[FRA:] Heidegger's 1948 letter to Marcuse [was: The ugly metamorphosis of Telos]

[Ralph Dumain]

I need a bibliographic reference for Heidegger's 1948 letter to Marcuse.

Perhaps the entire text of the letter has been published?


>Heidegger, in a 1948 letter to Herbert Marcuse, 
>explained his> attraction to Nazism in these 
>words: "I 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 dangers of communism.">>


At 07:33 AM 10/25/2007, Christian Garland wrote:

> >> April 24, 1991> The metamorphosis of Telos>> 
> A splintered journal pokes into its own 
> contradictions> In These Times | April 24-30, 
> 1991>>> WHY WOULD A JOURNAL that has described 
> itself as "the philosophical> conscience of the 
> American left" and "a journal of radical 
> thought"> invite a senior contributing editor 
> of The World & I*a publication of> Rev. Sun 
> Myung Moon's Washington Times corporation*into 
> its editorial> circle? The journal is Telos, 
> and its new comrade is Paul Gottfried, a> 
> self-described "reactionary" who has also 
> written for such> publications as Policy 
> Review, the official magazine of the Heritage> 
> Foundation. Why would someone with Gottfried's 
> politics be interested> in a journal like 
> Telos?>> Gottfried claims to detest the 
> bureaucratic welfare state for its> uprooting 
> of the family and of traditional community. He 
> thus feels> comfortable with a group like 
> Telos, whose critique of the capitalist> 
> welfare state (and of the former Soviet-style 
> states) has, for two> decades, been trenchant. 
> The kind of community Gottfried is interested> 
> in preserving, by his own admission, is one 
> fraught with traditional> hierarchies. "I do 
> believe in the inevitability of patriarchy," 
> he> says, while claiming to be "more afraid of 
> the meddling bureaucrats in> the Equality 
> Opportunities Commission than in the 
> recrudescence of> Klan violence.">> 
> Heidegger*sidestep or goose step>> Two recent 
> events inside the pages of Telos illuminate the 
> ideological> changes the journal is undergoing. 
> In a recent Telos book review,> Gottfried 
> plunges straight into the raging debate over 
> the Nazism of> the late German philosopher 
> Martin Heidegger, disputing the claim of> 
> Victor Farias (author of the book Heidegger and 
> Nazism) that> Heidegger's philosophy is deeply 
> contaminated with fascism. Farias> called 
> attention to such moments in Heidegger's career 
> as his 1933> reference to "the glory and the 
> greatness of the Hitler revolution,"> and to a 
> speech to German students that same year in 
> which Heidegger> proclaimed: "Doctrine and 
> 'ideas' shall no longer govern your> existence. 
> The Führer himself, and only he, is the current 
> and future> reality of Germany, and his word is your law.">>



>Heidegger, in a 1948 letter to Herbert Marcuse, 
>explained his> attraction to Nazism in these 
>words: "I 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 dangers of communism.">>



