F. Scheler "im Weltalter des Ausgleichs"
Quite certainly, Heidegger saw in Hitler «the man» (PPS 646) Scheler had been waiting for after the outcome of World War I and the establishment of the Weimar Republic had disappointed the latter's hope for a rerealization of his version of a Christian love-community through World War I. In the twenties,
however, Scheler changed his mind on the task of politics dramatically, and he did so precisely at the time when Heidegger was writing and publishing Being and Time . If, according to the old theory of opposites, in ethics and politics the state in the middle is the eigentliche extreme to each of the extremes, he became the eigentliche extremist. For Scheler became a post-classic liberal or some sort of social democrat. For an inspired philosopher like Scheler, this turn, or Kehre, perhaps did not exclude a belief in a hierarchy of values independent of human beings. But it certainly did exclude the theory of social units and their hierarchy as developed in Formalism in Ethics . I will not discuss this question nor the development of his change. Rather, I will only present a speech he gave in the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik in Berlin in November 1927, less than one year before his death. To be sure, in this speech also the author sometimes rhetorically underscores the obvious fact that he is by no means, so to speak, counting peanuts. Rather, as one says in German ironically, «er geht aufs Ganze.» All of his great topics are present in a speech of not more than twenty-five pages; God, religion, metaphysics, capitalism, socialism, Europe, England, Russia, Japan, China, India, the genius, fate, blood and its mixtures, and «man» being «a direction of the movement of the universe itself, indeed, of its ground» (WA 151). However, all are treated from a point of view that is the exact opposite of the one in the writings I have discussed so far and that is already announced in the title of the talk, namely, "Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs" (Man in the age of conciliation). Ausgleich is «balance, adjustment, conciliation, equalization, settlement» and thus the opposite of the politics of de-cision he had proposed in his writings discussed in the preceding sections. To be sure, the meaning of fate remains the same, for the process of Ausgleich is «inescapable » (WA 152), that is, it is «fate —not choice» (WA 165), and one who wants to oppose fate will, with an allusion to Don Quixote, «in die Luft stob en» («thrust into the air») (WA 152). However, the task fate imposes on us is precisely the opposite of its gift[67] in the years around World War I. For the cluster of notions I have presented as the hallmark of the rightist notion of history is dissolved. The notion of Gemeinschaft is not even mentioned once. It is not used, because what is at stake is the defense of Gesellschaft, of parliamentary democracy. In his phase of de-cision, Scheler considered class struggle and the various oppositions between Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaften a result of the value-falsifying process through which liberalism and Gesellschaft had taken over not only the entrepreneurs but also the workers, but now democracy just «unveils » these oppositions but «does not produce them» (WA 145). What matters is «the free democratic discussion and formation of will in parliament» (WA 146). He says that «in the dangerous crisis, in which today parliamentary democracy . . . finds itself almost all over the world, in its hard struggle, not as in former times against this or that kind of conservative monarchism (today, this opposition is almost dead), but rather
against the dictatorial tendencies from the Right and from the Left, parliamentary democracy will assert itself only if» (WA 145) his—or rather fate' s—recommendations for this struggle are followed. The text is paragraph by paragraph a revocation of his politics of de-cision. The theme of the genius, leader, or saint is taken up as the quest for an elite in democracy. However, the elite is not regarded as the vanguard in the upward movement of authentic valuerealiziation but rather as an effort «to beat the foes of parliamentary democracy at their own game» (WA 145). Scheler' s statement that «the development of human mind and of its forms of activities has become autonomous and independent of its bodily organisation » (WA 148) dismisses all the variants of thinking in terms of biology or in terms of an opposition between the mind and the «deeper» forces of soul, race, etc. (WA 146—150). Distancing himself from the rightist authors, Scheler at the same time comes closer to Marx. To be sure, pace Marx the religious ideas cannot be reduced to economic factors. However, pace the de-cisionistic Scheler they are not independent of them either, for: «still, an inner bond ties them together, an ultimate conception and attitude toward Being, shared by both, even though this bond is hard to perceive and to investigate» (WA 168). The materialism of Marxism is a reaction against the idealistic ideologies, including Christianity, of the ruling classes (WA 167f.). «Man» is different from what the rightists maintain who reduce him to a pre-given identity, from which the moderns have fallen away: «Man is a being whose essence itself is the decision, still open, of what this being wants to be and to become. . . . Thus, allow for man and his movement, infinite by his essence! No fixation on an "exemplary state," on a certain form, taken from either natural history or worm history » (WA 150f.).