E. Heidegger's Being and Time , Section 74

After the last passage quoted, Scheler goes on to say that in order for us to recognize the new savior's arrival when he comes, we must hear the «great preach of recent history with the inner ears of our faith and our love»; we must hear not only the words «but rather the call of God to turn back {diesen Umkehrruf Gottes} in the things, in history itself. Everyone has to try to turn himself, every human being, every family, every group. It is only in a total loyalty {Gesamttreue} that this evil gaze onto the world, which has led to the dominion of mammon, can melt» (PPS 646).

In the context of a concept of history as development, falling-down-and-away-from, and renaissance, one can take all the metaphors literally. People move along with the development of society. Many believe that it will lead upward toward the sun, to a liberal society or to socialism. However, for right-wingers the road leads away from the sun, down into a desert of ice. As in Scheler's formulation of 1915—we have to expel Anglo-American capitalism «from {our} blood like a foreign poison» (PPS 153)—and as in Heidegger's sentence on Widerruf (BT 438; SZ 386), society must be canceled. The political structure of society will simply be expelled when the new Christ comes. As for the economic structure of society, leftists would say of Scheler's proposal that that structure remains unchanged since Scheler does not want the institution of private property to be sublated. For, according to Scheler, capitalism is not a matter of private property. Thus, the expulsion concerns the capitalist Gesinnung or mentality that has to be replaced with a communitarian Gesinnung. «Everyone» (PPS 646) has to be prepared so he does not miss this event. Everyone can prepare himself by listening to the «call of God to turn back» in the things, and in history itself, a call the liberals and

leftists don't want to hear. Umkehren is «to turn back.» I move forward on the road, and then I kehre um, that is, I turn around and move back into the direction I came from. For a Christian, it is at the same time a move upward, toward God. Listening to the call, we realize that we are moving down into a desert of ice, that the promised land is where we came from, what we have fallen away from, and that we have to make an «authentic repetition of a possibility of existence that has been» (BT 437; SZ 385). Since we are already in the icy desert, the repetition is not a simple one but rather an Erwiderung that, as such, is a Widerruf of society (BT 438; SZ 386). In the section on conscience, Heidegger writes:

In calling forth to something, the "whence" of the calling {das Woher des Rufens} is the "whither" to which we are called back {das Wohin des Zurückrufens}. When the call gives us a potentiality-for-Being to understand, it does not give us one which is ideal and universal; it discloses it as that which has been currently individualized and which belongs to that particular Dasein. We have not fully determined the character of the call as disclosure until we understand it as one which calls us back in calling us forth {als vorrufender Rückruf}. (BT 325f.; SZ 280)

We are engaged in some project and move forward on the timeline toward the future. In our project, we happily enjoy, or at least have given in, «to be subsumed under the idea of a business procedure that can be regulated» (BT 340; «Idee eines regelbaren Geschäftsganges,» SZ 294; one of Heidegger's terms for Gesellschaft). The call doesn't stop our forward movement on the timeline, for it does not physically kill us. It does call us back, however, from the project we are engaged in. Calling us back, it calls us «vor auf das Schuldigsein » (SZ 291; «forth to Being- guilty,» BT 337), and by this it opens up «the very possibility of taking action » (BT 340; «die Möglichkeit zu handeln ,» ST 294) for us. Heidegger need not add «authentically.» His emphasis, the entire sentence, and the entire paragraph make sufficiently clear that he is talking about Daseine who, as he says in the last sentence of the paragraph, «hear it authentically » (BT 341; «im eigentlich hörenden Anrufverstehen,» SZ 294). As Scheler's metaphors, Heidegger's can be taken quite literally. The call calls us forth, that is, calls upon us to step out of the crowd that plods forward on the road called downward plunge. Understanding the call, authentic Daseine realize that it calls them back to the site of the call itself, from where the call calls. As one can see already in these passages, Heidegger's notion of the call of conscience is directed against an interpretation of conscience in terms of universal reason. It is also directed against the concept of just exchange, which in the modern era is closely related to that of reason. In fact, what Heidegger criticizes as inauthentic interpretation of conscience, and what he calls upon us to leave behind, is Gesellschaft and a thinking in terms of Gesellschaft. The other aspect of Gesellschaft, the public

sphere, Berlin, Weimar, and the mass media, Heidegger criticizes in the section B entitled "The Everyday Being of the 'There', and the Falling {Ver-fallen} of Dasein," as «idle talk,» «curiosity,» «ambiguity» (BT 210ff.; SZ 166ff.). In society, we are in the «downward plunge » and «turbulence » (BT 223; «Absturz » and «Wirbel ,» ST 178). We have fallen into Gesellschaft out of the world of the craftsmen, the world of the , where we encounter beings as «equipment» (BT 96; SZ 68). In some ways, Heidegger's Being and Time has the same structure as all the literature on Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. We begin in Gemeinschaft and somehow we end up in Gesellschaft. In Gesellschaft, we are lonely, either not caring about others or even antagonistic to them: «Dasein maintains itself proximally and for the most part in the deficient modes of solicitude. Being for, against, or without one another, passing one another by, not "mattering" to one another—these are possible ways of solicitude. And it is precisely these last-named deficient and Indifferent modes that characterize everyday, average Being-with-one-another» (BT 158; SZ 121). However, as was already mentioned,^[38] the downward plunge is not yet over. For, somehow, the deficient mode of solicitude turns into a positive mode of solicitude, namely, socialism or social democracy as the «truth» of Gesellschaft. In it, the subjects lose the kind of fake freedom and autonomy they enjoy in the liberal Gesellschaft. «The Other» becomes the object of social welfare work, in which «the Other can become one who is dominated and dependent, even if this domination is a tacit one and remains hidden from him» (BT 158; SZ 122). It is at this point, under the threat of socialism, that it becomes possible to turn around the downward plunge. For, there is another positive mode of solicitude, one Heidegger only hints at darkly after his description of Gesellschaft:

