5
Heidegger after the Machtergreifung

A. Geschlecht, Gemächte, and Technology in Heidegger

Heidegger's concept of politics as it is presented in Being and Time is not politically neutral. Rather, it is a brilliant summary of the politics of the revolutionary Right and as such is directed against the conservative Right, liberals, social democrats, communists, and socialists like Paul Tillich. Leaving aside the issue of repetition and construed according to the formula of the political used a lot nowadays, that is, in terms of «the other,» the different concepts of decision can be summarized as: decision or Ent-scheidung as Ausscheidung, the excretion of the other and the other within oneself, accompanied by the destructive turn against the other as in Heidegger; decision as the intensification of the antagonistic relationship to the other so that finally, in a classless society, the polemical relationship to the other can be overcome, as in Lukács's model; finally, as in Tillich, decision as the end of separation that allows one to make a covenant, an alliance, with the other, a covenant that acknowledges the other and the other within oneself and thus prevents oneself and the other from drifting apart, which would result in an Ausscheidung of the other. The act of Ausscheidung of the other presupposes the Ausscheidung of one's own ordinary or inauthentic Dasein, the Ausscheidung of oneself as «they» and of Gesellschaft, in order to reconstitute oneself as a healthy and pure Gemeinschaft. For some this act was painful. However, the political Right managed to make many people think that they would eventually be rewarded for the act of Ausscheidung with the blessings of the revitalized Gemeinschaft.

The concept of fate or destiny, used by philosophers and politicians on the Right, drew its impact and power from its polemical character in regard to the Center and the Left. As long as there was the common enemy, that is, the liberals and the leftists, many people on the political Right felt no need to consider their actual and possible alliances with other groups on the political Right. Many rightists did not join the National Socialist Party. However, Heidegger had built into his brilliant summary of revolutionary rightist politics in Being and Time an option for the National Socialists, and there was nothing in Being and Time on which he could have based a critique of National Socialism. Heidegger joined the National Socialist Party in 1933—notably, on May I, prior to 1933 the national holiday honoring the working class, an achievement of the Left.

Conservatives as well as National Socialists used the term «Opfer,» sacrifice, for the Ausscheidung. In the sections on Hitler and Scheler, I have already mentioned some occurrences of Opfer. In a speech, "The University in the National Socialist State," delivered on November 30, 1933, in Tübingen, Heidegger said:

We of today are in the process of fighting to bring about the new reality. We are merely a transition, a willing sacrifice. As the warriors in this struggle we must be a hard race {ein hartes Geschlecht}, that cares for nothing of its own, that rests firmly on the foundation of the people and the nation {auf den Grund des Volkes}. The struggle is not about individuals and colleagues, nor about empty tokens and general measures. All genuine struggle bears some permanent mark of the image of the combatants and their work. Struggle alone reveals the true laws whereby things are brought into being. The struggle we seek is one in which we stand shoulder to shoulder, man to man.^[1]

«(Geschlecht» can be used in several ways. As Derrida remarks, depending on its contexts it can be translated by «sex, race, family, generation, lineage, species, genre/genus»^[2] or «sex, race, species, genus, gender, stock, family, generation or genealogy, community.»^[3] Nowadays the word «Geschlecht» is used in bureaucratic and administrative forms and documents, in science, and in words like «Geschlechtskrankheit,» (venereal disease) or «Geschlechts-verkehr» (sexual intercourse). In these contexts, it is used as a descriptive term without any emotional connotations. Nevertheless, in other' contexts it can be given dramatic flavor, as in the passage Derrida quotes from Fichte,^[4] in the quote from Heidegger above, or in the statement a somewhat old-fashioned Heideggerian today might make, namely, that our Geschlecht is living in the closure of metaphysics. In this last sense all human beings alive in the present are the current Geschlecht. The term can also have emphatic connotations when used in the sense of lineage, family, dynasty as the Geschlechter in aristocratic societies («Agamemnon belongs to/is of the Geschlecht of the Atrides»). The emphasis is on the nobility of the Geschlecht whose members

are noble because of the nobility of their blood. Of course, it can also mean race or Volk as, for instance, in the quote from Heidegger. Again, the emphasis is on the nobility and purity of the race or the Volk. «Hart» is «hard,» «hart wie Krupp-Stahl,» «as hard as steel made by Krupp,» as the Führer wanted German soldiers to be.

«Geschlecht» in the sense of race or Volk implies that there are several Geschlechter here on earth, and for right-wingers only some are noble and pure. Drawing upon this sense of Geschlecht, Heidegger could easily indicate in one word the imperialistic mission of the German Volk to act as the proxy of mankind. Empirically, the German Volk is one among several Geschlechter; because of its nobility, however, it can and must act «for» (BT 435; SZ 383) all the Geschlechter, that is, for the entire generation, for the human Geschlecht, that is, for all human beings. The passage wiederholt, repeats, section 74 of Being and Time and in particular the sentences on Erwiderung and Widerruf. The call in Being and Time demands that authentic Dasein erwidert the call of the Volk, that is, that Dasein hands itself down to the Volk in order to regain a stable identity in the face of the vacillations of ordinary and inauthentic Dasein. In the same way, in Heidegger's speech, Dasein is called upon to rest firmly on the Grund, foundation, of the people, for only the people provides Dasein with a stable identity. Already in Being and Time this requires that Dasein widerruft, scheidet aus, cancels, eliminates itself as the ordinary Dasein it has been so far. Thus in the speech Dasein no longer cares for anything «of its own,» that is, it sacrifices all what is its own. («Eigenem» [«its own»] is not «eigentlich,» «authentic,» as in «authentic» and «inauthentic,» but rather is that which belongs exclusively to oneself, one's individuality or, as in Eigentum,^[5] one's private property one has to give up; that is, it is what belongs to inauthentic Dasein; authentic Dasein has to give up its individuality.) In Being and Time , having sacrificed its ordinary Dasein and having found its Grund in the Volk, Dasein is called upon to properly realize the Grund, the Volksgemeinschaft; that is, it is called upon to carry out the Widerruf of the Gesellschaft. Thus, in his speech, Heidegger says: «We of today are in the process of fighting to bring about the new reality.» In Being and Time , the realization of the Volksgemeinschaft is a rerealization of Gemeinschaft or of destiny. Destiny is not produced by the authentic Daseine. Rather, «only . . . in struggling {im Kampf} does the power of destiny become free» (BT 436; SZ 384). Similarly, in the speech struggle does not create the law of the new reality. Rather, «struggle alone reveals the true laws whereby things are brought into being» (italics mine, J. F.).^[6] The struggle for the new reality requires the sacrifice of «us» as Gesellschaft as well as of those whom we ausscheiden, expel, from the Gemeinschaft. In the first step we expel our Jewish, liberal, or social democratic colleagues out of the university,^[7] then out of Germany, «und morgen die ganze Welt» («and tomorrow we conquer the entire world,» as the song of the

National Socialists had it). We as well as those whom we ausscheiden might die in this battle. Thus, «we are but a transition, a sacrifice.» However, this sacrifice of our colleagues and maybe also of ourselves is a rightful claim the Volk has on all of us. For, «the battle is not about persons or colleagues.» Therefore persons and colleagues must be sacrificed if need be. Furthermore, we gain something, we gain on a large scale what bourgeois subjects enjoyed only in a fallen version in the privacy of their chambres séparees, that is, the public intimacy of «heart to heart, man to man» as the fulfillment of the promise of Gemeinschaft.

The speech, "The University in the National Socialist State," was Heidegger's last public speech outside of Freiburg under the National Socialist regime.^[8] At the time, he was already somewhat at odds with the empirical realities of National Socialism, though he remained a National Socialist and faithful to Hitler (MH 158). After the war, Heidegger came to regard politics and action as practiced in the kairos of the twenties and the thirties as metaphysical. He considered the cause he fought for as well as its consequences— namely, Auschwitz—as sent by Geschick and Gestell, destiny and enframing, for which individuals are not responsible,^[9] and promoted a post-metaphysical notion of praxis, namely, Gelassenheit. In several of his texts of that time, he used another word with the notorious prefix «ge-» whose meanings overlap with those of the word «Geschlecht.» Concerning sex and gender, the word «Geschlecht» often means specifically the male or female sex organ, the vagina or the penis.^[10] Another word for the male Geschlecht, the male sex organ, is das Gemächte, nowadays an old-fashioned term. Nonetheless, even in 1970 Marg renders «» in lines 180 and 188 of Hesiod's Theogony —that is, the genitals of Ouranos, which his son, Chronos, cuts off and throws into the sea, out of the foam of which Aphrodite emerges—as «Gemächte.»^[11] In 1939, in his essay on Aristotle's notion of nature, Heidegger uses «das Gemächte» as a technical term and as his translation of the Greek word He comments on Aristotle's Physics , 192 b 16-20:

In opposition to beings like "plants," animals, earth, and air, Aristotle now sets beings like bedsteads, robes, shields, wagons, ships, and houses. The former are "growing things" ["Gewächse "] in the same broad sense that we use in speaking of a "field under growth." The latter are "artifacts" (), in German, Gemächte , although this last term must be stripped of any derogatory connotations. ^[12]

Probably Heidegger arrived at this term in three steps. He begins, so to speak, here on earth, within «a 'here' and a 'yonder'» to which each «'there' {Da}» points (BT 171; SZ 132f.). Thereupon, several individual cases of these «'here'» and «'yonder'» allow for some, so to speak, floating generality. In the

third step, Heidegger claims that, as death in Being and Time , something else «enters into » (BT 292; «in dieses hereinsteht, » SZ 248; literally «stands into») this floating generality. The verb «machen» (to make, to do, to produce, to fix, to manage, to arrange, to perform, to finish) is a word of everyday language used especially when the action performed does not need to be specified. I have ordered a chair at a carpenter's shop, or I have taken a jacket to a tailor for mending. When I go to pick it up, however, the person says: «I have es not yet fertig gemacht, finished it.» Or, the person might say, «It is still in der Mache, in the making.»^[13] In an art gallery someone admires a canvas. Proudly, I point to myself and say: «I have gemacht it.» Accused of having produced this or that mess, I point to someone else and to the mess and exclaim: «Der da hat das (da) gemacht!» (That da [-sein over there] has done this [mess over there]!). Or, babies or children «machen Pipi,» or «machen sich in die Hose,» that is, urinate or defecate into their pants. As one can already see from these examples, the word—or at least the noun, das Gemachte, or das Machwerk—has a flavor of craftsmanship. It belongs, as it were, to the ordinary world «in the mode of its genuineness» (BT 189; «im Modus seiner Echtheit,» SZ 148), the world of «preparing, putting to rights, repairing, improving, rounding-out» (BT 189; SZ 148) where we see things «as a table, a door, a carriage, or a bridge» (BT 189; SZ 149); it belongs to our human-all-too-human everyday affairs in which we proudly present or tenderly cover up «das nackte Vorhandene» (SZ 150; «some naked thing,» BT 190), or try to blame someone else for it. Still, as the most general term it can be used in almost any situation to point to the cause of something. In this sense Heidegger says in "The Question Concerning Technology": «The fact that the real has been showing itself in the light of Ideas ever since the time of Plato, Plato did not bring about {hat nicht Platon gemacht}. The thinker only responded to what addressed itself to him {Der Denker hat nur dem entsprochen , was sich ihm zusprach }» (BW 299; VA 21, italics mine, J. F.).^[14]

Machen is a verb («I mache something»), gemacht is the perfect participle, used both in the active and passive voice: «I have gemacht it,» and «The table is gemacht.» The participle can be made into a noun: «The table is a Gemachtes.» Or, as Hegel says, the constitution of a state should not be regarded as «ein Gemachtes.»^[15] Thus, we have a general noun that can be used for everything produced by human beings, for the corresponding comportment of human beings, and maybe also for what brings about this comportment. However, Heidegger could not leave it at das Gemachte, for as a general term in the theory of epochs of Being the word is just too naked and sober. If it has a flavor, it is by no means the entsprechende for the philosopher of destining history of Being. Also, it might have affirmed the illusion that we are the author of what brings about the comportment in which we treat everything as a Gemachtes or as raw material for a Zu-Machendes. Thus, Heidegger crowned das Gemachte with diacritical marks (Umlaut) and asks

us to abstract from its derogatory usage. «Das Gemächte» is indeed a very old and by now outdated expression for what a person or nature has produced or for what God has created. Crowned by the Umlaut, in Heidegger Gemächte is supposed to acquire some sort of Güte.^[16] Heidegger uses the term «Gemächte» for all products of human beings from Plato and Aristotle onward up to the present day and, at the same time, points out a decisive difference between modem products and Gemächte in Aristotle.

There is a remarkable shift in his basic vocabulary from the essay on Aristotle to "The Question Concerning Technology." In the essay on Aristotle, Heidegger uses as the common term for natural products and technical products—that is, as the common term for «Gemächte» and «Gewächse» (see the quote above)—«Herstellung» or «Herstellen.» Physis is «das Sich—aus sich her, auf sich zu—Herstellen» (WM 367; «production of itself from out of itself unto itself»).^[17] This allows for the term «Gestellung.» In quite an unusual maneuver, Heidegger translates Aristotle's with «Gestellung in das Aussehen» and comments:

By translating   as placing into the appearance {Gestellung in das Aussehen}, we mean to express chiefly two things which are equal in the Greek word but thoroughly lacking in our word "form." First, placing into the appearance is a mode of becoming present,  .   is not an ontic property present in matter, but a mode of Being . Secondly, "placing into the appearance" is being-moved,   which "moment" is radically lacking in the concept of form. ^[18]

Thus, a «Gewächs» is the result of a «Herstellung» as a «Gestellung.» However, a «Gemächte» is the result of a «Herstellung» as a «Machen.» Still, according to Heidegger, there is a difference between human products at Aristotle's time and in modernity. Heidegger maintains that Aristotle wrote lines 192 b 23-27 «in order to avoid misunderstanding as a kind of selfproducing and the merely as a special kind of artifact {eine besondere Art von Gemächten}.»^[19] In a rather unusual interpretation of these lines Heidegger maintains that, according to Aristotle, « can only cooperate with , can more or less expedite the cure; but as it can never replace and in its stead become itself the of health as such.»^[20] The latter, however, is the notion of technic in modernity: «That could only happen if life as such were to become a "technically" producible artifact {"technisch" her-stellbaren Gemächte} . . . Sometimes it seems as if modem man rushes headlong towards this goal of producing himself technologically . »^[21]

From this perspective of modem man, the «Gewächse» in ancient Greece are misinterpreted. For, as Heidegger argues, «the idea of "organism" and of the "organic" is a purely modem, mechanistic-technological concept according to which "growing things" are interpreted as artifacts that make themselves {sich selbst machendes Gemächte}.»^[22] In "The Question Concerning Technology," however, q calls production in nature and technology no

longer «Herstellung,» but rather «Hervorbringen.» Physis is the «Her-vor-bringen» («bringing-forth») that has the «Aufbruch des Her-vor-bringens» («bursting open belonging to bringing-forth») in itself, whereas technology is the «Hervorbringen» which does not have the «Aufbruch seines Hervorbringens» in itself (VA 15; BW 293). Surprisingly enough, however, both terms for physis in the essay on Aristotle, «Herstellung» as well as «Gestellung,» are used in "The Question Concerning Technology" for technology. «Her-stellen» or «Darstellen» («producing and presenting») is used for the Greek poiesis (VA 24; BW 303). «Gestellung,» however, is stripped of its suffix «-ung» and becomes the technical term for modem technology, «Ge-stelb» («enframing») (VA 23; 301). Thus, «Gemächte» is no longer a term for artifacts in Aristotle nor for the products of modem technology. Consequently, «das Gemächte» is used only three times, and always in the negative.^[23]

One reason for these changes is probably that «Her-stellen» and «be-stellen» («Bestand,» «Gestelb») allowed Heidegger to distinguish between Greek poiesis and modem technology also in his terminology. Furthermore, Hiroshima, Dresden, and Auschwitz happened after he wrote the essay on nature in Aristotle. Since in "The Question Concerning Technology" he talks in an oblique way about the «skeleton {s}» (BW 301; «Knochengerippe,» VA 23) in Auschwitz, and how to forget about them,^[24] it would be somewhat indecent to use a word for the male sex organ too frequently. In the section on historicality in Being and Time , Heidegger characterized authentic Dasein as the Dasein that—in contrast to inauthentic Dasein—is able to relate itself properly to its death as well to its birth and thus to the Volksgemeinschaft of the Germans. "The Question Concerning Technology" was delivered as a speech in Munich in 1953 and published in Vorträge und Aufsätze in 1954. It might have embarrassed some listeners and readers if the two cornerstones of Being and Time , death and birth, had recurred in that speech as the skeletons in Auschwitz together with the frequent usage of a word for the male sex organ.

As far as I know, studies of Heidegger's use of terms for sex organs have not yet addressed the passages I have discussed here. Those who maintain that Western metaphysics is phallocentric might find further support in Heidegger's use of the noun «Gemächte.» Furthermore, the passage on the «harte Geschlecht» seems to indicate that crucial motifs of the Heidegger of Being and Time have remained the same in his thinking after the Machtergreifung, as I will explain in the next section.

