PHRASE IN DISPUTE:
“THE PERHAPS EVEN MORE DEVASTATING CHARGE”
At one crucial juncture in her response to Orozco and Waite, Zuckert writes:
Since Gadamer never explicitly mentioned National Socialism in either of the essays he wrote under the regime, one might conclude that the relation between what he wrote and the political context necessarily remains a matter of “interpretation.” But are there no canons or standards of interpretation? That would be truly ironic, and perhaps even more devastating to Gadamer than the charge that he collaborated with an immoral regime in order to advance his own scholarly career, since he devoted his major work to articulating just such standards, [emphases added]
This is a remarkable statement because effective on several levels. It will be necessary to return to Gadamer's relationship to “National Socialism” in a moment, but first note that the argument Zuckert is contesting suggests that there is a standard and canon of mentioning without explicitly mentioning. This is what “allusion” in the phrase “art of allusion” means, and what the virgule in “exo/esotericism” also indicates (as does the concept “Radio Nietzsche” or “Nietzsche's corps/e”).[13] Of course, one might conclude from this “art of allusion” (or its cognates) that a text's relation to the context in which it appears is therefore “a matter of ‘interpretation’”; obviously, if it is all “a matter of ‘interpretation,’” one can indeed conclude anything about anything—a particularly vexing problem if there is no metadiscursive system to which all sides can appeal for adjudication of their disputes. But this is not necessarily or only what the canon and standard of interpretation called, say, “the art of allusion” concludes. That there are canons and standards of interpretation goes without saying; this is something we know from, and as, the history of philosophy. And, of course, Gadamer has articulated one standard of interpretation and is part of one canon of interpretation. But, as already intimated, the problems here are these: i) rival standards and canons eventually come into collision with one another; 2) there is, according to relativism and historicism, no metacanon or metastandard to adjudicate between them; and 3) at least one other standard and canon attacks relativism and historicism on the grounds that something like a metastandard does exist and it certainly has existed. For example, Straussians—at least exoterically—mount their attack on this basis. Readers of this festschrift
In one view, relativism and historicism (and pluralism) conclude that relativism and historicism are true, hence the only truth. But what they cannot then account for is the fact that since, according to their own argument, they themselves have come into existence historically, there was a position that was nonrelativist and nonhistoricist that preceded them, and since everything is here argued to be historical, hence fated not only to be born but to die, historicism and relativism, having been born at a specific historical moment, will also die, and be replaced again by, say, the nonrelativist and nonhistoricist.[17] Actually, however, these ideological terms are simplistic and misleading, even in historical terms, insofar as in each period there is not only overlap between relativist and nonrelativist arguments, but also even within all arguments, whether they present themselves as relativist or as nonrelativist. The basic question remains, however: To which canon do we adhere, and which do we choose to combat, or are we forced to combat? (“The truth is that one cannot always choose the form of war one wants.”)[18] Let us be clear: appeal to moderation and dialogue is part of {he problem, not the solution, z/‘that appeal is precisely what is being challenged. In a sense, viewed historically, no matter which position one adapts, it is all “a matter of
Returning, however, to another part of Zuckert's statement, even if Gadamer has not convinced everyone that his standards are internally coherent and appropriate, this can hardly be a “devastating charge” to Gadamer specifically. It would hold true of everyone in the history of philosophy to date, assuming that no one can appeal to a metadiscourse able to adjudicate between contesting opinions. Nor would this fact either be “more devastating” or be “perhaps more devastating” than the “charge” that Gadamer “collaborated with an immoral regime in order to advance his own scholarly career.” Gadamer himself has admitted (though not quite in so many words) that he collaborated with arguably the most immoral regime in human history. (Though we need not argue in absolute or quantitative terms. Any immoral regime will do nicely, and which “regime” is not in some sense immoral, not least capitalism? Questions like this prompt Waite with the communist philosopher and self-described Platonist Alain Badiou to define “thought” sensu stricto as “nothing other than the desire to finish with the exorbitant excess of the State.”)[19] Gadamer has also implied (as Zuckert will also note) that his motivations for this collaboration were opportunist in that they included not only the preservation of his own life and that of his “family, students, and friends,” but (as Zuckert ventriloquizes him) also the salvation of philosophy (both as institution and as philosophical hermeneutics) in for him profoundly antiphilosophical times. With regard to opportunism more generally, Gadamer turned an interesting phrase in his 1988 response to the attacks on Heidegger in Victor Farias's book (French from the Spanish in 1987; German from the French in 1989): ‘Yet he was no mere opportunist” (Er war dock kein blqfler Opportunist).[20] Which is not to say, however, that either Heidegger or mutatis mutandis Gadamer were not opportunists—only that they were not mere opportunists.[21] Moreover, Heidegger was arguably far less an opportunist or collaborator than Gadamer, if Heidegger was indeed a true believer in what Gadamer calls Heidegger's “political illusion.”[22] True believers are sensu stricto neither opportunists nor collaborators. And, by his own admission, Gadamer was both (at least to some degree, which still needs to be specified).