A Being-with-one-another which arises [entspringt] from one's doing the same thing as someone else, not only keeps for the most part within the outer limits, but enters the mode of distance and reserve. The Being-with-one-another of those who are hired for the same affair often thrives only on mistrust. On the other hand, when they devote themselves to the same affair in common, their doing so is determined by the manner in which their Dasein, each in its own way, has been taken hold of. They thus become authentically bound together, and this makes possible the right kind of objectivity [die rechte Sachlichkeit], which frees the other in his freedom for himself. (BT 159; SZ 122)^[39]

Though I would disagree, one might say that in the section on conscience Heidegger still leaves open whether the step out of Gesellschaft leads to the political Right or the political Left.^[40] Even if, however, the section on historicality stood alone and were not preceded by the sections on falling and on conscience and solicitude, one sees easily that Heidegger' s concept of historicality is identical to Hitler's and Scheler's ideas of history and, thus, politically on the Right. Before I summarize Heidegger's notion and present some

concluding remarks, I would like to address the two general problems of the political Right I mentioned in chapters 1 and 2.

As is already clear from my discussion of Hitler's and Scheler's works, one problem of the political Right was which of the different pasts one had to repeat. Should people just go back to the Kaiserreich and rerealize it? Or, via the Renaissance in Italy—the «country where the lemons grow,» as Goethe had said—could it turn out that the Germans too had the great personalities whom Nietzsche admired so much? Should the world of the knights with their Minnesang, minnesong be repeated? Maybe, however, what ought to be rerealized is the hierarchy supposedly developed by Thomas Aquinas, who had been declared the official theologian of the Roman Catholic Church as recently as 1879. Or perhaps one needs to go back even farther and rerealize the German people of early history when they were still living in the dark forests. Or are the Greeks to be included among the real Germans and Aryans, as Hitler also acknowledged?^[41] The other problem was whether the past to be rerealized should be rerealized the way it was lived out when it was present, or whether its rerealization should incorporate the major achievements of modern times, namely, private property of the means of production on a large scale and modern technology? From the viewpoint of Hitler, Scheler had given an answer that was doubly naive. First, Scheler wanted to rerealize the early Christian love community. Second, he wanted the rerealization of this very community he distinguished so sharply from Protestant ethics and even from Luke to incorporate modern technology. For Scheler maintained that the Germans should be prepared for an entire series of wars against England (PPS 121). However, he also has another reason for this. The basic principle of his philosophy is that «for value-personalism, all history {alle Gemeinschaft und Geschichte} has its goal in the being and activity of persons » (FEe 505; FE 496; read «all community and history»). Another sentence seems to be incompatible with this basic principle, however: «in the course of history the driving forces behind historical change were to shift more and more from persons to the masses» (FEe 505; FE 496). However, these sentences don't contradict each other, according to Scheler, but the second one even supports the basic principle (FEe 505; FE 496). This «singular nexus» allows for another principle:

All positive values that can be realized by extra personal and extras piritual powers ought to be so realized. Or, more briefly, everything that can be mechanized ought to be mechanized. Needless to say, this proposition does not coincide with the orientation of thinking in positivistic ethics, e.g., the ethics of H. Spencer, which sees in the progressive exclusion of love, sacrifice, conscience, duty {Liebe, Opfer, Gewissen, Pflichtzwang}—and finally the person and spirit in general—a growing "progress" in history. But this proposition does establish a clear boundary between all truly ethical personalism and idealism and their truly reactionary and "romantic" copies {Scheinformen}, which would

artificially maintain and fix the personal principle at the expense of a possible mechanism, e.g., love and sacrifice at the expense of a possible solidarity of interests, spiritual personal activity at the expense of a possible collective organization and mechanism. These copies do not serve to liberate the personal in men; on the contrary, they serve to maintain the servitude of the personal. Here we will not elaborate on the range of applicability of this principle but will only point out that it is valid for all forms of personal spirit, not only singular but also collective forms, for instance, for nations in relation to the international mechanism of civilization. Increasing mechanization in actualizing values that are at all mechanizable lifts the peculiarity and self-value of personal forms of spirit to ever purer heights; it does not destroy them, as both positivism and false personalism assume, though with opposing assessments. (FEe 506; FE 496f.)

Hitler has only contempt for those who promote «romantic copies.» He polemicizes against those who sport «flowing beards and primeval Teutonic gestures» (MKe 462; MK 517), and praises the Prussian state for having «adapted to the modern world and put into organized form» the «German army's instinct of self-preservation and self-defense» (MKe 647; MK 734). Also, «our» politics must not just repeat old ways. Adherence to the «alliance with the Hapsburg state cadaver» out of «sentimentality for the fantastic conception of the Nibelungen» has been «the min of Germany» (MKe 630; MK 712). In Heidegger's terms, such efforts mix up the third meaning of «world» («that 'wherein ' a factical Dasein as such can be said to 'live'») with the first meaning of «word» («the totality of those entities which can be present-at-hand within the world») (BT 93; SZ 64f.).^[42] After the past has been overthrown by Gesellschaft worldwide, or at least in Europe, one cannot just repeat the past in Germany the way it supposedly was at this or that time. The rerealization of the past world in the sense of «that 'wherein ' a factical Dasein as such can be said to 'live'» must abstract from its former realization on the level designated by the first meaning of «world.» Only then is the rerealization strong enough to incorporate modern technology as an achievement of, but by no means identical with, the Gesellschaft that has to be disavowed in order for the past Gemeinschaft to be rerealized. Hitler labels the «romantic copies» a «mechanical restoration of the past» and claims that «with the founding of the NSDAP, for the first time a movement had appeared whose goal did not, like that of the bourgeois parties, consist in a mechanical restoration {mechanischen Restauration} of the past, but in the effort to erect an organic folkish state in place of the present senseless state mechanism» (MKe 534; MK 598; see also MKe 649ff; MK 735ff. and passim).

