embrace{ by Schmitt culminatesin the of insight that "the norm is d,estroyed the exception."23 in From the ashes the of norm, an ontologicallyhigher condition of political life will emerge, it were. as ln Political Theology,Schmitt will attempt to justify his exaltation of the exceptionin terms explicitly culled from the vitalist aesthetics "suddenness" of or "rupture" described Bohrer: "The exceptionis more interestingthan the by rule," observesSchmitt. "The rule provesnothing; the exceptionproveseverything: It confirms not only the rule but alsoits existence, which derivesonly from the exception.In the exceptionthe power of real life breaksthrough the crust of a mechanismthat hasbecometorpid by repetition."z4 The "mechanismthat hasbecometorpid by repetition" is none other than a society of bourgeois normalcy,where, in Schmitt's view, positive law reigns supreme.This societyof "normalization" (Foucault)must be subjectedto an "aestheticsof rupture" (Bohrer), which is the point at which the exception enters upon the scene.For the exception alone qua "borderline concept" (Grenzbegrffi allows"the power of real life"-here, a type of existential transcend,ens-to explode the society of "mechanized petrification" (Weber) that bourgeoisZiuilisation has wrought.2sOnly the will to power of "real life" possesses capacityto break through the inertial characterof society qua the encrusted "mechanism." And it is precisely in this spirit that Schmitt will praise the Bergsonianorigins of Sorel's apotheosis violence.In Schmitt's of estimation,Sorel's "reflections" on this conceptare of value preciselyinsofar asthey are groundedin a Bergsonian"theory of unmediatedreal life."26 In sum, Schmitt's partisanshipfor the moment of absolutedecision,which in canonly emergeonceconditionsof political normalcy havebeensuspended represents transpositionof Kierkegaard's"teleological a theAusnahmezust0,n/, For from the moral to the political sphere.27 both of suspension the ethical" of thinkers, a fascinationwith "boundary situations" and an aesthetics "tupture" or "suddenness"subtendsa critique of "the presentage" qua embodiment of an indigent condition of ethico-politicalnormalcy. Thus, Schmitt grbunds the foundational conceptsof his mature political philosophy in a fundamentalexistentialvalue-judgment:a condemnationof the prosaicismof bourgeois normalcy combined with an exaltation of the for embodiedin the emergencysituation. My emcapacities "transcendence" insois ployment of the word "transcendence,l'moreover, far from accidental,

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far asit is one of Schmitt's most profound beliefsthat "all significantconcepts of the modern theory of state are secularizedversions of theological connothing less Thus, the stateof exceptionin Schmitt's view represents cepts."z8 (return ((return of the sacred." In of the repressed"in the form of a than a keepingwith the discourseof "political theology,"the stateof exceptionis to politics what the miracle is to theology. But it is of equal importancein this connectionto recognizethe historicalcontextual status of such argumentsas set forth by the leading jurist of the Weimar Republic.It was preciselythis vitalist/conservativerevolutionarydevaluationof political normalcy,on the one hand, coupledwith an exaggeration of the value of "emergencypowers," or governmentby executivedecree(as embodiedin the notoriousArticle 48 of the Weimar constitution),on the other, that wasindispensable the adventof Hitler's dictatorship.And thus, accordto ing to Frunz Neumann, "the idea of the totalitarian state grew out of the demand fduring Weimar] that all power be concentratedin the hands of the president."2e

ill concludeswith a chapter enSchmitt's r9z3 critique of parliamentarianism titled "Irrationalist Theories of the Direct Use of Force." Unsurprisingly, the doctrines of GeorgesSorel occupy pride of place in his analysis.Schmitt's barelyconcealed admiration for Sorelqua apostle revolutionaryviolenceand of in its suggestionof the many points sharedby "left" and myth is fascinating "right" variantsof the critique of bourgeoisnormalcy.In one telling passage, Schmitt cites the viewsof the nineteenth-centurySpanishcounterrevolutionary stalwart, Donoso Cort6s, with whom Schmitt himself identified profoundly.Donoso Cort6s,interestinglyenough,praises doctrinesof "radical the socialism" as the only "worthy opponent" of his own counterrevolutionary ideology: it is thesetwo standpointsalone that demand a total, eschatological break with bourgeoisconditions of life. To be sure, in ihe eyes of Donoso Cort6s,anarchistsocialismwas tantamount to radical evil, in leaguewith the devil, and, assuch,worthy of summaryeradication.Yet, asSchmitt comments, "Today it is easy to see that both were their own real opponents and that everythingelsewasonly a provisionalhalf-measure."30 Of course,as a twentieth-century"clerico-fascist,"Schmitt's own intellectual sympathiesare infinitely closer to the views of the nineteenth-century counterrevolutionaryphilosophersof state, Donoso Cort6s, Bonald, and de Maistre. But this doesnot preventhim from mining the doctrinesof Sorel,this

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"worthy adversary,"for all that they are worth. What Schmitt appreciates about Sorel is the fact that in his celebrationsof violence,the "warlike and heroic conceptionsthat are bound up with battle and struggle were taken seriouslyagain . . as the true impulse of an intensive life.'3l Sorel is thus praisedas an apostleof Nietzsche,a proponent of "active nihilismr" an unrelenting advocate the powersof desublimatedinstinct, and of those martial of virtues that havebeen allowed to atrophy owing to the predominantly rationalist temper of modern Ziailisation.The views that Schmitt attributes to Sorel (indeed, he never tries to concealit) are very much his own. And thus, as Schmitt goeson to observe,"Whatever value human life has does not come from reason;it emergesfrom a state of war betweenthose who are inspired by greatmythical imagesto join battle.. . . Bellicose, revolutionaryexcitementand the expectationof monstrous catastrophes belong to the intensity of life and Here, the vitalist advocacy "intensivelife" flows seamlessly move history."32 of into the conservativerevolutionary embrace of that mentality of Sturm und Kampfthat would play such a pivotal role in the worldview of National Socialism.33 Schmitt's confrontation with Sorel thus provesa crucial way-stationon his path to a conservative revolutionaryglorificationof a militaristic, aggressive unambiguouslyin his pro"total state"; a position to which he would accede of vocativework of rgz7, The Concept the Political. of But beforeconcludingour discussion Schmitt's relationto Sorel,it would perhapsbe worthwhile to mention the point at which their respectivepaths the diverge.Ultimately, Schmitt parts companywith his confrdreacross Rhine insofar as,in Schmitt's view, Sorel'sMarxism threatensthe "autonomy of the political." The problem with Sorel'sapotheosis violenceis that violenceis of placedin the serviceof "unpolitical powers"; namely,the powersof a "social classr"the proletariat.From Schmitt's perspective, solution is too reministhis cent of the evils of modernity that must be cured. For in the modern world, claims to political sovereigntyhavebeenusurped by the prepolitical interestsof socialclasses; phenomenonthat comesto light in the interminablejockeying a for position among the various interest groups in parliament. As Schmitt observes,the drawback of Sorel's position is that he "sought to retain the purely economic basis of the proletarian standpoint, and despite some dishe agreements, clearly alwaysbeganwith Marx."3a The rejection of Sorel drives him into the arms of the aforementioned counterrevolutionaryphilosophers of state-albeit, a position from which Schmitt never really strayed.According to Schmitt's philosophy of history political life since the seventeenthcentury has fallen into a state of permanent decline.Whereasin the age of absolutism,the twin pillars of state,God and

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sovereign, occupiedtheir rightful nichesof supremacy, sincethen, both have suffered debasement the hands of the ascendantbourgeoisclass and its at proletarian heir apparent. In the secularizing doctrines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,the concept of "God" was supplanted by the idea of "man," and the majesty of the sovereignproper was irreparably decimatedby As the idealof popular sovereignty. a result, "the decisionistic and personalistic elementin the conceptof sovereignty waslost."3s More generally, sublime the virtues of transcendence were sacrificedin favor of the prosaic terms of immanence.This concertedassaultagainsttraditional religiosity could only end in atheism,disorder,and "anarchicfreedom." It wasthe chief merit of the Catholic philosophersof stateto haveconfronted this situation head-on and to have nevershiedawayfrom drawing the logicalconclusionfrom this turn of events. Thus, since the legitimacy of the ancien r6gime had been irreparably damaged following the revolutions of 1848, from this point hence, dictatorship alone could savethe world from the godlessera of secular humanism. Schmitt's reflectionson the implications of this new historical situation could hardly be lessequivocal. Once again,he relieson the wisdom of Donoso Cort6s to make his point: The true significance thosecounterrevolutionary philosophers state of of lies preciselyin the consistency with which they decide.They heightened the moment of decisionto such an extent that the notion of legitimacy, their starting point, was finally dissolved.As soon as Donoso Cort6s realizedthat the period of monarchy had come to an end . . . he brought his decisionismto a logicalconclusion.He demandeda political dictatorship. In . . . de Maistre we can also see a reduction of the state to the moment of decision,to a pure decisionnot basedon reasonor discussion and not justifying itsel{ that is, to an absolutedecision createdout of nothingness. But this decisionis essentially dictatorship,not legitimacy.36 A politics of "dictatorship," grounded in a "decision er nihilo," will also becomeSchmitt's solution to an era of relentless "depoliticization."3T Moreover, although the Marxist Sorel is correct in his estimation of the value of political myth-making, he is mistaken in his belief that the myth of proletarian internationalism will prove a sourceof inspiration to future generations of political actors.Instead,accordingto Schmitt, today we know that "the strongermyth is nationof' and that "the national myth hasuntil today always been victorious."3s Thus, it is the national myth as propagatedby Mussolini and Italian fascismthat represents embodimentof all future hopesfor the the return of an authentic politics; it characterizes politics in which the valuesof a

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"The "intensivelife" might once againcome to the fore. As Schmitt observes: the relative theory of myth is the most powerful symptom of the decline of rationalismof parliamentarythought." Indeed,for the first time in the modern era, it raisesthe prospectsof "an authority basedon the new feeling for order, discipline, and hierarchy." Italian fascism thus representsthe model to be followedby all future attemptsto reversethe bourgeoissublimationof politics and realizean authentic"repoliticization" of modern life: has only Until now the democracyof mankind and parliamentarianism appealto once beencontemptuouslypushedasidethrough the conscious myth, and that was an exampleof the irrational power of the national myth. In his famousspeechof October rg2z in Naplesbefore the march on Rome,Mussolini said,"We havecreateda myth, this myth is a belief,a it noble enthusiasm; doesnot needto be reality,it is a striving and a hope, belief and courage.Our myth is the nation, the great nation which we want to makeinto a concreterealitv: for ourselves."3e

tv revolutionary The work in which Schmitt's propagationof the conservative of aestheticsof horror becomesmost apparent is his ry27 The Concept the Political.In this text, the vitalist correlationbetween"violence" and "intensive its in life," which Schmitt first discovers the theoriesof Sorel, receives fullest elaboration.It would be a mistake,however,to view this key text of the late of r92osapart from a series relatedwritings from the late rgzosand early rg3os his in which Schmitt elaborates viewson the "totalitarian" or "total state."The both the conconclusionsSchmitt reachesin this seriesof works represents summation of his political thought during the Weimar period and a crucial anticipationof his later partisanshipfor the National Socialistcause. I havealreadyreferred to the rudiments of Schmitt's philosophyof history during the Weimar period; this philosophy revolvesaround the theme of the "eclipseof the political." Thus, accordingto Schmitt, the salientfeatureof the pastthree centuriesof Europeanhistory hasbeenthe fact that political energies forcesand internonpolitical havebeenplacedin the serviceof heteronomous, interests. With respectto the ests;aboveall, in the serviceof bourgeoiseconomic recent historical trends as culminating in an political, then, Schmitt describes on All and depoliticizations." bourgeoisencroachments "age of neutralizations the claims Schmitt, "aim with undeniablecertainty at subiecting sovereignty, state and politics partly to an individualistig and thus private-legalmorality,

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partly to economiccategories-and thus robbing it of its specificmeaning."a0 Schmitt's lamentationsconcerningthe sublimation of politics in the modern world suggest affinitieswith the "traditional conservative" his political thought of fellow GermansLeo Straussand Eric Voegelin;and with the nonconservative traditionalismof Hannah Arendt. As we haveseenfrom our earlier discussionof Schmitt's interest in Sorel, Donoso Cort6s, and Italian fascism,Schmitt is constantlyon the lookout for countervailingtendencies vis-i-vis the dominant historical trend toward neutralization/depoliticization.He believes hasdiscovered he preciselysuchprospectsin the logic of technological concentrationthat emergedin the aftermath of World War I. The outstandingcharacteristicof the Great War was that it gavethe lie to the well-knownClausewitziandictum"war is the continuationof diplomacyby other means";in this respect,it setthe tenor for all warsto come. Thus, accordingto Schmitt, as a result of recent trends,the insight of Clausewitz must be reaersed. Now, insteadof war standingin the serviceof politics,the era of "total war" heraldedby the conflagrationof rgr4-r8 suggests that all energies modern political life standin the serviceof war. It is preciselyin this of vein that Schmitt sees concreteprospects the reemergence for ofthe political in the modern world. Through a strangeinstanceof the "cunning of reason,"the bourgeoisideology of progressultimately proves self-subverting.Forces of the modern economythat wereoriginally directedagainstthe "autonomyof the political" (i.e.,againstthe valuesof the monarchicalabsolutism) now undergoa transformationfrom quantity to quality and reemergeas the guarantorof autonomouspolitical energies. Schmitt observes: As "Economicsis no longer eo ipsofreedom;technologyserves only [the endsof] comfort, but insteadiust not as much the production of dangerousweaponsand instruments; its progress doesnot further eoipsothe humanitarian-moralperfectionthat wasconceived of in the eighteenth century as 'progress,' and technical rutionalization can be the oppositeof economicrationalization."4r For Schmitt, this assertionrepresentsan objectivedescription of current social trends in addition to being a statementof political preference. Walther Rathenauonceobservedthat in the modern world, not politics but economicshasbecome"fate." According to Schmitt, however,Rathenaufailed to realizethe ultimate ramificationsof this dictum, insofarasautonomous laws of economic-technological concentrationhave led to a situation in which the economyitself, of necessity, repoliticized. One can seesuch tendencies is developing throughout all Western industrialized societies,where the "nightwatchman state" of the nineteenth century has developedinto the interventionist, "total state" of the twentieth century.Thus, accordingto Schmitt, the

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betweenstateand societyis conditionedby the fact that contemporarybalance today, "all problems are potentially political problems."azWhereas formerly the state was subjectedto alien, economic interests,now this situation has reverseditself, and the economyhas itself becomean object of political planof means(in the areas ning and control. The masteryof the new technological economic production, warfare,and masscommunications)has become,as it were, an imperative of survival for the modern state. As Schmitt observes, in No "Every political power is forced to take the new weapons hand."a3 state can, for example,afford to neglect the new technologicalmeansof influencing public opinion, such as cinemaand radio. "Behind the idea of the total state," observesSchmitt, "stands the correct realization that the contemporary state possesses new mechanismsof power and possibilitiesof enormous intensity, we and consequences can barelyanticipate."aa whoseultimate significance betrayshis theoreticalindebtedIn his argumentsfor the total state,Schmitt of nessto the most prominent representative the conservativerevolutionary representageneration,Ernst Jiinger, whom Schmitt praisesas "a remarkable Or, tive of the German Frontsold,aten." as Schmitt aversin "The Turn toward the Total State" (tg3r), "ErnstJiinger hasintroduced an extremelypregnant formulation for this astonishingprocess [wherebythe stateextendsitself to all spheresof society]: total mobilization."4sIn "Total Mobilization" and Der Arbeiter,Jiinger arguesthat the distinguishingfeatureof modernity asan era of "total war" is that the entirety of society'sresources-ideological,economic, scientific-are of necessityincorporatedinto the war effort; and that, consequently,the only form of political life proper to an era of "total mobilization" is that of a "total state." Thus, the new realitiesof struggle in an era of technological concentration dictate that society as a whole be fashionedafter a in military model. AsJtinger observes rg3o: In addition to the armieswho encounterone anotheron the battle-fields originate the modern armies of commerce,of food-production, of the armaments industry-the army of labor in general. . . . In this total incorporation of potentialenergies, which transformsthe warring industrial statesinto volcanic forges, the beginning of the "age of work" lAris beitszeitalter] perhapsmost strikingly apparent-it turns the World War into a historicalphenomenonthat is superiorto the French Revolutionin significance.a6 I make the strong claim that in Schmitt's past-r927 writings (beginning of with The Concept the Political and including his various commentarieson the theme of the "fascist" or "total state") there exists a body of work and a

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complexof ideasvia which one can trace the transformationof his authoritarian political philosophy of the early r92os into a protofascistic,conservative revolutionarypartisanshipfor a totalitarian state.In light of this assertion,it would seem that Schmitt's option for a totalitarian resolution of the political ills of Weimar was made in theory some six yearsbefore it was registeredin actual fact (Schmitt joined the Nazi Party in March 1933).To be sure, the encomium to the gloriesof Italian fascismwith which Schmitt concludes1n&e Crisis Parliamentary of Democracy points strongly in this direction. But it is not until his writings of the late rgzos that analogous themesoccupy a position of primacy in his work. It is at this point that Schmitt concludes,in a manner similar to Donoso Cort6s someseventyyearsearlier,that in the modern era, the "integrity of the political" can only be maintained through a plebiscitary, fascistdictatorship.From this conclusion,it is only a short step to the Gleichschahung legislationSchmitt drafts with alacrity at the behestof the Nazis in April 1933.47 Thus, alreadyin rgzg, with referenceto developments Italy, in Schmitt, in an essayentitled "Wesen und Werden des faschistischenStaates," had concludedthat, "the preponderance fascismover economicinterests. . . of the heroiceffort to maintain and preservethe dignity of the stateand fsignifies] of nationalunity vis-i-vis the pluralism of economicinterests."as

v
Thus far, we havetreated Schmitt's assimilationof the conservativerevolutionary habitu.r deriving from both his virulently antiliberal,decisionistic as theory ("sovereignis he who decideson the stateof the exception"),es of sovereignty well as his preoccupation with the vitalist theme of "intensive life." The latter preoccupation, hasbeensuggested, its origins in an existentialpredilecit has tion for so-calledboundary or extreme situations, which has been felicitously capturedby Bohrer via the expressionthe "aesthetics horror." It now falls of due to us to examinehow the motif identifiedby Bohrer is at work in Schmitt's rgzT work,,The Concept the Political-specifically,in Schmitt's glorification of of "war" asthe "highest instance"(or Ernstfal/) of politics. Recallthe opening citation to this chapter:"The pinnacleof great politics is the moment in which the enemycomesinto view in concreteclarity asthe enemy."4e Although it has becomefashionableamong Schmitt's defenders to refer to Schmitt qua proponent of political authoritarianismas the "Hobbes of the twentieth century," it is essential clarify what attractedhim to the political to thought of Hobbes. The stakesat issue have been incisively summarized by Leo Strauss,who observes, "Schmitt goesback againstliberalism to its orig-

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inator, Hobbes,in order to strike at the root of liberalism in Hobbes' explicit It negationof the stateof nature."s0 is not Hobbes qua theorist of the "social contract" whom Schmitt reveres,since this is the Hobbes who becomesthe intellectualprogenitor of Westernliberalism.Rather,it is Hobbes the theorist of the stateof nature qua stateof war that Schmitt finds worthy of admiration. As such, for Schmitt, war or the eventuality thereof becomesthe basisand as guarantorof greatpolitics; it is the ultimate Grenzsituation, it were,in which of the very existence a peopleor Volk is put to the test. But there is no small irony here, insofar as Schmitt, the supposeddefenderof the autonomyof the political, thereby elevates moment that for Hobbes epitomized the lawlessa (the stateof nature) to the position of prepolitical existence nessand chaosof existential raison d'tre of politics tnut court. Thus, Schmitt's conceptual in scheme point of fact endsup by standingHobbeson his head:the prepolitiof is cal bellumomniumcontranmnes turned into the essence the political in general. Without doubt, it is in his descriptionsof war as the existential,ultimate instanceof politics that Schmitt betraysmost profoundly his intellectual aF of revolutionaryaesthetics horror. With Jiinger, finities with the conservative "war is an intoxication beyond all intoxication, an unleashingthat breaksall only to the forcesof bonds.It is a force without cautionand limits, comparable for nature."5rFor Schmitt, similarly,"war, the readiness deathof fighting men, the physicalannihilation of other men who stand on the side of the enemy,all Or, that has no normative only an existentialmeaning.')sz as Schmitt, in an (Beingand, observationstrikingly redolentof HeideggerianExistenzphilosophie year), affirms in Time and The Concept the Political both appearin the same of TheConcept thePolitical,"The word strugglelKampfl,like the word enemy, of [Irsprilnglichis to be understood in its existential primordiality lseinsmrifiige keit].s3 Similarly,the friend-enemydistinction in terms of which Schmitt seeks to ground his "concept of the political," must be understood"in [its] concrete, existentialsense. . . The conceptsof friend, enemy,and strugglereceivetheir . real meaningespecially insofarasthey relateto and preserve real possibility the physicalannihilation.War follows from enmity,for the latter is theexistential of s + ga rifi lseinsm igef ne t i on of onother being.''' Schmitt's proponentsview his doctrinesas praiseworthyin that they serve to defend the autonomy of the political in faceof the modern denigration of politics in favor of "the social." Apparent textual support for such claims is of evincedby Schmitt's repeatedemphasison the specfficity politics vis-i-vis the other realmsof modern life. Thus, whereas "beauty" is the subjectmatter of aesthetics; "good and evil," that of morality; and "wealth," the focalpoint of

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the economics, inner logic of politics, so Schmitt claims,is grounded in terms of the friend-enemy dichotomy. But it takesno specialtalent for hermeneutical deciphermentto discern the speciousness the claim for Schmitt as champion of political autonomy.In of The Concept the Political, it is clear that "politics" standsin the serviceof of heteronomous, nonpoliticalpowers;namely,the powersof war. In no uncertain terms,in Schmitt's scheme, autonomyof politics is sacrificed the altar of the on There is no small irony here: Schmitt succumbs, war. mutatis mutandis,to the samecharges "occasionalism" of that he levelsagainst"political romanticism" in his book of r9rg. Like the political romantics,Schmitt's decisionisticconception of politics provesdevoidof intrinsic content and in needof an external pretext or "occasion" to realizeitself; the occasionin this instancebeing the possibilitiesfor existentialself-realizationembodied struggleor war. in Upon closer scrutiny Schmitt's attempt to separate politics from morality, allegedlyin the name of preservingthe autonomy of the political, also raises suspicions intellectualchicanery. we haveseen,the separation politics of As of from morality in the nameof a bellicose, socialDarwinist ethosof "existential self-preservation"merely servesto deliver the political over to the "alien" powers of war and struggle. In this way Schmitt has rashly abandonedthe classical doctrine of politics, accordingto which politics and morality are necessarilyinterrelated:accordingto this political lexicon, a "just" political order provesmost conduciveto a life of "virtue." An echo of this doctrine may be found in the tenets of modern liberal-democraricthought (e.g.,J. S. Mill), where an absence authoritarianpolitical interferenceshould prove conduof cive to the maximum development individual talentsand capacities. both of In classical modern theories,therefore,the proper end of political societyis to and varying degrees conceptionof the goodlife. But in Schmitt's political philosa ophy, we are forced to abandonany concept of higher political ends. Instead (and here the reliance on Hobbes is once again instructive), his existential definition of politics in terms of the primacy of the friend-enemy grouping compelsus to relinquish all claimsto the good life and insteadto rest content with "mere life" (i.e.,existentialself-preservation). In a perceptivereview-essay Ernst Ji.inger'srg3o anthology Krieg und of Krieger (War and warriors), appropriately titled, "Theories of German Fascism," Walter Beniaminanalyzes cult of violencepromotedbyJiinger et al. the as a perverseextensionof the bourgeoisdoctrine of art for art's sake.ss The celebrationof the "war experience"as an end in itself, the idea that what is important about war and struggleis not so much the endsthat arebeing fought for, but the fact of struggle as an intrinsic good, is viewedby Beniamin as an

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endorsement a fascistaesthetics violence, "violencefor violence's of of of sake." Schmitt's existentialjustification of war in The Concept the Political, where of what counts is not the specificends being fought for (the concept of a "just war" would haveno place in Schmitt's schema), but war as a touchstoneand basisfor political existenceas such (for this reason,the prospectof a "world governmentr" as implied by the Kantian doctrine of "perpetual peace,"signifies for Schmitt "the end of politics"), must be viewedas of a piecewith the by "theoriesof German fascism"discussed Benjamin in his rg3r review. Schmitt remarksin the early months of Hitler's dictatorshipthat "to stand of in the immediatepresence the political" meansto stand in the presence of life." In the samebreath, he assimilates Heraclitus's well-known "intensive aphorism (fragment 43) concerning "war" as "the father of all things" to the Yet endsof National Socialist"struggle."s6 this allusionto the integral relation between "intensive life" and "war" in no way symbolizesa "break" in his thinking; he has merely reiterated,under politically more propitious circumin the of stances, vitalist aesthetics violencehe had alreadyembraced the rg2os.

''OVER THE LINE'': REFLECTIONS OltI H E I D E G G E R AND ilATIO NAL

socrALtsll

tr
Given the significant attachment of the philosopher to the mood and intellectual habitus of National Socialism, it would be inappropriate to criticize or exonerate his political decisionin isolationfrom the very principlesof Heideggerianphilosophyitself. It is not Heidegger, whq in opting for Hitler, "misunderstood himself"; instead, those who cannot understand why he acted this way have failed to comprehend him. A Swiss lecturer regretted that Heidegger consentedto compromise himself with daily affairs, as if a philosophy that explains Being from the standpoint of time and the everydaywould not stand in relation to the daily affairs in which it makesits influence felt and originates. The possibility of a Heideggerianpolitical philosophy was not born as a result of a regrettable miscue, but from the very conception of existencethat simultaneously combatsand absorbsthe "spirit of the age."-Karl Lilwith, "The Political Implications of Heidegger'sExistentialism" Whoever does not want merely to judge Heidegger but also to appropriate initiatives and to learn from him must realize that in the thirties, Heidegger himself placed the decision about the truth of Being as he sought it in a political context.-Otto Ptiggeler, Path of Thinhing afterword to the secondedition, Martin Heid,egger's

I In his marvelouslythorough Nep York Reaiewof Booksessayon "Heidegger concludes observing:"one would do well by and the Nazisr" Thomas Sheehan . to readnothing of Heidegger'sanymore without raisingpolitical questions. . . thosefrom rg33 [One] must re-readhis works-particularly but not exclusively on-with strict attention to the political movement with which Heidegger himself choseto link his ideas.To do lessthan that is, I believe,finally not to understandhim at all."r Yet, ten yearsearlier,Sheehanhad arguedfor a very

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different position: that the relationshipbetweenHeidegger'spolitical commitment to Nazism and his philosophyitself wasnegligible;and that in any event, Heidegger'spartisanshipfor National Socialismhad beena short-livedaffair,a regrettable,momentary lapsuy that was in no way a sincereexpression the of philosopher's own innermostconviction.What wasit that induced Sheehan to arrive at such a radical volte-face? Above all, sincethe publication of the Heideggerbiographiesof Fariasand Ott, the typical rationalizations that had beeninvoked in the past to minimize the extent of Heidegger'scommitment to the Nazi causehavebecomewholly untenable. now know that Heidegger'salliancewith Nazism,far from being We temporary marriageof convenience, grandiose a was and profound: at leastfor a short period of time, Heideggerlaboredunder the delusionthat he could play the role of "philosopher-king" to Hitler's Fiihrerstaal-which, to many, has parallelswith Plato's ill-fated venture with the tyrant Dionysius at suggested As Syracuse.2 the philosopherOtto Piiggelerhasphrasedit, Heideggersought "den Fiihrer fiihren" (to leadthe leader),Adolf Hitler, alongthe proper course so that the "National Revolution" might fulfill its appointed metaphysical National Socialdestiny.3 Heideggerbelievedthat in its early manifestations, ism possessed the capacity to initiate a great spiritual renewal of German Dosein.In it, he saw a potential countermovementto the fate of "European nihilism," of perpetualspiritual decline,as it had beendiagnosed the leadby ing German "conservativerevolutionary" critics of his generation-Oswald were Spengler,Ludwig Klages, and Ernst Ji.inger-thinkers who, in essence, merely following the powerful critique of Western modernity that had been outlined someforty yearsearlierby Friedrich Nietzsche. To be sure,it appears that Heidegger'sunderstandingof National Socialism had little in common with the ideologyof genocidalimperialismvia which the movementhasleft its gruesomeimprint on twentieth-centuryhistory.But we know that he was sufficiently convincedof National Socialism's"inner truth and greatness"4 haveacquiredthe reputation of a zealouspropagandiston to behalfof the new regimein its initial stages. And thus, following his acceptance of the rectorship at the University of Freiburg in May 1933,Heideggertravin eled around Germany deliveringspeeches favor of Hitler's policies.He also proved an enthusiasticsupporter of Gleichschaltung legislation (the so-called Law for Reconstitutingthe Civil Service),which barred Jews and other undesirablesfrom Germany's civil service,replacing them instead with party members.Lastly, it should be kept in mind that Heidegger was not merely a Nazi sympathizer, but was in fact found guilty of political crimes by a (favorably disposed)university peer review committee immediately following the

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war. As a result, he wasbannedfrom university life for closeto five years.These to crimes included denouncingpolitical undesirables the Nazi authorities,inand enthusiciting studentsagainst"reactionary" (i.e., non-Nazi) professors, astically transforming the university along the lines of the Nazi "leadership principle" or Fiihrerprinzip.s In December 1945,the aforementionedpeer review committee contacted the philosopher Karl Jaspersfor an evaluationof Heidegger'sactivities and Among Jaspers's most telling observations, one finds the following character. remarks: Heidegger is a significant potency,not through the content of a philosophicalworld-view,but in the manipulationof speculative tools.He hasa philosophical aptitude whoseperceptionsare interesting;although,in my opinion, he is extraordinarilyuncritical and standsat a removefrom true eigentlichen Wissenschaft stehtl. He often proceedsas if he sciencefd,er fern combinedthe seriousness nihilism with the mystagogyof a magician. of In lthe torrent of his language is occasionally he able,in a clandestine and remarkable way,to strike the coreof philosophicalthought. In this regard he is, as far as I can see,perhapsunique among contemporaryGerman philosophers. that thosewho helpedplaceNational SocialIt is absolutelynecessary ism in the saddlebe called to account.Heideggeris among the few professorsto have done that. . . . In our situation [i.e., after the war] the educationof youth must be handled with the greatestresponsibility.. . . in unfree, Heidegger'smannerof thinking, which to me seems its essence would dictatorial, and incapableof communicationfcommunikationslos], in today be disastrous its pedagogical effects.. . . Heideggercertainly did not se! through all the real powers and goalsof the National Socialist leaderb.. . . But his manner of speakingand his actions have a certain affinity with National Socialist characteristics, which makes his error comprehensible.6 And thus, in view of the extent and profundity of Heidegger'scommitment to the National Socialistrevolution, the question inevitably arises:To what extent is Heidegger'sphilosophy implicated in his ignominious life-choice of the early r93os?It is presumably on the basis of such considerationsthat Jaspers,in the continuation of the remarks cited, recommendsto university officialsthat Heideggerbe suspended from the faculty for a period of several years after the war; and that Thomas Sheehan urges a careful reading of Heidegger'sphilosophicaltexts in light of his political beliefs.And it is un-

126 "Over the Line" doubtedly as a result of a kindred set of concernsthat Karl Liiwith, in the opening epigraph to this chapter,suggests that, "it would be inappropriateto criticize or exonerate [Heidegger's]political decisionin isolationfrom the very principlesof Heideggerianphilosophyitself." Are, however, precedingadmonitionshermeneuticallyiustifiable? the Don't such interpretive practicesrisk imputing to Heidegger's philosophicaldoctrines a political content that only comesinto view ex post facto?Isn't there, moreover,an even more seriousrisk at issue,one againstwhich Heidegger's French defendershave stridently warned: the risk that we would judge the contributions of an undeniablygreat thinker exclusivelyon the basisof political motifs that are,strictly speaking "extrinsic to thought"? We would thereby succumbto the practiceof convicting the philosophyon the basisof a type of spurious" guilt-by-association. " It would be dishonestto deny the cogencyof the foregoing caveats. And philosthus, it shouldbe clearlyacknowledged that to suggest that Heidegger's ophy in its entirety would in some way be "disqualified" as a result of his political misdeeds-howeveregregiousthesemight prove-would be an act of bad faith. The requirementsof intellectual honesty demand that we judge a philosopherin the first instanceon the merits of her thought. Yet, it is precisely this comforting artificial dichotomy between work and worldviewthat hasbeenincreasingly calledinto questionof late in Heidegger's There is undeniableevidenceto suggestthat Heideggerhimself viewed case.7 his political commitmentsin the early rg3osasof a piecewith his philosophy; that he consideredhis "engagement" for National Socialismas a type of a of "political actualization" of the "existentials" (Existenzialen) Beingand,Time: of categories such as "historicity," "destiny," "potentiality-for-Being-a-Self," and so forth. In the philosopher'sown mind, his "existential decision" for National Socialismin r933 signifieda decisionfor "authenticity." And thus, in a ry36 conversationwith Ltiwith, Heidegger agrees"without reservation" with the suggestionthat "his partisanshipfor National Socialismlay in the essence his philosophy."s course,in keepingwith the foregoingcaveats, of Of such conclusionsshould in no way be interpreted to suggestthat Nazism political corollary of a work like Being would somehowconstitute the necessary and Time. However, that in the mind of its author, its conceptual framework proved readily compatiblewith the greatestform of political tyranny our century has known suggeststhe need for considerablecritical reflection on the ethico-politicalsubstance Heidegger'srgzT work. of It is in this vein that Otto Ptiggeler-in a manner that parallelsSheehan's cautionaryremarks-has suggested, "Was it not through a definite orientation

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of his thought that Heidegger fell-and not merely accidentally-into the proximity of National Socialism,without ever truly emergingfrom this proximity?"ePiiggelertherebyimplicitly seconds Sheehan's suggestion concerning the imperativenecessity reexaminingHeidegger'scorpusfor thosepotential of intellectualshortfallsthat might haveprecipitatedhis engagement Nazism for in the early rg3os.However,Piiggeler's remarksalsoimply the possibility that in his later years Heidegger may have never completely emergedfrom that "proximity" to National Socialism. But this allegation must stand as an intellectual-philosophical rather than a political judgment. We know that asof the mid-r93os Heideggerincreasinglydistancedhimself from the realitiesof Nazism as a contemporarypolitical movement.In his view, the "inner truth and greatness"of its historical potential (as an expressionof "the encounter betweenplanetarytechnologyand modern man")10 waspervertedby usurpers and pretenders;for example,by those proponents of racial-biologicalNational Socialismsuch asErnst Krieck and Alfred Baeumler,who had, at Heidegger's expense,gained control of the "philosophical direction" of the movement. Heideggerexplainsthe ideologicalbasisfor his support of National Socialism as follows: "f . . . believedthat the movement could be spiritually directed onto other parts and . . . felt such an attempt could be combinedwith the socialand overall political tendenciesof the movement. I believedthat Hitler, after he assumedresponsibility for the whole Volk in 1933, would grow beyond the party and its doctrine and everythingwould come together,through a renovation and a rallying, in an assumptionof Western responsibility.This belief provederroneous, I recognizedfrom the eventsof 3oJune r934."r1 as Although Heidegger was extremely critical of "historically existing" National Socialism(his criticismsbecomequite explicit at times in his lecturesof the late r93os and early r94os), he seemsnever to haveabandoned earlier his conviction that the dawn of the movementitself (or the "National Awakening" asit wasreferred to amongits supporters)containedseeds true greatness. of It is thus fairly clear that, to the end of his days,Heideggerneverabandoned his faith in the movement's authentic historical potential, its "inner truth and greatness." Thus, in his rg45 apologiawritten for a university denazification commission,Heidegger,insteadof critically distancinghimself from his earlier beliefs,merely reaffirmshis original pro-Nazi convictions:"I sawin the movement that had iust cometo power [in 1933]the possibilityof a spiritual rallying and renewalof the Volk and a way of finding its western-historicaldestiny." And when questionedsometwenty yearslater in a Spiegel interview about the elegy to the "Glory and greatness the [National] Awakening" with which he of concludedhis 1933RectoralAddress,Heideggercan only reply-again, with-

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out a modicum of contrition-"Yes, I was convincedof that."12His refusalto come forth with an unambiguouspublic disavowal his earlier political ties, of great irritation and dismay,even among those moreover,hasbeen a sourceof It seekingto defend his legacy.13 is an omissionthat lends additional credence to P<iggeler's suggestion that Heideggercontinuedto work "without evertruly emerging" from his fateful proximity to Germany'sNational Revolution.

tl Piiggeler's claim that it was through a "definite orientationof his thought that Heidegger fell . . . into the proximity of National Socialism"*ay well prove indispensable understandingthe philosophicalbases Heidegger'spolitifor of His subsequentobservation that Heidegger may have never cal involvement. truly emergedfrom that proximity suggests much greater measureof cona tinuity betweenthe "early" and "later" Heidegger than is usually admitted. Wherein might this continuity lie? The critical issue may well hinge on a "historicization" of our understandingof Heidegger'sphilosophy.That is, on an appreciationof the extent to which his philosophy is implicated-almost sharedby the German despite itself-in a set of intellectual presuppositions intelligentsia of his era.la Certainly the brilliant philoradical-conservative sophical d6marche that is Being and Time is in no way reducible to the aforeAnd in this respectmany of the contributions mentioned"historical" elements. Heidegger has made toward recastingthe traditional forms of philosophical questioning remain unimpugnable.Yet if it is true that in the philosopher's own mind there existed an essentialrelation betweenfundamentalontology all and (a, to be sure,idealizedversion of) National Socialism,it becomes the more important to identify thoseaspects his thinking that led to this fateful of political partisanship. The essential element linking the early and the later Heidegger-and that dimensionof his thought that givesdeterminatecontent and meaningto Piiggeler'ssuggestive remarksconcerningHeidegger'sprecariouspolitical "proxHeideggerfully subimity"-is Heidegger'scritiqueof mod,ernity.Inessence, scribes the critical indictment of the totality of modern life-forms (associated to with the traits of prosaicand materialistic, bourgeoisZiailisation) that hasbeen Kulturkritik sincethe nineteenthcentury. a mainstayof German conservative This position receivedits consummateand most intellectually sophisticated work. There, a far-reachingcritique of modern phiarticulation in Nietzsche's as politics, and culture-which are viewedessentially manifestations losophy, of decline-is combined with a nostalgicidealizationof the prephilosophical expectationthat (i.e., pre-Socratic) Greek polis and the quasi-apocalyptical

"Over the Line"

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a nihilistic Westernmodernity will soon be supplantedby a new heroic ethos, in which the much-vaunted"self-overcomingof nihilism" reaches point of a crystallization. All three "spheres"-philosophy, politics, and art-suffer from the same affliction: a surfeit of subjectivity. Thus, modern philosophy, since Descartes, hasbecome"epistemology," narrowing the scopeand purview of philosophical questioningto rescogitans (thinking substance): new solipsistic the fund,amentum inconcussurn substitutesfor the divine guarantees scholasticism. that of Politics hasbecome"liberalism," which meansthat the standpointof the selfenclosed, monadic individual hasemergedas its absolutepoint of reference. A greaterantithesisto the classical polis, in which the individual good wasalways subordinatedto the good of the whole, could scarcelybe imagined. Finally, modern art, from romanticism to art for art's sake,has assumeda predominantly effete,private, and self-referentialcharacter.It hasthereby forfeited that monumental quality that once suffusedGreek architectureand tragedy,and that wascapable spiritually uniting the polis and its citizens.Or, asNietzsche of himself formulates his indictment of aestheticmodernism with unabashed candor:"L'art pour l'ort: the virtuoso croakingof shiveringfrogs,despairingin their swamp."ls Heidegger sharesthis resolutely antimodernist worldview to an extreme. And if one is sincerelyinterestedin understandingthe political implicationsof his thought, it would be difficult to overemphasize absolutecentrality of the this perspective,which served as the ideologicalprism, as it were, through which he interpreted the political eventsof the twentieth century.Despite the criticisms that are directed toward Nietzschein the lecturesof ry36-4r, Heideggernever breaksentirely with the fundamentalterms of this-in essence, Nietzschean-"conservativerevolutionary" critique of modernity. And thus, point, Heideggerand Nietzscheshow themmethodological on one essential selvesto be in complete agreement:in the conviction that the decline of modernity has "progressed"so far that it can no longer be redeemedby the methods of immanent criticism; that is, in the manner of earlier critics of modernity qua "bourgeois society," such as Hegel, Tocqueville, and Marx, who still believed that the value-orientations of this society were capableof redemption from within. Instead,for both Nietzscheand Heidegger,only the categories "total critique" will sufficeto capturethe essence this Fichtean of of era of "absolutesinfulness." Thus, Heidegger,while proceedingfrom a significantly different philosophical orientation, shareswith Nietzschea number of essentialvalue-premises. Among them: the aforementioned glorificationof the pre-Platonicpolis (Heidegger'semphasisof course falls on pre-Socraticphilosophy rather than, as

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with Niezsche, on Attic tragedy);and, perhapsmost important, the conviction that indicatesthe path alongwhich an authentic that it is art rather than science ( Aberwindung) modern nihilism must proceed.This convicof "overcoming" and "poetic tion explains the seminal role played by the conceptsof poesis Here, toq it would be fruitful to dwelling" in Heidegger'slater philosophy.r6 compareNietzsche'syouthful enthusiasmfor Greek tragedyand the music of Wagner with Heidegger's parallel enthusiasm for Hiilderlin in the ErkiuterDichtung(Commentarieson H<ilderlin's poetry). According zu ungen Hiild,erlins to Heidegger,as Sophocleswas to ancient Greece,Hiilderlin is to modern that is, the disposition fGrundstimmungf, Germany.And thus, "The essential Or, Daseinof a nation fVotk],,isoriginally foundedby the poet."17 truth of the the asHeideggerremarkselsewhere, poet is the "voice of the Volk."r8 profferedby Nietzsche,accordingto That Heidegger sharesthe Zeitdiagnose which Europeanculture is viewed as essentiallymoribund and nihilistic, ache tenor of the value-judgments setsforth countsfor the distinctiveideological concerning modern forms of life. Thus, for example, in the Spiegelinterview, Literatur) as "preHeideggersummarily dismisses modern literature (heutige in contrastto the poetry of Hrilderlin or the art of the dominantly destructive": Or, Greeks,it lacksgrounding in the historicallife of a people.re asHeidegger in elsewhere, a thinly veiledattackagainstthe spirit of "cosmopolitanobserves ism": "Does not the flourishing of any genuinework dependupon its roots in a native soil?"zO Similarly, in the Nietzsche lectures of the late r93os, while (collective work of flirting with the Wagnerian ideal of the Gesamtkunstmerk art), he reaffirms his conviction that art must serve as the foundation of the (the Volksgemeinschaft Nazi term for the German "National Community"): "With referenceto the historical position of art, the effort to produce the 'collective artwork' remains essential.The very name lGesamtbunstwerkf demonstrative.For one thing, it means that the arts should no longer be realizedapart from one another,but that they should be conjoinedin onework. But beyond such sheerquantitativeunification, the artwork should be a celebration of the Volksgemeinschaft: it should be thereligion."2r Heideggeremphaticallyseconded historianJacobBurckhardt'sopinion the for that the institution of democracywas responsible the downfall of the ancient polis. Thus, in l(hat is Called Thinking (rg5+), he approvingly cites form of Nietzsche'scharacterization "modern democracy"asa "degenerate of Further, Heideggersummarily dismisses the state" (Verfallsform Staats).z2 d,es political liberalism,which is"tyrannical insofarasit requiresthat everybody be left to his own opinion."23 His criticism of the inadequacies modern "science"(in the German sense of dates of Wissenschafi) from the rgzg Freiburg inaugurallecture"What is Meta-

"Over the Line"

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physics?"and the celebrated debatewith Cassirerin Davos,alsoin rg2g, over neo-Kantianism.In the former work, Heideggerlamentsthe lack the legacyof of existential rootednessand unity afflicting the various contemporary sciences:"The scientific fields are still far apart. Their subjectsare treated in fundamentally different ways. Today this hodgepodgeof disciplines is held together only by the technical organization of the universities and faculties and preserves what meaningit hasonly through the practicalaims of the different ground."2a the In havelost their roots in their essential The sciences branches. in two crucial respects, crossing"over the line" he debatewith Cassirer, risks, that is, the "line" sepaseparating "scientific" from "nonscientific" statements; claims to truth. First, in his proclamation rating falsifiablefrom nonfalsifiable it: of the equiprimordiality of "truth" and "untruth." Or, asHeideggerphrases as "On the basisof finitude man'sBeing-in-the-truth is simultaneously Beingin-the-untruth. Untruth belongsto the innermost coreof Dasein."Second,in his attempt to link the "question of Being" itself to a specific ideological perspective as he calls it, a "determinate worldview": "In what way must a or, metaphysicof Daseinbe initiated?" inquires Heidegger."Does not a determiIt nate worldview lie at its basis? is not philosophy'stask to provide a worldpresupplses indeed alread,y view; however, to do philosophy fPhilosophieren) Over the next few years, as the crisis of the Weimar such a worldview."2s Republic reachedits point of no return, Heidegger would make few efforts to concealthe "determinateworldview" that subtendedhis own mannerof doing philosophy.26 There is a direct conceptual lineage between the criticisms of "science" voiced in these "purely philosophical" writings of the late rg2os and the four yearshence in the dubious political positions Heidegger would espouse 1933Rectoral Address,where he openly mocks the existenceof the "muchfreedom"'and redefinesthe "will to science"(Wille zur ballyhooed'academic LTissenschaft) "a will to the historical-spiritual mission of the German Volk as that knowsitself in its State."27In dicta suchasthese,Heideggeris only a hair's for breadthremovedfrom the militant appeals "politicized science"that swept Nazi Germany during these years. For Heidegger, "Mere intelligence is a semblanceof spirit, masking its absence."2s And thus, the "sham-culture" (Scheinkultur)of Western Ziailisation will be overcome only if the "spiritual world" of the Volkis groundedin "the deepest preservation the forcesof soil of and blood."2e Such conclusions derive from an all-too-familiar reiectionof the spirit of modernity,which fostersvaluesthat are "cosmopolitan"and, as such, alien to the "forces of soil and blood" that Heidegger-anachronisticallyviewsasa precondition for historicalgreatness. It is this critique of "science" and "intelligence" as part of the "sham-

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culture" of modernity that provides the crucial moment of intellectual continuity betweenHeidegger'sphilosophicalwritings of the late r92os and his pro-Nazi texts of theearly r93os.And in retrospect, itis perhaps this dimension of his thought that strikesone asmost problematic-yet highly symptomatic. The critique of "science" is perfectly indicative of the way in which "philosophy" and "ideology" becomeinextricablycommingledin Heidegger's post-r927thinking. Moreover,a greatdangerhauntsthis immoderaterejection of all inherited WissenschafL that will besetthe entirety of his subsequent one philosophical oeuvre: the danger that Heidegger's own philosophizing will "cross the line" separatingwarranted philosophicalassertionfrom unverifiable, ex cathedrapronouncements. More and more, especially the later writin ings,Heidegger'sphilosophicalcomportmentresembles that of a prophet who views himself as standing in a position of immediate accessto Being. Inhis creasingly, discoursethreatensto makeits standbeyondthe realm of philo* sophicalstatements that are capableof being discursivelyredeemed.In celebrating the ineffability of Being (or, accordingto Heidegger'squasi-theological in answer to the Seinsf.rage the tg46 "Letter on Humanism": "Yet BeingWhat is Being? It is ft itself"),30Heidegger risks promoting an intellectual method and style whosedistinguishingfeatureis its "nonfalsifiability." Nor is the credibility of his standpoint furthered by claims such as the following: "Thinking begins only when we have come to know that reason,glorified for centuries,is the most stiff-necked adversaryof thought.3rAnd thus, when facedwith philosophicaldisquisitionsthat claim a privileged relation vis-i-vis the the mysteriousdestiningsof Seinsgeschick, claims of critical philosophythat is, of a post-Kantianthought that is capable reflectingin earneston its of own foundations-must go by the board. Heidegger'sthinking, therefore,appears be afflictedby a twofold debility: to a disdain of traditional methods of philosophicalargumentation,which emphasizethe nonesoteric, generalizable characterof philosophicalcontentsand and an empirical deficit that follows from his rejection of the iudgments; individual sciences. Inevitably,the questionmust arise:Did not a certainmetaphysicalhubris, stemming in part from a philosophicallyconditioned neglect of empirical findings (e.9., the disciplinesof history and the social sciences) When the adversely affectthe philosopher's capacityfor political discernment? traiectory of concretehistorical life is restyledaccordingto the logic of a selfpositing '(history of Being," whose ethereal "sendings" (Schichungen) seem political judgment is deprived of any impervious to counterfactualinstances, verifiabletouchstone. In this regard, Karl Liiwith has contributed the following soberreflections

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on Heidegger's methodologicalafflictions: "Philosophical reflection on the 'pass whole of what exists in nature, which is the world . . cannot merely science without falling into the void. It is easilysaid,and it would be a reby' lief, if philosophicalthought were to dwell beyond what is provableand refutable; if, however,the realm of [Heideggerian]'essentialthinking' were to surpass all proof and refutation, then philosophy would have to do neither with truth nor with probability, but rather with uncontrollable claims and allegations."32

l tl It is clearthat asof the early r93os,Heideggersoughtto immersethe "question of Being" in the vortex of contemporary political events.Heretofore, the most telling evidenceto this effect has been the 1933Rectoral Address, where Heidegger explicitly interweaveskey categories from Being and, Time with the rhetoric of Germany'sNational Revolution.But a further exampleof his conviction that philosophy and contemporary politics were necessarilyinterrelated hasrecentlycometo light with the publicationof his rg34lecture course on logic.33 logig" Heidegger begins. "We bid farewell to the "We want to conaulse that views logic as a merely formal affairr" he continues, tawdry affogance to leaving no doubt that traditional approaches the subiect must be wholly rejected.Formal approaches logic are part of a shallow "intellectualism" to (Intellektualismus) in againstwhich Heideggeralsopolemicizes "What is Metaphysics?"and the RectoralAddress. Instead, Heidegger wishes to endow logic with existential substance. He in thereby seeksto relate it directly to the categorialframework established Being and Tirne, to the "question of Being." The chief failing of traditional metaphysicslay in its attempt to conceiveof Being as "presDce,l' that is, nontemporally.By seekingto relateBeing to "temporality" in his rgzT work, Heidegger sought to redressthis condition. Being is not something statig merely given, or present-at-hand(aorhanden) like a thing; as an "event" (Ereignis) hasa history.Daseinor human being is "ecstatic": it proiectsitself it into the future on the basisof decisive appropriationsof its past.Yet Heidegger once affirmed that it was precisely the theory of historicity in Being and Time that representedthe philosophical basis for his commitment to National Socialism.3a Heidegger remarks there, anticipating the political preceptshe As would developsix yearslater in the RectoralAddressand other texts:"If fateful Dasein,as Being-in-the-world, exists essentiallyin Being-with-others, its his-

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toricizing is a cohistoricizingand is determinativefor it asdestiny. This is how we designate historicizingof a communitg a Volk.'rs the Returning to the claims of his rg34lecture course,we now seemore clearly what it meantfor Heideggerto giveformal logic an existentialor historicalturn in the sense "historicity." In this respect,one would do well to keepin mind of Ltiwith's remarks,cited at the chapter'soutset,suggesting that it washardly an act of self-misunderstanding that led Heidegger to relate his ontologically derivedtheory of historicity to contemporarypolitical events. Instead,in many respects,this was preciselythe point of Heideggerianismqua philosophy of existence.At issue was not merely another version of contemplative"first philosophy" or traditional "science," but a doctrine of authenticity that demandedtemporal-historical realization. In the lectureson logic, as in the RectoralAddress,what this meansmore specifically becomes clear:the National Revolutionneedsa theory of historicity just asthe theory such asHeidegger'sin order to elevate itself philosophically, of historicity needsNazism-or a political movementlike it-to reverse tide the of Europeannihilism and establish political basisfor a recoveryof "Grecothe Germanic Dasein."The philosophicalchauvinisminvolved in the latter conception correspondsto the seriousiudgmental incapacitiessubtendingboth Heidegger's initial commitment to Nazism and, later, his failure to distance himself from the movement'salleged"inner truth and greatness." Thus, in his Nietzschelectures,Heideggerreadsthe fall of France(rg4o) in terms: it represents appropriatehistoricaldestinyfor ontological-historical the a nation that has remained weddedto an outmoded concept of metaphysics, Cartesianism. Conversely, Germany's Blitzhrieg victory is a testimony to the powers of actiuenihilism, "which does not confine itself to witness the slow Only activelyto reversethe process."36 collapse the existent[but] intervenes of a nation like Germany that embodiesthe principles of Nietzsche'ssuperman, Heideggercontinues,"is capable an unconditional 'machineeconomy'and of vice versa: the one needs the other in order to establishan unconditional domination over the earth."i7 Here, Heidegger'sargument is taken directly from Jiinger's reading of Nietzsche in The Worker.'only a total or totalitarian state ian adequately harness the nihilistic powers of modern technology for or endsof historicalgreatness "active nihilism." In the 1934courseon logic,Heideggergivesus a more precise, "existenziell" view of what authentichistoricity entails."Negroes," he begins,"are men but haveno history. . . . Nature hasits history.But then Negroeswould alsohave history. Or does nature then have no history? It can enter into the past as somethingtransitory,but not everything that fadesaway enters into history.

