POMO MO and Curly

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

This should have been a lead into my soap boxing--responding
to Heidegger/Nazi


The most recent recipient of the Nobel, Grass asked, “What
do
we tell our children?” His answer is, STORIES,  Fifty
odd years is not a long time to absorb such a calamity for
the West and indeed for
the world.  It seems to me that the current controversies
surrounding Paul De Man,
and, more importantly here, Martin Heidegger reflect some
sort of psychic economy
of reason in face of horrific evil, great losses and human
suffering.  We might
consider, the pedagogical and academic implications of
intellectuals attempting to
comprehend (as if it were some form of insanity or evil
Enigma), how such men of
learning, who demonstrate such a profound and subtle
appreciation for the art and
philosophy of the West, could have countenanced, indeed be
complicit with, an evil
that seems to erode any possible explanation, justification,
or contextualization.
And again, it seems to me that way to tell our children, the
only way, is not
intellectual evasion, justification, technical, social or
psychological
explanation, but to tell stories—as Pynchon does, “to keep
the
children amus’d.” M&D.6 so "no hell can take us in." Grass,
DY