B. Heidegger's An Introduction to Metaphysics

Besides Rilke and Nietzsche, Hölderlin was the author whose poems and writings educated German soldiers in World War I, and also later in World War II, carried with them in their «Tomister» (knapsack) when they went to war. In his Mein Kampf , Hitler had left no doubt that, as to foreign affairs,

his top priority or Lebensaufgabe was to conquer Russia by war (MKe 641ff.; MK 726ff.), and he had maintained that only six years of National Socialist rule would suffice to make the German Volk ready for war (MKe 633; MK 716). In the year after the Machtergreifung, in the winter semester of 1934-35, Heidegger gave a lecture course on Hölderlin's hymns "Germanien" (the German word for the Latin word for Germany, Germania) and "Der Rhein" (The [river] Rhine), in which he also interpreted two lines of an unfinished poem by Hölderlin,

Seit ein Gespräch wir sind
Und hören können voneinander. (HH 71)

It is a subclause and runs, literally translated: «Since we have become a conversation and are able to hear from (of) each other.»^[25] In Heideggerian terms, one might say that, in 1933, Being took over. Verfallen, taken in by the beings, the ordinary and inauthentic Daseine ignored or covered up Being and stuck to their Gesellschaft. However, Being, Gemeinschaft, raised its voice and demanded that Gesellschaft be canceled so that Being, Gemeinschaft, could be properly manifested. In 1933 Being was successful. Heidegger adds to Hölderlin's subclause what he thinks was the main clause Höldefiin intended and then comments on the two lines as follows:

Since we are a conversation, we are placed into and at the mercy of the being as it reveals itself {ausgesetzt in das sich eröffnende Seiende}; it is only since then that the Being {Sein} of the being as such can encounter and determine us {uns begegnen und bestimmen}. (HH 72)^[26]

The inauthentic Daseine wanted to deny and cover up Being in order to avoid being taken over and determined by Being. Now Being reveals itself as it is in reality, no longer covered up and distorted by the inauthentic Daseine. In this moment, we realize that it is not we who determine ourselves. Rather, we give up the pretense of autonomy and expose ourselves to, open ourselves for, or submit ourselves to, the Being of the beings as such, which catches hold of us and determines us. We realize that only now can we relate to the other authentically. Heidegger goes on:

The fact, however, that the being as to its Being {das Seiende . . . in seinem Sein } is unconcealed in advance for each of us, is the presupposition for being able to hear from the other something, that is, something about some being, whether this being is what we are not—that is, nature—or whether it is what we ourselves are—that is, history. (HH 72)

Being in Heidegger has priority over the beings that Being gives. The proponents of Gemeinschaft maintained that, prior to being in Gesellschaft, human beings had been in Gemeinschaft and that the individuals in Gesellschaft

regarded the latter as a mere means to pursue their selfish interests and, for that very reason, were not really happy, even if they accumulated a fortune. For, in reality Gemeinschaft founded the individuals, and it was only Gemeinschaft that gave them identity and rewarding feelings about themselves, the others, and the Gemeinschaft. Heidegger continues:

The ability to hear by no means produces the relation of the one to the other, that is, the Gemeinschaft. Rather, the ability to hear presupposes the Gemeinschaft. This primordial {ursprüngliche} Gemeinschaft by no means originates through entering into a relationship; that is how Gesellschaft originates. Rather, Gemeinschaft is because of the preceding bond, a bond that binds each individual to that which keeps bound and determines each individual in a superelevating manner {das, was jeden Einzelnen überhöhend bindet und bestimmt}. (HH 72^[27]

Authentic belonging-to-one-another results neither from the Aristotelian natural inclination toward society nor from contracts, as, for instance, in liberalism. Heidegger considered it convenient to give an example. For German right-wingers after World War I, the paradigmatic Gemeinschaft were the heroes of Langemarck. As I've pointed out in the sections on Hitler and Scheler, right-wingers thought the war would surely be lost if it was approached with the attitudes of Gesellschaft. When faced with war, Gesellschaft evaporates, and Gemeinschaft raises its voice. War is the ultimate rationale, the Grund or ground, of Gemeinschaft. Fully in line with that sort of reasoning, Heidegger continues:

That which neither the individual by itself nor the Gemeinschaft as such is, that must become manifest. The comradeship of the frontline soldiers was grounded neither in the fact that they had to gather together with other humans because they needed them and could find them only at other places {daß man sich zusammenfinden mußte, weil andere Menschen, denen man fern war, fehlten}, nor in agreeing upon a shared enthusiasm {daß man sich auf eine gemeinsame Begeisterung erst verabredete}. Rather, at bottom it is grounded only in the fact that the nearness of death as a sacrifice placed each one in advance into the same nullity, so that this latter became the source of the unconditional belonging-to-each-other. (HH 72f.)

It is not the bargaining of social democrats and liberals in labor unions and in parliament that leads to authentic belonging-to-each-other. This is, according to Heidegger, what the Philistines have to learn:

It is precisely death—the death each human being has to die for himself and which singularizes each individual to the utmost extent—it is precisely death and the willingness of its sacrifice {= the willingness to offer one's own death as a sacrifice} that first and foremost and beforehand creates the site of Gemeinschaft, from which comradeship emerges {entspringt}. Thus, does comradeship grow {entspringt} out of Angst? No and yes. No, if one, like the Philistine, understands

by Angst only the helpless quivering of a panicky cowardice. Yes, if Angst is understood as a metaphysical nearness to the unconditional, a nearness that is given as a gift only to the highest self-sufficiency and readiness. If we do not compel powers into our Dasein that, like death as a free sacrifice, bind and singularize unconditionally—that is, powers that catch hold of {angreifen} each individual at the root of its Dasein and that, like death as a free sacrifice, stand deeply and wholly in an authentic knowing—then no 'comradeship' will emerge. In that case, the result will at best be a modified form of Gesellschaft. (HH 73)^[28]

One sees that it is, so to speak, «the same old story» as in Being and Time . In 1926, Heidegger shied away from calling the actors by their proper names. He left out the name of the foe, and he wrote «der Gemeinschaft, des Volkes» (SZ 384; «of the community, of {the} people,» BT 436). The latter phrase allowed him to use as well as to avoid the blunt word «Volksgemeinschaft» and at the same time be understood by philosophers, that is, by people who are not Denker, but just Verstandesdenker, and who proceed from the genus to the species. After 1933, Heidegger could use the proper names, for everyone knew what he was talking about anyway, and he could leave out the Volk of the Volksgemeinschaft. Indeed, the German Volksgemeinschaft was not just one species among several others; it was the proper manifestation and agent of Being, which would clean up the remaining Gesellschaften in Europe and, as the song had it, «tomorrow {in} the entire world.» Heidegger's last two sentences in the above-quoted passage are a warning. No one must have recourse to «the endless multiplicity of possibilities . . . of comfortableness, shirking, and taking things lightly» (BT 435; «Behagens, Leichtnehmens, Sich-drückens,» SZ 384), for «each individual» is in charge. However, at the same time Heidegger's sentences might express some doubts as to whether «we» were fast enough or even whether «we» were still «mit beiden Beinen,» with both legs, on the authentic track.

The lecture course on Hölderlin took place in winter 1934-35. In the next semester, in the summer of 1935, Heidegger gave the lecture course An Introduction to Metaphysics . Having read the passage on erwidert in Being and Time , the readers might recall the following passage:

It is absolutely correct and proper to say that "You can't do anything with philosophy." It is only wrong to suppose that this is the last word in philosophy. For the rejoinder imposes itself: granted that we cannot do anything with philosophy, might not philosophy, if we concern ourselves with it, do something with us? So much for what philosophy is not. (IM 12; EM 9)

This is an unambiguous instance of what in chapter I, sections B and D, I referred to as an Erwiderung in the dative, namely, someone proposes something, and I contradict, or object to him. Thus, the English reader might expect

that the translator has rendered the German word «Erwiderung» through the English term «rejoinder.» However, the reader might also become suspicious, since this rejoinder is very impressive, or at least says something, whereas the rejoinder in Being and Time didn't say anything at all. The reader would be right, for the German text has, not «Erwiderung,» but rather «Gegenfrage» («Es kommt nämlich noch ein kleiner Nachtrag in der Gestalt einer Gegenfrage,» EM 9). The corresponding verb to «Gegenfrage,» or «Entgegnung,» is «entgegnen.» «Gegenfrage,» «Entgegnung,,» and «entgegnen» are unambiguous formulations of what I referred to as «erwidern» in the dative, and they can also serve as «erwidern» in the accusative in the sense of fighting back. Thus, instead of the ambiguous «erwidert» Heidegger could have used «entgegnen» if he had wanted to indicate a reciprocative rejoinder in Guignon's, the translators', or Birmingham's sense. Furthermore, as mentioned, «erwidert» in the dative and also, to some degree, «erwidert» in the sense of «fighting back» would have required Heidegger to tell the readers what the authentic Dasein erwidert.^[29] As was indicated above, he could have also used «Auseinandersetzung» or «auseinandersetzen» or «Widerspruch» or «widersprechen» if he had wanted to say what Guignon and Birmingham take him to say.^[30] Since he did not use any of these expressions, he must have meant his «erwidert» as subjugation.^[31] In the same context as the first passage quoted above, Heidegger writes:

Philosophy is essentially untimely because it is one of those few things that can never find an immediate echo {Widerklang} in the present and that must never find such an echo {und auch nie finden zu dürfen}. When such an echo {solches} seems to occur, when a philosophy becomes fashionable, either it is no real philosophy or it has been misinterpreted and misused for ephemeral and extraneous purposes. . .. But what is useless can still, and even more than ever {und erst recht}, be a force, perhaps the only real force. What has no immediate echo {Widerklang} in everyday life can be intimately bound up {im innigsten Einklang stehen} with a nation's {eines Volkes} profound {eigentlichen} historical development, and can even anticipate it {dessen Vorklang}. What is untimely will have its own times. This is true of philosophy. (IM 8; EM 6f.; the words in italics have been left out in the English translation, J. F.)

