A. Lukács's History and Class Consciousness

As mentioned in section E of chapter 3, in the section on conscience Heidegger characterizes the call as «vorrufenden Rückruf» (SZ 280; «one which calls us back in calling us forth,» BT 326). After the discussions in chapters 1-3 it is now clear that this means: Ordinary and inauthentic Daseine are engaged in the project of Gesellschaft, and the authentic Daseine step out of Gesellschaft. In section 74 it turns out that what calls them back and out of Gesellschaft is Geschick, and Geschick is the Volksgemeinschaft. The Volksgemeinschaft calls each Dasein back into its Schicksal, and authentic Daseine listen to, and erwidern, the call whereas only inauthentic Daseine try not to listen to and not to erwidern the call. Dasein's Schicksal is to disavow Gesellschaft in order to rerealize Gemeinschaft. It is clear against whom Heidegger is arguing in these passages. He argues against liberals and leftists, that is, against all those who are engaged in the project of Gesellschaft; and who maintain that we have to go on in our project of developing Gesellschaft, that is, to develop a capitalist society and its accompanying political structures, parliamentarism and also labor unions.

In the preceding chapters, I have compared my interpretation with Guignon's and Birmingham's interpretations. I wanted to show that Heidegger's notion of repetition is not, as Birmingham has it, about the anarchistic break with each and every tradition. As to Guignon, I pointed out that according to his interpretation, under the gaze of authentic Dasein the monolithic bloc of the present and the past dissolves. Upon becoming authentic, Dasein realizes that there are many possibilities in the past that have been covered

up by ordinary Dasein, by the «they.» Those who have become authentic realize that in the past there are Socrates, Galileo, and many other heroes who have established a profession, or a certain way of practicing a profession and who might be taken up and repeated by the authentic Dasein. By virtue of its utopian ideal, authentic Dasein has a distance to each of them, and it can screen the heroes of the past to choose and «creatively reinterpret» (HC 138) the one who fits his or her utopian ideal best. In Being and Time , Heidegger merely presents this general structure, and he does not make any specific suggestions as to who should choose which hero. I wanted to show that this interpretation also turns the relation of the present to the past, or to what-has-been-there, upside down. According to Guignon, Heidegger's notion of historicality also encompasses the explicitly political choices of different Daseine. On that level, his thesis means that Being and Time is politically neutral.

At the beginning of his essay, Guignon refers to the meeting between Karl Löwith and Heidegger in Rome in 1936 and says his essay «should help to clarify why Heidegger said that "his concept of historicity was the basis for his political engagement" with the Nazis in the thirties. But I hope to show also that this connection between Being and Time and Heidegger's actions does not entail that this early work is inherently fascist or proto-Nazi» (HC 131). After the passages on authentic historicality which I quoted at length in section B of chapter 1, Guignon discusses Heidegger's concept of «situation» and then turns back to the question of the beginning in order to conclude his essay with the following sentences:

My own view is that Heidegger's accounts of historicity and authenticity do not point to any particular political orientation, and that his actions in the thirties resulted solely from his own deeply held conservative beliefs. The early concepts of history and authentic action seem consistent with diverse political views because of their highly formal nature. Heidegger's ontology of human existence identifies a tripartite temporal structure according to which Dasein's "happening" springs from a projection onto future possibilities, draws on what is embodied in the past, and thereby acts in the present. The authentic mode of this temporal existence involves encountering a future as a "destiny," the past as a "heritage," and the present context as a "world-historical Situation." The clear-sighted recognition that we are always implicated in the undertakings of the shared "co-happening of a community" gives one some guidance in making choices. But it should be evident that this formalistic image of "temporalizing" and historicity by itself gives us no guidance as to which political stance we should adopt.

In fact, it appears that this picture of historical unfolding—this "metanarrative" or "narrative framework"—an be made to accommodate almost any political position. With its mythos of pristine beginnings, a time of "falling," and a final recovery of origins, it recapitulates the traditional Christian model of creation, sinfulness, and redemption. It is this soteriological model which also underlies the Marxist story-line of human species-beings currently deformed by capitalism but promised fulfillment in world communism. And it can be made

to fit the liberal story of humans who are born to be free but now languish in the chains of ignorance and superstition, or the conservative story of a return to community after wandering in the wilderness of extreme individualism.

Heidegger's account of authentic historicity demanded that he take a stand on the situation in Germany in the thirties. This explains his comment to LÖwith that "the concept of historicity was the basis for his political engagement." What we do know is that, faced with what most Germans at the time saw as the need for a decision between Bolshevism and Nazism, Heidegger sided with the Nazis. Yet ultimately it seems to be only a mix of opportunism and personal preference that directed his decision, not anything built into his fundamental ontology. (HC 141-142)

There are several remarkable points in this passage. It is not quite clear how this passage with its emphasis on the «mythos of pristine beginnings, a time of "falling," and a final recovery of origins» relates to the passage on «authentic historiography» with the latter's claim «that it is only on the basis of utopian ideals together with a sense of alternative ways of living discovered by antiquarian preservation that we can have a standpoint for criticizing calcified forms of life of the present» (HC 138). In addition, Guignon wants to show that Being and Time is politically neutral, and that it was «not anything built into { Heidegger's } fundamental ontology» that directed Heidegger's commitment to Nazism. In light of this, it is amazing that he uses formulations such as «can be made to accommodate almost any political position» and «can be made to fit» without any further comment. Finally, it is truly amazing that he assumes that the short paragraph on Christians, Marxists, and liberals is all that needs to be said on the different political movements of that time.^[1]

However, it is simply untrue that, as Guignon maintains, everyone at the time employed a notion of history as a «mythos of pristine beginnings, a time of "falling," and a final recovery of origins» (HC 141). Neither liberals nor the political party Guignon does not mention, namely, the Social Democrats, adhered to Guignon's model. In hindsight, in the eleventh of his Theses on the Philosophy of History , written in 1940, Benjamin said:

The conformism which has been part and parcel of Social Democracy from the beginning attaches not only to its political tactics but to its economic views as well. It is one reason for its later breakdown. Nothing has corrupted the German working class so much as the notion that it was moving with the current. It regarded technological developments as the fall of the stream with which it thought it was moving {das Gefälle des Stroms, mit dem sie zu schwimmen meinte}.^[2]

The twelfth thesis reads:

Not man or men but the straggling, oppressed class itself is the depository of historical knowledge. In Marx it appears as the last enslaved class, as the avenger

that completes the task of liberation in the name of generations of the downtrodden. This conviction, which had a brief resurgence in the Spartacist group, has always been objectionable to Social Democrats. Within three decades they managed virtually to erase the name of Blanqui, though it had been the rallying sound that had reverberated through the preceding century. Social Democracy thought fit to assign to the working class the role of the redeemer of future generations, in this way cutting the sinews of its greatest strength. This training made the working class forget both its hatred and its spirit of sacrifice, for both are nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren.^[3]