"Over the Line"

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'occurs.' When an airplane'spropeller turns, then nothing actually leigentlichl Conversely,when the sameairplane takesHitler to Mussolini, then history occurs.tt38 Turning to the ry35 Introductionto Metaphyslcs-the sametext in which we find the aforementioned eulogy to the "inner truth and greatness National of Socialism"-Heidegger proffers his own historical-ontological (seinsgeschichtlich) Zeitdiagnose: The spiritual declineof the earth is so far advanced that the nationsare in dangerof losingthe last bit of spiritual energythat makesit possible see to the decline(takenin relation to the history of "Being"), and to appraiseit as such. This simple observationhas nothing to do with Kulturpessimismus,and, courseit hasnothing to do with any sort of optimism either; of for the darkeningof the world, the flight of the gods,the destruction of the earth,the transformationof men into a mass,the hatredand suspicion of everything free and creative,haveassumedsuch proportions throughout the earth that such childish categoriesas pessimismand optimism havelong sincebecomeabsurd. We are caught in a pincers. Situated in the center, our Volk incurs the pressure.It is the Volk with the most neighborsand hence the severest most endangered. With all this, it is the most metaphysical nations.. . . of All this implies that this Volk, as a historical Volh,must move itself and therebythe history of the Westbeyondthe centerof their future "happening" and into the primordial realm of the powers of Being. If the great decisionregardingEurope is not to bring annihilation,that decisionmust be madein terms of the new spiritual energies unfolding historicallyfrom out of the middle.3e The foregoing historical commentaryin no way representsan extraneous, nonphilosophicaldigressionfrom the primary ontologico-metaphysical question at issue.In point of fact, Heidegger'slecturesand texts of the r93os and judgments.It is r94os abound with kindred sweepinghistorico-philosophical clear that, for Heidegger, our very capacity to pose the Seinsfrageitself is integrally tied to our ability to overcomethe contemporaryhistorical crisis"the darkeningof the world, the flight of the gods,the destructionof the earth, the transformationof men into a mass"-and in this overcoming,history and politics will undeniably play a primary role. For if the "clearing" (Lichtung) that is a prerequisitefor the emergence Being is a temporal clearing,this of meansthat the "presencing" of Being is essentially historical presencing-a a Seinsgeschichte. this sense,as Heidegger makesundeniably clear, the "quesIn

r36

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a tion of Being" is, according to its essence, historical question. This is a conviction that follows directly from one of the most central (anti-Platonic) insights of Being and Time: that Being's coming to presenceis inexorably a Yet, this is only another way of sayingthat the temporolcoming to presence. (or self-concealment) Being is essentiallya question of historof emergence is icity. For Heidegger,too, "readiness all"; that is, all dependson our readiness to heed the call of Being. However,our receptivity to Being is ineluctablytied preparedness. When Heidegger,a to our current stateof historical-ontological few paragraphsafter the precedingcitation, observes: "That is why we have relatedthe questionof Being to the destinyof Europe,wherethe destinyof the earth is being decided-while our own [i.e., Germany's]historic Daseinproves he to be the center for Europe itself,"a0 betraysunambiguouslythe historicalontological rationale behind his partisanship for what he will refer to as "Western-GermanichistoricalDasein."ar to Astonishingly,references the "historical singularity of National SocialAnd that "singularity," moreover,is in no way ism" persist as late as rg4z.42 viewednegatively;that is, asa "regression"vis-i-vis historicallyreceivedprinciplesof justice,morality, and truth. Instead,it points to National Socialism's "inner truth and greatnessr"which Germany and the Germans proved too weak to realize.To the bitter end, Heidegger holds out in his belief that the "overcomingof nihilism was announcedin the poetic thinking and singing of The essence Or, the Germans."43 ashe opinesin rg43: "The planetis in flames. of man is out of joint. Only from the Germans can there come a worldhistoricalreflection-if, that is, they find and preservetheir'Germanness'f/as readingof conThus, accordingto Heidegger'sneo-ontological Deutsche)."44 power" of Western temporary history, Germany still representsthe "saving humanity, instead of its scourge.In "Overcoming Metaphysics," Nazism, rather than signifying a "totalitarian deformation" of Western modernity, is merely its nihilistic "consummation." But can't this astoundingtheoreticalmyopia-in truth, part of a grandiose and elaboratestrategyof denial-at leastin part be attributed to Heidegger's For own efforts toward self-exculpation? if it is "Western metaphysics"that is in fact responsiblefor the devastating"events of world history in this century,"+s then certainly Germany as a nation (which Heidegger persists on viewing asthe vehicleof our salvation)needbear specialresponsibilityneither nor for the Europeancatastrophe for its "crimes againsthumanity." It is in this vein that his insensitiveresponseto Herbert Marcuse's query as to why he neverbotheredto condemnsuch"crimes" publicly must be understood.Or, as in Heideggerobserves, a monumentalinstanceof bad faith, with referenceto

"Over the Line"

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the annihilation of millions of EuropeanJews: "if instead of Jews' you had written 'East Germans,'then the sameholds true for one of the Allies, with the difference that everything that has occurred since rg45 has become public knowledge, while the bloody terror of the Nazis in point of fact had beenkept a secretfrom the German people."a6 Given Heidegger's penchant for dogmatic historical judgments and the equationof incomparables, is hardly surprisingif, upon turning to the text of it a rg4g lecture, we find the following observations:"Agriculture is today a motorized food industry, in essence sameasthe manufactureof corpsesin the gaschambersand exterminationcamps,the sameas the blockadeand starvation of countries,the sameas the manufactureof atomic bombs."a7 But here, toq the essentialpoint is philosophical,not biographical: such travestiesof historical reasoningin no way representtangentialasides; instead,they go to the essence the incapacities the "history of Being" as a framework for of of historicalunderstanding.

tv Few thinkers can claim so auspicious philosophicaldebut ascould Heidegger a with Beingand Time.But alreadyin that work, one finds a characteristicdisdain of traditional methods of philosophicalargumentation.At crucial junctures, Heidegger'smodus operanditends to be "evocative"rather than "discursive." And thus, according to Ernst Tugendhat, "The procedure of explication through the sheer accumulation of words [Worthriufung]is frequent in Being method"-a and,Time; it is connectedwith what I have called the eoocatiae whoseconcepmethod that is characterized the employmentof neologisms by It tual self-evidenceis merely assumedrather than argued for.as is this method that provokedAdorno's polemicalire in TheJargon of Authenticity,where it is Existenzphilosophie to it that what it wantsis on allegedthat Heideggerian "sees the whole felt and acceptedthrough its mere delivery, without regard to the content of the words used." Insofar as"the wordsof the jargon soundasif they saidsomethinghigher than what they mean . . . whoeveris versedin the jargon doesnot have to say what he thinks, doesnot even haveto think it properly."ae All of which is to saythat Heidegger'sambivalences about "Wissenschaft,"or about traditional discursivemethods of philosophicalargumentation,are already fully apparentin his magnum opus of rgz7. Moreover, as a number of critics havepointed out, Heidegger'simperioususeof philosophicalterminology is far from unrelatedto his distastefulpolitical leanings.And thus it falls due to inquire as to whether in Heidegger'scasea certain "linguistic authori-

r38

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tarianism" does not in fact prove the harbinger of a distinctly authoritarian political disposition.Or, as the German political scientistAlfons Srillner has remarked,echoingAdorno's suspicions:"the authoritariansense nonsense or of Heideggerianphilosophylies in its jargon and its linguistic gestures."s0 In his post hoc attemptsto accountfor his involvementwith the politics of German fascism,Heidegger never made a secretof the fact that in 1933,he "expectedfrom National Socialisma spiritual renewalof life in its entirety,a reconciliationof socialantagonisms, a deliverance WesternDaseinfrom and of the dangersof Communism."SlTo be sure, Heidegger's expectationswere ultimately disappointed.But our discussionthus far has sought to make clear that the aforementioned political desiderata derive directly from Heidegger's philosophicalprogram itself; specifically, they result from that program'sradicalizationin the late rgzos, as Heidegger becomesincreasinglyconvincedof the essentially nihilistic tenor of Western "science"-a term that for him becomessynonymouswith the totality of inherited intellectual paradigmssinpliciter. It is the radicality of this critique that convincesHeidegger of the necessity "extreme solutions"and the needto makea total breakwith valueof orientationsof Europeanmodernity.He believed(erroneously, it would turn as out) that National Socialismoffered the prospect of an awakeningof Germany's "epochal" historical mission, which he incongruously equateswith a "repetition" of the "Greek beginning." Even after the German collapseof 1945, he would perversely insist that if only the right pressureshad been brought to bear on the movement in its early stages, everything might have turned out for the better: "[Who knows] what would havehappenedand what could havebeenavertedif in 1933all available powershad arisen,graduallyand in secretunity, in order to purify and moderatethe'movement' that had come to power?"s2 With the advantage somesixty yearsof historical hindsight, it is easyfor of us to condemn Heidegger'sactions and beliefs.Pre-Nazi Germany was exposedin rapid succession a demoralizingdefeatin World War I, an exacting to peacetreaty,catastrophic inflation, political chaos,and a severe economicdepression.The historically availableprogressive political options were indeed few. What cannot but give cause for dismay, however, is Heidegger's repeated insistence after the war that, if only the proper forceshad beenbrought to bear on Germany's National Revolution, matters would have been entirely different. Such a claim is extremely difficult to uphold. As indicated above, Heideggerdateshis disillusionmentwith the National Socialistprogram from 3oJune ry34. Yet, evenin the regime'sfirst few months, the brutal characteris-

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tics of totalitarian rule were as plain as noonday: the Reichstaglay in flames, parliamenthad beendissolved,the SocialDemocratic Party had beenbanned, the trade unions had been forcibly disbanded, Jewshad been dismissedfrom the civil service (university teaching included), civil liberties had been suspended,and as of the Enabling Act of z4 March 1933,Hitler was in essence governing by decree.That Heidegger felt sufficiently comfortable with the trappings of totalitarian rule to emergeas Germany's most prominent academic spokesman the new regime helps place his political actions in the for proper historical perspective. No doubt he at least in part sharedthe sentiments of the German shopkeeperwhq when questionedby an American researcherabout Germany's devastatingloss of freedom under Hitler, responded: "You don't understand.Before we had parties, elections,political campaignsand voting. Under Hitler, we don't havetheseanymore.Now we are free!" As late as 1936(that is, two yearsafter his putativewithdrawal of support for the regime) Heidegger could remark in a lecture course: "These two men, Hitler and Mussolini, who have,eachin essentially different ways,introduceda to nihilism, haveboth learnedfrom Nietzsche.The authencountermovement realm of Nietzschehas,however, yet beenrealized."s3 tic metaphysical not His later claimsto haveoffered"spiritual resistance" Nazism are surelyexaggerto ated.

v
It would be facile to dismiss the Nietzschean-inspired, conservativerevolutionary critique of modernity that so influencedHeidegger'spolitical viewsas "reactionary" or "protofascistic,"evenif it waspreciselythis intellectualparadig that very much facilitated Germany's "spiritual preparation" for National Socialism.sa Simplistic intellectualclassifications alwaysfall short of the demandsof complex historical circumstances. Moreover, it could easily be shown how,mutatis mutandis,a surprisingly similar critique of modernity was sharedby the radical left.ssThat Nietzsche'scritique, as well as Heidegger's appropriationof it, is capable sensitizingus to the "excrescences moderof of nity"-to the waysin which the rationality of progress, buttressedby cateas goriesof formal or technicalreason,begins to take on an apparentlife of its own, divorced from the needsof the historical actors who originally set it in motion-remains undeniable. Yet, by highlighting the failingsof modernity to the exclusionof its specificadvances (which Hegel, to takemerelyone example, in the wakeof the democraticrevolutionsof the eighteenthcentury,identifies

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of with "progressin the consciousness freedom"), this critique proves,in the invitesthe and myopic.It therebyseemingly last analysis, woefully imbalanced in political extremismthat it embraces point of fact. For if the "present age" is of of indeedone of total perdition-"the collapse the world," "the devastation the earth," "the unconditional objectificationof everything present," is how it Heideggerdescribes in "Overcoming Metaphysics"s6-then"extreme solutions" alone would be warranted, even mandated, to combat the manifold failings of modernity. Even after the war, Heidegger steadfastlyrefused to abandon the conviction that "democracy" (along with Christianity and the (Halbheit),from which is constitutionalor Rechtsstaal) a mere "half-measurez' Here, toq it behoovesus to keep in mind no real solution might emerge.sT question as to whether Heidegger "ever truly emerged" from the P<iggeler's ideologicalproximity in which he felt so at home during the early r93os. Germany's political dilemmas have often been describedin teritls of its statusas a "belatednation"; that is, in terms of its delayedassimilationof the constituent featuresof political modernity: national unification, an autonothe Earlier, I suggested mous civil society,and parliamentarygovernment.s8 needfor a historicizationof Heidegger'sphilosophicalproject. Could it be that parallelthoseof his nation'sown Heidegger'sown'philosophical shortcomings historicalformation?That his thought, toq in significantrespects fails to make the transition to modern standards philosophical political rationality?It of and is likely that the most significant long-term repercussions the Heidegger of controversywill be concernedwith theseand relatedthemes.

Postscript The theme of Heidegger'srelationshipto National Socialismhas beenvexed insofar as it is inevitably fraught with overdeterminations: hardly a current of modern thought exists that does not have a profound vestedinterest, for or against,in the fate of Heidegger'sdoctrines.With so much at stakefor somany, the processof sorting out, with some measureof fairness,what remains of philosophicalvalue from what hasbeen historically surpassed neverbe an can easyone.In the precedingessay, havehazardeda I few pointersand suggestions concerningavenues future investigationthat may be fruitful. of Amid the din of opinion for or against Heidegger,much of it shrill and partial, there is the voiceof a Heideggercontemporaryone would due well to heed-that of the political philosopherLeo Strauss.In a set of recently published lecture notes on the problem of Heidegger'sexistentialismthat date from the mid-r95os, Strausswasableto go directly to the heart of the matter.

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On the one hand, Strauss states without hesitation that Heidegger is not merely a great thinker, but "the only great thinker of our time"-so forceful and insurmountablewas,in his estimation,Heidegger'schallengeto all inherited philosophicalschoolsand models. On the other hand, Strauss had no trouble in defining, with a few choice words, the philosophical stakesinvolved in Heidegger'sgrandiose"decision" for Hitler in 1933: Heideggerbecamea Nazi in 1933.This was not due to a mere error of judgment on the part of a man who lived on great heightshigh abovethe low land of politics.Everyonewho had readhis first greatbooklBeing and, Time]and did not overlookthe wood for the treescould seethe kinship in temper and direction betweenHeidegger'sthought and the Nazis. What was the practical, that is to say,serious meaning of the contempt for reasonableness the praise of resoluteness and except to encouragethat extremist movement?. . . In rg53 he published a book,Introd,uctiun to Metaphysirs, consistingof lecturesgiven in 1935,in which he spokeof the greatness and dignity of the National Socialistmovement.In the preface written in rg53 he saidthat all mistakes had beencorrected. The caseof Heideggerreminds one to a certain extent of the caseof Nietzsche.Nietzsche,naturally, would not have sided with Hitler. Yet there is an undeniablekinship betweenNietzsche'sthought and fascism. If one rejects, as passionately Nietzsche did, conservativeconstituas tional monarchy, with a view to a new aristocracy,the passionof the denials will be much more effective than the necessarilymore subtle intimations of the character of the new nobility, to say nothing of the blond beast.se incisiveremarksconstitutea worthy point of departurefor all future Strauss's discussions the relationshipbetweenGerman philosophyand the experience of of fascism.

FBEilCH HE I D E G G E R WARS

pointof reference I believe one's (langue) should be to thegreatmodel language not of andsigns, to thatof warandbattle. but The historywhichbears determines has and us the form of a war ratherthan that of a language: relations power, relations of not of meaning.-Michel Foucault, "Truth andPower" Few eventsin recent memory haveshakenthe world of French letters ashasthe appearanceof Victor Farias's book, Heidegger le Nazisme.Throlgh an exet (and for FrenchHeideggerians, tremely thorough and painstaking clearlypainful) labor of documentation,Fariashas single-handedly given the lie to all the inventive rationalizationscontrived by French Heideggerians-as well asthose setforth on several occasions Heideggerhimself-over the courseof the last by four decades trivializing the Master's alacritousparticipation in the "National Awakening" of 1933.It is no secretthat sincethe collapse the previoustwo of dominant intellectualparadigmsof the postwarera-existentialism and structuralism-Heideggerianism, as a philosophy of "difference," has enjoyedunquestionable pride of place.It is no small irony that Farias's book, while hardly a theoreticaltour de force,may well havepavedthe way for a new epistemological breakin the volatileworld of Parisiancultural life. Yet one outcomeof the tumultuouseventssurroundingFarias's book may be intellectuals from this point hence,in Franceand elsewhere, discernedalready: in all walks of life will never be able to relate to Heidegger'sphilosophy"naodiouspolitthe ively"; that is, without taking into consideration philosopher's et ical allegiances. this respect,the debatespawnedby Heid,egger le Itlazisme In point of referencefor all future discusis destinedto becomean inescapable sions of Heideggerianismand its merits. Were the relationship betweenthe philosopherand his politics nonintegral, if one could make a neat separation then this outbetweenthe philosophicaloeuvreand the political engagement,

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of come would be prejudicial.All persons,great thinkers included, are capable errors of political judgment, even egregiousones. However, the more one learnsabout the Heidegger-National Socialismnexus,the more one is ineluctably driven to conclude that the philosopherhimself perceivedhis Nazi involvementsnot as a random courseof action, but as a logical outgrowth of his philosophicaldoctrines.A careful correlationof the early philosophywith the no political speeches the rg3osrleaves doubt concerningthe fact that Heiof deggerhimself viewedhis National Socialistactivitiesasa concreteexemplifiDasein(authenticexistence). That is, Heidegger himself cation of eigentliches makesa great effort to justify his participationin the Nazi movementin terms carefullyculled from his magnumopus of 1927,Sein undZeit. of categories Why Heidegger?Why in France?Why now? Have the true intellectual stakesof the debate been exaggerated beyond reasonby an unprecedented media hype (in niwspapers,iournals, and highly publicized televidegreeof sion debates)? is it true that beneaththe layersof publicity surrounding the Or controversy,the Fariasrevelationshave indeed unleashedquestionsof major intellectualimport? Pariswasthe logicalstaging-groundfor such a debateif one takesseriously the oft-quoted maxim: "Today, Heideggerlives in France." Without question the major repercussionsof the debate stand to be felt in Parisian intellectual circles, where Heideggerianismhas been so dominant in the postwar years. One must alsoconsiderthat the two maior cultural and political iainements in France during the last few years have both been Holocaust-related: Shoah, Claude Lanzmann'smagisterialfilm about the death-camps; and the trial of Klaus Barbie, which received intensive media coveragesince his return to France in 1983.Moreover, despitethe fact that significantdebatesover Heidegger'sNazi pasthavesurfacedin Franceon at leasttwo previousoccasions,2 Farias'sdocumentationincorporatesthe pathbreaking findings of the Freiburg historianHugo Ott;3 it is principally the additionalrevelations brought to light by Ott's archival work in Freiburg that have,as it were, transformedquantity into quality. As a result of Ott's researches, full extent of Heidegger's the dedicationto the National Socialistqrusehasattainedthe statusof an undeniablefact; whereaspreviously,the incompletedocumentationof the case,coupled with Heidegger'sown disingenuousaccountsof his activities,made it fairly easyfor his devotedsupportersto parry any possibleblows to the Master's reputation.a Thus, with the appearance the Farias book,s French perceptions reof garding Heidegger's political loyalties in the early thirties have definitively changed:his zealousinvolvementwith the lt{SDAP, which could formerly be

r44 French HeideggerWars denied or trivialized, has now assumedthe status of a permanent taint. The traditional contingentof French Heideggerdefendersis at presentscrambling to salvage what can be salvaged; and his long-standingdetractorsare basking (at least momentarily) in the glory of Schadenfreude, sincewhat they havebeen suggesting along now seems proven fact. We shall return to Farias'sstudy, all a as well as to the fascinatingdebateit has unleashed,after clarifying precisely thoseaspects Heidegger'sactivitiesas rector that conflict with the hitherto of standardaccounts. One of the most reprehensible aspects Heidegger'sconduct concernshis of duplicitous efforts to misrepresentthe full extent of his past misdeeds. his In two publishedapologiae,6 Heideggerconsistentlyarguesthat he acceptedthe rectorshipnot out of ideologicalloyalty to the National Socialistcause, but in order to preserveuniversity autonomyin faceof the threat of rampant politicizationby Nazi extremists. support of this claim, Heideggercitesthe title of In his Rektoratsrede, Self-Affirmation of the German University." Or, ashe "The remarks in an interview in Spiegel,"Such a title had not been risked in any rectoraladdress to that time." But the factsof the case up unearthedby Ott and othersshow that this explanationcould not be farther from the truth. In fact, the oppositeis the case: Heideggerwasa zealous advocate Gleichof at schaltung the university level,and the university "reforms" carriedout under his direction at Freiburg were among the earliest and most radical among German universitiesin the months following Hitler's seizureof power.One of the most damningindictmentsof Heidegger'sconduct wasa personaltelegram he sentto Hitler, dated May zo, 1933,that readasfollows:"I faithfully request the postponementof the planned meeting of the executivecommittee of the necessary GleichGerman University Leagueuntil a time when the especially Within a few months schaltung the leadershipof the Leagueis effectuated."7 of in of his assumptionof the rectorship,he assisted the redrafting of the univerthe rector would be constitution at the provincial level. Subsequently, sity the appointedby the stateminister of culture-thus bypassing normal demowhich had heretoforealwaysselected cratic channelsof the university senate, the rector by an open vote-and assumethe new title of "Ftihrer" of the university.Theseand relatedeventsshowHeideggerto be an early and devoted apostleof the l\azi Fiihrerprinzip. reveals vast a A closerlook at Heidegger'sRectoralAddressof May 27, 1933, between the implied theme of the title-an apparent plea for discrepancy (politicized university autonomy at a time when Nazi politischeWissenschaft which on many scholarship)predominated-and its actual political message, is The address replete counts harmonized with Nazi rhetoric and objectives.s

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with referencesto the Fiihrerprinzip and a community of followers to be led. The "will to knowledge"that determinesthe essence the university is deof fined as"the will to the historical-spiritualmissionof the German Volblwhichl in arrives at self-knowledge the State." "Science and German destiny must simultaneouslyr" come to po\Mer Heidegger goes on to observe.In his crass glorificationof "German destiny,"Heideggernot only pandersto the reigning authorities,but alsoembraces fatalismthat turns the very ideaof intellectual a autonomyinto a travesty. ashe notesin a similar vein: "all knowledge Or, about things remainsdeliveredover in advance the supremacy fate." to of Such remarksare part and parcelof Heidegger'sgeneralpolemicagainstthe superficialityof "so-calledacademic freedom." In a philosophicalwork of two yearshence,he would lament the fact that the "Sauberung" (cleansing) the of German university-here, a transparent euphemism for Gleichs ltung -had cha not gone far enough.e Similarly, in the Rectoral Addressof 1933,Heidegger insiststhat the realm of the intellectmust not be reducedto the statusof a freefloating "cultural superstructure." Instead, it draws its true strength from "erd- und bluthaftenKrdfte" (the powersof earth and blood). "German students are on the march," observesHeidegger. *They seek leaders."He leaves doubt that this march proceeds no accordingto a military rhythm. Students must fulfill their obligation to the Volksgemeinschaft gruby ing service(Dienst):"labor service," "military service," and-trailing behind in third place-"service in knowledg.." Extrapolating from the philosophical frameworkof Beingand Time,Heideggersuggests that it is "the questioningof Being in general [that] compels the Volk to labor and struggle f,Arbeit und, Kampfl." Together, the German students and teachersform a "Kampfgemeinschaft" (fighting community). "All volitional and intellectual capacities, all powersof the heart and capabilities the body must be developed of through struggle,heightenedlz struggle,and preservedas struggle," Heidegger concludes.Such usage the word Kampfin rg33, two months after passage the of of EnablingAct allowingHitler to rule by decree, and one month after the nationwide institution of the first anti-Jewishdecrees,left very little to the imagination of the audience. Although the Rectoral Address consistsof an uneasyadmixture of Nazi rhetoric and Greek philosophicalreferences, the latter seem to be carefully tailoredto suit the political exigencies the day.To takeone example:Heidegof ger concludes address the with an epigram from Plato'sRepublic (+gld),which he chooses render as follows: 'lA,llesGrossesteht im Sturm." He cites this to remark following the aforementionedcelebration of the virtues of Kampfand a concluding appealto "the historicalmission of the German Volk." When one

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recallsthat the initials "S,{'stands for Sturmabteilung (the SA waswell representedat Heidegger'sinaugural lecture, moreover)and that one of the most virulently anti-Semitic Nazi journals was called Der Stiirmer,it appears that Heidegger'schoiceof epigramswasfar from accidental.rO In sum, rather than struggling to preservethe autonomy of the university from external political encroachment,Heidegger zealouslydelivered it over to the Nazi movement. His university reforms in the province of Baden were widely consideredmodel instancesof political Gleichschaltung be emulated to by universities throughout the Reich. That the inauguraldiscourse May 27, 1933,washardly an excrescence is of evidencedby the fact that it was only one of many agitationaladdresses on behalfon the "National Awakening"deliveredby Heideggerthat year.What is fascinatingabout thesespeeches intellectual documentsis that they repreas sent a hybrid of existentialistcategories drawn from Beingand Time and National Socialistrhetoric of the basest sort. For example,in his May 26, 1933,speech honor of the National Socialist in hero Albert Leo Schlageter, who had beenexecutedfor actsof sabotage against French occupationtroops ten yearsearlier,Heideggercelebrates Schlageter's of death in terms reminiscentof one of the key categories fundamentalontology: Sein-zum-Todeor Being-toward-Death. Schlageter,Heidegger tells us repeatedly, died "the cruelestand greatestdeath." But, as thosefamiliar with Being and Time well know, to endure such a death is one of the hallmarks of authenticity. on Heideggerplayedan especially vigorousrole as a propagandist behalf of Hitler's November 12, rg33' referendumon Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations. In one early November speechentitled "German Students!" Heideggerbeginsby claiming that "the National SocialistRevolution brings about a total transformationof our German Dasein."He concludesby observingthat "the Ftihrer himself is the presentand future German reality the of and its law . . . Heil Hitler." Many of the speeches this period emphasize in need for "decision" (Entscheidung) a manner highly redolent of one of the Heidegmost important categoriesof Beingand,Time: that of Entschlossenheit. yes-votein the plebiscite-a ger leavesno doubt concerning the fact that a "decision" for the Fiihrer-is in truth a demonstrationof the "authenticity" of the German Volk.tl Another disquieting aspectof Heidegger's tenure as Rektor-Fi.ihrerconand cernshis employmentof political criteria to judge universityappointments In dismissals. a letter to the Badenstateministry concerningan appointmentin the field of church history, Heidegger singles out "fulfillment of National Socialisteducationalgoals"asone of his primary criteria for the position.12

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In anothercase-that of the future Nobel-prize winning chemistHermann Staudinger-Heidegger voluntarily played the role of informer, by seizingon rumors that Staudinger had been a pacifist during World War I (i.e., some fifteen yearsearlier!) and alerting the National SocialistMinisterial Counsel, Eugen Fehrle, in Karlsruhe. Soon the Gestapobecameinvolved in the investigations,and Heidegger,askedby the local authoritiesfor his personaljudgment of Staudinger'scase,stated that the civil servicereform measures, demanding the dismissalof undesirables, should definitely be applied in the case at hand. Staudinger was forced to submit a letter of resignation. After a series he of humiliating obeisances, was allowedto retain his position-no thanks to the efforts of the new Rektor-Fiihrer.13 Finally, in the heat of a controversyconcerninga "political (i.e., pro-Nazi) appointment" to the deanship of the Division of Law and Social Science, Heideggeroffered the following policy statement:"Since the first daysof my acceptance office,the defining principle and the authentic(if only gradually of goal [of my rectorship] is the fundamentaltransformationof scholrealizable) arly educationon the basisof the forcesand demandsof the National Socialist state.. . . What will surviveof our transitionallaborsis uncertain.. . . The sole certainty is that only our unbendingwill toward the future givesmeaningand support to the meresteffort. The individual by himself countsfor nothing. The fate of our Volkin its Statecounts for everything.'tt+ At the centerof the recentFrench controversyis of coursethe book by Victor Farias. On the one hand, Farias deservescredit for having ignited a long overduedebateover the tabooedtheme of the political dimensionof Heidegger'swork. On the other hand, his argumentconcerningHeidegger'sNazi ties is sobrazenlytendentiousthat he hasin the end ironically undermined his own For Farias,thereareno gray areas; questionof Heideggerand Nazism case. the is an open-and-shutcase.National Socialism was not a political credo that Heidegger adopted opportunistically and then abandonedwhen it proved a political liability. Instead,for Farias,Heidegger wasborna Nazi and remained one until the end of his days.To be sure, Fariasis able to muster an impressive amount of evidentialsupport to show that (r) Heidegger'sprovincial Catholic background in the German town of Messkirch predisposedhim toward a "national revolutionary" solution to the evils of modernity; and (z) his partisanshipfor Nazi principles continuedlong after the point when his enthusiasmfor the historicalmovementitself had waned(at leastinto the early forties). But to acceptthe resultsof Farias'sinquiry at facevaluewould be to conclude that both Heidegger'slife and thought are so irredeemablycolored by Nazi convictionsthat nothing "uncontaminated" remainsworth salvaging. this In

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respect,the book is truly a liare d thise,and this proves to be its ultimate undoing. It is so negativelydisposedtoward its subject that the outcome-a rousing condemnationof Heideggeras dyed-in-the-woolNazi-is a foregone conclusion.Various commentatorshave comparedFarias'sstrategy of argumentation (which frequently consistsof iuxtaposingthe pro-Nazi sentiments with thoseof the Master himself) with of Heideggerianintimatesor associates In association"-by no meansan unfair accusation. this the tactic of "guilt by There is really little to Fariashasdonea greatdisservice his own cause. respect, or objectiveneed for exaggeration hyperbole:the factsof the caseare disturbThe strategy of unnuanced,wholesale ing enough and speakfor themselves. condemnationhasleft Fariasextremelyvulnerableto attacksfrom the Heideggerianfaithful, who havebeenable to seizeon the prejudicial characterof his inquiry as a clever way of delegitimating his efforts and avoiding coming to concernsthat havein fact arisen. grips with the troubling substantive The thiseof this liare ,i,thiseis fairly simple:that Heideggerwasnot merelya Nazi, but a rodical l{azi, by which Farias means a supporter of the Riihm faction or SA. As he comments in the opening pagesof his book: "Martin to Heidegger'sadherence the NSDAP in no way resultedfrom an improvisa. tional opportunismor tacticalconsiderations. . . Heideggeropted for the wing representedby Ernst Riihm and the SA and sought to place this variant of National Socialismon a proper philosophicalfooting in openoppositionto the and Ernst Krieck" (16biologicaland racial faction led by Alfred Rosenberg r7). Were Farias to make this argument stick, he would thereby also rather handily dispel someevidencethat might prove troubling to a more simplistic attempt to equateHeidegger with National Socialism;for example,the fact that Heidegger was at a later point the object of calumniousattacksby the and Krieck (the Nazi Rektor-Fiihrer at Frankfurt UniideologistsRosenberg a philosopher).Hence, bY aligning Heidegger with the versity, who was also SA, Fariascan plausiblyexplain his later difficultieswith certain Nazi authoriand Krieck by claiming that such polemicswerea result ties suchasRosenberg Fariastries to prove his caseby showHeidegger'sformer SA allegiances.rs of closeties with cultivatedespecially on ing that Heidegger, numerousoccasions, in the variousGerman Student Associations the early r93os,which wereat this and closelyallied with the SA. However,the evidence point "gleichgeschaltet" Fariasofferson this scoreis largelycircumstantialand far from convincing.As Hannah Arendt has shown in her contribution to the Festschriftfor Heidegger'seightiethbirthday,l6the philosopheralwayshad a largestudent following dating back to his Marburg years in the early tgzos. Moreover, since he was apparently convinced of the retrograde characterof the German university

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system(as is suggested his polemicsagainst"so-calledacademicfreedom" by in the early thirties), it follows logically that he would look to the German youth of the period asa possible sourceof revitalization.Of course,there is no sidestepping fact that in 1933,it wasa "Fascistyouth" to whom Heidegger the directedhis not infrequent appeals the subjectof nationalrejuvenation. on In any event, Farias'scontention that Heidegger was a radical Nazi and Riihm adherent is far from persuasive. However, an interesting sidelight on the Heidegger-SA theme is shed in a remark by Heideggerin "The Rectorship, rg33-34i Factsand Thoughts,"rTwherehe claimsto haverelinquishedany and every illusion concerningthe authenticity of the National Socialistmovement asofJune 30, 1934, "Night of the Long Knives." What is fascinating the about Heidegger'sadmissionis that it canbe interpretedin either of two ways:either the brutality of the R<ihmpurge finally enlightenedhim concerningthe base realitiesof National Socialism;or else,the destruction of the SA signaledfor him the defeatof National Socialismin its radical,heroic strain. The fact that in 1935Heideggercould still counterpose "inner truth and greatness the the of National Socialist movement" to the "works that are being peddled about nowadays the philosophyof National Socialism"rssuggests as that he himself continued to distinguish (as he would in a Spiegel interview somethirty years later)betweenthe movement's original historicalpotentialand its later bastardization, which subsequentlyaccountedfor Heidegger's own withdrawal of active support. Yet, even if Heidegger'spolitical sympathiesindeed lay with the Riihm faction, the casefor Heideggerasa hard-coreSA adherentis one for which Fariashasfailed to provide adequate proof. A final illustration of the mannerin which Fariasunderminesthe credibility of his own argument (and one frequently cited by his opponents)pertains to the eighteenth-century prelate Abraham i SanctaClara, a native son of Heidegger's own Messkirch.A prolific writer who gaineda position of tremendous influenceat the court of the Hapsburgs(aswell asthe model for the Capuchin preacherin Schiller's Wallenstein), Abrrham wasalsoa virulent anti-Semite.It so happens that the first publishedwriting of the young Heideggerin rgro was composedon the occasionof a monument erectedin the honor of this local hero. Fariasdevotesan entire chapter (:q-SS) to this otherwiseuninteresting bit of Heideggerjuvenilia. That Heideggerhas no specialwords of praisefor Abraham'santi-Semitismis to Fariasa matter of indifference. However,Farias pursues the tenuous connection between these two sons of Messkirch relentlessly ending his book with a discussionof a ry64 speechdelivered by Heideggerat Messkirch once againin honor of the eighteenth-century monk. In his speech, Heideggerquotesan observation Abraham that "Our peace by is

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from Frankfurt" (Farias, zq). Of course,by as far from war as Sachsenhausen invoking Sachsenhausen, Abraham (and Heidegger)are referring to the district of Frankfurt. But Fariascannotlet passthe opportunity for someruminations on the workings of Heidegger'sunconscious, linking the Frankfurt by quarter with th'e concentration camp of the same name outside of Berlin. Farias's amateur Freudianism suggeststhat Sachsenhausen a metonymic is trope for Auschwitz, the logical historical outgrowth of Abraham's antiSemitism; and thus, that Heidegger'sstatementis a merely a sinisterinstance But such feebleefforts at lay analysis short of producing the fall of parapraxis. resoundingindictment Fariashasbeenseekingfor somethree hundred pages. Finally, the Fariasbook is extremelyweakfrom a philosophicalstandpoint. This would not be a damnablefailing if the author had been content to stick primarily with biographicalthemes.But instead,he chooses indict not only to by Heideggerthe man-whq following the researches Ott, hasbecomean easy the target-but alsoHeideggerthe thinker. At this level of analysis, questions at issue become decidedly more complex, and Farias lacks the intellectual wherewithalto broachthesematterswith the requisitedegreeof prudenceand Heideggeras a man may havebeen rotten to the core sophistication.Because doesnot meanone can,mutatismutandis,makethe sameargumentconcerning his philosophy.If the canon of great works were to be decided on the ad of hominemgroundsof the ethicalcharacter the authors,we would conceivably be left with little to read. On occasion,Farias concocts speciousparallels betweenHeidegger'swork and his politics,but theseinsightsfor the most part are afterthoughts;and, when the stakes sohigh, havethe statusof unsystematic Fariasleaves with the impressionthat there is us off-handedremarkswon't do. link betweenHeidegger'sthought and his Nazism; and that as a a necessary result, Heideggerianismas a philosophicalenterpriseis essentiallyflawed or invalid. While the relationship betweenthought and politics in Heidegger's casemay well turn out to be paramount, Farias has not shown us wherein this linkage consists,nor why it may be fatal to the Heideggerianproiect. The insteadby insinuationand innuendo. are conclusions suggested in its appearance October rg87, Farias'sbook wasthe subject Within daysof of full-page essaysin both Le Monde (by Roger-Pol Droit, October 14) and Libiration (Robert Maggiori, October 16). Both articles sent shock-waves throughout Parisian intellectual circles. The Libiration article seemedespecially damning and its headline-"Heil Heidegger!" in two-inch, boldface type-set the tone for the debate in its early stages.The conclusions drawn in both essayswere strikingly similar: "How will we ever be able to read Heidegger/Dr. Jekyll again without surreptitiously thinking of Heidegger/

FrenchHeidegger Wars r5r Mr. Hyde?" inquires Droit. "It falls due to all those who are professional philosophers, and not for fun but out of concernfor truth, to'think Heidegger' along with that which the inquiry of Fariashasrevealed,"urgesMaggiori. There followed the predictableattemptsat "damagecontrol" on the part of the Heideggerianfaithful.teBut at this point the Fariasrevelationsproved too respondents, to includingJacques extensive refute. Several Derrida in an interview publishedin Nouael Obseroateu4, attemptedto downplay the importance of Farias'sfindings by claiming they had been known in their essentials a for long time.2oBut this strategy of argumentation all but sidestepsthe truly provocative nature of Farias'scontribution: evenif many of the individual episodeshad beenknown to Heideggerspecialists, little of the evidencewaspublicly available, especially the non-German-speaking in world. Hence, Farias's study wasthe first both to render the disturbing truths concerningHeidegger's hidden past accessible public scrutiny and to attempt to account for their to systematicinterconnection.In this respect, though his execution may have beenflawed,he hasunquestionably openedup important new perspectives. To gainsay work as "nonoriginal" is simply to arguein bad faith. (Moreover,if his knowledge these"facts" wasaswidespread Derrida and othersclaim, then of as why were they not made available the public at an earlier date?Had these to troubling factsbeen. . . suppressed?) For certain French Heideggerians, Fariasbook will foreverbe viewedas the a small-mindedand rancorousassault a great philosophicallegacy.2r as on Or, Heideggerhimself wasfond of saying:"When they can't attackthe philosophy, they attackthe philosopher."The philosopherand HeideggertranslatorPierre Aubenqueasksplaintively: "What is the ethicalstatus,as far as our traditional judgmentsabout inquisition and censureare concerned,of a book that openly presents itself asan enterpriseof denunciation,and especially denunciation the of a thinker, aboveall, when this denunciationis in a large measurecalumnious?" FrangoisF6dier attemptsto explain the hue and cry concerningHeidegger's Nazi ties psychologically, an instanceof "ressentiment":it is reducas ible to "the rage of mediocritiesagainstHeidegger-I've seenit at work my entire life."z2Henri Cr6tella contendsthat there can be no integral relation between Heidegger'sthought and Nazism,sincethe latter waspredicated"on a refusal to think." He then seeksto turn the tableson Fariasby claiming that "there are two waysto declarea tabooon thinking: a vociferous,frenzied way, and another,gently anesthetizing way." Whereasthe former mentality, which Cr6tellaidentifiesasthe "historical meaning" of Nazism,hasbeenvanquished, the second,which is the "essentialmeaning" of Nazism, survivesin inquiries such asthat of Victor Farias.23

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On the other hand, many commentatorshavebeen genuinelydisturbed by the recent facts that have come to light about Heidegger'sNational Socialist past,recognizingthatto harp ceaselessly Farias'spurported methodological on failings is to beg the major question at issue:namely,to what extent might Heidegger'spersonalmisdeeds ieopardizethe legacyof his philosophicalproject? A common theme among those who have chosen to acknowledgethe gravity of Farias'srevelationsrelatesto the philosopher'sobstinaterefusal to utter the barestword of contrition about his Nazi past or about the Holocaust in general.2a Maurice Blanchot observes: As "Each time that he was askedto recognizehis 'error,' he maintained a rigid silence,or said something that aggravated situation. . . . it is in Heidegger'ssilenceabout the Exterminathe tions that his irreparable error lies" (Blanchot goes on to cite Heidegger's arrogant remark to the effect that Hitler had failed him by reneging on the original radical potential of National Socialism)." In a similar vein, the philosopherEmmanuel Levinas observes: "Does not this silence,even in peacetime, about the gas chambersand the death-camps-somethingbeyond the realm of all 'bad excuses'-attest to a soul that is in its depths impervious to compassionlsensibilitil,,is it not a tacit approval of the horrifying?"26Even Heidegger'smost talented and original disciple, Hans-Georg Gadamer,has freely admitted that in his political engagement, "Heidegger was not a pure and simple opportunist"; rather, "he'believed' in Hitler."27 that have surEqually fascinatinghavebeen a seriesof related discoveries facedas unintended outgrowths of the main debateitself. The most momentous of these"spillover" disclosures concernsthe man who for thirty-five years Beaufret.Beaufret,a HeiwasFrance'smost stalwartHeideggeradvocate,Jean deggertranslator,intimate, and interlocutor-as well as a former Resistancefighter-who published severalvolumes of his "Conversationswith Heidegger" before his death in rg8z, is perhapsbest known to the English-speaking of world as the addressee Heidegger'simportant "Letter on Humanism"-a fifty-page rejoinder to a seriesof questionsposedby Beaufret in 1945on the relationship betweenfundamentalontology and humanism (Heidegger'sreof sponseis alsoa pointed rebuttal of Jean-PaulSartre'sdefense the humanist tradition in "Existentialism is a Humanism"). Whenever questionshad been raised in years past concerning Heidegger's unsavory political allegiances, and his credentials Beaufrethad alwaysbeenin the forefront of his defenders; moral sanctity to his proas an ex-risistanrlent an aura of unimpeachable Heideggerianproclamations. he to Beaufretseems havehad a hidden agenda: was As it turns out, however, of Robert Faurisson,the French historian who deniesthe a covert supporter

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In existenceof the gas chambersspecificallyand the Holocaust in general.2s two letters dated November zz, tg78, and January 18, ry79 Qecentlymade Beaufret exavailablein Faurisson'sjournal, Annalesd'histoirereaisionnisre), with him presses adamantsupport for Faurisson's "proiect" and sympathizes for the criticism he receivedfrom the press.At one point Beaufret observes:"I believethat for my part I havetraveledapproximately the samepath asyou and the havebeenconsideredsuspectfor having expressed samedoubts fconcerning the existenceof the gas chambers].Fortunately for me, this was done That the major French Heideggerinterpreterof the postwarera wasa orally."2e of thesisconcerningthe nonexistence the Nazi closetsupporter of Faurisson's death-camps castsseriousdoubt (to saythe least)concerninghis "objectivity" asan intrepid Heideggerchampion. Another disturbing circumstancethat has recently come to light concerns Heidegger'slong-standingfriendship with the notorious Eugen Fischer,who in rgzT becamedirector of the Institute of RacialHygiene in Berlin. Fischer was one of the principal architectsof the National Socialistracial theory,and laid thus in essence the intellectualgroundworkfor the Final Solution. Born in his r87+, Fischer established credentialsin rgr3 with a book on the "problem of This work drew important lessons of the bastardization the human species." raciallegislationin SouthwestAfrica, where,asof rgo8, from German colonial marriagesbetweenEuropeansand nativeswere forbidden, and thosethat had alreadybeen contractedwere declarednull. However,the true solution to the problem of miscegenationenvisionedby Fischer is the "disappearance"of thoseof mixed racethrough a diabolical"processof natural selection." Fischer was active in the early years of Nazi rule, helping to promulgate legislation aimed at "protection against the propagation of genetic abnormalities," on the basisof which more than 6o,oooforced sterilizationswere performedin 1934alone.His institute in Berlin wasalsothe inspiration behind the Nuremberg racial lawsof 1935,forbidding intermarriage(aswell as sexual contactof any sort) betweenJews and non-Jews. leadingtheoristof eugenics A and a forceful proponent of "a biologicalpolitics of population," Fischer has beendescribed "one of the linchpins of the executionof the bureaucratic as and ideological methodsthat facilitated[Nazi] genocide."It may help put things in perspectiveto add that Dr. JosephMengele was a "researcher"at Fischer's Institute. RelationsbetweenHeideggerand Fischer wereloose,but nonetheless interesting. Both hailed from the same region in Baden. Both participated in a Leipzig congressin November 1933 to promote the causeof "German science."The two remainedin contactfor the duration of Heidegger'srectorship.

rS4 French HeideggerWars And it may have been in no small measuredue to Fischer's influence that the promoted by Heidegger during his tenure as rector that have racial measures been chronicled by Farias-a questionnaireconcerning racial origin distributed to all professors;an obligatory lecture for all instructors on the importanceof racial purity; the establishment a "department of race" at the uniof versity run by the SS-followed a model set forth by his fellow Schwarzmald,er. In 1944,at the age of fifty-five, Heidegger had been drafted into the Volksturrn-a reserveunit composedof older German men as well as underaged youth-as was not uncommon for men his age during the war's later stages. Only a personal telegram sent to the Gauleiter of Salzburg sparedHeidegger from service.The senderof the telegramwasnone other than Eugen Fischer. It read: "With all due respectfor the imperativesof the hour and thoseof the Volkssturm. . . I am in favor of freeing from armed service Heidegger, an and irreplaceable thinker for the nation and the Party."ro exceptional by That ties betweenthe two remainedcordial over the yearsis suggested Hebel, der the fact that in 196o, Heidegger sent Fischer a copy of his book with the inscription, "For Eugen Fischer, with warm Christmas Hausfreund,, greetingsand bestwishesfor the New Year."31 It would certainly be unfair to judge Heideggerby the companyhe kept, no is matter how sinister.Yet, the Heidegger-Fischerepisode of interestinsofaras of that, because his ties with Fischer,the philosophermay well have it suggests beenawareof the Nazi preparationsfor genocide(aswell asother crimes)at a relativelyearly date-something his supportershavealwaysdenied. Trvo of the leading French Heideggerians, Jacques Derrida and Philippe havebeen in the forefront of the philosophicaldebateconLacoue-Labarthe, cerning the question "whither Heideggerianism?"in the aftermath of the Farias controversy.Unlike the baseHeidegger-apologists(F6dier, Aubenque, Cr6tella),who have seizedon the purportedly tendentiousnature of Farias's as study in the hopeof fosteringa return to "business usual," Lacoue-Labarthe and Derrida havebeenwilling to confront thesetroubling biographicalthemes head-on (Derrida, for example, speaksof Heidegger's "terrifying silence" about the past in the February 9, 1988,issueof Le Monde).Their intention, however (the methodologicalvalidity of which can hardly be denied), is to allow the vultures to feed on Heidegger the contingent, empirical individual (what ri an author, anyway?),while saving the philosophicaloeuvre itselfespeciallyHeidegger'swork following d,ieKehre (the "Turn"), where' so the argument runs, Heidegger freed himself from the vestigial anthropocentrism that is still so prominentin Beingand'Time.

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Ironically, both Lacoue-Labartheand Derrida published book-length "responses"to Farias well before his manuscript ever appeared:they are respecet tively entitled La Fiction du politique a;ndDe l'esprit: Heidegger la question (both appeared 1987).32 Both Lacoue-Labarthe and Derrida had heardtell of in the troubling revelationsfrom the other side of the Rhine (Ott's work being the major source)and decidedto stakeout a position on the philosophicalimplicaof tions of thesefindings in advance the storm that would soon be unleashed. two books contain the major prisesdeposition on the question of Since these of Heideggerand politics by the two leadingrepresentatives Heideggerianism at working in Francetoday,they are worth discussing somelength. La Fiction du politique is simultaneouslyan unflinching arraignment of Heiorthoof degger'sNazism and a bold endorsement (post-Kehre)Heideggerian who would give anything to go back to doxy. Unlike the tiresomeapologists, the "life before Farias," Lacoue-Labarthepulls no puncheswhen addressing philosophyand politics that led to Heidegger's1933 fatal interrelationbetween "engagement."His approachis characterizedby a refreshing willingness to weigh seriouslythe continuitiesbetweenHeidegger'searly philosophicalwritings and his National Socialistconvictionsin the early thirties. His assertion is that "contrary to what hasbeensaidhereand there,Heidegger'sengagement absolutely coherent with his thought" apparentlyleaves little room for equivocation. But what Lacoue-Labarthegiveswith one hand, he takesaway,cleverly, with the other: the insight just cited pertainsonly to the pre-rg35 Heidegger. The post-r935 Heideggeremerges virtually unscathed. Lacoue-Labarthe'sargument, which parallels Derrida's in its essentials, proceedsas follows. The problem with the early Heidegger is that he suffers from a surfeit of metaphysicalthinking. Even though he has gone to great lengthsto distancehimself from the tradition of WesternmetaphysicsinBeing ond,Timeand other early works, insistingthat this tradition must be subjected to the purifying powers of Destruktion, the break proves in the end to be insufficiently rigorous. Metaphysical residuesabound: most notably, in the paradigm of Beingand Time,where, when all is said and done, Dasein-centered a human subject (albeit, a non-Cartesian,existentially rooted subject) once again provides privileged accessto ontological questions.Thus, in the last analysis,Being and,Time, despite the profound insight with which the book opens (the question concerning "the Being of beings"), simply relapsesinto conventional onto-theological modes of thought; its anthropomorphic d6marcheis really little more than a warmed-over version of traditional metaphysicalhumanism.Now that Nietzsche's insight concerningthe deathof God hasbeen acknowledged, topographicallocus of the metaphysical the archC has

156 French HeideggerWars merely shifted: a transcendent dwelling-placehas merely been exchanged for an immanent one, and Dasein,in its "decisiveresolvetoward authenticBeingfor-Self," has becomethe new focal point of metaphysicalinquiry. The fact that the second volume of Being and, Time was never written can thus be explained by the fact that Heidegger, circa 1935, came to view the entire existentialframework of his rgzT work as essentiallyflawed; that is, as perilously beholden to the paradigm of metaphysicalhumanism he had been at such painsto counteract. What, however,do such etherealphilosophicalquestionshave to do with Heidegger'sattachments the baserealitiesof Nazi politics?Everythingin the to world, accordingto Lacoue-Labarthe and Derrida. Through a brilliant pieceof hermeneutical chicanery, they intentionally seek(unlike the blatantapologists) to link the philosophyof the early Heideggerwith his pro-Nazi phasein order the better to savehim: the early Heidegger, whose thought is in any case oversaturatedwith superfluousmetaphysicalresidues,33 be safely jettican sonedin order that the posthumanistHeidegger-the Heideggerof the Nietzsche lectures and the "Letter on Humanism"-can be redeemedunscathed. And thus by an ingeniousinterpretive coupdemattre,the troubling "question" of Heidegger and politics can be neatly brushed aside, since the post-r935 Heideggerabandoned philosophicalparadigm that led to his partisanship the for Hitlerism in the first place. The "defense" proffered by Lacoue-Labartheand Derrida is certainly not without merit. It therefore behoovesus to examine it in more detail before passingjudgment on its worth. I focus on the linchpin of the argument: the thinking that led to of counterintuitiveclaim that it wasan excess metaphysical At Heidegger'sNazism.3+ the sametime, it is of interest to note the extent to which this reading of Heidegger conforms verbatim with the philosopher's own interpretation of his intellectual/political trajectory. It is a strikingly orthodox readingof Heidegger. The Lacoue-Labarthe-Derridainterpretationis of a piecewith Heidegger's reevaluation his own philosophyin his Nietzschelecturesof r936-39. Preof viously, Heidegger had acceptedNietzsche'swork at face value, viewing the latter as Nietzschehad understoodhimself: as a great subverterof metaphysical humanist nostrums and a critic of that "nihilism" to which traditional of Westernvaluesinevitablyled. It wasfundamentallythe debacle Heidegger's previous,uncritical relahis Nazi experience that led him to reconceptualize effortstoward tionship to Nietzsche. Just asHeideggerunderstoodNietzsche's a "transvaluationof all values" as a philosophicalanswerto nihilism, he had greetedthe National SocialistRevolutionasa political antidoteto nihilism. In

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Heiviewing the Nazi movementthrough a Nietzscheanframe of reference, degger endowed it with all the attributes of a salutary, world-historical challenge to Western nihilism and to the "decadent" valuesthat are its necessary liberalism, individualism, philosophicalsubjectivhistorical accompaniment: it ism, masssociety, techne, value-relativism, so forth; in short, he perceived and for as that panacea the aporiasof modernity allusively prophesiedby Nietzsche'sZarathustra.The Nazis were the heroic "new pagans"that would save the West from a seeminglyirreversible processof Spengleriandecline. In fact, it is fascinatingto note that Heideggermaintainedthis perspective until the end of his life. That he never "renounced" the National Socialist experimentwasneither an accidentnor an oversight.Instead,if one examines interview, aswell asAn Introd,uc"The Rectorship: rg33-34," the ry66 Spiegel tion to Metaphysic*it is clear that Heideggercontinued throughout his life to historical actuality" of Nazism from its "true histordistinguish "the debased ical potential." He originally developedthis distinction in An Introductionto Metaphysirswhere, aspreviously noted, he takespains to differentiate between of "the inner truth and greatness the National Socialistmovement" and the inauthentic "works that are being peddled nowadaysas the philosophy of National Socialism." The former he definesin terms of "the encounter between global technology and modern man"; that is, the "inner truth and greatness"of Nazism is to be found in its nature as a world-historicalalternativeto the technological-scientific nihilism bemoanedby Nietzsche and Spengler. What is shocking about this claim is that the second half of this sentence (concerningthe "encounterbetweenglobaltechnologyand modern man") was addedparenthetically the text of the rg53 edition of theselecturesof 1935. to Thus, not only hasHeideggerrefusedto omit the original distinction between the "historical" and "essential"forms of Nazism in the later edition; he hasin fact reemphasized valueof this distinction eighteenyearslater by adding a the clarificationthrough which he seeks reinforcethe original distinction itself, to Heidegger's dogmatic nonrepentanceis further illustrated by his longstandingconviction that the National Socialistmovement(and he personally) had been"betrayed" by the Ftihrer himself.That is, it wasHitler whq owing to a failure of nerve, ultimately abandoned original "antinihilistic" thrust of the the movement(which was its raison d'6tre, accordingto Heidegger),by curbing its more radical tendencies. Thus, accordingto the testimonyof the writer ErnstJiinger,Heideggerclaimedafter the war that Hitler would be resurrected and exonerate Heidegger,sincehe (Hitler) was guilty of having misled him.3s That Heidegger never made a professionof guilt concerning his role in the "German catastrophe"follows logically from this reasoning,since,in the last

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analysis, fault lay with the National Socialistmovementitself-which had the failed to live up to its true historical potential-rather than with him. This whole "strategy of denial" on Heidegger'spart is fully consistentwith the rather exaltedmission he assignsto the National SocialistFiihrerstaarin his RectoralAddressof r933, wherethe latter is hailedasa bellicose reinventionof the Greek polis. Since the National Socialist state failed to live up to the metaphysical goalsHeidegger had set for it, it was the Nazis, not Heidegger, who were ultimately at fault.36 To return to the Lacoue-Labarthe-Derrida contention that it was a "surplus of metaphysicalthinking" that accountedfor Heidegger'sNational Socialist leanings:accordingto this argument,Heideggerfinally camearound to realizingin the late r93os that Nietzsche,insteadof having delivereda deathblow to Westernmetaphysics, was in truth the last metaphysician. The postCartesianversion of metaphysics largely consistedof an exaltationof human will; and Nietzsche'sthought, for all its criticismsof philosophicalhumanism, wasultimately of a piecewith this tradition, sinceits centralcategor$"the will to power," is likewisea glorificationof will. It is preciselysuch an exaltationof and the "will" that is, accordingto Heidegger,at the root of Western technE triumph of modern technology. This celebrationof will is at the very heart of (Blumenberg).Hence, the modern cultural project of "human self-assertion" National Socialism,which originally presenteditself in Heidegger'seyesas a countermovement the nihilism of the Western"will to techn/'-and thus asa to world-historicalalternativeto the nihilism so reviled by Nietzsche-in the end proved to be only a different historical manifestationof that samenihilism, in the sameway that Nietzsche'sstrident critique of metaphysics itself ultimately restson metaphysical foundations.The equationaccordingto which Heidegger proceeds,therefore, is: National Socialism = Nietzscheanism= metaphysics.If it was an infatuation with Nietzsche (more specifically with the latter's critique of nihilism) that led to Heidegger'sembraceof National Sothat wasat fault, sincethis cialism,then it wasultimately Westernmetaphysics thought. Heidegwasthe intellectualframeworkthat stoodbehind Nietzsche's ger had been misled and duped (first by Nietzsche,then by the Nazis),but he wasnot "responsiblefor," let alone"guilty of" any misdeeds. A similar interpretive"strategyof containment"is pursuedby Derridain De l'esprh.Derrida, unlike Lacoue-Labarthe, believesthat he can succeedin getting the early Heidegger partially off the hook. The sticking point is the keyword in Derrida's title, "l'esprit" (or Geist).Derrida arguesthat the freof quent positiveallusionsto "spirit" in the political speeches 1933indicate a sharp departure from Being and Time, where this categoryis systematically

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of criticized. A "metaphysics spirit" wasa Hegeliantrope, a telltalemetaphysical residuum that Heidegger the philosopher had long since renounced. Therefore,the utilization of this outmodedphilosophicalrhetoric wasby defi* nition discontinuouswith the philosophy of Being and Time,despitethe fact that the latter remainedpartially beholdento prejudicial Cartesiannostrums (aboveall, in treating Daseinas the orchi through which the "question of Being" could be unlocked).As Derrida himself explainsthe rationalebehind his "spirited" defenseof Heidegger: one must preservethe "possibilities of rupture" in a "variegatedHeideggerianthought that will remain for a long time provocative, enigmatic,worth reading." In his rectoraladdress, "Heidegger takes up again the word 'spirit,' which he had previously avoided, he dispenses with the invertedcommaswith which he had surroundedit. He thus limits the movementof deconstructionthat he had previouslyengaged He in. gives a voluntaristic and metaphysicalspeechfwhose terms] he would later treat with suspicion.To the extent that [Heidegger'sdiscourse]celebrates the freedomof spirit, its exaltationfof spirit] resembles other Europeandiscourses (spiritualist,religious,humanist)that in generalare opposedto Nazism. fThis is] a complex and unstableskein that I try to unravel lin De I'espritl by recognizing the threads in common between Nazism and anti-Nazism, the law of resemblance,the fatality of perversion. The mirror-effects are at times vertiginous."3T The illogical conclusion we are left to draw from the line of argument pursued by both Lacoue-Labartheand Derrida is that it was a surfeit of metaphysical humanism(later abandoned) that drove Heideggerinto the Nazi camp! But in the end, this intrpretive tack amountsonly to a more sophisticated strategy of denial. The entire specificity of the relationship between Heidegger's philosophy and National Socialism is theorized away once the distinction between"humanism" and "antihumanism" is so readily blurred. The Volkfor which Heideggerbecame spokesman 1933is a particularisthe in tic entity, unlike the categoryof "mankind" with which one associates traditional humanism. In addition, any trace of personalor German national responsibility is convenientlyeffacedonce the triumph of National Socialismis attributed to a nebulous, impersonal force such as "planetary technologyr" "metaphysicalthinking," "nihilism," or the "will to will."38 Since Nazism proves in the last analysisto be merely a particular outgrowth of the rise of "planetarytechnology"(which itself is a mere "symptom" of the "forgetting of Being" that has victimized the history of the West sincePlato), the historical specificity of the Hitler yearsbecomes, the overall schemeof things, a minor in episode.From this perspective, would be presumptuousof Martin Heidegit

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ger, the lowly "shepherd of Being," to assumeculpability for a metaphysical process (the forgettingof Being) for which he canhardly be held responsible. If you want someone blame,knock on Plato'sdoor.He's the one,after all, who, to by distinguishing betweenthe forms and the sensibles, kicked off the entire onto-theologicalmuddle in the first place. In fact, Heidegger deservesour praisefor attempting to reversethis odious process; ceaseless albeit, within the limits of Gelossenheit "releasement"(which substitutesfor the overly "volor untaristic" categoryof Entschlossenheit the later Heidegger),accordingto in which matterscanonly be madeworseif men and womenassert their "wills" to try to changethings. As Heideggerconfesses the Spiegel in interview (in a line that theologianshave ever since cited with glee),at this point in history, the dominationof "will," "metaphysics,"and "techne" hasgoneso far that "only a god can saveus!" That the "antihumanist" philosophicalframework of the later Heidegger can hardly be deemedan unqualified advance, Lacoue-Labartheand Derrida as would haveit, is indicatedby a telling remarkmadeby Heideggerin 1949(well after his allegedKehre): "Agriculture today is a motorized food industry, in the in and exterminaessence sameasthe manufacture corpses gaschambers of tion camps,the sameas the blockadeand starvationof countries,the sameas This cynicalavowal-by the man who has the manufacture atomicbombs."3e of philosopherof our time-gets at the very stakeda claim to being the leading That the Freiburg crux of Heidegger'slater philosophyas a critique of technE. sage can simply equate "the manufacture of corpsesin gas chambers and extermination camps" with mechanizedagriculture is not only a shockingly It insensitiveaffront to the memory of the victims of the Nazi death-camps. is It not only a gruesomeequation of incomparables. servesonce more to deny the specificallyGerman responsibilityfor thesecrimes by attributing them to world-historical process.It the dominanceof an abstract,all-encompassing, moreover,that other Western (as well as non-Western)nations who suggests, engagein mechanizedfood production, "blockadesr"and the manufactureof no nuclear weapons,are in essence different than the SS lieutenants who It into the gaschambers. illustratesan extrememyopiaconcerning herdedJews the various uses to which technology can be put in the modern world, an and destructiveemployment.It incapacityto distinguishbetweenits beneficial That the later Heidegger's technology. is in sum a simplistic demonizationof philosophy is to such a great extent predicatedon a demonizationof "techa nique" asexemplifiedby the r949 observationiust cited suggests glaring flaw in his theoreticalframework. Heidegger is a philosopherwho is not at home in the modern Essentially,

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by world. Thus, it comesaslittle surprisethat, when pressed his interlocutors philosophicalwisdom interview for a tidbit of during the courseof the Spiegel concerninga possiblesolution to the dilemmasof the modern age,Heidegger canonly answeremphaticallyin the negative:whateverthe solutionmay be, "it is not democracy";instead,"only a god can saveus." His devaluationof the modern project of human autonomyis so extreme,that he will only admit to a deusex machinasolution-in the most literal sense the term. The powersof of human intelligenceand volition are so thoroughly downplayed,the modern idealof self-fashioning subjectivityis so far devalued, that all we are left with is an appealto myth that is abstract,irrational, and sadlyimpotent.