These thoughts also guide the choice of the flag. One must avoid any allusion to a specific historical state, for this would promote the misunderstanding of reducing the Aryan race to just one, already more or less fallen, his-

torical state. It also would fill people's minds with the concrete modes of that past world, and thus prevent them from being modern and able to cope with the French and the Britons and to conquer Russia. For that reason, the flag of the National Socialists must not be the flag of the Kaiserreich or of some of the individual German states, whether present or past. On the other hand, the flag must contain the colors of the flag of the Kaiserreich, black, red, and white, as they are the German colors and thus are the proper protest against the colors of the flag of the Weimar Republic, black, red, and gold. The spirit of the past, in the sense of the third meaning of «world» in Heidegger, has to be cleansed of any of its former concrete realizations, for each of them would just prevent the rerealization of the past from incorporating the achievements of the modern era. Only if there is no reference to any concrete past, can the rerealization of the past incorporate modern technology and the necessary attitudes. Also, only then is the past sufficiently present in the present time, which has overthrown it, and is sufficiently omnipresent so that it becomes impossible to ridicule it by pointing to, for instance, the «flowing beards» of the old Germans or the mustaches of the officials of the Kaiserreich (MKe 492ff; MK 551ff.). In this way the swastika was chosen: «In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such has always been and always will be anti-Semitic» (MKe 497; MK 557).^[43]

It has often been said that Division Two of Being and Time in general and the section on historicality in particular is not well argued and rather unclear. One can say so only if one isolates Heidegger's text from its historical context and fails to recognize, in Carl Schmitt's terms, its polemical situation; both of these moves are an invitation to, and already a part of, deconstructive interpretations such as Birmingham's. Rather, one should acknowledge that section 74 of Being and Time is a brilliant text and also very clear. In just five pages, Heidegger here concisely summarizes the common motif uniting the parties on the revolutionary political Right in their fight against romantic right-wingers, liberals, and leftists. In the mid-1920s, many Germans were no longer enthusiastic about war, but had «fallen» into the Gesellschaft of a democratic republic. It is here that the Daseine are called upon by the Volksgemeinschaft. They have to get out of Gesellschaft. They cannot do so by relating positively to the Other in the way social democrats transcend Gesellschaft. For the right-wingers know that this leads only deeper into Gesellschaft. In addition, any direct collective effort to get out of Gesellschaft would just be too proletarian and heteronomous. The decision must not result from a debate with social democrats, who finally convince people. Rather, it must be the autonomous and eigenste act of the bourgeois subject, alone with himself and with his authentic Dasein. Only then will people not fall prey to

the social democratic society, but will reestablish the true community. Heidegger cannot refer to models such as Augustine's conversion. As he himself would be the first to point out, not everyone on the Right considered himself a Christian and thus not everyone would appreciate this allusion to our Christian values and humanistic traditions. In addition, systematically such references to Christianity don't serve the purpose. Augustine, as well as most Christians, insisted that Christians leave earthly political matters as they are and explicitly forbade themselves to turn back and to widerrufen the respective societies in order to realize heaven here on earth. Furthermore, Augustine's weibisches Geschluchze, womanish sobbing, in the garden in Milan and also his talkativeness is anachronistic and does not allow for the «reticence» (BT 318; «Verschwiegenheit,» SZ 273) and the «hardness of the will»^[44] required for the struggle to widerrufen society. Each eigentlicher philosopher has called upon us to distance and detach ourselves from worldly matters, to cleanse our minds of the worldly forms, which shape us in our everyday life. In addition, one of the few motifs Hegel adhered to in the transition from the «young Hegel» to the «late Hegel» was that death—the threat of death, which the soldier takes upon himself—is an appropriate means to de-form oneself.^[45] Furthermore, having lost so much property in the war, in inflations and economic crises, people should realize that, indeed, death is the only property no one can take away from a given Dasein.^[46] It is not through some collectivity, but rather through what is our ownmost that the turn has to be brought about. Finally, World War I and the remembrance of it was a common cause of all right-wingers, whether they were fighting for the Kaiserreich or for the rerealization of some other community. At the same time, an allusion to World War I already hints at the reward we will finally get for our courageous act of giving up everything and facing what is our ownmost. Thus, Heidegger evokes the «Helden von Langemarck» as the telos of the step out of society: «Resoluteness gains its authenticity {Eigentlichkeit} as anticipatory resoluteness {vorlaufende Entschlossenheit}. In this, Dasein understands itself with regard to its potentiality-for-Being, and it does so in such a manner that it will go right under the eyes of Death in order thus to take over in its thrownness that entity which it is itself, and to take it over wholly» (BT 434; SZ 382).

World War I and the Weimar Republic were experienced by many, if not all, rightists as, in Hitler's terms, the «great turning point» (MKe 406; MK 450). In the preface to the third edition of Formalism in Ethics , Scheler labeled the «great turning point» the «kairos , i.e., the call of the hour of our human and historical being and life» (FEe xxxi; FE 23); the decisive moment in the course of a sickness, at which alone it is possible for the physician to interfere and to restore the body to its healthy state before it is definitely too late. I have discussed passages in Hitler and Scheler that testify to the peculiar