The phrase «is one of those few things that» is a somewhat colorless translation of Heidegger's phrase «sie zu jenen wenigen Dingen gehört, deren Schicksal es bleibt» («belongs to those very few things whose fate it remains»). «Echo,» «intimately bound up,» and «anticipate» are translations of Heidegger's sequence of «Widerklang,» «Anklang,» and «Vorklang»:

Die Philosophie ist wesenhaft unzeitgemäß, weil sie zu jenen wenigen Dingen gehört, deren Schicksal es bleibt, nie einen unmittelbaren Wider-klang {echo } in ihrem jeweiligen Heute finden zu können und auch nie finden zu dürfen. Wo solches scheinbar eintritt, wo eine Philosophie Mode wird, da ist entweder keine

wirkliche Philosophie oder diese wird mißdeutet und nach irgendwelchen ihr fremden Absichten für Tagesbedüfnisse vernutzt. . .. Aber, was nutzlos ist, kann doch und erst recht eine Macht sein. Was den unmittelbaren Wider-klang {echo } in der Alltäglichkeit nicht kennt, kann mit dem eigentlichen Geschehen in der Geschichte eines Volkes im innigsten Ein-klang stehen {intimately bound up }. Es kann sogar dessen Vor-klang {anticipate } sein. (EM 6f.; italics and hyphens mine, J. F.)

This sequence of «Widerklang,» «Einklang,» and «Vorklang» is brilliant. All three nouns have as their root the noun «Klang,» sound. «Wider» in «Wider-klang» is, pace Birmingham, not «in opposition to,» but rather, as in «I erwidere/return a favor,» «back,» or «re-»; that is, «Widerklang» is «resonance» or, as the translator rightly puts it, «echo.» «Ein» in «Einklang» is «in accord with»; thus, «Einklang» is «unison,» «accord,» or «harmony.» «Vor» in «Vorklang» has a temporal sense; thus, «Vorklang» is an anticipation in the sense that there is some so far unknown event in the future that makes itself felt somehow in the present for those who are open to perceive this, that is, philosophy, or exclusively Heidegger himself who thus becomes the «Vorklang» of this futural event. In German, one expects words like these in two kinds of situations. One uses them in descriptions of very subtle, often erotic, situations in which one communicates indirectly.^[32] Or, imagine someone sitting pensively, melancholic, or in pangs of love on some hill not too far away from a village, and the bells of the church begin to ring. He listens to them and, duplicating or echoing, erwidernd in the accusative, their Klang, he opens himself to them, and his thoughts and feelings follow the sounds. (He might refer to his state after the bells have actually stopped ringing by using another compound noun with «Klang»: «Even several hours later, I felt the Nachklang, echo, of the bells in me.») In Heidegger, however, these words receive a slightly tragic as well as defiant tone. As one knows, the lecture course An Introduction to Metaphysics was delivered in 1935, that is, shortly after Heidegger had resigned from the rectorate, and after he had declared in a speech broadcast on radio why he would not go to Berlin but rather stay in the provinces.^[33]

In 1935 Heidegger still believed in Hitler and National Socialism as the notorious sentence claiming «the inner truth and greatness of this movement» (IM 199; EM 152) in An Introduction shows.^[34] However, the truth of National Socialism has become an «inner» one; that is, it seems the empirical reality of National Socialism no longer counts as a proper realization of the Volk and National Socialism. In 1926 and subsequent years, the philosopher had thought that the «fate» allotted by «destiny» to philosophy was to bring about, or to help to bring about, the practical comeback of the Volk. However, something must have gone wrong. Thus, through the mouth of its only incarnation philosophy declares that all those who thought that philosophy had become practical had simply misunderstood philosophy, and philosophy also declares

that it, is its fate never to find an immediate echo. Nevertheless, the philosopher remains the one with privileged access to the authentic historizing of the Volk, and he is the only one, except perhaps for the Führer. Thus, the expressionistic and actionistic vocabulary of «Kampf,» «hörig,»^[35] «erwidern,» and «Widerruf» of Being and Time is replaced with the bucolic Innerlichkeit, inwardness, of «Anklang,» «Einklang,» and «Vorklang» (in which the «Vor-klang» no longer insists on the possibility of immediate realization and thus, as in contrast to «Vorlaufen zum Tode,» can be properly translated as «anticipate»).

Something else, however, has not changed. Imagine if Heidegger had published section 74 of Being and Time in a journal and had written an abstract. It might have looked like the following:

Heritage in section 74 stands in the closest connection with krinein , to separate, in the sense of de-cide in collecting toward the authentic historizing of the German Volk. Erwiderung and Widerruf are the foundation and proof of the pursuit of the Volk as authentic community and the battle against liberal and democratic Gesellschaft . The meaning of krinein includes to pick out, to favor, to set a measure that will determine rank.

Replace the phrases in bold type with «logos, » «the collectedness of being { Sein },» «Selection,» «being,» and «appearance,» respectively, and you have Heidegger's summary of his interpretation of Parmenides in An Introduction to Metaphysics :

Logos here stands in the closest connection with krinein , to separate [Scheiden] in the sense of de-cide [Ent-scheiden] in collecting toward the collectedness of being. Selection [das auslesende "Lesen"] is the foundation and proof of the pursuit of being and the battle against appearance. The meaning of krinein includes to pick out {auslesen}, to favor, to set a measure that will determine rank. (IM 174; EM 133; as in the next quotation italics with «auslesende» mine, J. F.)

This sentence reads in German: « steht hier im engsten Verband mit , dem Scheiden als Ent-scheiden im Vollzug der Sammlung auf die Gesammeltheit des Seins. Das auslesende "Lesen" begründet und trägt den Verfolg des Seins und die Abwehr des Scheins. In der Bedeutung des schwingt mit: auslesen, abheben, die rangbestimmende Maßgabe» (EM 133).^[36]

In this summarizing passage key terms of Being and Time, « Ent-scheiden» («de-cision»), «Entschlossenheit,» («resoluteness») occur alongside items from the National Socialist vocabulary, such as «Auslese» («selection» or «pick out» as in «rassische Auslese,» «racial selection»). At the same time, in the text Heidegger forcefully promotes Sammlung, sammeln (gathering, to gather) to a key term of his later philosophy. The passage precisely «repeats»

the passage on erwidert and Widerruf in Being and Time , section 74. We live in a fallen state of mixture. The call of the Volksgemeinschaft calls us back («erwidern») and calls upon us to purify the mixture, that is, to throw out the impure and alien elements and to restore the pure Gemeinschaft («erwidern» and «Widerruf»). In the passage from An Introduction to Metaphysics , it is especially the phrase «das auslesende "Lesen"» («selection») that carries the required restoration of the pure Gemeinschaft by throwing out the alien elements. The phrase «das auslesende "Lesen"» («selection») specifies the phrases «de-cide» («Ent-scheiden») and «collecting» («Sammlung»). By this, «gathering» in Heidegger follows the same logic as «gathering» in National Socialism. Within National Socialism, the inconspicuous everyday word «sammeln» all of a sudden gained a prominent place in the political vocabulary in precisely the sense in which Heidegger uses it in the above-quoted passage from An Introduction to Metaphysics . To be sure, the notions Versammlungen, Sammlungen, and Sammlungsbewegungen, meetings and merger movements (of political parties or religious groups), were used already before the emergence of National Socialism. However, from 1933 on the word «sammeln» acquired a new sense.