DEMOCRACY AND THE POTITICAL Iil TI{E THOUGHT OF HA NlrlAIl ARENDT

Hannah Arendt has justifiably been lauded as the greatestpolitical thinker of the twentieth century.The merits of her totalitarianismbook alone,which to this day remainsa classic,would be enoughto securesuch a claim. However, when one considersthe fact that shecomplemented this study with two other great contributions to modern political philosophy, The Human Condition (tqS8) and On Reuolution (tg6l), how formidablean intellectuallegacyshehas of bequeathed becomes evident.Perhaps one canspeak Leo Straussin the same breath. The names of Antonio Gramsci, Carl Schmitt, Eric Voegelin, and Michael Oakeshott also come to mind. But after that. one would be hard pressed namepolitical thinkers of equalstature. to Laudations aside, the more specific question as to which aspectsof her thought are worth building on today remains to be answered.What both it fascinates and frustratesabout her work is that, in so many respects, defies Arendt is neither a liberal nor a conservative,reactionary nor categorization: nor radical,classicist modernist. Many rightly believethat the key to Arendt's political thought is to be found in in The Human Condition;more specifically, the concept of action she deattention to the relevance velopsin that work. I shall be devotingconsiderable My basic and implicationsof this notion for her political philosophyin general. claim is that the roots of Arendt's political thought areto be found in the values of the pre-Platonicpolis. In her view,there the valuesof the political properly so calledwereallowedto flourish, asyet uncorrupted by orientationsproper to which tends to the spheresof "contemplation" (the Platonic biosthCoretikos the valuesproper to the sphereof action) or techni.To be sure, the downgrade basisfor underframeworksheadoptsprovidesa highly fruitful and suggestive standingthe failingsof modern politics,dominatedasthey areby the prepolitical spheresof economy and public administration. In the end, however,her Illuminating though it may be in many perspectiveremainsoverantiquarian. respects,her adherenceto a Periclean-Athenian model of politics meansthat

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is at her perspective seriously oddswith the terms and requirementsof political practicein the modern world.

I (r95r), for The centrality of Arendt's first book, The Originsof Totalitarianism development her political thought is beyonddispute.In this of the subsequent study Arendt would define the problem that would preoccupyher in all her future work: the nightmarishthreat to human freedomposedby modern forms of political rule. The Greeksbelievedthey had categorized possible forms of all rulership: monarchy, democracy,tyranny, and oligarchy. In the twentieth century, however,totalitarianism appearedas a qualitatively new form of political domination. The totalitarian statemandatedthe absorption of all enclaves of socialautonomy-very often, via the meansof terror. For Arendt, totalitarianismrepresented only a new form of political rule, not but something much more radical: a consciouseffort to transform the very fabric of human nature. The concentration camps-our century's signature institutions-became the laboratories which this cynical experimentwould in be carried out. Totalitarian rule constituted an attempt to realize Circe's dream: to reduce men and women, via terroE to the condition of animals.It strove to createa societyof conditioned reflexes:Pavlov'sdog, who salivates not when he is hungry but when his masterrings a bell, would be the model.rIn Arendt's view,totalitariansocieties embodiedan unprecedented threat insofar asthey threatenedto negatewhat wasmost essentially human: the capacityfor spontaneityor free action; a capacitythat, for the Greeks,wasone of the traits that distinguishedhuman life from that of lower species. The diminution of prospectsfor free action in modern societieswould becomethe guiding thread for much of Arendt's mature work. It was a tendency she viewed as operativenot merely in the twentieth-century dictatorships, but (following Tocqueville) also in modern democracies, which the in horizonsof political expression, toq had radicallycontracted.Modern democracy bore all the hallmarks of mass society.Politics properly speakinghad become a matter of public administration, in which "action," in Arendt's understandingof the term, playeda negligiblerole. Profound though it was,Arendt's understandingof totalitarianrule was far from unflawed. In retrospect her attempt to portray totalitarianism as the logicalculmination of political modernity-rather than, say,asa terrible excrescence-seems overteleological. This is especially true of the first two parts of her study, "Anti-Semitism" and "Imperialism." Arendt underestimates the fact that, in the maiority of cases, neither imperialism nor anti-Semitism (in-

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stances which were extremely widespread)blossomedforth into the totalof itarian politics per se.In what way,then, can thesetwo phenomena said to be embodythe "elements"or sinequa non of totalitarianrule asArendt describes them? Anti-Semitism, moreover,played virtually no role in the totalitarian deformation of the Soviet regime under Stalin. Conversely,it remained the ideological basisof National Socialism; much so that the policiesand politics so of Nazi rule remain incomprehensible without recourseto its avowedlyracist self-understanding. In retrospect,by conflating the German and Soviet variantsof totalitarianism (the cursory treatment the Soviet model receivesseemsappendedas an afterthought),the book seems eminentlybeholdento the ideological contextof the cold war. And while it would be foolish to deny the many similarities betweenthe two regimes,the term "totalitarianism" itself fails to distinguish their essentially different economicand ideological As bases. one commentator hasremarked,"By understandingNazism in terms not of its specificallyGerman context but of modern developments linked to Stalinism as well, Arendt was putting herself in the ranks of the many intellectualsof German culture who sought to connect Nazism with Western modernity, thereby deflecting blamefrom specificallyGerman traditions."2 Thus, at a crucial point, the attempt to understand totalitarianismas the fundamentalor most representative expressionof political modernity breaks down. To be sure,Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union may havebeen totalit Yet, totalitarianismas she describes was hardly a itarian in Arendt's sense. pan-Europeanphenomenon.Even the fascist regimes that were in certain to respects comparable Hitler's Germany,suchasMussolini's Italy or Franco's which is to singleparty,authoritariandictatorships; Spain,remainedin essence saythey fell short of being the all-consumingpolitical entities we customarily with totalitarianism.3 associate of When all is said and done, the success totalitarianismin Germany and Russiacannot be strictly explained,as Arendt implies, in terms of the logic of one must equally take into account political modernity. Instead,in both cases authoritariantraditions.That both of the formidable persistence quasi-feudal, (rather than "exemplars" of) political modernity to nations were latecotmers may haveplayeda much more significant role in their aversionto parliamentary forms and embraceof dictatorialrule.a

tl Arendt was a student of both Jaspersand Heidegger.It would be surprising, therefore,werethe markedimprint of their theoriesnot evidentin her political

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thinking. Indeed, the influenceof their thought on her conceptof action-her alternative to the impoverishedbourgeoisdefinition of liberty as "negative freedom"-is pronounced.In many ways,Existenzphilosophie the crucible was in which her theory of action was formed. As Martin Jay has remarked:"To stress this link fbetween Arendt and, Etcistenzphilosophie)is not because useful it establishes somesort of guilt by association, rather because providesthe it but historical context in which her apparentlyuncategorizable position begins to makesense.t'S Though it was the formative philosophy of her youth, Arendt. remained peculiarly silent about Existenzphilosophie her later years.In a ry46 Partisan in Reaiep essayon this theme, however,she praisesExistenzphilosophie "havfor ing reacheda consciousness, yet unsurpassed, what really is at stakein as of modern philosophy."6 What aspects, then, of the philosophiesof Jaspersand Heideggerwould prove most influential for Arendtl In the caseof Jaspers,it was the theory of boundary or limit-situations (Grenzsituationen) had the greatestimpact on Arendt's political thought. that Limit*situations representmoments of existential risk-proximity to death, danger,or crisis-in which the meaningof one's life, one's personalauthenticity as it were, comesdistinctly into view. If we transposethe valuesof the limit-situation to the political sphereproper (Arendt's realm of "action"), w will have gone far toward determining the normative featuresof politics that Arendt reveres.For Arendt, there is nothing in the least prosaic o-r routine about politics asa species "action." In this regard,shelaments,action hasall of but disappeared from contemporarypolitics. For Arendt politics asan expression of action becomes type of existentialproving ground; it becomes test of a a the capacityof individual actorsfor heroism or great deeds.It is a pagetaken verbatimout of Plutarch'sLiaes.T We know that for Heidegger,toq politics was a sphereof authenticity: it pertainedto a Nietzschean "great politics" asopposedto the routinized politics that characterizebourgeoisrule. "The time for petty politics is over," remarks Nietzsche in BeyondGoodand, Eail; "the very next century will bring the fight for the dominion of the earth-the compulsion great politics."s These were to very much the normative terms through which Heidegger justified his commitment to National Socialismin 1933;that is, as a return to a type of great politics, a politics of authenticity.e For Arendt, too, politics meant "great politics." The avowedlyHomeric dimensionsof action that were of such importance for Nietzsche-the emphasis on heroism, striving, agon, and individual distinction-for her, roo, embodiedthe unique contribution of the Greeksto modern political life. Thus, in TheHurnan Condition, Arendt construespolitical action in a manner wholly

166 Democracyand the Politicalin Hannah Arendt consistent with the virtues of political existentialism (and thus, with the Nietzschean-Heideggerian lineage)just discussed: "action canbe judged only by the criterion of greatness it because is in its nature to break through the and reachinto the extraordinary, wherewhateveris true in commonly accepted common and everydaylife no longer appliesbecause everythingthat existsis unique and suigeneris."ro From this standpointit is clear that it is not democracy per sebut the agorathat sheprizes; for the first time in history, the Greeks provided a space, opening,in which superiorindividualscould displaytheir an prowess. Margaret Canovanhasobserved: As "As we explore[Arendt's] theory that apparentlystartedasgeneralhuman capacithe action and self-disclosure ties seemto be narroweddown until they becomerare human achievements"of a view that well capturesthe elitist and aristocraticbiases Arendt's concep* tion of the political.rr of The more we probe the theoreticalbases Arendt's understandingof politics, the more we seethe extent to which it remainsindebted to specificHeipresuppositions. Arendt, asfor Heidegger,the polis, For deggerian-ontological in of the political, providesa "clearing" (Lichtung), which action comes the site to expression. In this connectionit is important to realizethat in Arendt's view it is not so much the ends of politics that occupy pride of place-happiness, the public qualities.In keepingwith the weal,iustice,and so forth-but certain aesthetic motif of the Heideggerianclearing,Arendt viewspolitics very aforementioned The much as a stageon which great individuals might display themselves. political arenabecomes settingin which greatpersonsrevealtheir uniqueness a "In and worth by virtue of their capacityto speakand act. As Arendt observes: acting and speaking,men show who they are, reveal actively their unique in personalidentitiesand thus maketheir appearance the human world."r2It is for this reason that in The Human Conditioz she refers to theater as "the political art pa,r excellence; only there is the political sphere of human life into art. . . . [theater]is the only art whosesolesubjectis man in his transposed relationship to others."r3Similarly, in "What is Freedom?" she writes that "performing artists-dancers, play-actors,musiciansand the like-need an of to audience showtheir virtuositg just asactingmen needthe presence others whom they can appear;both need a publicly organized spacefor their before 'work,'and both dependupon others for the performanceitself."la In Arendt's view,action and politics, as distinct from labor and work, must be wholly noninstrumental or non-goal-oriented.She observesthat "action almost never achievesits purpose"; in other words, it must be considered primarily asan end in itself.rsOnce it is viewedinstrumentally,asa meansto a

Democracyand the Political in Hannah Arendt

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determinate end, its purity will have been corrupted. Even were it to be thought of asa meansto achievingthe endsof iusticeor socialequality,politics qua action would thereby forfeit its distinctivenessand degenerateto the level of productiveactivity or "labor." Following from this marked devaluationof the ends of action or questions of political content-inferior considerations that threatento sully the realm of politics by associating with base,utilitarian concerns-Arendt's concept of it the political assumes distinctly decisionistichues.Thus, it is not so much the "what" or "wherefore" of politics that matters,but rather the "how." The great arejudgedby whotheyare,remarksArendt, in a patentlyaristocraticspirit; that is, on the basisof certain existentialattributesthat, in action, are permitted to shineforth for all to see.Only the vulgar,shegoeson to observe, judged by are the prosaiccriterion of what they havedone.16 In Heidegger,similarly,the conceptof "resolve" (Entschlossenheit) abstracts entirely from the endsof action. Thus, one could be "resolutely" a fascist,a Bolshevik, or anarchist;but not a democrat, since, as a form of mass rule, pertainsto the degradedsphereof everydayness. democracy Democracyis, one might say,constitutionallyinauthentic.Like Arendt's conceptof action, "decision" for Heideggerreflectsthe sheerquantum of will or conviction subtending our worldly engagements. abstracts It entirely from the specificcontent or ends of those commitments themselves. (Thus, the witticism popular among Heidegger's students in the rg2os: "I'm resolved,but to what end I know not.") In Heidegger'scase,decisionismleadsto a celebrationof ontologicalpolitics. The ends of politics are not conceivedof in terms of justice or fairness; instead,they becomean extensionof Heideggerian"unconcealedness" (Unaerschlossenheit),, disclosureof truth. They serve to ground and maintain the the "opennessof an open region," as Heidegger characterizes "clearing" the (Lichtung) asa locusfor the "event" (Ereignis) truth.rT of For Arendt, toq politics possessesquintessential a ontologicalfunction: it is the supremeact of human self-revelation self-disclosure. or Thus, in the first instance,the vocationof politics concernscertain existentialcriteria: it is the fundamentalway in which we express our distinctiveness human beings.In as TheHurnanCond'itioz, Arendt speaks the "revelatorycharacterof action and of speech, which one discloses in oneselfwithout ever either knowing himself or being able to calculatebeforehandwhom he reveals."r8 One of the primary virtues of action,therefore, its unforeseeableness, sheerunpredictabilityis its so far removedis it from the vulgar,materialsphereof techn|or production. Unlike Heidegger,however,Arendt considerspersonalauthenticity to be

168 Democracyand the Political in Hannah Arendt necessarily tied to the existenceof a public realm, the political equivalentof Heidegger'sclearing.Tyranny forecloses this spaceand is thereforeunacceptin able.To engage a provocative thought experiment,one might inquire: Could a fascistpublic spherepreservethe dramaturgicalmodel of politics advocated by Arendtl In view of the wholesale degradationof the political in the modern world, where social "interests" have come to monopolize political decisionin making,and basingone'sresponse the conceptualframeworkestablished on to TheHuman Condition, onewould be hard-pressed rule out this possibility.In many respectsfascismattempts to reassertthe autonomyof the political over of the economic(which is, after all, one of the key desiderata Arendt's political theory).Her own thoroughgoingcritique of the modern party system,in which over the endsof self-realization, the administrationof needstakesprecedence suggests that, in any event,her real political options are few.re The aestheticisttenor of Arendt's theory of action is reinforced by her emphasison the conceptsof natality and novelty,which inhere in the act of founding a state. More generally,though, one of the essentialattributes of as action is that it certifiesthe "insertion of the new." Nevertheless! a criterion for action, "newness" remains quasi-formal. It abstractsfrom the particular content or ends of a given form of political rule, and, in principle could be compatiblewith a wide variety of regimes. is ofnatality and newness a correof Another consequence Arendt's embrace is politics or political normalcy (suchdismissal of spondingdevaluation normal of Action in Arendt's sense the one of the hallmarksof political existentialism). word strivesafter glory and distinction: "Action needsfor its full appearance As the shining brightnesswe oncecalledg1ory."20 such,greatindividualsalone, a and not the hoi polloi or commonrun of men and women,possess true capacity for action. But, if this is true, then normal politics-grassroots organizing, of not to mention the other aspects voting, debating,deliberating,caucusing, of civil society-are relegated collectivewill-formation that are characteristic political good. They fall considerablyshort of to the statusof a second-order Nietzsche's "great politics" or the agonistic struggle for glory that distinguishedpolitical life among the Greeks.Admittedly, there is little heroisminvolvedin the day-to-dayroutine of parliamentarydemocracy. To be sure, Arendt's critique of the routinized,and bureaucraticnature of modern politics is extremely well placed. It is the one-sided nature of her argument,its either-or quality, that makesit so difficult to reconcilewith the requirementsof modern democratic practice. Her embraceof natality as a paramount political value threatensto consign all latecomersor subsequent or political actors to the subalternsphereof political everydayness inauthen-

Democracyand the Political in Hannah Arendt

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ticity. This conclusionis driven homeclearlyin her discussion the American of Revolution, where the glory of the founding forms a pointed contrast with the legislative dull familiarity of postrevolutionary, business-as-usual. Arendt's concernswith natality, founding and newness come to a head in her valorization of revolution-one of the strangest features of a political thought that is sootherwiseorientedto the valuesof the ancientpolis.Ir,leedless to say,her partisanship for revolution is far from unqualified. In those cases where the political goals of revolution have been supersededby the needs of what Arendt calls the "life-process"-the locus classicusbeing the way in which the "social question" led to the French Revolution's Jacobin airement (turning)-the revolutionaryprocess negates itself (similar criticismsof course could be madeof the RussianRevolution). Arendt valuesrevolution insofarasit transcends political normalcy.Revolutions stand out as instancesof "pure action"; they constitute an existential breakwith "governmentality,"which sheassociates with the predictabilityand regimentationof the party system.As such,revolutionsprovide an eruption of the new amid the proseof the world. Within the frameworkof political existentialism and asa species "great politics," revolutionsembodya transposition of of Kierkegaard'steleologicalsuspension the ethical from the moral to the of political sphere.The air they breatheis that of a "boundary situation." Similarly, in the caseof fellow political existentialistCarl Schmitt, great politics facilitates contactwith "intensivelife" (intensioes Leben). emerges It only with a state of emergency(Ausnahmezustunfi, which the values of political norin malcy are suspended and, in Schmitt's words, "the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanismthat hasbecometorpid with repetition."zl For Arendt it is the fleeting glory of the revolutionary councils in St. Petersburg(tgos), Munich (r9r8-r9), and Budapest (iqs6) in which the values of revolutionary action were consummately realized. (Outstanding among the councils' common characteristics," statesArendt, was "the spontaneityof their coming into being." They represent in her view authentic "spacesof freedom."22 However, many commentators have found Arendt's support for council communism contradictory. For one, the councils themselvesemergeddirectly from the Europeanlabor movement,the domain of the "life-process."As such, their concernswere both political and social.Yet it was preciselythe social element,associated with the sphereof production, that Arendt alwaysstroveto keepat a distancefrom the political sphere. Arendt's embrace the direct democracyof council communismgoeshand of in hand with her critique of party politics. Ultimately, this critique develops

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into a denigration of representative democracyas such. According to Arendt, only interestscan be "representedr"never action. In order to be meaningful, action must be enacteddirectly by the actor,not by someone standingin for or representinghim. Such thinking pushesArendt toward the conclusion that representativedemocracy or the party system as such is constitutionally inauthentic on the basisof its ties to "society" or the sphere of "interests"which in the last analysisare what is "represented."Thus, the domination of interestsin a parliamentarysetting is merely the reverseside of the wholesale inattention to action in Arendt's sense. Lastly the councils were fundamentally populist and egalitarian institutions, a fact difficult to reconcile with the elitist-aristocratic conception of endorses vigorously. so action that Arendt elsewhere

l|l the If we return to the concluding pagesof On Rezsolution, fundamentally nature of Arendt's political predilectionscomesstarkly into view. aristocratic "The political way of life never has been and never will be the way of the The fallacyof the "democraticmentality of an egalitarian many," shedeclares. society," she continues,is that "it tends to deny the obvious inability and lack of interestof largeparts of the population in political matters conspicuous The crisis of modern democracycannot be explainedby the fact as such."z3 havebeen monopothat opportunities for participation and decision-making professional elite. It is not its oligarchicalcharacterper se-the fact lized by a Instead,the dilemmaof that the many areruled by a few-to which sheobjects. of "from modern democracymay be attributed to the absence public spaces or an elite could be selected, rather, from which it could selectitself."2a which Thus, in Arendt's view, contemporary democratic practice merely suffersfrom the fact that it is an "administrativeelite" rather than a "glorious elite"-men and women capableof truly distinguishing themselves-that dominates.Toonly in rare cases," day, "authentically political talents can assertthemselves lamentsArendt.2s In retrospect,then, council communism'schief merit was not that it was Its democratic,participatory,or truly egalitarian. real virtue lay in the fact that political elites-men and women it proved an effectivemechanismof selecting of capable acting with distinction. The councilsprovided a space-a Heideggerian"Lichtung"-in which suchleaderswere ableto emerge' suggest that Arendt wasa democratonly in a highly qualified Such apergus where is sense the term. Democracy'smajor advantage that it offersa space of authentic political natures can attain their rightful positions of rule over the

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many-that is, over the greater massof men and women who are politically "unmusical." The avowedlyelitist character Arendt's view of democracyare of well captured in the following remarks from On Reaolution.With the rule of a political elite, observes self-selected Arendt, the joys of public happinessand the responsibilitiesfor public business would then becomethe shareof thosefew from all walks of life who havea taste for public freedom and cannot be "happy" without it. politically, they are the best, and it is the task of good governmenrand the sign of a well-orderedrepublic to assurethem of their rightful placein the public realm.To be sure,such an "aristocratic" form of governmentwould spell the end of generalsuffrageas we understandit today; for only thosewho as voluntary members of an "elementary republic" have demonstrated that they care for more than their private happinessand are concerned about the state of the world would have the right to be heard in the conduct of business the republic. of The exclusionof the many from politics, Arendt continues,would "give substanceand reality to one of the most important negative liberties we have enjoyedsincethe end of the ancientworld, namely,freedomfrom politics."26 We know that one of the keywordsof Arendt's political lexicon is human plurality. Her useof this term derivesfrom a democraticre-readingof Heideggerian "Being-with" (Mitserz) which, in Beingand Time,tends to be discounted aspertaining to the sphereof the "they"; that is, the sphereof everydayness or inauthenticity. Yet, as with Heidegger,for Arendt true human plurality ultimately applies solely to an elect: to those individuals who are capableof extraordinary or distinctiveforms of political self-expression. Only suchan electprovescapable of attaining the higher ontologicalplane of authentic human intersubjectivity or Being-with. Conversely,those who are politically less able and who remain absorbed the mass,becomeontologicallydeprived:in their separationfrom in politics assphereof authentichuman action,they sufferin a highly literal sense from a "reality deficit"; they are atomized in a way that Arendt, following Tocqueville, claims is conducive to tyranny or, under modern conditions. totalitarianism.As Canovanhas remarked:"Those who live their lives in this shadowyway without ever fully affirming their identity seemto include the vast majority of the human race."Z7 Among their number Arendt explicitly includes, "the slave, the foreigner, and the barbarian in antiquity . . . the laborer,or craftsmanprior to the modern age,the jobholderor businessman in our world.t'28 The risk entailedby Arendt's aristocraticdoctrine of action is clear: that of

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suchas regressing behind the fundamentalpreceptsof modern egalitarianism, Kant's invaluableaxiom concerningthe intrinsic worth of all rational natures. With an aristocraticdoctrine of human nature suchasArendt's, there is no way of avoiding the fact that certain naturesare more worthy than others.Arendt remainsa liberal as far as judicial or civil rights are concerned.She remainsa believerin the virtues of rule of law,civil liberties,the constitutionalstate,and so forth. But asfar asthe rights of activecitizenshipor the questionof political participation are concerned,her orientation proves to be frankly and disappointingly paternalistic.

tv
The Nietzschean,heroic-aristocraticbasis of Arendt's theory of action becomesevenmore pronouncedif we turn to an unpublishedtext from the early rgsos,"Karl Marx and the Tradition of WesternPoliticalThought," one of the first sketchesfor The Human Condition.What is noteworthy about this work, deliveredas a seriesof lecturesat Princeton in rg53, is that it is not Periclean Athens that Arendt relieson for her model of action,but the Homeric age-the to of sameera that Nietzschein The Genealogy Morals counterposes the "Soof cratic decadence" fourth-century Athens. In Arendt's unpublishedlecture, "action" emergesnot with the polis, but with the Achaeaninstitution of kingship that is celebratedin the Homeric epics. Homer's heroes,deprived of an afterlife, were driven by a quest for immortality or eternal glory in this life. Of course,their site of distinction was of not political activity per se,but the accomplishment great deedsin war. As to critically with reference fifth-century Athens: "pure action Arendt observes no longer had much placein the polis exceptin times of war."2e Arendt denigratesvioThe last remark is surprising insofar as elsewhere human plurality, the two lenceas (r) destructiveof both the public sphereand essentialpreconditionsof political life; and (z) the political equivalentof instrumental reason;hence,a form of "production" rather than "actionr" Since violenceusually aims at someconcreteend or effect. But upon reviewingher text of r953, we seethat Arendt did not alwayshold suchviews.There sheemand positiverole in the act phasizes that violenceoften playsan indispensable with the founding in political founding, asone sees the two myths associated of and Aeneas'sconquestof the Italian of Rome: Romulus's slaying of Remus positivelyabout the constitutiverole of she tribes.In On Reaolution, alsospeaks violencein actsof political founding: "Only where changeoccursin the sense of a new beginning where violenceis usedto constitutean altogetherdifferent

Democracyand the Political in Hannah Arendt

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form of government,to bring about the formation of a new body politic, where the liberation from oppression aims at leastat the constitution of freedom can we speakof revolution."3o The conclusionshe arrivesat in "Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought" is that in the fifth century the Greek polis was already overpreoccupied with "social" concerns:with the biological sphereof "mere life" as contrastedwith the "good life." Already,the focal point of Greek life had become the oikos rather than the agora: ruling slaves,the art of making money (chrematistikd), the mundane tasks of political administration as a or pendantto managingthe oikos. Thus, Arendt concludes, the polis action, in in the sense Homeric glory,playeda negligiblerole: "The polis is where people of Iioe together,not act [sic]," observes Arendt. "This is the reasonwhy action plays such a minor role in ancient philosophy which speaks out of the polisexperience."3l And shegoeson to lament the degeneration heroic "deed" to of "word" (the transition from Homer to Pericles, as it were) in the following terms: "dlxa. . . becomesmore and more an opinion by which the citizen distinguishes himself in the constantactivity of politeuesthailacting politicallyl and less the shining glory of immortal fame which may follow the great deed."32 the samemanuscript,shebemoans fact that, in ancientAthens, In the action was no longer equatedwith the doing of great deeds.Instead, it had decayed into the more ephemeraland transitory form of language speech. or

v
Someconcludingremarksconcerningthe serviceability Arendt's conceptof of action are in order. The paradigmof agon on which Arendt reliesis devoid of altruism or fellow feeling.It seemsincompatiblewith the valuesof solidarity that are essential the normative concept of democraticcitizenship.As one to critic hasnoted, her dramaturgicalmodel promotesa "politics of actorsrather than citizens . . . agonistic rather than participatory,[it encourages] men to standout rather than to take part in, to share."33 Her elitist denigrationof the socialtoo readily accepts then fashionable the Nietzschean-aristocratic criticism of "masssociety."It therebyneglectsone of the fundamentallessons the study of socialhistory: meaningfulinstances of of expression, distinction, and evenaction areto be found on the levelof everyday life in the nonpolitical spheresof culture, intimacy, and the workworld. Such instances should not be dismissed of hand by virtue of a series neoclassiout of cal conceptualprejudicesthat exalt the political and disparage social. the Though one would like to enlist Arendt's support for the causeof modern

r74 Democracyand the Political in Hannah Arendt democraticreform, her conceptionof democraticpracticeultimately provesto Sincehers is a normativerather than an immanentcritique of be self-defeating. modern politics, the philhellenic value-orientationshe employs to condemn of the deficiencies modern democracyis destinedto remain without historical efficacyor impact. It is intellectuallyilluminating but politically inconsequenof tial. Arendt definesthe normativeprerequisites democraticpracticeso selecfashion as virtually to rule out the prospectof tively and in such antiquarian their realization. The contradictory nature of Arendt's conception of democracyis apparent both in her exclusion of all social concerns from modern politics (a neoAristotelian prejudice that remainssignificantlyat odds with the structure of of as modern classsocieties) well asher belatedembrace the councilmovement. Movements can only be institutionalized on pain of routinization, at which point they ipso facto leavebehind their vitality. Needlessto say,there is still much one can learn from Arendt's rich and fascinatingcritique of modern society and its "action deficits." At the same time one must take into account the fact that our capacity to learn from her frameworkis circumscribedby definite limits. In many waysthe limitations of her worldview are thoseof her generation:the Central Europeanintelligentsia misapprehension that cameof ageduring the interwar period. The systematic of political modernity afflicts the outlook of 'an of the egalitarian demands entire generation of intellectual peers: figures such as Carl Schmitt, Eric Voegelin,and Leo Strauss. the In sum: only oncewe begin to appreciate analyticalshortfallsof Arendt's do justice to the otherwiseprofound insights political thought can we begin to in her work that, as so many commentatorshave shown, are eminently worthy of redemption.

A]TITTHUTANISII TN THE DISCOURSEOF FRENCH POSTWAR THEORY

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in of futureor a traditionalist reaction, total Whether conducted thename a radiant the critiqueof the modernworld, because is necessarily antihumanism leads it an that project,for example humanrights,the protoinevitably seeing the democratic to in in typeof ideology of metaphysical or illusion, structurally is incapable taking . . . the of up promises arealsothose modernity.-L. FerryandA. Renaut, that of French Philosophy ofthe Sixties The War Has Thken Place In a recent book on French intellectualsof the postwar period, the historian TonyJudt remarkson a long-standing"vacuum at the heart of public ethicsin France," on "the marked absence a concern with public ethics or political of morality" characteristicof the French intelligentsiain our century.tJudt attemptsto accountfor this ethicalvacuumin terms of a French ambivalence visi-vis the valuesof liberal democracy;an ambivalence that culminared in the r93os,when the Third Republicfound itself under increasingly vigorousattack by those on both the left and the right, with few enthusiastsof republican valuescapable holding the center together.After all, this was a regime that of had endured sensational financial scandals, shameof Munich, and that in the 193617 had refused to aid the Republicancausein Spain. With the fall of France in r94o, many French men and women came to perceiveVichy as a welcomeopportunity for a much-needednational renewal.It is important to recognizethat for intellectualson both the left and the right, the empirical shortcomingsof the beleaguered French republic were treated as compelling evidence the failure of democracyin principle. Moreover,this antidemocraof tic sentiment was not merely an ephemeraltrend, but a defining feature of twentieth-centuryFrench political culture. In fact, the convictionamongthose on the left in France that democratic regimes are prone to dishonestyand

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betrayal has a pedigreeof long standing: it harks back to the values of the Frenchrevolutionary tradition (1789,r848, r87r) and the beliefthat prospects for a total, socialrevolution were on eachoccasion sold short by the bourgeois quite recently one might say that democratic institutions class.Thus, until bore the indelible taint of their bourgeoisorigins. of is Judt's analysis for the most part confinedto the Stalinistmisadventures the existentialistthinkers who ruled the left bank of Parisin the decadeand a that an analogous half following World War II. Recently,somehavesuggested ethical shortfall haunts the discourseof the critics of humanism who, in the in rg6osand rg7os,succeeded existentialists the Parisianintellectuallimethe light. Among their number, one would include structuralistssuch as Roland Barthes,ClaudeL6vi-Strauss,and Louis Althusser,the psychoanalyst Jacques Derrida, Michel Lacan, as well as their poststructuralistsuccessors, Jacques Lyotard. As Raymond Aron has observed:"the Foucault, and Jean-Frangois god of the intellectualsof the sixtieswas no longer the Sartre who had dominated the postwar period but a mixture of L6vi-Strauss,Foucault, Althusser, and Lacan."2 The Achilles heelof this later generationof French thinkers would not be an uncritical infatuation with Communism. These luminaries, perhaps having have(with the important learnedthe unfortunate lessonof their predecessors, of Foucault)tendedto shy awayfrom public political involvementor exception commentary.Nevertheless,it would be worth inquiring as to whether the aforementioned "vacuum at the heart of public ethics in France," which Judt perceives endemicto the French political left, lives on today in the theoretas ically sublimatedguiseof philosophicalantihumanism. To be sure, antihumanism,as it cameto prominencein French intellectual life in the r95os and rg6os, had an ethical agendato purvey. It sought to highlight the hypocrisy of traditional humanism,which, in the era of decoloto nization (Vietnam, Algeria, etc.),appeared serveasthe ideologicalwindowdressingfor the corruptions of the imperialistWest.In fact, the true origins of antihumanist sentiment may be traced to an earlier point in French cultural la life: to the surrealists,who enact a deconstructiona,aa,nt lettre of "man," rather than reason, and so forth.3In its valorizationof unconscious subjectivity, consciousmental functioning, in Breton's original definition of surrealismas of "pure psychicautomatism. . . , the dictation of thought in the absence any emphasison in control exercisedby reason,"4 its revolutionary iconographic bodily membradisjecta(often quite sexist), surrealism sought to exposeand renounce the inadequacyof the post-Enlightenment conception of "man-" The case of surrealism demonstratesquite effectively the impact that the of traumasof the Great War had upon the self-confidence Europeanhumanity.

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By the rg6os,the embraceof "philosophicalantihumanism" had becomea type of litmus test for the post-Marxist French left. Yet, as pertinent and cogentas this rejectionof humanismmay haveseemed the time, in ensuing at decades, someof the limitations of this obligatory gestureof intellectualradicalism came into view. Ironically, by the r97os it seemedthat the critique of humanismhad itself becomeideological.Owing to the worldwide persistence of totalitarian regimeson both the left and the right, torture, and the systematic violation of human rights, a recoveryof "humanism"-the belief in the intrinsic, inviolable worth of all persons-in some form appearedindispensable. Increasingly, there seemedto be an unbridgeablegap betweenthe imperative political needsof the day which revolvedaround a civil libertarian politics of human rights, and the standpointof philosophicalantihumanism. After all, this was a decadethat had witnessedthe signing of the Helsinki accords,the coming to world prominenceof Amnesty International, and the devastating revelations Solzhenitsyn's of GulagArchipelago. The "imperialists" had beendefeatedin Southeast Asia. But the tyrannical nature of thosecommunist regimesthat had supplantedthe pro-Westernpuppet governments was undeniable.Fearingcommunist reprisals,refugees, euphemisticallyknown as "boat people," pitifully poured forth from the coastsof Vietnam. And the Khmer Rouge,led by a coterieof homicidal Maoists (who had, not coincidentally,beeneducated the finestParisianuniversities), at visited a holocaustupon sometwo million of the "politically incorrect" among their own people.Once again, the world's heart bled for the-newly communized-inhabitants of Southeast Asia. As a fitting end to a decadeof communist excess, world's the oldestand most powerfulMarxist regimesummarilyinvadeda neardefenseless Afghanistan. The ethical implicationsof this sorry train of eventsseemed clear:a revival of humanistic discoursebecamean unequivocalpolitical imperative.Hence, when viewed in terms of the foregoing historical chronology,the radical critique of humanism-a unifying themeof the French intellectualavant-garde of the r95osand r96os-could not but seemexcessive. the very least,it seemed At out ofplace giventhe changedpolitical temperament the late r97osand early of r98os.It wasas though French cultural radicalism,in its rush to condemnthe sinsat home,had rashly o'ershot the object of its criticism. One of the few genuinely political corollaries of the antihumanist position had beena militant third-worldism. Third World revolutions-in China, Cuba, Africa, South America, and even lran-were romantically viewed as the "other" of the exploitativecapitalistmetropoles.s Yet, by the end of the r97os, the force of historicalcircumstances proved that this position, toq was untenable.In view of the retrogradestateof civil rights and liberties in the revolu-

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tionary regimes, many came to view Eurocentric standardsof justice with lesscynicism. considerably In what follows, I shall be more concernedwith the intellectual history of postwar France than with its political history. I havebegun with a brief sketch subtext for understandingthe of the latter since it forms the indispensable twists and turns of French theory in the postwar years.However, what is, in a Foucauldianspirit, really neededis a "genealogy"of French intellectualpolitics of the period; a genealogythat can account for why philosophicalantitheoreticaloption-to the point humanismcould presentitself asa redoubtable where,in the courseof a decade(1955-65), it was able to vanquishthe other dominant positionsfrom the intellectualfield.6 one must addressa peculiar confluenceof To explain thesedevelopments, philosophicalpositionsthat, beginningin the mid-r95os, united to overthrow the reigning intellectual paradigm of the precedingdecade:the paradigm of existentialMarxism, which claimed to be the rightful heir to the legacy of Westernhumanism in the sameway that Marx and Engelshad spokenof the philosophy.What one discoversis proletariat as the heir to German classical that the influencesof (r) the later Heidegger,(z) structuralismand structural anthropology,(3) semiologyand linguistics and, later, (4) poststructuralism had combined to form, as it were, an epistemologicalunited front whosemain object wasto havequit with "man," the subiectof traditional humanism. The specific goal of my inquiry, therefore, is to account for a peculiar coniuncture in French intellectual life whereby three theoreticalcurrents-Heistructuralism,and poststructuralism-enter into allianceto rendeggerianism, der antihumanismthe culturally dominant intellectualparadig for a period of nearly two decades.

The French Heidegger Fevival of Certainly one of the more bafflingdevelopments modern Europeanintellectual history concernsthe rebirth of Heideggerianismin postwar France,at a time when the philosopher'scareerin Germany had reachedits nadir. In 1946 Heidegger was dismissedfrom his position at the University of Freiburg for having, in the words of a university denazificationcommission, "in the fateful year of rg33 consciouslyplacedthe great prestigeof his scholarlyreputation . . . in the serviceof the National SocialistRevolution, thereby [making] an essentialcontribution to the legitimation of this revolution in the eyes of educatedGermans."TIn the aftermath of the university commission'sstern findings,Heideggersuffereda nervousbreakdownthat requiredtwo months of

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He hospitalization. wasonly reinstatedsomefive yearslater,at a time when the political situation in Germany had stabilized. Heideggerconsciously We now know that, in the aftermath of this setback, set out to find among a French philosophicalpublic the vindication that had been denied him in his own country. The first gambit in this strategy of rehabilitation was the publication of his tg47 "Letter on Humanism." This to text was a fifty-page response an epistolaryinquiry by the French philosopher Jean Beaufret. Beaufret'stwo essentialquestionsconcerned:(r) a clarification of the relationshipbetweenfundamentalontology and "ethics"; and (z) the contemporaryprospectsfor revivifying the conceptof "humanism."8 at Heidegger,refusing to deviatefrom the position he had established the time of the publication of Being and,Time (tgz7), argued that ontology-the "questionof Being"-had renderedan independentethicaltheory superfluous. Every attempt to formulate an ethics,he explained,risked "elevating man to In the centerof beings."e this respect,such attemptscourted the dangersof a relapseinto an anthropocentricmode of philosophicalquestioning.For Heidegger, such subject-centeredapproachesto philosophy represented the essenceof the traditional metaphysicsfrom which the Freiburg sagehad desperately sought to free himself (especiallyin the later philosophy; and here, the "Letter" constitutesan ideal instance). To Beaufret'sother query concerningthe contemporarystatusof "humanism"-How can we restore meaning to the word "humanism"?-Heidegger A responds:"I wonder whether that is necessary." restoration of humanism subjectivism." similarly risked succumbingto the fatal lures of "metaphysical In his responseto this question, Heidegger also took the occasionto difofJean-PaulSartre. ferentiatehis philosophyof Being from the existentialism This move was a strategic imperative given the considerableprominence had come to enjoy after the war. Moreover, Sartre had Sartreanexistentialism just corneout with the short, but highly influential,existentialist primer, "Existentialilm is a Humanism."r0The painstakingdetail of Heidegger's"Letter" allowedhim to put to rest all doubts that there might exist significantaffinities betweenthe two variants of Existenzphilosophie. In "Existentialism is a Humanismr" Sartre had maintained: "We are precisely in a situation where there are only human beings"; a statementthat in many waysmerely echoedhis well-known characterization existentialism in of terms of the priority of "existence"over "essence." the "Letter on HumanIn ismr" conversely, Heideggerclaims the direct obverse:"'We are preciselyin a situation where principally there is Being."rr To be sure, the reversal(Kehre)of the relationship between"Being" and

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"human being" that Heideggersought to effect was critically motivated.Heidegger himself had becomeconvinced that the "planetary" devastationof the provenance: wasa direct result of the SecondWorld War wasof metaphysical it philosophicalparadigm of "metaphysicalsubjectivism" or the "will to will," which, from Descartes Nietzsche,had singularlydeterminedthe manner in to which ttman" allowst'beings"to "come to presence" the modern world. The in terrible consequence this modeof disclosingthe world, accordingto Heidegof ger, was a frenzy of technologicalnihilism, whose catastrophicresults were transparent for all to see.Thus, to criticize this paradigm, to advocateits reversal,was crucial in reestablishing radically different, more harmonious a relationshipbetween"man" and "Being." There are other fascinating "strategic" aspectsof Heidegger's text. Although to discussthem fully would takeus far afield from the inquiry at hand, rhapit should at leastbe noted that the "Letter" includesuncharacteristically to sodicdiscussions both Marxism and the SovietUnion. With reference the of author of Dos Kapital, Heidegger at one point observes:"BecauseMarx by experiencing estrangement attainsan essential dimensionof history,the Marxist view of history is superior to that of other historical accounts."The "inferior" views of history he goeson to reject are those of Husserl and Sartre, neither of which, accordingto Heidegger,"recognizesthe importanceof the historical in Being."l2 With respectto the "doctrines of Communismr" Heideggergoesout of his way to note: "from the point of view of the history of Being it is certain that an elementalexperienceof what is world-historical out speaks in it."l3 of These peculiarasides can be explainedin terms of the precariousness the current world-political situation.The cold war had begun,but at this point no one knew which camp would triumph. Heideggerhad alreadybeenmistreated by the occupyingFrench troops:classifyinghim asa "Nazi-typique," they had proceededto confiscatehis house as well as his invaluablepersonal library. Clearly,Heidegger did not wish to burn his bridges to the other side, iust in Moreover, as Anson Rabinbach has pointed out, the precise fate of case.l4 Heidegger'stwo sons,who were reported as "missing" on the easternfront, The favorable allusionsto Marxism and Comwasstill very much uncertain.rs munism in this densephilosophicaltext, therefore,can only be explainedas a result of a number of pressingcircumstantialconcerns. ((Letter)' in the relationshipbetweenthe ends of "humanYet, because the ity" and thoseof "Being" are so prejudicially formulated,a fatal precedentwas for established postwar French thought. It is safeto say that Heideggerdrew from his involvementwith Nazismin the rg3os.Instead the wrong conclusions

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of rejecting a specifictype of politics-namely, the politics of totalitarianism that had led to the "German catastrophe"of ry33-4q-the later Heidegger to appeared reiect human "praxis" in toto. From the etherealstandpointof his betweenComlater philosophyof Being, there wereno "essential"differences All and world democracy. three were"essentially"equivalent munism, fascism, of instances technologicalnihilism. As he reinsofar as all three represented marksin 1945:"Today everythingstandsunder this reality whetherit is called Communism,fascism,or world democracy."l6 In the philosophyof the early Heidegger,Daseinor human reality playedan essentialrole in the disclosureof Being. As he remarks in Being ond,Time: rs-that is, the ontic possibilityof the understandingof "Only so long asDasein it Being-'is there'Being."r7In the later Heidegger,however, is asif humanity itself comes to representlittle more than an impediment to the quasi-holy of "sendings" (Schickungen) Being. And thus, in the Nietzschelectures,Heiof deggeraffirms that the "essence nihilism is not at all the affair of man, but a Being itself"'18and that "The History of Being is neither the history matter of of man and of humanity, nor the history of human relation to beings and to Being.The history of Being is Being itsel{ and only Being."leIn "Overcoming Metaphysics"(1946),Heidegger delivers,as it were,a final indictment of the possibilitiesof meaningful human action in the world: "No mere action will Being as effectiveness and effecting change the state of the world, because und VTirkenlcloses all beings off in the face of the Event fd,as llTirksamkeit Ereignisf."20 And if we return to the rg47 "Letter on Humanism," we find the following specification the relationshipbetween"Being" and "man": "Man of whetherand how God and the doesnot decidewhetherand how beingsappear, gods or history and nature come forward into the lighting of Being, come to presenceand depart. The adzsent beings in the destinyof Being.. . . Man is of lies of the shepherd Being."2r The foregoingdepictionsof the possibilitiesfor human action in the world come to a point in Heidegger's1966Spiegel interview.In Heidegger'sview, so forlorn and remoteare the prospects human bettermentin the hereand now of that "only a god can saveus!"22 The full story of the reception of Heidegger'sthought in postwar France merits independenttreatment. In the context at hand (that is, with a view to understandingits impact on French antihumanism)I provide only the main outlines. It is important to note that Heidegger'smain champion in France, of and Jean Beaufret-the addressee the "Letter"-was both an ex-rtfsistant L Marxist. For Heidegger,it wasBeaufret'sstatusasa risistantthatwascrucial: it functioned as an important prophylactic against attempts to link him or his

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thought in the apris guerrewith Nazism. At the samerime, it is lessobvious what Beaufretthe Marxist, sawof valuein the later Heidegger'sphilosophyof Being. The answerpertains to the intellectualpolitics of the period. This was the era of existentialism's greatvogue.The names Sartre,de Beauvoir, of MerleauPonty and Camus(who in the late r94oshad not yet broken with Sartre)were on everyone'slips. With his novellasand short stories of the prewar period (e.g.,ItIausea "The Wall") Sartre had established and himself asa litt6rateur of the highest order. Yet, by the aprisguerre,he had risen to becomeFrance'smost celebratedphilosopher,one of the nation's leading dramatistsand political commentators, well as the founding editor of one of the world's most presas tigious intellectual organs,Les Temps modernes.23 of the primary tasksof One the marxisantintellectualsof the period, therefore, was to put a damper on this rising tide of existentialhumanismaspurveyedby Sartre and company, which was viewed as a direct philosophicalchallengeto the worldview of dialectical materialism. Enter Beaufretaschampionof the later Heidegger. Insofarasthe ex-risistant wasableto show that, as a philosopherof existentialism, Sartre wasessentially an impostor-that is, that his "existentialhumanism" had virtually nothing to do with the real item-Beaufret believedhe possessed theoreticalleverage the necessary disqualify the formidable humanistic challengeto Communism to posedby Sartre and his disciples.Thus, Beaufretwas able to invoke Heidegger's "Letter" (which, as we haveseen,amountedto an extensive denigration of Sartre's position on the relation betweenhumanism and existentialism)as evidence unmaskthe inauthenticityof Sartre'sphilosophicalcredentials. to Moreover,as Rabinbachpoints out, ((whatled Beaufretto Heidegger[was] his essentially correct intuition that the perspective a history of Being ipso of 'resolve' in the faceof 'nihilismr' but facto sanctionsnot merely violenceand Marxism's accountof the violenceof human history."2+ That is, there existed significantintellectualaffinitiesbetweenMarxism and the Heideggerian"history of Being" insofar as both doctrines displayed an a priori mistrust of Western humanism.The thinking of Marx and Heideggerthus convergedin the conviction that humanismmerely provideda veil of ideological respectability for the exploitationand massconformity characteristic ofbourgeoissociety. By virtue of the calculatedpaeans the virtues of Marxism that Heidegger to sprinkled throughout his influential rg47 "epistle," he had managedto meet Beaufret halfway, as it were. Even though Heidegger himself remained a virulent anti-Communistafter the war,zs remarksabout Marx in the "Letter," his coupledwith his devastating critique of the "planetary" dominanceof modern

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his technology(dasGestell),made thoughtsaloffihig for an entire generationof French left-wing intellectuals-to the point where one would be justified in of speaking a "left Heideggerianism." one of the foundationaltexts for French postHeidegger's"Letter" became war theoreticaldiscourse.In a large measureit came to occupy this niche of honor owing to its exemplary articulation of the position of philosophical antihumanism. As Vincent Descombesremarks, "After Heidegger's intervento tion fin the "Letter on Humanism"], the word'humanism'ceased be the flag which it had been such a point of honor to defend." He continues:"Marxists despisingthe doccondemningthe bourgeoisideologyof 'Man'; Nietzscheans 'last man'; structuraltrine of resentmentborn in the spentintelligenceof the ists of a purist persuasion announcingwith L6vi-Strauss the program of the 'dissolutionof man'-all thesecontendedwith one anotherin their antihumanism. 'Humanist' becamea term of ridicule, an abusiveepithet to be entered amongthe collectionof derided'isms' (vitalism, spiritualism,etc.)."26 Yet, the questionremains:can one recoup a notion of moral responsibility of once the capacities human agencyare so thoroughly denigratedas a species illusion" ? of "metaphysical

Lacan and L6vi.Strauss Freud had taken pride in the fact that, following Copernicus and Darwin, psychoanalysis had delivered a third major blow to the delusionsof human narcissism. The theory of the unconscious demonstratedthat "man" was not evenmasterin his own house,the human psyche.Thus, one could understand consciousthought as an expressionof "symptom formationr" as something that was fully determined rather than determining. The surrealiststreated his emphasison the unconsciousand dreamsas breakthroughsof landmark intellectual significance-though Freud himself pointedly failed to reciprocate their admiration for his work.27 For them, this emphasissignified a crucial displacement the premium modern civilization had placedon the valof ues of rational subjectivity.All in all, Freud's discoveryof the unconscious would be .,'ital for the temperament of French intellectual life in the postWorld War II period. It harmonized well with the anti-Cartesianspirit, with the structuralist distinction betweenmanifest and latent elements,and, more generally,with the idea that mental phenomenawere constituted rather than constituring. In the domain of psychoanalytic theory proper, it wasJacquesLacan who would draw the radical consequences the Freudian theory of the unconof

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scious.DespiteLacan'sown self-understanding someone as intent on facilitating a "return to Freud," it was a "returnt' that would render a number of Freud's original intentions unrecognizable.zs Freud, as a proponent of selfenlightenment,argued that the goal of analysiswas to "transform what had becomeunconscious, what had beenrepressed, into preconsciousness order in to return it to the Ego"; or, in a famous definition of the analytic method, "where id was,there ego shallbe."2e is preciselythis moment of a "return to It the egq" which had beengainingascendance both the French and American in interpretationsof Freud, that Lacan vigorouslycontested.3O Lacan would combine (r) the Heideggeriancritique of the transcendental egq (2) the structuralist doctrine of the relation of langueand, parole,and (3) the Freudian critique of consciousness. viewed Heidegger and Freud as He complementary: both had insistedthat the "I" was first and foremostan embodied "I"; the "subiect" possessed elaboratesomatic-ontogenetic an history before it emergedas a self in its own right. That which appearedprimary accordingto the tradition of post-Cartesian metaphysics-rescogitans thinkor ing substance-wasin fact entirely derivative. But at least as important for Lacan's enormously influential recastingof psychoanalytic theory was his encounterwith the semiologyof Ferdinand de Saussure. his Course GeneralLinguisticsSaussurehad coined the famous In in langue andparole.It wasan oppositionthat would become distinction between a structural analysis, from Barthes,to L6vi-Strauss, signaturefor all subsequent and evenfor the "episteme" of Foucault.The notion of langue emphasized the importanceof language a differentialsystem.Languagemay be described as as a differentialsysteminasmuchaswordsstandin relation to eachother by virtue of their differences.That in languagewords refer primarily to other words rather than to things in the world may be treatedas one of Saussure's revolutionary contributions to linguistic theory.Moreover,though Saussure himself harboredfew metaphysical aspirations, philosophical the import of suchclaims was potentially enormous.His observationstended to minimize the importanceof the manifest dimension of speechor utterances-that of parole-and qua systemor langue. stressthe priority of language This meant that evenfirst philosophycould be subjected a structural linguistic analysis, to implying that its claims to primacy, its self-understandingas a fundarnenturn inconcussum, were inherently dubious.The latent characterof language differential sysas tem thereby took precedence over the manifest content of utterances-even philosophicalutterances.Because languagewas the medium of metaphysics, the latter wassubiectto all the vicissitudes and constraintsof language. words refer primarily to other wordsrather The claim that, within language,

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It rhan to things in the world was of far-ranging philosophicalsignificance. realism.If the alleged virtually spelledthe death of all claimsto metaphysical function werecalledinto quesreferentialor denominative purity of language's be tion, then in what way could philosophyor science said to provide us with best-known about the world? Moreover,one of Saussure's truthful statements of the slgz, which serves to highlight the claims concerns the arbitrariness relation betweenthe signifiers we employ wholly contingent, non-necessary and the objects they are intended to designate.Both Western scienceand theory of truth, on an ad,aeweie predicatedon a correspondence metaphysics and by linguistics,aselaborated Saussure quatir intellectus rei. But structural et theory of blow to the very possibilityof a correspondence others,dealta serious knowledge it had beentraditionally formulated.It would be a very short step as from Saussure'sview of languageas differential system to the critique of metaphysics embodiedin Derridean d,ffirance. ally in the struggleinitiated by as Lacan cameto view Saussure an essential fully present to itself. From Freud to decenterthe idea of a consciousness idea that "the unconsciousis structured like a he Saussure would derive the language";that is, distinguishedby the sameorder of differential signification langue.Here, Lacan explicitly followed the lead of characteristicof Saussure's Structures Kinship (t949), had put the of L6vi-Strausswhq in TheElementary precepts of structural linguistics to such productive use in his analysisof the kinship and myth. Lacan's notion of the "symbolic," which designates passage the narcissistic,presocializedego to the realm of language,also of that inheritance.Yet, the order of language Saussurian constitutesan essential nor is it Lacan invokesis neither a realm of intentional linguistic expression, "hermeneutic." Instead, it is a structural order in which the intentionality of linguistic meaninghas been fully displacedby a more primordial order of the signification-languageas differentialsystem-that precedes operationsof thought. conscious In Lacan's view of mental topography,prior to the symbolic spherethere exists the realm of the imaginary.It is through the use of this concept that Lacan effectshis assault the prejudicesof ego-psychology-and,by associaon in tion, those of the philosophy of consciousness general. Insofar as it is a product of the imaginary,the self asego is a necessary fiction or illusion: "The ego we are discussingis absolutelyimpossibleto distinguish from the imaginary inveiglingsthat constitute it from head to foot," remarksLacan.3rIf the is unconscious structuredlike a language, then the self is essentially effectof an language, epiphenomenal result of the play of signification.Under the twin an influencesof L6vi-Strauss'sstructural anthropologyand semiotic linguistics,