feeling that existed at the beginning of World War I, namely, that something new had raised its voice and was calling upon people to make a decision. Already prior to that, something strange, uncanny, had cast its shadow over people's ordinary way of living, and they have somehow felt that there was something in the air heralding something new. Rightists claimed that people should realize that there was something wrong with the way of life and assumptions they had taken over from their parents and fellow citizens and had been repeating in their ordinary way of Dasein according to the «they.» According to rightists, «we» somehow feel that behind the forms of ordinary Dasein's life, behind Gesellschaft, something else is emerging that is covered up by them. In Scheler's terms,^[47] «>we» become aware that under our ethos on stratum 2 a new ethos on stratum 1 is emerging, or has always already been there, and that both do not conform to each other; that underneath our explicit judgments and ways of life of our ordinary Dasein something else begins to raise its voice, our eigentliches ethos. The call of the new tells us that «we» have to cancel our ordinary Dasein and replace it with an ethos 2 that conforms to our eigentliches ethos. «We» should do so because it benefits not only ourselves but all of us to get rid of Gesellschaft, even though those who adhere to Gesellschaft claim the opposite and want us to assume not only that our ordinary Dasein is better than our eigentliches ethos but also that there is no eigentliches ethos behind our ordinary Dasein, and that the conflict between our ethos and our eigentliches ethos is reactionary propaganda. Our ethos has become antagonistic. Some ordinary Daseine want to cover up the new emergence of what-has-been-there. They become inauthentic. Authentic Daseine have to realize the new against the inauthentic Daseine. Heidegger encapsulates this in the paragraph on the work of ambiguity ending with the formula: «The authentic existientiell understanding is so far from extricating itself from the way of interpreting Dasein which has come down to us, that in each case it is in terms of {aus} this interpretation, against {gegen} it, and yet again for {für} it, that any possibility one has chosen is seized upon in one's resolution» (BT 435; SZ 383). Authentic Daseine take the eigentliches ethos «from {aus}» «the way of interpreting Dasein which has come down to us,» because the eigentliche ethos is contained in the latter, though covered up by the ordinary Daseine. Authentic Daseine turn the eigentliches ethos «against» «the way of interpreting Dasein which has come down to us,» because they cancel the latter, that is, Gesellschaft. Authentic Daseine do so «for» «the way of interpreting Dasein which has come down to us,» because they bring ordinary Daseine back to their origin, that is, Gemeinschaft.^[48]

Starting in our ethos 2, our ordinary Dasein, and obeying the call of our eigentliches ethos, «we» begin to see that our ordinary Dasein is a forgetting. We realize that our ordinary Dasein is a falling-down-and-away from a past

and that at the same time it has forgotten about the fall and even interprets it as progress. We also realize that our eigentliches ethos draws its identity and strength from the forgotten past. This is the paragraph in which Heidegger states: «If everything 'good' is a heritage, and the character of 'goodness' lies in making authentic existence possible, then the handing down of a heritage constitutes itself in resoluteness» (BT 435; SZ 383). Relating itself to the past, or being taken over by the past, authentic Dasein can step out of ordinary Dasein and the latter's vain possibilities, and can realize that it owes its eigentliches ethos and identity to the past, which was brought down. Thus, it gets snatched back from «the endless multiplicity of possibilities» in society into what it recognizes as «the simplicity of its fate » (BT 435; SZ 384). It recognizes its fate. It recognizes that its autonomy and its pride in what it believed to have acquired and achieved in society by itself are a vain pretension, and that it instead depends on powers and circumstances it has not produced and these determine its life, that is, they are its fate. Its fate is simple, because in contrast to the «endless multiplicity of possibilities» in society, Volk, being an organic entity, does not allow for all the detractions and all the Firlefanz, gewgaws, gimcrackery, of society, and because it calls the Dasein into a situation of a clear either-or and a clear distinction between the foe and the völkische. In this moment, the antagonism becomes an antagonism between all those who recognize their fate, obey the call, and submit to their fate, and those who don't want to do so. The latter don't submit to their fate and don't take it over. They miss the opportunity to become, in Hitler's terms, «master of their fate,» and, thus, they are tossed around and pushed into irrelevance like the liberals at the beginning of World War I. Thus, this part ends with the sentence: «Even one who is irresolute gets driven about by these—more so than one who has chosen; and yet he can 'have' no fate» (BT 436; SZ 384).^[49]

Recognizing its fate, authentic Dasein understands that the past, to which it owes its eigentliches ethos and identity, is an entity that was pushed aside by Gesellschaft, and that the past allows for positive relations to the Other in contrast to the loneliness and instrumental relations to the Other in Gesellschaft, that is, in contrast to solicitude in its deficient mode as well as in the first of its positive modes. Regardless of the differences between them, all rightists have used as the term for the past and the real power in Gesellschaft and history the notion of Gemeinschaft. Thus, Heidegger writes: «But if fateful Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, exists essentially in Being-with-Others, its historizing is a co-historizing and is determinative for it as destiny (Geschick ). This is how we designate the historizing of the community, of {the} people» (BT 436; SZ 384).^[50] Heidegger need not develop the notion of Volksgemeinschaft. In the polemical and kairos situation of the twenties it is clear that it functions as polemical to Gesellschaft and reason as employed

by liberals and leftists as principles of history. One can give a description of Volk that contrasts it to Gesellschaft and reason, and one can even, as Scheler did, give an account of a realm of values and social units that contains the Volksgemeinschaft. However, one cannot «rationalize» a Volk. In fact, it is part of the rightist polemics against reason and understanding as the principles of «English cant,» Enlightenment, and subjectivity to point out that such entities like Volk cannot be understood by the means employed by subjectivistic thinking or by finite individuals who are part of the embracing entity Volk in its mysterious life. Furthermore, for the same reason Heidegger need not mention the name of the social unit to which Gemeinschaft is polemical, and which, as Gemeinschaft calls upon us to do, «we» have to overthrow, since it earlier ousted Gemeinschaft. For even those who have not read Scheler have learned about this polemical opposition somehow, perhaps from the books of Jünger or Hitler, or just from the atmosphere of the kairos. In addition, in the following sentence Heidegger himself elaborates on both concepts, Gesellschaft as well as Gemeinschaft, in a way that can be found in all books on the topic. According to Scheler, the «principle of summation» guides liberalism and all thinking in terms of Gesellschaft. Liberalism assumes that a social unit is a whole that is not more than the sum of its parts, that is, that the social units are constituted, or «put together» («zusammengesetzt»), by the autonomous subjects so that they can pursue their selfish interests. In reality, however, a Gemeinschaft has priority over the individuals. Again according to Scheler, along with the «principle of summation» goes the assumption that the autonomous subject makes his life by himself, relies only on what he achieves by himself, and does not allow any authority over and above reason to determine his life. In reality, however, it is Gemeinschaft that determines the life course of the individual. Heidegger formulates these two thoughts in the sentences immediately following the sentence on the Volksgemeinschaft:

Destiny is not something that puts itself together out of individual fates {setzt sich nicht aus einzelnen Schicksalen zusammen}, any more than Being-with-one-another can be conceived as the occurring together of several Subjects. Our fates have already been guided in advance, in our Being with one another in the same world and in our resoluteness for definite possibilities. (BT 436; SZ 384)^[51]

In the kairos, right-wingers experience that the time of the ordinary way of Dasein—«English cant» in Scheler, «endless discussion» in Schmitt, «'business'» (BT 336; SZ 289), as the ordinary interpretation of conscience, or the era of «reckoning up claims and balancing them off» (BT 328; «im Sinne des ausgleichenden Verrechnens von Ansprüchen,» SZ 283; italics mine, J. F.),^[52] as Heidegger correctly summarizes a major principle of parliamentary democracy—is over. As for Scheler at the beginning of World War I,

and as for Hitler in the kairos of the Weimar Republic, fate, or destiny, itself has brought about a situation in which «we» have to replace liberalism with a communitarian ethos in order to rerealize Gemeinschaft, as in the same moment fate has called upon us to do. Up to that point, fate has been silent, either withdrawn or present, but covered up by the liberals' work of ambiguity. Now, it raises its voice to call upon us to expel liberalism and to rerealize Gemeinschaft. It comes to the fore and demands this realization in a resolute fight. Heidegger goes on: «Only in communicating and in struggling {im Kampf} does the power of destiny become free» (BT 436; SZ 384).^[53] Obeying the call of fate, «we» become the agents of fate, which in this way steps out of the background, where it has been covered up by the work of ambiguity, and enters the scene explicitly. The task allotted to us by fate, the repetition of the past, is not a simple repetition of the past. A simple repetition of some past is what ordinary Dasein does all the time by just taking over and repeating the assumptions and attitudes «which 'circulate' in the 'average' public way of interpreting Dasein today» (BT 435; BT 383). Also, a «romantic copy» of the past would be a simple repetition, because it does not take into account the changed circumstances in which the eigentliche past, that is, its spirit, or the past in the third sense of «word,» has to be repeated. Thus, Heidegger explains: «The repeating of that which is possible does not bring again [Wiederbringen] something that is 'past', nor does it bind the 'Present' back to that which has already been 'outstripped'. Arising, as it does, from a resolute projection of oneself, repetition does not let itself be persuaded of something by what is 'past', just in order that this, as something which was formerly actual, may recur» (BT 437f.; SZ 385f.).^[54] For authentic Dasein repeats the past in a situation in which the past has been overthrown, or is about to be overthrown, and authentic Dasein knows that it must not make a «romantic copy» of the past. Dasein listens to the call for help and defends, rescues, and rerealizes the past against what has already overthrown it, or is in the process of doing so. Thus, authentic Dasein does not repeat, but rather «erwidert the possibility of that existence which has-been-there» (BT 438; SZ 386). As it realizes in the kairos, in the moment of danger and decision, it can rerealize the past only if it makes a «disavowal » (BT 438; SZ 386) of what has overthrown Gemeinschaft; it disavows, cancels, Gesellschaft, the world in which it has lived as ordinary Dasein and in which inauthentic Daseine still live.^[55] As I have already mentioned, the «"today"» («Heute») in the sentence, «disavowal of that which in the "today", is working itself out as the 'past' {sich als "Vergangenheit" auswirkt}» (BT 438; SZ 386) is the present as seen by authentic Dasein.^[56] In the kairos, authentic Dasein realizes that life is a mixture that has to be purified, that what it has constantly repeated as ordinary Dasein is not the «real» life, and that it is called to enter the struggle for cleansing. In the kairos, authentic Dasein real-

izes that its ordinary way of existence, liberalism, which has developed since the thirteenth century, is a past, but not the real past. Thus, Heidegger puts «past» into quotation marks. The ordinary mode of Dasein, liberalism, goes back to a principle or is a world. Thus, authentic Dasein cancels not the entire present, but rather its principle or its world, that is, «that which in the "today", is working itself out as the 'past' {sich als "Vergangenheit" auswirkt}» (BT 438; SZ 386), in Schelerian terms, the bourgeois ethos, which has to be expelled out of Europe's blood like a foreign poison in order to make the rerealization of Gemeinschaft possible. Thus, «we» are entitled to take over into the rerealization of Gemeinschaft all we regard as indifferent toward Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, or all we regard to be necessary for the rerealization, for instance, private property of the means of production and modern technology. The Erwiderung that is at the same time a disavowal calls us back from our march forward on the road of Gesellschaft and progress and affirms the primacy of the past—or, in Heideggerian terms, of what-has-been-there—pitted by rightist authors against the «denigration» and «falsification» of the past in Enlightenment, liberalism, and on the political Left. Thus, it is only this Erwiderung that «for the first time imparts to having-been {Gewesenheit } its peculiarly privileged position in the historical» (BT 438; SZ 386).^[57] Since only such a repetition will be successful in contrast to a «romantic copy,» at the end of section 75 Heidegger can summarize the result of the decision between inauthentic and authentic Daseine just by using the term «Wiederkehr» («recurrence») without any qualifications. Inauthentic Dasein, liberals and social democrats, live in a false past, the ethos of Gesellschaft, and by projecting it onto the past they misinterpret and neglect the «real» past. As in Scheler, authentic Dasein knows of this and keeps itself open for the advent of the «real» past. Even if Heidegger had not extensively used the vocabulary of falling throughout the book, his notion of history is identical with the one in Hitler and Scheler and with formulations in Scheler such as «Not progress, but development and falling-down-and-away-from and renaissance» (PPS 628):