To move «with the current,» to move with «the fall of the stream,» or in Heidegger's and Hitler's terms «to move with the downward plunge» without looking back is exactly the stance against which, in order to discontinue it, Heidegger and other rightist authors developed their notion of history, one that demands that «we» widerrufen, cancel, the current of society and that gives «having been its peculiarly privileged position in the historical» (BT 438; SZ 386). «Moving with the current» of Gesellschaft, of capitalist society and parliamentarism, toward the future is what liberals and Social Democrats had in common. The difference between them was that liberals did so for the sake of the liberal individuals, Social Democrats for the sake of future socialism. Both employed a notion of progress according to which, step by step, we leave behind the ignorance and imperfection of the past and the present. We move with the current precisely in order to liberate ourselves from the imperfections of the past and the present, not in order to rerealize this or that past. According to Heidegger and other rightist authors, however, this is precisely our downward plunge. Thus, we have to cancel this move, have to perform a «Widerruf » (SZ 386; BT 438); or, as Scheler put it, we have to «expel Anglo-American capitalism from {Europe's } blood like a foreign poison» (PPS 153) in order to rerealize community. If, however, some liberals or social democrats at the time did in fact, as Guignon maintains, use the «mythos of pristine beginnings, a time of "falling," and a final recovery of origins» (HC 141), they did so in a way contrary to how it was used by rightist authors. According to rightist authors, we rerealize the past by canceling Gesellschaft, since the development of Gesellschaft leads us only deeper into the abyss of the downward plunge, which Gesellschaft itself is, without ever leading us back to the lost origin. Those liberals, social democrats, and communists, however, who used the «mythos of pristine beginnings, a time of "falling," and a final recovery of origins» (HC 141) restored the lost origin—freedom or «primordial communism»—only at the end of the full development of Gesellschaft. We must not cancel our gradual progress toward that development, but rather must move forward, because only in this way can we restore the lost origin. Philosophically, this is the difference between Heidegger's notion of «Widerruf » (SZ 386; «disavowal, » BT 438) of Gesellschaft, or of Scheler's act of expulsion of Gesellschaft, and a dialectical

Aufhebung, sublation, of bourgeois Gesellschaft.^[4] Politically, the pronounced difference between a Widerruf and an Aufhebung was the reason that allowed liberals and Social Democrats to join forces against conservative bourgeois parties. In this sense, Heidegger's notion of historicality is tailored polemically against the notion of history in liberalism and social democracy. In what follows, I will not refer to texts by liberals or social democrats. Rather, I turn to two authors of the twenties—Lukács's book History and Class Consciousness , published in 1923, and Paul Tillich's The Socialist Decision , published in 1933—who saw the difference between the social democrats and liberals on the one hand and rightist authors on the other as clearly as Hitler and Scheler did, and who regarded themselves as leftists without relying on the social democratic, or liberal, concept of history. In the course of the discussion of their views, it will become clear that Heidegger's concept of historicality was opposed not only to liberals and social democrats but also to their views, and that they themselves regarded their ideas as also directed against concepts of history such as Heidegger's.^[5]

In myth, a human being can turn into a pig and back again into a human being (Homer, Odyssey X, vv. 235ff.). In some way, the Geist, the spirit, of this remains present in some pre-Socratic philosophers, especially in those whom Plato, appropriately, calls the «more tightly strained of the Muses.»^[6] Metaphysics of substance does away with such a notion of change and motion and all its remnants in philosophy. An idea does not admit, and does not change into, its opposite. However, not only an idea, but also an idea «in us» does not change into its opposite. Rather, if it can no longer resist its approaching opposite, it will leave the scene instead of transforming itself into its opposite. In accidental change, an accident does riot' change itself into its opposite either. Rather, it has to leave its subject. Only in this way can the new accident arrive at, or be realized within, the substance. A substance changes only accidentally. In order for a substance to allow the emergence of a different substance from it, the substance and its substantial form have to disappear and its matter has to be emptied of forms, or de-formed, down to the level of the four elements and simple bodies. Only if the, so to speak, «higher» substantial form has disappeared, is matter in a position to receive a new «higher» substantial form.

Unorthodox teaching on the eucharistic host and alchemy fully acknowledge this model. The substance Òf bread is not transubstantiated into the substance of Jesus Christ. Rather, the substance of bread is annihilated by God, or its matter is emptied of forms down to the level of prime matter or the four elements before Jesus Christ becomes present. One cannot produce the body of all bodies, gold, by informing existing substances. Rather, one has to expel the forms, that is, to deform their matter, until one has arrived at pure prime matter. Only at that point can the form of gold be introduced. Each form

within matter prevents it from, closes it against, receiving the form of gold. Matter is open, entschlossen, for the new form, only if it has been cleansed of any other form. The arrival of the new presupposes the expulsion of the old, and does not allow for the possibility that the old forms work on themselves and transform themselves according to their tendencies and needs.

In his theory on authentic Dasein, Heidegger follows the metaphysical model of substances and their changes. We do not achieve authenticity by building upon all the states, the forms we have due to our living in the mode of the «they.» Rather, we achieve authenticity, are entschlossen for the new form that authenticity is, only after deforming ourselves, only after having been cleansed of the forms of ordinary Dasein. This happens in Angst, in anxiety (BT 225ff.; SZ 180). If we manage to endure it and do not shrink away from it, anxiety rewards us by cleansing us of all the forms of ordinary everyday-ness, and thus makes us entschlossen for the new state of authenticity. In Heidegger, there is no intrinsic relation between ordinary Dasein and Angst. At least, he does not develop any. Ordinary Dasein tends to shy away from Angst, and Angst is not the intrinsic result of a tendency built into the forms by which ordinary Dasein is shaped.^[7] One implication of this model is that there is nothing intrinsic to the forms of ordinary Dasein that makes them worth preserving in the new state of authenticity. Of course, it might happen that some, or even many, features of ordinary Dasein are preserved in authenticity, for instance, as Hitler and Scheler argued, private property of the means of production and modem technology. However, this is purely accidental, a matter, so to speak, of the «grace» of authenticity.

The substance of bread has been annihilated. Its accidents remain. However, they are neither the end nor a necessary means of the Eucharist. Rather, God does not want to trigger our disgust for cannibalism and thus allows the accidents of the bread to cover up the raw flesh of Jesus Christ's body. Heidegger has chosen the proper expression. For, as was mentioned in section D of chapter I, an act of «Widerruf » (SZ 386; «disavowal, » BT 438) is indeed a cancellation, a destruction, in which something is negated completely and must never recur. In contrast, in Hegelian dialectics the transition into a new sphere also proceeds by way of deformation. However, that deformation is brought about, not by the cancellation of the determinations, but rather by the process of the self-determination of the determinations and of the subject, which never exists independent of its process of determining itself and which thus never relapses into pure matter.

Accordingly, dialectic negation is not a Widerruf. Being negated or negating themselves, the determinations are not destroyed, annihilated, or canceled, but rather aufgehoben, sublated. They still are, and they are in their truth, for they are moments of a new and larger structure into which they have sublated themselves. Politically speaking, the difference between a dialectical Aufhebung and a Heideggerian Widerruf—a thoroughly metaphysical presencing of

the renewal via the destruction of the old—also accounts for the difference between the end of righist struggle and leftist class struggle. In dialectics, nothing is abandoned. Instead, everything and everyone will be redeemed. The end of the class struggle is the sublation of the sway of classes and thus the production of equal and free individuals no longer confined by class distinctions. The rightist struggle, however, is about the rerealization of ranks, orders, and distinctions that supposedly were leveled by liberalism and Social Democracy. The rerealization requires that Gesellschaft is expelled, and that its members are either expelled or integrated into one or the other of the lower ranks of Gemeinschaft.

