Two Vice-Chancellors: Heidegger and Makgoba

Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, Vice Chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and chairman of the university's Senate, is at the centre of what has been described as a "furious debate" over threats to academic freedom at the university, following his alleged refusal to allow discussion by the Senate of a document on academic freedom drawn up by the faculty of Science and Agriculture. Professor Nithaya Chetty, the professor of Physics, has resigned his position on the Senate and the University Council, alleging a propensity by Makgoba "to racialise and personalise debates as a means of suppressing dissent". The professor of Mathematics, Professor John van den Berg - member of a family which played a leading part fifty years ago in opposition to racism in Pretoria - was allegedly threatened with disciplinary action and labeled a racist by the Vice Chancellor. (See the Daily News March 6 2008)

This short essay will attempt to examine some of the language and categories in the revealing article "Wrath of dethroned white males" by Professor Makgoba, which appeared in the Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, on March 25 2005. I intend to note similarities in this article by Makgoba, printed below, and the thinking of the German existentialist philosofpher, Martin Heideggger (1889-1976), the author of Sein und Zeit (Being and Time, 1927) and other philosophical works, who became Rector of the University of Freiburg shortly after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and who then resigned his post in 1934, living quietly afterwards in a wooded area of rural Bavaria.

Heidegger's rectoral address on his investiture at the University of Freiburg, Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitat (The self-affirmation of the German university, Freiburg-im-Breslau, Korn: 1933), is a seminal document setting out the thinking of one of the most eminent German academics and cultural figures who colluded with the totalitarian regime. In 1933 Heidegger had joined the Nazi Party and began making speeches for it. We know a good deal about Heidegger and his thinking at this time, partly because he had previously been both the teacher and the lover of the German Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt (who escaped the Holocaust, later writing On Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem) and he had taught the libertarian Marxist political philosopher Herbert Marcuse (also Jewish) from 1927 to 1932. Heidegger was also rector at Freiburg when the future professor of history at the New School for Social Research in New York and at the City University of New York, Henry M Pachter (born Heinz Pachter, also Jewish), was a student there.

In 1932 Heidegger rejected Marcuse's post-doctoral dissertation, substantially on ideological grounds. In his Herbert Marcuse and the crisis of Marxism (Macmillan, London, 1984), Professor Douglas Kellner noted that Pachter "said it would be strange if Marcuse found Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism surprising because: (1) Nazi students filled Heidegger's classes and enthusiastically clamoured around him; (2) Heidegger's wife was an enthusiastic member of the party and supporter of national socialism; (3) at the Davon debate with Ernst Cassirer [a German Jewish philosopher] in 1929, Nazi students supported Heidegger and shouted down Cassirer with slogans and insults; and (4) Heidegger's lifestyle and thinking were sympathetic to fascist volkisch ideology: he wore Bavarian peasant clothes and affected peasant manners; he spent as much time as possible in his mountain retreat in Todtnauberg; and he was becoming increasingly nationalistic and political in the 1930s (conversation with Henry Pachter, New York, June 1980). Jurgen Habermas concurred in this analysis (discussion in Starnberg, December 1980)" (Kellner, pp.406-407, Note 3 to Chapter 4: ‘Critical theory and the critique of fascism').

Concerning Heidegger's investiture speech at Freiburg, his former colleague, Karl Jaspers (professor of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, before being dismissed by the regime in 1937 for having a Jewish wife), commented later: "In form it was the typical academic speech, but in its content it represented neither more nor less than a Nazi programme for university reform". In relation to "the rapid development of the Nazi reality", Heidegger had told Jaspers, "one has to become involved". He addressed the assembled students at Freiburg unambiguously: "You should not allow axioms and ideas to regulate your lives.  The Fuhrer, and he alone, is the present and future reality and law of Germany" (cited in Valentino Gerratana, ‘Heidegger and Marx', New Left Review, London, issue 106, November-December 1977, p.52).