The history of the Sammlungsbewegung National Socialism prior to its final defeat consisted of three stages. First, the members of the party sammelten sich selbst, assembled by leaving the city, the Weimar Republic, to congregate outside of it or by forming their own city within the city. This is «to separate in the sense of de-cide in collecting toward the collectedness of being» (IM 174; EM 133). In doing so, they cleanse themselves of the unhealthy mixtures and corruption they believed to be prevalent in the city. They cleanse themselves of any trace of Gesellschaft, liberalism, social democracy, and Jewishness in themselves. From their vantage point, the city was afflicted with alien elements from which it had to be purged so that its purity might be restored. In other words, the city was in a state of unhealthy mixtures of Being and Non-Being, and the philosophical term for this usually is «Schein» (EM 133; «appearance,» IM 174). That first act was an Auslese, a separation, a selection, a de-cision, and the party members were the subjects as well as the objects of this act. They de-cided themselves from the city by leaving it and forming their party. The authentic Daseine are «followers {Hörige}» (IM 129; EM 99)^[37] of Being. They only collect themselves because they listen to Being's commands. Thus the first act is the moment in which Being collects itself («in collecting toward the collectedness of being»). The phrase «in collecting toward the collectedness of being» corresponds to the phrase «the handing down of a heritage constitutes itself in resoluteness» (BT 435; SZ 383f.), which I discussed in section C of chapter 2. In the first act, the authentic Daseine erwidern the call of Being; Being is no longer covered up; rather it begins to be active and to be the main actor in the second

and third act in which the authentic Daseine widerrufen, cancel, Gesellschaft. In the second act the party members took over the city, the so-called Machtübernahme. In the third act, they realized the program they had developed in the first act, namely, the removal of those whom they have declared to be the alien, unhealthy elements from which the city had to be cleansed. They remove the alien elements and their world, Gesellschaft, to restore a pure Gemeinschaft. Especially this third act is a selection, a de-cision. The party members remain the subjects of this decision; however, the object has changed. The objects of this decision are now those whom the party members have designated as the foe of the Volk and who must be ausgelesen, selected, and eliminated.

One might say not only the first sentence in the passage on logos in An Introduction , but also the second and the third sentences—the ones with «selection» and «to pick out»—are analogous at most to what I described as the first step of the history of National Socialism. To be sure, it might not be completely impossible for an ingenious exegete of Heidegger to refer the second and the third sentences to the first step. In this way, he might reduce all three sentences to the first step and leave out the Machtübernahme and the disavowal of Gesellschaft and of the alien elements. However, there is nothing that can prevent one from referring the second and third sentences to the second and the third step. In fact, if one looks at the German expressions Heidegger uses, one is strongly moved and encouraged—if not in fact forced— to refer them to the third step. Heidegger employed a widely used and well-known expression that was also part of the official vocabulary of the National Socialists. What is translated by «selection,» reads in German: «auslesende "Lesen".» While in relation to texts and writing lesen means «to read,» in the context of agriculture and cooking, for instance, «Lese» and «lesen» refer to the gathering of crops and beans. In this process, «lesend,» one stands «in» the «"Lese[n]"» (EM 133; «Selection,» IM 174), or «in der Sammlung,» as Heidegger put it on the preceding page («Der Mensch ist als der im Logos, in der Sammlung, Stehende und Tätige: der Sammler,» EM 131f.; «Standing and active in logos, which is ingathering, man is the gatherer,» IM 172). Harvesting, however, entails that one will «die Spreu vom Weizen trennen» («separate the chaff from the wheat»), as a well-known saying puts it. Applied to the sorting of beans, the Bohnen-Lese, this saying became «die schlechten ins Kröpfchen, die guten ins Töpfchen,» i.e., the good beans are gathered in the cooking pot («Töpfchen») and the bad ones are «ausgelesen,» «aussortiert,» sorted out and thrown into the trash («Kröpfchen»).^[38] Thus, by adding «auslesende» to «"Lese",» Heidegger just makes what is implied in «Lese» explicit. This amounts to no less than the supposed Einklang (unison) between everyday discourse, especially the one of the peasants, and that of the National Socialist Party. Since sammeln, to gather, is «auslesende "Lese",»

«auslesende» simply expresses what is clearly implied in the very act of gathering, namely, a sorting out and elimination. Once the party members leave the city and regain their purity, they come back, take over the city, and purify the mixtures; that is, they redeem and restore the originally pure ones by pushing the aliens out of the city. From 1933 on, all human beings, first in Germany and later in all of Europe, became the object of this auslesende Lese, of this gathering and sorting.

From the very beginning of their reign, the National Socialists set up sites where aliens were gathered. One did not use the German «sammeln» to designate these sites but rather a related word of Latin derivation, namely, «konzentrieren,» «Konzentrationslager» (concentrate, focus, «concentration camps»), konzentrieren being the most intense form of sammeln. The German word «sammeln» was used from the beginning of the mass deportations. «Sammelstelle,» «Sammelplatz,» or «Sammellager» («collecting point, collecting camp») designated the sites in the villages and cities where the Jews had «sich einzufinden» (the bureaucratic word for «to appear, to assemble at a certain time and a certain place») in order then to be pushed into the trains to Auschwitz and the other concentration camps. As objects of the Lese, they were forced to move from the village to the Sammelplatz at the brink of the village, that is, they were forced to move to and gather at the railway station, made to enter the trains, and to move along the tracks until the final gathering on the Verlade-Brücke in Auschwitz.^[39]

Heidegger' s interpretation of logos in An Introduction to Metaphysics is identical with the activities called for in the sentences with «erwidert» and «Wider-ruf» in Being and Time . Thus it might be that eigentlich, in truth, Heidegger's pre-Socratics and his history of Being are the characters of Being and Time , sections 72-77, transposed under new names onto the broader stage of the history of Being. They are, so to speak, the Führer's «new clothes.» Though it is not possible to pursue this in more detail in this book and though there are many, more or less different, Heideggers after the Kehre, I want to address at least briefly one later Heidegger, the one Caputo developed in his Heidegger and Aquinas , published in 1982, before he began his project of Demythologizing Heidegger in the second half of the eighties.

The carpenter in his workshop in Division One of Being and Time (BT 95ff.; SZ 66ff.) is not yet in the «downward plunge,» for he is in the ordinary world «in the mode of its genuineness» (BT 189; SZ 148). However, he is already on the road «Falling,» which will lead into the downward plunge. Similarly, we peregrinatores, as Augustine has called us—Heidegger might say that the language of the «they» translates this with «tourists»—are, to use one of Heidegger's pet expressions, immer schon, always already, on the road that leads into

the excess of idle talk, curiosity, and ambiguity of the ordinary and inauthentic Daseine (BT 210ff.; SZ 167ff.). As is known, Thomas Aquinas struggled so hard to reconcile all the different paths on the broad road «Falling.» Ordinary Dasein is not aware that it is no longer at the beginning. It takes its falling or downward plunge as given traditions, and doesn't reflect on the fact that they are a fallen-away version of the real beginning that nonetheless is somehow responsible for the falling and the downward plunge and, thus, holds the Daseine even as they are moving away from it. Similarly, Thomas Aquinas «does not put the tradition itself into question; . . . He thinks within the tradition without thinking the tradition as precisely what is to be thought, that is, as a Being-process in which Being is withdrawn precisely insofar as it gives itself.»^[40] Thus, as ordinary Dasein does not recognize that it is caught up on the road «Falling,» Thomas Aquinas «is caught up in the historical sweep of the "it gives" without experiencing the giving itself which is at work in Scholasticism, without experiencing Scholasticism as a constellation of meaning which itself has been made possible on deeper—alethiological—grounds. Thomas stands within the clearing without thinking the clearing as such.»^[41]

Impatient Daseine on the road and a

follower of St. Thomas might object at this point that not every age of Being is equally an oblivion, not every period of thought is equally an "epoch" of withdrawal. For even though the "It" which gives remained behind, Being as presence was bestowed upon the early Greek thinkers with a primal and undistorted originality. And if such a gift has been granted to the early Greeks, who were no more historically minded than St. Thomas, why not for Thomas too? Why cannot Thomas have a status somewhat like Parmenides who thought Being in its truth as presencing, even though the "It" which "gives" was concealed from him?^[42]

However, first of all, Dasein on the road is quite obviously not at the beginning. In other words, there are «important differences between the primal bestowal of Being as presence in the early Greeks and the metaphysics of esse .»^[43] Second, the time is not yet ripe, the Bocksgesang has not yet arisen to break out of Gesellschaft, or «to break the spell of metaphysics.»^[44] Thus, Thomas Aquinas «stands at neither end (terminus, ) of the tradition, but precisely, as a "medieval," in the middle.»^[45]