According to Lukács, the establishment of a socialist society presupposes a fully developed capitalist society and, if it happens at all, is brought about by the proletarians who are, as he puts it by quoting Marx, «the dissolution { AuflÖ-sung} of the existing social order {Weltordnung}» (HI 3; GK 15).^[8] In a fully developed capitalist society, all those individuals who are not capitalists have to offer their skills as commodities on the job market; they have become commodities. However, it is only proletarians who can distance themselves from, that is, cleanse themselves of, all the bourgeois forms and can recognize the ultimate bourgeois form, namely, that of being a commodity, as the one they have to, and can, liberate themselves from by transforming the capitalist society into a socialist one. Though all individuals have become a commodity, that is not all they are. Those who are not part of the proletariat can use these other forms to cover up, so to speak, the blunt fact that they have to offer their skills as commodities. You might deplore the fact that Geist, spirit and mind, has become a commodity. Still, if you can satisfy your vocation to geistige Führung, spiritual leadership, or your interest in studying philosophical texts, only by selling your Geist to a newspaper or a university, you might do so, and you might always maintain, as it were, in a metaphysical fashion that Geist is different from, irreducible to, and higher than, flesh and money. A proletarian, however, cannot do so:

For his work as he experiences it directly possesses the naked and abstract form of the commodity, while in other forms of work this is hidden behind the facade of 'mental labour', of 'responsibility', etc. (and sometimes it even lies concealed behind 'patriarchal' forms). The more deeply reification penetrates into the soul of the man who sells his achievement as a commodity the more deceptive appearances are (as in the case of journalism). (HI 172, GK 188)

Informed by the notion of responsibility, etc., the non-proletarian individual feels no need to distance himself from being a commodity and, thus, becomes more and more reified in all his faculties. To be a commodity permeates all his other forms and capacities. However, the proletarian cannot cover up being a commodity. Thus, he recognizes it as the form from which

he has to distance himself. In the preface to the 1968 edition, Lukács said that, in History and Class Consciousness , he has analyzed the emergence of revolutionary praxis as though it were a «sheer miracle.»^[9] In a passage that is almost a miracle in German since one immediately gets his point though the relations of grammar, logic, and meaning are nonetheless enigmatic, Lukács continues:

Corresponding to the objective concealment of the commodity form, there is the subjective element. This is the fact that while the process by which the worker is reified and becomes a commodity dehumanises him and cripples and atrophies his 'soul'—as long as he does not consciously rebel against it—it remains true that precisely his humanity and his soul are not changed into commodities. He is able therefore to objectify himself completely against his existence while the man reified in the bureaucracy, for instance, is turned into a commodity, mechanised and reified in the only faculties that might enable him to rebel against reification. Even his thoughts and feelings become reified. As Hegel says: "It is much harder to bring movement into fixed ideas than into sensuous existence." (HI 172, GK 188f.)

In addition, in contrast to proletarians, who, as Marx and Engels said, «have nothing to lose but their chains,»^[10] bourgeois individuals have something to lose. And if they don't have anything to lose, they at least have a lot to gain:

The worker experiences his place in the production process as ultimate but at the same time it has all the characteristics of the commodity (the uncertainties of day-to-day-movements of the market, etc.). This stands in contrast to other groups which have both the appearance of stability (the routine of duty, pension, etc.) and also the—abstract—possibility of an individual's elevating himself into the ruling class. By such means a 'status-consciousness' is created that is calculated {geeignet ist} to inhibit effectively the growth of a class consciousness. (HI 172; GK 189; note that Lukács's formulation «geeignet ist» does not imply any intention of any individual or group; thus instead of «is calculated» read «is fit» or even «happens.»)

The form of being a commodity has not only permeated all other forms, but it has also emptied the proletarians of any substance. A proletarian cannot justify his job in terms of responsibility, etc., and his job itself has become an unstable affair. In addition, he is no longer able to interpret his activities on the job as a means to a reasonable end (HI 87ff; GK 98ff.). It is only in the state of deformation of all other forms that human beings can recognize that they have been made into a commodity and can distance themselves from this form and thus from all history. Lukács goes on:

Thus the purely abstract negativity in the life of the worker is objectively the most typical manifestation of reification, it is the constitutive type of capitalist

socialisation. But for this very reason it is also subjectively the point at which this structure is { werden kann } raised to consciousness and can be breached in practice. As Marx says: "Labour . . . is no longer grown together with the individual into one particular determination." (HI 172; instead of «is raised» it should read «can be raised»; GK 189)

In former societies this process of becoming conscious was not possible. The economy was not yet autonomous (HI 238ff.; GK 244ff.). Political forms of domination were part of the economy and provided a framework of forms people could identify with and from which it was not necessary to abstract. This is no longer true for the «free» worker in a capitalist society. In addition, individuals and goods were not yet commodities in earlier societies. To be a commodity, however, requires a constant dividing of oneself and distancing of oneself from oneself (HI 90ff., 165ff.; GK 102, 182ff.). In addition, one might add, former processes of distancing, in stoic, Christian, and bourgeois philosophy all intended to make conscious, to lead to, and to strengthen, the reality of the form of human beingness that informs each individual human being and in regard to which all humans are equal. However, one can no longer rely on the way this form was realized in bourgeois society, since its realization has resulted in the inhuman conditions of modem capitalist society. The proletarians have been distanced from, deformed of, all traditional forms under the pressure of the commodity form. They can become aware of the power of distancing at work in commodities since due to the inner dynamics of capitalism, they themselves have become sheer commodities. Only because they have become pure commodities can they turn the power of distancing against commodities and distance themselves from the commodity form in order to realize by way of sublation the universalism inherent in bourgeois universalism. Thus, Lukács calls the consciousness of the proletarians «the self-consciousness of the commodity » (HI 168; GK 185).

For a communist, the average everydayness and the world of ordinary Dasein is certainly the economy and one's place in it. In line with Hegel's dialectics and in contrast to Heidegger, the de-formation that is the precondition to authenticity—to be a communist and finally a socialist society—is a result of the inner tendency at work in ordinary Dasein itself. Still, one must not overlook the «can» in Lukács's statements on becoming conscious. To become a commodity, to become aware of it, and to finally realize a socialist society is made possible, and indeed in some way intended, by the inner tendency active in ordinary Dasein in its average everydayness. However, it is only in becoming a commodity that the necessary and unavoidable outcome of this inner tendency is realized. To become aware of having become a commodity and to follow this through to the realization of socialism, however, is by no means a necessary outcome of this inner tendency even though it remains its intention. This is the difference, in Lukács's view, between

social democrats and communists, and it compels Lukács, as he maintains, to defend Marx against the social democratic revisionists.