>  "Should Heidegger," wrote Gottfried, "while 
> trying to demonstrate his> Nazi beliefs, have 
> stressed disjunctions rather than links between 
> his> philosophy and his political career?" 
> Gottfried concluded that> "Heidegger's most 
> inexcusable sin seems to have been that he> 
> challenged a still-dominant mindset. He dared 
> to state that human> fulfillment is not likely 
> to be attained through an ever-expanding> 
> technology or in a managerial society, and that 
> democratic> individualism has resulted in the 
> loss of cultural specificity and in> 
> delegitimating long-established community.">> 
> Telos editor Paul Piccone defends Gottfried's 
> review, arguing that> there is no connection 
> between Heidegger's fascism and his 
> philosophy.> "Gottfried is right, and Farias is 
> wrong," he claims. (This distances> Piccone 
> significantly from Jürgen Habermas, the German 
> social theorist> who has, with Farias, pointed 
> to the important connections between> 
> Heidegger's political commitments and 
> philosophical project. Habermas,> once close to 
> the Telos group*they put out a special issue on 
> the> occasion of his 50th birthday*has been the 
> object of scathing attacks> in the journal's 
> pages in recent years.)>> Dubious 
> rehabilitations>> Heidegger is not the only 
> Nazi intellectual Telos has defended> recently. 
> In the summer of 1987 they published a "special 
> issue" on> Carl Schmitt, the German legal 
> theorist and, in the words of Hannah> Arendt, 
> "convinced Nazi," who authored no fewer than 
> five books and 35> tracts in support of 
> Hitler's regime during the period of 1933-36.>> 
> According to historian Richard Wolin, "During 
> this phase, there were> few depths to which 
> Schmitt would not sink: he penned an essay in> 
> support of the bloody SA purge of June 30, 
> 1934*the famous 'Night of> the Long 
> Knives'*with the ominous title "The Führer 
> protects the> law.'" The following year, 
> Schmitt authored an article endorsing the> 
> Nuremberg anti-Semitic legislation of 1935. 
> But, wrote Gary Ulmen, the> main catalyst 
> behind Telos' rehabilitation of Schmitt, "it is 
> always a> mistake to evaluate the significance 
> of a thinker and judge his or her> writings on 
> the basis of personal political decision, good 
> or bad.">> In their joint introduction to the 
> special issue on Schmitt, Ulmen and> Piccone 
> wrote frankly of the irony in their attempt to 
> encourage a> restored interest in Schmitt's 
> work: "Carl Schmitt is an extremely> 
> controversial figure, compromised by his 
> collusion with Nazism at the> peak of his 
> career and throughout his life a European 
> conservative> whose authoritarian political 
> objectives have never been in doubt. So> what 
> is a nice leftist journal like Telos doing in a 
> theoretical dive> like this?">> "However one 
> views the situation," they went on, "Schmitt's> 
> work*ranging all the way from political 
> romanticism to guerrilla> warfare*is clearly 
> one of the most important contributions to> 
> 20th-century political theory and deserves to 
> be seriously> confronted.">> Schmitt's central 
> contention was that modern parliamentary 
> liberalism> as a political form is incompatible 
> with democracy because the former> inevitably 
> degenerates into a system of fragmented 
> interest-group> conflicts and thereby 
> undermines the "legitimacy" necessary to 
> sustain> the latter. Schmitt argued this case 
> prolifically, authoring a series> of 
> influential books and essays, including The 
> Crisis of Parliamentary> Democracy. Although 
> Schmitt's political commitments were clearly> 
> right-wing, his theories about liberal 
> democracy were picked up by a> number of 
> European Leninists who joined Schmitt in 
> feeling the need> for an authoritarian 
> structure (for them, the Communist Party) to> 
> provide the power necessary to run the state.>> 
> According to Wolin, what Schmitt longed after 
> as a replacement for> parliamentary democracy 
> was a "Führer's democracy," a system in which> 
> the population submits to the authority of a 
> ruler. "There is a> terrifying degree of 
> continuity," says Wolin, between Schmitt's> 
> "authoritarian political thought and his base 
> servility under the> Nazis. Schmitt's doctrines 
> call for a leader to make decisions, and in> 
> Hitler he found his man.">> Piccone and Ulmen 
> argue, however, that "Schmitt's rigor, 
> conditioned> no doubt by his training in 
> jurisprudence, compounded with his> no-nonsense 
> approach to concrete power relations, can 
> provide a> healthy corrective to the 
> predominant leftist moralism, which more> often 
> than not clouds judgment to the point of 
> precluding effective> political analysis.">> A 
> long strange trip>> Telos didn't start out on 
> this ideological footing, however. It> 
> published the proceedings of its "First 
> International Conference" as a> book, Towards a 
> New Marxism, in 1970. The collection included 
> essays> such as Piccone's "Phenomenological 
> Marxism" and the late Raya> Dunayevskaya's 
> "Hegelian Leninism." Telos went on to publish 
> books> such as Gustav Landauer's For Socialism 
> and Antonio Labriola's> Socialism and 
> Philosophy in 1980.>> Although Telos had always 
> been critical of orthodox Marxism, there was> 
> no question of its commitment to 
> socialism*indeed, to some> reconstructed 
> version of Marxist theory. In Piccone's own 
> (1987)> words, Telos began with a "systematic 
> effort to retrieve the lost and> suppressed 
> tradition of Western Marxism. ... Of course, at 
> that time> we had not yet realized that Western 
> Marxism, in all its variations,> would also 
> turn out to be a dud, but it certainly seemed a 