The authentic Dasein realizes that Volk is not to be reified. In the beginning, Volk is a fluid something, and later on Volk is somehow responsible for the move away from itself that nonetheless remains within itself. Authentic Dasein begins from within ordinary Dasein and sees through the activities by means of which ordinary Dasein forgets that it is in the downward plunge as a forgetfulness of the origin. Thus, authentic Dasein looks through the forgetting of a forgetting. Similarly, there is a double Vergessenheit, «oblivion simpliciter or the oblivion of that oblivion, concealment simpliciter

or the concealment of that concealment.»^[46] The latter is Gesellschaft, or «metaphysics, and metaphysics can be overcome»^[47] only at the end of the downward plunge where either everything falls apart and into chaos, socialism or anarchy, or the origin as such reenters the stage. It is only here that the Bocksgesang arises and the crisis begins. In this crisis, the Daseine become responsible for their becoming authentic or inauthentic and for the future of the world. Those capable of listening will become authentic. Thus, one can

determine where the element of human "responsibility" enters into Heidegger' s thought. It has not always been possible to overcome metaphysics, to spot the withdrawal as a withdrawal. For as long as thought was caught up within the sweep of the tradition and what it passed along, in medias res , the thinker was inevitably drawn along with it. But now, in these days, we live in extremis , in the extreme radicalization of this withdrawal, at the "end" of philosophy, when the tradition of withdrawal and concealment has reached its deepest and most ominous stage. Now, in this very moment of extreme danger, the saving is most palpable for those who would submit themselves to the discipline of "thought" and who would lay aside the pretension of rationality. Awakening from oblivion in this sense can be carried out. If men would be thoughtful enough, attentive enough to the movement of withdrawal whose vibrations we all can feel, whose soft reverberations we all can hear if we lend an ear, then the awakening from oblivion to oblivion would take place. The primal withdrawal of Being itself is something over which no man has any influence, for which he has no responsibility. But the oblivion of this concealment can be escaped. It lies within the pale of man's responsibility, that is, of his responsive-ness, to awaken to the movement of this withdrawal and to think this withdrawal as a withdrawal. If we make the turn into the Ereignis (Einkehren in das Ereignis ), the withdrawal of the Ereignis is not removed; we come rather to stand in it, to attend to it. And this is a possibility for thought itself.^[48]

Authentic Dasein cancels Gesellschaft to rerealize the origin. Similarly, in the later Heidegger «a new beginning will become possible. . . . and we shall be granted an experience of Being comparable to that of the early Greek thinkers. Then we too shall be the recipients of the gift and grace of presencing in its primal splendor.»^[49] For these Greek thinkers «whom philosophy considers to be semi-philosophical and still encumbered by the old myths, are in fact non-metaphysical thinkers who were not yet victimized by Western ratio . Their thinking is still close to the source, primal, freshly bestowed upon Western man, like the new-fallen snow outside the cabin in Todtnauberg.»^[50]

Having been called upon and facing heritage to repeat it, authentic Dasein realizes that the repetition is not a simple repetition. Similarly, «we today live in the eschatology, in the ending of the first great beginning, in the ever-growing night which is the evening-land called the "West" (Abendland ). We seek not literally to repeat the first beginning, which would be "vain and absurd" (Weg. ² 369/2 10), but»—and this might be a dose of Guignon's interpretation

of Being and Time in the later Heidegger—«to find in what the early Greeks thought a renewal of our own history in a way which is uniquely proper to us.»^[51] However, it is, if at all, only a dose. For, as Heidegger in section 75 (BT 444; SZ 39 If.), Caputo returns to a return simpliciter : «Hence, this early Greek experience must come again, at the end of the present history of Being, and thereby set free a new dispensation, a new beginning, precisely at the point at which the old dispensation takes its leave.»^[52]

He doesn't elaborate this delicate point. But who would blame him for this? After all, Heidegger himself hasn't done so. At least, he did not offer much beyond the formula of logos I discussed above. In Anaximander, justice still managed to «subdue the stubbornness of that which wants to persist inordinately.»^[53] After Parmenides, however, something has happened. In Being and Time Heidegger doesn't talk about a single Dasein that becomes authentic individually by distancing itself from any tradition or by freely exploiting any tradition, but about Daseine that, called upon by heritage, break out of Gesellschaft in order to rerealize, against Gesellschaft, the denied origin Volk, Volksgemeinschaft, they are called upon to identify with. Similarly, what is at stake in the later Heidegger is the entire Westen and thus by implication the entire world.

At least Caputo's later Heidegger shows that the basic framework in his late writings remains the same as in Being and Time . Thus, it might be possible that, in contrast to many interpreters, the later Heidegger was right when, especially in Brief über den "Humanismus " (Letter on Humanism ), he stressed the continuity between Being and Time and his later writings. In addition, in an ambiguous sentence in the Letter on Humanism , Heidegger invites us to regard the analysis of the «they» in Being and Time as I took it, namely, as an analysis of Gesellschaft. For, the analysis of the «they» is a «sociology.» And what, after Weber, was sociology about if not about—as the German title of Weber' s famous book from 1922 reads—Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft , economy and society? However, at the same time Heidegger' s analysis of the «they» is much more than a contribution to sociology. After talking about «the dictatorship of the public realm {Diktatur der Öffentlichkeit}» (BW 197; WM 149), he continues: «Was in "Sein und Zeit" (1927), ## 27 und 35 über das "man" gesagt ist, soll keineswegs nur einen beiläufigen Beitrag zur Soziologie liefern» (WM 149). This means that «what is said in Being and Time (1927), sections 27 and 35, about the "they" is by no means supposed to furnish a merely incidental contribution to sociology.» That is, what is said in those sections about the «they» is indeed a contribution to sociology, but it is also much more than that. (The English translator has misunderstood the German phrase «keineswegs nur» and has mistranslated the sentence: «What is said in Being and Time [1927], sections 27 and 35, about the "they" in no way means to furnish an incidental contribution to sociology,» BW 197.) It is a contribution to sociology, and it is much more than an incidental contribution, because it is undertaken

from the viewpoint of fundamental ontology, and it is offered on the way to the true origin of Gesellschaft, on the way to Gemeinschaft. (Given Heidegger's remarks on the relation of his fundamental ontology to «subordinated» sciences [BT 28ff.; SZ 8ff.]—remarks that are certainly authoritarian as no other First Philosophy has ever been—one is entitled to say that the phrase «incidental contribution» is of ironic modesty; from his point of view, a sociology that is not undertaken under the auspices of his fundamental ontology is simply not a science.) Heidegger goes on:

Just as little does the "they" mean merely the opposite, understood in an ethicalexistentiell way, of the selfhood of persons. Rather, what is said there contains a reference, thought in terms of the question of the truth of Being, to the word's primordial belongingness to Being. This relation remains concealed beneath the dominance of subjectivity that presents itself as the public realm. (BW 197f.; WM 149)

One might read these sentences as Heidegger's veto against interpretations of section 74 such as Guignon' s and Birmingham' s. For in one way or another, both miss the peculiar pull of the Gemeinschaft, or of Being, to which Gesellschaft, subjectivity, and the ordinary Daseine are subject. One must not resist the pull or ignore the call. In other words, both Guignon and Birmingham miss the peculiar figure of handing oneself over, or sacrificing oneself to, that origin Volk, hidden up to now, whose agents the authentic Daseine become. In this sense, section 74 may have been in fact already «this turning [Kehre ]» (BW 208; WM 159), or the threshold to it, in which «everything is reversed» (BW 208; WM 159).^[54]

C. Heidegger in the USA

Moving from the 1930s in Germany more than half a century ahead and halfway around the world, it has to be noted that—at least, as far as I know— in the German literature concerning politics in Being and Time no interpretation with a claim as strong as mine can be found. However, one also does not find there an interpretation such as Birmingham' s. Perhaps that is because, prior to any detailed analysis, German readers generally sense intuitively that Heidegger's language is so thoroughly impregnated with conservative figures of speech as to make the idea that he could have proposed Birmingham's anarchistic notion of politics unlikely. American readers perhaps do not share this background understanding to the same extent and so enjoy greater freedom in their interpretations. However, interpretations such as Birmingham's are also based on the fundamental self-understanding of the individual in the USA; a self-understanding that was either completely absent among many Germans of Heidegger' s time or was precisely the kind that conservatives argued and fought against. It is, Scheler would say, «English cant» (PPS 218) and its sociological

and cultural ramifications that make possible interpretations such as Birmingham' s. The «German» Held and the «German» notion of fate are indeed foreign to the average person, to the «they,» so to speak, in the United States.