186 Antihumanism in French PostwarTheorv Lacan'sresearchprogram would undergo a major shift. Circa 1953he would abandonthe quasi-existential humanist vocabularyof his earlier writings. Instead,the new emphasison his thought would be "on the extent to which the human subjectis irredeemablyfractured, decentered, condemnedto a permanent dispossession self,"32In rg53-54 seminar the egohe hasrecourse of his on to Rimbaud'sfamousbon mot, 'Je est un autre" ("I is another"-"poets, as is well known, don't know what they're saying,yet they still manageto saythings beforeanyoneelse")to dramatizetheradicaldisplacement the I he is seeking of to effect.33 Lacan's characterizationof the ego as indistinguishable from the imaginary carrieswith it profound prescriptiveaswell descriptiveimplications.And from this perspectiveone can easily see how central are his contributions to the poststructuralistcritique of subjectivity consciousness, "man," and so forth. Insofar as the coherentself, as artificial construct of the imaginary,is an illusion, it alsoprovesdistortional vis-i-vis more fundamental,tenebrousaspects of the self that have been repressedfor the sakeattaining this condition of it spuriousunity. Fundamentally, hasamputatedeverythingthat is nonego:the the unconscious, body, and the id. In Lacan's view, the self as dominated by a the ego is essentially reification; it has turned into somethinginflexible and rigid, a thing. In his seminaron the egq he goesso far as to refer it as "the The therefore,cannotbe to human symptom par excellence."34 goalof analysis, strengthen the ego at the expenseof the other componentsof mental functionto ing, the superegoand the id, as Freud seems recommend.Instead,analysis the must attempt, as it were,to deconstruct ego, to weakenits tyrannical sovto aspects psychicexistence undo of ereignty,in order to allow thoserepressed haveendured sincethe onsetof the "mirror stage,"when they the repressions the "imaginary" first takes hold.3sWhat Lacan accomplishedin a French intellectual context was to haveturned Freud's discoveryof the unconscious againstthe master,therebymaking him one of the foremostcritics of humanism. completelyeludesthe circle of certainThus, for Lacan, "The unconscious This claim hasmajor repercustiesby which man constituteshimself asego."36 of the subjectivity.Once the ego is radically displaced-for sions for a theory Lacan it appearsas figment of alienation simpliciter and,,as such, needs to be unmade or undone-it is the unconsciousthat standsrevealedas the "true" subject. of One of the fundamentalpremises modern humanismthat Lacan radically calls into question is that individuals have the capacity to function as the that, "The subiectdoesnot subiectsor authorsof their own acts.He observes he he is saying,and for the best reasons-because doesnot know know what

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Hegel's thought and that of his French what he is."37In Lacan'sview,whereas in anthropology,the discourseof "manr" "Freud has gone heirs remain mired beyond it. His discoveryis that man is not entirely within man; Freud is not a Since the self can never be anything other than a patchwork of humanist."3s artificial, linguistic constructs that serve to cover up and distort the unconscious(for Lacan, the "true" subiect, which is unattainableas such; any atrempt to reachit is of necessitymediatedby languagequa falsifying medium of the representation), scientificallyhonest approachto subjectivitywould be to embrace its primordial fragmentation. According to Whitebook, in Lacan, of "The standpoint the egois not simply a'mistake'or a'partial point of view' but must be circumventedor abandoned which can be correctedor expanded, subiect(whateverthat might mean)is to of the unconscious in toto if the truth ln be attained."3e Lacan'sview,the ego is purely and simply the equivalentof a miconnaissance,failure to recognize."What Freud introduced from rgzo the PleasurePrinciple] on are additional notions which were at that lBeyond of to time necessary maintain the principle of the decentering the subiect."{ It Principle that Freud introduces the death is of course in Beyondthe Pleasure instinct, a notion that Lacan views asabsolutelyincompatible with the superficial claims concerning the transparencyof the I advancedby ego psychology. Nevertheless,one can easily reversethe terms on Lacan and say that he has (the "ffue subconceptof the unconscious merely substituteda substantialist ject") in placeof the substantialist view of the ego he is trying to surmount. A decadelater, poststructuralism would, in vintage Heideggerianism fashuse ion, makeprovocative of the Lacaniancritique of the subjectby linking its nihilism that stiflesthe proliferation of reign to the dominion of a technological and "free play." According to this reading,the tragheterogeneity, otherness, edy of Western culture lies in the predominanceof a rational consciousness that is intrinsically hostile to difference.In this way poststructuralismwould seekto thematizethe integral relation between"violence" and "metaphysics" cannot In that is key to the work of EmannuelLevinas.ar this view,metaphysics but enframe the world in other than "violent" fashion, insofar as objectscan only becomemeaningfulto it asraw materialfor a imperiousand manipulative (Cartesian)subject;that is to say (to return to Lacan), narcissistically: "When in its own image-'egomorphically'ego the narcissistic constitutesthe object an its orthopedicrigidity is conferredon the object;this reified objectbecomes technicalmanipulation. object of possible "42 Another major blow to the status of humanism was delivered by the structural anthropology of Claude L6vi-Strauss. By replacing the categoriesof historical agencyand transcendentalsubiectivity with the concept of "structure," L6vi-

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Strausssucceeded displacingt'man" from the centerof the human sciences. in As a result, philosophers cameto applaudhis work asan essential socialscientific complementto Heidegger'santihumanism.a3 Like all French structuralists,L6vi-Straussbuilds on the linguistic insights of Saussure.aa Here, Saussure's insistence the priority of langue on overparolethe view of language a predefinednetwork of structural coordinates as that for their part determineindividual utterances-would prove central.L6vi-Strauss takesover directly Saussure's emphasis the primacy of langue "code" and on as attempts to establishstructural anthropologyon this basis.In structural linguisticsas well as structural anthropology,the code performs essentially the samefunction: "it is the rule that must be obeyedif messages to be proare ground of duced or received."as The code becomesa type of transcendental signification,the "condition of possibility" for the circulation of meaning.In this respect,structuralism purveys somethinglike a "Kantianism without a transcendental ect."46 subj With the structural anthropologyof L6vi-Strauss,the science "man" has of been dehistoricized.He rigorously turns his back on the premisesof both nineteenth-centuryhistoricism and evolutionarytheory. "Man" ceases be to his own history and historical changeis deemedthe realm of the "subiect" of the ephemeral,the epiphenomenal.Instead, amid the diversity of historical flux, anthropology'stask is to seekout those structural invariants-the "universal code"-that define human culture wherever and whenever it is to be of found. In L6vi-Strauss'swsrds: "The analysis different aspects sociallife of of a will haveto be pursueduntil it . . . elaborates kind of universalcodecapable the expressing propertiescommon to the specificstructuresarising from each of He that "all forms of sociallife are substantially aspect."aT thereby suggests the same nature"; "they consist of systemsof behavior that represent the projection, on the level of conscious and socializedthought, of universallaws activitiesof the mind."a8 which regulatethe unconscious the It is not difficult to appreciate polemicalrelation in which L6vi-Strauss's theoriesstandvis-i-vis the previouslydominantintellectualparadigm,existential humanism.By virtue of his avowalthat "structuresr" rather than human will and consciousness, the fundamentaldeterminantsof cultural life, his are thought becameone of the linchpins of theoreticalantihumanism.More than any other approach,structural anthropologyappearedto deliver the coup de of grice to the narcissism the Sartrean"Pour-Soi"; aboveall, to its delusions of freedom. unconditional,transcendental Moreover, Sartre's subsequentattempt to combine existentialism with of Marxism aimed at nothing less, it seemed,than a humani,zation human

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history writ large.In his desireto subjugatethe laws of history to the laws of human freedom, he sought, as it were, to subsumethe phenomenalunder the noumenal, and thereby to effectuatea Kantianization of history. It was the work of L6vi-Strauss that, more than any other, challengedthe influence of this humanist paradigm of self-realizingsubjectivity. It represented another essentialmoment in the processwhereby the autonomy of philosophy(the legacyof Descartes, it were)waschallenged the empirical by as As findings from the human sciences. L6vi-Straussremarksin his critique of a Sartre'sexistentialMarxism: "Sartre in fact becomes prisoner of his Cogito: Descartes tnadeit possibleto attain universality but conditionally on remaining psychological and individual; by sociologizingthe Cogito, Sartre merely exchanges prison for another."ae one (1955), L6viIn his celebratedscientific autobiography,TristesTropiques Straussprovided an influential narrativeconcerninghis youthful frustrations with the aridity of philosophicalstudy. Commenting on the disproportionate emphasison "method" in French philosophy,he remarked:"I was confident that, at ten minutes' notice, I could knock together an hour's lecture with a sound dialecticalframework on the respectivesuperiority of busesand trams. Not only doesthis method provide a key to open any lock; it alsoleadsone to suppose that the rich possibilities thought canbe reducedto a single,always of identical pattern, at the cost of a few rudimentary adjustments."In sum: "our philosophicaltraining exercised intelligencebut had a desiccating the effecton the mind fl'espritf."so His commentsconcerningSartrianexistentialism predictablyharsh: are As for the intellectualmovementwhich was to reachits peak in existentialism, it seemed me to be anythingbut a legitimateform of reflection, to because its overindulgentattitude towardsthe illusions of subjectivity. of The raising of personalpreoccupationsto the dignity of philosophical problemsis far too likely to leadto a sort of shop-girl metaphysics, which may be pardonable a didactic method but is extremely dangerous it as if allowspeopleto play fast-and-loose with the mission incumbent on philosophy until sciencebecomesstrong enough to replace it: that is, to understandbeing in relationshipto itself and not in relationshipto myself. Instead of doing away with metaphysics, phenomenology and existentialismintroduced two merhodsof providing it with alibis.sr From a structuralist perspective,existential Marxism, as an ideology of socialchange, waslittle more than a species modern mythology.Nor, accordof ing to L6vi-Strauss'sstrict antievolutionism,was modern science more intel-

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lectually sophisticated complex than so-calledprimitive systemsof classior fication. In his view: "This thirst for objectiveknowledgeis one of the most neglected aspects the thought of peoplewe call'primitive.'Even if it is rarely of directedtowardsfactsof the samelevel as thosewith which modern science is concerned,it implies comparable intellectualapplication and methodsof observation.. . . Every civilization tendsto overestimate objectiveorientation the of its thought."s2 Thus, in his discussionof Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reaso4 L6viStrauss contends that the philosopher's treatment of the "practico-inert" (brute matter that provesunassimilable the syntheses socialized to of humanity) merely representsthe "language of animism" redivivus. There is little difference,he observes, betweenthe conceptualoppositionsin Sartre's work and those "formulated by a Melanesiansavage." essence, In "sartre's view of the world and man hasthe narrowness which hasbeentraditionally creditedto closedsocieties."Insofar as "all theseaspects the savage mind can be disof coveredin Sartre'sphilosophy,that the latter is in my view unqualifiedto pass judgment on it: he is preventedfrom doing soby the very fact of furnishing its equivalent.To the anthropologist,on the contrary,this philosophy(like all the others) affords a first-class ethnographic document, the study of which is essential an understandingof the mythology of our own time."s3According to to the preceptsof structural analysis, therefore,whereasthe manifest content of systems cultural belief (in semioticterms, the dimensionof the signifed)vary of historically,the latent content, definedby a universalcultural code,remains as essentiallythe same. Hence, in the last analysis,"dialectics" proves to be merely another mechanism of cultural classification;one that possesses no greater claim to "rationality" than any of the systemsthat have precededit. The object of Marxist humanism,the rational totalizationof human history,is in L6vi-Strauss'sview chimerical; "a consciousbeing awareof itself as such poses problemto which it providesno solution."s4 to paraphrase similar a Or, a insight of modern hermeneutics(which is also suspiciousof the totalizing claims of human reason):"historically effectiveconsciousness alwaysmore is being than consciousness. "ss The paradigm of existentialhumanism neglectsa fundamentalfact of human cultural life: that "[man's] discourse neverwasand neverwill be the result of a conscious totalizationof linguistic laws." Indeed, the fundamentallawsof semiotics-the priority of the signifier over the signified,of langueoverparole, of synchrony over diachrony-ensure that this will be true throughout the whole of human history. Thus, as L6vi-Strauss concludes:"Linguistics thus presentsus with a dialecticaland totalizing entity but one outside(or beneath)

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and consciousness will. Language,an unreflectingtotalization,is human reaand of which man knowsnothing."s6 son which hasits reasons in to concede that L6vi-Strausshad succeeded exposingmany of Of course, of the weaknesses Sartre'sposition doesnot meanthat the structuralistunderstanding of human culture is unimpugnable.The unyielding emphasison "synchrony" over "diachrony"-an inheritance of sffuctural linguisticsallowsL6vi-Strausssummarily to write offthe domain of history as a realm of If epiphenomenaland inessential4ainements. structural relations.are, as he contends, all-determiningand "universal," then the eventsof world history can never be more than "a tale told by an idiot." akin to the shadowson the wall of Plato'scave. In sum, if Sartre systematically overvaluesthe categories human intenof tionality consciousness, and will (a phenomenologicalinheritance), L6viStrauss,conversely,consistently underestimatestheir importance. In this respectthe contentiousdebatebetweenL6vi-Straussand Sartreover the respec((structure" tive merits of "history" and is representative the methodological of antinomies afflicting French intellectual life in the postwar era. Above all it indicatesthe widening gulf betweenphilosophyand the human sciences. Nei(i.e., balanced) ther approachtaken by itself offers an adequate portrait of the interplay betweenfreedomand necessity history.One characterizes in humanity's lot deterministically as totally conditioned. The other characterizes it voluntaristicallyas open to total changeby the powersof human will. Neither understands that history is the realm in which the weight of the pastestablishes specificparameters-which should not be confusedwith insuperable ontological limits-in which freedom or meaningful historical changecan be actualized. To paraphrase Theodor Adorno: the two positionsrepresent"torn halvesof an integral freedomto which, however, they do not add up."57 The fundamental shortcoming of structural anthropology (and, implicitly, all structuralism) is that it systematicallydenigrates both the possibility and reality of meaningful historical change. Feudalism or parliamentarianism, Kwaikutl religion or modern science, Communism or capitalism-when viewed structurally, the foregoing pairs are essentiallythe same.The valorization of synchronyat the expense diachronyultimately provesprejudicial:the of structuralist'santihistoricismis so pronouncedthat all prospects incremenof tal human betterment are a priori ruled out. According to this interpretive schema,the most one can hope for is an extremely modest piece of selfknowledge.Thus, in the words of L6vi-Strauss:"man will havegainedall he can reasonably hope for i{ on the solecondition of bowing to this contingent law [of structural causality], he succeeds determining his form of conduct in

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and in placing all elsein the realm of the intelligible."ss for the later Hegel, As for L6vi-Strauss,"freedom," resignedly, meansceding to the ontologicalprimacy of necessity. Becauseof their aversion to categoriesof human meaning and historicity, structuralism and poststructuralismhave often met with the chargeof nihilism. Of course,it is their claim that it is the old rhetoric of humanism that is itself nihilistic; that the legacyof disasterwrought by twentieth*centuryEuropean history is directly traceable an inflated, uncritical celebrationof occito dental humanity; an attitude, that moreover,is inherently insensitivevis-d-vis peoples. Theseare premisesworthy of the cultural specificityof nonoccidental investigation.But they cannot be merely assumed.They would have to be verified or substantiated empirically. They cannot have the status (as often deductionr" for the seems case, example,with Heidegger)of a "transcendental nihilism becomea priori whereby metaphysics,humanism, technology,and terms.se mutually exchangeable Moreover, the criticism of "nihilism" cannot simply be parried i la Nietzscheby variants of tu quoque reasoning("it is the humanists who are the true nihilists, not us"). Instead,it must be convincingly disproved.Otherwise,the thoroughgoingcritique of agency,"man," and history will appearunable to the escape chargethat, in justifiably trying to counter the naivet6with which such conceptshave in the past been employed, too much ground has been of the surrendered;and that, consequently, antiepistemologies posthumanism would be unableto recoup the normative potentialspertaining to "meaning" "truthr" and "human agency" that havebeen surrendered.For example,the suspicionsof one critic proceed along the following lines: "Anti-humanism amountsto a denial of the role of individual will or agencyin history. Sinceto of be an agentmeansto be capable framing intentional aimsand projectsby the intelligence,to eliminate agencyis to eliminate man light of an independent and any teleologicalconception of human nature. The elimination of any substantiveground for free action constitutes the core of the doctrine of sciFor the author, the wholesaleabandonmentof such entific structuralism."60 terms raisesthe specterof nihilism. If, therefore,history is to be thought of as antiteleologically, devoidof intrinsic meaning,why should we surrenderioyfully (again, i la Nietzsche) to an amnrfati or a doctrine of eternal recurrence-the conclusion toward which structuralism's antihistoricism nolens drivesus? uolens on The emphasis structure over history hasironically given the structuralist to cast.When all is saidand done,it seeks movementa profoundly conservative and pattern maintenance stability order, of the emphasize prerogatives science, in a way not that dissimilar from structural-functionalistsociology(e.9.,Par-

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sons and his school). As a theory of historical explanation, structuralism it threatensto subsumethe phenomena is dealingwith under a set of a priori them "on their own insteadof meeting them halfway or addressing categories in terms." As a method, it is staunchlyantiphenomenological the HusserlianHeideggeriansenseof unveiling "things themselves." While its value in unis earthing fundamentalunderlying featuresof human societies incontestable, that prove irreducible to the methods of structural aspects those societies of (e.9.,characteristics everyday that can be shownto havelittle to of life analysis do with significantstructuresper se) tend to be accordedshort shrift or relegatedto the domain of the inessential. One of the most influential and legitimateaspects L6vi-Strauss'sthought of has been his unmasking of the ethnocentric prejudices of evolutionary approachesto the study of culture. Western eyeshaveoften viewed non-Western societieseither as devoid of history or as developmentallyimmature. As a result, social scientistshave failed to seethat these cultures are intrinsically meaningfulon their own terms. Moreover, under the influenceof Montaigne L6vi-Strauss was able to use his insights into these societies' and Rousseau, proximity to nature to proffer a powerful indictment of a disjointed and catastrophe-ridden modern West. ln TristesTropiques, work that catapulted a L6vi-Straussto the statusof an internationalcultural herq he reflects, terms in that are far from "value-freer"on what hasgonewrong with the civilization he, has asethnographer, electedto distancehimself from: A proliferating and overexcitedcivilization hasbroken the silenceof the seas once and for all. The perfumesof the tropics and the pristine freshnessof human beings have been corrupted by a busynesswith dubious implications, which mortifies our desiresand dooms us to acquire only contaminated memories. Our great Westerncivilization, which hascreatedthe marvelswe now enjoy,hasonly succeeded producing them at the cost of corresponding in ills. The order and harmony of the Western world, its most famous achievement . . demandthe elimination of a prodigiousmassof noxious . byproductswhich now contaminate globe.The first thing we seeaswe the travel around the globeis our own filth, thrown into the faceof mankind. Mankind has opted for monoculture; it is in the processof creating a mass civilization, as beetroot is grown in the mass.Henceforth, man's daily bill of fare will consistonly of this one item.61 Yet, while L6vi-Strauss'sattentiveness the valuesof cultural difference to hasbeenof inestimableimportancefor enhancingboth our sense the worth of ofother culturesaswell asof the limitations of our own. it is difficult to seehow

rg4 Antihumanism in French PostwarTheory from his point of view one could evaluate In cultural differences. point of fact, one could not. One is left with an avowedcultural relativismthat is merely the flip-side of ethnocentrism-ethnocentrismin the plural, asit were.Thus, in his 1953 UNESCO paper, "Race and History," L6vi-Strauss favorablycounterposesethnocentrismto racism.62 The former, he claims, helps preservethe essential diversity of culturesthat threatens disappear to amid the omnipresent monoculture of the capitalist West. However, he fails to realizethat ethnocentrism, as tribalism, is a necessary component of full-blown racism (and, as contemporaryBalkan history testifies,often no lesspoisonous).L6vi-Strauss legitimizesethnocentrism naturalizingit asa bedrockof healthyfunctionalby ist preiudices.Attempts to mediate constructivelybetweencultures must be rejected.It is preciselysuch cross-culturalcontacts,as they haveproliferated since the age of discovery, that have tended to efface entrenched cultural differences. His unflinching rejection of cosmopolitanism induces him unreflectively to embracethe oppositeextreme:sheerparticularism.His perspective on cross-culturalstudy, which has been so enormouslyinfluential, leaves us with a dilemma: there is no middle ground. He fails to understandthat, in the words of Tzvetan Todorov, "If I wish to communicatesuccessfully with others,I [must] presuppose frame of referencewhich encompasses a both my universe and theirs."63BecauseL6vi-Strauss assumes ethnocentrismas the irreducible sine qua non of all intercultural contact, the idea that, to underof our own prejudicesin order standthe other we must be capable suspending not occur to him. to takeher standpoint,does For L6vi-Strauss, cultures are of equal value insofar as they are equally meaningful-a distinctly functionalistresiduum.In his thought, the philosophical distinction between meaning and validity thus falls out of account. To iudge questionsof meaningaccordingto terms of validity would be to pretend of to somesort of judgmental objectivity.It is to risk importing the standards one culture (which, by definition, are ethnocentric)to judge another.As he remarksat one point: "beyond the rational there existsa more important and valid category-that of the meaningful,which is the highestmode of being of the rationtl."64 that atBut, here, he abandonstoo quickly the spirit of cosmopolitanism behavior and tempts to sketch valid, cross-cultural norms of international of a citizens' rights. In this sense, culture that willfully violatesthe sovereignty infringes the rights of its citizensmust be its neighborsor that systematically Otherwise,there held to a conceptof justicethat is higher than localstandards. are de facto no grounds on which the tribunal of world opinion mightjustifiably (i.e., nonarbitrarily) condemn Nazi racism, South African apartheid, or the

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stultifying domestic repressionof the former communist states.The key is to be able to formulate cross-cultural standardsof iustice that can in principle genuinelybe agreedon by all (with the exceptionof the offendingparties)and that therefore cannot be commandeeredas a pretext for the most powerful nations to asserttheir self-intereston the world stage(the rggr PersianGulf war being a fascinatingcasein point in which the two sidesof the equationjusticeand self-interest-were palpablycombined). In the last analysis,one must seriously inquire as to whether structuralism, by so persistentlydevaluingthe categories human consciousness will, of and remains capableof recouping a serviceable concept of the ethical subject. If structuresreally function as the subterranean determinantsof historicalpractice, doesthere remain any room for the notion of moral accountability? is Or this concept,toq to be relegatedto the antiquariancloset of humanist shibboleths?In a century in which crimes against humanity have becomea virtual norm, to relinquish the normative commitments of traditional humanism risks meeting the forcesof tyranny halfway.

Derrida The critique of "man" that wasforcefully elaborated the thought of Heidegin ger, Lacan, and L6vi-Strauss provided the ensuing wave of antihumanist discourse-so-calledpoststructuralism-with a firm foundation on which to build. Derrida is the true poststructuralist.In one of the foundational texts of deconstruction,"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciencesr" directly challenges he L6vi-Strauss'snotion that "structure" would be capableof controlling the totality of signification in a given field. For Derrida, the centeredtotality of structuralism is "always already" undermined by the play of linguistic indeterminacy. Thus, (to cite Yeats)'(the center will not hold." Structuralism is merely a contemporaryvariant of metaphysics, moda ern incarnation of what Heidegger denouncedas "onto-theology." Like all metaphysics, toq aims at limiting the free play of signification,by subsumit, ing this "play" accordingto a setof structurally predetermined, binary oppositions: ttnature"versus"culturgt'ttsacredttversus"profangtr and so forth. As a species metaphysics, of structuralism,to its own detriment, partakesof the kinship between"metaphysics"and "violence."65 a way that is different In from and yet akin to Foucault, the relationship between ,.knowledge" and "power" also occupies center stage in Derrida's reflections on the legacy of Westernmetaphysics. Thus, in a philosophicalspirit that standsin closeprox-

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judgmentsDerrida passes metaon imity to Heidegger,the quasi-ontological judgments.Metaphysicsis "viophysicsimplicitly contain a seriesof ethical a to lent" insofarasit seeks establish "limit" to "dissemination,"to the inherent polysemy of signifying practice. It seeksto master and subdue that which its would otherwiseescape control. For Derrida, the quest for philosophical angst:a fear of thoseelements certitude is motivatedby a type of metaphysical the of languagethat might escape predominantmandatesof cultural control. of In an attempt to alleviatethis Angst, metaphysicsprovides a semblance but reassurance; such reassurances-which,when traced throughout the long history of Western thought, signify a type of philosophical "compulsion to which are ofother terms and possibilities, repeat"-always occur at the expense by thereby occludedand accursed:terms whosenature is suggested the conceptsof "othernessr""heterogeneity" and "difference." the It is in preciselythis vein that Derrida issues following antimetaphysical injunction against the "metaphysicalstructuralism" of L6vi-Strauss: "The concept of centered structure is in fact the concept of a play based on a fundamentalground, a play constitutedon the basisof a fundamentalimmocertitude, which itself is beyond the reachof play.And bility and a reassuring on the basisof this certitude anxiety canbe mastered."66 Structuralism remains onto-theologicalinsofar as the divine attributes of intellectualmasterythat were attributed by theologyto God and consummate to then, with Descartes, the creaturely"I thinkr" havemerely beensublatedby "structure": the new scientific,first unmoved mover.As Manfred Frank puts 'metaphysical' it: "Derrida, following in Heidegger'sfootsteps,considersas every interpretation of being as such and as a whole that wants to ground its on meaning a principle that is superior to, indeed, removed from that being itself."67 Frank's insight describesthe essentialphilosophical difference between in structuralism and poststructuralism:one believes the possibility and desirability of a stable center of meaning, whereasthe other gainsaysthis poswould sibiliry/desirability. Derrida's critique of structuralismas metaphysics It, as Foucauldianarchaeology a quasi-structuralism. toq strives alsoapply to hence,totalizingunderstandingof "the order of things," to producea seamless, with the "episteme" as the organizing principle. Yet, accordingto Derrida, of beliesthe manifold slippages time, play,signification, suchan understanding is why one perhapscould saythat the moveand, ultimately d,ffirance:"This of is like menr of any archaeology, that of any eschatology, an accomplice this conceiveof reduction of the structurality of structure and alwaysattemptsto which is beyondplay."ut structure on the basisof a full presence

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It is clear that, in one respectat least (and, at that, a far from trivial one), Derrida is one of Heidegger'smost faithful disciples.The centerpiece deof construction(the very word, after all, is derivedfrom Heidegger'sDestruktion), the critique of "logocentrism,"would be unthinkableapart from the critique of reasonelaborated Heidegger'srg47 "Letter" and other texts. in But for Derrida, even Heidegger'sthought remainsexcessively metaphysical. The "question of Being" with which Heidegger is so concernedis, for Derrida, much too substantive, too redolent of a traditional "metaphysicsof presence." Derrida the very metaphorics Heideggeriandiscourse, For of which emphasizethe values of home, place, and "nearness" to Being, betray the metaphysical illusion that Being in its plenitude might somehowbe captured and reproduced in discourse.But this prospect is a sheer non sequitur for Derrida. The strictures of what Derrida calls "archiwriting," that is, of the grammatological"nonconcepts" such as the "tracer" "spacingr" "hymen," "supplementr"and, of course,d,ffirance,ens\rethat "meaning" in the sense of "presence" remainsa philosophicalimpossibility.Once it is subjectedto the vagariesof "representation,ttonce it is articulated in "writing" or iyiture (which, for Derrida, is more original than "speech"),meaning(to paraphrase Wittgenstein)goeson a holiday.lt is "alwaysalready"irretrievably marred by the figurations of languagesuch as spacing,deferral, and difference,by the instability of the domain of signification via which alone meaning can be conveyed. Derrida's point is that meanings,whose domain is that of the "signified," nevermaterializeof their own accord,that is, "in and of themselves." Instead, they are inevitablyconveyed the medium of linguistic signification;and, as via we have known at least since Saussure, signifiers,the linguistic purveyors of "meaning," are inherently arbitrary and unstable. Derrida's own versionof antihumanismfollows directly from his position as philosopherof language a who hasbeenprofoundly influencedby the Heideggeriancritique of metaphysics. seeks extendthe critique of logocentrism He to to the "transcendentalsubject" of modern philosophy,which, in a posttheologicalera, hasbeenthe traditional guarantorof epistemological certainty. However, one cannot but ask whether the critique of humanism, in its radicality,doesnot consumetoo much in its wake.The potential shortfallsof the discourseof antihumanismbecomeevident in its attempts to addressthe questionof human rights. The doctrineof modern natural right, whencestems the contemporary theory of human rights, is fully indebted to metaphysical nostrums.In the tradition of modern political theory (Hobbes,Locke, Rousseau'etc-),natural rights are the moral equivalentof "innate ideas"or "ideasof

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Derrida consequentlyhas avowedthat a politics of human rights reason."6e must be rejectedowing to its "logocentric" origins: it is part and parcel of a But voluntarism" that must be reiectedwholesale.T0 of discourse "metaphysical one is also left to not only is such a reiection in and of itself questionable; of What would becomeof a politics of human rights when it is divested wonder, as its intellectual the philosophicalsubstructurethat, traditionally,has served groundsofsupport? In his attempts to carve out a position on world politics, Derrida seemsat convictions.In times hamstrung by the rigidity of his own antimetaphysical this context, the epistemological negation of humanism seems an especial liability. In his essayon racism in South Africa, for example,he claims that Europeandiscourse,the disapartheid must be attributed to a characteristic ttrace.t' courseof However, for Derrida, there is of coursemuch more at stakein such a verdict on the Europeanorigins of South African racism. For in his thinking, "Euthe rope" is not only the home of Western metaphysics; very idea of Europe without metaphysics.Tl "Euand what is European is in truth inconceivable by rope," therefore,is something that has been, as it were,predicated metathe physics. Thus, by virtue of his characterizationof Europeanorigins of nonphilosophicalpoint: that it is ulEuropean racism, Derrida seeksto make a that is the irreducible progenitor metaphysics of timately the discourse Western and origin of apartheid. However, the intellectual origins of racism are not so straightforward as to They are not, asDerrida contends,traceable a metaphysDerrida suggests. ical discourse per se. In fact, modern racism first emergesin nineteenthIt century Europe amongthe theoristsof counterrevolution. wasCount Arthur Humaines(t8S+) that would, acsur de Gobineau's Essai l'Inigaliti des Races cording to Hannah Arendt, become "the standard work for race theories in Thus, insteadof being "metaphysical,"theoriesof Europeanracism history."72 are part and parcel of an anti-Enlightenment, anticosmopolitandiscourse. to an They represent,moreover, avowedlyparticularisticidiom, one that seeks of dismantleboth the cosmopolitanism the Enlightenmentaswell asthe demoAs Arendt observes:"What Gobineau was actually cratic heritage of 1789. 'elite' to replacethe looking for in politics was the definition and creation of an Insteadof princes,he proposeda'race of princesr'the Aryans,who aristocracy. he said were in danger of being submergedby the non-Aryan lower classes ideHence,asan integral part of counterrevolutionary through democracy."73 ology,Europeanracism sought to reversethe trend whereby a societyof orders, basedon the privileges of birth, was destroyedin favor of a society whose

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animatingpreceptwas"equality beforethe law." In sucha societyalien racessuchastheJews-could legally accede political authority and influence. to To claim that the intellectual origins of apartheidare Europeanis correct; yet, as such, this claim lacks specificity.To becomemeaningful, it must be historicized and contextualized.Only then can one gain a concretesenseof what the discourse ofEuropeanracismstandsfor aswell asthe specificpolitical culture (that of the Enlightenment)it strivesto combat.Hence,asan interpretive strategy,to condemnracism as "Europeanr" hence,,,metaphysical," proceedsat too high a plane of abstraction.It threatensto "explain away.,'In the last analysis,it placesa burden of historical explanationon the concept of metaphysicsthat the concept is unable to bear. In "Racism'sLast Word'(tq8S) Derrida lamentsthe fact that "the cusromary discourseon man, humanism and human rights, has encounteredits eF fective and unthought limit, the limit of a whole systemin which it acquires meaning."Ta goeson to condemnthe sterility of a "discourse"that canonly He "draw up contracts,dialecticizeitsel{, [and thus] let itself be reappropriated again" by the powersthat be. Ten yearsafter thesewords werewritten, the systems political oppression of Derrida describesare in the processof being dismantled, in no small measure owing to the productive intransigenceof a politics of human rights. Under these circumstancesit would be self-defeatingto maintain an attitude of cynicism toward "the customarydiscourse man, humanismand human rights.,, on Moreover, the categorythat Derrida invokesto counter the Eleatic tyrannies of logocentric thought-"difference"-is unable to bear the ethico-political weight he and his followershaveplacedon it. Unless it is incorporatedwithin an overarchingcivil libertarian frameworkemphasizing eminently univerthe salisticvaluesof toleranceand cosmopolitanism, glorify differencecan be to as chauvinistic as the perspectives is meant to offset. To celebratedifferences it at the expenseof sameness unity threatens to belittle our common humanity. or Thus the passing humanismshould not be unequivocally of celebrated. Otherness should be embraced,as Derrida suggests, but not extolled. Otherwise, what one finds is that various groups begin to differentiate themselvesaccording the neo-ontologicaldeterminants of race,class,ethnicity and gender. That is, they segregate themselves solelyon the basisof their own particularitg and the politics of differencethreatensto turn into a new essentialism. Such an approachis part and parcelof the new "identity politics,', where groups speak from the standpointof entrenched"subject-positions." However,identity politics canall too easilyturn into a recipefor warring ethnoi,anew tribalism.Ts Far from being a solution to the age-old philosophical dilemma of the one and the

zoo Antihumanism in French PostwarTheory by many asdeconstructionwould haveit, it proceeds unreflectivelyapotheosizing the secondterm-albeit, in opposition to a universalism(L6vi-Strauss's Orwellian "monoculture") that is perceivedas increasinglyinsensitiveto local specificity. In fact, today's new Europeanracism goesby the name of "differentialist to It racism."76 is an ideology that seeks legitimatethe separationof the races racisminsofar It on the basisof their intrinsic differences. is a "nonessentialist" clearof earlierattempts on the aS emphasis cultural and ethnic differencesteers to iustify racial superiority on the basis of geneticsor biology. It may be racism:it no longer wishes,like nineteenth-century describedas a p1stmod,ern racism,to developa theory of racialhierarchythat would, for example,serveto by legitimatethe conquestof one raCe another.Here, there areno "master" and ,,inferior" races, that, it is argued,shouldbe respected only cultural differences into concreteterms, the new racism meansairtight imat all costs.Translated migration policies and expulsion of all non-nationals. "France for the French and North Africa for the North Africans"-so goesthe new slogan.The European Union (Maastricht) is vigorously criticized as a cosmopolitangambit that threatensto dilute differencequa national particularity. The latter, it is that stands a claimed,represents type of authenticdiversity and heterogeneity asa bulwark againstthe levelingpreceptsof a united Europe. Only a theory that makes room for differencesunder the auspicesof a can prevent the misuseof common humanity or a renewedcosmopolitanism It the ideology of differencefor the ends of differential racism.77 has become emthat unlessa politics of differencesimultaneously increasinglyapparent bracesa normative standpoint that is both civil libertarian and democratic (traditions formerly tabooedas "logocentric") it can iust as easilybecomea she politics of xenophobia. Julia Kristeva has recognizedthis dilemma when observes: In years to come it is likely that we could witness a loss of concern for in assets the Declaration personalfreedom,which wasone of the essential of to the advantage subiective,sexual, of of the Rights Mon and,Citizen, nationalistand religious protectionism that will freezeevolutionarypotentialities of men and women, reducing them to the identification needs of their originary groups. . . . Beyond the originsthat haveassignedto us biologicalidentity papersand a linguistic, religious,social,political, historical place, the freedom of contemporary individuals may be gauged their membership,while the democratic accordingto their ability to choose and socialgroup is revealedby the right it affords capability of a nation

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individuals to exercisethat choice.Thus when I say that I have chosen cosmopolitanism, meansthat I have,againstorigins and startingfrom this them, chosen a transnationalor international position situated at the crossingof boundaries.Ts

French Philosophy of the i98Os If one scansthe writings of the Parisian intellectual avant-gardesince the r96os,one discovers what might be termed an "illiberal cultural politics,,that givescredenceto Judt's apprehensions concerning "a vacuum at the heart of public ethics in modern France."Te The literary theorist Thomas Pavel observesa similar phenomenon.In the postwar period one sees"the rise of discretionaryintellectualbehaviorwith its conspicuous disregardfor the moral premises the consequences theories."80In or of essence, political radicalism the of an earlier generationof existential Marxists-the rlsistantialistes-wastransmuted along the lines of an uncompromisingcultural radicalism.As befits a culture that exaltsthe statusof the written word, this novel genreof Kulturkritik, insteadof denouncingthe sins of capitalism,addressed predominance the .,consensusr' ,,coderrt ,,discursive of ttbinaryoppositionsr""logocentrismrrr the regimes,"and so forth. By a strangetwist, a traditional left-wing hostility to the valuesof political liberalism was preservedin a sublimated,cultural guise.The spirit of philosophicalanarchismemanatingfrom Paris had internalized the anti-authoritarian ethosof May 1968.It had, however, stoppedshort of assimilating one of the basicpolitical lessons the critique of totalitarianism:a renewedappreciaof tion of the civil libertarianand democratictraditions.As a result of the ostensible moral deficitsproper to French philosophyof the rg6os,suspicions grew as to whether poststructuralismwasadequate the ethical challenges a posrto of totalitarianera.8r The r97oshad beena decade noted for an effectiveunmaskingof all pretensionsto political and cultural radicalism.Maoists of yore, properly chastened, became"new philosophersr"railing against the natbeti gauchiste an entire of generation.Criticisms of the "master thinkers," though philosophically shallow, well capturedthe intellectualtemperamentof the eru:a"distaste grand for theorizingand all varietiesof intellectualpretense, coupledwith a refreshingly modest political vision oriented toward droits d,eI'homme.8z That venerable prematureanti-Communist,Albert Camus,wasrediscovered celebrated and as a twentieth-centuryDante, railing againsta new .,trahisondes clercs," perpetrated by apologe marxisaarintellectuals. tic

zoz

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It wasalsothe decadethat witnesseda tearlessfarewell to the French revolutionary tradition: that is, a break with the glorification of revolutionary dictatorship that had been a distinguishing feature of French Marxism.83The clarion call was soundedby FrangoisFuret, whq in the opening chapter of proclaimed with elegant simplicity: "The Frangaise, Penserla Rdzsolution When coupled with the ongoing unmaskingof French Revolution is over."84 "really existing socialism,"Furet's powerful indictment of the pietiesof revolutionary vanguardism helped set the stagefor the emergenceof a novel and vigorous humanist sensibility,which the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has dubbed "French thought of the eighties": a new "rationalist-democraticcongrowth of a the sensus, most striking featureof which [was] the simultaneous liberal . . . schoolof political thought and a rationalistleft."8s An additionalblow to the intellectualcurrency of antihumanistthought was struck with the Heideggeraffair of the late r98os.In the wakeof this debate,it that the man whosethought had providedthe philosophical undeniable became inspiration for the critique of humanismwashimself irretrievablytaintedby an with Nazism.Ultimately, the link betweenthe antihumanismof the association genocidalNazi dictatorship and that of the philosopherwhoseinfluencehad Parisian intellectual life in the postwar period would prove inovershadowed surmountable.In the r98os,therefore,Heidegger'sdoctrineswere exposedto to the samefate ashad beenthoseof Marx in the rgTos:they ceased enjoy their andinsteadwere subjectedto unsparingreexaminacustomaryffit d'62:idence tion and critique.86 The rgSoswere the yearsin which Franceat long last beganto confront in as In the earnest complicitiesof Vichy.8T rg87, the nation stoodmesmerized the notorious "butcher of Lyon," Klaus Barbie, wasbrought to trial and convicted The cultural event of the decadewas Claude of ,,crimesagainsthumanity."88 on the politics of genocide,Shoah (1985)' And Lanzmann's magisterialfilm of with the stunning electoralshowings Le Pen'sNational Front, the specterof Amid this political took on an ominous contemporaryrelevance.se neofascism of the necessities "coming to terms with the past" had climate, in which become the order of the day, attempts to make light of Heidegger's commitment to Nazism played rather poorly. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe among the French Heideggerians Nevertheless, Howpolitique. Heideggerin La Fiction d,u of took up the challenge defending position from the taint of Nazism, ever,in order to preservethe antihumanist he was forced to pursue a line of reasoningthat was highly counterintuitive: he had to claim that it was, in truth, a surfeit of humanism, rather than a Heideggerinto embracingHitler in the I93os.In Lacouedearth,that seduced

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Labarthe'swords: "Nazism is a humanisminsofarasit restsupon a determination of humanitas which is, in its view, more powerful-i.e., more effectivethan any other. The subject of absolute self-creation . . . it transcendsall the determinations of the modern subiect, brings together and concretizesthese samedeterminations(as also doesStalinism with the subiectof absoluteselfproduction) and constitutesitself asthe subject,in absoluteterms."e0 Lacoue*Labarthe's equationof Nazism with humanismrbpresents orthoan dox Heideggerianunderstandingof the origins of Nazism. National Socialism is viewed asthe logical consummation of the developmentof Western rationalism; a consummation,moreover,that is on a par with other species techof nological nihilism, such as "Communism" and "Americanism."elIn the last analysis, Third Reich is perceived merely one more manifestationof the the as way in which Western thought elevates metaphysical the subject-the "man" of humanism-to a position of unchallenged preeminence. But this somewhat strained attempt to view the Third Reich as a type of "humanism writ large" proved relatively easyto counter. As one critic wryly observedwith referenceto the attemptsto regard Heidegger'santihumanism as a potential bulwark against Nazism: "Isn't it rather fortunate that half a century ago the adversaries Nazi Germany had other weaponsto rely of uponf"e2 Pierre Bourdieu simply throws up his hands in dismay: "when I hear people say that Heidegger alone makes it possible for us to think the Holocaust . . . I think I must be dreaming.'rrrAnd as Robert Holub has appropriatelyobserved concerningLacoue-Labarthe's curious defense Heiof degger'santihumanism: Lacoue-Labarthewould have us believe that the person who proudly wore his party pin in 1936.. . , who neverpublicly or privately renounced National Socialismand his involvement with it, and who never in the postwar period reflecteddirectly on the most horrific consequences of Germany'sfascistregime is the only reliablesourcefor a comprehension of his own involvementwith Nazism and of Nazism as a Europeanphenomenon.Such a conclusioncanbe maintainedonly by someone who has alreadyand without critical questioningaccepted major propositions the of the very philosophywhich Heidegger'sfascistproclivitiesshould compel us to rethink.ea A significantconfusionlurks at the heart of this debateover the legacyand statusof Westernhumanism.Each camp-liberal humanists,on the one side, Heideggerian antihumanists, the other-relies on conflicting conceptions on of the meaningof humanism.The liberalsseekto defend a political definition of

2o4 Antihumanism in French PostwarTheory humanism that makespossiblea politics of human rights. As they seeit, to credit the legacyof Westernhumanism with direct responsibilityfor the misof fortunesand disasters twentieth-centuryhistory is a grossoversimplification for of history.After, all the regimesprimarily responsible thosedisasters-Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Pol Pot's Cambodia-were staunchly antiWestern, anti-liberal regimes.According to the defendersof the liberal perspective,a preservationof the valuesof humanism and subjectivity is indispensable the perpetuationof the democraticproject worldwide. to definition of hurely on an epistemological conversely, The Heideggerians, of modern metaphysicsfrom manism that harks back to the "subjectum" Descartesto Husserl. To them the liberal approach seemscomplacentand For naivevis-i-vis the historicalfailingsof modern democraticsocieties. examto approaches political affairshavetypically beenunableto ple, rights-oriented certify the traditional valuesof human solidarity and community.Historically paradigmof self-positingsubin societies which the epistemological speaking, jectivity has reigned have been in league with the hubristic delusionsof a alienation, World conquest,widespread homofaber. empowered technologically environmentaldevastation,"exterminism" (E. P. Thompson) have been the to result. Yet, this accountof the logic of modernity threatens becomea type of inverted metanarrative-characterized by increasingenreverseteleology-an of rather than Hegel's"progressin the consciousness freedom." It is slavement one one-dimensional: is left with an an accountthat risks becomingexcessively understandingof modernity from Descarteson, that perceivesa unilateral reign of "technology" "nihilism," "subiectivism," and "metaphysics." All in countervailingtendencies the realmsof art, politics, philosophy,and everya day life are, ir seems, priori disqualifiedon the basisof their participation in by (abandonment Being). this Heideggerianeraof Seinsoerlassenheit versusantihumanismrepThe French debateover the merits of humanism resentsa cultural referendum on the legacy of modernity. The partisansof antihumanism opt for what one might call an attitude of "total critique." According to this standpoint, there remain very few normative potentialsof modernity worthy of redemption.As with the later Heidegger,modernity and subjectivity are the twin linchpins of an omnipresentreign of "technological nihilism." One cannotbut wonder,however,whether this position, in its crittoo icalzeal,rejects much. Democraticidealsareunthinkableunlessthey are to some extent basedon the principles of subiectiveautonomy and individual hasallowedto flourish. freedom that the modern era, for all its shortcomings, of relevance Tzvetan Todorov's observation:"It may be difficult to Hence,the be sure whether one is for or againstrationality; things becomea little clearer

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when one understands that the decisionis alsoa choicefor or againstdemocracy."es Thus, asit became increasingly evidenthow difficult it wasto reconcile philosophicalantihumanismwith a viable notion of democraticpractice,dissatisfaction with the epistemologies poststructuralismintensified. of Left Heideggerianism became authenticheir to the critique of bourgeois the society formerly purveyed by a (since the rgTos no longer viable) French Marxism. It was French Heideggerianism that took up the gauntlet of radical Kulturkritr&, condemning the ideology of "man" in all its forms: liberalism, democracy, individualism,constitutionalism,and human rights. And yet, this theoreticalstancepreservedthe trappings of cultural radicalism at the expense being able to intervene effectivelyin the politics of the of modern world. It became exceedingly difficult to reconcilethe epistemological politics of poststructuralismwith a new post-totalitariansensibility; a sensibility for which the values of "humanism"-a defenseof the integrity of persons,human rights, civil liberties,etc.-had onceagainbecomecentral. In the r95os, Sartre felt comfortabledefining Marxism as the "unsurpassable philosophy of our time."e6But the historical experiences our century of strongly suggestthat, instead,it is the concept of human rights that has become unsurpassable. a post-totalitarianworld, a respectfor basiccivil liberIn ties and the integrity of all persons has become the necessary-if not the sufficient-condition for humanepolitics.Hence,the renewedrelevance the of conceptof "humanism" in the contemporaryworld. One of liberalism'sadvantagesis that, asa theory of justice,it is formal: it doesnot presumeto judge the validity of different worldviews,private opinions, or other substantive claims. In principle it canbe reconciledwith a variety of regionalcustoms,local valuesystems, and, to useWittgenstein'sphrase,,.formsof life." Though "unsurpassable," the idea of human rights does not represent a sufficientcondition for contemporarydemocraticpolitics because is essenit tially defensive. Taking its cue from traditional political liberalism,it valorizes the ideal of negatiue freedom: it seeksto underwrite a seriesof formal legal guarantees whoseaim it is to securean inviolablesphereof individual autonomy. However, this sphereof personal freedom representsmerely the basic precondition for the realm of politics proper,which insteadmust be conceived of along the lines of "active citizenship": that is, as a sphereof political participation. For this reason,the traditional liberal definition of politics, with its exclusiveemphasison the preservationof rights, provestoo thin for the purposesof adequately grounding the ideaof democraticpolitical practice. There is a fundamentaltension in the conduct of modern democraticlife. Under the conditions of modern democracy, liberalism has functioned not so

2o6 Antihumanism in French PostwarTheory precondition for democraticpolitics,but, often enough, much asthe necessary liberalism,in keeping Thus, in modern democraticsocieties, asits antipode.eT with the ideology of negativefreedom, has often served as a justification of valuesother than thoseof emphasized freedomy'ompolitics.It hasconsistently political participation: the valuesof privatism (family, home, personalhealth and fitness,consumerism,etc.), bourgeoisintimacy, economicaccumulation, rugged individualism, and so forth.e8Too often, these values are explicitly defined in opposition to those of civic virtue or the active participation in public life. Liberalism has de facto monopolized the discourseof modern humanism. However,liberalism'sunderstandingof humanism remainsboth exceedingly thin and in too great a proximity to the hedonisticvaluesof economicliberalindividualism. Hence, to its own detriment, the modern ism or possessive conceptof humanismhasbeeneffectivelyshorn of the valuesof self-cultivation idealof humanand civic virtue that were still so prominent for the Renaissance bulwark againsta Nor itas.ee havethe idealsof liberalismprovidedan adequate Eurocentric insensitivity to the integrity of non-Europeanlifecharacteristic forms. It is little wonder, therefore,that theseidealsprovokedsuch vigorous oppositionamongthe post-rg6osleft-wing intelligentsia. Earlier I made referenceto a new humanistic temperament-a "French thought of the r98os"-in which the idealsof humanity have once again receivedtheir due. As an intellectual movement,this temperamentemergedin polemicalcontrast to the antihumanist debunking of the preceptsof democracy and political liberalism. by As represented thinkers suchasLuc Ferry Alain Finkielkraut, and Alain phiRenaut-all of whom are in many respectsdirect heirs of the nouaeaux the of losophes the rg7os-French thought of the r98os hasassumed guiseof a dreamsof too As neoliberalism.loo such,it abandoned readily the emancipatory ('68ers).Many of its contributions to the French culture the soixant-huitards wars of the r97os and r98os havebeen salutary.However,when viewed from the standpointof the history of political thought, it has done little more than that estimationof its goalsmight suggest reinventthe wheel.A more charitable philosophyof liberalit attemptedto provide the theoreticalgrounding for the ism that France never had. Yet, in the rg8os, it functioned as an intellectual in corollaryto the politics of "modernization" effectedby the French Socialists (that is, following the breakwith the Communists phase their "postideological" in 1983).However,as a party of modernization, the Socialistsfailed to disneoconservative substantiallyfrom the contemporaneous tinguish themselves regimesin England,the United States,and elsewhere'

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The neoliberalattemptsto basedemocraticpolitics on the rights of "man," separation powers,and individualism,have,in truth, addedvery little to the of time-honored catalogueof liberal nostrums. Moreover, such attempts have made even less headwayin remedying the traditional debilities of political liberalism that revolve around the defensive concept of passiaecitizenship. According to this model, civic duty is de facto limited to voting. The result is (r) a considerable depoliticizationof public life and (z) the birth of an."expertocracy"; that is, rule by professionalpoliticians in combination with a technocratic elite. On the epistemological front, the neoliberals havesoughtto renewa philosophy of the subject. Here, toq however,the results havebeen lessthan satisfactory. On the one hand, they haveclaimed that, "On the philosophical level it is impossibleto return, after Marx, Nietzsche,Freud, and Heidegger,to the idea that man is the masterand possessor the totality of his actionsand ideas.'ror of But in their meditationson the questionof the subject,they haveinvoked the most traditional theoriesof subiectivitytel quel, from Leibnizian monadology to Kant's transcendentalism Fichte's "philosophy of reflection."r02 to Their attemptsto rethink the questionof the subject,therefore,havebeen oriented entirely toward the "classical"discussions the concept.Consequently, of their reflections on thesematters havebeen static and have assumedthe form of an uncritical "restoration" rather than a "renewal." They have shown little sensitivity to the problematicsof those thinkers who have legitimately called into questionthe viability of the traditional philosophicalconceptionof the subject from the standpointof contemporaryintellectualand cultural needs. The French critics of subjectivity have justifiably sought to highlight the manner in which traditional bourgeoisidealshavebecomelifelessand rigidified. These ideals live on in merely nominal fashion, ghostlike,functioning neverthelessas the ideological cornerstones of a civilization in which both inner and outer nature are systematicallyrepressed.It is a society that is excessively utilitarian, predicatedon the logic of production for production,s sake, one that haseffectively banished affectivesolidarity,and in which libidinal satisfaction increasinglytied to the administeredspheresof advertisingand is consumption; in such a society,the preceptsof "man" and the ..individual,' havebecomeself-caricatural. deconstructthem, therefore,in the name of To otherness, difference,and the claims of experientialimmediacybecame, an in espritsoixant-huitard,an urgent cultural-political as well as philosophical task. Already in the r94os,Horkheimer and Adorno suggested that the ideasof "manr" "the individual," "subjectivity," and so forth had beenrobbedof their substance and served as hollow testimonialsto the bourgeoisethos of self-

2o8 Antihumanism in French PostwarTheory preservation.l03 the intellectual differencesbetweenthe critical theorists Yet are and the poststructuralists important. Whereasthe French critics of reason nostrums should be reiectedoutbelievethat the old bourgeois-metaphysical possessed an right, the Frankfurt Schoolmaintainedthat the idealsthemselves important kernel of truth that was worthy of redemption. In their eyes,what called for criticism was not the idealsas such, but the fact that, by the midrendering twentieth century,their truth-content had recededinto the distance, them merely ideological:one paid them constantlip-service,but increasingly for as they cameto serveas rationalizations, the normative window-dressing a to societythat had long ceased honor their original libertarianthrust. one havehad difficulty in acknowledging of the fundamental The neoliberals that there existsan essential normativedeterminantsof late capitalistsocieties: as tensionbetweenideal and reality.Their standpointis often perceived inadewere fully embodied in the quate insofar as they act as though the ideals which is far from true. As a result, their institutional life of these societies, It thought hastakenon apologeticovertones. risks conflatingthe real with the rational, what is sociallygiven with the iust. From a philosophicalstandpointtheir theorieshavesufferedfrom a failure that havesought to reestabto take into accountcontemporarydevelopments (e.9.,neopragmavia the mediationsof otherness lish the rights of subjectivity philosophy of reflection, from tism and theoriesof intersubjectivity). In the Descartesto Kant and Fichte, the claims of the subject as isolated"I think" havebeen deducedmonologically.More recently,however,philosophershave relied on the symbolic interactionismof GeorgeHerbert Mead to revitalizea conceptof subiectivity that would no longer be identical with the claims of a In philosophyof consciousness. the new theoriesof intersubiectivity the claims philosophy have been augmentedby insights drawn from theoriesof of first According to thesefindings, "subiects" or "selves" do not exist, socialization. of asin the metaphysics old, a priori; instead,they first originateasthe result of interaction According to Mead, the self is first and foremost a "social social object." The "I" only emergesupon becoming a "me": the image I have of out myself ineluctablydevelops of the way others seeme. In this respectalone which, by definition, doesit make senseto speakof "subiectiveexperiencesr" 'I' reactsto "The mediated.As Mead observes, are therefore intersubjectiaely the self which arisesthrough the taking of the attitudes of others. Through 'me' and we react to it as an taking those attitudes we have introduced the (I.' There is, therefore,no autonomoussubiect that would predatesocial "104 subjectand object, autonomy interaction.Insofar as the self is simultaneously interaction. In this respectat least, is somethingit attains via the medium of

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one can agreewith the poststructuralistclaim concerningthe decentered subject. Following Mead, one might saythat the self is "alwaysalready" a decentered selfi "The growth of the self arisesout of a partial disintegration-the appearance the different interestsin the forum of reflection,the reconstrucof tion of the socialworld, and the consequentappearance the new self that of answers the new objec1."lo5 to In this sense, might saythat differenceand a relation to otherness one prove to be constitutiveaspects the self,which is formed via the internalizationof of others'expectations and, more generally, socialnorms. Though "decentered," this self is a far cry from the centerless, fragmentedself of Lacanianpsycho* analysis and poststructuralism. Instead,as socialdifferentiationincreases and, along with it, the extent and scopeof intersubiectiveexpectations, subject the becomes lessparticularizedand more universal:its level of tolerance(vis-i-vis selvesthat are different than it) is enhanced. The imperativesof socialization havemade it necessarily more adept at "taking the role of the other." In all of theserespects identity of the self is groundedin difference. the The situation in contemporaryFrench philosophy is paradoxical,and far from intellectually fruitful. In the less academicand more engagedtexts of antihumanism(e.g.,Gilles Deleuze and F6lix Guatrari's Anti-Oed,ipus A and, Thousand Plateaus), one finds an unnuancedcelebrationof decentered subjectivity. The self of modernity is supplantedby "desiring machines."Their main virtue, it seems, to glorify the ongoingfragmentationof individuality characis teristic of latecapitalistsociety;that is, the progressive negationof autonomous subjectivity by large-scaleorganizationsand the new technologiesof the culture industry.Here, catastrophe confusedwith emancipation. is on the neoliberal side, conversely, we have iust seen,one observesan as uncritical revival of a seriesof concepts and categories-individualism,subjectivity, "manr" and so forth-whose cogencyhad been properly challengedby the precedingtwo decades French thought. Lesextr1mes setouchent As of ne pas. a French philosopherI spokewith recently lamented,"Au moment la philosophie frangaise totalementbloqu6e."one can understand-if not pardonest this situation of extremeintellectualpolarizationwhen one realizeshow deepseatedand overdeterminedare the historical, political, and epistemological stakesinvolved in the debateover the legacy of humanism in postwar France. only in France(asopposed,for example,to Germany and the United states) did the Heidegger debateof rg87-88 produce such a veritablemedia frenzy (from major expos6s every major Parisiandaily to television debates).As in should be clear by now, at issuewas the entire self-understanding postwar of French intellectualculture asa theoreticalantihumanism.