Perhaps the most trenchant analysis of the intellectual relation between Heidegger's philosophy and his Nazism, however, was made by the German-Jewish thinker Theodor Adorno (1903-69), like Marcuse a member of the Frankfurt School of Marxian-Freudian scholars, most of whom succeeded in emigrating to the United States . This appeared in a short study, Jargon der Eigentlichkeit. Zur deutschen Ideologie (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1964) first published in English in 1973 as The Jargon of Authenticity. (Adorno's original sub-title ‘On the German ideology' was omitted). In a foreword to the English translation by Knut Tarnowski and Frederic Will, Trent Schroyer sums up Adorno's characterisation of Heidegger's philosophy as "an ideology of the simple" in which the lives of actual human beings and actual social relations are obscured in "the fetishisms of the jargon" and are made fixed and unreachable "in the jargon's pathos of archaic primalness" (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986. pp. xiv, xvi). This is a key to the analysis of Makgoba's article.

Adorno notes that in Heidegger's thinking, and in the ideas of his followers, ‘primalness now has the same place in the philosophical atlas in which nature was once registered. ...Philosophical nature has to be regarded as history, and history as nature. ...These primal experiences were a warmed-over piece of expressionism. They were later made into a permanent institution by Heidegger, under the benediction of public opinion." As Adorno further explains, in this outlook "everything experienced in primary terms is culturally pre-formed. ...Philosophy involves itself all the more deeply in society as it more eagerly - reflecting on itself - pushes off from society.... It clawed itself firmly into its blindly social fate, which - in Heidegger's terminology - has thrown one into this and no other place. That was according to the taste of fascism. With the downfall of market liberalism, relationships of domination stepped nakedly into the foreground. The baldness of their order, the authentic law of the ‘needy time,' easily permits itself to be taken for something primal. That is how people could jaw about blood and soil, without a smile, during the excessively accumulating industrial capitalism of the Third Reich. The jargon of authenticity continues all that, less tangibly....' (pp. 98-100).

Adorno quotes Heidegger from Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (From the experience of thinking, 1954) as stating: "The oldest element of the old comes up behind us in our thinking and yet meets us head on". Adorno's response is that: "The archaic is the expressive ideal of this language.... Heidegger insinuates a pre-established harmony between essential content and homey murmuring." He quotes Heidegger again: "One's own work's inner belonging, to the Black Forest and its people, comes from a century-long Germanic-Swabian rootedness, which is irreplaceable." He quotes Heidegger discussing an invitation - after Hitler! - to visit the University of Berlin , in which Heidegger states: "On such an occasion I leave the city and go back to my cabin. I hear what the mountains and woods and farmyards say. On the way I drop in on my old friend, a seventy-five-year-old farmer", who silently advises Heidegger not to go to Berlin , an injunction Heidegger follows "absolutely". Here Adorno comments on the "hollowness of the jargon", which asserts a "false eternity of agrarian conditions" in which philosophy, ashamed of its name, "needs the sixth-hand symbol of the farmer as the proof of its primalness" - what Adorno describes as "the falsity of rootedness" (pp.52-57).

As Adorno continues, this kind of talk "makes itself popular in the old-fashioned, half-timbered, gable-roof way," suggesting that the demands of a complex, modern, technological society can best be addressed with the peasant's rule of thumb. He argues further: "Allegedly hale life is opposed to damaged life.... Through the ingrained language form of the jargon, that hale life is equated with agrarian conditions, or at least with simple commodity economy, far from all social considerations. This life is in effect equated to something undivided, protectingly closed, which runs its course in a firm rhythm and unbroken continuity. The field of association here is a left-over of romanticism, and is transplanted without second thought into the contemporary situation...." We have here an argument claiming its roots in a "metaphysical-anthropological source". Adorno calls this the "advertising of the Blubo". Blubo here - derived from the German Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil) - is explained in a note in the 1986 Routledge edition as a "catchword of the Nazi movement, emphasizing the interdependence of one's life with one's native soil" (pp.59-61).