Having become a commodity, a proletarian might realize a number of things, first, that the antagonism between the forces of production and the relations of production is the driving power in history, at least in the modem era (HI 10; GK 23). Second, he also begins to understand what Marx and Lukács call reification. In capitalist society, the relations between human beings have become relations between things, and these relations between things produce their own system, the capitalist economy, which determines all the other realms. The system follows its own self-generated laws (HI 83ff.; GK 94ff.) and produces a specific type of rationality—specific forms of thinking and acting—for all individuals working in it. The structure of these forms of thinking and acting differs from that of the system itself and its laws, though the former is necessary for the working of the system. Bourgeois thinking interprets the system in terms of the structure of thinking produced by the system and thus misinterprets the latter. As a consequence, bourgeois thinking misses the historical character of capitalism and takes capitalism for eternal and «natural» (HI 181ff.; GK 198ff.). Third, proletarian thinking recognizes that the relations between things are relations between human beings and at the same time that the system can function only when individuals misinterpret the laws of the system. The proletarians comprehend that the system of capitalist economy is by no means eternal but rather historical, for the inner contradictions inherent in it push it beyond liberal capitalist economy, though by no means necessarily into socialism and communism. In particular, a proletarian who is philosophically educated realizes that in modem philosophy the general conditions of reification are tacitly presupposed, in particular in German idealism, and that for that reason modem philosophy cannot solve the problems it itself raises (HI 110ff.; GK 122ff.). Concerning all these points one might find in Being and Time or in the later Heidegger an analogous claim, and it might be useful to compare them, if only because some might find Lukács's analysis of what Heidegger called «Vorhandenheit,» or Lukács's version of a thinking in terms of process as opposed to a thinking in terms of things and facts, more interesting and useful than Heidegger's analysis. However, this is not relevant to my purpose here.

Recognizing the antagonism between the forces of production and the relations of production as the driving power in history, proletarians can look through former theories on history as ideology in the Marxist sense. Lukács makes this point several times, twice only in a short comment. In a passage recapitulating Rousseau and Schiller, he adds in parentheses the proper Marxist terms: «culture and civilisation (i.e., capitalism and reification)» (HI 136; GK 150). Or, in a passage on the theory of history in Rickert he adds in parentheses his Marxist comment to a quote from Rickert: «However, this does no more than enthrone as the measure and the index of objectivity, the "cultural

values" actually "prevailing in his community {Gemeinschaft}" (i.e., in his class)» (HI 151; GK 166). Lukács's replacement of «Gemeinschaft» with «class» in the quote from Rickert is typical of leftist authors; they insist that class and class struggle are the relevant parameters in history and that the traditional Gemeinschaften will be replaced with a rational Gesellschaft. Thus, history is precisely not a return of some past. On the contrary, to them, using this or that Gemeinschaft as the relevant parameter and primary entity in history is a sign that the author either wrote at a time of not yet fully developed capitalism or is trying, more or less consciously, to «save» capitalist society against the threat from the Left. As I have shown in regard to Hitler, Scheler, and Heidegger, after the emergence of liberalism and socialism rightist authors want to replace the conceptual framework of society, class, and class struggle with that of Gemeinschaft in the minds of the proletarians. In this sense, Heidegger's use of «Gemeinschaft» in Being and Time by itself already indicates strongly that the author proposes a rightist theory of history, even if Guignon's claim that everyone at that time employed a «mythos of pristine beginnings, a time of "falling," and a final recovery of origins» (HC 141) were correct.

However, liberals, social democrats, and communists did not use such a model. Having become «the self-consciousness of the commodity» (HI 168; GK 185) and managing to make the first steps toward a proper class consciousness (which will be achieved only in a difficult process, HI 173ff.; GK 189ff.), the proletarians realize that bourgeois individuals will not leave behind their reified consciousness. However, they also realize that many of their fellow proletarians either don't reach the point of self-consciousness or, if they have done so, are not capable of maintaining this achievement. Instead of distancing themselves from the forms of reified thinking and action and instead of replacing them with the proper dialectical ones, they stay in, or relapse into, bourgeois ways of thinking and acting. The bourgeois forms of consciousness are strong and, as Hegel observed, adhere to the law of inertia more than physical bodies. For Lukács, the Social Democratic party is where bourgeois consciousness has the strongest hold on proletarians.

Social Democrats, and also to some extent Rosa Luxemburg, adhere to a model of history Lukács describes as «the organic character of the course of history» (HI 277; «des organischen Charakters der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung,» GK 281), or «economic fatalism» (HI 305; «Ö konomistischen Fatalismus,» GK 308). The three basic assumptions of this model are first, that the development of the forces of production will automatically bring about a socialist economy (HI 277; GK 281); second, proletarian consciousness is always in tune with the economic development (HI 305; GK 308); and third, the task of the working class is merely to adjust the political and social superstructure to the level of economic development realized at the respective time. Parliamentary democracy provides a forum for achieving this without

violence. It is this reliance on economic development Benjamin called the assumption of «moving with the current.» Lukács labels it «fatalism,» because, according to this model, it is fate, or necessity, that brings about socialism, and individuals simply can go along with fate. Fate is not determined by individuals. People only have to follow fate, that is, just remove any remaining obstacles. This is in line with the general meaning of Schicksal as some process or entity that determines our life in advance and thus is our fate. We have to comply with fate and must not try to resist it. Lukács can label it «organic» because, in this way of thinking, the socialist society will come about almost as naturally as biological growth; every stage of economic development always finds its proper expression in the proletarian consciousness and thus proceeds in as organic and holistic a fashion as growth in plants or animals where all the different parts always develop in tune with each other.

Lukács himself considers his and the communist concept of history a «non-fatalistic, non-'economistic' theory» (HI 305; GK 308), because, first, in his view it is by no means the case that the forces of production will bring about a socialist economy automatically. Though there is necessity within history, and though the agent of the necessity is economic development, this necessity or inevitability prevails only up to the moment of crisis:

For capitalism, then, expedients can certainly be thought of in and for themselves. Whether they can be put into practice depends, however, on the proletariat . The proletariat, the actions of the proletariat, block capitalism's way out of the crisis. Admittedly, the fact that the proletariat obtains power at that moment is due to the 'natural laws' governing the economic process. But these 'natural laws' only determine the crisis itself, giving it dimensions which frustrate the 'peaceful' advance of capitalism. However, if left to develop (along capitalist lines) they would not lead to the simple downfall of capitalism or to a smooth transition to socialism. They would lead over a long period of crises, civil wars and imperialist world wars on an ever-increasing scale to "the mutual destruction of the opposing classes" and to a new barbarism.

Moreover, these forces, swept along by their own 'natural' impetus have brought into being a proletariat whose physical and economic strength leaves capitalism very little scope to enforce a purely economic solution along the lines of those which put an end to previous crises in which the proletariat figured only as the object of an economic process. The new-found strength of the proletariat is the product of objective economic 'laws'. The problem, however, of converting this potential power into a real one and of enabling the proletariat (which today really is the mere object of the economic process and only potentially and latently its co-determining subject) to emerge as its subject in reality, is no longer determined by these 'laws' in any fatalistic and automatic way. (HI 306; GK 309f.)