When, however, one's existence is inauthentically historical, it is loaded down with the legacy of a 'past' which has become unrecognizable, and it seeks the modern. But when historicality is authentic, it understands history as the 'recurrence' {"Wiederkehr"} of the possible, and knows that a possibility will recur {wiederkehrt} only if existence is open {offen} for it fatefully, in a moment of vision, in resolute repetition {in der entschlossenen Wiederholung}. (BT 444; SZ 391f.)^[58]

It has often been said that, working in his Hütte, the Denker and Gelehrte Heidegger was aloof from politics and didn't know what he was doing when he stumbled into Nazism. According to my interpretation, Heidegger's notion

of historicality is identical with the notions of history and politics as developed by the revolutionary rightists and as exemplified here in regard to Hitler's and Scheler's works. It is hard to imagine that this is coincidental. Heidegger's text is just too excellent a summary of the revolutionary rightist notion to be the result of a somnambulistic thinking whose author didn't know what the significance of his writings would be in the world outside his Hütte and outside his book.^[59] In addition, it is not fate—«fate» in the «truly German» sense as I have «repeated» it here by «disavowing» the misinterpretation of the notion in Heidegger under the spell of the spirit of the American self-made man—that drove Heidegger into Nazism. As Scheier observed, at the beginning of World War I the majority of German intellectuals were liberals opposed to the war (PPS 12), and in the twenties Scheier himself changed his politics dramatically and became a liberal after the end of classic liberalism or even a social democrat.^[60] The rightists had enough foes—liberals, social democrats, and Communists—among intellectuals. In addition, as the differences between Hitler and Scheler show, there were strong disagreements among the revolutionary rightists themselves in regard to the question of which community had to be repeated. In light of these disagreements, Heidegger's formula of «the community, of {the} people» (BT 436; SZ 384) is truly remarkable, as I will show in the remainder of this section.

Certainly, Heidegger knew Scheler's book Formalism in Ethics and, thus, Scheler's discussion of the four types of social units, that is, Masse (mass, herd), Lebensgemeinschaft (life-community), Gesellschaft (society), and Liebesgemeinschaft (love-community). When it comes to the different large-scale communities, Scheier—as many of the other authors on this topic—takes great pains to explain what he regards as the proper hierarchy. It is at this point that Heidegger builds a very specific option into his excellent summary of the revolutionary rightist notion of history and politics. As to the hierarchy among the various large-scale communities, Scheler uses four criteria. One is the ranking of the value each large-scale community is concerned with (FEe 541; FE 529 and passim). Another is the number of human beings it is concerned with. Furthermore, it matters whether a community is a «collective person » (FEe 543; FE 531; see also FEe 520ff.; FE 510ff. and passim) and the degree to which it comes more or less close to this. Finally, it is crucial whether a community acknowledges the individual as a person in his own right independent of his functional contribution to the Gemeinschaft, and the degree to which it comes close to this (FEe 524f.; FE 513f.). With respect to all criteria, the love-community and its earthly organization, the church, is unambiguously at the top of the hierarchy. It is with regard to the love-community and the church that Scheler reestablishes the universalism he denied to reason as developed by Enlightenment and «English cant.» He

also ascribes to the love-community another capacity he denied reason, namely, to realize its universal ends in a variety of different empirical churches, that is, to abstract from and at the same time acknowledge the differences and to realize its value within the various churches without negating their differences. The church is concerned with the highest value (FEe 554f.; FE 541f.). It cares not only for all living human beings, but also for all dead and future ones and for all finite individual persons (FEe 547f.; FE 535). It regards the individual not as a member of a family, tribe, or Volk, but rather as a «purely spiritual individual person » (FEe 547; FE 535); or, as already mentioned, the individual person as in Gesellschaft is preserved in the love-community. Scheler develops his understanding of the Last Judgment: «Suppose that we find ourselves in a world court. No one alone would be tried by its highest judge; all would have to answer to him in the unity of one act, and all taken together would have to listen to this judge in one act. He would not sentence anyone until he had heard, understood, and valued all others with this one. In each he would cosentence the whole no less than the whole in each» (FEe 535; FE 523). Postmodernss and deconstructionists will probably not acknowledge this court as the institutionalized site of, as it is said, the recognition of «the Other as Other,» and they might be right. The author of Formalism in Ethics definitely belongs to the revolutionary Right, and only those who lack any sense of the «spirit» and the letter of different philosophies mistake Scheler and «Schelerians» for Habermas's theory of communicative action. However, the mentality giving rise to the notion of the court in Scheler definitely enabled him to distance himself from the advocates of the Volksgemeinschaft.

It would take readers too far beyond the scope of this book to go into the details of Scheler's reasoning. At any rate, for him the order below the love-community is that «the state is, in ranks of values, above the people {Volk} but below the nation» (FEe 547; FE 534f.; the «nation» being the Kulturgemeinschaft, community of culture, which embraces several peoples, as for instance, western Europe forms a Kulturgemeinschaft). That is, the ranking is the following: at the top is the love-community; next is the community of culture followed by the state; at the bottom of the hierarchy is the Volksgemeinschaft. The «people» concerns the smallest number of individuals (and, thus, excludes the largest number of other individuals), and it is not concerned about the individual as a value in himself (FEe 546; FE 534). Since all the lower communities and society as well are in the service of the highest community, it follows from this reasoning that the church has a right of intervention in regard to the lower Gemeinschaften. The church does not positively interfere by prescribing specific norms. However, again Scheler ascribes to the church a universalistic function in regard to the community of culture (and—since the community of culture is higher than the community of the

people—in regard to the state and the community of the people), something he had denied reason: «First, there is the essentially negative task of immediately controlling all cultural activity and its works in order to see that the ethos of this activity and the guiding structure of the preferring of the values of the domain in question (style in the arts, the methodological structure of science) do not conflict with the conditions of a possible collective salvation and, if necessary, of issuing an authoritative declaration on the matter» (FEe 551; FE 539).