It would be hard to be more Blubo than Makgoba, however. In the first sentence of his essay he explains that "A critical factor of human development and leadership is ‘our primate heritage'", a concept and a term he derives from Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership by Professor Howard Gardner, whom he describes as "Harvard University's distinguished psychologist and professor of education". Makgoba continues: "In the primate family, to which humankind belongs, there are certain heritage features which display ‘clear dominance relationships among members, and the proclivity to imitate'..." This leads Makgoba to thoughts about a repeated "variation cycle of hierarchy, domination and imitation", in which one dominant male - or one dominant social order, which he characterises as ‘male' - is overthrown and replaced by another: his own means of conceptualising the overthrow of a white-dominated social order in South Africa by what he considers to be a black-dominated order. In his interpretation, the "dethroned white male in South Africa is playing the same role as dethroned baboon troop leaders do".

Professor Makgoba acknowledges that racism is a "socially constructed phenomenon with no biological basis", yet he sees no problem in analysing a social group in South Africa of which he disapproves in terms of the baboon: a method of analysis it would be hard to imagine any South African white academic currently using to describe black African society. In this, Makgoba makes himself the beneficiary of a double standard: what A says about B may not be said by B about A.  Makgoba makes himself more Blubo even than Heidegger, whose "primalness" relates to a human social source: agrarian conditions, simple commodity economy, the undivided and "protectingly closed" isolated rural small community which "runs its course in a firm rhythm and unbroken continuity". This "volkisch" (or folksy) conception was elaborated by German nationalist and race thinkers into the doctrine of "Volksgemeinschaft": a theory of the integral unity of an ethnically "pure" German racial community, deriving from the supposed communal undividedness of pre-historic German tribal groupings, such as had defeated the colonising army of the Roman general Varro in the reign of the Emperor Augustus. Yet Heidegger's primalness, which was enough to bring him to the Nazi party, at least begins with humans. With Makgoba, our "primate heritage" - a phrase repeated four times in his essay - justifies the domination by one racial group of another by reference to baboons: though as he says in the final sentence (without a hint of condescension), "our white male group can and should do better than the baboon or the bonobo". It would be hard to find a more thorough-going "ideology of the simple".

A single word - "Ubuntu" - summarises for Makgoba the virtues of Heidegger's undivided and "protectingly closed" rural community, and is elevated by him into an ideology supposedly able to guide a complex, divided society into the 21^st century. This concept in Makgoba is not far removed from the nebulous and mystical "heimisch" (or homey) concepts well loved by the Germans of Hitler's time. As employed by Makgoba, it means everything and nothing. He associates the phrase twice with the notion of reconciliation between the races, but only so that Ubuntu be regarded as subordinate to what he describes as a political condition of "African dominance". His language is the language of dominance. Such-and-such a group "must soon accept ABC", its members "should learn XYZ", so-and-so "should do better than the baboon or the bonobo".

One can understand how Marcuse came to consider his former teacher's view of human existence as a "highly repressive, highly oppressive interpretation". Reading through the categories of human existence explored by Heidegger in Sein und Zeit, he noted in an interview in 1977 that these categories play on the "fears and frustrations of men and women in a repressive society - a joyless existence - overshadowed by death and anxiety: human material for the authoritarian personality". He notes, tellingly, that "love is absent" from Heidegger's conception of humanity, an omission that appears also in Makgoba's derogation of human activity to "our primate heritage": something Marcuse regards in Heidegger as a "very powerful devaluation of life" [in Frederick Olafson, ‘Heidegger's politics: An interview with Herbert Marcuse' (1977), in Robert Pippin, Andrew Feenberg and Charles P Webel (eds), Marcuse. Critical Theory and the Promise of Utopia, Macmillan, 1988. p.99]. Marcuse's phrase ‘the authoritarian personality' here refers to The Authoritarian Personality (1950), a study founded on research done in the United States during the Second World War by Adorno, his exile colleague from the Frankfurt School, and other scholars.