At the beginning of chapter 4, I presented Guignon's reasoning that Being and Time is by no means «inherently fascist or proto-Nazi» (HC 131). His interpretation is directed in particular against Wolin's claim that

Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism—which was of the order of deep-seated, existential commitment—was far from being an adventitious, merely biographical episode. Instead, it was rooted in the innermost tendencies of his thought . This claim in no way entails the assumption that Nazism is somehow a necessary and inevitable outgrowth of the philosophy of Being and Time . It does suggest, however, that the politics of the Nazi movement emphatically satisfied the desiderata of authentic historical commitment adumbrated in that work. (PB 66)

As mentioned at the beginning of chapter I, section B, Guignon begins his essay by quoting Wolin's statement that «Existenzphilosophie in its Heideggerian variant tends to be inherently destructive of tradition» (PB 32) (HC 130), a statement that might lead us to expect that Wolin interprets the sentences on erwidert and Widerruf as acts of simple negations—like Birmingham. But Wolin does not comment on these sentences;^[55] however, amazingly, Guignon would probably accept all of Wolin's statements about destiny and fate, but give them a slight twist, and add his own interpretation of Heidegger's sentence on erwidert so as to present Being and Time as politically neutral. This is an interesting hermeneutical situation. Wolin's statements on Heideggerian philosophy's inherent tendency to destroy all tradition occur in the general introduction to his interpretation of Being and Time ("The 'Historicity' of Being and Time, " PB 22-35); he also adds there, however, a note that a «full exposition and justification of this claim will have to wait until our analysis of Heidegger's concept of "resolve" (Entschlossenheit ) below» (PB 32, n. 45). Accordingly, his interpretative statements refer not so much to Heidegger's concept of historicality as to that of resoluteness; in fact, they function as interpretation of historicality only with a stipulation that Guignon does not mention. After his interpretation of "Authenticity and Decision" (PB 35-40) and of "The Call of Conscience" (PB 40-46), Wolin interprets Entschlossenheit under the heading "A Self-Canceling Social Ontology; The Aporias of 'Decisiveness'" (PB 46-53). He focuses on the problem of «cri-terionlessness» (PB 52), and summarizes his analysis as follows:

For when {Heidegger's concept of decisiveness, or decisionism in general} is devoid of any and every normative orientation, "decision" can only be blind and uninformed —ultimately , it becomes a leap into the void. Without any material criteria for decision, it becomes impossible to distinguish an authentic from an inauthentic decision, responsible from irresponsible action—let alone on

what grounds an individual would even prefer one course of action to another. Indeed, at times, Heidegger seems to openly glorify the irrationalist basis of decision. (PB 52)

However, Guignon's reference to Wolin does not lead us to expect that in "'Destiny' or The Incorporation of Dasein Within A Historical Community" (PB 53-66), Wolin, in a sense, interprets «historicality» from pretty much the same point of view as Guignon himself, namely, arguing that, according to Heidegger, the past is meant to provide decision with those meanings that decision in itself lacks: «Historicity is a mode of authentic, past-directed temporalization : Dasein situates itself in relation to a meaningful historical continuum, and this act endows its projection toward the future with content and direction» (PB 60). However, in contrast to Guignon, Wolin discusses the past, as I did in chapters 1 and 2, using the singular, and he characterizes Dasein's relation to it, as I did, in terms of subjugation:

The discussion of "authentic temporality," in which the concept of "destiny" figures so prominently, is specifically intended to solve the problem of the self-referentiality of resolve in its preliminary version. In effect, the indeterminacy of resolve is answered by the demand that the individual subordinate him or herself to a common destiny. (PB 57)

Wolin finds this sense of subjugation, subordination, or, as he puts it, «fatalism» (PB 62), in section 74 in the passages preceding the sentence on «repetition» (BT 434-437; SZ 382-385), and this leads Wolin to posit an opposition between voluntarism and fatalism:

The opposition between voluntarism and fatalism in Being and Time is never reconciled. Heidegger tries to have it both ways and fails: "destiny" is meant to provide the existentiell basis for the empty self-referentiality of authentic decision, thereby furnishing a measure of content for an otherwise ungrounded, free-floating will. However, the "fatalistic" implications of this category subsequently undermine the autonomy of authentic resolve, an autonomy that was so painstakingly wrested (via the Angst of Being-towards-death) from the inauthentic Existenzialien of everydayness. Since this manner of reconciling the opposition is unpalatable, Heidegger at times lurches to the opposite extreme, suggesting that destiny itself can be "chosen" or "willed." But with this move, we have essentially relapsed into the same decisionistic arbitrariness that the concept of destiny was intended to counteract in the first place. (PB 62f.)

According to Wolin, the concept of destiny is grounded in that of repetition. He quotes the sentence on repetition («But when one has, . . .» BT 437; SZ 385) (PB 63) to address the problem of mere reproduction of the past, but he focuses not on the passage about Erwiderung and Widerruf (BT 438; SZ 386) but rather

on the sentence about the choice of the hero (BT 437; SZ 385). Based on this, he launches the same criticism as above and reiterates the same aporia:

To repeat an authentic possibility derived from the past means that "Dasein may choose its hero ," . . . But the question remains: on what basis is the hero to be chosen? How is one to recognize an authentic hero from an icon with feet of clay? Unless some criteria of selection are provided, we run the risk once more of relapsing into the vertiginous arbitrariness of pure decisionism. The only answer Heidegger provides to this question is characteristically unsatisfying. When we inquire as to the basis on which authentic repetition is to proceed and in terms of which true heroes might be distinguished from charlatans . . . we are told that repetition itself is "grounded existentially in anticipatory resolve." { BT 437; SZ 385} Thus, resolve is grounded in repetition (e.g., the choice of a proper hero), and repetition itself is grounded in resolve. Once again, circular reasoning replaces cogent insight and sheer assertion substitutes for compelling argumentation. (PB 63f.)

Note that in this passage Wolin switches from the singular «destiny» to the plural of several possibilities, the «true heroes» and «charlatans.» Already here Guignon can step in and reevaluate Wolin's entire argument. However, Wolin goes a step further. Since Heidegger's concept of decision lacks any content, Dasein is not only not capable of any reasonable decision but also has no way to resist any preexisting decision. Thus,

not only is decisionism thoroughly "unprincipled"; it is also on this account nakedly opportunistic . And all voluntaristic bluster about "will," "choice," etc., notwithstanding, opportunism in the end reveals itself often enough as a base and simple conformism. Thus, because it lacks any and every inherent basis for choice, decisionism is forced to grasp at random existing opportunities for self-actualization. And as we saw earlier, an authentic resolve that shunned self-actualization would be a contradiction in terms. As innately destitute of inner substance, resolve has no choice but to conform to whatever options are historically available. (PB 64f.)

Thus, if one combines the inherent opportunism with the «sufficiently formal and abstract» (PB 76) character of the existential analysis of Being and Time , «one could virtually imagine the philosopher opting for a Bolshevist instead of a Nationalist revolutionary course» (PB 76). Since from the beginning Wolin has made it clear beyond any doubt that, for him, Heidegger belonged to the conservatives who opposed the Weimar Republic as well as bolshevism, this second step of his interpretation introduces some ambiguity into his summary, either intentionally or by accident. Wolin continues:

The consequences of this decisionistic "ethical vacuum," coupled with the prejudicial nature of Heidegger's conservative revolutionary degradation of the modem life-world, suggest an undeniable theoretical cogency behind Heideg-

ger's ignominious life-choice of 1933. In its rejection of "moral convention" which qua convention, proves inimical to acts of heroic bravado— decisionism shows itself to be distinctly nihilistic vis-à-vis the totality of inherited ethical paradigms. For this reason, the implicit political theory of Being and Time — and in this respect, it proves a classical instance of the German conservative-authoritarian mentality of the period—remains devoid of fundamental "liberal convictions" that might have served as an ethicopolitical bulwark against the enticement of fascism. Freed of such bourgeois qualms, the National Socialist movement presented itself as a plausible material "filling" for the empty vessel of authentic decision and its categorical demand for existentiell-historical content. The summons toward an "authentic historical destiny" enunciated in Being and Time was thus provided with an ominously appropriate response by Germany's National Revolution. The latter, in effect, was viewed by Heidegger as the ontic fulfillment of the categorical demands of "historicity": it was Heidegger's own choice of a "hero," a "destiny," and a "community." (PB 65)

Thus, one might ask, Was the Heidegger of Being and Time a Nazi? Or was he just a conservative who unfortunately wrote a book that took any weapons against National Socialism out of his hands? Did he write a book against the alleged conformism of the «they» without realizing that he himself did nothing but reestablish this conformism on the noble level of authentic Dasein? Would Heidegger have become a communist if the communists, in some way or another, had seized power? These are embarrassing conclusions. To be sure, Georges Sorel changed from a Leninist into an admirer of Mussolini; in the latter years of the Weimar Republic, some Social Democrats or communists changed over to National Socialism; in 1933, many people who had formerly been neutral—or lukewarm—became National Socialists. And perhaps even in politics, the French proverb that the extremes touch each other contains some truth. However, German professors at that time insisted on the difference between the Right and the Left, and according to Wolin, so did Heidegger. Should we assume that all this notwithstanding, Heidegger wrote a book in which he blurred these differences? Not in his prephilosophical opinions but rather in his masterpiece, the great philosopher maneuvers himself into the position of the double-headed mortals who vacillate between the Right and the Left and consequently conform to whatever decisions are forced upon them. At this point, Guignon can see not only the possibility but, so to speak, the necessity to intervene. And he can do so very smoothly.