Throughout his book, Lukács formulates this thesis in terms of the «tendency» or «objective possibilities» inherent in the economic development,

and I will give some examples of this. For Lukács, the different theories of history lead to a crucial difference between communists and social democrats in their concrete politics, namely, their attitudes toward violence. First, relying on the fatalism, or inevitability, of economic development, social democrats deny that violence is necessary to bring about socialism. Lukács and other communists, however, insist that violence has always been an economic power and is necessary for the realization of socialism (HI 239ff; GK 246ff). Second, there is no organic relationship between economic development and the consciousness of the proletariat. Rather, due to the inertia, the consciousness of many proletarians lags behind the economic development (HI 304; GK 307). This situation is extremely serious. As early as in The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels formulated the issue of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, of the destructive forces unleashed by the modem age, in an unsurpassed way, and already at that point they reduced the issue to its economic basis:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.^[11]

Looking back from the present into the past, one thus realizes how often and quickly, at least in modem times, forms of consciousness had already become anachronistic before they were finally swept away by history. However, the same applies to the present as well. Perhaps one's own consciousness too is already outdated, especially since capitalism is the institutionalized constant revolution of all relations due to the basic structure of private ownership of the means of production. In precapitalist societies this gap between consciousness and economic basis is absent, since the instruments of production didn't change that much. In addition, in precapitalist societies the available means for working on nature and society were much more limited. In the light of this, social democrats are naive and lack any sense for the peculiar character of the modem age. Relying on the organic relationship between economic development and consciousness, a social democrat infers from the absence of a clear and common will to revolution in the proletariat that, indeed, no revolutionary situation exists (HI 305; GK 308). A communist, however, might infer that the proletariat is just not up to its task. This gap between consciousness and economic development allows Lukács to describe the behavior of the social

democratic parties and of the unions in a way that is similar to how Heidegger characterizes the behavior of ordinary and inauthentic Dasein, which covers up the authentic possibilities of authentic action. The tactical theses of the Third Congress very rightly emphasize that every mass strike tends to transform itself into a civil war and a direct struggle for power. However, as Lukács emphasizes, «it only tends to do so.» Though the economic and social preconditions were often fulfilled, this tendency has not yet become reality. This «precisely is the ideological crisis of the proletariat » (HI 310; GK 312). The social democratic parties and the unions prevent the proletarians from developing the proper class consciousness, and they do so in a division of labor. The unions «take on the task of atomising and de-politicising the movement and concealing its relation to the totality,» while the social democratic parties «perform the task of establishing the reification in the consciousness of the proletariat both ideologically and on the level of organisation» (HI 310; GK 312f.). Thus, as the inauthentic Daseine in Heidegger, the social democrats and the unions prevent the proletarians from resolving the crisis «by the free action {freie Tat } of the proletariat » (HI 311; GK 313).^[12]

In contrast to social democrats and liberals, Heidegger and Lukács share the assumption of the critical character of the moment, the kairos, the crisis brought about by history. History does not realize the new state after bourgeois society—socialism or Volksgemeinschaft—in the way that trees produce fruits but leads to a crisis, in which both the authentic Daseine in Heidegger's sense and the proletarians believe to realize that the current state of society is transitory and will disappear. Both also maintain that the «real» logic of history differs from what individuals have considered it to be before becoming authentic or self-conscious. Moreover, both maintain that history can now develop in two directions and that it is up to the individuals which way history will go. Finally, both regard themselves as called upon by history to guide it in one direction and to prevent it from going the other way. Because of these similarities, one finds the rhetoric of crisis, decision, and call also in Lukács. In fact, at one point Lukács uses the concept of Schicksal in the same way the rightist authors did. According to Lukács, Rosa Luxemburg overlooked the limitation of possible choices «which fate forced upon the proletarian revolution right from the start» (HI 276; «die vom Schicksal aufgezwungene Wahl zwischen,» GK 280; note, however, that fate here does not call for a repetition). One must listen to and obey fate, otherwise one will fail. Rosa Luxemburg did not listen to fate. Thus, her criticism «has been refuted . . . by history itself» (HI 276; GK 280). In his strictly theoretical passages, Lukács uses not Schicksal but rather Geschichte, history, and according to him the communist theory is «non-fatalistic.» For he wants to oppose the social democrats already on the level of terminology, and in the eyes of leftists the fact alone that rightists use the term «fate» already reveals the latter's «irrational» view of history. Thus, as in the case of the replacement of «Gemeinschaft» with «class,» leftist authors do not use «fate»

as a basic term. They use it only polemically to indicate that other parties pretending to be leftists have in fact fallen prey to bourgeois ideology, as Lukács does regarding the social democrats. Otherwise, however, the structure and the vocabulary are the same as Heidegger's. Consider, for instance, the following sentence: «The proletariat "has no ideals to realize." When its consciousness is put into practice it can only breathe life into the things which the dialectics of history have forced to a crisis {nur das von der geschichtlichen Dialektik zur Entscheidung Gedrängte ins Leben rufen}; it can never 'in practice' ignore the course of history, forcing on it what are no more than its own desires or knowledge» (HI 177f; GK 194).^[13] Or, on the next page Lukács comments on the issue of force: «For this is the point where the 'eternal laws' of capitalist economics fail and become dialectical and are thus compelled to yield up the decisions regarding the fate of history to the conscious actions of men {dem bewußten Handeln der Menschen die Entscheidung über das Schicksal der Entwicklung zu überlassen gezwungen ist}» (HI 178; GK 195). As the last quotation shows, Lukács also uses the concept of fate in the derivative sense in that the actions of someone can become the fate of someone else in the future. However, as in the authors on the Right, this is a derivative sense, insofar as the individuals or groups are morally not free to realize whatever they wish. Rather, they are bound, called upon, by history to realize this—on the Right Volksgemeinschaft and on the Left socialism—and to avoid that———on the Right socialism and on the Left Volksgemeinschaft. For this obligation history places on the proletariat Lukács uses the word Beruf, mission:

Only the consciousness of the proletariat can point to the way that leads out of the impasse of capitalism . As long as this consciousness is lacking, the crisis remains permanent. . . . But the proletariat is not given any choice. {Das Proletariat hat aber hier keine Wahl.}. . . . But the proletariat cannot abdicate its mission. {Denn das Proletariat kann sich seinem Beruf nicht entziehen.} The only question at issue is how much it has to suffer before it achieves ideological maturity, before it acquires a true understanding of its class situation and a true class consciousness. (HI 76; GK 88f.)

Or he speaks of «the universal mission {weltgeschichtliche Sendung} of the proletariat» (HI 325; GK 327). ^[14] However, strong as these similarities between Heidegger and Lukács might be—in the decisive point Lukács's theory on history is the total opposite of Heidegger's. For the proletarians are called to a decision whose structure with regard to temporality is just the opposite of decision in Heidegger. Lukács often talks of the «new,» or «the radically new character of a consciously ordered society {Gesellschaft}» (HI 252, GK 258). This is not a mere phrase. History is not about the repetition of some vanished past but about the production of something essentially new that has never existed before, as the following features of Lukács' s concept of history clearly show.