AT DECONSTRUGTION DE l,lAN, AUSCHWITZ:HEIDEGGER'

A N D T H E N EW R EVtStOl{ISll

tr
of TheTriumph Life warnsus that nothing,whetherdeed,word,thought,or text' ever followsor exists to in happens relation,positiveor negative, anythingthat precedes, is of like power, thepower death, dueto the whose event but elsewhere, onlyasarandom of Rhetoric Romanticism de of randomness its occurrence.-Paul Man, The Deconstruction'sviability as a method of criticism hasof late sufferedfrom a This evidencepertainsto of preponderance damning circumstantialevidence. greatestcrime of the modern era' the Holoits relation, or nonrelation,to the deconstruccaust. In the aftermath of the Heidegger and de Man scandals, tion's evasions,equivocations,and denials with regard to this theme have causedits standing to plummet-perhaps not so much among true believers, but among an open-minded public prepared to judge sineira ac studio,without pastsof over the repressed hatred or passion.The widespreadcontroversies Heidegger and de Man have had the effect of exposingdeconstructionto an unprecedented public scrutiny. To be sure, some of this scfutiny has been preiudicially motivated. But some has also been genuine.What has been of positivevalue about theserecent debatesis that they haveforced deconstruction, as never before, to take a position on matters of great historical importance:on questionsof fascism,collaboration,anti-Semitism,and the repression of sordid biographicalpasts.The esteemin which both Heideggerand de Man were held has fallen insofar as both men proved inauthentic (here, I choose my words carefully) in failing to own up to their far from trifling youthful transgressions. As any lawyer knows,circumstantial evidencewill not alwayssufficeto gain a conviction. Moreover, it would be wholly irresponsibleto condemn deconthe idea struction on the basis of a rype of intellectual guilt-by-association: were for a time a that, because number of its theoreticalforbearsor exponents

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avowed fascists (Heidegger, de Man, and, to a lesser extent, Maurice Blanchot),r deconstruction,toq would somehowbe contaminated. suggestquite I forcefully that the attempt to read theserecent academicscandals somehow as implicating deconstructionin real historicalcrimesis patently off-base. Moreover, such attempts serve as a disingenuousmechanismto close off debate prematurely.After all, if a method of criticism can be qualified as "fascist" or convictedof "intellectual collaboration"then it would appearthat there is not much more to discuss. Those who believethat there are "grounds for viewing the whole of deconstructionasa vastamnestyproject for the politics of collaboration in Franceduring World War II" surely havejumped the gun.zIt is not along this route that the true intellectualstakes the Heideggerand de Man of affairs are to be found. I proposeinsteadthat thesecontentiousrecentdebates treatedasa sympbe tomatology:once they are divestedof their polemicalsurcharge, they provide real insight into the possibleweaknesses deconstruction as a method of of political analysis.3 They showthat textualanalysis and historicalanalysis far are from the samething; that, to paraphrase Derrida, "Il y a biende hors texte"; and that when the "hors texte" of history is systematically kept at a distance, it will ultimately wreak revengeon the methodology that choosesto ignore it. The debateover the heritageof fascism(or, metaphorically expressed, over the historical significanceof Auschwitz) may be treated as a litmus test of a given critical school's iudgmental capacities.For better or for worse, our century's moral sensibility,the reigning sensus communis, beenconstructedupon the has ruins of the totalitarianexperience. has,asit were,been"indexed" in relation It to the horrors of the Holocaust. We may not know how to define the true, the right, and the good per se; but we do know that an event such as Auschwitz stands as an important negatizse index as to how we might go about seeking them. Habermasonce remarkedthat "we can if needsbe distinguish theories accordingto whetheror not they are structurally relatedto possible emancipation."a In light of deconstruction'sweak showing in the aftermath of the Heideggerand de Man controversies, serviceabilityfor the endsof possible its emancipation beencalledinto question. has Paul de Man's wartime iournalism has been discussedad nauseum.The Schadenfreude cum unmitigated glee of deconstruction's detractors has been palpableand can in no way serveas a reliable guide to what is truly at stake. Here, I restrict myself to a number of essential points that, amid the clamorous array of accusations and counteraccusations, have fallen out of account.My concerns will be threefold: (r) the line of defenseestablished de Man's by defenders;(z) the historical statusof de Man's collaborationistwritings; and

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(3) the possiblerelation betweenthosewritings and (asaficionados might say) ttso-called t' deconstruction. Deconstructionhasbeenpurveyedas a form of radical criticism: in its own view, it is the most radical. In a Heideggerianmode it seeks ferret out and to unmask all instances "presence":specious, of metaphysical claims to totality, wholeness,or Being-in-Itself; claims that are part and parcel of the ontotheologicalbiasesof Western metaphysics-a preferencefor substance over accidents,necessityover contingency,essence over appearance. course, Of there are many intellectual trends that have also sought to call such ontotheologicalprejudicesinto question:sophism,nominalism,skepticism,in addition to a variety of antinomianmovements.In this respect,deconstruction hardly comesdown to us without precursorsand precedents. It is all the more astonishing, therefore,to view the initial reactionsamong the deconstructionistfaithful to the unflattering revelationsconcerningPaul de Man. Suddenly,the unsparingcritical sensibilityfor which deconstruction had becomeknown was placed on indefinite hold. The interventions of its leading practitioners,J. Hillis Miller and Derrida himself, immediately gave notice that the critical spirit stops at home: it was not so much de Man's youthful misdeedsthat should be exposedand denounced,but the cabal of and academicians journalistswho had dared to unmaskhim. From the beginning Derrida has alwaysinsisted that "deconstruction . . . is not neutral It interaenes."s Yet, where the institutional status of deconstructionitself is at Deconstruction intervention must be suspended; circlesthe wagons. one stake, with conhasbecomea massiveinstitutional force in the American academy, journals, and entire departmentsdedicatedto disseminating viriis ferences, its to tues.To all intents and purposes, response the de Man affairwasconsisof corporatism:a defense tent with the most typical and predictableacademic All that deconstrucvestedinstitutional interests. of this suggests considerable, notwithstanding,hasitself becomea form of "prestion, its critical pretensions havebeenundermined by its own ence,"that its anti-institutional pretensions remarked:"an entire theory industry success. as one critical observerhas Or, hasgrown up around literature departmentsin the pasttwenty years,and with professionalization interof this industry hascomethe increasingly specialized and Literary pretation."6As Harold Fromm observes Academic in Capitalism exhibits the verbaltrappingsand forms of MarxValue, "The radicalacademic In ist renunciationwhile acting as paradigmaticacquisitivecapitalist."T an era marked by the death of the "subiectr" Derrida has become an intellectual mega-subiectand deconstruction an academicgrowth industry. Ironically, the many critics of subjectivityfelt obligedto preserve veritablecult of personat ality that Paul de Man had engendered Yale.8

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But let's dispensewith generalitiesand enter into specifics.Taking Hillis Miller's several contributionsto the affair asa point of departure,ironies begin to multiply. Miller chastisesJon Wiener,the professor-journalist who broke the de Man story in The lt{ation,for failing to basehis iudgmentson "an accurate identification of the facts . . . and on a careful reading of the documents."e Prima facie,there is nothing wrong with this claim. But deconstruction,if it has taught us anything, suggests that "documents" and "facts" per se do not exist; instead, they are the "effects" of textuality, rhetorically constituted, a priori embedded value-laden in narrativeframeworks. Why in this case might a (precritical) appealto the integrity of facts resolvethe dilemmasat issue? After all, does not a relianceon so-calledfacts invoke preciselythose delusionsof "presence"and absoluteknowledgethat deconstructionhasalwayscalledinto question? For a deconstructionist suggest to sucha naiveappealto evidentiary sources a way of settling a disagreement as cannotbut raiseour suspicions.r0 Miller opensanother contribution to the debatewith the following words: "The violenceof the reactionin the United Statesand in Europe to the discovery of Paul de Man's writings of ry4r-42 marks a new moment in the collaboration between universityand the massmedia."rl What are the implications the Miller deniesthat it is Paul de Man who wasa collaboratoror of theseremarks? a perpetrator.Although he admits that certain of his articlesmay be so interpreted, he, like Derrida, goeson to perform a classical deconstructive reading which showsthat de Man's purportedly collaborationisttexts are in fact rhetorically self-undermining,that his appeals collaborationturn out to mean for the oppositeof what they say.Hence, de Man is merely a pseudocollaborator. Miller evengoesso far asto musterhearsay, defying massive textualevidence to the contrary, to the effect that de Man was a closet rtisistant.Conversely,if we return to the remarks iust quoted, we discover who the real colhborators are: the massmediaand professors who haveconspiredat home and abroadto sully de Man's reputation-and, by implication, that of deconstruction:"The real target is not de Man himself. . . . The real aim is to discredit that form of interpretationcalled'deconstruction,'to obliterateit asfar aspossible from the curriculum, to dissuadestudents of literature, philosophy and culture from readingde Man's work or that of his associates, put a stop to the 'influence' to of 'deconstruction. l 2 "t Let us be clear about the intentions and effectsof Miller's deconstructive strategy, "overturning" and "reinscription" of the inherited binary opposihis tion betweencollaborationand noncollaboration. was,after all, de Man who It disingenuouslypraisedthe "decency,justice, and humanity" of the Nazi occupation forcesand urged his fellow Belgiansto cooperatewith them to the utmost;r3who in r94r claimed that "the future of Europe can be envisioned

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of only in the frame of the needsand possibilities the German spirit. It wasnot of reforms but of the definitive emancipationof a a matter only of a series in fGerman] Votk which finds itself called upon to exercise, its turn, a hegeof that "the necessity action which is present mony in Europe";lawho asserted in the form of immediatecollaborationis obviousto every objectivemind";ts who contrastedthe "stirring poetic intuition" of Germanic literature favorably and with "Latin intelligenceand reasoning";16 who eulogizedthe "very beautiful and original poetry" that prospers"in the fascistclimate of contemporary It Italy."17 is this de Man whosecollaborationis seriouslycalledinto question by Miller. Instead,in Miller's reading,it is the internationalcabalof professors Lest this point be missed,in and journalistswho becomethe true collaborators. that it is not Paul de the samearticle Miller goesout of his way to emphasize real affinitieswith the totalitarian Man, but in fact his critics, who display the mentality. According to Miller, their argument against de Man "repeats the well-known totalitarian proceduresof vilification it pretends to deplore. It repeatsthe crime it would condemn."rsOne fearsthat amid this sorry confusion of actual historical collaborationwith those whq some fifty yearslater, havemerely reported the events,the reality principle hasbeenleft far behind. At issuein this sadtale of misguidedyouth are the horrors of war, occupation, collaboration, anti-Semitism, and deportation. Miller's foremost concern concerningde Man, in the to seems be that, owing to the damning revelations future, a few studentsmight be deterredfrom readinghis books. fare little better than Miller's. Like Miller, he sees Derrida's own apologetics a definite parallel betweenthe "gesturesof simplification and the expedited of verdicts" containedin the iournalistic coverage the de Man affair and the around rg4o-42. . . in Europe realitiesof Europeanfascism-"what happened One is impelled to point out that under the conditions of and elsewhere."re democratic publicity, at least Derrida and his colleagueshave the right to a a public response when they feeltheir interestshavebeenmisrepresented; right to the opponentsof fascismliving under the denied that was systematically German occupation.To insinuatethat thosewith whom one bitterly disagrees does nothing to raise the fascist,or are behavingfascistically, are in essence conflationof shoddyjournalism with level of debate.Moreover,the analogical historical fascismis purely inflammatory,a historical parallel that is by any to and inapt. With reference Jon Wiener's contributions to standards specious the de Man affair,Derrida observes: is frightening to think that its author "It Derrida is of courseentitled to his opinion. history at a university."20 teaches than But what makesthis instanceof characterdefamationany more acceptable the famouscaseof the Yalephilosophyprofessorwhq in a letter to the French

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minister of culture, urged that Derrida be forbidden from calling himself a philosopherduring his soiournsabroad,sincedeconstruction nothing to do has with philosophy? In his analysisof de Man's collaborationistwritings, Derrida employs the method of textual analysis-"so-calleddeconstruction"-he hasrefined over a period of thirty years.De Man's wartime journalism, he tells us, is afflicted with the sametextual fissuresand cleavages that characterize ill4criture: itis in conflicts." Or, as.hegoeson "constantly split, disiointed,engaged incessant to inform us in a classically deconstructionistmode: "all fde Man's] propositions carry within themselves counterposition";all are marked by a "d,ouble a edgeand,a d,ouble bind."2t As a result, they become fodder for the by now familiar deconstructionist techniqueof a doublereading:of a,double siance a or double lecture. One can, I think, concedeDerrida's rhetorical caveatswhile disagreeing with the materialconclusionsto which they ineluctablypropel him: that texts which at first glanceappeared collaborationistprove in fact not to be so once subiectedto the procedure of the doublelecture,which increasingly becomesa type of hermeneutical universalsolvent.Moreover,as a result of this classical gesture,a new leitmotif in the de Man texts becomes deconstructionist apparent: Derrida showsthem to containa veiledprotestagainstthe Occupationand its consequences Europeancultural life. for The boldnessof Derrida's strategyis unquestionable. undertakesa deHe constructionof de Man's most blatantly anti-Semitic text, "TheJews in Contemporary Literaturer" to show how an article that concludesby recommending "the creationof aJewishcolonyisolatedfrom Europe" asa "solution to the masksinsteadthe sentimentsof a conscience-ridden r/slsJewishproblem"22 tant. However, according to the historian Raul Hilberg, author of The Destructionof the European Jews, at this point the deportationsin Belgium had reached such an extreme that it was impossible to remain unaware of the insidious fate awaiting the Jews. As Hilberg observes,"Almost all educated Belgiansknew by rg4r or at the latest,rg4z,thatJewswerebeing senteastward to be exterminated."23 Even if de Man remainedunawareof the fate awaiting Belgium's deportedJews,there could be little doubt concerningthe massive, persecution everyday they enduredat the handsof the Nazi occupiersand their Belgian henchmen: L rg+o decree had already banned Jews from the civil service,the press,the practiceof law, and education.In the summer of rg4r, were confiscated; few months later, a curfew was imposed a Jewishbusinesses on Jews. In the words of historian Michael Marrus: "One would have had to live in a plasticbubbleto be obliviousto the massive, open,intensepersecution

at 216 Deconstruction Auschwitz of the Jews then under way, which was perfectly evident to someonein de showslittle interestin historBut Derrida characteristically Man's position."2a ical context. He is exclusivelyinterestedin rhetoricalcontext, which he prosuch remarks would ceedsautocraticallyto define. Yes,he at first concedes, he to Seem reflect poorly on the young de Man. Nevertheless, counters,"one must havethe courageto answeriniustice with justice"-that is, "justice" for de Man. The linchpin of Derrida's double reading concernsde Man's by now wellthe known critique of "vulgar anti-Semitism," an ideology that perceives entirety of interwar Europeanliterature as "degenerate"insofar as it has been of "eniuiv6." De Man comesto the defense Europeanmodernismof the tgzos would have vulgar anti-Semites and r93osin order to deny that, asthe so-called it, Jewshaveplayeda dominant role. "It would be a rather unflattering appreciation of Westernwriters to reducethem to being mere imitators of a Jewish Moreover,de Man tells us,it is the culture that is foreignto themr" he observes. they Jewsthemselveswho are guilty of having disseminatedthis myth: "Often, as haveglorified themselves the leadersof literary movementsthat charactetize At has,in fact, a deepercause. the origin of the thesisof a our age.But the error the modern Jewishtakeoveris the very widespreadbelief accordingto which noveland modern poetry arenothing but a kind of monstrousoutgrowth of the world war. Since the Jewshave,in fact, playedan important role in the phony of existence Europe since rg2o,anovelborn in this atmosphere and disordered up would deserve, to a certainextent,the qualificationof enjuizsi."2s The so-calledvulgar anti-semites thus commit the additional sin of sucDe cumbing to Jewish propaganda. Man in no way conteststhe fact that, to repeat,"the Jews have . . . played an important role in the phony and disordered existenceof Europe since tg2o." He merely wishesto point out' in a mannerconsistentwith his generalposition on modern art and literature, that the sanctum of twentieth-century modernism hasfortunately largely remained by uncontaminated perniciousJewishinfluence. Now. for Derrida, de Man's equivocationsconcerning "vulgar anti-Semithat is remarkably tism" suggestan interpretation of the foregoing passages it would seemthey make for an Instead, free of slippagesand ambiguities.26 open-and-shutcasein de Man's favor. Here are Derrida's conclusions:"To scoffat vulgar anti-Semitism,is that not alsoto scoffat or mock the vulgarity of . anti-Semitism? . . To condemnvulgar anti-Semitismmay leaveone to understand that there is a distinguishedanti-Semitism in whose name the vulgar variety is put down. De Man never sayssuch a thing, even though one may condemn his silence.But the phrasecan also mean somethingelse,and this

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fashion:to condemn readingcan alwayscontaminatethe other in a clandestine 'vulgar anti-Semitism,' especially one makesno mention of the other kind, if is to condemnanti-Semitism itself inasmuch it is vulgar, alwaysand essenas tially vulgar." This is a conclusionthat, shortly thereafter, Derrida considersworthy of reemphasizing: controlseverythingthat "The logic of thesefirst two paragraphs follows;it is a matter of condemninganti-Semitisminasmuch it is aulgar. . . as and of condemning this anti-Semitism as regards literature: its history, its own laws,its relationsto history in general."27 Derrida believes Consequently, that as a result of de Man's forthright denunciation of "vulgar anti-Semitism," "The Jews in Contemporary Literature" representsa "nonconformist" text ("as Paul de Man, asalsohis uncle, alwayswas[nonconformist]")." But, contra Derrida, in the article in questionde Man's discussion vulgar of anti-Semitismdoesnot blossominto a critique of anti-Semitismin general;or even, as Derrida contends,of all "anti-Semitism inasmuch as it is vulgar." Instead,the reference decidedlylocalizedtnd specific, is referring only to those who employ anti-Semitism in order to denigrate modern art and literature. Moreover,there existsa third possibility-very likely the most plausible-that Derrida strangelyfails to contemplate: that in the text in question,vulgar antiSemitism standsfor a type of traditional Europeancultural anti-Semitism,to which a modern doctrinaire and systematicanti-Semitism standsin opposition. Cultural anti-Semitism rests content with attributing to Jews primary responsibilityfor a vast arruyof socialills, such asexcessive economig professional, and cultural influence. Conversely,scientific anti-Semitism understandsJewishinfluencesin terms of their unexpungeable hereditarybases. In fact, one of the distinguishingfeaturesof National Socialistracism is that it presented insidiousand methodicalalternativeto customaryEuropeanantian Semitism. Under the old anti-Semitism,which was religiously based, Jewsat least had the option of conversion to spare themselvesfrom proscriptions, persecutions, the inquisitor's auto-da-fb.According to Nazism'sbiological and anti-Semitism,conversely, there wasno possibilityof escaping stricturesof the blood and race. De Man's recommendationconcerning "the creation of a Jewish colony isolatedfrom Europe" is of coursefar from innocent.Instead,it corresponds to the so-called Madagascar solution to theJewishquestionopenly entertainedby Nazi officials during the r93os, which envisioneda massiveresettlementof oncethe Nazis realizedthat Jewson the African island.The plan wasscrapped it wassomethingthat the British, who controlled vital Atlantic shipping lanes, would never permit. Once abandoned,it was replacedby the better known

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Final Solution. Nevertheless, a ry37 Nazi publication,one finds the followin ing ominous reference its currency in a Francophonecontext: "The Madato gascar solution hasalsofound its partisansin France;we would like to quote as proof this phrasethat hasbeenseenwritten by us a number of times in French newspapers:'MadagassezJuifs.'"2e les Finally as the historian Zeev Sternhell points out, "The men in chargeof German propaganda. . . had a wonderful knowledgeof the mentality of the French-speakingintelligentsia. They grasped that a coarse,low-level antiSemitism could be counterproductive,that they needed something fmore] subtle"-such asthe more refinedracism purveyedby de Man. The editors of de Man's wartime journalism do their readershipa potential disserviceby characterizingthe articles as "texts, chiefly on literary and cultural topics, [which] at times take up the themesand idiom of the discourse promulgated during the Occupation by the Nazis and their collaborators."3O That de Man's contributions to Le Soir in the main concerned"literary and cultural topics" makesthem no lesscollaborationist.As anyonefamiliar with part of the Nazi program the terms of the Occupationshouldknow,an essential consistedof a battle for the heartsand minds of the civilian population. The more the Nazis could present their conquestsas a palatableor legitimate alternativeto the statusquo ante, the lessthey would have to squandertheir proved sucvia resources more forceful means.Once their military conquests their strugglefor Europeancultural hegemonybegan.Prominent iourcessful, nalists and intellectuals who urged cooperationwith the Nazis on cultural in groundsoften facilitatedtheir success much asthoseengaged more direct as forms of collaboration.De Man playsinto the handsof the Nazi conquerorsin not preciselythis vein when he urgeshis readers to view the German victory as but as "the beginning of a revolution that seeksto organize a Belgian defeat, European society in a more equitablemanner."3lIn quite a few cases(e.9., that of French fascist litt6rateur Robert Brasillach) ideological collaborators were in fact tried and executed for their acts. In order to avoid a similar fate, committed Drieu la Rochelle, fellow fascistscribeand collaborator, Brasillach's suicidein 1945.The following year,the wartime editor of Le Soi4 Raymondde Becker,was convicted of war crimes and sentencedto death (though the senLouis tencewaslater commuted).Finally, one of de Man's Le Soircolleagues, paper'sfeuilleton Fonsny,whq like de Man, was a regular contributor to the in by section, was essassinated the Belgian Resistance January ry43-32 The article on "The Jews in Contemporary Literature" notwithstanding worldview of the anti-Semitismdid not play a largerole in the collaborationist young Paul de Man. Moreover, a cursory reading of his wartime writings

Deconstructionat Auschwitz 2rg reveals that, although de Man may have been a Nazi sympathizer, he was anythingbut a Nazi. Instead,he waswhat one might call a "normal fascist"-a term that merits further scrutiny if one is to fathom the rationalebehind de Man's commitment to the occupationist cause.What stands out about de Man's collaborationistwritings is that they are entirely unexceptional; which makes the voluminous and immense interpretive energiesthat have been devotedto decipheringtheir hidden meanings the more curious.Thus, accordall ing to Sternhell, "Considered in their context, de Man's youthful writings appearto be extremelybanal."33 Alice Kaplan expresses remarkablysimilar a insight: "De Man's work in Le Solr is at oncea brilliant and banalexampleof all clich6sof fascistnationalism:brilliant for the way he argueshis position, for the logic he brings to bear, and banal becausea thousand other intellectuals claimed the samehigh ground, reachedthe sameconclusions, had essentially the sameeffect."3a In his youth, de Man participated in a European-widemovement to have quit with the valuesof liberalism,republicanism, humanism,individualism,/es droitsdeI'homrne,'in short, to put an end to the so-called ideasof ry8g that had been ushered into European political culture by the French Revolution. The European fascist movements varied from country to country. The German variant was fanaticallyanti-Semitic; in Italian fascism,conversely, racial animus toward theJewsplayedno role. French fascism,closerto the Italian model in many respects,stood somewherebetween the two. However, if one peruses de Man's wartime articles,one finds that all the essential conceptsand categories of the genericfascistWeltanschauung Lreunmistakably present:an endorsement of the valuesof leadership, virility authority hierarchy,corporatism,and race-all of which stand as antitheses the heritageof Europeanliberalism to and representthe necessary preconditionsfor a sweeping nationaland cultural renewal. The fascistworldviewof which de Man partakes not emergesuddenlyor did ex nihilo. In France it was a logical outgrowth of the counterrevolutionary ideology of the Third Republig which gained political credibility and coherencein the aftermath of the Boulangerand Dreyfus affairs.Dreyfus's case revealed dramatically(and well in advance conditionsin centralEurope) the of tremendous amount of political capital that anti-Republican forces stood to reap from playing the anti-semitic card. In the mid-r gzos,Georges valois's Faisceaugave France its first (if short-lived) bona fide fascistparty. By the r93osthe political stockof the Third Republichad fallen so low that the cry of many intellectuals-both on the left and on the right-had become:..Better Hitler than Blum." For many,a German victory offeredthe prospectof aban-

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doning a moribund bourgeoisdemocracyand supplantingit with "a superior political culture, basedon the primacy of the collectivity on the senseof duty on and sacrifice, hierarchy and discipline."3s July 1936,, Maurice Blanchot, In writing in the protofascistjournal Combat,would openly polemicizeagainst characterof what is called with solemnity the Blum experi"the detestable (i.e., the Popular Front government),which he characterizes "A ment" as, splendid union, a holy alliance,this conglomerate Soviet,Jewish,and capiof A talist interests."36 yearearlier,Georges Bataille,in "The Psychological Structure of Fascism,"had openly sung the praisesof the Europeanfascistleaders: "Opposed to democraticpoliticians,who representin different countriesthe platitude inherent to homogeneous society,Mussolini and Hitler immediately standout assomethingother."37 In de Man's casethe influenceof his uncle Henri-convicted of treasonin absentia a Belgianmilitary tribunal fqllowing the war-would play a deterby minative role in the nephew'spolitical formation. The elder de Man, president of the Belgian Workers' Party and a leading figure in international socialism during the interwar years,was largely responsiblefor convincing King Leopold III, whom he servedasadviser, capitulatefollowing the German invato sion. By r94o he was convinced that "the war has led to the debacleof the parliamentaryregime and of the capitalistplutocracy in the so-calleddemocof this collapse a decrepitworld, For the working classand for socialism, racies. a far from being a disaster,is a deliverance."His conclusion,expressed few democracyand socialismwill be authoritarian or weekslater: "Henceforth, they will not exist at all."38 All of de Man's defenders-Miller, Derrida, Geoffrey Hartman, and many others-who declarethat the articles published in Le Soir in rg4r and rg4z were far from the work of a die-hard National Socialist are right. At the same are time, their observations entirely besidethe point. In the yearsrg4o-4+ one need not have been a convinced Nazi to have been an extremely valuable In collaborator. fact, often the oppositewastrue. After all, despiteits brutality toward Communists, Jews, risistants,and other undesirables,the Nazi Occupation of Western Europe was not on a par with what was occurring simultaneously in the East. With the exception of historically disputed Alsaceannexationsin the West. Nor did there Lorraine, there were no large-scale occur, as in the East, mass deportationsof slavelaborers.During rg4o-+2., one-third of France remainedunoccupiedand, under P6tain and Vichy, was of alloweda semblance selGrule.All of which is to saythat in WesternEurope, including Belgium, the Nazis put on a very different face from the one they In and wore in Poland,Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states. Franceand Belgium

Deconstructionat Auschwitz zzr they were at great pains to present themselves conquerorswho were also as liberators:as victors who purportedly had the best interest of the vanquished peoplesin mind; as occupierswho sought to free those they had conquered from the political morassof a decadent democraticculture and therebyto pave the way for the establishment indigenouscorporative-authoritarian political of regimes,such as Vichy. To this end, and strangeas it may sound to American ears,the Nazis systematically stroveto passthemselves offas the guarantorsof Europeancivilization:a civilizationwhosegreatness threatened the valwas by uesof corrupt, plutocratic,and materialisticdemocraticregimes. They wanted the occupiedcountriesto view the war againstEngland and the United States (not to mention the Soviet Union) as a heroic struggle against an ignoble materialistculture-against the spirit of "Manchester"-that was alien to the good Europeantraditions that the Nazis claimed to defend. After all. didn't France's"strangedefeat"ofJune r94o serveasan undeniablehistoricalconfirmation that thosegovernments who represented "ideasof ry8g" had failed the to measureup to the might and vigor of Europe's youthful fascistregimes? Hence, the German occupierswere not so much desirousof propagandathat would reflect Nazi valuesper se. They actively sought to mask the true brutality of thosevalues.Instead,in the West they wantedthe ideologyof fascism to coniurevisionsof postdemocratic Europeancultural renewal.In this context de Man's contributionsto Le Soirfit like a glove. One theme over which de Man's advocates have pondered concerns his stalwart defenseof literary modernism. To take one instance:in the article 'Jews in Contemporary Literature," he singlesout Gide, Lawrence,Hemingway,and Kafka for praise.Surely,this is a stance that is not only unreconcilable with the Nazi position on art-according to which modernism was summarily dismissedas "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art)-it must representa form of covert criticism of or resistanceto the heroic realism of National Socialist aesthetics. Indeed,this is the conclusionexplicitly reachedby Derrida: In r94r, under the German occupation, and first of all in the contextof this newspapeqthe presentation such a thesis [in defenseof aesthetic of formalism] . . . goesrather againstthe current. One can at leastread it as an anticonformistattack.Its insolence can takeaim at and strike all those who were then . . . undertakingto judge literature and its history,indeed to administer,control, censorthem in function of the dominant ideology of the war. . . . The examples chosen. . . represent everythingthat Nazism or the right-wing revolutionswould haveliked to extirpate from history and the greatnation.3e

zz2

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Derrida's argument would be plausiblewere it not for two caveats. First, as alreadyindicated,in Franceand Belgium Nazi censorshipwas,within certain limits, much lessinflexiblethan Derrida believes. This semblance tolerance, of moreover, wasinstrumentalin allowing the occupiersto passthemselves at off, leastin the eyesof those who choseto look the other way,as humanitarian and cultured. As we have seen,de Man's defenseof the Occupation and of the "decency,justice, and humanity" of the occupiersmay be squarelysituated within such an ideologicalposition. Second,and at leastasimportant, Derrida's defense de Man presupposes of an untenableopposition betweenmodernism and fascism;that is, it implies that one cannotbe both a modernistand a defenderof fascism. Not only is such a contentionunsound;it flies in the faceof the many historicalinstances where partisansof fascismand aesthetic modernism madecommon cause. The locus classicusof this seemingly strange alliance was of course Mussolini's Italy, where the fascistliterati included Gabrieled'Annunzio,Ezra Pound, and Filippo Marinetti. One might look at the caseof the British writer Wyndham Lewis, whoseembraceof both fascismand literary modernism has been ably profascistthemesmadetheir way analyzed FredricJameson.a0 occasion, by On into the work of both Lawrenceand Yeats.at Finally, one might considerthe fascistmodernistErnstJiinger,whom de Man goesout exampleof the German of his way to praiseas "the greatestGerman man of letters of the moment" as well as"the author of a most remarkable sociological study,DerArbeiter."azThe latter treatibe is an unadulterated fascist encomium that gained widespread influencein the yearsimmediatelyprior to Hitler's seizureof power. In his wartime iournalism, de Man on severaloccasionsreservesspecial praise for cultural developmentsin contemporary ltaly. During the interwar yearsMussolini's Italy had gained a reputation as a state in which not only would artists play a leadingrole, but, in particular,thosewho inclined toward modernism.As one observerhasremarked:"The young Paul de Man aesthetic wasnot torn betweenfascismand a commitment to modern art; he identified them. And just asimportant, this is not an idiosyncraticnotion on his part. He was in a coherentintellectual tradition when he looked to Italian fascismas a model of a statethat gavebirth to modern art and gavea role to artists.Seeing de Man in that tradition, asthat type of fascistintellectual-different from the Nazis but no lessfascistfor all that-makes much in the wartime iournalism
clearer.tt43

between fascism and aestheticmodernism, The marriage of convenience asit may at first sound.After all,literary modernism therefore,is not so strange and utilitarian orienwasoften implicitly critical of the unexalted,pedestrian,

Deconstructionat Auschwitz 223 such as the tation of modern bourgeoissociety.Some of its representatives, with the political left. Others, and Joyce,choseto align themselves surrealists such as Pound, the Futurists, and C6line believedthat the optimal political meansfor overcomingthe degradedreality of bourgeoisliberalismlay with the young fascistregimes. Moreover,the proponentsoffascist modernismbelieved that art had an essentialrole to play in the processof European cultural renewal.Modernist works, be they poetic, architectural, or literary, were to havea demonstrableeffecton the reader or viewer. "No longer an autonomous obiectofbeauty to be contemplated a passive by recipient,[they] weredesigned to transform the statusof the recipient in order to reunite him or her with the primal order of race and the permanence unquestionable of values."# For de Man, conversely, literary modernism was not immediately practical. It was, nevertheless, primary manifestation a cultural health. a of There is a final line of defense concerningde Man that alsobearsscrutiny.It concernsthe claim, perhapsmost eloquentlyarticulatedby GeoffreyHartman, that de Man's later critical writings represent"a belated,but still powerful, act of conscience"; they constitute"a generalized reflectionon rhetoric spurredby the experience totalitarianism.. . . [H]is turn from the politics of culture to of the language art wasnot, I think, an escape of into but an escape from aestheticism: a disenchantment with that fatal aestheticizing politics . . . that gave of fascismits brilliance."45 This point has also been forcefully made by Hillis Miller, who claims the relation betweende Man's early and later work is one of "reversal": The specialtargetsof his radical questioningof receivedopinions about particular authors,about literary history and about the relation of literature to history in his later work were iust those ideasabout thesetopics that recur in the articles he wrote for Le Sa#; notions about specific national and racial characterand about the uniqueness each national of literature, notions about the independentand autonomousdevelopment of literature accordingto its own intrinsic laws and accordingto a model of organic development,that is, accordingto what he called in his latest essays "aestheticideology. " According to Miller, de Man's later critique of aestheticideology expresses the political pedigreeof deconstruction:"Deconstruction is in all its many forms a contribution to knowledgeby being a contribution to good and accurate reading of 'social and political reality' as well as of literary and philosophical texts and of the relation betweenthe former and the latter.',a6 In the lexicon of de Man and others (e.g.,Philippe Lacoue-Labartheand

224 Deconstructionat Auschwitz ideologyrefersto a longing Jean-LucNancy in TheLiterary Absolute)aesthetic a reconciliation,and formal integrity. It represents modernist for wholeness, programsof "aesthetic impulsion that one cantracebackto romanticismin the education" one finds in the theoretical writings of Schiller and Kleist.41It which playeda crucial role in the promotesdelusionsof aesthetictotahzation and In of the fasciststates. its reconciliationof antagonisms self-understanding totalization,whetherin the of its suppression difference, drive towardaesthetic violence. politics or in art, betraysan essential JonathanCuller picks up where Miller leavesoff: "De Man's critique of the aestheticideology now resonates he alsoas a critique of the fascisttendencies had known. . . . The fact that de exhibitedan inclination to on Man's wartime juveniliahad themselves occasion of idealizethe emergence the German nation in aestheticterms givesspecial pertinence to his demonstrationthat the most insightful literary and philothe sophicaltextsof the tradition expose unwarrantedviolencerequiredto fuse In form and idea, cognition and performance."48 the same spirit, Shoshana that "de Man's entire work and his later theoriesbearimplicit Felmandeclares To witnessto the Holocaust."4e be sure,such witnesscould hardly be explicit, since the word "Holocaust" itself does not appear oncein the course of de Man's voluminouswritings. In responseI merely pose some questionsconcerning the viability of the ideologyasa point of departurefor the critique of fascism. critique of aesthetic I begin by recalling Thomas Pavel's:"Isn't it rather fortunate that half a to of century ago the adversaries Nazi Germany had other weapons rely on?"s0 ideologyremarkablyfree of social,historNot only is the critique of aesthetic ical, or political points of reference;de Man positively cautions against the and As employmentof such references. he remarksin Blindness Insight: "The knowledgeare not empirical factsbut written texts' even if of bases historical of in thesetextsmasquerade the guiseof warsor revolutions";"Considerations from a critical the actual historical existence of writers are a waste of time viewpoint"; "Instead of containing or reflecting experience'languageconon stitutesit."sl The emphasis the autonomyof texts,on the irreduciblerhetoricity of texts, the confusion of "texts" and historical "events" (a classically to structuralistconfusion,one might add) threatens makethis critical approach (alienated from reality). The concern with the virtually Wirklichkeitsfremd, rhetorical determinantsof textuality is perfectly fustifiable;the exclusivity of is however, not. emphasis, Man's approach explicitly shuns the idea of historical experienceas De single-mindedlyon the rhetorical ditouchstoneor referent. It concentrates mensionof texts.While the rhetoricalapproachmight excelat accountingfor

Deconstructionat Auschwitz z2S the figurative dimensionsof literary texts-metaphor, metonymy,catachresis, and so forth-there would seem to be very little room for another seriesof manifestlymore relevantto the analysisof historical conceptsand categories study: categoriessuch as class,economic crisis, modernization, sovereignty, and so forth, many of which would be central for an account of fascism's historicalviability and situatedness.s2 Historical eventsare most often codetermined via forces of "agency" (the intentionality of actors) and "structure" (preexistinginstitutional factors);they cannot be exclusivelyunderstoodaccording to a textual model. Deconstructionistswho claim that "every human act whatsoever"is a variant of "reading" risk confusing the issueby inflating the textualistapproachto the point where it threatensto becomea metaphysical first principle insteadof a "practice."s3 Caveats suchasthesepoint to the limitations of invokingde Man's thought as a prototypeof antitotalitariancriticism. In the interpretationprofferedby Miller, Culler, and others,the emphasis fascismasa variant of "aestheticideolon ogy" is drastically overblown.sa The "aestheticizationof politics" (W. Benjamin) is a prominent moment of fascism.It is doubtful, however, whether it is the most important aspect evenone of the most important. It is an approach or that certainly recommends itself to thoseversedin literary or aesthetic theory. But it makespreciouslittle effort to account for other prominent aspectsof the fascistexperience: ideologyof anti-Semitism,the pitfalls of the German the Sond'ermeg, leadershipcult, Germany's belated nationhood, or its crisis the of modernization circa r87r -rg2g. None of these factors can be explained exclusively semiological in terms.Their origins areto be found in nonrhetorical components German history whosecrucialdatesare r8o6, r848, r87r, and of r9r4. One cannotescape suspicionthat the attempt to endowthe later de Man the with the credentialsof a militant, literary critical antifascist is a post hoc construct, the stuff of apologeticconvenience. What raisessuspicions, moreover, is that efforts to portray de Man in this vein occurred only after the existence the Le Soir articleswasfirst disclosed, a day before.Contra the of not insinuationsof Culler and Miller, what strikes one about de Man's literary essaysis how remarkably free they are of referencesto political and social concerns. paraphrase To Hartman, if the later de Man's writings werenot quite an escape into aestheticism, neither do they appearas an unmitigated triumph over aestheticism. The emphasison the autonomy of literature (albeit, a rhetorically fissured autonomy), on the nonrelation between the rhetoricity of texts and their historicity, unambiguouslyparallelsthe repeatedclaims concerning the autonomyof literary modernismin the wartime journalism.

226 Deconstructionat Auschwitz The deconstructive gesture contending that the purported stability of meaningin texts is constantlyundermined by their rhetoricaldimensionrisks imperative.Like all fixed ideas,it into an inflexiblemethodological congealing tends to produce results that are predictableand familiar. As Terry Eagleton of has remarked, "The (anti-)epistemology poststructuralismfocusesrecurto missingthe mark, not quite-ness, the point failure, error, rently on impasse, where insistencethat somethingin a text doesnot quite come off, has always alreadyfailed, is evennow not quite failing to deviatefrom what neverexactly The irony conventionalgesture."s5 alreadywas,hashardenedinto the sheerest becomesanctihere,of course,is that once semanticinstability or "difference" they acquirea "foundational" statusthat is rhetorfied theoreticalwatchwords, readings ically at odds with their intendedmeaning.In this way deconstructive threatento becomenot only predetermined,but tota,lizironically themselves ing: every new readingbecomesgrist for the mill of Derridean "undecidability" or "diff6rance." As M. H. Abrams once noted: "The deconstructive it method worksbecause can't help working; it is a can't-fail enterprise;thereis of no complex passage verse or prose which could possiblyserve as a counto terinstance testits validity or limits."s6Nor havesuchlimitations redounded to the credit of deconstructionasa method of political criticism. As one critic 'work' must be limthat deconstruction's has remarked,"Derrida's insistence of ited to a rigorouslyelucidatedanalysis the conditionsof discourse"-that is, precondihis well-nigh exclusivefocus on the transcendental-grammatological 6criture-"has continuedto mark the limits of its usefulness tions of writing or for political critique."sT it Under thesecircumstances is hardly surprising that talk of the "death of is rife. AsJeffrey Nealon observesin DaubleReading: deconstruction" is Deconstruction,it seems, deadin literature departmentstoday.There but beingproducedconcerningdeconstruction, is still plenty of discourse passed.Precious few critics would deconstruction'sheyday has clearly any longer as "deconstructionists.". . . Deconstrucidentify themselves is usuallyattributed either to suicide,that deconstructionfell tion,s death to back into dead-endformalism it wassupposed remedy,or to murder at the handsof the new historicists,whosecalls for rehistoricizingand conchallengedthe suptextualizingthe study of literature have successfully of the deconstructionists.ss textualism posedself-canceling For the moment I leaveasidethe more generalquestionconcerningdeconafterlife and fate.Instead,I concludeby taking a brief look struction'spossible interpretation instancein which poststructuralism's at another representative

Deconstructionat Auschwitz 227 of fascism figures prominently. Since the debate was provoked by the leading practitioner of poststructuralist historiography, Hayden White, many of the questionsconcerningdeconstruction's understandingof the legacyof fascism appearin a lesstheoreticallysublimated,more clarifying light. The debatein questionwasoccasioned White's article on "The Politicsof by Historical Interpretation," later anthologized in The Content of the Form.se Much of the article represents clarification and extrapolationof a position a White first developed in Metahistory concerning the irreducible discursiverhetoricalconstitution of historicalknowledge. According to White, there is no such thing as "history in itself," an autonomousbody of facts or eventsthat would exist prior to or independentlyof discourse. Instead,our knowledgeof historical events is unavoidably predetermined by the narrative frameworks and rhetoricalfigureswe adopt to situatethem. Correspondingly, there can be no such thing asan obiectiveor value-freehistoricaltext. Sinceall attemptsat historical understanding are willy-nilly governed by such theoretical paradigms or frameworks, all are inevitably acts of interpretation. This is only another way of saying that all historical interpretationsare "political": they entail an often concealed, though, in the last instance,determinativeseriesof ethical choices,value-preferences, and networks of exclusion. One can see clearly how White's reliance on the deconstructive notion of the essentially rhetorical and figurative constitution of texts (an indebtedness has never he denied)playsa key role in his attempt to radicallyrecastthe presuppositions of 60 traditional historiography. In "The Politics of Historical Interpretation" White makes a number of disparaging remarks,inspired in part by Foucault,abouthistory asa profession or "discipline." For White, the professionalization historicalstudy over the of last two centuries,governedas it has been by affirmative,Eurocentric narratives of "progress," hasbeen marked and marred by a banishmentof utopian prospects.Thus, according to the requirements of history as "discipliner" utopian narratives,which defy the acceptedstandards scientificityand obof have been expelled insofar as they ipso facto contravenethe estabiectivity, lished reality-principle. There are many valuableinsights that derive from White's attempt to counterbalancethe tendential conservatismcharacteristic of historical study. Still, his critique underestimates reality and potentialfor countervailingtendenthe cies.To wit: much of the "social history from below" that has been written sincethe r96os embraces utopian goal of restoringkey aspects the past the of to its victims; moreover, it does so in a spirit of Benjaminian remembrance oriented toward an emancipatoryfuture. As a result, White's own choice of

228 Deconstructionat Auschwitz narrative frameworks becomesmonolithic: the portrait he paints is one of absolutesin which it is difficult for mediating tendenciesor prospectsto emerge.On the one hand, there is the wholly depravedfield of professional historiography; on the other hand, there is an elusive panaceaof utopian history-writing. And it is preciselyat the point where White tries to specify what the latter has to offer qua "other" or "heterological" that his position frankly begins to unravel. Not coincidentally,this is also the point where poststructuralism's relation to the tradition of Europeanfascismis thematized. To begin with, if history-writing canno longerbe construedasthe representation of the "real," then the traditional historicist criterion of writing history "the way it really was"-correspondenceto the "facts"-also falls by the wayhavealsobeeneliminated,and since side.But insofarasall objectivestandards the question arisesas to all history-writing is deemeddiscursive-rhetorical, how we are to go about choosingand evaluatingamong the variousdiscursive positionsavailable us.As White confesses: to "One must facethe fact that when it comes to apprehendingthe historical record, there are no grounds, to be found in the historical record itself for preferring one way of construing its meaningover another."6l But this methodologicalcul-de-sacresults in White's adoption of some rather tenuous positions, as when he grapples with the phenomenonof socalled Holocaust revisionistsor deniers.In lieu of any normative grounds to differentiatebetweeninterpretationswe might embraceand thosewe ought to as reject (such as the deniers),White leavesus with "effectiveness" the sole criterion of truth. Thus, comparing Israeli and Palestinianinterpretationsof the Holocaust,he comesto a conclusionthat seemsto verge on moral bankruptcy: "the effort of the Palestinianpeople to mount a politically effective to response Israeli policiesentailsthe production of a similarly ffictit:e id,eology fconcerning the Holocaust], completewith an interpretation of their history capableof endowing it with meaning."62Inother words (and there are addiin tional passages which White admits this verbatim), if a standpoint proves "functional" for a given community-as Holocaust denial might be for Europe's neofascists-it would qualify as "true" in White's terms. The Israelis havean interpretationof the Holocaustthat is "functionally effective"for their havetheir interpretation.That a critical histonation, just as the Palestinians riography, constituted by responsiblepractitioners,might be able to lay bare the ideological(hence,inaccurateand unjust) aspectsof both positions is an option that never occurs to White, in part, due to his a priori rejection of clear that "truth aseffecit history as "discipline." In such passages, becomes tiveness" is all that remains in White's rigid endorsementof a neo-Nietz-

Deconstructionat Auschwitz

22g

schean,perspectivalmorality/epistemology.But as Carlo Ginsburg warns in this connection:"We can conclude that if fHolocaust denier Robert] Faurisson's narrative were ever to prove ffictizse, it would be regarded by White as true as well."63Similar objections to White's functionalist interpretation of historicalnarrativehavebeenvoicedby Saul Friedlander:"White's theses. . . appear untenable when their corollaries are consideredwithin the present context. For instance,what would have happenedif the Nazis had won the war? . . . How in this casewould White (who clearly rejects any revisionist version of the Holocaust) define an epistemological criterion for . . . these tr64 events, without using any reference 'political effectiveness.t to This brings us to the aspect White's argumentthat is explicitly concerned of with the fascisttradition. If functional truth is all there is, then the standpoint of metahistory would be able to increaseour self-awareness. would bear but little relation to the project of freeing us from the constraintsof domination. From this perspective, one truth would be as good as another.Those awareof this situation would merely possess greaterdegreeof sellknowledge. White a attempts to remedy the quietistic implications of this position by identifying metahistory with a historiographyof the "sublime," while accusingconventional historiographyof rhetoricallyprivileging the "beautiful." In doing so,it seems that White has borrowed a page from Jean-Frangois Lyotard,s The Postmod,ern Conditioz.There, toq the sublime,as reappropriated postmodby ernism, serves a cure for the modernist/aestheticistcelebrationof beauty. as The problem with historical narrativesthat rhetorically favor beauty is that they are oriented toward the valuesof "totality," ,.unity,r'and ,,coherence.', In other words,they areat cross-purposes with the poststructuralistvaluesWhite seeksto promote, which champion rupture, fragmentation, and difference. The "beautiful" narrativesof conventional historiographypromote F.nlightenment visions of seamless progressand wholeness, and all their attendant ills. White's partisanshipfor the sublime seeksto undercut thesetendenciesand thereby to restore a deconstructionist-utopian dimension to history-writing that has been marginalizedby a canonicalmodernism. White refers to this poststructuralistutopia asa "visionary politics." But what would this historiographyof the sublime look like? From where would it takeits bearings and modelsl What exactlywould it poseasan alternative to the much-malignedmodernist historiographyof the beautiful? At long last,White setshis cardsdown on the tablefor all to see.The choice we are offeredcouldn't be more stark-or more alarming.As White confesses: "the kind of perspectiveon history that I have been implicitly praising is conventionally associated with the ideologies fascistregimes.Somethinglike of

23o Deconstructionat Auschwitz Schiller's notion of the historical sublime or Nietzsche'sversion of it is certainly presentin the thought of such philosophersas Heideggerand Gentile as and in the intuitions of Hitler and Mussolini. But havingassumed much, we that would lead us to write offsuch a guard againsta sentimentalism must [sic] with fascistideit conception of history simply because has been associated ologies." of In sum: "fascistpolitics is in part the price paid for the very domestication to is supposed standagainstit."65 that historicalconsciousness White's embrace of a fascist sublime as an antidote to the purportedly beautiful narratives of modernist historiography is especiallyintriguing in light of the "critique of aestheticideology" defensethat hasbeen proffered on claimedthat de Man's critique of the aestheticist de Man's behalf.That defense But totality,and beautywasin principle antitotalitarian. longing for wholeness, position has the merit of showing us that the intellectual stakesinWhite's sublime are more complex; volved in an ethos that celebratesthe transgressive by that a "visionary politics" of gratuitousrupture embraced poststructuralism proper to the fascistsublime. tendencies alsobearsaffinitieswith aestheticizing Mussolini's son-in-law and foreign minister GaleazzoCiano clarified the issue with his notorious comparison of the aerial bombs exploding among Ethiopians with flowers bursting into bloom. The aestheticsof defenseless violence characteristicof the fascist sensibility harbors its own "critique of of to aestheticideology." It seeks replacethe totality-oriented aesthetics beauty that is proper to bourgeoisculture with sublimeacts of transgression-not in the sphereof autonomousart, but in life itself.