[68] Clearly it is impossible «to try to renew again {wieder erneuern zu wollen} the "pagan" man, the "early Christian" man, the "Gothic" man,» etc. (WA 152). In contrast to his de-cisionistic assessment of the League of Nations as a means of Anglo-American economic world domination (PPS 382f., 665), here Scheler defends it (WA 166). Certain groups in the Catholic Church are reprimanded for their claim that basic features of the constitution of the Weimar Republic contradict the teaching of the Church (WA 169). Instead of the renovations by de-cision, the name of the new world age is «Ausgleich » (WA 152), Ausgleich in all relevant areas, races, cultures, sexes, etc. (WA 152f.). While in his de-cisionistic phase mixture was the cause of the downward plunge and the movement up again entailed the reemergence of the pure type, now it is mixture that moves forward and upward. In his de-cisionistic phase the supposed causes of mixture of blood were relegated to Israel. Now, the one who wants to expel them out of Germany and the world ought to leave the country: «Without fail, the Ausgleich of races, the mixture of blood, will progress. . . . All those who expect the Heil of the world from the preservation of a "pure" race, in his view the "noble-race" . . . should retreat with his fellow race-nobles to an island and despair» (WA 153). In Scheler's de-cisionistic phase, already by 1913 Germany has
«moved with full sails into the first phases of the socialist state . . . hostile to freedom» (UW 383f.). Also back then he regarded Spencer's assumption that the development of capitalism would cure the damage it initially inflicted as the «basic error» (RE 173; UW 146). Now, Scheler takes recourse to the dialectical formula of progress: «To be sure, {spirit} inflicts wounds. However, it also heals them» (WA 150). The same capitalism that has devastated the environment in the eighteenth century has already developed the means to protect organic natural life, and it will do so better and better (WA 150). The ideal of the nineteenth century, the sovereign national state, is doomed to disappear. The Ausgleich of the different nations, the development of international strata between them, will not do away with their specific identities. Rather, it will produce tolerance, and their spiritual and cultural autonomy will flourish (WA 164f.). In his de-cisionistic phase, he regarded the internationalization in society as a threat against the Gemeinschaften. Now, it is hailed as the vanguard of diversity through Ausgleich and mixture (WA 154). In the new economic politics from 1924 on, Russia has already adopted capitalist elements. The capitalist states, in turn, will maintain private property and, nonetheless, adopt more and more socialist elements to the effect «that, more and more, the realities on both sides will bridge the oppositions of the names and concepts» (WA 166). «Bridging of . . . oppositions» is now the key phrase, a bridging that takes place by processes of mixture, of adaptation of opposing elements. These processes are by no means benign, and the only end of politics is to facilitate them (WA 152f.). Now, politics is about precisely the opposite from what it was in his de-cisionistic phase.
Quite obviously, the causes for Scheler's turn were not the leftists and bolshevism. For the rationale for his de-cisionistic politics had been the liberals and the Social Democrats as the outcome and consummation of liberalism. Also, still in his de-cisionistic phase, in 1919, Scheler had maintained that bolshevism would not last long (PPS 651), and—in his search for precapitalist mentalities—he even recommended a cooperation between Germany and bolshevist Russia against England and the United States in order to prepare for the overthrow of capitalism (PPS 658). The cause of his turn was the emergence of National Socialism. He realized that the National Socialists represented, as it were, the «truth» of the politics of de-cision, one version of which he himself had pursued around World War I, and that they would take over the politics of the Right. This recognition made him completely turn away from any version of rightist politics and instead join his former foes, the liberals and the Social Democrats.
Especially in light of the thesis, again promoted recently in Germany by Ernst Nolte, that knowing that the Weimar Republic would not be able to do anything against bolshevism, National Socialism was an understandable, if not necessary, reaction against the threat of bolshevism,[69] Scheler's philosophical and political career is remarkable. His way led in the opposite direction. Scheler
was, to use a sloppy expression, a Sozialistenfresser[70] only as long as there was not yet any bolshevism and as long as he faced only liberals and social democrats, of whom many said that they had already lost sight of the notorious «expropriation of the expropriators.» When, in the twenties, bolshevism as well as National Socialism emerged, Scheler realized that neither social democracy nor bolshevism was the foe but rather National Socialism. This recognition disabused him of the viewpoint of the rightists and enabled him to reevaluate liberalism after the end of classic liberalism and social democracy and to join the fight of the parliamentary Center against National Socialism.