Wolin already anticipated the result of his interpretation early on in his argument concerning historicality, namely, in the note accompanying his quotation of the sentences «The resoluteness in which Dasein comes back to itself, . . . but not necessarily as having thus come down» (BT 435; SZ 383):

The concluding phrase to this citation is of great interest insofar as it indicates a profound decisionistic residue in the entire discussion of historicity. It implies

that the taking up of historically extant possibilities is never something unalterable and merely given, but in the last analysis something codetermined by the autonomous decision of Dasein itself. (PB 60, n. 107)

For Wolin, this autonomy of the Dasein vis-à-vis the past is the unwanted outcome of Heidegger's analysis. Heidegger wanted a past, or destiny, that subjugated the Daseine. Because of his concept of resoluteness, however, these Daseine rum out to be those «Helden» who care only about their glorious self-affirmation and thus negate the past and its offers. However, Heidegger did not explicitly state that he wanted to develop a concept of a subjugating past that left no room for Dasein's objection against the past's exaction. Therefore, one can regard Dasein's autonomy, if properly understood—that is, in terms of, as Guignon says with reference to Taylor, «situated freedom» (HC 131)—to be not the unwanted outcome but rather exactly the aim Heidegger was reaching for. On this basis, one can see Being and Time in its political import as a book of fundamental, and in themselves neutral, politics rather than as a proto-fascist or at least very confused book. Guignon might even concede that in the passage preceding the sentences on repetition and the choice of one's hero, Heidegger allows some demanding aspect in heritage, destiny, and past. However, beginning with the sentence «But when one has, by repetition, handed down to oneself a possibility that has been. . . . » (BT 437; SZ 385), Heidegger might introduce Dasein's relative independence vis-à-vis the past and the present; this independence is not the same as Wolin's glorious acts of self-affirmation or nihilism in regard to the past; rather, it is made possible by Dasein's utopian ideal, and it enables Dasein to consider the various possibilities offered by the past, to choose what fits its utopian ideal, and to distance itself from the others as well as from the present, as, according to Guignon, Heidegger states in the sentences on erwidert and Widerruf (BT 438; SZ 386).^[56]

Wolin sees an unresolved tension in Heidegger's theory. On the one hand, there is fate as a tradition demanding obedience. On the other, Dasein is only concerned with its self-affirmation and is intrinsically nihilistic vis-à-vis the past^[57] Regarding the nihilistic Dasein, it seems to me that—when reading Heidegger, at least—Wolin has not sufficiently distanced himself from a specifically North American notion of authenticity. As an advertisement for the aftershave lotion «eXcesS» puts it, «an overstepping of bounds»—this is what Americans have to do to be noticed socially. The attitude of overstepping bounds, of being creative, of making a difference, of breaking with the tradition and initiating something new, and of distancing oneself from all others as the norm of life is probably related to the admirable figures of cowboys, dishwashers, and self-made men. Each of them had left behind the suffocating traditions of the «Old World»; each of them was concerned with making his own life and fate.^[58] The self-made man, however, is actually the

opposite of a German «Held» and of the «Helden» (SZ 385; «hero,» BT 437) in Being and Time . A German Held is not someone who distances himself from tradition so as to realize himself in his individuality; rather, he is someone capable of forgetting himself, of putting his entire being into the service of the common good, and of «sacrificing» himself for it. Or—more precisely and in terms of the logic of transfiguration^[59] —a Held even finds his self-fulfillment in self-sacrifice for the common good.^[60] Still, especially under the sway of deconstructive theory, which fits nicely into, as Heidegger would say, the American «they,» a large majority of American commentators project the self-made man onto Heidegger's Held and authentic Dasein, and even project the aspect of distancing onto the notion of fate. Fate becomes something created by the authentic Dasein itself, or it becomes the site of resistance to and breaking with any tradition.

Guignon probably intends his emphasis on utopian ideals as a means to avoid Wolin's criticism of circularity.^[61] In his book Heidegger: Thought and Historicity , Fynsk finds nothing wrong in circularities like these, once we come to think of the circular movement not «in a linear fashion,» but «on the contrary, as a simultaneous, open-ended movement in two opposing directions—not in terms of a circle but in terms of a paradoxical structure of simultaneous approach and withdrawal, of a casting forth that casts back.»^[62] In some sense, this anticipates his interpretation of section 74. Fynsk warns against an interpretation in which we lose sight of «the possibility of thinking the political import of Heidegger's thought.»^[63] Thus, by his «largely immanent readings of Heidegger's texts,»^[64] Fynsk wants to illuminate «those points where the text marks its relation to something that exceeds it and that provokes its movement.»^[65] Yet, in his interpretation of Being and Time , in the chapter "The Self and its Witness,"^[66] he doesn't talk about politics, at least not in the sense of Wolin and Guignon. It is «the other» and «the more primordial experience that is an originary encounter with alterity»^[67] that ignites the paradoxical structure of simultaneous approach and withdrawal. Choosing one's hero is this act of approaching and following. However, as the sentences on erwidert and Widerruf show, «choosing as affirming and following is not a form of passive reception; insofar as it involves interpretation, it is also a struggle»;^[68] a struggle whose purpose is to distance Dasein from its hero. The way from Being and Time does not lead to the Nazis but to Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche:

Therefore, if the "following" that is made possible by such an existentiell choice is a fateful necessity, then it might be said that, by writing Being and Time , Heidegger had to write Nietzsche —at least, insofar as a fate must be written. Nietzsche , we might say, represents Heidegger's effort to lose Nietzsche. The engagement with that possibility of existence (or of thought) that is Nietzsche's—a repetition of the engagement marked in Being and Time —is

undertaken for the purposes of disengagement and the demarcation of a new historical position.^[69]

I leave open whether Fynsk's interpretation is closer to Birmingham or to Guignon, or whether it marks a genuine stand within the field demarcated by «erwidert» as conversation with, and negation of, the past. In my view it is a further example of the devastating effects of Heidegger's «playful» punning with «wieder» and «wider,» and with the dative and accusative.

Guignon developed an interpretation according to which authentic Dasein distances itself from the present and the past and yet identifies itself with some past. However, as I pointed out in section B of chapter 1, this would have required the dative with «erwidert.» Yet, there is even a sense of «erwidern» in the accusative according to which it might mean an act of distancing even stronger than in Guignon. As Guignon and also Fynsk, Birmingham too might have admitted a strong demand in the passages on heritage, destiny, and repetition in order then to make the act of negation that, according to her, authentic Dasein performs in the sentences on erwidern and Widerruf even more dramatic. In section B of chapter 1 I presented Birmingham' s interpretation of the passage on erwidert and Widerruf, and in section C of chapter 2 I summarized her interpretation of the passage on «destiny.» Birmingham wants to show that «Heidegger does not articulate a philosophy of history at all, but instead opens the way for rethinking political judgment» (TP 25), and that Lacoue-Labarthe is wrong in his claim that Heidegger's engagement in National Socialism was «permitted» by «an unexamined theory of mimetic identification» (TP 44).^[70] Following her interpretation of «erwidert» and «Widermf» she states in a bluntly metaphysical way that there are entities with a clear definition, that Heidegger knew of this, and that, in the passage in question, he wrote about these entities:

Events, by definition, are occurrences that interrupt routine processes, and Heidegger clearly understands this when he writes of the event of destiny as that which allows for the disavowal of the past and possibility of something unexpected and unpredictable. . . . In still other words, Dasein's critical response dissolves any authorization of repeatable historical possibilities based on a myth of beginnings. (TP 31)

By this, she smuggles into the text a term of the later Heidegger, «Ereignis,» which Heidegger does not use at all as a technical term in Being and Time . (Note that she translates «Geschehen» with «historizing,» or «historicity»; thus, «event» must be the translation of the term «Ereignis» in Heidegger's later writings.) She regards her projection of her specific interpretation of the later Heidegger's concept of event onto the two passages in Being and Time in section 74 as sufficient to refute Lacoue-Labarthe's analysis of the Rectorate Address and of Being and Time . After these two points, she tries to

show that this project of Being and Time , namely, to develop a philosophy of Rig, of antitotalitarian politics, is central in Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche between 1936 and 194o (TP 33ff.).^[71] Thus, if Lacoue-Labarthe is wrong, what else was it that «permitted» Heidegger's engagement in National Socialism? Her answer is brief: «in certain crucial texts in the 1930s, namely, the Rectorial Address and in some passages of Introduction to Metaphysics , Heidegger forgot the sublime moment which calls for Dasein's resolute judgment» (TP 44). He forgot. Thus, according to Birmingham, having been engaged since at least the early 1920s until, at least, the end of the 1930s in a philosophy of antitotalitarian politics, the greatest philosopher simply forgot his entire philosophy though it was tailored precisely as a theoretical and practical critique of situations like his and Hitler's Machtübernahme in 1933.^[72]