But the point so far is that neither Gadamer's acts of collaboration and opportunism nor their admission has proven “devastating” to him. Nor were Heidegger's acts ultimately devastating to Gadamer's greatest teacher, who did lose his academic teaching position after the war, but who has also become incomparably more influential than his at times quite critical student, who did not. Certainly the charge of collaboration can be devastating. Some collaborators are tried and executed or incarcerated; some are beaten to death by outraged compatriots before they can stand before the victor's trial. But this is not what happened to these two philosophers. Quite to the contrary: sooner or later they were both quite lavishly rewarded. Let us leave Heidegger aside to return to Zuckert's argument: Gadamer is not, and apparently cannot be, devastated either by the charge that he has not developed universally binding, or even internally coherent, standards of interpretation, or by the charge that he collaborated with an immoral regime, or that he practiced (or practices) the art of allusion or exo/esotericism.
If by “devastation” one means, at least in part, physical death or some form of psychological death (trauma), or even simply loss of influence, prestige, and honor, those people who have been really devastated include those from early 1934 on who were (legally) incarcerated and murdered by the “immoral regime” (which had its own kind of morality and laws) with which many others alongside Gadamer collaborated. One can even say that Hitler himself and all the true believers and collaborators tried at Nuremberg after the war were devastated in this sense; as were their victims, including Jews, communists, and many others both inside and outside Germany, in the Grojideutsches Reich and its imperialist and capitalist war. But Gadamer was not, is not, and apparently cannot be devastated in this sense, either.
Furthermore, Gadamer cannot be devastated for the reasons of his collaboration and opportunism, which (as he himself says, and as Zuckert reminds us) were precisely to save himself and his friends and family, to save his academic career, and to save philosophy itself—one version of philosophy, it should go without saying. This philosophy survived the Third Reich to live on in postwar divided Germany and now in once-again unified Germany, where it has as many friends as it does abroad. Not only has this philosophy not been devastated, and apparently cannot be, but it has survived both by means of collaboration with Hitlerian Germany, obviously, and subsequently it has survived the admission that it was collaboratory and opportunistic. Other questions doubtless remain as to whether this version of philosophy has been devastating to some people (who, say, cannot find academic employment because they attack it), or whether it can and should be devastated by others. But in any case, Zuckert is to be saluted for having opened up this can of worms, too, and for her agility in wriggling out of it by so successfully not taking her own clear stand in the matter beyond appealing
The (hermeneutic or, better, transferential) question remains as to what Zuckert's own position in all this “aporia” might be, both as objective political scientist and as prescriber of political virtues. Surely part of the success of her approach depends on keeping the precise nature of this position (her “site of enunciation”) as concealed, implicit, and allusive as possible. What, then (for her or for others), would constitute the most “devastating charge”—against Gadamer or anyone? In her response to Orozco and Waite, Zuckert appears to take Gadamer's position grosso modo by defending and promoting “moderation” on both objective and prescriptive grounds, as we have begun to see. In her book Postmodern Platos: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, Derrida (1996), however, one may find a related but at the same time rather different position. Her chapter on Gadamer concludes with this remark: “Gadamer is fundamentally a liberal. Arguing that history has no necessary direction and that it may even be reversed, both Strauss and Derrida raise questions about the character of human freedom as well.”[23]
Interrupting the slyly vacuous Zuckert briefly, one might note that if it is true that Gadamer is “fundamentally a liberal,” his foundation, or at least his conceptual edifice and hermeneutic practice, seems to be rather different from other kinds of liberalism, including that of Strauss; and it is perhaps not too much to infer that Zuckert herself would define herself as some sort of liberal, and certainly she presents herself as an advocate of moderation and dialogue. Be this as it may, Zuckert is correct to imply that the position of Waite, in its immoderation, is that of neither a liberal nor a humanist insofar as humanism is defined as practicing the virtue of moderation, in her sense, or rather what Lenin might call the “illusion of moderation,” and insofar as Waite would attack any merely formal democracy in which de facto powerless individual subjects “possess” theoretical, de jure rights that “thousands of obstacles” (Lenin) prohibit them from ever putting into practice.[24] As Spinoza showed in his Political Treatise, rights can have meaning only when they are coextensive with actual power; and when rights are coextensive with power, then the individual (the Cartesian imperium in imperio) cannot form the basis for analysis or practice insofar as isolated (“liberal-humanist”) individuals in fact never have more than a little actual power. As succinctly put by folk wisdom, “dui sunnu li putenti: Cu’ havi assai e cu’ nun havi nenti” (the powerful are two: those with much and those with nothing). Only what Spinoza called the multitudo can be the true bearer of reason against the destructive passions of individual subjects and small groups of individual subjects. It is “natural” (to paraphrase both Lenin and Spinoza) for a liberal to speak of “moderation,” “dialogue,” or “democracy” in general; but then the question always is: On behalf of what interest, indeed of what class?