The moment of crisis is decisive for the future of the world, and it is decisive for Lukács's entire theory on dialectics and history. In nature there is no critical dialectics between subject and object. Thus, dialectics and historical materialism do not apply to nature but only to the history of humanity (HI ff.; GK 15ff.). Since in precapitalist societies there is no reification and no critical dialectics either, dialectics and historical materialism apply to them, if at all, only in a modified and restricted way, one that still has to be determined by future theoretical work (HI 238ff.; GK 244ff.). In socialism, there will no longer be reification and critical dialectics between subject and object. Marx has shown that, pace Hegel, the categories of reflection are not «eternal» but rather valid only for bourgeois society (HI 177; GK 194). At the time of History and Class Consciousness , dialectics and Marxism in Lukács is, as he put it self-critically in 1968, not a universal ontology, but rather a «theory of society,» a «social philosophy» (HI xvi), ^[15] indeed, a theory of Gesellschaft that pertains only to a very small portion of the history of all societies. Still, in History and Class Consciousness Lukács makes two claims for history in general. First, he speaks of «the world-historical mission of the process of civilisation that culminates in capitalism {weltgeschichtliche Sendung des im Kapitalismus gipfelnden Zivilisationsprozesses},» and this mission is «to achieve control over nature » (HI 233; GK 239). The laws of reified capitalist society «have the task {Funktion} of subordinating the categories of nature to the process of socialisation {Vergesellschaftung}. In the course of history they have performed this function» (HI 233; GK 239). Certainly, this mission of capitalism is sublated and preserved in socialism. Insofar as no society prior to the modem capitalist ones ever achieved full domination over nature, this criterion excludes any repetition of a vanished past as the end of history. Indeed, in the context of these reflections Lukács does not speak of any repetition of a vanished past within socialism. Even if certain features of this or that precapitalist society recurred in a socialist society, this would be accidental, or they would recur as something instrumental to the functioning of a socialist society and its complete domination of nature. As rightist authors see it, however, it is just the other way around, and if any achievements of Gesellschaft are preserved at all in the revitalization of Gemeinschaft, it will be those that are instrumental to the life of the revitalized Gemeinschaft.

The second claim is the 'identical subject-object' that history intends to bring about. Again, in the systematic parts of this discussion Lukács does not even mention the problem of a «re.» As in the case of the first criterion either the second criterion also allows no room for a reoccurrence of a vanished past, or if so, the reoccurrence is accidental to the realization of the 'identical subject-object.' Lukács maintains that the central problem of German idealism was overcoming the separations characteristic of the modem age and resulting from the split between subject and object due to reification. The greatness of

German idealism lies in the fact that it did not deny but instead faced the separations and contradictions of the modem age, that is, of capitalism; it searched for ways to overcome them, and finally Hegel pointed the way out of those contradictions. The tragedy of German idealism lies in the fact that in its day the agent that alone was capable of overcoming bourgeois Gesellschaft and reification did not yet exist. Thus, German idealism wound up in mythologies. History is the result of an agent, of the subject who acts and who acts on something, the object; and history is about the realization of the subject's freedom. The subject will be free only if the object it acts on is not alien to the subject and if the subject is not acted upon by an alien object. An alien object is one that is different and independent from the subject and was not produced by the latter, or having been produced by the subject, it has a life of its own that determines the subject. The science of history has to show that over time what seems to be alien to the subject turns out to be indeed the subject itself, which will overcome its own determination by what is alien to it; the subject dirempts itself into itself as subject and its own object. Thus, the science of history shows that the latent identity of subject and object becomes manifest in history. German idealism could develop the abstract logic of this motif. However, in its time, the real subject-object in history did not yet exist. Thus, in Lukács's view, Hegel's philosophy was driven into mythology by a methodological necessity. Being unable to identify the real subject-object in history, Hegel made history itself dependent on something transcendent, and he introduced as the real agent in history the notorious World Spirit and its concrete incarnations, the Volksgeister, the spirits of the individual peoples (HI 141 - 149; GK 156-164). With the emergence of the proletarians German idealism faces a crisis as well. If one adheres to the «idealism» in Hegel, one will lose the vitality of dialectics. One will be left only with the antinomies and their increasingly mythological solutions. This is what German idealism «bequeath {es} to succeeding (bourgeois) generations» (HI 148; the German text has «Erbschaft,» GK 164). If an adherent of German idealism wants to remain faithful to its intention, he has to abandon Hegel's material theories, has to isolate their method, dialectics, and has to transplant dialectics into a context completely unfamiliar to philosophers, namely, into history as the history of production:

The continuation of that course which at least in method started to point the way beyond these limits, namely the dialectical method as the true historical method was reserved for the class which was able to discover within itself on the basis of its life-experience the identical subject-object, the subject of action; the 'we' of the genesis: namely the proletariat. (HI 148f.; GK 164) ^[16]

Only by a radical transformation of itself can German idealism remain faithful to its intention; if it remains the same and unchanged, it becomes unfaithful to its intentions and turns reactionary. In this sense Lukács approvingly

quotes Engels's sentence on «the 'German workers' movement' as the 'heir {Erbin} to classical German philosophy'» (HI xlv; GK 9). Quite soberly, Lukács acknowledges that later ages always use «the historical heritage {historische Erbschaft} » by «bending it to their own purposes» (HI 111; GK 123). Followers of the Volksgemeinschaft or other Gemeinschaften use Hegel selectively and abandon his dialectics and his liberalism in order to defend an illiberal bourgeois society against the threat of liberalism and leftist politics. Proletarians save Hegelian dialectics by radically transforming it, and they do so, according to Lukács, to save the intentions of German idealism. These three are the only occurrences of the word «Erbschaft» or «Erbe» in History and Class Consciousness . For Heidegger, nothing in modem Gesellschaft is intrinsically worth preserving in the state of authenticity (see chapter 2, section C). Reacting to the dynamics of the modem era, Heidegger transforms Erbschaft into a false god that demands obedience and subordination. Erbschaft or Erbe is intrinsically completely good, and it demands of the heirs that they rerealize it through their cancellation of modem Gesellschaft. Lukács acknowledges that, at least in the modem era, an Erbe is often contested and is always in danger. Whether it will be beneficial or not depends on how the heirs use it, on whether their use is attentive to the inner tensions and possibilities in the Erbe itself as well as to its context. Lukács uses this motif only in the context of philosophical knowledge, and not in the context of the different historical Gemeinschaften that have been pushed aside or are threatened by modem Gesellschaft. Tillich later claimed that to have missed the latter was the crucial political mistake of all liberals and leftists.

As to the identical subject-object, capitalism plays a crucial role. Prior to capitalism, the technologies of human beings were too limited not to be determined by nature and natural circumstances that humans could not control because they are different from them and not produced by them. Lukács does not tire of emphasizing that capitalism does away with this limitation. He speaks of a «'receding of natural limits'» (HI 237; «"Zurückweichen der Naturschranke",» GK 243) through capitalism. Or he puts it as follows: «The uniqueness of capitalism is to be seen precisely in its abolition of all 'natural barriers' {alle "Naturschranken" aufhebt} and its transformation of all relations between human beings into purely social relations {rein gesellschaftliche}» (HI 176; GK 193). One might object that, unless Lukács explains in more detail what he means, a receding of natural limits does not necessarily mean that the natural limits completely disappear, which seems to be what he implies in this as well as in several other passages (though one has to acknowledge that the German «aufhebt» sounds definitely more subtle than the English translation «abolition»). However, assuming purely social relations prepares the ground for the production of the identical subject-object. Lukács maintains that bourgeois thought necessarily «trails behind the objective development» (HI 176; GK 193), because it remains enmeshed in the abstract cate-

gories of reification and treats the categories of capitalist economy as eternal, and he continues:

The proletariat, however, stands at the focal point of this socialising process {Vergesellschaftung}. On the one hand, this transformation of labour into a commodity removes every 'human' element from the immediate existence of the proletariat, on the other hand the same development progressively eliminates everything 'organic', every direct link with nature from the forms of society so that socialised man can stand revealed in an objectivity remote from or even opposed to humanity. It is just in this objectification, in this rationalisation and reification of all social forms that we see clearly for the first time how society is constructed from the relations of men with each other. (HI 176; GK 193) ^[17]

If the relationships in capitalism were not purely social, the proletarians would not be capable of reflecting on their situation and of recognizing that the alien objectivity is social, that is, produced by them and thus in itself identical to them. They would not be able to establish themselves as the identical subject-object, because human society would still be determined by something not made by human beings. According to Lukács, the capitalist objectivity is «remote from or even opposed to humanity,» not «remote from or even opposed to nature.» Alienation from and return to nature or a natural state of humankind by retreat from, Widerruf of, or Aufhebung of, Gesellschaft—a great theme in philosophy from the eighteenth century on—is not Lukács's concern. Rather, emancipation from all natural barriers as achieved in capitalism and thereafter sublation of the reified objectivity of capitalism are the necessary steps toward the production of the identical subject-object of history. It is obvious that this concept of history leaves no room for a return to or a revitalization of a past Gemeinschaft that was pushed aside by capitalism, for previous Gemeinschaften simply do not meet the two criteria, namely, full domination over nature and the realization of the identical subject-object. Features of former Gemeinschaften recur in the consciously ordered society only accidentally.