In the twenties, Scheler became a social democrat and liberal. At that point, as a social democrat, city-dweller, and notorious frequenter of bars and brothels, Max Scheler would definitely not have joined the National Socialists. However, the author of Formalism in Ethics and of the essay on resentment would probably also not have done so. Though, as I have shown, his theories in Formalism and related writings present a paternalistic and hierarchical view of the different nations and states that ascribes to the Germans as the proxy of the Liebesgemeinschaft and the Kulturgemeinschaft the task of an imperialistic and militaristic politics of dominion over the world, the internationalism of the Church (which he was to stress in his writings from 191 6 onward), the insistence on the individual person as a value in himself, and other elements in his theory, such as the emphasis on the «intimate person» (FEe 561ff.; FE 518ff.) and, so to speak, dialectical thoughts such as the one on mechanization and person would have served as a strong means of critique of a movement that places the Volksgemeinschaft at the top, instrumentalizes all the other communities as a means to pursue the interests of the Volk, and explicitly denies that individual persons have value independent of their functionalistic contribution to the politics of the Volksgemeinschaft. From the viewpoint of Scheler's theory, Hitler's preference for the Volksgemeinschaft looks like an overthrow in the realm of the large-scale communities similar to the overthrow of all communities by Gesellschaft. In fact, in the twenties, due to his Catholicism, Scheler identified the real foe, namely, the National Socialists, recognized that rightist politics gravitated toward them, and saw that they would become the strongest force on the Right. As a consequence, Scheler gave up any rightist politics of history as the rerealization of some overthrown community, reviewed his basic notions, and turned toward the center.

In contrast to Scheler, Heidegger joined the National Socialists, and he did so with great enthusiasm. In light of this, in the light of Scheler's theory of the large-scale communities, and also in light of Scheler's later abandonment of any rightist politics, Heidegger's formula of «of the community, of {the} people» (BT 436; SZ 384) is telling. I have mentioned Guignon's assumption that each authentic Dasein can choose the past that fits his respective utopian ideal. Regarding politics, this means for Guignon that Heidegger's

notion of historicality and politics is neutral and does not exclude any political options, whether liberalism, conservatism, social democracy, or communism (see chapter 4, section A). I have criticized his notion of the relation of authentic Dasein to the past. In addition, I have shown that Heidegger's notion of historicality is pro-revolutionary rightist politics and antiliberal and antileftist. One might say, within Heidegger's option for revolutionary rightist politics Guignon's notion emerges. For Heidegger gives a summary of the notion of history and politics of all the revolutionary rightists, and thus, he does not yet exclude any specific option. He does not yet exclude the friends of the Kaiser, the German Renaissance, or the Christian love-community, or the Vikings, provided that they don't want to rerealize a «romantic copy,» but rather present an updated version of the respective past they want to rerealize. In fact, Heidegger would not have excluded anyone of the revolutionary rightists if he had just written «of a community.» For «community» was the catchword among those on the Right, and this would have left open the possibility that this individual opts for the Kaiserreich, another for the love-community, etc. However, he adds «of the people» («of the community, of {the} people,» BT 436; «der Gemeinschaft, des Volkes,» SZ 384). This is a very conscious choice by which he also performs the second step in the debates of the rightists. By developing the common motive of all the revolutionary rightists, he establishes community as the «real» principle in history. In the second step, he adds his option in the debates, or struggles, among the rightists as to which community has the priority. From the viewpoint of Scheler's theory, this is a clear decision against Scheler's option and for the politics of the extreme right, the National Socialists, in the name of the Volksgemeinschaft. (One might add that by proceeding philosophically in the correct way—step by step, first the general notion and then its specification—he at the same time avoids the word Volksgemeinschaft itself, since this might have sounded too blunt in the ears of many of his conservative colleagues or students.) Again, Heidegger must have been aware of the significance of his choice. Even if he had not read any of the many writings of Scheler' s on politics, the political applications of Scheler' s Formalism are all too obvious and intended by Scheler, and even prior to the emergence of the National Socialist Party, in the preface of the second edition of Formalism in 1921, Scheler distinguished his theory not only from the Left, but also from developments on the Right (FEe xxiiif.; FE 15). One might say, the addition of the qualification «of the people» is voluntaristic in the sense that the text doesn't provide any argument allowing for this step. In some sense, this doesn't make things better. Why should one add an unwarranted specification, unless one has a strong interest in it? This interest then might inspire one to bridge the gap, and to concreticize theoretically the general option for rightist revolutionary politics such that it becomes an option for National Socialism. In fact,

however, in some sense he had no need to bridge the gap. His way of criticizing subjectivity and universality of reason placed his thinking on the right side of the political spectrum. It is not only the absence in Being and Time of anything analogous to Scheler's theory of values and social units that removed the possible resistance of, so to speak, regular and extreme conservatives on the Right against National Socialism. Rather, Heidegger explicitly criticizes the theoretical framework that enabled someone like Scheler to keep his distance to National Socialism and finally turn against any rightist politics (e.g., BT 131ff.; SZ 98ff.). As to the other parts of Being and Time , one cannot see anything that might enable its author to resist and criticize National Socialism (which is, of course, not to say that all of Division One and the other parts of Division Two are downright national socialistic). In this sense, one has to regard the addition of the specification «of {the} people» as the author's explicit affirmation that Being and Time and the notion of historicality allow for, and even invite, the extreme party on the side of the revolutionary Right and do not enable one to criticize National Socialism. If he did not want to convey this, he would have left out the phrase «of {the} people,» or he would have developed specifications that would have drawn a line between the National Socialists and other rightists with sympathy for the Volksgemeinschaft as the primary community. However, Being and Time as it stands does not allow for such specifications, and Heidegger even explicitly criticizes possible rightist means to criticize National Socialism. In light of this, one can hardly imagine a philosophical work that leads into National Socialism more directly than Heidegger's Being and Time . Therefore, one should not be surprised that, six years later, on May 1, 1933, Heidegger joined the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,^[61] and that twenty-six days later—on May 27, 1933—he gave his, as Jonas called it, «infamous» (MH 200) rectorate address.