It should be said that no leader in the struggle to liberate South Africa from the apartheid system, stretching across a very broad spectrum - individuals such as  Inkosi Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, Pixley kaIzaka Seme, Alan Paton, Walter Sisulu, Bantu Stephen Biko, Ruth First, Imam Abdullah Haroun, Govan Mbeki, Kenny Jordaan, John Nyathi Pokela, Dr Yusuf Dadoo, Isaac Bongani Tabata, Bram Fischer, MK Gandhi, OR Tambo, Helen Suzman, Cissie Gool, Zephaniah Mothopeng, Chris Hani, Mac Maharaj, or any other major leader - would or could have envisaged the liberation from apartheid in terms of a category such as ‘our primate heritage'. They would have regarded reference back to the baboons as too degrading, too close to the most demeaning conceptual structures of the advocates of the apartheid system. Coming from the Rector of a major South African university, it is deeply disconcerting.

Services Subscribe to newsletters News feeds Share this article Facebook Google Laaik.it Yahoo! Digg del.icio.us

Comments

If you come across comments that are injurious, defamatory, profane, off-topic or inappropriate; contain personal attacks or racist, sexist, homophobic, or other slurs, please report them and they will be removed.

 

responses to this article

A lion fat rubdown anyone? Very interesting, but you may be over intellectualising. Makgoba is a bitter, intellectually insecure, small-minded fool who has destroyed everything he has touched. He might like to forget his years at Wits, but those who witnessed the best of Wits . .more (van Onselen, Sinclair, and, most tragically, Etienne Mureinik) driven out to be eventually replaced by Bundy's Bozos have a slightly longer memory. . .less by Deeply Disconcerted on March 18 2008, 11:52 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Professor Etienne Mureinik My obituary of Professor Etienne Mureinik, published in the Independent, London (23 July 1996), can be found on the net on: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19960723/ai_n14059733/pg_1 by Paul Trewhela on March 18 2008, 12:49 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Online Pharmacy USA Online Pharmacy online buy USA, http://profile.talkcity.com/phentermine buy phentermine 37.5 mg online http://profile.talkcity.com/tramadol cheap tramadol buy online http://www.dafont.com/profile.php?user=158023 cheap buy phentermine . .more http://www.dafont.com/profile.php?user=158026 cheap buy tramadol online http://www.dafont.com/profile.php?user=158029 cheap buy V***** online http://www.conceptart.org/forums/member.php?u=108905 buy cheap phentermine 37.5 mg online custom hrt http://www.conceptart.org/forums/member.php?u=108906 cheap buy official tramadol http://www.conceptart.org/forums/member.php?u=108908 cheap V***** buy online . .less by Pulasert on April 24 2008, 18:06 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Online Pharmacy USA Online Pharmacy online buy USA,http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16113 buy phentermine37.5 mg official online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16115 buy tramadol online . .more http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16117 buy V***** online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16118 buy cheap Xanax online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16119 cheap cialis online ********** http://www.audioforums.com/forums/member.php?u=26718 buy phentermine http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347130 buy tramadol online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347120 buy phentermine online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347145 buy cheap V***** online http://rollyo.com/mikre/ buy phentermine officia online http://rollyo.com/tramadolinfo/ buy tramadol official online http://rollyo.com/michel.moris/ buy V***** online http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CIALIS_OFFICIAL buy cialis online . .less by Namovesad on April 26 2008, 10:27 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