At the beginning of section B, I have mentioned Heidegger's high praise for Scheler in his obituary on Scheler. Heidegger doesn't talk directly about politics. However, he says of Scheler that, «standing in the midst of the whole of beings, he had an unusual sensitivity for all the new possibilities and forces opening up.»[71] Two things are clear in his obituary. Heidegger highly appreciated the book Formalism in Ethics . His first point after his praise of Scheler is that Scheler «clearly perceived the new possibilities of phenomenology»; he took up phenomenology not «superficially,» but he «furthered it essentially and unified it directly with central problems of philosophy. In particular, his critique of ethical formalism bears witness to this.»[72] However, the Scheler after Formalism in Ethics is not appreciated that much by Heidegger. Heidegger refers to Scheler's Catholicism and his thoughts on man as «God's co-worker,» in order thereupon to pose an incisive question one would not expect after the great praise in the beginning of the obituary. Heidegger asks: «Were his changing views a sign of a lack of substance, of inner emptiness?»[73] His answer is devastating. Logically one is strongly invited to or even has no other choice but add between the question and Heidegger's own comment on it something like «Yes, indeed!» For Heidegger does not answer the question explicitly. However, he comments on Scheler in a way that sounds like an excuse for Scheler's supposed lack of substance: ·
But one recognizes here—something which of course only a few could directly experience in day-and-night-long conversations and arguments with him—an obsession with philosophy, which he himself was unable to master and after which he had to follow, something which in the brokenness of contemporary existence often drove him to powerlessness and despair. But this obsession was his substance. And with every change he remained loyal to his inner direction of his nature in always new approaches and endeavors. And this loyalty must have been the source from which sprang the childlike kindness he showed on occasion.[74]
Thereupon, Heidegger summarizes Scheler's «greatness» again with recourse to a formula of the early, the de-cisionistic, Scheler. It lies in «an encounter with mankind that allows for no appeasement {beschwichtigen } and leveling through a sterile humanism.» He then concludes: «Max Scheler is dead. We
bow before his fate {Wir beugen uns vor seinem Schicksal}.»[75] Especially in the light of Heidegger's question, one might refer the last sentence not only to Scheler's physical death in 1928, but also, or even mainly, to his development. «Beschwichtigung» («appeasement») belongs to the same semantic field as «Ausgleich.» What Heidegger says here about Scheler's way is somewhat ironic, if not even a severe distortion by omission. In the preface to the third edition of Formalism , Scheler says that he does «not wish to see the bond with Kairos , i.e., the call of the hour of our human and historical being and life, severed as completely as it is in Hartmann's work» (FEe xxxi; FE 23). In the manuscript, this is followed by the sentence: «Ultimately ethics is a 'damned bloody affair' {eine "verdammt blutige Sache"}, and if it can give me no directives concerning how 'I' 'should' live now in this social and historical context, then what is it?» (FEe xxxi, n. 14; FE 591).
The later Scheler completely abandoned the political advice given in his book dating from his de-cisionistic phase, and he identified himself with precisely those politics his book had advised people to expel out of the blood. Heidegger either neglects this or even denounces it with his question and his answer. «Sich beugen vor jemandes Schicksal» means «to recognize and accept his fate.» At the same time, however, it often implies also that «it is not our fate; he could not but go his way, and we couldn't prevent him from doing so; however, our way is different.» Though Heidegger always regarded thinking in terms of values as what amounts in his framework, so to speak, to the original sin of philosophizing, namely, as a reduction of Dasein and being to a Vorhandenes, he highly appreciated Formalism in Ethics , certainly because of Scheler's criticism of the modern subject and probably also because of its logic and politics of de-cision which, in its most radical version, Heidegger was about to renew precisely at the time when Scheler abandoned it on account of its devastating political implications. Most certainly, Heidegger's allusion to the «lack of substance» refers to Scheler's Catholicism. Already in Formalism , the internationalism of Catholicism prevented Scheler from identifying his politics with a politics of Blut und Boden, and, some years later, enabled him to identify the foe, to break with his politics of decision and to realize that the promise entailed in Catholicism is preserved by those against whom his former politics of de-cisionism was directed, namely, by the liberals and social democrats.
In the speech "Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs," Scheler describes rightist thinking and leftist thinking in a series of several «either-or»-combinations. In one of the pairs, he uses the notion of Angst so prominent in Heidegger:
The praise of the "good old time," combined with Angst of the future, or the directedness toward some utopian ideal, in eschatological hope and expectation,
combined with a fierce critique of the past; . . . both of them are not founded in the things themselves. Both are logical categories, ideologies , that one-sidedly are caused by class myths and that bear witness to the power of interests over reason {Vernunft}. Anyone who, politically, wants to see clearly, has to take off both . (WA 166f.)
In this passage, Scheler gives a clear account of the basic difference of the notion of history and politics on the Right and on the Left. Whether out of Angst or not, the rightists saw the progress of Gesellschaft as the chariot of doom, whose course had to be stopped in order to rerealize the past, this or that Gemeinschaft, which had been overthrown by Gesellschaft. The leftists, however, maintained that it was good that the progress of Gesellschaft liberated us from the different Gemeinschaften in the past. It is in this alternative that in Scheler Vernunft resurfaces, as a faculty of mediation between the two opposites. Politically, Scheler addressed post-classic liberals and the Social Democrats to defend the project of Vernunft against the Right. Five years after Scheler's speech in Berlin, the Social Democrats suffered huge losses, and the extreme Right was about to become the strongest party. In this situation Scheler's successor to his chair in Frankfurt, Paul Tillich, carried Scheler's suggestion of reason as Ausgleich further, and he developed the thesis that the Social Democrats and the Left are the legitimate heirs of the promises entailed in Christianity as well as in liberalism (see section B of chapter 4).