AFTERWORD: DERRTDAON ltARX, OR THE PERttS O F L E F T H E I D E G GERIANISII

tr
The question of deconstruction'srelationship to contemporary politics has alwaysbeena sorepoint. The criticismsthat havebeenleveledagainstit for its deficiencies this regard are by now quite familiar. Most of thesecritiques in havecenteredon the issueof deconstruction's inordinatefocuson questionsof textuality and reading-an issue best dramatized, perhaps by Derrida's oftcited and controversialmaxim: "there is nothing outside the text."r Derrida's detractorshaveallegedthat this well-nigh exclusivepreoccupationwith semiotic themes,with the figuration of texts,hasfunctionedat the expense more of worldly and practicalconcerns.The world might be crumbling all around us, they charge,but Derrida is more interestedin the contingencies this or that of phoneme: for example,the amusing fact that in French, Hegelrs name is a homophonefor the word for eagle("aigle"). As those familiar with Derrida's work know, this chancehomophonic equivalence gaverise to a rumination of somethree hundred pagesconcernedwith analogous linguistic slippages and fissures the (somewould say)appropriatelytitled Glas.z in One of the first to raisesuchcharges practical-politicalirrelevance of against Derrida's negativesemioticsof readingwasnone other than Michel Foucault. In his responseto Derrida's unsparing critique of Mad,ness Ciailization, and, Foucaultlambasts deconstructionasnothing more than a (negative)variant of the classicallyFrench method of "6xplication du texte." According to Foucault, it practicesa "historically determinedlittle pedagogy"which is characterized'by "the reduction of discursivepractices [which are for Foucault at the origins of "power"-R.W.] to textual traces:the elision of the eventsproduced therein and the retention only of marks for a reading; the invention of voices behind texts to avoidhavingto analyze modesof implication of the subject the in discourses; assigningof the originary as said and unsaid in the text the to avoid replacingdiscursivepracticesin the field of transformationswhere they are carried out." Thus, accordingto Foucault, Derrida offers us a pedagogy

232 Afterword the pupil that there is nothing outside the text" and "which "which teaches which allowsit converselygivesto the master'svoice the limitless sovereignty to restatethe text indefinitely."3 Nor is Foucault the only critic to have challengedDerrida in this way. with the Edward Said contends that Derrida's highly formalized obsession abstruseterms of t'archewriting"-that is, with avowed"non-concepts" such as the trace, grammatology,supplement, diff6rance, dissemination,and so forth-ends up by "muddling . . . thought beyond the possibility of usefulness." Said continues: "The effect of fdeconstructionist]logic (the miseen abime)is to reduce everything that we think of as having some extratextual leveragein the text to a textual function. . . . Derrida's key words . . are unregeneratesigns: he saysthat they cannot be made more significantthan signifiers are. In some quite urgent way, then, there is something frivolous to about them, as all words that cannot be accommodated a philosophy of seriousneedor utility are futile or unserious."a deconstructionof representIndeed, other critics on the Left haveaccused sublimated version of r96os radicalism. In their eyes it ing a linguistically embodies a form of ersatz praxis, which promotes a type of displaced or one pseudo-radicalism: insteadof unmaskingthe ills of contemporarysociety, the tracesof "metaphysics"or "presencet'in the theoreticaltexts of exposes Husserl,Levinas,Austin, and so forth. Nor has Plato,L6vi-Strauss,Rousseau, Derrida's well-nigh exclusiveorientation toward the texts of Dead White Euhim among proponentsof contemporarymulticulturropeanMales endeared supporters,suchasGayatri Spivak,haveon Even former wholehearted alism.s long-standingrefusal"to open railed volubly againstdeconstruction's occasion onto an'outside' constitutedby ethico-politicalcontingencies."6 Needlessto say,Derrida has not taken well to such criticisms.He believes rhat, apart from a loyal coterieof initiates,the political implicationsof his work have been seriouslymisunderstood.Here, however,one might inquire as to how one could, from a strictly deconstructioniststandpoint,actually distinfrom understandingin general.After all, guish instances misunderstanding of translation,and when a theory is predicatedon the maxims of dissemination, of "iterabilityr" on the claim that "all understandingis merely a species misunone would like to know on what basisthe founderof deconstrucderstanding," tion can plausiblyclaim to havebeen"misunderstood."In an era in which the signifiedsand claims to authorship as well as other so-calledtranscendental and in which the Derridean signifiershavebeenso thoroughly deconstructed, about understandingas a speciesof misunderstandinghas becomea maxim how exactlycanan author rightfully claim to be misinterpreted? commonplace,

Afterword

43

It would be more fruitful, I believe,to inquire why it is that Derrida's texts havebeen so consistentlyread-or as he would haveit, "misread"-along the lines of the aforementioned criticisms. Nevertheless,in his own defenseDerrida has always insisted that "discourseson double affirmation, the gift beyond exchange and distribution, the undecidable, incommensurable the incalculable, on singularity,differthe or or ence and heterogeneity alsq through and through, at leastobliquely disare courseson justice, fethics and politics]."i And in responseto one critic's accusationthat "deconstructionis so obsessed with the play of differencethat it ultimately ends up indifferent to everything," Derrida insists that "deconstruction is not an enclosurein nothingnessbut an opennesstowards the other"; in this openness seeks "reevaluatethe indispensable it to notion of responsibility" in waysthat are fraught with ethicaland political consequences.s Elsewhere doesnot shy awayfrom immodestlyinsisting:"Deconstruction is he justice. . . . I know nothing more just than what I call deconstruction."And further: "Deconstruction is mad about this kind of justice. Mad about the desirefor justice."e From his very first texts, Derrida has alwaysemphasized the positional or contextualnature of deconstruction. His recentpreoccupation with Marx is no exception.Undeniably,sincethe mid-rg8os Derrida has sought to reposition his thought in order to counter the chargesof ethical indifferenceand apoliticism, the suspicion that deconstructionis interestedin little more than the arbitrary l'free play of signification." Nevertheless, many of theseefforts have failed to go beyond a few rather abstractand perfunctory invocationsof .,responsibility" and "openness toward the other" as in the remarksjust cited. In lieu of a more concretespecification the meaningof otherness of and openness, of which "others" we should open ourselvestoward, of how precisely we shouldopenourselves the other and why, and of the wayswe might translate to the ethicalmaxim of openness into forms of practicallife conduct or everyday institutional settings,we are left with a directive that in its generality and imprecisionseems more frustrating than illuminating. In certain respects, problematicof otherness raisedby Derrida raises the as more questions than it is ableto solve.One can for examplethink of ,.others"neo-Nazis,white supremacists, racists-who for compelling reasons haveforfeited their right to my openness. Should or must I remain open to all othersin precisely the same way-my wife, colleagues,friends, perfect strangers, enemies?Freud tried to addresssome of thesedilemmasin Ciaitizationand, Its Discontents when he forcefully calledinto questionthe biblical commandmenr. the other as thyself." For him this maxim represented "love merely one in a

234 Afterword series of unattainableideals erected by civilization. Such commandments, which emanatefrom the social super egq are a primary source of a neurotic discomfort with civilization, Freud would contend. "My love is something valuableto me which I ought not to throw away without reflection," he remarks."On closerinspection. . . not merely is [the] strangerin generalunworthy of my love; I must honestlyconfessthat he hasmore claim to my hostility and evenmy hatred."lo In the Introduction I spokeof a peculiar developmentin the history of ideas wherebya critique of "the West" formerly purveyedby thinkerson the German Right during the rgzos becamepopular amongthe French intellectualLeft in revolutionary the r96os.In Germany this critique, as set forth by conservative ErnstJtinger,and Carl Schmitt, took aim at theoristssuchasOswaldSpengler, a decadentand materialisticbourgeoiscivilization.They soughtto replacethe or latter with a new form of Gemeinschaft community that would nevertheless prove capableof meeting the challengesof modern technologicalsocietyto with reference the realm of internationalpolitics and the ultimate especially instanceof war. The tenor of their views,which often crystallizedaround the latently totalitariannotion of the "total state,"wasdistinctly fascistic.rr In postwar Francethis critique of civilization took hold via the influenceof the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.In the years precedingHitler's seizureof power, Heidegger had allied himself intellectually and politically And of course revolutionaries such as Schmitt and Jiinger.12 with conservative to in the fateful yearof r933, he committed himself wholesale the Nazi revolution. As he remarkedon one occasion: "Let not doctrinesand ideasbe the rules of your Being.The Fuhrer aloneis the presentand future German reality and as its law."r3Insofar Heidegger'sreceptionin Francewasprimarily philosophithe cal and highly decontextualized, profoundly ideologicalimplicationsof his Heidegger'sdoctrine of Nevertheless, thought remainedlargelyunremarked.ra philosophicalantihumanism,as mediated through indigenousFrench traditions such as L6vi*strauss's structural anthropology and Lacanian psychofor during the r96osan obligatoryright of passage a vast affay became analysis, one would haveto of significantfigureson the French intellectualLeft. Here, Jacques add the namesof Barthes,Foucault,and Lyotard, aswell as,of course, Derrida. This transplantationof the conservativerevolutionary critique of modernity from Germany to France gave rise to a phenomenonthat might aptly be described as a "Left Heideggerianism."In the end, a critique of civilization,and humanismthat originatedon the German reason,democracy, Right during the rgzos was wholly internalized by the French Left. These

Afterword

45

membersof the French philosophicalNew Left wereavowed"post-Marxists," insofar as, in their eyes,Marxism remained overly beholden to the predominant Westerntheoreticalparadigmof self-positingsubjectivity.ts Derrida's appropriationof Marx may be read in part as a strategicgesture:in an era marked by the collapse of communism and the apparent worldwide triumph of capitalism (yet, one seesthat as a result of recent elections in Eastern Europe where the former communists have made significant gains, such claimsneedto be seriouslyqualified),we find ourselves a point where, at for the first time in nearly two centuries, bourgeoissociety is without a maior ideologicalcompetitor.By underlining the continued relevance certain asof pects of the Marxist tradition, Derrida is trying to remark or reinscribe the eventssurrounding the fall of communism in a manner that leavesroom for political alternatives. But there is another motivation at issue, which allows Derrida, asit were,to repositionhimself vis-i-vis his primary constituency, the Anglo-American literary Left. A book on Marx permits him to recerrify his left-wing credentialsat a time when not only havedeconsffuction'sadequacy for political purposesbeencalledinto question,but when Derrida's popularity has been displacedin literature departmentsby the Foucault-inspiredparadig- of the "new historicism." There are someironies involved in Derrida's late confrontation with Marx. Forty yearsagoDerrida's intellectualbdtenoire,Jean-Paul Sartre,claimedthat "Marxism is the unsurpassable horizon of our time."16 Derrida at last seems to agree.No thinker, he tells us, "seemsaslucid concerningthe way in which the political is becomingworldwide,concerningthe irreducibility of the technical and the media"; few thinkers "have shed so much light on law, international law,and nationalism,"and so forth.lT The problemsthat besetDerrida's attempt to come to grips with Marx are the sameasthosethat afflict his effortsto address questionsof justice.The title of Derrida's reflections,Spectres ofMarx, playson the oft-cited first sentence of the Communist Manifesto: "A specteris haunting Europe-the specterof communism." In keeping with this preferred imagery of phantomsand specrers, Derrida would like to read Marx and all that his doctrines signify-the critique of capitalism,of modern technology,of the nation-state,and so forth-as a ghostly presencewhosetheoriescontinue to "haunt" modern bourgeoissociety and all its multifarious inadequacies, despite the collapseof "really existing socialism."Herein lies the initial plausibility of his argument:now that state socialismhas,to continueDerrida's metaphorics, given up the ghost,the specter of the Marxist critique of capitalistsocietyhasbecomemore necessary than

46

Afterword

ever.Otherwise, world capitalism threatensto becomean all-consuming monolith, devoidof countervailingtendencies and otherness. But the terms in which Derrida understands contemporarysocietyaresemiapocalyptical. fact they rely on aspects the Marxist tradition that in many In of ways have proved the most problematicaland the least serviceable the for purposesof radical criticism. The deficiencies Marxist thought pertain to a of metatheoreticalframework that stressed:(r) a nonfalsifiablephilosophy of history; (z) a neo-Hegelian (hence,metaphysical) conceptionof the proletariat as the "universal class"; (:) a naivet6 concerning the bureaucratic consequences relatedto the goalof socializing meansof production.Moreover,in the Marx's theory one finds a debilitating conflationof the valuesof economicand political liberalism.In practice,he often cynically assumed that liberal principles were little more than ideological window-dressingfor mechanismsof bourgeois class domination. Often, however,liberal-humanitarianimpulses servedasthe basisfor the progressive reform of inhuman levelsof exploitation that existed under early capitalism. For such conditions existed in blatant contradictionto the universalistic sentiments espoused the intellectuals by and philosopherswho had laid the groundwork for the transition from feudal to modern democraticsociety. As part of the attempt to compensatefor the manifest normative deficits of traditional Marxism, in the last ten yearsa major effort hasbeenundertakenin order to develop a critical theory of democracy.In principle such a theory would preserveMarx's original critique of the excrescences capitalistdeof justice,fairness, velopmentwith a greaterattentionto the requirements for and equity embodied in the modern democratic idea.l8 It is worth noting that Derrida takesvirtually no interest in thesedevelopments. situateshimself He au deld, beyond contemporarydebatesconcerningdemocratictheory. But or this is hardly an accident.He adoptsthis position in part for reasons theoretof ical consistency: accordingto the preceptsof deconstruction,normativequestions are,strictly speaking "undecidable."Weredeconstructionto condescend to debatein the idiom and terms of normative political theory,it would sucit and illusions that, for decades, cumb to an entire train of logocentricbiases hasbeenat painsto combat. with Instead,in Spectres Marx, asin "The Forceof Law," we arepresented of phenomea set of Manicheanextremes: the one hand there is the degraded on non of what Derrida characterizes "world capitalism";on the other,a mysteas condition d aenir.As Derrida avowsat one point: it rious appealto a messianic is a "matter of thinking another historicity-not a new history or still lessa 'new historicism,'but anotheropeningof event-ness historicity that permitas

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47

to ted one not to renounce,but on the contrary to o\en up access an affirmatioe . thinkingof themessianic.. ."re The Marxist critique of capitalism,we are told, points in the direction of this messianic future, this specteror ghostof a utopia "to come." Yet, what hinders Derrida's presentationis a dearth of mediating elements:conceptsor terms that would be ableto bridge the gap betweenthe he or two extremes hassetforth. In lieu of suchmediatingelements tendencies, one is left, in the radition of Heilsgeschichte, a stark opposition between with the absoluteperdition of the historical presentand the sublimity of the messianicera to come.As one critic haspointed out: "in order to identify himself with a 'certain spirit of Marx' Derrida must not only strip Marxism of all its political practicesand philosophicaltraditions but also then recoup it only in the indeterminacyof a . . . 'messianic-eschatological' mode."2O The later Heideggeronce famouslyobservedthat so utterly forlorn and hopeless were conditions in the modern world that, "Only a god cansaveus."2rBy relying on the idiom of messianism negativetheologyto ground socialcritique, Derridaand Left Heideggerian true to the legacy-follows closelyin the master'sfootsteps. Thus, in the book on Marx, and in keeping with the tradition of Left Heideggerianism, Derrida succumbs the temptation of reducingdemocracy to and liberalism essentiallyto forms of capitalist rule. He rails against those "who find the means to puff out their chests with the good conscienceof capitalism,liberalism,and the virtues of parliamentarydemocracy"-15 if the conceptualbasesof all three phenomenawere in essence same.22 the Historically, the normative preceptsof liberalism and democracyhaveoften entered into sharpconflict with the capitalistethosof profit maximization-as one has seen in the history of the labor, women's, and ecology movements.In the interstices of these various social spheres,with their conflicting normative claims,lies a potential for protest and socialreform that Derrida excludesby virtue of the apocalyptical theoreticalframeworkhe adopts. In an earlier work Derrida, in neo-Heideggerian fashion, condemnedthe socialsciences a speciesof "techno-science"-that is, for being in essence as logocentric:"The term techno-science to be acceptedr" has observes Derrida, confirms the fact that an essentialaffinity ties together "and its acceptance objectiveknowledge,the principle of reason,and a certain metaphysicaldetermination of the relation to truth."23 As a result of this condemnation, his understandingof late capitalist society seemsempirically impoverished. Throughout his text one finds tantalizingyet superficialallusionsto new social tendencies that are threateningto break through. In the last analysis, though, theseinnuendoespossess merely gesturalor rhetorical function. They are a lacking in substance, the type of empirical grounding that would provide in

238 Afterword them with the requisitecogency. one reviewerhasobserved, As Derrida's text ((systematic displaysa . . . failure to engagegenuinelywith any of the social forces which he is concernedto regulatethrough revised,'inspired' laws."24 Ultimately, the inspired rhetoricity of his text threatensto collapseamid the weight of platitudes and clich6s."At a time when a new world disorder attempts to install its neocapitalism and neoliberalismr"remarksDerrida, ". . . hegemonystill organizes repression the and thus the confirmation of a haunting." "No one, it seemsto me, can clntesl the fact," he continues,"that a dogmaticsis attemptingto install its worldwide hegemony. . ."2s . Derrida polemicizesineffectually against the triumph of "tele-technics," which he definesas "communicationsand interpretations,selective and hierproduction of information' through channels whose power has archized grown in an absolutelyunheardof fashion The techno-mediatic frenzy is supported,in Derrida's words,by the proliferation of a "scholarlyor academic culture, notably that of historians,sociologists and politologists,theoreticians philosophers, particularpolitical philosophers, of literature,anthropologists, in itself is relayedby the academic whosediscourse and commercialpress, also but by the media in general."26 Strangelyyet conveniently, one academic the subculture that hasbeenexemptedfrom the foregoinglist is deconstructionitself. The "techno-mediatic power," as well as its "spectraleffects," must be analyzed, claims Derrida, in terms of its "new speedof apparition": that is, in terms of "the simulacrum,the syntheticor prostheticimage,the virtual event, that today deploy cyberspace and surveillance,"as well as "the speculations The aforementionedlist-"simulacrum," "prosthetic unheard-of powers."z7 buzzwordsmadefamiliar image," "surveillance-reads like a litany of gauchiste to us over the last three decades the writings of Baudrillard, Foucault,and via the late Guy Debord. We find ourselves,as it were, in the middle of a William Gibson novel that has been ghost written by JacquesDerrida. At one point Derrida gratuitously lapsesinto a few choice Althusserianisms: "In a given by to situation . . . a hegemonicforce alwaysseems be represented a dominant rhetoric and ideology,whatevermay be the conflicts betweenforces,the princiand pal contradictionor the secondary contradictions,the overdeterminations the relaysthat may later complicatethis schema.. . ."28 I haveassembled thesecitations at somelength in order to makea point. One would havehopedthat Derrida, in returning to Marx, would havebrokensome new ground; that, at the very least, he would have pointed to a new way of understanding Marxism that would free us of some of its more dogmatic Instead, what we are provided with essentiallyis a Heidegencumbrances. gerianizedMarx, which is far from an improvement.Like Heidegger'slater

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49

doctrine of technology, of an all-encompassinglogic of "enframing" or d,as Gestell, Derrida's discussionof capitalismin an age of media technicssuffers from an impoverishment of action categories.In his analysissurveillance, the prosthetic image, and the simulacrum function as omnipotent unmoved movers.There is no discussion logicsof socialization, the complexprocess of of via which norms areinternalizedby socialactors.The ontologicalprejudicesof philosophical antihumanism, a Heideggerian inheritance, categoricallyrule out such terms of social analysis.In Derrida's portrayal of information-era capitalism, there are no actors left to speakof; they have been deconstructed along with the "subject"-thus, only ghostsand phantomsremain. Here, the debilitiesof the analyticalframeworkcorrespondto thoseofarchewriting in general.As a philosophy of languagethat is predicated on the logics of dissemination and the trace,Derridean grammatologyis unableto account for mutual solidarity among actors.The process wherebynorms are criticized or acceptedby individuals is not merely a product of "iterability," nor is it merely an epiphenomenal blip set againstthe omnipotent backdropof Derrideannegativesemiotics. is rather the outcomeof an intricate interweavingof It ontogenesis and socialization. is a processwherebypersonsbecome"social It selves"via the internalization of societalroles, values,and norms. Yet, such mechanisms socialintegrationarealways of contingenton a momentofindividual autonomy: on the capacity of socialactors to assentto or to reiect communally transmitted norms. Only a theory of socialization that is able to account for this capacityfor refusal, for a moment of autonomousindividuation, can simultaneouslyexplain the capacityof socialactorsto resist inherited constellations of power.For want of suchperspectives, Derrida's negativehermeneutics of reading threatens to become merely a literary critical version of systems theory: trace, supplement, and diff6rance becomethe prime movers; the convictions of socialactorsare merely their effects, somethingmerely inscribedby the endlessly churning, infernal machineof Derridean archewriting. Following the leadof Debord and Baudrillard, there is a certain plausibility in trying to understanddeconstructionas a form of theory appropriateto a neo-Orwellian age of semio-technics:an era in which a surfeit of signification simply overwhelmsthe subject,leavingin its wakea substratumthat is heteronomouslyfabricatedrather than, aswith the old liberal ideal, autonomous and self-positing. But this would mean the rcalization of a brave new world in which no contestationor oppositional praxis could take place,the potential addressees the theory havingbeenlong cyberneticized of existence. of out

NOTES

Introduction Lutz Niethammer, Posthistoire: Has History Cometo an End}trans. P. Camiller (London: Verso, rgg2). For Niethammer's discussion of Benjamin in contrast with the theorists of posthistoire,see chapter 4, "The Blown-Away Angel: On the Posthistory of a Historical Epistemology of Danger," ror-34. I discuss the postmodernist appropriation of Benjamin in Chapter 4. Many aspects of the German young conservative, quasi-apocalyptic diagnosis of the times indeed found their way into Beniamin's own historiographical prescriptions, though with an important shift of emphasis: through his metaphor of the "angel of history," Benjamin urges the materialist critic to "brush history against the grain.,' In this way alone might the passivity of historicism-its tendency to rest content with merely registering and reflecting historical decline-be surmounted. Conversely, Benjamin summons a dialectical historiography to relate the past to the present as a ,,nowtime" (Jetztzeit), a moment of "messianic cessationof happening." Instead of prostrating himself before the historicist iniunction to record history "the way it really was," the materialist critic must treat the "past [as] charged with the time of the now [in order to] blast it out of the continuum ofhistory." In this way he avoids the perils ofthe end of history, history perceived as incessant catastrophe or ruin. See Walter Benjamin, ,,Theses on the Concept of History" in llluminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. H. Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1968),z6r. Manfred Frank, "Two Centuries of Philosophical Critique of Reason," in Reasonand, Its Other: Rationalitit in Modern German Philosophy and Culture, ed. Dieter Freundlieb and wayne Hudson (oxford: Berg, rg94), 7r. For a discussion of Baeumbler, see Hans Sluga, Heidcgger's Crisis(Cambridge: Harvard University press, rg93). For a conventional poststructuralist understanding of Nietzsche as an aaant la lettre deconstructionist, see Giovanni vattimq The End of Mod.ernity, trans. J. Snyder (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, r988) and The Adaentare of Dffirence: Philosophy after Nietzsche and Heidegger(Cambridge: Polity Press, rg93). Frank, Der kommendeGott: Vorlesungen iiber d,ieNeue Mythologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, r98z), 33. For an extensive survey of the French Nouvelle Droite, see Pierre-Andr6 Taguieff, sur la Nouaelle Droite (Paris: Descarres er compagnie, ryg4). of late, the French New Right has entered into a peculiar (though far from unprecedented) devil,s Taguieffin pact with certain remnants of French gauchisme.On this point, see the interview with Sur la Nouaelle Droite, 9-64.

242 Notes to Pages 4-7

(Spring rg93): ryz-77: "The See Gitlin, "The Limits of Identity Politics,"Dissent in may do their bestto denythe fact that for a quarterof a century, specialists difference they havebeen fighting over the English departmentwhile the right held the White Houseasits privatefiefdom." of SeeThomas Sheehan, "Heideggerand Hitler," Nep YorkReaiew BooksJanuary15, as 1993,30-35.Seealsomy letter to the editor of March 25, 1993, well as Derrida's The response April zz, rgg3 (it was in this issuethat the letter-petition appeared). of in episodehas beendiscussed ReedWay Dasenbrock,"Taking It Personally:Reading English,56, no. 3 (March 1994):zfi-7q Seealso the College Derrida's Responses," Philosoor in excellentdiscussion Ingrid Harris, "L'afaire denida: Business Pleasure?" phy and Social rg, nos. l-+Ogg+): zr6-4z.In my introductionto TheHeid'egCriticism ed. A ger Controzsersy: Critical Read,er, R. Wolin (Cambridge:MIT Press,I993),I offer his in on reflections why Derrida might be interested suppressing own text somegeneral ("Philosophers' Hell: An Interview"). trans.G. Spivak(Baltimore: Derrida, Of Gramnatology, JohnsHopkins UniverJacques r976),r58. Press, sity 7 Seethe remarkson this problemin Part 2, "Deconstructionat Auschwitz." Art, Heidegger, andPolitics,trans.C. Turner (Oxford:Black8 Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe,, well,r989),74. of For an important study in the genealogy Europeanfascistideology,seeIsaiahBerlin, Tirnber Humanity(New York: Knopf, rggr). of TheCrooked, rg88), r r rff. See (Evanston: UniversityPress, Northwestern IO SeeDerrida,Limited.,Izr. in mentioned note5. on alsothe articles deconstruction Diary Fragments,"in CriticalInquiry r5 (Summer Seven II SeeDerrida, "Biodegradables: Read"Taking It Personally: 1989):8rz-73. On this point, seeReedWayDasenbrock, z6t-79. ing Derrida'sResponsesr" The employmentof this term in TheNep Constellation: EthicalSeeRichardBernstein's (Cambridge: MIT Press,r99r). PoliticalHorizonsof Modernity/ Postmoderniry (New York: RoutThe Nep Historicism r 3 Seethe anthologyedited by H. Aram Veeser, ledge,rg8g). A r 4 Heidegger, "Overcoming Metaphysics," in The HeideggerControoersy: Critical Reader68. Political Ontologt (Stanford: Stanford University Press, r 5 Pierre Bourdieu, Heid.egger's r990). trans.Pierre Community, r 6 For the crucial texts, seeMaurice Blanchot, The Unazsopable (MinCornrnunity (Albany: Station Hill, rg88);Jean-Luc Nancy, TheInoperatiae Joris Share, Bataille'sTheAccursed rggl). Georges Press, neapolis: Universityof Minnesota I trans.Robert Hurley (New York: Zone Books,rg88) is the urtext in this lineage. in criticisms Chapterro. of the develop substance these (r988): 632-44. I cite r 7 SeeDerrida, "The Politicsof Friendship,"Journal of Philosophy from the much longer manuscriptversionof this essay, 48. or r 8 Fredric Jameson,Postrnod,ernism,The Cuhural Logic of Late Capitalism(Durham: r . Duke UniversityPress, ggI ), 257 To be sure,asthe title of his bookimplies, Jameson whosecultural manifestations hasshownhimself to be quite critical of postmodernism, vein. It is his political affinitieswith postmodhe interpretsin a reductive-Althusserian that ern approaches I highlight here.
t2

Notes to Pages 7-r2

243

r 9 For a preliminary discussionof this concept,seeErnst Nolte, Marxisrn,Fascism, Cold.

War(htlanticHeights,NJ.: Humanities, r98z), rg3ff.Seealsomy essay, "Left Fascism: Batailleand Legacies FrenchIlliberalism," forthcomingin Constellations Georges of z,z (Octoberr995). SeeKarl Popper,TheLogicof Scientific (New York: BasicBooks,r95g). Discouery on Reaolution, trans.R. Lebrun (Montreal: Josephde Maistre, Considerations theFrench McGill-QueensLJniversity Press,rg74), 97. Thesedevelopments beentraced H. StuartHughesinConsciousness Society: have by and TheReorientation European of Socialrhought,rSgo-r93o (New York: vintage, ry7il. Edmund Husserl,"Philosophyand the Crisis of EuropeanHumanity," in The Crisis of the EuropeanSciences and Transcend.ental Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr (Evanston: NorthwesternUniversity Press,I 97o), z69- 3oo. Seemy discussion theseclaimsin Chapter8. Seealsomy earlierstudy,ThePoliticsof of Being: The Political Thought of Mortin Heidegger(New York: Columbia University Press, rggo). Heidegger, "The Word of Nietzsche:'God is Dead,"'in TheQtestionConcerning Technologjt and other Essays, and trans.william Lovitt (New YorkrHarper, ry77), rrz. ed. Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Favist ldeology,trans. D. Maisel (Princeton:Princeton University Press,tggz), 257. One of the standarddiscussions thesetrends may be found in Hughes,Consciousness of andSociety. Sternhell, TheBirth of Fascist ldeology,z5z. Cited in wolin, ed., TheHeidcgger Controaersy: Critical Read,er,47. A The remarksin questionweremadeto German studentsin November1933,on the eveof a plebiscite calledby Hitler on Germany'swithdrawalfrom the Leagueof Nations. Tom Rockmore,on Heid.egger's Nazism and Philosopiy (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof California Press,rgg2),33. Heidegger, Logica:Lecciones M. Heidngger de (Spanish/Germanbilingual edition), ed. (Barcelona: V. Farias Anthropos,rggr), 38,40. On this point, seeManfred Frank, Der kommende Gott. SeeChapters and 5. z Hans-GeorgGadamer, Heid,egger's Ways,trans.JohnStanley(Albany:StateUniversity of New York Press,rgg4), viii. Gadamerusestheseterms to indicatethe way that the work of the later Heideggeris sometimes thought of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adornq Dialecticof Enlightenrnent, trans.J. Cumming (New York: Herder and Herder, ry72),xiii. Ibid., xvi (my emphasis). cited by Frank, "Two centuries of Philosophical critique of Reason," 69. ImmanuelKant, TheMoral Law, tans. H. J. paton (London: Hutchinson,r94g), 9r. For a discussion a hypothetical"emancipatory of socialinterest," seeJtirgen Habermas, Knonledge HumanInterests, and trans.J. shapiro (Boston: Beacon, $7r),3r3ff. For a morerecentformulationofthis motif, seeHabermas, "The Tasksof a Critical Theory of Society,"in The Theoryof Communicatioe Action, trans.T McCarthy (Boston:Beacon, 1986), 2:374-403.The ideaof an emancipatory humaninterestis clearlya residuefrom an earlierperiod of critical theory,especially thought of Herbert Marcuse. the

20 2l 22 23

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z8
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244 Notesto Pages r5-rg

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Wars

In English the "Author's Introduction" appears in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitolism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Scribners, rg58), r3-3r. Here, attention should be called to the important parenthetic qualification "as we like to think." This phrase reminds us that what strikes us as "universal" only takes on this character from within the perspective of our own received value-orientation, and hence cannot fully lay claim to a more transcendent value-universality. Ultimately Weber's own (scientific) standpoint is ethically relatiaistic: ultimate ends cannot be rationally adjudicated therefore even with regards to the West. Kommunikatiaen Hand,elns (Frankfurt am Main: SuhrJiirgen Habermas, Theorie d,es kamp, rg8r), z vols. See especiallythe Weber interpretation, zz5-365. One can see that the fundamental achievements of this era receive their philosophical authentication in the three Critiques of Kantian philosophy, to which the aforementioned value-spherescorrespond. Cf. Max Weber, Economy and,Society, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Ig78), 13-62. Habermas's own reconstruction of Weber's system revolves around the attempt to reestablishthe independent validity of the two neglected value-spheresof morality and art, and in this way overcome Weber's self-professedethical relativism. For the best survey of their writings, see Frank E. Manuel, The Prophets of Paris (New York: Harper Row, ry62). Prototypical in this respect is Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosop,&y(New York: Columbia University Press, rg83). For a representative illustration of this perspective, see Jean-Frangois Lyotard, The (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, rq8+). Cond,ition Postmodern
IO

See Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illuminations (New York: Schocken, r969), 2q-52. Cf. Habermas, Structarol Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT Press, rg8g), 6o-69. See also Habermas and the Public Sphere,ed. C. Calhoun (Cambridge: MIT Press, rgg2). Although at this early point ftg6z) Habermas seemed in accord with Horkheimer and Adorno's view of the culture industry, in his most recent work he definitely is not. In Theorie desKommunakatiaen Handelns he is of the opinion that rather than being a "one-

II

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way street," the mass media are at least as dependent on the way in which their communications are received by the community of recipients. r 3 These are of course the chief lines of controversy in the Adorno-Benjamin dispute of the r93os. For more on this debate, see Richard Wolin, Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, rgg4), 163-zrz. Red,emption For more on the dichotomy between "high" and "low" art, see C. Biirger, P. Biirger' (Frankfurt: J. Schulte-Sasse, eds., Zur Dichctomiserung uon hoher und niederer Litera,tur Radnoti, "Mass Culture," Telos48 (Summer I98r): Suhrkamp, r98z). See also Sandor 27-47. And for a classical discussion of these themes, see Leo Lowenthal, Literature, Popular Cuhure, and Society (Palo Altq Calif.: Pacific Books, 196r)' Peter Biirge r, Theory of the Aaant-Garde (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

r4

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r5

245

For more on this point, cf. Herbert Marcuse's essay "The Affirmative Character of Culture," Negations (Boston: Beacon, 1968), 88-133, in which he too argues for the overcoming of art in the domain of life-praxis. Biirger, Theory of the Aaant-Gard,e,68ff. See the volume edited by Wilhelm M. Ltidke, "Theorie der Aaantgard,e": Antporten auf Peter Biirgers Bestimmung aon Kunst und biirgerlicher Geselkchaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ry76). Cf. F Marinetti, SelectedWritings, ed. R. W. Flint (London: Secker and Warburg, r97r). Theodor Adorno, "Commitment," in The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. A. Arato and E. Gebhardt (New York: Urizen, rg78),3or. For a superb discussion of this episode in the history of the movemen{ see Maurice Nadeau, The History of Surrealism (New York: rg73), 169-88. Bi.irger might also take note of the title of the chapter of Nadeau's survey, which covers the years rg3o-3g: "The Period of Autonomy" (my emphasis), r9r-zzg.

16 17

r8 rg 20

2r 22 23 24

Benjamin, "Surrealism r" in Reflectiazs (New York: Harcourt Brace, rg78), r89. Robert Hughes, The Shocb ofthe New (New York: Ktop[ rgSr). Lionel tilling, "On the Modern Element in Modern Literature," in Literary Modernism, ed.Irving Howe (New York: Fawcert, tg67), Sg-82. For more on the technique of montage, which is of course originally derived from film, and which may be defined in terms of the anti-organicist ideal of the independence of the parts vis-i-vis the whole, see Biirger, Theory of the Aaant-Garde, 98- I r I . For one of the earliest proclamations of the crisis of the avant-garde, see H. M. Enzensberger, "The Aporias of the Avant-Garde," in The Consciousness Ind,ustry (New York: Seabury, rg74), Cf Hegel's Aesthetics, trans. T M. Knox (London: Oxford University Press, rg75), r r: "In all these respectsart, considered in its highest vocation, remains for us a thing of the past. Therefore it has lost for us genuine truth and life, and has rather been transferred into our id.eal instead of maintaining its earlier necessity in reality and occupying its higher place. . . . The philosoph)l of aft is therefore a greater need in our day than it was in days when art by itself as art yielded full satisfaction. Art invites us to the intellectual consideration, and that not for the purpose of creating art again, but for knowing philosophically what art is."

25

z6

27

z8 29 30

For a recent examination of the relationship between the European avant-garde and the New York School, see Serge Guilbaut, Hop New Vorb Stole the ld,ea of Modern Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rg8:). Though in retrospectthe nouaeau rom6r,n Robbe-Grillet and Sarraute seemed to be of legitimate harbingers of postmodern literature. Arnold Hauser, The Sociologyof Art (Chicago: university of Chicago Press, ry82),65rJJ.

Irving Howe, "The New York Intellectuals," cited in Matei Calinescu, Facesof Mod,erzity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), r37-38. Calinescu's book contains many useful observationson the modernism/postmodernism dichotomy; seeespecially r2o-44. For an incisive introduction to the thematic of postmodernism, see Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Security," in Anti-Aesthetic, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsend, Wash.: Bay Press, rg83), rrr-26. The literature on the postmodernist controversy has become quite voluminous in recent years.For a useful introduction, see

246

Notes to Pages 2S-3r

the of zz the special issue Neap GernanCritique (Winter rgSr), especially contributions by Habermas, "Modernity and Postmodernity," 3-r4; and AndreasHuyssen,"The in and Postmodernism the rg7os,"z3-4o. For a Searchfor tadition: Avant-Garde see from a more traditional perspective, Gerald Graff, "The critique of postmodernism Breakthrough," Triquarterlyz6 (Winter ry14,):383-4t7, Myth of the Postmodernist where Graff concludes:"A radical movementin art and culture forfeits its radicalism itself to the degree that it turns its backon what is valid and potenand impoverishes tially living in the critical and moral traditions of humanism.In a societyincreasingly and objectivityasthe basisofour irrational and barbaric,to regardthe attackon reason the radicalismis to perpetuate nightmarewe want to escape." and and the Centre:SomeProblematics Problems," 3r SeeStuartHall, "Cultural Studies Language, StuartHall et al. (London:Hutchinson,I98o), 15-47. ed. Med,ia, in Culture, (New York: Routledge,rg8g), ro. See also the work on 32 Andrew Ross,No Respect The "subcultures"by Dick Hebdige,Subcuhure: Meaningof Style (London: Methuen,

ry7il.
(New York:RoutPopularCuhureandPost-Modernism Cuhures: 33 Jim Collins, Uncommon ledge, rg8g),16-zr. shift in critical theory (i.e., from the first 3+ For a perceptiveaccountof the generational generation Habermas), AgnesHeller, "The PositivistDispute asa Turning Point see to in German Post-WarTheory," Nep Gernan Critiquer5 @all r978): 49-56. and the by 35 See essay David Buxton,"RockMusic,the StarSystem the Riseof Consumby "Strucerism," Telos @all rg83): g3-ro2. Seealsothe response David Scudder, 57 of turalistLogic andthe Conspiracy Latent Functions,"in Telos (Springrg84):r6759 7r. (New York:Basig rgTo),vii. Sociologjt Crisis Western of 36 SeeAlvin Gouldner,TheComing (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,rgSz). WalterBeniamin,DasPassagen-Werb JI in 38 SeeAdornq "The Culture Industry Reconsidered," The CultureInd.ustry:Selected (London:Routledge, r99r), 85-9r. Essays MassCulture, J. M. Bernstein ed. on of 39 For a classicstatementof this theme. seeDaniel Bell, The Cultural Contadictions (New York: Harper, ry77). Capitalism (New York: Stein and Day, Read,er Essays LeslieFied,ler of 40 Leslie Fiedler, The Collected rgTr). andUtopia in MassCulture,"SocialTert (Winter e79), "Reification 4r FredricJameson,
I4I.

Ibid., r44. PopularCuhure(Boston:Unwin Hyman, rg8g),8+-q8. +3 John Fiske, Understanding (New SeeLinda Hutcheon, ThePoliticsof Postmod,ernrszr York: Routledge,1989). +4 and Art, 45 Hal Foster,"(Post)modernPolemics,"in Recod.ings: Spectacle, CuhuralPolitics (Seattle: Press, rg85),rz3. Bay see objections postmodernism, Terry Eagleton,"Capitalto 46 For a numberof analogous inAgainst Grain(London:Versq r986), the and ism, Structuralism, Poststructuralism,"
42

r3r-48. (Durham: Duke Univeror PostrnodernismtheCuhuralLogicof Late Caphalism Jameson, rggr), 8-9. sityPress, (Paris:Champslibres, rgTI),9. A newEnglishtransla48 Guy Debord, Sociiti du Spectacle tion of Debord's work has just been published by MIT Press.It is clear that Bau-

+7

Notes to Pages 3218

247

drillard'sdiscussion the "simulacrum"is in largemeasure of derivedfrom the analyses of Debord. See Baudrillard, "Simulacra and Simulations," in Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster(Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press,1988),r66-84. Postmodernism, g. 49 Jameson, The Gultural Politica ol Neoconseryatism r z Kramer has unabashedly titled a collection of essays the art sceneRetsenge tthe on of (New York: FreePress,1985). Philistines Hilton Kramer,'1{ Note on The Nep Criterion," NeD Criterion(Septemberry82): r. Kramer's journal is funded by the Foundation for Cultural Review,an organization whosename is suspiciously absentfrom the leadingfoundation indexes.The title, of course, represents unsubtlevariationof T S. Eliot's journal TheCriterion. an For the definitiveunmasking this category, Theodor Adornq "Cultural Criticism of see and Society,"Prisms (London: Neville Spearman,ry67), 17-34. WalterBeniamin,"Edmund Fuchs:CollectorandHistorian," in TheEssential Franhfurt School Read,er A. AratoandE. Gebhardt ed. (NewYork:Urizen, rg78),z33.rnthesame essay, Benjamin couplesthis claim with the oft-cited statement:"The products of art and science their existence merelyto the effort of the greatgeniuses created owe not that them, but alsoto the unnameddrudgeryof their contemporaries. There is no document of culturewhich is not at the same time a document barbarism." of Kramer, "T J. Clark and the Marxist Critique of Modern Painting," New Criterion (March1985): r-2. Kramer, '1\ Note on TheNemCriterion,"z. PeterSteinfels,TheNeoconseraatipes York: Simon and Schuster,rg79), (New 55. Kramer, "Professor Howe'sPrescriptions," NeD criterion (April r9g4):4. Norman Cantor, "The Real Crisis in the Humanities Today," Nep Criterion (lune r985): 3o. Ferreting out left-wing influencein the academy alsoone of Kramer's favoritepasis times. Art historian T J. Clark and Dissent editor Irving Howe are two of his favorite targets.For a defenseof Howe in the face of Kramer's iaundicedattacks,seeRobert Boyers,"The Neoconservatives Culture," Salmagundi (Winter-Spring rg85): and 66 r92-2o4. Cantor,"The RealCrisis in the HumanitiesTodag" passim. See,for example, Alvin Gouldner, TheFutureof theIntellectuals the Rise theNew and of (New York: Continuum, ry7il; Daniel Bell, "The New Class:A Muddled ConC/ass cept," in The laindingPasnge(New York: Harper Row, rgTg); and with referenceto EasternEuropeansocieties, Georg Konrad and Ivan Szeleny,The Intellectuals the on Roadto Class Poper (New York: Seabury,ry1il.For Steinfels'sdiscussion the role of playedby the newclass thesisin ne(rconservative ideologyrsee Neoconseraatiaes, The 5658,285-9o. See Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Reaolution (Princeton: Princeton University press, r977). See MarshallBerman's bookof this title (New york: Basic, rggz). For the economicbackgroundto this argument,seeGiacomoMarramaq .Theory of the crisis and the Problemof constitution," Telos (winter z6 ry75-76): 143-64. In all

3 4

5 6 7 8 g ro

rr 12

13 14 15

248 Notes to Pages40-47

fairness to Bell, it should be acknowledged that in a more recent essay,he seems to have slightly altered his position on the relation between culture and the economic sphere. In "The New Class:A Muddled Concept," he remarks: "the machine of modern capitalism assimilated and commercialized these (countercultural) lifestyles. Without this hedonism created by mass consumption, the consumer goods industry would collapse.The cultural contradiction of capitalism ultimately amounts to the following: once capitalism lost its original legitimations, it adopted the legitimations of a formerly anti-bourgeois culture in order to maintain the stability of its own economic institutions"; seeBell, The Winding Passage,r63ff. For a classical treatment of the historical transition from a society of production to a society of consumption viewed through the prism of changing images of successin popular biographies, see Leo Lowenthal, "The Triumph of Mass Idols," in Lherature, Popular Culture and Society (Palo Altq Calif.: Pacific Books, I96l), 16 17 r09-4o. For more on the failings of modernism, see Russell Berman, "Modern Art and Desublimation," Telos6z (Winter r984-85): 3r-57. Kramer, "Postmodernism: Art and Culture in the rg8os," New Criterioz (September

r983): 43.
and (New York:Thamesand Hudson, 1984); Failed? 18 SeeSuzyGablik,Has Mod.ernism Myths (Camand RosalindKrauss, TheOriginalityof theAaant-Gard,e OtherModernist r986). bridge:MIT Press, rg Cf. Kramer,"T J. Clarkandthe Marxist Critiqueof Modern Painting,"r-2. 20, 20 Adorno,"Cultural CriticismandSociety," zz. 2r Ibid.,rg. 22 lbid., 34: "Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stageof the dialectic of And this corrodes To culture and barbarism. write poetryafter Auschwitzis barbaric. impossible write poetry today.Absolute to of evenrhe knowledge why it hasbecome is progress one of its elements, now preas intellectual which presupposed reification, be cannot equalto this challenge Criticalintelligence paringto absorb mind entirely. the on For contemplation." somelaterreflections itselfto self-satisfied aslong asit confines (NewYork;Seaburyry73),362. Dialectics Adornq Negatioe this theme,see Reflections on Jewish Secular Messianism

(New York: Hill and Wang, The Non-Jewish IsaacDeutscher,, Jew and,Other Essays ry68),26. lbid,27. in GershomScholem,"Reflectionson JewishTheology,"in OnJens andJudaisrn Crisis (New York:Schocken, ry76),284. en libertaire Europe et in For example, his excellentwork,Ridemption Utopie:LeJud.aisme (Paris:P.U.E, 1988),Michael Liiwy identifiesthe French thinker Bernard Centrale Lazareas"l'exception qui confirmelaregler" 224ff. Benjamin,Bloch and Anson Rabinbach, "BetweenEnlightenmentand Apocalypse: Critique (1985): New German Messianism," GermanJewish Modern 78. 34 et 6 Liiwy, Rid,emption Uto?ie,4c. (Cambridge:Harvard University 7 Fritz Ringer, The Declineof the GermanMand,arizs I969),3. Press,

Notes to Pages 47-56

24g

8 SeeFerdinandTiinnies, Gemeinschaft Gesellschaft j8871(New York: Harper Row, and tg6t); seealsoHarry Lieberzohn,Fateand (Itopia in GermanSociology (Cambridge: MIT Press, rg88). g GeorgLuk6cs, The Theory, theNoael(Cambridge:MIT press, rgTr). of Io SeeHelmuth Plessner, uerspritete Der Nation (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,r95g). r r Rabinbach, Enlightenment Apocalypse," and "Between 8z-83. 12 See,for example, own study, WalterBenjamin:An Aesthetic Red,emption my of (Berkeley andLos Angeles: Universityof California Press,rgg4),246. 13 For Baader'sinfluence on Bloch, see Arno Mi.inster, Utopie,Messianisrnus Apund obalypse infrilhwerk ErnstBlochs (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ry82),47. r4 Scholem,TheMessianic ld,eain Judaisn (New York: Schocken,ry7r), 3-4. r5 Ernst Bloch,Geist Utopie (Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1964),347. der t6 Scholem,TheMessianic ldca in Judaisrn, ro-r r (my emphasis). 1 7 l b i d . ,r r . r8 Walter Beniamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. H. Zohn (New york: Schocken, ry68),264. r9 Scholem,TheMessionic ldea in Jud,aism, 7. 20 SeeErnst Cassirer, Myth of theState(New Haven:YaleUniversity Press,ry46). The 2I Bloch,Geist Utopie,3o5, der 346. 22 Beniamin, lluminations, I 253. 23 Benjamin, Refle (New York: Harcourr BraceJovanovich, g78),3r z. ctions r 24 I b i d . , 3 r 3 . 2 5 Seethe essay, "Critique of Violence,"in Reflections,277ff. z 6 Bloch, Geistder Utopie,344. 2 7 TheodorAdorno,MinimaMoralia (London:New Left Books,rg74),247. z8 Scholem,Onjews andJudaism Crisis,26. in 29 On this theme,seethe recentwork by FerencFeh6r,TheFrozenReoolution: Essay An on (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 988). r Jacobinism Reflections, 3o Benjamin, 3tz. Walter Benjamin Today zur Aktualittit WalterBenjarnins, S. Unseld (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,ry72\. ed. On the theme of redemptivepolitical paradigms,seeFerencFeh6r,"Redemptiveand Democratic Paradigms Radical in Polirics,"Telos63(Spring rg85): 47-56;Joel Whitebook, "The Politicsof Redemption,"Telos (Spring 1985):156-68;Paul Breines, 63 Redemption,"Telos fall 1985):r5z-58; RichardWolin, ,lAgainst "Redeeming 65 Adjustment,"Telos (Fall r985):r58-63; andMoisheGonzales, 65 Amnesia," "Theoretical Telos (Fall 1985):ft3-7o. 65 For two recentarticulations this position(whichmaybe tracedtoJohnLocke'sLetter of Concerning Toleration),seeJohn Rawls,'JusticeasFairness: Politicalnot Metaphysical," Philosophy and,Public Afairs 14 (Summer 1985): 223-st and Richard Rorty, coztingency, Irony, andsolidarity (cambridge: cambridge University press,rggo). Irving Wohlfarth, "Re-fusing Theology: Some First Responses Walter Beniamin's to Arcades Proiect,"Nep Gerrnan Critique (Fall 1986): 17. 39 Beniamin,Gesammehe Schriften, Rolf Tiedemannand Hermann Schweppenhduser, ed.

2So Notes to Pages S6-Sq with Theodor W. Adorno and GershomScholem(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrramp, references this edition will be cited as GS, followed to All ry72-8g), S:5g2. subsequent pagenumber. by volumeand 6 Beniamin, "One-Way Street," in llluminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. H. Zohn r969),84. (New York:Schocken, G$ 7 Beniamin, 5:r68. 258. of on 8 Benjamin, "Theses the Philosophy History,"in llluminations, of g One of the best examples this phenomenonis provided by postmodernistdirector on (Himmeliiber Berlin),whichis looselybased of rg88frlmWings Desire Wim Wenders's Beniamin's"Theses on the Philosophyof History." The angelof Wenders'sfilm deand It inhabitants. is a desolate Berlin and its luckless to scends surveycontemporary hopeless cityscape:literally a hell on earth, intended as an allegory for the ruins of film, there is no allusionto in however, Wenders's modernity.Unlike Benjamin'sessay, that "strait gatethrough which the Messiahmight enter." As a result,the film remainsa testamentto declinepurely and simply. It is in no way an allegoryof redemption,asis ro rr with Beniamin's"angelof history." the case of Beniamin, "Theseson the Philosophy History,"263. SusanBuck-Morss has commentedon the relationshipbetweenBenjamin and postof modernism in The Dialectics Seeing(Cambridge:MIT Press,rg8q). According to the Buck-Morss, attemptto view him as "the precursorof suchrecent,postsubiective currents of thought as deconstructionand postmodernism"must fail, insofar as these nihilism which [Bennot schools "characterized infrequentlyby an anthropological are study,shemakes criticized vehemently"(zzz). Toward the end of her impressive iamin] terms is risky) claim: "Whereas modernismin philosophical the following(somewhat rational society postmodernism weddedto the Enlightenmentdreamof a substantively and Blanqui. If the terms are takesits philosophicallead from Nietzsche,Baudelaire, mustbe counted a modernist"(447n. 35). as definedthis way,Benjamin see For an early debateon Beniamin'srelationto deconstruction, Irving Wohlfarth's Harmony(Baltimore:JohnsHopkins Uniresponse CarolJacobs,TheDissimulating to Criof rgZS),"WalterBenjamin's'Image Interpretation,"'Nep German versityPress, tiquery (Spring1979): To-98. rz Benjamin, of "Theseson the Philosophy History,"257. of conception the attemptto generalize Benjamin's r3 For example, MichaelTaussig's see in truth, "state of exception")in TheNeruous "state of emergency"(Ausnahmezustand,; (New York: Routledge,rygz); especially chap.z, "Terror asUsual: Walter BenSystem jamin'sTheory of History as Stateof Siege").Taussigspeaks "the violence our in of shoppingmalls,and workplaces, streets, own immediatelife-worlds,in our universities, it's even families, where, like business, terror as usual"l of "the irregular rhythm of by numbing and shockthat constitutesthe apparentnormality of the abnormalcreated (rz-r3). the state emergency" of see 14 For an accountof the originsof the termposthistoire, Lutz Niethammer,Posthistoire: (Reinbeck Hamburg:Rowohlt, rg8g).Englishtranslation: zu bei Istdie Geschichte End,e? to trans.P. Camiller (London: Versq rggz). Has Posthistoire: History Come an End,? 15 Benjamin, 5:57o-7r. G$ 16 Friedrich Nietzsche,The Will to Pooer,trans.W. Kaufmannand R. J. Hollingdale(New York: Vintage, ry67), g.

Notes to Pages 59-62

17

z5r

On this theme, see the important study by Stephen Aschheim, The Nietzsche Reception in Germany, r89o-rggo (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, rgg2). Scholem, OnJeos and,Jud,aisrn Crisis (New York: Schocken, 1976), ry4-g1. in See, for example, Benjamin's letter ofJuly 7, r93s, where he speaks of the Arcades Proiect as "destined to become the pendant to my study of the seventeenth cenrury which appeared in Germany under the title Origin of German Tragic Drama" (GS, 5:rrz4). For Nietzsche's distinction between active and passive nihilism, see The lYilt to Popen 17. Benjamin, "Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia," in Reflecrrozs(New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, r978), r87. Or, as he expresses thought his noble, decked out with all the sacrificial offerings of the past" ("Erfahrung und Armut," GS, z:zt6). Benjamin, "Surrealism," r8r-82; (my emphasis). Benjamin, "The Destructive Character," in Reflections, 3or. Beniamin, "Karl Kraus," in Reflections,z7z. Benjamin, Briefe, ed. T W. Adorno and G. Scholem (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, ry66),425. On this theme, see Karl-Heinz Bohrer, Al.sthetikdesSchreckens (Munich: Hanser, 1978), where the works of Benjamin andJiinger are compared extensively. Of course, Beniamin recognized this problem in his critique of Jiinger (GS, 3:z4o). See also the concluding sentences ofhis "Work of Art" essay, llluminations, p.242, where Benjamin warns that in in its glorification of war, fascism celebrates "destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order." For a good discussion of the dangers of Beniamin's nihilist outlook, seeJohn McCole, Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Trad,ition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, rgg3), r65ff. McCole correctly identifies a "liquidationist" component as prominent in all phasesofBenjamin's thought. It can be traced as early as his involvement with the Youth Movement in the years rgro-rgr9, where his nihilistic attitudes toward the present age are prominent. But they are also evident in his later work: for example, his endorsement of the "decline of the aura" in the "Work of Art" essay;a thesis that relates destructively rather than conservatively to the dissolution of traditional culture and its semantic potentials. elsewhere: "the traditional image of humanity-ceremonious,

r8 rg

20 2r

22 23 24 zS z6

27

On this question, seeFritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mand,arins: The German Acad.emic Cornmunity, rSgo-rgjj (C.ambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969); and Fritz Stern, The Failure of llliheralism: Essays the Political Cuhure of Modcrn Germany on (New York: Knop{ rg72). The term more real hurnanism appears in his essay on Karl Kraus; see Reflections, z7z. For the chtacterization of Klee's Angelus Noaus, see 273. Beniamin, "Surrealism," tgz, rgo (second emphasis mine). For one ofthe most successful explorations of Beniamin's understandingof what surrealism might contribute to the Marxist tradition, see Margaret Cohen, Profane lllumination: Walter Benjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Reaolution (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, rgg3). See also Josef Fi.irnkas, Surrealismus als Erkenntnis (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1988). Fiirnkas's work is more specifically concerned with an analysis ofBenjamin's short prose works.

z8 29

252

Notesto Pages 6z-65

Adorno was highly critical of Benjamin's employment of anthropological materialism. He saw this concept as essentially undialectical. Becauseof its surrealist-inspired infatuation with the idea of "bodily collective exaltation," he viewed it as an expression of immediacy in the Hegelian sense; even worse, it expressed an inclination toward fetishizing the reified immediacy of given social relations. On this point, see Adorno's letter to Benjamin of September 6, 1936 (Benjamin, GS, 7:864), where he accusesthe latter of flirting with "an undialectical ontologization of the body." In this sense, Adorno's critique of anthropological materialism was very much akin to his critique of

surrealism in the rg5os. See Adorno, "Looking Back on Surrealism," in Notes to Literature, trans. S. W. Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, I99r), 86-9o. 3o Scholem, "WalterBeniamin," NeueRundschau76,no.r (1965): t9;reprintedinOnJens andJudaism in Crisis, tg5.

3r

or Habermas,"Consciousness-Raising RescuingCritique," in On WalterBenjamin: MIT Press,1988),r 13, ed. and. CriticalEssays Recollections, Gary Smith (Cambridge:
r24. See Georg Stauth and Bryan S. Turner, "Ludwig Klages and the Origins of Critical Theory," Theory, Cuhure and Society g (tggz): 45-q.The authors claim that "the in Frankfurt School was closer to the tradition of Nietzsche and Lebensphilosophie their cultural critique than to Marxism" (a5). This claim is certainly worth exploring. Yet the authors fail to address the question of how, if substantiated, it would affect the contemporary relevanceof critical theory. Moreover, in dealing with the Frankfurt School as a whole, they fail to take into account the fact that a similar claim could in no way be made for the critical theory of the rg3os, whose production revolved around the concept of "interdisciplinary materialism." See also the predominantly biographical account in Werner Fuld, "Walter Benjamins Beziehung zu Ludwig Klages," Abzente z8 (1981): 274-87.

32

a a JJ

Also see Axel Honneth's exploration of this problem in "'L'Esprit et son obiect': Parent6santhropologiques entre la'Dialectique de la Raison'et la critique de la civilisation dans la philosophie de la vie," in Weimar ou l'explosion d,e la moderniti (Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1984), g7-rn. Honneth arguesthat "in light of the contemporary critique of reason it seems that Dialectic of Enlightenrnent is anchored more than one would have thought in the tradition of a critique of civilization inspired by philosophy of life." I agree with Honneth's characterization.

34 Richard Wolin, "The Frankfurt School: From Interdisciplinary Materialism to Philosophy of History" in The Termsof Cultural Criticism: The Franhfurt School, Existentialism, Poststructuralism(New York: Columbia University Press, rgg2\.
J)

Beniamin's letter to Schmitt may be found in GS, r:part 3, 887. Some have pointed out (the "state of exception") in the "Theses" that the allusion to the Ausnahmezustand derives from Schmitt. But, given the precarious nature of European politics in rg4o, it would seem that the concept had an immediate historical point of reference.

3r and 3z (rg7r):24. See Benpositive evaluation of Klages's rg22 text in G$ 3:44. iamin's 'Johann 37 Benjamin, Jakob Bachofen," in G$ zi22g-3r. The Bachofen essay was unpublished during Beniamin's lifetime and written in French (at the behest of the

36

The rgzz letter was reprinted in TEXT + KRITIK

Nouaelle ReztueFrangaise,which eventually rejected it).

38 Benjamin, letter to Adornq Janluary 7, 1935, Briefe, 638tr.

Notes to Pages 6S-7t

253

39 40

Adornq letter to Benjamin, December 12, rg34,cited in GS, z:966. See especially Negatiae Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Seabury, ry73), ftz'1{. major confrontation with Klages and his 64. As Rolf Wiggershaus has remarked: theory of the image appeared as an urgent task for both [Benjamin] and Adorno in the rg3os in order to clarify their own standpoint and the theory of dialectical images." Wiggershaus, Die Frankfurter Schule: Geschichte, TheoretischeEntwicklung, Politische (Munich: Hanser, 1986). English translation: The Frankfurt School: Its HisBed.eutung tory, Theories, and, Political Signifcanra, trans. Michael Robertson (Cambridge: MIT Press, rgg}.

4r 42 43

Reported by Wiggershaus, Die Frankfurter Schule, zz4. Klages, "Vom Traumbewusstein," in Srimtliche Werke(Bonn: Bouvier, ry74),3t62. Honneth, "Erschliefiung der Vergangenheit," Internationale Zeitschrift fi)r Philosophiel (rggl), r-26. Honneth's analysis contains an interesting account ofJi.inger's diary, Das Abenteuerliche Herz Ogzg), as it relates to Benjaminian themes. See the reference to Bohrer in note 26.

44 45 46 +7 48 49

See Bruce Detwiler, Nietzsche'sAristoratic Radicalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,rggo). Jtinger, Das AbenteuerlicheHerz in Srimtliche Werhe (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 9:259. Benjamin, GS 3:238-5o. Benjamin, Illuminations, t56-57, zoz. Briefe,4og. Ibid., 5r5. For a brief discussion of Klages's relation to fascism (although he never joined the movement per se, many of his theories were taken up by Nazi ideologues such as Alfred Rosenberg), see Stauth and Turner, "Ludwig Critical Theory," 57- Sg. Klages and the Origins of r978-83),

50

Benjamin, G$ 5:r16r. See also the exchangesbetween Adorno and Beniamin on this subject, ibid.,5:rr6o-6r. Since the publication of volume 5, new correspondence between Adorno and Horkheimer concerning Benjamin's relation to Jung and Klages has come to light; see 7:866-68. For a discussion of the relationship between Lebensphilosophie and fascist ideology, see Herbert Marcuse, "The Struggle Against Liberalism in the Totalitarian Conception of the State," in Negations(Boston: Beacon, 1968), 3-4z,and Lukics, The Destruction of Reoson(London: Merlin, r 98o).

5I

52

Adornq letter to Benjamin of August z, 1935, in Ernst Bloch, Aestheticsand Politics, translation ed. Ronald Taylor (London: NLB, rg77), r13. See the discussion of the Adorno-Benjamin debate, r73-83. For a good discussion of Benjamin's relation to Kommerell, seeJohn McCole, Waher Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, rgg3), ry6-

53

78. the remarks fromtheArcades Project, S:+gl-94. GS, Benjamin begins 54 See following
with a reference to "the forms of appearance of the dream-collective of the nineteenth century" and continues: "The'critique'of the nineteenth century must begin here. Not as a critique of its mechanism and machinism, but instead of its narcotic historicism, of its mania for masks f,Maskensuchr],in which nevertheless is hidden a signal of true historical existence which the surrealists were the first to perceive. The project that

to zS4 Notes Pages 7r-78

followsconsists an attempt to decipherthat signal.And the revolutionary, of materialist basisof surrealismis a sufficientguarantee that the economicbasisof the nineteenth centuryhas reached highestexpression the signalof true historicalexistenceits in which is what concerns here." us Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemobratisches Denhen d.erWeimarer (Munich: Ny-in Republih phenburger, ry62),5r. The title of a bookwritten by the nationalrevolutionary thinkerHansFreyerin r93r. Habermas, "Consciousness-Raising or Rescuing Critique," r r3. G$ 5:59r-92. SeeMichel Espagne and Michael Werner, "Les Manuscrits parisiensde Walter Benjamin et le Passagen-Werk," WaherBenjaminet Paris,ed. H. Wismann(Paris:Cerf, in 1986),849-82, and Espagne and Werner,"Vom Passagen-Projekt 'Baudelaire': zum Neue Handschriftenzum SpdtwerkWalter Benjamins,"Deutsche Vierteljahrsschnft fir Literaturpissenschaft Geistesgeschichte und 68, no.4 (December r984): 5%-657.In the latter work, the authors appearto modify someof the more far-reachingconclusions reached "Les Manuscritsparisiens." in Beniamin,Nachtrrige, G.S 7:87o-72. SeealsoBuck-Morss, TheDialectics Seeing, in of zo6-8.
Espagne and Werner, "Les manuscrits parisiens," 852. Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing,zo8: "Given that the planned Baudelaire book was first conceived as a chapter of the larger work, would it not be reasonable to assume that all of the 'chapters,' so condensed and abbreviated in both expos6 descriptions, would ultimately have been extended to the point where each could, and indeed should, stand on its own? . . . The possibility that, in order to give himself space to develop the historical significance of what was now over a decade of research, Benjamin would have dissolved the'Passages'into a seriesof works, all of which were within the sametheoretical armature, does not indicate a 'failed' PassageryWerk,but, on the contrar$ one that 'failed' had succeeded only too well" (the allusion to "a Passagen-Werk" is directed critically to the Espagne-Werner interpretation).