ALL DRUGS are here. http://www.asianave.com/oxycontin buy oxycontin official online 98623147 http://www.asianave.com/V***** buy V***** official online http://www.asianave.com/phentermine buy phentermine official online http://www.asianave.com/tramadol buy tramadol . .more official online http://us.cyworld.com/viagrabuy http://www.stickam.com/phentermineonline buy phentermine 37.5 online custom http://profile.talkcity.com/phentermine http://profile.talkcity.com/tramadol http://my.gay.com/buyphentermine . .less by Jonred on April 26 2008, 17:54 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Online Pharmacy USA Online Pharmacy online buy USA,http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16113 buy phentermine37.5 mg official online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16115 buy tramadol online . .more http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16117 buy V***** online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16118 buy cheap Xanax online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16119 cheap cialis online ********** http://www.audioforums.com/forums/member.php?u=26718 buy phentermine http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347130 buy tramadol online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347120 buy phentermine online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347145 buy cheap V***** online http://rollyo.com/mikre/ buy phentermine officia online http://rollyo.com/tramadolinfo/ buy tramadol official online http://rollyo.com/michel.moris/ buy V***** online http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CIALIS_OFFICIAL buy cialis online . .less by Pedasert on April 26 2008, 19:53 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Is there really any comparison? A few corrections Apart from the fact that Professor Malegapuru Makgoba has nowhere the same intellectual capacity as Heidegger and will be forgotten as soon as he retires, please note: Heidegger did not live "in a wooded area of . .more rural Bavaria." but after his retirement lived in Todtnauberg in the Black Forest. Freiburg is not Freiburg-im-Breslau but Freiburg-im-Breisgau. The only comparison is that they both made rather problematic political utterances as rectors of universities. . .less by Peter Horn on March 19 2008, 17:46 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Response to Peter Horn The Nazi politics of a major 20th century philosopher just ...a "rather problematic" political utterance? Also: Todtnauberg in the Black Forest is "in rural Bavaria", an area that is certainly wooded. And the University at which Heidegger . .more delivered his Hitler address actually is in Freiburg-im-Breslau. . .less by Paul Trewhela on March 19 2008, 18:30 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

I don't want to belabour a minor point, but it so happens that went to school in Freiburg-im-Breisgau (Breslau is in Silesia and is now Wroclaw), and Todtnauberg is in the Black Forest which was never a part of Bavaria, but during Heideggers life time of . .more Baden (and now part of the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg). It also so happens that I heard Heidegger who at the time I went to school came down from his retreat once or twice to give a public lecture. I cannot fully answer your more essential point on Heidegger's Nazi politics. Bourdieu attempts to create a necessary link between his philosophical language and his politics, which I think is tenuous. The point which I wanted to make and which I still think is valid, is that Makgoba is an íntellectual lightweight while Heidegger is an eminent philosopher in the line of European philsophy from Aristotle, Thomas of Aquino, Kant, Nietzsche. Just as Lukacs has tried to trash Nietzsche (with some justification), Adorno (equally with some justification) has trashed Heidegger in his Jargon der Eigentlichkeit. In both cases these philosphers have survived the critique. . .less by anonymous on March 20 2008, 08:13 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Derrida and Bourdieu The two books which I referred to, and which I think are still the best analysis of Heidegger's relationship to the Nazis are: The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger by Pierre Bourdieu and Peter Collier J. Derrida, Vom Geist. . .more Heidegger und die Frage. Trans. Alexander Garcia Düttmann. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987. . .less by Peter Horn on March 20 2008, 08:35 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Is there really any comparison? By the way there are two outstanding analyses of Heidegger's Rektoratsrede and his involvment with Nazism: by Derrida (on the word Geist) and Bourdieu by Peter Horn on March 19 2008, 17:52 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Anonymous is Peter Horn Sorry, anonymous is me. Pushed the button by mistake by Peter Horn on March 20 2008, 08:14 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Heidegger and Makgoba re-examined After Nazi Germany, no country in the 20th century established racism as the central organising doctrine of the state in such a systemic way as apartheid South Africa. No major thinker of the last century made such direct connection as a philosopher . .more to Nazism as did Heidegger. Peter Horn fails to address this central problematic. One does not have to regard Professor Makgoba as a thinker of equivalent stature in order to analyse the sources of his thought in terms of the best template available. The centrality of this issue in South Africa is also not addressed by Mr Horn. I am grateful to Mr Horn for his references to further reading about Heidegger. The problem remains, however, of the relation of Heidegger’s Nazi politics to his philosophy, as can be seen from many sources, among them the website chronology on: http://www.webcom.com/paf/href.html. The contemporary relevance of this issue in South Africa can be further seen from RW Johnson, ‘Crisis on campus’ (March 2008), on the website: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rw_johnson/2008/03/crisis_on_campus.html . I defer to M Horn’s first-hand knowledge of Germany. Heidegger’s Rektoratsrede of 27 May1933 in which he celebrated Hitler to his students was indeed delivered in Freiburg-im-Breisgau. There is another university in Freiburg-im-Breslau, and I copied my (mistaken) citation for Heidegger’s rectoral address from Professor Kellner’s biography of Herbert Marcuse. (p.406) As Mr Horn has also pointed out, Todtnauberg is in Baden-Wurttemberg, not Bavaria. I am grateful for the correction of these factual errors, but they are not the crucial point, whether in Heidegger studies or for South Africa today. . .less by Paul Trewhela on March 20 2008, 11:30 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Derrida and Bourdieu they are not the crucial point, whether in Heidegger studies or for South Africa today agreed It is definitely on the racism as the central organising doctrine of the state in such a systemic way racism as the central organising . .more doctrine of the state in such a systemic way that I would doubt that Heidegger has much to say. Like many intellectual supporters of the Nazi party, his assent was rather in another area: anti-modernism, resentment of the losers of the First World War etc. Perhaps one should ask why Heidegger resigned as rector one year after his enthusiastic Rektoratsrede, and why he led a rather withdrawn life from 1934 to 1945. Most of his later seminars and lectures were given to a deliberately small audience. I think he realised that the Nazis in no way corresponded to his high ideals of "Germanness". . .less by Peter Horn on March 20 2008, 16:53 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Sorry for the grammatical mess It is definitely on the racism as the central organising doctrine of the state in such a systemic way that I would doubt that Heidegger has much to say. Like many intellectual supporters of the Nazi party, his assent was rather in another area: . .more anti-modernism, resentment of the losers of the First World War etc. Perhaps one should ask why Heidegger resigned as rector one year after his enthusiastic Rektoratsrede, and why he led a rather withdrawn life from 1934 to 1945. Most of his later seminars and lectures were given to a deliberately small audience. I think he realised that the Nazis in no way corresponded to his high ideals of "Germanness". . .less by Peter Horn on March 20 2008, 16:54 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