The proletarians are the object of history, insofar as they are the result of history. The proletariat has to become its subject by becoming self-aware and by sublating the reified objectivity of capitalism. Having established a consciously ordered society the proletariat will have established a society in which human beings are no longer determined by something alien. The proletarians act on behalf of all human beings because they remove reification, and they realize the purpose of history:

The self-understanding of the proletariat is therefore simultaneously the objective understanding of the nature of society. When the proletariat furthers its own class-aims it simultaneously achieves the conscious realisation of the—objective—aims of society, aims which would inevitably remain abstract

possibilities and objective frontiers but for this conscious intervention. (HI 149; GK 165)

It is only the relationships in capitalism that are dialectical. In connection with the proletariat, Lukács discusses two features of dialectics, mediation and the category of totality (HI 1ff., 149ff.; GK 13ff., 165ff). The proletarians must not remain in the immediacy of their everyday experiences. Rather, they have to learn to conceive their situation as a result of historical processes. By doing so, they can relate themselves to the processes of history as a totality. Since only the relations in capitalism are dialectical and since the purpose of history is the production of the identical subject-object, the issue of a past returning is not even mentioned in this book. Rather, by becoming conscious of themselves the proletarians discover the immanent tendencies in the present and their task to consciously push these tendencies further. For Lukács, this effort does not imply that these tendencies in the present are related to some past to be rerealized. Consider, for instance, the following passage:

The methodology of the natural sciences which forms the methodological ideal of every fetishistic science and every kind of Revisionism rejects the idea of contradiction and antagonism in its subject matter. . . . But we maintain that in ' the case of social reality these contradictions are not a sign of the imperfect understanding of society; on the contrary, they belong to the nature of reality itself and to the nature of capitalism . When the totality is known they will not be transcended and cease to be contradictions. Quite the reverse, they will be seen to be necessary contradictions arising out of the antagonisms of this system of production. When theory (as the knowledge of the whole) opens up the way to resolving these contradictions it does so by revealing the real tendencies of social evolution. For these are destined to effect a real resolution of the contradictions that have emerged in the course of history. (HI 10; GK 23)

Or consider a passage in which Lukács summarizes this motif in terms of the three modes of time:

Becoming is also the mediation between past and future. But it is the mediation between the concrete, i.e. historical past, and the equally concrete, i.e. historical future. When the concrete here and now dissolves into a process it is no longer a continuous, intangible moment, immediacy slipping away; it is the focus of the deepest and most widely ramified mediation, the focus of decision and of the birth of the new. As long as man concentrates his interest contemplatively upon the past or future, both ossify into an alien existence. . .. Man must be able to comprehend the present as a becoming. He can do this by seeing in it the tendencies out of whose dialectical opposition he can make the future. Only when he does this will the present be a process of becoming, that belongs to him . Only he who is willing and whose mission it is {berufen} to create the future can see the present in its concrete truth. . .. But when the truth

of becoming is the future that is to be created but has not yet been born, when it is the new that resides in the tendencies that (with our conscious aid) will be realised, then the question whether thought is a reflection {Abbildlichkeit des Denkens} appears quite senseless. (HI 203f.; GK 223)

Indeed, this is a further description of the kairos, the crisis. Heidegger develops the dramatics of a move forward and away from the past, back to the past, and again forward with the past, a maneuver in which the past, or having-been, raises its voice and claims «its peculiarly privileged position in the historical» (BT 438; SZ 386). One finds nothing of this in Lukács. The proletariat does not retrieve a past. Rather, understanding itself as the result of a process, it sees that there are tendencies at work in the present that enable, indeed force, the proletariat to transform capitalist Gesellschaft into something radically new, namely, a socialist Gesellschaft which as such is not a repetition of a past. According to Heidegger and Scheler, in the crisis authentic Dasein understands that it draws its identity from something other than Gesellschaft, namely, from a Gemeinschaft it has to rerealize. The authentic Dasein becomes, as it were, the self-consciousness or conscience of Geschick and Gemeinschaft when it comprehends that Gemeinschaft has been pushed aside by Gesellschaft and when Gemeinschaft raises its voice demanding to be rerealized. In liberalism, individuals are the self-consciousness of reason. In Lukács, the proletarians draw their identity and strength only from the inner tendencies of Gesellschaft itself. To indicate that there is nothing beyond Gesellschaft and that the proletarians only rely on the emancipating power of the commodity form, Lukács defines the revolutionary proletarians neither in terms of Gemeinschaft nor in terms of reason, but rather as «the self-consciousness of the commodity » (HI 168; GK 185). ^[18]

Lukács takes up the issue of a «re»—a repetition of or a return to the past— three times. In the first part of the long essay "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat," he explores the phenomenon of reification as it occurs in capitalist economy and other areas of modern society, in particular bureaucracy. The second part begins with the thesis, «Modern critical philosophy springs from the reified structure of consciousness» (HI 110f.; GK 122). In the first two sections, he discusses this with reference to Kant and Fichte. In the third, he turns back to the eighteenth century and presents briefly What he regards as the central antinomy with which its philosophers dealt and which goes back to reification. The antinomy renders the concept of nature, for instance, ambivalent. «Nature» means the «"aggregate of systems of the laws" governing what happens.» «Nature» also functions as a «value concept » (HI 136; GK 150). However, there is a third meaning «quite different» from, and «wholly incompatible with,» the other ones. This notion of nature is related to

