Fw: Arendt and Heidegger, the postwar 'friendship"

[Fiona Shnapple]

http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?tag=comedy

On Thursday, December 5, 2013, Fiona Shnapple wrote:

>
> Sure. Yes, all these things you list are reasons that AH, despite what you
> suggest is a blind spot, caused by her experiences in Europe, her
> emigration to America, also lists, and others. What do you make of my
> mapping of her causes and effects onto the UWS in BE? The frantic pace of
> the emerging Jewish intelligentsia, much feared and resisted there then, as
> here, later, so that cultural institutions, the arts, journalism, theatre,
> music, tv, film, the universities, courts, were opened by the "radiant
> Power of Fame"?   OT 71-73.
> On Thursday, December 5, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>
>  Other reasons? Because the divinity of Judaism is an open field of
> imagination that must encompass all that is and demands the engagement of
> the mind.. Because after the dynastic annexations of the Hasmonean dynasty
> the principal route for the growth of Judaism was proselytism into Yemen,
> North Africa, the Meditrerranean cites, Spain, Kazaria.  Because the Talmud
> is an intellectual process.  Because money, prestige and freedom from fear
> are linked. Because opportunities keep changing.
> security is always provisional on the blue planet
> Arendt came from the hell of european fascism to the US and had some of
> the enthusiasm of the prosperous immigrant that doesn't look too close at
> the foundations of the new world or its quirkier and less public habits.
> On Dec 5, 2013, at 2:45 PM, Fiona Shnapple wrote:
>
> > Why did Jews, in Arendt's case, a Jewish female, who, certainly had to
> deal with a double prejudice, end up intellectuals? In OT Arendt provides
> the history.  Not saying that history repeats itself exactly, but it seems
> to me that in the USA, after WWII, what Arendt describes, the 19th century
> shifts that caused Jews to get out of banks and store shops then garments
> and department stores and into professions, to become intellectuals, then
> to get into fame, not necessarily their own, is a cycle that came round
> again here and is the Jewish world Maxine is raised in. The golden age of
> security can't get anymore secure than nyc under bloomberg. Though he's not
> mayor then, he is now, and he seems to be, ironically, neo-Robert Moses.
>
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thursday, December 5, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:
> > Didn't hear the one about the sock tucker, the cork soaker and the coke
> sacker. Do I want to?
> > I do have a note to blow and nut to blitherate. This is it. Far as I can
> tell Heidegger didn't really let his fascist fire glow in the dark but he
> did  endorse and join the Nazis and that is where the break with Arendt
> came.  Assent is all that is required from most people to start an imperial
> reign of terror by the truly committed creeps. But even if he failed to see
> what was coming, he never appears to have fully reckoned with the effects
> of his co-operaton.
> >
> >  The strain in Heidegger's thinking that seems most dangerous to me was
> something very common to his time. It is the idea of race , of some
> essential unique identity of a "people" which was becoming synonymous with
> nation. This identity generally turns out to be the master race, the chosen
> ones, the exceptional nation, the smartest kids in the room, the true
> faith, the royal rulers of land and sea. Purity ain't easy; there is all
> that cleaning to do: ethnic cleansing,  political bloodbaths, lapel pins on
> crisp blue suits, orwellian linguistics, regular checkups on your
> whereabouts and associations,  passport complications, private interviews
> with the secret police, stress release in the form of fantasy violence,
> etc. etc. Thank God and George and Obama it can't happen here.
> >
> >
> > On Dec 4, 2013, at 10:36 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:
> >
> > > Guys, guys, ain't you heard of compromisation?  Remember the one about
> the sock tucker, the cork soaker and the coke sacker?
> > >
> > > I gather, as one might gather nuts in May (here we go blithering nuts
> in May...) that this Heidegger dude was a philosopher of some repute and
> may have had some fairly interesting things to say (which is possible, I
> guess) and that that Hannah Arendt (yes she are...) made some philosophical
> hay out of the postwar coming to grips with the Holocaust (insofar as there
> can be any coming to grips with such monstrosity)
> > >
> > > So that Mark's speculation on their relations is the sort of shocking
> addendum that may have given Kai the same sort of jolt as I got reading (lo
> these many years ago) Abbie Hofmann's _Revolution for the Hell of it_
> wherein he recounts encountering a liberal priest at an antiwar rally or
> someplace and telling him, "go fuck a nun"
> > >
> > > A comment like that is made for pure outrageousness and was in keeping
> with Abbie's public image but Mark's comments usually run to more
> thoughtful territory...
> > >
> > > Yes I guess it is in keeping with a theme of FATF (female attraction
> to fascists) but Heidegger wasn't so much an operative a la Brock Vond or
> Windust or Deuce (not deuce Bigelow, he wasn't at all fascist), rather...
> > > - a-and I think this is a point Kai has been sharpening - his writings
> were co-opted (not without a degree of consent) as apologia for the odious
> deeds.
> > >
> > > Anyway one might be taken aback by the conjuring of specific carnality
> in the case of these widely-considered-August personages, but as somebody
> said in GR,
>
>
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