At no point do Scheler and Heidegger feel any need to explain what they mean by «Schicksal.» Indeed, they do not need to explain the notion, for their use of it is completely in line with the everyday one. Schicksal is not something an individual or a group creates in this or that way. Rather, this Schicksal precedes the individual or the group whose fate it is. The question is not as to the need and the way of inventing one's fate, but rather as to whether one—to use one of the later Heidegger' s pet words—«fügt sich in,» complies with, one's fate, or whether one tries to ignore or even to fight against it. According to common understanding as well as in Scheler's and Heidegger's views of the matter, only unwise or inauthentic people try the second path. The only difference between Scheler and Heidegger is that Heidegger replaces «unser deutsches Schicksal» or «ein eigentümlich nationales Schicksal» (PPS I; «our German fate,» «a peculiar national fate») with «Geschick» (SZ 384; «destiny,» BT 436) in order to maintain a terminological distinction between

the all embracing Geschick and the different individual slots allotted by Geschick to each individual, «the lowliest as well as the greatest» (PPS 11).^[62] Still, fate does not realize itself automatically. The rerealization of Gemeinschaft depends on Dasein's proper listening and successful fighting. It can no longer be assumed that what is supposed to happen according to fate will happen anyway. Rather, without Dasein's compliance with fate and Dasein's active struggle for its realization, that fate would not be realized. The fate of fate requires that those whose fate it is properly realize it^[63] and thus properly rerealize Gemeinschaft. In 1934/35, in his lecture course on two hymns by Hölderlin, Heidegger said that the notion of fate in this sense is «an essentially German notion» (HH 173), and he denounced the «traditional» notion of fate as the «Asian notion of fate» (HH 173), according to which what fate ordains will happen anyway, no matter whether one actively subjugates oneself to it and fights for its realization or doesn't care to do so.

This redefinition, however, required as it is in the moment of crisis, does not do away with the basic meaning of fate as something we do not choose but have to comply with. Indeed, the redefinition even strengthens this basic meaning insofar as we ourselves would not even survive if we did not listen to the call and act accordingly. Also, it makes explicit the normative aspect in the everyday usage of the word fate. Thus, neither Scheler nor Heidegger need to elaborate on the notion, because both of them could rely on everyone understanding what they meant. The redefinition itself, however, might have been a further reason for Heidegger in the passage in Being and Time to use the word «Erwiderung,» as erwidern is often used for answering someone's call for help. Fate calls upon us and demands us to help it. Without our help, fate could not realize itself, but rather would, so to speak, be drowned and disappear. The implication that we ourselves would be drowned if we don't help fate, is evident in the abundant usage of metaphors of falling and downward plunge in the works of Hitler, Scheler, and also Heidegger. Accordingly, in my view the label «empty decionism» for Heidegger's notion of decision is only half of the story. Authentic Dasein is empty insofar as it has to empty itself from the forms of ordinary and inauthentic Dasein. Becoming empty in this sense, however, is already part of the process of facing a decision that is an either-or such that Dasein must obey the call and must not fail to listen to it.^[64]

I have identified Heidegger's section 74 of Being and Time as politically rightist on the grounds that it shares with other works unambiguously on the Right the premises of their reasoning against leftists and liberals. In addition, as I will show in more detail in chapter 4, Heidegger's reasoning lacks any of the premises used by leftist authors. One might object that this procedure is unfair and unreliable. However, even those agreeing with this objection will probably

admit that Heidegger's case is a special one. For not only did he some years later join the most extreme of the rightist parties, the National Socialists, but he also said in 1936 that the section on historicality in Being and Time was the basis for his engagement with National Socialism.^[65] True, an author's words about his works do not necessarily have to be taken at face value. However, unless there is substantial evidence that the author's assessment of his works is wrong, his statements have to be respected. At the beginning of my book, I mentioned the «Helden von Langemarck» and the «Helden von Verdun.» Scheler's writings provide a good example of the hopes several rightist authors associated with World War I. As the following quote shows, quite obviously in 1914 the same hopes were present in Heidegger, and he saw in the Machtübernahme of the National Socialists in 1933 a «new beginning,» a new opportunity to realize the hopes of 1914 that had then been betrayed by the outcome of the war and by the Weimar Republic. As Jaspers tells in a pretty macabre story, in Heidelberg on June 30, 1933, Heidegger gave a talk entitled "The University in the new Reich":

As to its form, it was a masterly talk, as to its content it was a program for the National Socialist renewal of the universities. . . . Our conversations after the talk were, as far as I was concerned, not frank. I told him that one had expected him to stand up for our university and its great tradition. No answer. I talked about the Jewish question, about the vicious nonsense of the 'Wise Men of Zion,' to which he replied: "As you know, there is a dangerous international connection {Verbindung} among Jews." During dinner, he said in a somewhat furious tone that it was nonsense to have that many philosophy professors in Germany; only two or three should be retained. "Which ones?" I asked. No answer. "How can such an uneducated man like Hitler govern Germany?"—"Education {Bildung} doesn't matter at all," he replied. "Just look at his wonderful hands! {sehen Sie nur seine wunderbaren Häinde an! }"

Heidegger himself seemed to have changed. Already on his arrival a distancing mood had begun to develop. National Socialism had intoxicated the population. I went up to Heidegger's room to welcome him. "It is like 1914," I began, and I wanted to continue, "again the same delusive mass ecstasy." However, faced with a Heidegger who agreed with my first words and beamed, the words stuck in my throat. This radical break left me extremely troubled. With no one else had I experienced something like this. It was all the more provoking since Heidegger seemed not to notice it at all.^[66]