«the feeling that social institutions (reification) strip man of his human essence and that the more culture and civilisation (i.e. capitalism and reification) take possession of him, the less able he is to be a human being» (HI 136; GK 150). Nature becomes «the repository» of all tendencies opposing «mechanisation, dehumanisation and reification.» In this context, Lukács refers to Rousseau and Schiller: «But, at the same time, it can be understood as that aspect of human inwardness which has remained natural, or at least tends or longs to become natural once more {die Tendenz, die Sehnsucht hat, wieder Natur zu werden}. "They are what we once were," says Schiller of the forms of nature, "they are what we should once more become" {"sie sind, was wir wieder werden sollen"}» (HI 136; GK 150f.). Schiller's aesthetic-pedagogical writings, however, are excellent examples of a thinking in terms of Aufhebung as opposed to a thinking in terms of Widerruf. ^[19] Thus, even if Lukács were to endorse Schiller's view, he would still be opposed to the rightist program. However, Lukács criticizes the proposal of an overcoming of capitalist reification through aesthetics (HI 137ff.; GK 151ff.). The second occurrence of the rhetorics of a «re» is at the beginning of the following section in which Lukács presents Hegel's philosophy, which definitely comes closer to the relevant point than an aesthetic overcoming because Hegel considers history to be the relevant realm: «The reconstitution {Wiederherstellung} of the unity of the subject, the intellectual restoration {Rettung} of man has consciously to take its path through the realm of disintegration and fragmentation» (HI 141; GK 156). Again, if Lukács followed Hegel, the resulting model would still be one of Aufhebung of Gesellschaft and not of its Widerruf. In addition, particularly regarding Hegel's theory of Gesellschaft, the motif of a return of a past is indeed accidental to Hegelian dialectics. ^[20] However, again one need not elaborate this point, for, as mentioned, Lukács criticizes Hegel's turn to mythology. What is relevant in Hegel is not the world spirit or the Volksgeister, but only the dialectical method (HI 141-140; GK 156-164). As indicated earlier, the dialectical method in Lukács operates independently of any assumption of the return of the past pushed aside by capitalist Gesellschaft. This is confirmed by the third occurrence of the «re.» In the essay "The Changing Function of Historical Materialism," Lukács argues that with capitalism the «umbilical cord between man and nature» has been cut and that the past becomes transparent only when the present can practice self-criticism in an appropriate manner, and consequently, precapitalist societies can be understood only after historical materialism has proved that capitalist society is not a natural and eternal, but rather a historical phenomenon (HI 237; GK 243f.). In fact, Lukács continues: «For only now, with the prospect opening up of reestablishing {Wiedererlangung} non-reified relations between man and man and between man and nature, could those factors in primitive, pre-capitalist formations be discovered in which these (non-reified) forms were present—albeit in the service of quite different functions» (HI 237f.; GK 244). Lukács then points out that though

historical materialism in its classic form can be applied to the nineteenth century it can be applied to old societies only with «much greater caution» than the revisionists assumed (HI 238f; GK 244). This passage shows that the dialectical theory of revolution does not, and—due to the imperfect state of Marxist research of precapitalist societies—must not, depend on specific theories about precapitalist societies and the possible discovery of societies with so-called primitive communism. Rather, it is the other way around. Only if the dialectical theory of capitalist society can show the inner tendencies at work in capitalist society to overcome reification, can Marxist research of precapitalist societies look for nonreified relationships in them. In addition, the absence of reification is only one criterion among others, and it is common knowledge among Marxists that the absence of reification in precapitalist societies served conditions that should not be rerealized. Lukács' s metaphor of the «umbilical cord between man and nature» (HI 237; GK 244) clearly indicates that his theory is not about the repetition of a past or—in Heidegger' s terms—a world that has-been-there. Probably no one wants to repeat a state in which one is as helpless and as dependent on something or someone else as a newborn child is. Umbilical cords are cut to bring the child on his way to independence and not to be reestablished at a later point. If the newborn child has features that also occur in the adult, these features and the world they were part of are by no means the end for the sake of which a communist society is established^[21]

One might say that Guignon's notion of repetition applies to Lukács's relationship to Hegel. The revisionists have no proper understanding of Hegelian dialectics in Marx. Thus, Lukács takes the authentic Hegel as his hero whom he repeats. However, Lukács as well as Heidegger in section 74 talk about history and not about the theory of history, and Lukács's repetition of Hegel serves his concept of history that does not allow for a repetition of a past. In addition, though I will not go into detail here, Lukács's concept of repetition of Hegel is certainly much more interesting than Guignon's. Lukács has always been very sensitive to the phenomenon that in the course of history a theory, either as unchanged or in different phases of its development, can be placed «in the service of quite different functions.» While at the time of its formulation Hegelianism was progressive because of its articulation of problems and the means it offered for their solution, Hegelianism became reactionary as soon as it let the moment slip past unused when it had to thoroughly transform itself in order to realize its intentions. Besides missing the distinction between a Widerruf and an Aufhebung of the present, Guignon's concept of repetition also does not address this idea of saving a past from itself by virtue of its thorough transformation.

Though one might argue that under the impact of Lukács's theory of the Communist Party one has often underestimated the limitations of dialectics in Lukács, from a Heideggerian perspective Lukács's concept of history clearly presents inauthentic historicality. The later Heidegger would certainly have

regarded it as part of the last phase of metaphysics. Lukács adheres to the idea of a «collective plan» (HI 247; «Gesamtplan,» GK 254) for society, and he assumes that the purpose of history is for human beings to do away with any determination of human history by something other than human beings themselves. Whether Heidegger read History and Class Consciousness or not, from the perspective of Being and Time Lukács just offers another formulation of precisely the process Heidegger criticizes as a downward plunge, a falling-down-and-away-from the origin, from Gemeinschaft, the process targeted by Heidegger's criticism of the idea of a «business procedure that can be regulated» (BT 340; «Idee eines regelbaren Geschäftsganges,» SZ 294). There has always been a certain Platonism in Heidegger, namely, the assumption that human beings are authentic, or realize their essence, only if they no longer deny that they are essentially related to, and dependent on, something that is «higher» than and independent from their understanding or reason and their other faculties. In the essay "The Question Concerning Technology," Heidegger writes that, today, «the illusion comes to prevail that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct {Gemächte}. This illusion gives rise in turn to one final delusion: it seems as though man everywhere and always encounters only himself» (BW 308; VA 31). ^[22] He adds: «In truth, however, precisely nowhere does man today any longer encounter himself, i.e., his essence . Man . . . fails in every way to hear {überhört} in what respect he eksists, from out of his essence {aus seinem Wesen her}, in the realm of an exhortation or address {Zuspruch}, so that he can never encounter only himself» (BW 308f.; VA 31). Again, it is the same story as in Being and Time . In Being and Time , Gemeinschaft stands for the entity whose «Zuspruch» the inauthentic Daseine fail to hear, and maybe already in the unwritten «second half» (BT 17; SZ n.p.) of Being and Time Heidegger would have located Gemeinschaft in the larger picture of Being. Liberals, social democrats, and communists alike take pride in the certainty that the ideal Gesellschaft we have to realize is the result of our rational contracts and planning and that in it human beings have emancipated themselves from all human follies and all nonhuman entities that determined their lives in the Gemeinschaften. From the perspective of Being and Time as well as that of Hitler and Scheler (prior to his Kehre), Lukács is just a social democrat with more advanced methods, and thus he is nothing more than an advanced liberal. Lukács opposes what he regards to be the social democrats' naiveté concerning how a socialist society can be brought about, and for this purpose he presents his conceptual framework. However, the end is the same, namely, to establish a Gesellschaft and to do so by leaving behind any past. That my interpretation of Lukács is not, so to speak, a deconstructive one, but rather represents the way he was read by other leftists at the time is confirmed by Tillich's analysis in 1933. Tillich maintains that not to have looked back to the past was precisely the decisive political mistake of liberals, social democrats, and communists alike, and—in much the same way in which

Lukács regards it to be necessary for Hegelian dialectics to transform itself if it wants to remain faithful to its intentions—he presents the offer to the rightists to transform themselves and their traditions in order to save themselves from themselves and to realize their intentions.