Now, whether one might agree or disagree with Zuckert's depiction in her book either of Gadamer as “fundamentally a liberal” or with her ensuing analysis of Strauss and Derrida, including their different critiques of teleology and human freedom, one recognizes that the voice speaking in the just-cited statement from her book is that of a (dare one say, relatively 1?) neutral observer, whose observations, as such, are presumably open to dispute, acceptance, or dialogue. This political-scientific voice does not necessarily endorse or reject Gadamer, nor anyone else, though obviously one might well assume that the spirit of this neutral voice does not preclude taking sides with a version of Gadamerian dialogue and moderation (though, of course, whether such neutrality is compatible with Gadamer's notion of the constitutive role of prejudgment and prejudice in all hermeneutic acts may pose an insuperable problem here), even in response to the different (prima facie opposed) criticisms of Gadamer by Strauss and by Derrida. The reader might infer the existence of this Gadamerian Zuckert from the aforementioned conclusion to her response to Orozco and Waite—a conclusion immediately prefaced by the emphatic statement that “The twentieth-century philosopher who opposes such ‘spiritual’ warfare [sc. that of Nietzsche and mutatis mutandis Waite] is Hans-Georg Gadamer.” And we recall that Orozco and Waite are being charged with two things: i) that they have understood neither Gadamer's supreme import in our century nor “the essential character of Gadamer's hermeneutics,” incapable or unwilling as they are to attend to what Gadamer “actually says”; and 2) that this essential character lies in the principle of moderation, in opposition to all “ei-ther/or's,” and that we all should or must adapt this principle. However, in her book Postmodern Platos, having proceeded to discuss both Strauss and Derrida (and much else besides), Zuckert concludes her entire argument by an apparent embrace not of Gadamer (nor of Derrida) but of Strauss. Here are her book's final sentences:
By challenging his readers to reread the history of philosophy in terms of a strict disjunction between reason and revelation, Strauss asks them to study that history in a most untraditional way. All his own readings of individual philosophers, including preeminently his reading of Plato, have proven to be extremely controversial. That is, they invite debate and rebuttal. But if the purpose of the contemporary return to Plato is to show that philosophy has a future, he may have succeeded in fulfilling that purpose by demonstrating the need for an untraditional reading of the tradition better than anyone else.[25]
So, although Gadamer is “the twentieth-century philosopher” of “moderation,” Strauss may have done something else: namely, “to show that philosophy has a future … by demonstrating the need for an untraditional reading
In sum, Zuckert's own position in all this thus appears to be twofold. i) Unlike Zuckert's Gadamer, who “explicitly seeks to mediate,” “neither Orozco nor Waite recognizes any center or middle in politics; they see only either/or's.” And this, for Zuckert, is both objectively true and lamentable. By contrast, for her, Gadamer's position against “either/or” positions is both objectively true and laudable. And yet 2) Strauss is also right to suggest that there is, and should be, at least one very basic and primary “strict disjunction” (i.e., “between reason and revelation” or “Athens and Jerusalem”): in other words, a very strict “either/or” position that—ultimately—can not and should not be mediated (although Strauss, in one of his moods, certainly did mediate between them in some respects). In yet other words, it is by taking sides with these two—themselves incompatible—positions that Zuckert can triumph over any opponent who is in search of alternatives.[26] In this, Strauss himself might say that Zuckert is Gadamerian, not Straussian, due to her own brand of eclecticism and relativism—her appeal to him at the end of her book notwithstanding. For Zuckert appears here to follow one of Gadamer's dictums, given in response to another collection of essays on or about him, which is at once historicist and relativist: “Can one create a solidarity which rests solely upon communal interests? In light of what humanity is and has become, it seems to me more sensible for us to take the advice that Aristotle is said to have given Alexander the Great: ‘To be a Greek to the Greeks, a Persian to the Persians.’”[27] Or, in Zuckert's case, “When writing in a festschrift on Gadamer, do like Gadamer; when writing a book appealing to Straussians, do like Strauss.” Or, if you prefer, “When in Rome, do like a Roman; or, when in Syracuse, do like a Syracusian.” What can one do but salute such a powerful and mobile theoria, such a phronesis? That is the question.