Thursday, March 13, 2014

Omnivore - Kill the Philosopher in Your Head

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, another collection of philosophy links for your consumption. 

Release of Heidegger’s 
‘Black Notebooks’ Reignites Debate Over Nazi Ideology 1
“We knew that he had expressed anti-Semitism as private insights, but this shows anti-Semitism tied in to his philosophy,” says Peter Trawny, director of the Martin Heidegger Institute at the U. of Wuppertal. - Jens Grossmann/Laif for The Chronicle
Of particular note here is a review of the new Black Notebooks from Martin Heidegger. These notebooks show the real, very angry Heidegger from the 1930s and 40s, and it shows him as an anti-Semite once and for all.
"In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Heidegger was very angry," says Mr. Trawny. By then, he says, the philosopher realized that both Nazi ideology and his own philosophical mission, which was predicated on a national revolution and Germany’s dominance in Europe, were going to fail. "In this anger, he makes reference to Jews, including some passages that are extremely hostile. We knew that he had expressed anti-Semitism as private insights, but this shows anti-Semitism tied in to his philosophy," says Mr. Trawny.

The editor says Heidegger’s references to a controlling "world Jewry" and to a collusion of "rootless" Jews in both international capitalism and communism are essentially the logic that informs the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous, early 20th-century, anti-Semitic forgery that claims to show a Jewish conspiracy for global domination. "He doesn’t say he’s read The Protocols," says Mr. Trawny, "but that’s not necessary to share a certain kind of anti-Semitism with the Protocols. Nazi propaganda was full of exactly this kind of anti-Semitism."
Of course, there are other good links below, but that one stood out.

Kill the philosopher in your head


Mar 12 2014
3:00PM

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