)J

56
JI

58 59

6o
6t 6z

63 64

Benjamin, G$ 5:Io54. GS, S:SZ+.See also 5:575 [N z,6f: "A central problem of historical materialism that finally must be considered: whether the Marxist understanding of history must be unconditionally purchased at the expense of its [history's] visuality lAnschaulichbeitl? Or: how would it be possible to link heightened visuality with the carrying out of the Marxist method? Thefrst step of this wa1 nill be to incorpora,tethe principle of montagein history. Thus, to erect the largest constructions from the smallest, most sharply and keenly tailored elements fBausteinel. Thereby to discover the crystal of the total event in the analysis of small individual moments."

65 Tiedemann expressesdoubts about Adorno's thesis in his introduction to the Passagenwerb, in G$ 5:r3. Beniamin's description of the Baudelaire study as a "miniature model" of the Arcades Project may be found in G^1,5:1164. Adorno, letter to Scholem of May 9, rg49, in G.9, 5:ro72-73. Benjamin, letter to Gretel Karplus (Adorno) of August r6, 1935, in G$ 5:r r39. G$ 5:583,58o.

66 67 68 G S , S : S 9 S .

6s
7o

G$ s:+gs-q6.

Notes to PagesZ8-8S

2Ss

7r GS,5:46-47. it 72 From a philologicalstandpoint,moreover, is worth pointing out that there is considerableoverlapbetweenthe notesto the "Theses" and thoseto sectionN of the Arcades Projecton the theoryofknowledge the theoryofprogress. and 73 G$ 5:588. 74 G$ 5:595,6oo. Illuminations, 254. 75 Beniamin, 76 Ibid., z6o. 77 Ibid.,264.

78 G$ s:szg.
Personal,Literary, and SocialExperiencein Walter 79 Bernd Witte, "Paris-Berlin-Paris: Benjamin's Late Works,"New German Critique @all 1986): 39 57. 8o G$ 5:589. 8r G$ 5:r255.They go on to addthat "the modifications vis-i-vis the oldertext [i.e.,the r935version] especially are instructive concerning development Beniamin's the of theoreticalviewsoverthe course the four yearsthat spanned composition the two of the of Expos6s." 8z G$ 5:169.A slightly different accountof the samereflectionsmay be found in Benjamin, Briefe,T4r-42. A numberof thesereflections found their way into the second draft of the Arcades Expos6, Gg 5:75. in 83 GS,5:76. 84 G$ 5:6r. For an interestingdiscussion Blanqui'simportancefor Benjamin,see of Miguel Abensour, "Walter Benjaminentre mdlancholie r6volution,"in WolterBenet jamin et Paris,zrg-49. 85 Ibid.,zz8. 86 Scholem,OnJensandJud,aism Crisis,26. in

Working

through

the Past

For confirmation of these trends, see Ingo Miiller, Hitler's Justire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, rggr ). Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba, The Ciaic Culture: Political Attitudes and Den ocrocJ/ in Fiue Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, rq6g). For example, consider the following remarks, where the authors attempt to account for the lack of affective commitment on the part of educated Germans to the FRG: "The German educated middle classes were deeply compromised by National Socialism and in many. cases penalized (if only briefly) during the early phasesof the Occupation. Their withholding of feeling toward the German nation and toward the political process may be an expression ofanxiety about being involved once again in a risky business.Perhaps both factors are present: a senseof discomfort over the disorderliness and lack of dignity of democratic politics, and anxiety about any kind of political involvement, based on the Nazi trauma" (r53). It should be noted that in a later edition of the same book (tglg), German attitudes toward democracy rank on a par with those of other Western democracies. "Was bedeutet: Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit"; reprinted in GesammelteSchriften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ry7il: sss-72.An English translation of the essay

8S-82 256 Notes to Pages

("What Does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?") has appeared in Bitburg in Moral ed. and Political Perspectiae, G. Hartman (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, r986), rr4-2g. Many of Adorno's observations are based on an empirical study of German attitudes toward the Hitler years that was undertaken by the Institute for Social Research in the early rg5os, entitled Gruppenexperiment: Ein Studienbericht, ed. E Pollock (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, rg55). Adorno's own lengthy "qualitative analysis" of the study's findings has been republished as "Schuld und Abwehr," in Gesammelte Schriften g:part 2, r2rt324. Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich, The Inability to Mourn, trans. B. Placzek (New York: Grove, r975), xxv. Another chief symptom of the German failure to work through its past according to the Mitscherlichs is a more general "impoverishment of object relations, i.e., of those processes communication that involve feeling and thought" (8). of At the same time, as Saul Friedlander has pointed out, this generation, by attempting to extend their fascism-analysis to the contemporary West German political scene, ended up by overgeneralizing the concept and thus robbing it of much of its real meaning. Cf. Friedlander, "Some German Struggles with Memory," in Bitburg in Moraland Politicol Perspectiae, G. Hartman, zg. ed. The standard account of those aspects of traditional German social structure that facilitated the mentality of popular obedience and passivity during the period of Nazi rule is Ralf Dahrendorf's Society and,Democracy in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, rg7il. See also Hans-Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire, r87r-rgr8, trans. Kim Traynor (Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, LJ.K., and Dover, N.H.: Berg rg85).

7 Mitscherlich and Mitscherlich, The Inability to Mourn, rz. 8 Or, as Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg has expressed this thought: "The bureaucrats
who were involved in the extermination process were not, as far as their moral constitution is concerned, different from the rest of the population. The German wrongdoer was not a special kind of German; what we know about his mind-set pertains to Germany as a whole and not to him alone." A. Siillner, "Interview with Raul Hilberg," Merkur 4r3 fuly r988): 54. It would of course be unfair to argue that no attempts have been made to deal honestly with the German past. Chancellor Willy Brandt's moving gesture of contrition before the Auschwitz memorial in Warsaw in rgTz will forever remain a memorable and courageous act on the road to reconciliation with the victims of Nazism. Ironically, the one event that seems to have triggered the greatest amount of national soul-searching was the showing of the U.S. television miniseries Holocaust in West Germany in ry7g. However, serious doubts have been raised over the extent to which a four-part Hollywood-style dramatization can in and of itself serve as the vehicle of historical expiation that had been sought in vain for the previous thirty years. Cf. Siegfried Zielinski, "History as Entertainment and Provocation," Nen German Critique rg (Winter rgSo): 8r-96. This entire issue is devoted to various appraisalsof the West German reception of Holocaust.
IO II

Adornq "What Does Coming to Terms with the Past l,4ean?" r r7. See the account in Richard Evans's superb book, In Hitler's Shad,op: West German Historians and the Atternpt to Escape from the Nazi Pasl (New York: Pantheon, r98g), 19. According to official reports, when Bitburg had originally been selected as the site for President Reagan'svisit in the winter of rg85, a snow-cover prevented German officials

T2

Notes to Pages87-go

257

from noticing the SS graves. Though rnost of the Bitburg debate has focused on rhe presence of the SS graves, Raul Hilberg has correctly pointed out that the German Wehrmacht or regular army was itself hardly an innocent bystander to the politics of genocide. Instead, they often provided logistical support to SS troops charged with exterminating the Jews. Its ranking officers (e.g., Field Marshall Keitel and General Jodl) were hanged as war criminals after the war. In truth, the German army was an integral part of Hitler's Reich and its crimes. See Hilberg, "Bitburg as a Symbol," in Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspectiae, ed. G. Hartman, 2r-22. See the remarks by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. on Reagan's performance at Bitburg: "Mr. Reaganin fact is the only American president who was of military age during the Second World War and saw no service overseas.He fought the war on the film lots of Hollywood, slept in his own bed every night and apparently got many of his ideas of what happened from subsequent study of the Reader's Digest." "The Rush to Reconcile," Wall Sfteet Journal, May 9, r985. r 4 For a good discussion of these events, see Charles Maier, The (JnmasterablePast: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

r3

r5

r988); especially chap. 5, "A Usable Past?Museums, Memory, and Identity." For a representative sample of views, see Charles Maier, "Immoral Equivalence," NeD Republic (December r , r 986), s6-lg. Saul Friedlander, Reflectionsof Nazism: An Essay on Kitsch and Death (New York: Harper Row, rg84); and Anson Rabinbach, "German Historians Debate the Nazi Past," Dissent(Spring rg88): rg2-2oo.

ft r7

Stiirmer, Dissonanzend,es Fornchrirs (Munich: Piper, ry86), n. Stiirmer, "Geschichte in geschichtslosem Land," Franhfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 25, 1986. Reprinted as "History in a Land without History," in Foreoer in the Shod,opof Hitler? transJ. Knowlton and T Cates (Atlantic Highlands, NJ.: Humanities Press, rgg3), 16-18. This volume contains all the essentialcontributions to the Historians'Dispute.

r8

Hillgruber, Zpeierlei Untergang: Die ZerschlagungdesDeutschenReichesund d,as End,edes eur 0p iiis chen ums (Berlin : Siedler, r 986). Jud,ent trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge: MIT Press, ry8g), zrzff. Cf. Raul Hilberg, "Bitburg as a Symbol ," zz-23. See also the important study of Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, rggr), which, by showing the Wehrmacht's level of ideological commitment to the regime, explodes the long-standing myth that the German army was a predominantly professional, hence non-Nazified, fighting unit.

r 9 Habermas, The Nep Conseruatisnt:Cultural Criticism and The Historians' Debate, ed. and

2I

Peukert, "Die Genesis der'Endlosung'aus dem Geiste der Wissenschaft," in Zerstiirung des moralischenSelbstbewufitseins:Chance oder Cefihrd,ung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, rg88), z4-+8. Walter Beniamin criticized German historicism for its de facto writing of history from the standpoint of the "victors" rather than that of the downtrodden. See his "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Illuminations, trans.H.Zohn(New York: Schocken, ry6g), 25rff. For a good account of the nationalistic convictions of German social scientistsand historians during the Wilhelmine period, see Fritz Ringer, The Decline of the Cerman Mand'arins (Cambridge: Harvard university Press, 1969), rr3-27. see also Georg Iggers, The German Conception History (Middletown: WesleyanUniversity Press, rgSg). of

"58
23

go-93 Notes to Pages

Nolte, "Between Myth and Revisionism? The Third Reich in the Perspective of the r98os," in Aspectsof the Third Reich, ed. H. W. Koch (London: Macmillan, 1985), I7justify his contention that "it can hardly be 38. Nolte uses the Weizmann declaration to denied that Hitler had good reasons to be convinced of his enemies' determination to annihilate him"; a fact that in turn "might iustify the thesis that Hitler was allowed to treat the GermanJews as prisoners of war and by this means to intern them" (27-28). It is far from irrelevant to note in this context that the "Weizmann-declaration" argument has recently been resurrected by the French revisionist historian Robert Faurisson, who espouses the thesis that the Holocaust is a Jewish fabrication. Nor did the gas chambers ever exist, according to Faurisson. The crematoriums, moreover, served the "legitimate hygienic function" of protecting SS guards against the threat of infection and disease.

24

Nolte, "Between Myth and Revisionism?" 36. There are some eerie correspondences between Nolte's description of Nazi ideology as primarily anti-Bolshevik and Arno Mayer's discussion of the centrality of anti-Communism (rather than anti-Semitism) for Nazism in l(hy Did the Heaaens Not Darken? (New York: Pantheon, rg88).

25 z6 27

Nolte, "Between Myth and Revisionism?" 36. Habermas, The New Consentatisn, 236,233. Habermas develops this concept in the context of a reading of the developmental psychology of Piaget and Kohlberg. See his essay "Historical Materialism and the Development of Normative Structures," in Communication and the Etsolution of Society, trans. T, McCarthy (Boston: Beacon, ry79),g1-rzg.

z8

Within the context of this essay,it is difficult to give an adequate account of the signifiidea of Germany as a "nation in the middle"cance that "geopolitical thinking"-the has had in Germany's historical and political self-understanding over the course of the last two centuries. The explicit revival of the idea of Germany's "Mittellage," or being situated in the middle, as a prominent feature of the revisionist position, has been critically addressed by Hans-Ulrich Wehler, in Entsorgung der deutschenVergangenheit? Ein polemischerEssay zurn "Historikersstreit" (Munich: Beck, rg88); see especially r7488. The Historians'Debate has spawned a mass of commentaries in the course of the last two years; Wehler's book is unquestionably one of the more reliable and intelligent works to have appeared on the subiect thus far.

'

zg

In his introduction to Reworbing the Past: Hitler, the Holocaust and the Historians'Debate (Boston: Beacon, r99o), Peter Baldwin offers the following definition of the German Sond,erweg thesis: "The Sond,ernegapproach maintains that it was the peculiar traditions inherited from the Wilhelmine Empire which left Weimar Germany unable to cope with the interwar crises. The continuing power of the aristocratic classes meant that the Junkers were among the main actors behind the downfall of the republic and Hitler's appointment to the chancellorship. The tradition of authoritarian and supposedly unpolitical government made the German middle classeswilling to accept extraparliamentary solutions during the turbulence of the early r93os" (rz). In general, Baldwin's volume is an excellent sourcebook concerning the historical stakes of the Historians'

Debate. und Biirgerkrieg, rgrT-rg45: Nationalsoziolisrnus Boschepismus 3o Nolte, Der europriische (Munich: Propylaen, g8Z). r zz7. 3r Habermas,TheNep Conseroatisrn,

Notes to Pages %-94

2Sg

32

For a more detailed account of Habermas's distinction between "conventional" and "postconventional" identities with reference to the issues at stake in the Historians' Dispute, see "Historical Consciousness and Post-traditional Identity: Orientation Towards the West in West Germany," in The Nep Conseruatism, z49-68. See also the following pertinent remarks by sociologist M. R. Lepsius: 'lAnd essential change in the political culture of the Federal Republic lies precisely in the acceptance of a political order which defines and legitimates itself through individual participation in constitutionally certified political forms. Conversely, the traditional idea that a political order should be tied to the collective identity of a nation as a 'community of fate' . fSchicksalgemeinschaft]. . has faded. The growth of a'constitutional patriotism,'the approval of a political order based on the right of self-determination, and the refusal of an idea of order based on an ethnic, cultural, collective 'community of fate,' are the central results of the delegitimation of German nationalism"; in Lepsius, "Der eu-

33 34

ropiische Nationalstaat," in Interessen,Ideen und Institutiozez (Stuttgart, r99o), 256. Habermas, "Neoconservative Cultural Criticism," in The Nep Conserpatism,22-47. "Life Forms, Morality, and the Task of the Philosopher," in Habermas: Autonomy and. Solidority, ed. P. Dews (London: Versq 1986), 196. "There was no break in terms of persons or courses," observes Habermas; a remark that applied to two of his philosophy teachers, Oskar Becker and Ernst Rothacker.

3 5 For a classical statement of this perspective, see Arnold Gehlen, Man and the Age of
Technologlt(New York: Columbia University Press, r98o).

36

For the historical and political background ofthe "Berufsverbot," see the special issue of Nep Gerrnan Critique 8 (Spring ry76), ^-53.

37 Habermas, "Neoconservative Cultural Criticismr" in The Nep Conseroatisrn,zz-47. 3 8 "The German autumn" refers to the whirlwind of terrorist-related events that rocked
the Federal Republic in the fall of ry77: the kidnapping of Hans-Martin Schleyer, head of the German employers' association, by the Red Army Faction; the hiiacking by RAF terrorists of a Lufthansa jet to Mogadishu, Somalia; the rescue of the plane by West German commandoes, at which point Schleyer was executed by his eptors; and the mysterious suicides in Stahlheim prison of the RAF leaders Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader. One of the most sinister aspects of these events was a renewed accusation by leading figures on the German right that critical intellectuals undermined the value-system of the Federal Republic and thus fostered attitudes conducive to terrorism. And thus in the fall of rg77,the CDU's Alfred Dregger, appearing on national television, accused the Frankfurt School of direct responsibility for the recent wave of German terrorism. For Habermas's response to these accusations, see "A Test for PopularJustice: The Accusations Against the Intellectuals," Nep German Critique rz (Fall ry7il: r r-r3. The same issue of Nep German Critique also contains observations by Herbert Marcuse and Rudi Dutschke on the German autumn. Schmitt's remarks were made during a Social Democratic Party congress in Hamburg. He went to observe, "Trivialization [of terrorism] would be dangerous, but it would be iust as dangerous to let panic, exaggeration, and hysteria get the upper hand. What we need is a restful, considered decisiveness." Cited in W. Riihrich, Die Demobrotie der Westdeutschez (Munich: Beck, rg88), r34-35. Cf., for example, the collection, Complexio oppositoriumt 0be, carl schmitt, ed.

g+-ro4 260 Notes Pages to

Der Tod Carl H. Qraritsch (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, rg88); and G. Maschke, critiqueof Schmitt,seethe essay, (Vienna: Karolinger,lg8Z).For Habermas's Schmitts rz8"The Horrors of Autonomy: Carl Schmitt in English," in TheNep Conserzsatism, political of For an explanation the continuitiesbetweenSchmitt's authoritarian 39. see in for philosophy the rgzosandhis partisanship NationalSocialism the rg3os, my of essay"Carl Schmitt, Political Existentialism,and the Total State," in The Termsof (New and Poststructuraftsrn Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School,Existentialism, rgg2),83- I o4. York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, oder Ulrich Oevermann,"Zweistaaten Einheit?"Merkur44 (February Seefor example r99o): 9r-ro6, and Karl Heinz Bohrer, "Und die Erinnerung der beiden Halbnaon tionen?"Merkur 44 (March r99o): 183-88.Seealsothe dossier GermanreunificaCritique (Winter rggl): 3r-ro8. tion in New Germon 5z where essay Rotho Straussin the February ry93 of Der Spieged by Seethe controversial are thesepositions adumbrated. Critiquezz (Winter first appeared New German in "Modernity versusPostmodernism" r98r): 3-r4. The German original was entitled "Die Moderne: Ein unvollendetes Schriften,r-4 (Frankfurt am Main: SuhrProjekt" and appearedin Kleine Politische the of by on kamp,rg8r), +U-6+.It wasdelivered Habermas the occasion his receiving r AdornoPrize,awarded the city of Frankfurton September r, rg8o. by r Postmodernity," r. Habermas, "Modernity versus in clearest articulation this perspective-implicit all his work-may be found of Weber's ed. in "ReligiousRejectionsof the World and Their Directions," in FromMax Weber, H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (New York, 1946),323-59. For Habermas'streatment of the problem of the modern need for self-legitimation (Selbstaergenisserung), The Philosophical Discourse Modernity: TwelueLectures, see of MIT Press,1987),r-zz ("Modernity's trans. FrederickG. Lawrence(Cambridge: of Consciousness Time andits Needfor Self-Reassurance"). Habermasanalyzesthe Nietzscheanorigins of postmodernismin The Philosophical Nietzsche a Turnas DiscourseModernity, chap. "The Entry into Postmodernism: of 4, ing Point,"8S-r95. Action,z'.3rr-96, passim. Cf. Theory Communicatiae of CulturalCriticism,"45. Habermas, "Neoconservative of Habermas, The Crisisof the Welfare Stateandthe Exhaustion "The New Obscurity: in UtopianEnergies," TheNew Conseraatism,66-67.

40

4r 42

43 44

+S

46

47 48 49

Garl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt, Staat, Bewegung,Volk (Hamburg: Hanseatischer Verlaganstalt, rg33), 32. Max Weber, Economy and Societjt (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ry68), n7ff. One of the first to comment on Schmitt's remarks on the relationship between Hegel and Hitler was the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who refers to the "profound comprehension" of Schmitt's iudgment, but then immediately points out the retrograde implications from the standpoint of prospects for German freedom. For Marcuse, the "death of Hegel" signifies not only the demise of a specific philosophical system, butthe dtath of German idnalism tout crurt; more specifically, it presages the obsolescenceof the strong

ro5-r ro Notesto Pages

z6t

concept of reason (Vernunft) that was the cornerstone of this magisterial philosophical enterprise begun by Kant. See Marcuse, "The Struggle Against Liberalism in the To* talitarian State," in Negations: Essaysin Critical Theory, trans. Jeremy Shapiro (Boston: Beacon, 1968). Many of the implications of Marcuse analysis have been drawn out by Georg Lukics in The Destruction of Reoson(New York and London: Humanities, rgSo). 4 5 (New York: Meridian, rg58), 339. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianisze Kurt Sontheimer, "Anti-Democratic Thought in the Weimar Republic," in The Road to Dictatorship, trans. Lawrence Wilson (London: Oswald Wolff, ry64),42-43. Sontheimer's essayrepresents a condensed version of his book-length study, Anti-DernokratischesDenben in der Weirnarer Republik (Munich: Nymphenburger, 196z), a work that contains a number of valuable discussionsof Schmitt's thought in relation to the conservative revolutionaries. For a discussion of the conservative revolutionary movement in English, see Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (New York: Cambridge, rg8+); and Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair (New York: Anchor, 1965).For an attempt to downplay Schmitt's affiliations with the conservative revolutionaries, seeJoseph Bendersky, "Carl Schmitt 6 and the Conservative Revolution," Telos7z $987): 27-42. Hence, this is true of the works by Herfand Sontheimer cited in note 5. It is also true ofa significant number of other works that treat the conservative revolution. Among them, one would have to include Christian von Krockow, Die Entscheidung: Eine Untersuchung tiber Ernst Jilngea Carl Schmitt, Martin Heid,egger(Stuttgart: E Enke, rg58); Armin Reoolutioz (Stuttgart: E Vorwerk, rg5o); and George Mosse, Mohler, Die bonseraatiae The Crisisof the German ldeology: The Intellectual Origins of the Third, Rercft (New York: Grosset Dunlap, ry6$. One of the classicalarticulations of this perspective is a militaristic tract composed by Werner Sombart during World War I entitled Hiindler und Held,en(Merchants and Heraes)(Munich, rgr5). For a good discussion of the way this opposition permeated the mind-set of the German intellectual mandarinate in the early decades of the twentieth century see Fritz Ringer, The Decline of the Germon Mandarins: The German Academic Communitjt, rSgo-rggj (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I969), r83' 8 g ro rr Herf, Reactionary Mod,ernism, rff. d,es Schmitt, Der Wert desStaates und,die Bed,eutung Einzelnez (Tiibingen: J.C.B. Mohr, rgr4), ror.

Ibid.. ro8. Joseph Bendersky, Carl Schmitt: Theoristfor the Reich (Princeton: Princeton University Press,r983), rzff. 12 Friedrich Nieosche, The Will to Poper (New York: Vintage, 1967),na.254. 13 Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 14 196l), lg. On Spengler, seeHerf, ReactionaryModernism,4gff. In all fairness,though, it seemsthat Spengler's sympathies for the forces of technocracy in modern Herf's study exaggerates society, especially in his late work, Man and Technics. Schmitt, Political Theology,trans. George Schwab (Cambridge: MIT Press, rg85),5. Ibid. Hans Saner, "Grenzsituation," Schwabe, ry74),3:877. in Historisches Wiirterbuch der Philosophie (Basel:

r5 16 r7

z6z

Notes to Pages r r r-r

r7

18 rg zo 2r 22 23 24 zS

Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democrarl, trans. E. Kennedy (Cambridge: MIT P r e s s ,r g 8 5 ) , 7 r . Schmitt, Political Theology,rz,3r (my emphasis). Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, Ig33rg44 (New York: Oxford University Press, ry67), 145-46. Schmitt, Political Theologjr, r5. (Munich: Carl Hanser, lg78),334ff. Karl Heinz Bohrer, Asthetik desSchreckens Schmitt, Political Theologt, rz (my emphasis). d.es lbid., r5. See also the commentary by Bohrer on the passagein question in Ai.esthetih Schreckens,342-43. In this sense,Schmitt would find little to disagree with in the critique of modernity set forth by Weber in the concluding pages of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitallsz.' "specialists without spirit, sensualistswithout heart; this nullity imagines it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved." Cf. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spiit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner, rg58), r8z.

z6 27

Schmitt, The Crisisof Parliamentary DemocracJ,67. Chapter t of Political Theology ends with an encomium to an unnamed "Protestant theologian [Kierkegaard] who demonstrated the vital intensity possible in theological reflection." Schmitt goes on to cite approvingly the following gloss on the relation of the "exception" to the "general" from Repetition: "The exception explains the general and itself. And if one wants to study the general correctly, one only needs to look around for a true exception. It reveals everything more clearly than does the general. Endless talk about the general becomes boring; there are exceptions. If they cannot be explained, then the general also cannot be explained. The difficulty is usually not noticed because the general is not thought about with passion but with a comfortable superficiality. The exception, on the other hand, thinks the general with intense passion."

z8

Schmitt, Political Theologjt, 36. For a refutation of Schmitt's endorsement of the "secularization hypothesis," see Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Cam-

rg8l). bridge:MIT Press, 29 Neumann, Behemoth,47. DemoracJ,To. of 3o Schmitt, The Crisis Parliamentary 3 r Ibid. 32 I b i d . , 7 I . (Berlin:Junker Dunnhaupt, See anthology the editedby ErnstJtinger, KreigundKrieger r93o), in which Jtinger first publishedhis influentialessay "total mobilization." on WalterBenjaminwrote a highly critical reviewof the volume,which hasbeenreprinted (Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp, rgTz),3:238-5o. inhis Gesammelte Schriftez, Democracy, r73. Schmitt, The Crisis Parliamentary of 34 3 5 Schmitt, Political Theologt,48. 36 Ibid.,65-66. 37 For more on Schmitt's philosophyof history,see"Das Zeitalter der Neutralisierungen (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot Politischen und Entpolitisierungen,"in Der Begnff des rgTg),96-r r5. Demoracy,75 (my emphasis). 38 Schmitt, Parliamentary 39 Ibid.,75-76. (Berlin:Dunckerund Humblot, r963),7r. Politischen 40 Schmitt,Der Begriffdes
a a JJ

Notes to Pages 117-rz6

263

4r lbid.,75. des in 42 Schmitt, "Weiterentwicklung totalenStaats Deutschland"(r933),in Positionen undBegrffi (Hamburg:Hanseatischer Verlaganstalt, r94o), r85. 43 Ibid., r86. ++ Ibid. 45 Schmitt, "Die Wendungzum totalenStaat," ibid., r5z. It shouldbe noted that the praise of Jiinger as a "remarkablerepresentative the German Frontsoldaten" of cited above beenomittedfrom the reprint of this essay Positionen Begrffi. Seethe has in und originalpublication Europtiische in Rezsue 7,no. 4(April ry3r):243. (Stuttgart:Klett, n.d.),5:r3o. "Die totaleMobilmachung,"Werke 46 ErnstJi.inger, Carl Schmitt, rggff. 47 SeeBendersky, and 48 Schmitt, Positionen Begrffi, r ro (my emphasis). Schmitt, Der Begriffdes Politischen, 67. 49 in 5o Strauss,"Comments on Carl Schmitt's Der Begrff desPolitischen," Schmitt, rle Concept thePolitical,trans. GeorgeSchwab(New Brunswick, NJ.: Rutgersuniverof sity Press, 1976),9o. Kampfalsinneres (Berlin:E. S. Mittler, rgzz),57. Erlebnis 5r Jtinger, Politischen, Sz Schmitt, Der Begrif d,es 49. 53 Ibid.,33. 54 Ibid.,28, 33. Schrijien,3i24o: "This newtheory of war . . . is nothing other 55 SeeBenjamin,Gesamrnehe than a reckless transposition the theses l'art pourl'art to war." of of und, 56 Schmitt, "Reich, Staat,Bund," in Positionen Begrffi, ry8.
ttOvef the Linett Sheehan,"Heidegger and the Nazis," Nem York Reaiewof Books,June r6, 1988,47. For Sheehan'searlier defenseof Heidegger (in responseto Stephen Eric Bronner's "Martin Heidegger: The Consequences of Political Mystification," mer-Fall Sahnagundi 3819 [Sumry771),see Salmagundi ry (Winter ry79): rn-84. See, for example, Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Back from Syracuse?" Critical Inquiry r5, no. z (t98fi:427-30. Piiggeler, "Den Fiihrer fiihren? Heidegger und kein Ende," Philosophische Rundschau3z ( r q 8 5 ) :z 6 - 6 7 . The phrase Heidegger uses inlz sity Press,r95g), rgg. In his biography of Heidegger, Martin Heidegger: Untermegs seinerBiographie (Frankzu furt am Main: Campus, rg88), Hugo ott has reproduced the report of the Freiburg Introduction to Metaphysrrs (New Haven: Yale Univer-

6 7

University denazification commission on 3o5ff. Cited in Ott,, Martin Heidegger, 3t6-ry. See for exampleJiirgen Habermas's essay,"Work and Weltanschauung: The Heidegger Controversy from a German Perspective," in Habermas, The Nep Conserztatism:Cultural Criticism ond the Historians' Debate, ed. and trans. Shierry W. Nicholsen (Cambridge: MIT Press, rq8g). Liiwith, "My Last Meeting with Heidegger in Rome, 1936," reprinted in The Heid.egger Controoersy: A Critical Read.er,r4o-43.

264

Notes to Pages n7-r3r

9 ro rr

Path of Thinhing, z7z. Piiggeler, Mortin Heid,egger's Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysicl rg9 (translation slightly altered). ((Letter to the Rector of Freiburg University, 4 November See Martin Heidegger, in The Heitlegger Controoersy: A Critical Reader, part r, "Political 1945.," reprinted Texts, rg33-rg44." The allusion to 3oJune rg34 is of course a referenceto the so-called night of the long knives: the Nazi purge of the Rtihm faction (the SA) and the "socialist" wing of the National Socialist movement, centered around the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser.

rz

und Gedanbez(Frankfurt am Main: See Heidegger, Das Rektorat, r933-34: Tatsachen Klostermann, lg83), 23. And the Spiegel interview, "Only A God Can Save IJs," reprinted in The Heidegger Controoersy: A Criticol Reader, gr-tr5. See,for example, the contributions by Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot in the zz-28, dossier entitled, "Heidegger et la pens6eNazie," Le Nouael Obseraateur,January rg88,4r-49. For a discussions of the conservative revolutionary world-view, seeJeffrey Herf , Reactionary Mod,ernism: Technology, Cuhure ond Politics in Weimar Germany (Cambridge:

r3

14

Cambridge University Press, rg8+); and Jerry Z. Muller, The Other God that Failed (Princeton: Princeton University Press, rqSZ). r5 Nietzsche, The Will To Pomer,ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, ry67),no. 8og. Con16 See the excellent discussion of this theme in Michael Zimmerman, Heid,egger's frontation pith Mod,ernily (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, r99o), r r3: "Beginning in the mid-rg3os . . . Heidegger concluded that the work of art could help to make possible the non-representational, non-calculative, meditative thinking which would usher in the post-metaphysical age." 17 r8 rg zo 2r 22 Heidegger, Hiilderlins Hymnen "Germanien" und "Der Rhein." Gesamtausgabe 39(Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, rg8o). Heidegger, Existence and Being (Chicago:Regnery Gateway, ry49),287. See Heidegger, "Only a God Can Save LJs," in The Heidegger Controxersy: A Critical Reader, rc6. Heidegger, Discourse Thinhing (New York: Harper, 1966),47. on Heidegger, Nietzsche: the Will to Poper asArr, trans. D. E Krell (New York: Harper Row, rgTg),85-86. See H. W. Petzet, Auf einen Stern zugehen: Begegnungenund, Gesprrichemit Martin Heidegger, rgzg-1976 (Frankfurt am Main, Societdt, rg83), z3z; andHeidegger, Was Hei/3t Denben (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer, r954), 65. ? 23 Heidegger, Beitrrige zu Philosopha (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, lg89), :8 (my emphasis). See the superb analysis of this text of the mid-r93os by Nicolas Tertulian, "The History of Being and Political Revolution: Reflections on a Posthumous Work of Case: On Philosophy and Politics, ed. Tom Rockmore and Heidegger," in The Heid,egger Joseph Margolis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, r99r), zo8-27. 24 zS Heidegger, Bosic ll/ritings (New York: Harper and Row, 1977),96 (translation altered). "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Cassirer-Heidegger," in Guido Schneeberger, Ergiinzungen zu einer HeideggerBibliographra (Bern: Suhr, r96o), zo-zr (my emphasis). English translation in The Existentialist Trodition: SelectedWritings, ed. N. Lagiulli (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, rgTr). z6 For the best discussion of this theme in Heidegger, see Winfried Franzen, "Die Suche

Notesto Pages r3r-r39

z65

praktische Philosophie,ed. A. Gethmannnach Hirte und Schwere," in Heid,egger und d,ie 27 z8 zg 30 3r 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 4r 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Heidegger, "The Self-Affirmation Siefert and O. Piiggeler (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, r988), 78-92. of the German University," in The Heidegger Contro-

uersy: A Critical Reader, 3o. Heidegger, An Introd.uction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, r95g), 47. Heidegger, "The Self-Affirmation of the German University," 33-34. Heidegger, Basic lf/ritings, zro. 'God is Dead,"' in The Heidegger, "The Word of Nietzsche: Qustion Concerning Technology and,Other Essays,ed. and trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper, rg77), rrz. Karl Ltiwith,, Heidegger: Denber in dilrftiger Zeit (Stuttgart: Metzler, rg84), 173-74. M. Heidtgger (bilingual edition) (Barcelona: Anthropos, Heidegger, Logica: Leccionesd,e r99r). Liiwith, "My Last Meeting with Heidegger in Rome, 1936," in The Heidegger Controaersy: A Critical Reader, r4z. Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row, ry62),436. (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1986),48:138. Heidegger, Gesemtausgale lbid., zo5. Heidegger,Logica,4o. Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysicq 38-39. lbid.,4z. Heidegger, Hiild,erlinsHlmnen "Germanien" und"'Der Rhein," t34. (Frankfurt am Main: KlosHeidegger, Htild.erlins Hymne der "Ister," in Gesa.mtausgabe termann, rg84), 54:ro6. Heidegger, Dos Rehtorat, Ig3J-34,39. Heidegger, Herahlit, in Gesamtausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1979), 55 55:r23. Heidegger, "Overcoming Metaphysics," in The End, of Philosophy (New York: Harper and Row, 1973),86. Heidegger's letter to Marcuse is reprinted in The Heidegger Controaersy: A Critical Read,er,t63. Martin Heidegger, "Insight into That Which Is," cited in Wolfgang Schirmacher, Tech(Freiburg and Munich: Albers, r983), 25. nib und,Gelassenheit Cf. Ernst Tugendhat, Se(:Consciousnessand Self-Determination (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), r87 (translation slightly altered). For more on this point, see his essay, "Heidegger's Idea of Truth," in The Heidegger Controaersy: A Critical Reader, 245-63.

49 50 5r 52 53 54

Adorno, TheJargon of Authenticiry (New York: Seabury rg73), 8. Sdllner, "Left Students of the Conservative Revolution," Telos6r (1984): 59. Controaersy: Heidegger, letter to Herbert Marcuse ofJanuary zo, tg48,in The Heid.egger A Critical Reader, t6z. Heidegger, Das Rehtorat, I933-34,25. An observation from Heidegger's r936 Schelling lectures, cited by Piiggeler in "Den Fiihrer fiihren," 56. See Kurt Sontheimer, "Anti-Democratic Thought in the Weimar Republic," in The Road to Dictatorship, ed. Lawrence Wilson (London: Oswald Wolff, ry64),42ff: "It is hardly a matter of controversy today that certain ideological predispositions in German

266 Notes to Pages4g-r43

thought generally but particularly in the intellectualand political climate of the WeiFor mar . . . prepared intellectual for the growthof NationalSocialism." moreon the soil the intellectualorigins of Nazism, seeFritz Stern, ThePoliticsof Culturol Despair:A (New York: Knopf, rgTz) andGeorgeMosse, ld,eology Study in the Rise the Gerrnanic of Reiri (New York: The Crisis theGerman ldeologjt:TheIntellectual Originsof the Third, of Grossetand Dunlap, ry6+).For a thorough accountof Heidegger'sintellectualindebtprominence revolutionary thoughtthat attained of edness the paradigm conservative to PolhicalOntologt(Stanthe in Germanybetween wars,seePierreBourdieu,Heidegger's rggo). ford: Stanford UniversityPress, On this point see the two important books by Michael Liiwy, GeorgLuhdcs: From )J (London: New Left Books,rgZS);and Utopieet rddemption: Romanticisrn Bolsheaism to LeJudai:sme libertaireenEurope centale(Paris:PU[, t988). 85-86. 56 Heidegger,TheEnd of Philosophy, (Tiibingen: M. Niemeyer,rg54), 65, heift Denben Seehis remarksto this effectin Was JI and "Only a God Can Save{.Js,"in TheHeidegger A rc4. Controaersy: CriticalReoder, Die Nation (Frankfurt am account,seeHelmuth Plessner, aerspiitete 58 For the classical Main: Suhrkamp, ry7d. SeealsoRalf Dahrendorf,Societyand. Democracy Germany in (New York:Norton, r97il. '1{.nIntroduction to Heideggerian Leo Strauss, Existentialism,"in TheRebirthof Classical Political Rationalisrn, selected and intro. T Pangle(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, r98g),3o.

French Heidegger

Wars

The most important of thesespeeches havebeenincludedin TheHeid.egger Controaersy: A Critical Read,er, Richard Wolin (Cambridge:MIT Press,r9g3), part r, "Political ed. Texts,rg33-r934." Seethe debatein the 1946-47issues Les Temps of Modernes that wasspurred by Karl Liiwith's essag politiques philosophie I'existence de de chezHeideg"Les Implications ger" (November1946),reprinted in TheHeidegger Controaersy: Critical Reader, A 16785.See alsothe further discussions this themeby AlphonsdeWaelhens Eric Weil of and in theJuly rg47 issueof Les Temps Mod,ernel The seconddebate, which occurredin the Parisianiournal Critique,was provokedby a review essay FrangoisF6dier that atby tackedthree bookscritical of Heidegger:Guido Schneeberger's Nachlese Heid,egger zu (Bern: Suhr, 196z);Theodor Adorno'sJargon der Eigentlich&arr (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ry6+); Paul Hiihnerfeld's In Sachen Heidegger:Versuch iiber ein deutsches Genie(Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe,rgsg). F6dier'sessay, which appeared the in February1967number,wasrebuttedin articlesby RobertMinder,JeanPierreFaye, and Aim6 Patri, all of which appeared year.An overviewof this inCritique inJuly of the same debatecan be found in BedaAllemann,"Martin Heideggerund die Politik," in Martin Heid.egger: Perspehtiaen Deutung zur seines Werk,ed. Otto Piiggeler(Ktinigstein:Atheniuum, r969),246-6o. Among Ott's researches, most important are as follows:"Martin Heideggerals the Rektorder UniversitdtFreiburg," Zeitschffifiir d,ie Geschichte Oberrheins (1984): d,es r3z 343-58; "Martin Heideggerals Rektor der UniversitetFreiburgi. Br.-die Zeit des Rektoratsvon M. Heidegger,"Zehschift d.es ro3 (rg84):ro7Breisgau-Geschichtsaereins

Notes to Pages r43-r48

267

3o; and "Martin Heidegger und die Universitit Freiburg nach r945," Historisches Jahrbuch r-5 (1985): 95-128. Most of Ott's findings have been incorporated in his recent book, Martin Heidegger: Unterwegszu seinerBiogrnphie (Frankfurt: Campus, r988). 4 Heidegger's own accounts of his rectorship can be found in the "The Rectorship, r93334: Facts and rhoughts," trans. Karsten Harries, Reaiep of Metaphysrrs(rg85): 48r5oz; his "Letter to the Rector of Freiburg University,4 November rg45"; Der Spiegel interview of May 1976: "Only a God Save Us: the Spiegel Interview." The latter two documents have been reprinted in Richard Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controaersy: A Critical Reader. 5 It is of more than passing interest to note that Farias first tried repeatedly to publish his manuscript in Germany-the country that has been his home for a number of years now; he himself is a former Heidegger student and currently lives in Berlin where he teaches at the Free University-but met with rejection from all quarters. That the renewed debate over Heidegger's past has exploded in France had been no small source of embarrassmentto German intellectuals, who are only now beginning to formulate their own interpretations concerning "Der Fall Heidegger." 6 7 See note 4. As Ott explains, this telegram contributed significantly to a Freiburg University denazification committee ruling in 1946 that stripped him both of his right to teach and "emeritus" status, by virtue of which he would still have been allowed to participate in university activities. 8 The existing translation of the Rectoral Address (seenote 4) is woefully anodyne. I have therefore retranslated all references from the recent German edition, Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschenUniaersitrit (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, r984). g Cf. Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, rg59), 48, where Heidegger observes that "the state of science since the turn of the century . . . has remained unchanged despite a certain amount of Sauberung." ro The usual English rendering ofthe Greek (in both the Grube and Shorey translations) is "everything great is at risk" or "is precarious." Heidegger therefore has willfully distorted the Greek episphalo-in order to give it an ideological twist-by translating it as "Sturm," thereby rendering it compatible with the militaristic tone of the speech and the times. On this point, seethe analysisof Heidegger's speech,"Deutsche Minner und frauen!", in Karl Liiwith, "Les implications politiques." rz r3 14 I5 These events are cited in Ott, "Martin Heidegger als Rektor der Universitit Freiburg i. Br.r" r r7-r8. lbid., rz4-26. Ott, "Marrin Heidegger als Rektor der Universitet Freiburg," 356. The disagreementsfall into the category of unpleasant harassmentrather than anything more serious.Krieck-with whom Heidegger made common causein the spring of rg33 in the interest of the Gleichschahungof the Association of German University Rectorspublished several public attacks on Heidegger's philosophy as being ultimately incompatible with National Socialist doctrines. Rosenberg seems to have been interested in suppressingthe publication of a rg4z Heidegger essay, "Plato's Doctrine of Truth." The essay was eventually published, very likely owing to the intervention of Benito Mussolini [!], who was informed about the matter by the Italian philosopher Ernesto Grassi.

rr

r48-r54 268 Notesto Pages

For more on the Heidegger-Mussolini connection, see Heidegger et le Nazisme, (La-

grasse:Verdier, 1987), 273-82 ("Heidegger et il Duce"). See also the extremely infor16 r7 r8 Ig 20 mative interview with Ernesto Grassi in Liberation, March z, rg88, 4o-4r. "Heidegger at Eighty," reprinted in Heidegger and, Modcrn Philosophy. ed. Michael Murray (New Haven: Yale University Press, rg78), zg2-3o3. See note 4. Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, rg7. See, for example, the epistolary responsesto the original essayof October 14, r987, in the October 3o, 1987 issue of Ze Mond,e. For example, seethe following remarks by Derrida: "As for the essentials these'facts,' of I have found nothing in this inquiry that was not already known for quite some time by those who were seriously interested in Heidegger." The Derrida interview, which originally appeared in the November 6-rz, rg87, issue of Nouael Obseraateur, appeared in the first edition of The Heidngger Controaersy: A Critical Read.er(New York: Columbia University Press, r99r), z6+-13.It was deleted from subsequent editions at Derrida's request. 2r For comments on the part of the most loyal Heidegger devot6es, seethe contributions by Pierre Aubenque, Henri Cr6tella, and Frangois F6dier in the dossier published in Ze Ddbat 48 (January-February 1988). For a countervailing perspective, see the observations by St6phane Moses and Alain Renaut in the same dossier. 22 Cf. F6dier's contribution to the Nouoel Obseraateurdossier on "Heidegger et la pens6e Nazie,"January zz-28, rg88, 5o. See also his diatribe against Farias, Heid,egger: L'Anatomie d'un scandole (Paris: Laffont, r988). Cf. note zr. Paul Celan, in his poem "Todtnauberg," tells the story of his pilgrimage to the philosopher's Schwarzwald mountain ski hut and of his disappointment over Heidegger's refusal to utter a single word upon being asked about the Holocaust. A similar tale has been recounted by the theologian Rudolph Bultmann, who upon suggesting after the war that Heidegger publicly recant his Nazi past, received only a cold, silent stare in zs z6 return (cf. the article by Robert Maggiori in Libiration, October fi, ry87). Nouael obsensateur, January zz-28, rg88, 43-45. Blanchot's comments, "Thinking about the Apocalypse," have been translatedin critical Inquiry r5, no. z (1989): 475-80. Nouael Obseruateur, January zz-28, 1988, 49. An English translation of Levinas's article, "As If Consenting to Horror, " ^ay be found in the issue of Critical Inquiry r 5, no. z

23 24

(r989): a85-88.
27

Nouael Obseraateur, January zz-28, 1988, 45. An English translation of Gadamer's article, "Back From Syracuse?" may be found in the issue of Critical Inquiry 15, no. 2 (1989):427-30. Faurisson's argument is largely based on the fact that he has personally never met aJew who actually sam the gas chambers. That Jews who did see the inside of the chambers were asphyxiated within three to four minutes might go far toward explaining the peculiar lack of eyewitness accounts Faurisson has encountered. Cf. the report by Robert Maggiori in Libiration, January 7, rg88, 43. See Michel Tibon*Cornillot, "Heidegger et le chainon manquant," Libiration, February 17, t988,4r-42, for a comprehensive treatment of the relations between Heidegger and Fischer. In a follow-up letter the next day, Fischer would write: "The faculty

z8

zg 30

Notes to Pagesr54-ft5

z69

defends [Heidegger] as a spiritual Ftihrer and a thinker. . . . We really do not have many great philosophers, let alone National Socialist philosophers." The fact that the papers of both Heidegger and Fischer are closed to public viewing represents a significant obstacle to a more detailed investigation of their relations. 3r 32 Farias, Heideggeret le nazisme,Tg. Both have recently been translated into English. Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Qrestion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rg89) and Philippe LacoueLabarthe, Heidegger,Art and Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, rggo). Cf. Derrida's essay,"The Ends of Man," in Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rgSz), ro9-36. 34 35 36 37 38 This contention has been subjected to a thoroughgoing rebuttal by Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut in Heideggerand Modernity (Chicryo: University of Chicago Press, r99o). Cited in Der Spiegel,August r8, I986, r67. See the remarks byJean-Michel Palmier cited in Der Spiegel,August r8, 1986' Cf. "Heidegger, l'enfer des philosophes" (interview with Jacques Derrida), Nauael ObNovember 6-n, seraateur, 1987, r7r-72; seenote 20. The category of the "will to will" dominates Heidegger's critique of traditional metaphysics and its nihilistic implications in his Nrerzsche,z vols. (Pfullingen: Neske, ry62). A four-volume English translation has recently appeared from Harper and Row (Iq8q). Cited in "Neue Forschungen und Urteile i.iber Heidegger und Nationalsozialismus," Der Spiegel,August r8, 1986, 169.

33

39

Democracy in the Thought

I 2

and the Political of Hannah Arendt

See Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianrim (New York: Meridian, r958),437ff. Margaret Canovan, Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of Her Political Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), zo. Of the innumerable works that have recently appeared on Arendt, this book is undoubtedly one of the most useful. The accusation Canovan makes contra Arendt would also hold for Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum' rg72). On the discontinuities within Italian fascism, see Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (New York: Routledge, Igg3), 67: "Its next incarnation fin r9z5] as a constitutional party operating as an integral part of a coalition government . . . was a radical contradic'intransigents' of all denominations pointed out tion of its palingenetic myth, as the now been metamorphosed, almost against its leader's own will or vociferously. It had better judgment, into an authoritarian regime exercising power in the name of a populist revolution." For a classic study of the relationship between Germany's belatedness as a nation and its subsequent turn toward fascism, see Hans-(Jlrich Wehler, The Gerrnan Ernp'ire, t87rry8 (Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, U.K., and Dover, N.H.: Berg, rg85). Martin Jay, "The Political Existentialism of Hannah Arendt," The Permanent Exiles: Essayson the Intellectual Migration from Germany to America (New York: Columbia University Press, rg85), z4o.Jay's essayrepresents a very important, if often neglected, discussion of these themes. For a critique ofJay's treatment of these themes, seeMauri-

z7o

Notes to Pages 165-168

zio Passerin d'Entrdves, The Politicat Philosophlt of Hannoh Arendt (New York: Routledge, ry94),87ff. While certain of d'Entrdves's points are well taken, in the end, he does not accord the valid aspectsofJay's criticisms their full due. 6 7 Arendt, "What is Existenz Philosophy?" Partisan Reaiep 13, no. r (Winter ry46):34. See L. and S. Hinchman, "Existentialism Politicized: Arendt's Debt to Jaspers," in Hannah Arendt: Critical Essays, L. and S. Hinchman (Albany: State University of ed. New York Press), r4o-r45: "In particular, KarlJasper's notion of Existenz or authentic selfhood is crucial, for it inspired Arendt's distinctions between action versus behavior and the 'who' versus the 'what' of a person, as well as her concepts of meaning of mass society. . . . This link between Existenz and action pointb to a crucial congruence betweenJasper's and Arendt's theories." 8 Nietzsche, Beyond,Good,and Eail (New York: Vintage, 1966), section zo8. For an exceland the Politics ofAristoratic 9 lent account of Nietzsche's concept of "great politics," see Bruce Detwiler, Nietzsche Radicalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rggo).

I have discussedthe stagesinvolved in Heidegger's commitment to National Socialism in The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger(New York: Columbia University Press, rggo); see especially 96ff. In this respect, moreover, Heidegger's postwar confession that he viewed contemporary politics largely through the prism of Ernst Jiinger's influential r93z work, The Worker,should be kept in mind. Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, r958), zo5. Canovan, Hannah Arendt, t34. Arendt, The Human Condition, ryg. lbid., r88. Arendt, BetoeenPast and Future (New York: Penguin, 1968), 154. Arendt, The Human Condition, r87. For more on this point, see Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal tadition and Jiirgen Habermas," Situating the Self (New York: Routledge, rg93): "The distinction between the'social' and the 'political' makes no sense in the modern world, not because all politics has become administration and becausethe economy has become the quintessential 'publig' as Hannah Arendt thought, but primarily because the struggle to make something public is a struggle for iustice."

ro rr 12 13 14 r5

16

Arendt begins these observations by citing Isak Dinesen: "'Let physicians and confectioners and the servants ofthe great houses be judged by what they have done, and even by what they have meant to do; the great people themselves are judged by what they are."'Arendt herself continues: "Only the vulgar will condescend to derive their pride from what they have done; they will, by this condescension, become the 'slaves and prisoners' of their own faculties and will find out, should anything more be left in them than sheer stupid vanity, that to be one's own slave and prisoner is no less bitter and perhaps even more shameful than to be the servant of somebody" (The Human Condition, ztt).

17

See Heidegger, "The Essence of Truth," in Existenceand, Being (South Bend, Ind.: Gateway, rg4g), 292-324; and "The Origin of the Work of Art," in Poetry, Language, and Truth (New York: Harper Row, r97r), 15-88. Arendt, The Human Condition, tgz. See George Kateb, Hannah Arendt: Politics, Conscience, Ez:il (Totowa, NJ.: Rowman and Allanheld, lg83),3o-3r: "insofar as Arendt confines her thought to the action of the

18 tg

Notesto Pages 168-179 27r

polis, she severs the whole point of political action-its revelatory existential achievement, its creation of human identity-from moral motivation or intention. . . . Arendt talks about particular acts in a way that seems to strengthen one's alarmed sensethat her general theory of action can too easily accommodate great substantial evils, even the system of evil known as totalitarianism." I believe that Kateb, who embraces a frightened liberalism, takes this argument much too far. 20 zr Arendt, The Hurnan Condition, t8o. Carl Schmitt, Political Theologjt, trans. George Schwab (C.ambridge: MIT Press, r985),

r5. (New 22 Arendt, Reaolution York: On Penguin, 1963), z6zand,z64.For adiscussionthis of

aspect or Arendt's thinking, seeJohn E Sitton, "Hannah Arendt's Argument for Council Democracy," in Hannah Arendt: Critical Essays, 307-34. 23 24 zS z6 27 28 29 3o Arendt, On Reaolution,27S. lbid.,z77. Ibid.,278. Ibid.,279-8o. Canovan, Hannah Arend.t, t35. Arendt, The Hurnan Condition, tgg. Cited in Canovan, Hannah Arendt, 136. Arendt, On Reaolution, 28. Cited in Canovan, Hannah Arendt, t37. Ibid., r4z. Sheldon Wolin, "Hannah Arendt: Democracy and the Political," in Hannah Arendt: Critic a I E ssajt z8g- 3o6. s,

3r 32 33

Antihumanism

in the Discourse

of Frcnch Postwar

Theory

FrenchIntellectuals, TonyJudt, PastImperfect: 1944-1956(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Press, rgg3),9. Universityof California Raymond Aron, ElusiaeReaolution: The Anatomy of a Stud,ent Reaolt (New York: Praeger,ry69), rz5. For more on the relationbetweensurrealismand the critique of the subject,see Jerrold Seigel, "La Mort du suiet:Originesd'un thdme,"Le Dibat (Februaryr99o):r6o-69. Andr6 Breton, Manifestos Surreolisz (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, of 1969),26. A good examplethereof is the militant Sinophilia of the Tel Quel group (J. Kristeva, P.Sollers,M. Pleynet)in the late rg6osand early rg7os. On the notion of the "intellectual field," seePierre Bourdieu, "The Genesisof the Conceptsof Hobitusand of Field," Sociocriticism (tg85): rr-24; and "Intellectual z Field and CreativeProiect," SocialScience Inforrnatioz8 (April ry69):89-r rg. rg45report of the FreiburgUniversitydenazification September commission concerning Martin Heidegger;cited by Hugo Ott, Martin Heid,egger: Biogzu Untermegs seiner (Frankfurtam Main: Campus, raphie r988),305-6. For the best discussionof the circumstances surrounding the French publication of Heidegger's Letter on HumanismasText "Heidegger's "Letter," seeAnsonRabinbach, andEvent,"Nep German Critique (Spring-Summerrgg4):3-38. 6z

r79-r83 272 Notesto Pages

g ro rr rz r3 14 r5 16 17 r8 r9 zo 2r 22 Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism," in Basic Writings (New York: Harper Row, 1977), 232. NJ.: Citadel, 1965), 3r-62. in Reprinted in Sartre, Essays Existentiolism(Seacaucus, Humanism," 2r4. Heidegger, "Letter on lbid., zrg, zzo. Ibid.,zzo. The details of this episode are recounted by On in Martin Heid'egger,294ff. Rabinbach, "Heidegger's Letter on Humanism"; Heidegger's sons eventually returned unharmed. Heidegger, Das Rebtorat, rgfi-34: Klostermann, rg83), 25. Cited in Richard Wolin, The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heid'egger (New York: Columbia University Press, Iggo), r48. Heidegger, Nietzsche(New York: Harper Row, rg8z), 4;22r. Ibid., zr 5. Heidegger, "Overcoming Metaphysics," in The End of Philosophy (New York: Harper Row,1973),82. Heideggeq "Letter on Humanism," 2ro. See Heidegger, "Only a God Can Save Us: The Spiegel Interview," in The Heidegger ed. Controaersy:A Critical Read,er, Richard Wolin (Cambridge: MIT Press, rgg3), grr r6. 23 For an informative, Bourdieu-inspired analysis of Sartre's role in the contemporary intellectual "field," see Anna Boschetti, The Intellectual Enterprise: Sartre and Les Temps (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, rg88). modernes 24 zS Rabinbach, "Heidegger 2." See Heidegger's remarks to Herbert Marcuse in a letter of May rz, 1948, where the philosopher observesthat he made common causewith Nazism insofar as he "expected from National Socialism a spiritual renewal of life in its entirety, a reconciliation of social antagonisms, and a deliverance of Western Dasein from the danger of communism." Heidegger's letter may be found in Wolin, The Heid,egger Controaersy: A Critical Reader, t6z-63. z6 27 Vincent Descombes, Mod,ern French Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University P r e s s ,r 9 8 o ) , 3 r . On the relationship between Freud and the surrealists, see Margaret Cohen, Profane Illuminations: Waher Benjarnin and the Park of Surcealist Reuolution (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1993), 57ff. As Freud expressedit in a r93z letter to Breton: "Although I receive so many testimonies of the interest that you and your friends show for my research, I am not able to clarify for myself what surrealism is and (Paris: Gallimard, rg8l), 176. what it wants." Les aases communiconrs There was also a strongly nationalist or chauvinist reception of Freud's doctrines in the rgzos that, focusing on the theory of the unconscious, opposed itself to the egopsychological reading of Freud by Heinz Hartmann an<i others. For a while Lacan was a prot6g6 of the leading member of these right-wing Freudians, Edouard Pichon. See the account of their relation in Elisabeth Roudinescq La Bataille descentsans, vol. I (Paris: Ramsay, r98z). For more on th relation between Pichon and Bataille, see alsoJeffrey Mehlman, translator's foreword to Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan (5 Co.: A History of Tatsachen und Gedanhaz (Frankfurt am Main:

Notes to Pages r84-r88

273

z8

29

30

3r 32 33

PsychoanalysisFrance, in r9z5-rg85 (Chicago:university of Chicagopress,rggo), xiixv. SeealsoMehlman, "The Sutureof an Allusion: Lacan with L6on Bloy," in Legacies of Anti-semitismin France(Minneapolis:university of Minnesota, rg83), 4-33; and Mehlman, "The ParanoidStyle in French Politics:L6on Bloy and Jacques Lacan," OxfordLheraryReaiep (rggo),39-47. For a critique of Lacan'sreadingof Freud, seeFerry and Renaut,French Philosophy of the Sixties,fi5-2o7. SeealsoJoel Whitebook,"Rethinkingthe Subject:Lacan and Adorno," unpublished manuscript. Freud, Outlineof Psychoanalysrs (New York: Norton, 1969);Nep IntroductoryLectares on Psychoanalysis, StandordEd,ition the Complete of Works SigmundFreud, (London: of Hogarth,rg53), zz:8o. The receptionofFreud asa proponentofego psychology Francehad beenled by in Marie Bonaparteand Rudolph Loewenstein.For an account of their influence, see Roudinesco'sJacques 6 Co.Inthe United States viewof Freudwasadvanced Lacan this by Heinz Hartmannand others.In his Nep Introductnry Lectures Psychoanalysls (New on York:Norton, 1965), FreudwouldcriticizeHartmannfor repressing those aspects the of analyticapproach that wereofgreatestinterest. Lacan,Ecrits(Paris: Seuil, ry66),374. PeterDews,Logics Disintegration: of Post-Structurali.sl Thought theClaims Critical and of (London:Verso,ry87),7o. Theory Lacan, The Seminarof Jacques Lacan: Book II, The Ego in Freud's Theoryand in the Technique Psychoanalysis, of rg54-.r95j, trans.S. Tomaselli (New York:Norton, rg88),

7. 34 lbid.,r6. (New York: 35 Lacan, "The Mirror Stageas Formative of the I," in Ecrits: A Selectioz Norton, ry77), l-7. 3 6 Lacan, The SerninarofJacquesLacan: Boob 11,8.
5l

Lacan, Siminaire (Paris: Seui!, r978),2:286. Ibid..,p.92. Whitebook, "Rethinking the Subject," r7. Lacan, Stiminaire,z:tt. The motif linking violence and metaphysics comes through clearly in Levinas's main philosophical work, Totality and Infnhy trans. A. Lingis (Pittsburgh: Dusquesne University Press, 1969). For an especially clear statement of this theme, see "Ethics as First Philosophy," in The Leainas Read,er, S. Hand (Oxford: Blackwell, r989), 75-88. ed.