> worthwhile> effort.">> Today Telos stands 
> ideological light-years away from its recent 
> past.> Piccone is a virulent anti-Marxist and 
> eschews the terms "socialist"> and "leftist." 
> What could be behind the move he so quickly 
> made from> neo-Marxism to neo-Schmittianism?>> 
> In a 1987 issue of the editors' newsletter (the 
> Telos Public Sphere),> Piccone acknowledged a 
> crisis at the journal*both organizational and> 
> theoretical: "Half of our editors have retired 
> intellectually and> burned out politically, the 
> other half [are] rapidly becoming senile,> 
> cynical or purely careerist, while the rest are 
> beset by a combination> of both. ... What I 
> think has happened is that, with the 
> disappearance> of any meaningful political 
> 'movement' and the abandonment of the> Marxist 
> paradigm, we have scattered in many 
> directions*not always> necessarily compatible." 
> He bluntly called on his fellow editors to> 
> ask, "What do we stand for, and what are we 
> attempting to accomplish> with Telos?">> He 
> concluded candidly that, "in a nutshell, our 
> relation to capitalism> has become much more 
> tolerant and nuanced than ever before, 
> especially> in light of the disasters 
> associated with any kind of socialism or> 
> planned economies." He went on to lament that 
> "lately Telos has not> been flooded by much on 
> the way of dynamite theoretical contributions.> 
> ... Either we move beyond this point or we are 
> not going to be around> very long.">> In fact, 
> it was precisely during this period that 
> several Telos> editors resigned (and shortly 
> thereafter that such friends as Ulmen> and 
> Gottfried got involved with the journal). Among 
> the reasons> editors gave for leaving the 
> journal were Piccone's "support of U.S.> armed 
> intervention in Nicaragua" and "an atmosphere 
> [at the journal]> that is not only sexist but 
> is demeaning to all human beings." In> response 
> to criticisms that the journal lacked any 
> feminist> perspective, Piccone responded by 
> suggesting that feminism "be kept in> the 
> kitchen." (Piccone's personality has been 
> described as "vulgar"> and "obnoxious" by 
> several former editors.)>> The right turn at 
> Telos has appeared in its most obscene form,> 
> however, only recently. Piccone announced his 
> criticism of U.S. policy> in the Persian Gulf 
> just days before the war broke out by 
> lamenting> that George Bush had waited so long 
> to bomb Iraq. Piccone wanted to> see Saddam 
> Hussein destroyed, even if it meant nuclear 
> weapons being> dropped in his country. Why? The 
> Iraqi dictator's military ambitions> and 
> aggressive actions in the region made him an 
> impediment to order> and stability, Piccone 
> explained.>> Why would someone like Piccone be 
> interested in preserving the kind of> order and 
> stability currently in place (i.e., the order 
> of the world> capitalist system)? Because, he 
> explained, like it or not, it's the> only 
> system in the world and will remain so [his 
> emphasis] for as long> as we're around.>> 
> Left-wing cannibalism>> According to Douglas 
> Kellner, a philosopher and social critic who> 
> wrote for Telos before its turn to the right, 
> "Telos represents the> collapse of a certain 
> segment of the left intelligentsia that> 
> renounced its leftism and moved to totally 
> reactionary positions, and> in so doing drove 
> away all the intelligent and creative 
> progressives> who once formed the best of 
> Telos. All that is left are a few> embittered 
> and alienated pseudo-intellectuals who focus 
> their> 'critique' on their former comrades 
> while Reagan and Bush have> destroyed American 
> democracy and now the Middle East.">> 
> Ironically, it was Gottfried who, at Telos' 
> 1990 conference (held in> Elizabethtown, Pa., 
> where Gottfried teaches political science and 
> was> thus able to persuade Elizabethtown 
> College to finance a Telos weekend> on its 
> campus), suggested to his newfound colleagues 
> that they were> evading any discussion of what 
> he perceived to be an ideological> division 
> within the group. He pointed out that there 
> seemed to be two> distinct positions on the 
> editorial board: One, rooted in the critical> 
> tradition, has anti-authoritarian instincts and 
> counter-establishment> politics; the other, 
> coming more from the tradition of organic> 
> conservatism, criticizes existing structures of 
> power but values a> return to more established 
> traditions of order and authority. While> the 
> two camps are united on certain fronts, 
> Gottfried argued, their> profound differences 
> should not be denied or belittled.>> 
> Gottfried's attempt to provoke discussion on 
> this apparently touchy> subject was met with 
> hostile resistance from Gary Ulmen, whom> 
> Gottfried had named as being part of the 
> second, more conservative,> camp. Ulmen 
> emphatically eschewed Gottfried's use of these 
> ideological> categories, shouting, "We simply 
> reject them.">> The journal recently advertised 
> that its "Second Elizabethtown"> conference 
> would take "as its point of departure 
> Christopher Lasch's> new book, The True and 
> Only Heaven." Among other things, Lasch> 
> (another ex-leftist with an interesting 
> political pedigree) now argues> that the 
> "left"/"right" distinction has become obsolete. 
> Perhaps> denying the meaningfulness of "left" 
> and "right" is Telos' way of> moving from one 
> to the other without admitting it.>> I told 
> Piccone that his new practice of refusing to 
> employ such> "meaningless" political vocabulary 
> reminds me of the slogan of the New> Age 
> Greens: "We're neither left nor right*we're in 
> front." "No, no,"> he explained. "We're 
> backwards."> Posted by Danny at April 24, 1991 11:18 PM