38 39
40 4r

42 Whitebook, "Rethinking the Subject," rg. 43 For example, seethe important discussion of "The Analytic of Finitude" and "Man and
His Doubles" in Foucault's The Order of Things(London: Tavistock, ry7o),3r2ff.

44 SeeJ. G. Merquior, From Prague to Paris (London: Versq 1986), rr: "Nowadays fSaussure's Course in General Linguisticsl is rightly deemed the theoretical fountainhead of modern structuralism."

ModernFrench Philosophy, roo. 45 Vincent Descombes, "Symboleet temporalit6," Archiaio d,ifilosofia, (1963):24. vz 46 SeePaulRicoeur, Anthropologie (Paris:Plon, rg58), 7r. The renderingof this Structurale 47 L6vi-Strauss, passage the English-language in edition (seethe note that follows)is fully inadequate. Structural Anthropology (New York:Harper,r963),S8-Sq. a8 L6vi-Strauss,

274

Notes to Pages r89-r99

Mind (Chicago:University of 49 L6vi-Strauss,"History and Dialectic," in The Sauage ChicagoPress,ry66),,z4g. Tropiques, trans.J. and D. Weightman(New York: Penguin, ry92), 50 L6vi-Strauss,Tristes 52. 5r lbid.,58. 52 Ibid.,3. 53 L6vi-Strauss,"History and Dialectic," z4g. 54 Ibid.,253. (New York: Seabury,ry74). 55 Hans-GeorgGadamer,Truth andMethod, L6vi-Strauss,"History and Dialectic," 252. 56 and 57 Adornq "Letters to Walter Benjamin," in Aesthetics Politics(London: New Left rg77),rro-33. Books, "History and Dialectic,"255-56 58 L6vi-Strauss, 59 See my analysisof this problem in Heideggerin The Politicsof Being: The Political (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press,rggo), r6off. Thought Martin Heid,egger of 6o StevenB. Smith, Reading Ahhusser: Essay Stracturolist An (Ithaca:Cornell ,tr4arxisrn on rg84),zoo. UniversityPress, 6r L6vi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques,3T-38. 6z L6vi-Strauss,"Raceand History," in StructuralAnthropology, ftans.M. Layton (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1976),2:323-62. et @ Todorov, "L6vi-Strauss entre universalisme relativismer"Le Dibat 4z (NovemberDecember1986):r73-gz.See alsohis importantnew book On HumanDiaersity:Nationalism,Racism,and Exoticismin French Thought(Cambridge:Harvard University Press, r9g3). 64 L6vi-Strauss,Tristes Tropiques, 55. 65 SeeDerrida's important essay, An on "Violehceand Metaphysics: Essay the Thought of EmmanuelLevinas," in lVriting and Dffirence, trans.A. Bass(Chicago:University of Press, Chicago rg78),7g-r54. 66 Derrida, "Structure, Sign andPlayin the Discourse the Human Sciences," Wrhing of in andDiference,2Tg. 67 Manfred Frank, lhhat is Neostructuratism? (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, r98g),59-60. 68 Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play,"z7g. 69 SeeErnst Bloch, Natural Right and Human Dignity, trans. D. Schmidt (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986). 70 SeeDerrida, "Racism'sLast Word," in Critical Inquiry rz, no. r (Autumn 1985):z9o99. See also his attempt to trace the roots of Heidegger'sNazism to a "voluntarist metaphysics" "Philosophers'Hell," TheHeidegger in in Cnntrooersy, t64-13. on 7r See his more recent commentson this problem in The OtherHeading:Reflections (Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press,rggz). Tod,ay's Europe (New York: Meridian, r958), r7o. 72 HannahArendt, TheOriginsof Totalitorianrsrz 73 Ibid., r73. 74 Derrida, "Racism'sLast Word," 298. Seealsohis attempt to accountfor Heidegger's Nazismin termsofthe philosopher's overzealous attachment a metaphysics subjecto of tivity in Of Spirit: Heidegger the Qrestion(Chicago:University of ChicagoPress, and rg8g), Sg-4o:Accordingto Derrida, a conceptof "subjectivity" "reignsover the major-

Notes to Pagesrgg-2o2

z7S

ity of discourses which, today and for a long time to come, state their opposition to racism, to totalitarianism, to nazism, to fascism, etc., and do this in the name of (the) spirit, in the name of an axiomatic-for example, that of democracy or human rightswhich, directly or not, comes back to this metaphysics of subjectiaity. All the pitfalls of the strategy of establishing demarcations belong to this program, whatever place one occupies in it. The only choice is the choice between the terrifying contaminations it assigns. Even if all forms of complicity are not equivalent, they are irreducible." See Michael Walzer, "The New Tribalism," Dissent,39,no.z (Spring rygz):.t64-7r. (Paris: Editions la D6couverte, 1988); Taguieff, "LeN6o-Racisme diff6rentialiste," Langageet sociiti 34 (December 1985), 6q-q8; Taguieff, "Cultural Racism in France," Talas 83 (Spring r99o): rog-23. For the German context and background, seeJohn Ely, "'Similar Enough to Mistake Them"': 'Black'and'Brown'Versions of National-Conservatism in Germany Today" unpublished manuscript. As Ely observes with reference to the national conservative iournal Junge Freiheit, "the ties between poststructuralist thought (under the influence of Nietzsche and Heidegger) and Armin Mohler [Ernst Jtinger's former secretary and editor of the new right journal Criticon]are important. We see a significant influence (if not merely claim) of poststructuralism on the new right thinking. . . . [T]he publisher Matthes & Seitz, is an apparently left publisher which publishes not only Baudrillard, Bataille and de Sade, but also Gerd Bergfleth and Giinter Maschke" (zo).
tl

IJ

76 For the best accounts of this movement, see Pierre-Andr6 Taguieff, La Force d,uprdjugi

This is more or less the thesis of a number of influential books written in France over rhe previous six or seven years that have sought to redress the new politics ofethnicity that has been a direct result of the reiection of cosmopolitanism. See, for example, Alain Finkielkraut,The Defeat ofThought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995);Julia Kristeva, Nations without Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, r993) Strangers to Ourselaes(New York: Columbia University Press, rggr). Finally, see the important book by Todorov cited in note 63. Kristeva, Nations pithout Nationolism, z, 16. Seenote r. Thomas Pavel, The Freud of Language: A History 0f Structurelist Thought (New York: Blackwell, 1989), r48. Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut, French Philosophy of the Sixties (Amherst: University of MassachusettsPress, rggo). For the new philosophers, see Andr6 Glucksmann, The Master Thinkers (New York: Harper Row, 1978); and Bernard-Henry Lbvy, Barbarism pith a Human.Face (New york: Harper Row, 1979).

78 79 8o 8r 8z

83 See Tony Judt, Marxism and' the French Left (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986),
186: "Until 1948, by reference and by metaphor, Communist discourse set the Party firmly in the Jacobin-nationalist tradition of revolutionary patriotism, adopting as its own the whole of the republican pantheon (with the addition of Stalin)." 84 Frangois Furet, Interpreting the French Reaolution, trans. E. Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, r98r), rff. It is a telling measure of the new intellectual politics that, ten years after the appearance of Furet's influential book, as it came time to celebrate the revolutionary bicentennial, the only bit of "revolutionary" heritage that the ruling Socialists had to fall back on was the eminently "liberal" "Declaration of the

276 Notes to Pages zoz-zo6

Rights of Man and Citizen" of r789. It is, then, terrifically ironic to seeFuret and others (|acques Julliard and Pierre Rosanvallon) protesting the emergence of La Ripublique du centre(Paris: Calmann-L6vy, r988); that is, the creation of a political climate of timorous centrism that he very much helped foster. For a recent attempt to situate the importance of Furet's work in terms of its relation to French neo-liberalism, see Sunil Khilnani,Arguing Repolution: The Intellectual Left in Postpar France (New Haven: Yale University Press, rgg3).

8 5 Cited in Pavel, The Feud,of Language, r4g. For an elaboration of the idea of "French
philosophy of the eighties," see Ferry and Renaut, Heidegger ond Modernity, trrns. E Philip (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rggo), r6ff.

86 Ferry and Renaut, French Philosophy of the Sixties.' "What is happening to Heidegger
today, happened to Marxism in the rg7os" (*n). ln The Feud of Language, Thomas Pavel goes so far as to describe the Heidegger controversy as having brought about "a nep cuhural equilibriurn. . . in France" (viii). I have discussedthe intellectual stakesinvolved in this debate in Chapter 8.

87 An important way station in this process was the French publication in the early rgTos
of Robert Paxton's book, Vichy France: Old Guard and Nep Order, rg4o-r944, which, along with Marcel Ophul's film of two years prior, The Sorrow and the Piry, triggered a widespread debate and much national soul-searching. See the account in Henry

88

Roussq The Vichy Syndrome (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, tggr),252ff. On Barbie's trial, see Alain Finkielkraut, Rememberingin Vain (New York: Columbia University Press, rgg3). Finkielkraut shows effectively how the definition of "crimes against humanity" was watered down in the trial to include crimes against resistance leaders and other offenses.

89

In April rgg3, Le Pen's party has recently been denied electoral representation rn France's National Assembly. Neverthelesi, the ertent to which the National Front has forced the other major parties to address their concerns-above all, the question of immigration-has been chilling. In other words, the dlmage has been done and is still being done. Le Pen has succeededat least in fundamental, regrettable respect: he has made attitudes of racism and xenophobia politically respectable. Philippe Lacoue-Lab arthe, Heidegger,Art, and Politics, trans. C. Turner (Oxford: Blackwell, rggo),95.

9r

See Heidegger's remarks to this effect from his rg35 lecture course, An Introd'uction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, Ig5g): "This Europe, in its ruinous blindness forever on the point of cutting its own throat, lies today in a great pincers, squeezed between Russia on one side and America on the other. From a metaphysical point of view, Russia and America are the same; the same dreary technological frenzy, the same unrestricted organization of the averageman" (37).

92

93

Pavel, The Feud of Language, t47. Bourdieu, "Back to History: An Interview," in Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controaersy: A Critical Reader,266.

94 Robert Holub, "The Uncomfortable Heritage," in CrossingBord,ers: Reception Theory,

P7ststructurelism,Deconstruction(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, rggz), r8z.

95 Todorov, On Hurnan Dizsersity,xi.

s6
97

Sartre, Critique de la raison d'ialectique(Paris: Gallimard, ry6o), zg. See the famous argument to this effect in Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy(Cambridge: MIT Press, rg85).

Notesto Pages zo6-zrz

98

277

For more on the concept of privatism, seeJirgen Habermas, Legitimation Crus*, trans. T McCarthy (Boston: Beacon, ry75),75ff. More generally,seeA. Arato andJ. Cohen, Ciail Society and Political Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, rggz),especially 568ff. See Donald Kelley, Renaissance Hutnanism (Boston: Twayne, rggr),4gff. For the essentialworks of this movement, see, in addition to the works of Ferry and Renaut cited above, Ferry, Political Philosophjt I: Rights, The New Qrarrel betweenthe Ancientsand the Mod.erns(Chicago: University of Chicagq rggo); Alain Finkielkraut, The Defeat of Thought; Renaut, L'Ere de l'ind.iztidu: Contribution d I'histoire de la subjectiaiti (Paris: Gallimard, rq8q). See also the excellent anthology edited by Mark Lilla, Nero French Thought: Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, rgg4), which, in addition to an important selection of primary texts, contains a useful introduction by Lilla situating French thought of the rg8os in relation to prior competing intellectual tendencies and trends.

gg roo

ror ro2

Ferry and Renaut, French Philosophy of the Sixties, xvi. This is especially true of the major neoliberal philosophical attempts to rethink the subject. ln L'Ere de l'indiaidu, Renaut's reconstruction of the epistemological origins of the modern individual has recourse to Leibniz (as well as Berkeley, Kant, and Nietzsche). He concludes that, in an era where the limits to subjective self-assertion are progressively eroded, the result is, ironically, a dissolution of subjectivity itself. It is Ferry, who in Politicol Philosophy I, has recourse to Fichte's philosophy ofreflection for the purpose of reestablishinga viable notion of individual autonomy. For a sympathetic discussion of the work of the neoliberals, seeAlexander Nehamas, "The Rescueof Humanism," Nen Republic23, no. z (November n, rggo): z7-34. See also the review of their work by Mark Lilla inthe Times Lherary Supplemen4 November 17-zg, r989, rz55-56.

ro3 ro4 ro5

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adornq Dialectic of Enlightenntent, trans.J. Cumming, (New York: Continuum, rgTz). George Herbert Mead, Mind,, Self, and,Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rg34), 174. George Herbert Mead, "The Social Self," in Selected Writings, ed. A. Reck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ry64),49.

Deconstruction

at Auschwitz

For Blanchot's case, see Jeffrey Mehlman, Legaciesof Anti-semitism in France (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, rgSz), 6-zz. Jeffrey Mehlman, quoted in Nepspeeb, February r5, 1988. According to Reed Way Dasenbrock in "Reading Demanians Reading deMan," South Central Reaieo tt, no. r (Spring r9g4), "What the de Man affair provides is the fullest display we are likely to have ofhow deconstructive critics actually read texts" (23).

4 Habermas, Theory and Practice,trans. J. Viertel (Boston: Beacon, ry73),32. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Ig8r), 93. 5 JacquesDerrida, Positions 6 See Jeffrey T Nealon, Double Read.ing: PostrnodernismAfter Deconstruction (lthaca:
Cornell University Press, rgg3), a work that attempts to explore the dilemmas involved in the institutionalization of deconstruction. See also David Kaufmann. "The Profession of The ory," PMLA r 05, no. 3 Qggz): 5 r g-3o.

278

Notes to Pageszr2-zr7

(Athens:University of Georgia Capitalism Literary Value and 7 Harold Fromm, Acad,emic of important discussion thesethemesin Press,r99r), z5z. Seealso Russell Jacoby's DogmaticLTisdom: How the Culture WarsDiaert Ed,ucation DistractAmerica(New and York:Doubledayrg94).AsJacoby remarks, the'culture wars'little is morestriking "In reputationsand landefendprofessional than the ease with which the new professors guaggsophisticated friends,heapingcontempton journalists theories and distinguished (164). andcriticsasbackward outsiders" FrankLentricchia:"The realproblemof the de Manians 8 Thus Duke Englishprofessor is hero worship-the spectacle grown men and womenidolizing anotherperson."In of his view,de Man wasthe "godfather" of the Yale"mafia." Cited in D. Lehmrn, Signs of (New York:Poseidon, the Times rggt),ztz. '14.nOpen Letter to On 9 J. Hillis Miller, Jon Wiener," in Responses: Paul de Man's Wartirne ed. N. Journalism, W. Hamacher, Hertz, and T. Keenan(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, rg8g),334-35. ro SeeDasenbrock, critics to read "ReadingDemanians":"The failure of deconstructive de Man's wartimejournalismdeconstructively us a gooddeal,not just aboutdetells construction, aboutthe relationbetween but literarytheoryandcriticalpractice"(24). r r Times Literory Supplernent, 4446,June 17-23, rg88, 676. no. rz lbid. 13 De Man, Wartime rg3g-r943, ed. W Hamacher, Hertz, and T Keenan, N. Journalism, (Lincoln:Universityof Nebraska Press, rg88),66. 14 lbid., r58. r5 Citedby Stanley Corngold,in Responses, Sr, 16 De Man, WartimeJournalism, rg4. 17 Ibid.,29. r 8 Miller, Times Literary Supplement, { 146,June 17-23, ry88, 676. no. rg Derrida, "Like the Soundof the SeaDeep Within a Shell: Paulde Man's War," Critical Inquiry r5, no.4 (Summerry89):647. zo Ibid. 2r lbid.,6o7. 22 De Man, Wartime Journalism,43. 23 Quotedby the Nep Yorb Times, Decemberz, rg87, r. 24 Cited by Lehman, Signs the Tirnes, of t8z. 25 De Man, Wartime Journalism,45. z6 SeeDasenbrock, "ReadingDemanians," "Derrida insistsin 'Limited Inc' on the 37: provisionalityof any one reading.But there is openness contexts,the necessary of nothing provisionalin the leastabout Derrida's readingfof de Man] here.We are told that if we judgede Man, we aremore than iudges,we are censors, arebook burners, we of wearereproducingthe exterminatinggesture the Holocaust.. . . In claiminginterpretive privilegefor his recontextualization in ruling certaincompetingrecontextualizand it ationsout of court, in claimingthat his interpretationis privilegedbecause conforms to de Man's intentions,Derrida is here playing exactlythe role of the policemanhe is ascribingto unnamedothers.Derrida is finally ableto producea memberof the interpretive police 'ready to intervene' in the case:his name is Jacques Derrida." Seealso College English,56, ReadingDerrida's Responses," Dasenbrock, "Taking It Personally: zfi-79. no. 3 (March 1994): 27 Derrida,"Like the Soundof the Sea,"625.

2ry-223 Notesto Pages

279

z8 There is a terrible irony involvedin Derrida's reference the young de Man's text as to "nonconformist," oneof which he is apparentlyunaware. Among the pro-fascistFrench intelligentsia the rg3os,"nonconformist" wasa type of codeword indicatinga hatred of of democratic institutionsanda beliefin the needfor a revolutionfrom the right. On this figure of the French right in the r93os, seeJean-LouisLoubet del Bayle, Les Nonconformistes annies (Paris:Editions du Seuil, r969). des trentes 29 Cited in Alice Y. Kaplan, "Paul de Ma;n,Le Soir,andthe Francophone Collaboration," in Responses,274-75. Accordingto Kaplan,if one tries to understand Man's antide Semitism within the spectrum of other "respectable"contemporaryforms of antiSemitism,one perceives "not so much the slight disiunctionsbetweenpositions,as a number of approaches the anti-Semitic genre-cultural, racial, historical-which in to their very disagreements, the appearance respectable'debate.'Whatmore,all give of is of them draw in someway on a critique of an 'incorrect' form of racist thinking that is beneaththeir dignity, and which is exemplified. . . by the pamphletsof C6line. As it turns out, C6line is useful to makeeveryone elsesoundbetter.All the positions[publishedin Le Soirin conjunction with de Man's 'TheJewsin Contemporary Literature'] converge because the existence somethingmore vulgar: de Man's article particiof of patesin this convergence, in the legitimationof anti-Semitism." and Writings," in Responses, 30 Cited by StanleyCorngold,"On Paulde Man's Collaborationist 8o. r38. 3r De Man, Wartime Journalism, of in of 32 Seethe discussion culturalcollaboration Lehman, Signs the Tirnes, ryg. Nen Republic (March 6, 1989): zoo 33 sternhell,"The Making of'a Propagandist," 3r. j+ Kaplan,"Paulde Man," 268. 35 Sternhell,"The Makingof a Propagandist," 32. of (Minneapolis:Univerin 36 Cited byJeffreyMehlman in Legacies Anti-Semitism France, sity of Minnesota Press, r98z), ro8. Structure of Fascism,"in Visions Ercess: 37 Bataille,"The Psychological of Selected, Writings, r9z7-rg3g, ed.Allan stoekl (Minneapolis: university of Minnesota, r985),r43. Marxism: TheFaith ond.Works Hend,rik Man (The Hague: of 38 PeterDodge, Beyond. De Martin Niihotr, r966), tg7-g8, zor. 39 Derrida,"Like the Soundof the Sea,"628. Fables Aggression: of Wyndham Lemis,the Modernistas Fascist 40 Jameson, (Berkeleyand Los Angeles:University of California Press, rg7il.See alsoJohn R. Harrison, ?.le Reactionaries: Studyof theAnti-Deffiocr&tic A Intelligentsio(New York: Schocken,ry61). case, one shouldconsultAaron'sRod. Seethe importantstudy by Mi4r In Lawrence's chaelNorth, ThePoliticalAesthetic Yeats, of Eliot, and Pound, (Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress, rggr). For 42 De Man, Wartirne of Journalism,33r. a discussion de Man's relationtoJiinger,see ortwin de Grae{, serenity in crisis: A prefoceto paul d.e Man, rgjg-rg6o (Lincoln: Universityof Nebraska Press, rg93),zS-27; and de Graef,'lt Stereotype Aesthetic of ideology: Paulde Man, ErnsrJiinger,"colloquium Helaeticum rr-rz(rg9o): 3g-7o. "Paul de Man: the Modernist asFascistr"in Fascisnt, 43 ReedWayDasenbrock, Aesthetics, and Culture,ed. Richard Golsan (Hanover:University Pressof New Englan d, rygz), 238. Many of the essays this volume shed essentiallight on the underresearched in historicalnexusbetween fascismand modernism. and the Institution of Literature," in Modern44 RussellBerman,"Modernism, Fascism,

z8o

Notes to Pages 223-229 and ed. ism: Challenges Perspectiuas, M. Chefdor,R. Quinones,and A. Wachtel(Champaign:Universityof Illinois Press, r986),g+-ro2. Geoffrey Hartman, "Looking Back on Paul de Man,?' in Readingde Man Reading (Minneapolis: Press, Universityof Minnesota ry89),3-24. Miller, "An Open Letter," 337r339. in Seede Man's essay, "AestheticFormalization:Kleist's AberdosMarionettetheater," rg84),z$-89. TheRhetoric Romantiniz(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, of 78o, JonathanCuller, "Paul de Man's War and the AestheticIdeology,"in Responses,

45 46 47 48

z8l. Felman, "Paulde Man's Silence,"CriticalInquiry r5 (SummerIg89):7zr. 49 Shoshana (Oxford:Blackwell, rg89),r47. of 50 ThomasPavel,TheFeud, Language rg83),r65, Press, (Minneapolis: and Universityof Minnesota 5r De Man, Blindness Insight 35,232' on all 52 Seeabove his essay "Literary History andLiterary Modernity,"ibid., 4z-65. rg87),58. (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, of 53 J. Hillis Miller, TheEthics Reading MartinJay, in ideology de Man, see of analysis the problemof aesthetic 54 For an excellent Politics," Ideology'as Ideology: What DoesIt Meanto Aestheticize Or "'The Aesthetic (New York:Routledge, 1993), Fields in Force 7r-83. (Oxford: Blackwell,Iggo), 387. of 55 Terry Eagleton,TheIdeology theAestherfu Angel," CriticalInquiry lOgll): +ZS, "The Deconstructive 56 M. H. Abrams, 57 Paul Jay, "Bridging the Gap: The Positionof Politics in Deconstruction,"Cuhural Critiquezz (Fall rygz): 49. zz. Seealso the remarks by Robert Holub in Crossing See Nealon, DoubleReading, 58 (Madison: University of Deconstruction Theory,Poststructuralism, Reception Bord.ers: WisconsinPress, rggz): "The decline of deconstructionas a theoreticalforce in the . has United States beenevidentsincethe mid-eighties. . . On onelevel,deconstruction was simply lost its noveltyfor nativecritics. The generalfeelingpervadingthe academy itself.The seminalworkshad apmovement' had exhausted that the'deconstructive to pbaredduring the late sixtiesin Franceand had beenmadeaccessible the American domespublic about a decadelater; new impulsesfrom abroadand novel adaptations but tically were lacking.Derrida had beenread with interest in the late seventies, his to and peaked somepoint in the earlyeighties, his morerecenttextsseemed at influence to contributed their own themselves containnothingradicallynew.. . . Deconstructors in self-deconstruction the late eightiesby persistingwith their cliquish ways.They intolerantof criticism. Evenwell-meantand intelligentquestioning increasingly became weresimplydismissed to 'opponents' and anathema, oftenwritersperceived be became on unintelligenttrespassers a sublimecritical turf, or reactionastheoreticaldinosaurs, minority" (r48). an ariesbent on persecuting oppressed Representaond of 59 HaydenWhite, TheContent theForm: Narratiae Discourse Historical r987),58-82. (Bakimore: HopkinsUniversityPress, tion Johns vis-i-vis the New Historicism, illustration of this indebtedness 6o For a rather defensive (New ed. seehis "New Historicism:A Comment,"in TheNep Historicism, H. Veeser rg8g),293-302. York:Routledge, of 6t White, TheContent theForm,75. 6z Ibid.,8o(my emphasis). 'Just One Witness," in Probingthe Limin of Representation, Saul ed. 63 Carlo Ginzburg,

Notes to Pages z2g-234

z9t

(Cambridge: Friedlander HarvardUniversityPress,1992), SeealsoWhite'scontri93. bution to this volume,"HistoricalEmplotment andthe problemof rruth," 37-s3. In pursuingthis line of thinking,White approximates Ernst Nolte'stasteless thoughtexperimentin "BetweenMyth and Revisionism,"Aspects the Third Reich,ed. H. W of Koch (London: Macmillan, rg85): "we needonly imagine,for example, what would happenif the Palestine Liberation Organisation, assisted its allies,succeeded by in annihilating stateof Israel.Then the historicalaccounts the books. the in lecturehalls and schoolrooms Palestine of would doubtless dwell only on the negative traits of Israel; the victory over the racist, oppressive, even FascistZionism would becomea statesupporting myth" (zr). 64 SaulFriedlander, introduction to Probing Limits of Representation, the ro. 65 White, TheContent theForn,74-75. of

Afterwold r z Derrida, Of Grarnmatology, trans.G. Spivak(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins lJniverJacques sityPress, 1976), r58. Derrida, Glas,trans. Leavey(Lincoln: Universityof Nebraska Press, 1986); also see J. RichardRorty's reflections thesequestions Philosophicol on in Papers:Essays Heid,egon (New York:Cambridge gerandOthers UniversityPress, rggo),z:85-ng. Foucault, This Fire," Oxford "My Body,This Paper, LiteraryReaiem 4eg7g):27. Edward Said, The World,, Text,and, Critic (Cambridge: the the Harvard University Press, rg83), zo3,2o4,2o7. See,for example,RussellBerman, "Troping To Pretoria: The Rise and Fall of Deconstruction," Telos (rggo): 85 4-r6. Cited in Les Fins de l'hornme: partir d,utrauail d,e A Derrid,a(Paris: Editions Jacques Galil6e, r98r),5r4. Derrida,"The Forceof Law: The'Mystical Foundation Authority,"' in Deconstrucof tion and. Possibility the ofJustice, D. cornell et al. (New York: Routledge, ed. rggz), 7. For somecriticalobservations the translation on and dissemination Derrida'swork, see of ReedWayDasenbrock "ReadingDemanians in Reading Man," SouthCentralReaiew de rr, no. r (Spring rgg4; Dasenbrock, "Taking It Personally: ReadingDerrida's Responses," English no. 3 (March ryg4):z6r-79. Seealsothe excellent College discus56, sion in Ingrid Harris, "L'affaire d.errid.a: Businessor Pleasure?" Philosophy Social and. Criticism no. g-+ (rgq+):z16-42. rg, For a work that arguesfor the importanceof deconstruction an ethicaltheory see as Simon Critchley TheEthicsof Deconstruction: (Oxford: Blackwell. Derridaand. Leainas r9g2). Richard Kearney,"Deconstructionand the Other," inhis Dialogues with Contemporary (Manchester: continental Thinhers Manchester Universitypress,r984),r24, r2s. Derrida,"The Force Law," 15,2r,25. of SigmundFreud,Ciailization and ltsD,iscontents, J. Strachey trans. (New York:Norron, ry62),S6-Sl. For the best accountof the conservative revolutionaries English, seeJeffrey Herf, in Reoctionary Modernism:Technology, Cubureand, Politicsin Weimar and. Thirtl Reich the (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, rq8+).

3 4 5 6 7

8 9 Io rr

z8z

Notes to Pages 44-48

rz

see of For a gooddiscussion their alliance, Bernd Riithers,Carl Schmittim Dritten Reich, r933: Zeitgeister "Die Koalition grosser zd ed. (Munich: Beck, rggo).Seeespecially 2r-42. und Carl Schmitt," Martin Heidegger (Cambridge: A Contoztersy: Critical Reader 13 Cited in RichardWolin, ed, TheHeidegger 1993),p.47. MIT Press, of 14 I havetried to chronicletheseimplicationsin my book ThePolitics Being:ThePolitical (New York: Columbia University Press,r99o). I discuss Thoughtof Martin Heidegger Heidegger'sties to Schmitt and Jiinger in chapter z, "Being and Timesas Political See Philosophy." alsoAnsonRabinbach, "Heidegger'sLetter on HumanismasText and r5 1994), 6z Critique (Spring-Summer Event,"Neo German 3-38. Philosophy see For a reviewof thesedevelopments, Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut,French trans. M. Cattani (Amherst: University of An of the Sixties: Essayon Antihurnanisrn, Press,rggo). Also worth mentioningin connectionwith doctrinesof left Massachusetts are Heideggerianism the works of Kostas Axelos,who in books such as Horizonsdu (Paris:Minuit, l97l) wasone of the first thinkers on the FrenchLeft to attempt mond,e to fusethe doctrinesof Heideggerand Marx. (New York:Vintage,I963),3o (translatrans.HazelBarnes a r6 Sartre, Searchfor Method, tion altered). of r 7 Derrida, Spectres Marr, trans.P. Kamuf (New York: Routledge,rgg4), 13. A shortNep Left Reaieozo5 (May-June 1994): enedversionof Derrida'stext appearedin 3r-

58. (CamTheoryr r 8 See for example, Cohen and A. Aratq Ciail Societyand Democratic J. bridge: MIT Press,rgg2).The literature on this theme has of late becomeenormous. of see For a recentattempt at synthesis, Ernest Gellner,Cond,itions Libertit: Ciail Society (London:HammishHamilton, rygd. and lts Rioals of r 9 Derrida,Spectes Marx,75. Politics," 20 Aijaz Ahmad, "ReconcilingDerrida: 'spectresof Marx' and Deconstructive rgg4):roz. zo8 (November-December NewLefi Reaiep Conffooerqt, 2l Martin Heidegger,"Only a God Can SaveLJs,"in Wolin, TheHeidegger ro7. of 22 Derrida, Spectres Marx, 15. r9 Diacritics (r983):8. 23 Derrida,"The Principleof Reason," 65 24 Justin Barton, "Phantom Saviours,PhantomStates,"RadicalPhilosophy (Autumn r993):63. of 2 5 Derrida,Spectres Marx, 37,5r. z 6 Ibid., 5z-53. 27 Ibid.,54. z8 Ibid.,55.

t1'IDEX

Abrams, M.H.rzz6 Abstractexpressionism, zz-23, 39 Adenauer, Konrad,84 Adornq Gretel,77 Adornq Theodor,rr, zo, 26, 28, 4r-42, 48, 52- 54,63-66,70,75-77, 83,85-86, r37-38, rgr,2o7; andHorkheimer, Dialecticof Enlightenment, 25,,52,63-66; rr, The Minima Jargonof Authenticity,1371' Moralia,53;"What DoesComingto Termswith the PastMean?"83 Almond, Gabriel,and SidneyYerba,The Ciaic Culture,S4 Althusser,Louis, t76, 238 Annales reuisionniste, See d'histoire r 53. also Faurisson, Robert
anthropological materialism, 6r -62 .,67 -68. See also Beniamin, Walter;Ji.inger, Ernst anti-Semitism, 46- 47, 7o, 90, r 46, t 49- 5o, t64, ztor zr4-rgr 22S antiwar movement, 12, 27 Aragon, Louis, zor 75 Arcades Proiect, 59-82. Seealso Beniamin, Walter Arendt, Hannah, ro, ro5-6, tt7, t48, 16zt6z, t6574, r98; The Human Cond,ition, 68, ryz; "Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought," r7z-73; On Reaolution, t6z, t7o-72; The Origins of Totalitarianism, 163 Aubenque,Pierre, 15r, r54 Auschwitz, 3r,42r 83, 85, 8g-gz, r50,2roII

Austin,J. L.,z3z Avant-garde, 19-23,25,30,39,60, 67,76, 94,97, r77, 2Or Bachofen, Johann Jakob,6z Baeumler, Alfred, 2, r27 Barbie,Klaus, r43,2o2 Barthelme,Donald, z4 Barthes, Roland,ry6, t84,234 Bataille, Georges, "The Psy7,73r96rzzo; chological Structureof Fascism," zzo Baudelaire, Charles, 68,70, 73-7s 39, Baudrillard, Jean,57,4819 Beaufret, Jean,r 5z-53, r79-8r Bell, Daniel, 38-39; TheCultural Contadictions of Capitalism,3S Bendersky,Joseph, ro8 Benjamin, Walter, 2, ro, 17rzor28r 34r 43, 45,48-52,54, 55-82, 92,r2r-22,225, zz7;"On Some Motifs in Baudelaire," 68; "On the Doctrine of the Similar," 64; Origins of German Tragic Drama, 59; "Paris Arcades: A Dialectical Fantasy," 74; "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (Arcades Expos6), 70, 74, 768r; "Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire," 73, 7 S; "TheologicoPolitical Fragment," 52, S4., "Theories of German Fascism," 68: Theses the Phion Iosophyof History, 43, 5r, 64, 7r, 79; Trauerspiel, 74 Zur Aktualitrit Walter Benjamins, 55 Benn, Gottfried,6r

284

Index

William,36 Bennett, 88 Bergen-Belsen, Henri, 67-69, rrz; Matter and Bergson, Memory,69 Bildung,34,46 z5 Birminghamschool, Otto von, 86 Bismarck, Bitburg 87-88 Maurice,| 52,zrr, z2o Blanchot, Blanqui,Auguste, 56,8I-82; L'4ternitipor 8t lesastres, Der Bloch,Ernst, 45,48-52, 54,63,77; Milnzer Geistder Utopie,48, 52;Thomas d'er als Theologe Reaolution, 48 Blum,L6on,2rg-2o Bohrer,Karl-Heinz,67, t r r -rz, rrg Bolsheviks, gt, 167 49, Dieter, 85; Was iiberAdolf Hitich Bossman, (Whatl haveheardabout habe lergehdrt Adolf Hitler),85 zrg Boulanger, Georges, Bourdieu, Pierre,6,ro5,zo3;"CrownJurist of the Third Reich," ro5 Brecht,Bertolt,zo, 3o, 65 Breton,Andr6, zo, 6e., S, 176 7 Speeches Jud,aon Buber,Martin, 49;Three ism,49 Biichner, Georg,6z Buck-Morss, Susan,73 r3o Burckhardt,Jacob, of Btirger,Peter,r9-zr ,39; Theory the rg Aaa,nt-garde, Burroughs,William, z4 Cage,John,zz Albert, r8z, zor Camus, Margaret, 166 Canovan, Cantor,Norman,Z6-ll; "The RealCrisis in the HumanitiesToday," 36 Ernst,5r-52, r3r Cassirer, zz3 C6line,Ferdinand, C|zanne,Paul,39 83, ChristianDemocrats, 87-88 See Cianq Galeazzo,z3o. a/saMussolini, Benito 12,27,r72, r77 civil rightsmovement,

Karl von, r r7 Clausewitz, z5 Cultures, Collins,Jim,z5-26; Uncommon zzo Combat, zo6 Communists,63, Marquisde, 58 Condorcet, rg-2o constructivism, r83 Nicolaus, Copernicus, Henri, I5r, r54 Cr6tella, cubism,zz Culler, Jonathan,zz4 19-24,39,60 dadaism, zo Dali, Salvador, zzz d'Annunziq G abriele, Darr83. See a/so Social Darwin, Charles, winism rro,r24, r3o-38, r43,t46, r55-56, Dasein, Martin also r59, r8r. See Heidegger, t dasGestell, r, r83, z3g.SeealsoHeidegger, . Martin Simone,r8z de Beauvoir, Debord, Guy,3r, 4819 of Declaration the Rights Man and Citizen, of
200

z-5, deconstruction, 7,36, r59, ry6, t86, 2O7, 19 2OO, 2rO- 30,23r-39 5, de Gobineau,Count Arthur, g, rg8; Essai rg8 Humaines, Races surI'Inigaliti d,es Deleuze, Gilles,zog;andF6lix Guattari, zog; Anti-Oedipus, andF6lix Guattari,l Plateeus,2og Thousand de Maistre, Joseph, 8, r r 3, r r 5 5, de Man, Henri, zzo and de Man, Paul,4-5, 2ro-3o; Blindness in Insight,zz4; "The Jews Contemporary of Literature," 2t5,,zr'7-r8; TheRhetoric zro Romanticism, Derrida, Jacques, 7, 9, rr, 96,99, r 5r, 3-5, t 54-6o,t7 6, tg5-zor, 2r r - 17,zzo-zz, Seven zz6, z3t -3g; "Biodegradables: r55-59; Diary Fragments," De l'esprit, 5; "Ethicsfor Discussion," "The Forceof 5; Last Wordr" r99; La*r" 236;"Racism's of Spectres Marx, 23516; "Structure, of Sign,andPlayin the Discourse the t95 HumanSciences,"

Index
Der Stiirrner,t46 de Saussure, Ferdinand, r84-85, r88, r5, rg7; Course General in Linguistics, r84 Descartes, Ren6,rz9, r8o, r83, t8,g,tg6, zo4rzoS Descombes, Vincent,r83 Deutscher, lsaac,43-46; TheFutureof an Illusion,44 Donoso-Cort6s, Juan,r r3-r5, I 17,I rg DostoyevskyFyodor,6o Dregger, Alfred,88 Dreyfus,Alfred, zrg Droit, Roger-Pol, 5o-5 r r Duchamp,Marcel, Fontaine, zo Eagleton, Terry, t 5, zz6 Eluard,Paul,zo Enlightenment,5, t r, 16,25,So-Sz, 8-g, 58,63-64, 66,69,7r, 97,roo, 106,ro8, tto, tg8-gg, zzg Existenzphilosophie, r2o, r37, 165,t7g tog, expressionism,3g. also See abstract expressionism Farias,Victor, n4, 142-55;Heidegger le et Nozisme, t4z Faurisson, Robert,r Sz-S3/, 22g F6dier, Frangois, r5r, r54 Felman, Shoshana, zz4 feminism, t2,27,36 Ferry,Luc, r76, zo6;andAlain Renaut, French Philosophy the Sixties, of ry6 Fichte,J.G., zo7 Fiedler,Leslie,zg; "Crossthe Border& Closethe G"p," zg; "The New Mutantsrtt 2g

z8S

Frank, Manfred, z, tg6 Frankfurt School, ro-r r, z5-28, 45, 52, zo8 Free Democrats, 83 Freiburg University, 9, r24, r3o, r43-++, t6o, ry8-79 Freud, Sigmund, 3r,44,68,86, r5o, r8387, 2o7, 233-34; Beyond the Pleasure Principle, fi71' Ciailizotion and lts Discontents, 233; "Mourning and Melancholia,"

86
Freyer, Hans,6 Friedlander, Saul, zzg Fromm, Harold, ztz; Academic Capitalism and Literary Volue,ztz F{ihrerstaat, ro4, r58 Furet, Frangois, zoz; Penserla Riaolution Frangaise,zoz futurism, rgrzo,39r 60 Gadameq Hans-Georg, r 5z Gehlen, Arnold. r Gemeinschaft,47 , 63, 67 , rc7, 234 Genovese,Eugene, 37 Gentile, Giovanni, z3o Geschichtlichkeit, to. See also Heidegger, Martin Gesellschaft,47,67 Gibson, William,238 Gide, Andr6, zzr Ginsburg, Carlo, zzg Glass, Philip, z4 Gleichschaltung, rrg, rz4, 144-46. See also National Socialism Goethe,Johann Wolfgang von, r8, 55, 83; Electiae Afinities, 55; Werther, ry; lVilhelm Meister, tB Gorky, Maxim,39 Gottesuerlassenheit, 6. See also Heidegger, Martin Gouldner, Alvin,37 Grass, Giinter, The Tin Drum,85 Graves, Michael, z4 Guattari, F6lix, zog. SeeolsoDeleuze, Gilles Gulag (Soviet), 55

Finkielkraut, Alain, zoz, z06 Fischer, Eugen, r53-54 Fiskg John, Understanding Popular Culture, 29 Foster, Halr 3o Foucault, Michel, 5,7, rr, 57,96, r12, r42, t76, t84, rg1,227, 23r-32, 23416 Madness and Ciailization, z3r; "tuth andPowerr" t4z Fourier, Charles,69

286

Index Debate, r oo 83Historians' Hitler, Adolf, 8-ro, 84-85, 87-go, ro3-4, rr3, 122-24,rz7, r3S,r3g, 144-46,r5z, 23o, zoz,2rg-2o,222, I56-57, t59, 164, 234 Thomas,7, rrg-2r' rg7 Hobbes, Htilderlin,Friedrich,6, r3o Holocaust, 9r, r43, r52-53, 2o3,2ro42, zz8-zg rrr 224, Holub, Robert,zo3 Homer, t7, 165,ry2-75; Iliad, ry Axel,67 Honneth, Max, r rr 26, 52r63,661 8o, Horkheimer, 7o, 8t, zo7 z5 Howe,Irving, Edmund,8-ro, r8o, r93, 2o4,232; Husserl, and "Philosophy the Crisisof European Humanity" 8 Ronald,37-38 Inglehart, Institute for SocialResearch, 73, 8o 7o' Jacobin,54,169 Fredric,7,29-32, 37r 222 Jameson, Karl, rog-r o, r25, t64-65 Jaspers, Martin,37, 165 Jay, Philip,24-zs Johnson, zg Culture, of PoPular Journal r8, James, 25, 39,223 Joyce, Judt,Tony ry5-76,zor -78 Jung,CarlJ., 6r , 68-7o, 77 Ernst,r, 6, 9, 6r, 67-69,95-96, Jiinger, ro5-7, r r8, rzo-zr , r24,r34' r57'222' He enturesome art, 6Z-68; 44; TheAdzs "Total Mobilization,"r 18; Warand Warriors(Krieg undKrieger),68, rzr; The (DerArbeiter),68,ro6, r r8, r34, Worker
222 Kafka, Franzr 25, 39,22r K a n t , I m m a n u e l ,1 2 ,5 5 , 5 8 , 8 3 , 9 8 , r z z , r7z, r88-89,2o7,2o8. See alsoneoKantian Kaplan, Alice, zr9 Khmer Rouge, r77 Kierkegaard, Sdren, rrz, t6g

Habermas, Jiirgen,r 6- r8, 62,7r -72, 83Tendencies," roo, ro3, zr r; "Apologetic 89; "Following the Arrow into the Heart of the Present," "The Horrors of Au97; tonomy:Carl Schmittin English,"r03; Architecture," "Modern andPostmodern 97;"The New ObscuritS"roo; "On the Public Use of History," gr; ThePhilosophof ical Discourse Modernity,97;Structurol ofthe PublicSphere, Trandormation ry; Action,g6'gl Theoryof Communicatiae Hall, Stuart,z5 Arnold, 4-25; TheSociologofArt Hauser, History, z3 Hegel,GeorgWilhelm Friedrich,2r-22, 52, 32,Sor 58, 76,rc3-4, r29, r39, r59, t87, tgz, zo4, z3t, 236 Martin, r,3-4,6-r l, 3r, go, Heidegger, rO9,r r rt r2o, r23-4r, t4z-6t, 95,99, r64-68, r7o-7r, r78-84, r87-88, l9z234-39; 2og-r2, 23O, 97, 202-5, 2O7, Being and Time,rzo, rz6, rz8, r33, 136r54-59, r7t,,r7g, t9r; |4r, 145-46, 3'7, Dichtmg, zu Erliiuterungen H iild'erlins r54; "Letter Hausfreund, r3o; Hebel,d'er r32, t5z, t56, r79, r8r, on Humanismr" r83; "The Origin of the Work of Art," 6, Metaphysics," r36, 3r; "Overcoming r933-34, r4o, r8r; "The Rectorship, FactsandThoughts,"r49; "The SelfAffirmation of the GermanUniversity," 44; Whatis CalledThinbing,r3o; "What r3o-3r, r33 is Metaphysics?" Heine,Heinrich,44 HemingwayErnest,zzr rzz Heraclitus, G.,8 Herder,J. Herf,Jeffrey,ro7 of Hilberg, Raul, zr5; TheDestruction the EuroPean JeDs,zr5 Hillgruber, Andreas,88-q+; ZpeierleiUndes Die tergang: Zerschlagung deutschen d'es und' Reiches dasEnd,e europliischen Ju(Two typesof defeat:The dedentums struction of the GermanReichand the 88 endof EuropeanJewry),

Index

287

Madagascar solution,zry-r8. See alsoNational Socialism Maggiori,Robert,r 5o-5 r (German), 6r, 90, ro8 mandarin 48, Mann, Thomas,25, 83,gz; Germony and theGermans, S3 Marcuse, Herbert,26,45,54, r36 6o, Marinetti, F ilippo, zzz Marrus,Michael,zr5 Marx, Karl, 17, 30, 44-45, 52r66-69,7778,lr4, rzg, 172-73,r78, r8o, r8z,2oz, 2o7,233-39;andFredrichEngels, Cozmunist Manifesto, 62,235;"Critique of the Gotha Program," 69;DasKapital, r8o zotr 2O5 Marxism,3r, 36,37, 49, 52,62, 65-66,72, 74,77,7q rr4-rS, r77-83,r88-go, Lacan, 176,r83-95, 2og,234 2or-2r 2O5,2t2,233-39 Jacques, Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe,4, r 54-6o, Matisse, Henri,39 202-3,24; Heidegger, and, Art, Politics,4; Mead, GeorgeHerbert, zo8-g Lafction du Politique, r55-59 Mengele, Joseph, Dr. r53 Landauer,Gustav,45,49 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, r8z Lanzmann, Claude,r43,zo2;Shoah,t43, metanarrative,2, 12,23,58,zo4 202 Michelet,Jules,77 Lautr6amont,6o Mill,John Stuart,rzr Lawrence, D. H., 22r-22 Miller, J. Hillis, zr2-r3,22o, zz3-25 Lebensphilosop 63, 6 5-66, 69, r og- r o hie, Mitscherlich, Alexanderand Margarete,86; Levinas, Emmanuel, t5z, t87,z3z TheInobility to Mourn,86 L6vi-Strauss, Claude, 176, 183-96, zoo, Mitterrand,Frangois, 87 232,234; The Elementary Structures of modernism,rS-32,38-4o, 96,98, 99, r29, Kinship, r85; "Race and History," ,g4; z16,zzt-25, zzg. Seea/so modernity TristesTropiques,r89, r93 modernity,6, ro-r t, 16-17r 38,48, 56,66, Libdration, r5o 68-7o, 74,8r-82,93,96-roo, ro7| rr4, Lichtenstein, Roy, z3 tt8, tz4, tz8-zg, r3r-32, t36-4o, r47, logocentrism, 7, I r, rg7 -2or, 46-37 t 57,163-64, t'1 t76, 2o4,2og,234 4, Loos, Adolf,6o Moellervanden Bruck,Arthur, ro5, Liiwith, Karl, rz3, rz6, r3z, r34; "The Por07 litical Implications of Heidegger's ExisLe Mond.e, r5o-5r tentialismr" rz3 Mondrian, Piet,39 Lukics, Georg, 45,47-49, 5z; The Theory montage, 75*77 2r, of the Noael,47-48 Montaigne,Michel de, rg3 Lunn, Eugener 3T Montesquieu,Charlesde Secondat, 8 Luxemburg, Rosa,44 Mosca,Gaetanq8

Kimball, Roger,371' Tenured Radicals, 37 Kitsch, 35,4r,74 Klages, Ludwig, z, 6-7, 6t -7o, 77-78, 96, rog, r24.:TheIntellectasAntagonist the of Soul (Der Geistals Widersacher Seele), d,er ro9;"Man andEarth,"6+;On 7165,70, Cosmogonic Eros,64;"On DreamConsciousness," 67 Klee,Paul,6r;Angelus Nouus,6t Kleist, Henrich von, zz4 Kohl, Helmut, 83,87-88, 95 Kommerell,Max,7o Kramer, Hilton, 33*42 Kraus,Karl, 5o,6r Krieck, Ernst, tz7r t48 Kristeva,Julia, zoo Kultur, 48, to6-7 Kulturkritik,r,6, 59,64-65,7o,ro9, rz8,

Lyotard,Jean-Frangois, zzg,44; The 176, Postmodern Condition, zzg

288

Index

Motherwell,Robert,39 Movies, 35;Rambo, RedDawn, 35; 35; Rochy,35 MTV, z5-26 z'1, multiculturalism, 232 Munch, Edvard,3z; TheSream, 3z Miinzer,Thomas,45,48 Benito,8-ro,rr5-16, I35, r39, Mussolini, z3o t64,zzor222r Nancy,Jean-Luc,zz4; TheLiterary Absolute,zz4 TheNation, zt3 NationalSocialism, 3-5,7-g, 42,46, 58, 8 3 - r o o ,r o 5 - 8 ,r r r , r r g , t z 3 - 6 t , t 6 4 , zoz-4, 2ro-3o, 233-34 r8o, r8z, Tg4, NationalSocialism Nazi.,See zz6 Nealon, Jeffrey, 6, neoconservative, 33- 42,83-84, 93- I oo, zo6 neo-dadaism,23-24 neo-Kantian, 65, 7r, r3r 5r, zo7-8 neoliberals, Franz,rrr, Ir3; Behernoth, Neumann,
III

ParetqVilfredo, S-g Talcott,rg2-93 Parsons, Passagenmerb, 58-82. SeealsoBenjamin, Walter Thomasr2orr224 Pavel, Detlev,89 Peukert, also phantasmagoria, 59,77, 78,82.See 57, Benjamin, Walter Picasso, Pablo,39 Plato,rz4, r45, r 59-6o,162,rgr, z3z;Republic,t45 Lioes,t65 Plutarch,165; Pbggeler, Otto, rz3-28, r4o; Martin HeiPath d,egger's of Thinking,n3 pop art, 23*25 Popper,Karl,7 Mark, 37 Poster, posthistoire, | 2, 57-58 | -2, r-2, postmodernism, 6, r5-32,57-58,95229.Seealsomodernism 99, poststructuralism,7, 176,r78, r86-87, 4, tgz-g6, zor, 205) zo8-9,zz6-3o Pound,Ezra,zzz-23 Marcel,r8,39, 68-7o Proust, Anson, 46,49,r8o, r8z Rabinbach, Rangordnung,8 Walter,r r7 Rathenau, Robert,z4 Rauschenberg, Ronald,87-88 Reagan, alsoFerrY, A., Renaut, t76, zo6.See Luc 17 Pamela, Samuel, Richardson, Arthur, rg,6o, 62, 186 Rimbaud, Ringer,Fritz,47 Tom, g Rockmore, z7;The Rockmusic:BuffaloSpringfield, Doors,z7;"For WhatIt's Worth,"z7; "Light My Fire," z7;Madonna,zg; Qreen, z6; "Radio Gaga,"z6 Riihm,Ernst, 148-49 Alfred, z, r48 Rosenberg The Rosenzweig,Franz,49; Star of Refump' tion,49 25 Andrew,z5; No ResPect, Ross, Rothko,Mark, 39

TheNep Criterion,34-42 NewLeft, 26,28,235 of Nep YorkReaiep Books, r23 3, 22-23 New York School, Nep York Timeg33 Has Niethammer,Lutz, r-z; Posthistoire: r to History Come an End'? Friedrich, r-2, 7-8, 12,17' 3r, Nietzsche, -6c.,6z-63,68,8r, 96-99,ro6-9, 57 r r r, r 14, tz4, n8-3o, r34, r3g-4r, r55, r 5 7 ,r 5 8 ,r 6 5 - 6 8 ,r i z , r 7 3 , r 8 o - 8 r ,r 8 3 , and, rgz, zo7, zz8-3o; BeyondGood' Eail, of fi5; TheGenealogy Morals, 68, r7z; The Will to Power, 59 Nolte,Ernst, 90-92,94 NouvelleDroite, z t5r Obseraateur, N outsel Michael,r6z Oakeshott, October,3T Ott, Hugq rz4,143-44,r5o' r55

Index
Rousseau, JeanJacques, r93, r97, 232; La Nouaelle Hiloise, ry Sancta Clara, Abraham i, r4g-5o Sartre,Jean-Paul,t5z, 176, r79-82, r88gr, 2oS, 45; Critique of Dialectical Reason, rgo1, "Existentialism is a Humanism," r52, t7g; Nausea, r8z; "The Wall," r8z Scheler,Max, rrr Schiller, 14, 83, r4g,224, z3o; Wallenstein, r49 Schlageter, Albert Leo, t46 Schmitt, Carl, r-2, 6-8, 6r-62, 64, 94-96, ro3-zz, 16z, 174,44;' The Conceptof the Politicol, ro3, r 14, rt6, rr8-zz; The Crisisof Parliomentary Democracy, r rg; "Irrationalist Theories on the Direct Use of Force," tr31, Law and, Jud,gment, rog; Political Theology, rro-rz; Staat, Bewegung, Volk, rc3; "The Turn Toward the Total State," tt8; The Value of the State and the Signfficance of the Ind,iaid,ual, to7 Scholem, Gershom, 43, 45, 49-54, 59, 62, 70, 7 5, 8z; "Reflections on Jewish Theology:'43,4s Schuler, Alfred, 62, 64, 7o S einso erlassenheit, zo4 6, Sheehan,Thomas, o3-27 Social Darwinism, z, rzr SocialDemocrats, 63,69,83, 95, r39 Social Terct,37 Le Soir zr8-zz, z23r 2zs soixant-huitards, zo6-7 Siillner, Alfons, r38 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, r77i Gulag Archipelago, r77 Sond,erweg, roTt z2S 93, Sontheimer, Kurt, ro5 Sorel, Georges, 8-g,49, S4r rr2*r7 Spengler,Oswald, r_2r 6,63, 96, ro5, rog, r24, 2O4,234 Spiegel,r27, r3o) r44, r49, r57, 16o-6r, 18r. Sea alsoHeidegger,Martin Spinoza,Baruch,44 Utopian Socialism,16,5r, 69-Zo Val6ry Paul,4r Valois, Georges, zr9 Spivak, Gayatri, z3z Stalin, Joseph, 46, 164, ry6, zo3-4 Staudinger, Hermann, r47 Steinfels, Peter, 35 Stendhal, 18; The Red and,the Black, t8 Sternhell, Zeev,g,zr8-rg Stone, Lawrence,3T Strauss, Franz-Josef, 88 Strauss, Leo, r 17, rrg, t4o-4r, t6z, 174 structuralism, z) 36, t4z, t78, r83-96 Stiirmer, Michael, 88-89, 92,94

z$g

surrealism, 19-24, 39, 60, 62, 7o-7 t, 7477, 176, t83, zz3 Telos,37 Les Tempsmod,ernes, t8z. Seealso S*tre, Jean-Paul Thompson,E.P.,zo4 Tocqueville, Alexis de, rzg, t63, 17r Todorov, Tzvetan, r,, r94, zo4; On Human Diaersity, t Tcinnies, Ferdinand, 47, ro7 tilling, Lionel, zr totsky, Leon,44 Tugendhat, Ernst, r37

Van Gogh, Vincent, 3r; PeosontShoes,3r Voegelin, Eric, r 17, t62, t74 Volksgemeinschaft, r 30, r45 7, Volksturm, t 54. S ee also Heidegger, Martin von Baader, Franzr 49 Warhol, Andy, 23,3c--32; Diamond Dust Shoes,3r Weber, Ma4 r5-r7, 66, 97, gg, ro3, I 12; "Collected Essays on the Sociology of World Religions," r5 Weimar Republic, 48,7o-7t,93, 95, ro5r o , r 1 3 ,r 1 6 ,r r g , 1 3 r Weizmann, Chaim, go