A poet's experience of Heidegger I must ask Peter Horn to have a look at the very fine interpretation by Pierre Joris of the poem by Paul Celan, ‘Todtnauberg’, written immediately after the poet’s visit to Heidegger in his Hutte in 1967, available on the net at: . .more http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/joris/todtnauberg.html . The title of the essay is “Celan/Heidegger: Translation at the mountain of death”. Celan, who was Jewish, had lost his parents in the Shoah, and took his own life a few years after writing this poem. Heidegger was...what Celan says he is. If we are to consider a poet’s approach to the most complex expression of the Nazi experience, it is good to begin with Celan. Joris is a good guide. . .less by Paul Trewhela on March 20 2008, 23:07 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Celan It so happens that I wrote my Ph.D. on Paul Celan at Wits (1970) :-) Celan had hoped that Heidegger would offer some kind of explanation or apology, which he did not. But is it not interesting that he even went to visit him? There were several . .more attempts to get Heidegger to confront his relationship with the Nazis. Sharon Janusz; Glenn Webster write "In Defence of Heidegger" Philosophy, Vol. 66, No. 257. (Jul., 1991), pp. 380-385: If it is true that he accepted the Nazi ideology, then what has it to do with his philosophy? Should we stop reading and teaching Plato because he was an aristocrat, living during an historical period that condoned slavery, as well as misogyny? Far from intending to excuse, justify, or rationalize any inhuman attitudes or behaviours, we do wish someone would explain how the politics inform andlor influence Heidegger's speculative thought. We find no trace of Nazi ideology in his texts. Nor does his philosophy seem in any way blameworthy for Nazi ideology; therefore, his party membership is a puzzling anomaly. Part of the puzzle is that if he accepted the ideology, it should have affected the philosophy. But it did not. I do not agree with them, I think like Bourdieu that there is a connection between his philosophy and some aspects of Nazi ideology. . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 10:13 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Heidegger and Bantu Education Peter Horn writes that “The only comparison [between Heidegger and Prof Makgoba] is that they both made rather problematic political utterances as rectors of universities.” Heidegger’s influence on the politics of race and education in South . .more Africa may have been obscure — but it has been profound — and profoundly depraving. The philosophical bedrock of Bantu Education, Fundamental Pedagogics, was a pseudo-phenomenology which drew heavily on Heidegger’s muddled philosophy of Blut und Boden, as exemplified by his infamous Rektoratsrede. It followed in Heidegger's footsteps by perverting Husserl's universal phenomenology into a narrow phenomenology of race, abused to justify racism and ultimately totalitarianism. As a student of Philosophy in the early sixties at Pretoria University under Prof C K Oberholzer, one of the founding fathers of Fundamental Pedagogics, I grappled at first hand with the tangled prose of this muddled thinker (Heidegger) — part ethereal philosopher, part racist bully. Later as a member, and later head, of a team of editors and translators of tutorial matter produced for tens of thousands of black teachers, I again experienced at first-hand the noxious influence of the man. From the University of South Africa where we worked, this influence had spread into many nooks and crannies of teacher training at former “tribal colleges”. When in 1994/5 we finally refused to continue collaborating with this Faculty of Nonsense, and (I believe) struck at the roots of Fundamental Pedagogics, what remained of Bantu Education soon started withering away. I thought then that we had heard the last of Heidegger. It is ironic -- and infintely sad -- that Heidegger’s Blut und Boden philosophy of education is again emerging from the work of some of the “African scholars” claiming to be vigorously opposed to Apartheid and Bantu Education. It has been said that liberation movements often turn into shadow images of the thing they fought against. I suspect that Paul Trewhela — a man with first-hand experience of the liberation struggle (unlike Prof Makgoba in his ebony tower) — has looked into the heart of Prof Makgoba’s thinking. And he has recognised the shadows of a new racism and authoritarianism. It’s not a comforting thought. . .less by Sam van den Berg on March 20 2008, 23:42 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Celan It is true that Afrilkaans philosophy departments taught Heidegger (and English philosophy departments tende not to) But then English philosophy departments were and are still to a degree enamoured with a rather sterile positivism. That . .more Heidegger is difficult to read (but so are most philosphers from Plato to Gadamer) I do not deny. That he is a muddled thinker I would deny. His Rektoratsrede is undoubtedly one of his worst products and is indefensible. But his main work "Sein und Zeit", his astounding analysis of Aristotle, the medieval scholastics, his attack on Descartes and 18th century rationalism, his incredible two volume work on Nietzsche, all this cannot simply be subsumed under "Bantu Education". I would venture to guess that the muddled thinking came from Prof C K Oberholzer rather than Heidegger. Heidegger did not really articulate any philosophy of education, and he is not a Blut und Boden philosopher. I think the reduction of Heidegger to a Nazi icon misses most of his contribution. . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 10:22 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Peter Horn on Heidegger and Bantu Education II must confess that I am unable to pursue the argument about whether Heidegger is muddled. I'm not a trained philosopher and some of the muddle might have been my own. My German is imperfect and my assumption that philosophy should be translatable may be . .more out of line with mainstream philosophical thinking. Indeed this is what the then dean of the Faculty of Education at Unisa told me in a candid moment when I was still under cover as a fellow Afrikaner. How he expected us to translate tuition material written exclusively in Afrikaans for the 95% of his students who expected to receive their material in comprehensible English, remains a mystery. Perhaps Peter Horn can clear up the mystery by explaining how Heidegger can be properly understood in English. Indeed, this does raise questions about the validity of philosophy as a universal mode of reasoning. I wouldn’t know. The Greek word “logos” has a range of meanings, and “rational reasoning” is only one of them. It has other, more slippery meanings. And the meaning of “sophos” is in the mind of the sophist. Peter Horn is right about at least some of the muddle coming from C K Oberholzer and his school. They also drew opportunistically on a range of other philosophers, from Sartre to Kierkegaard, as well as narrow Calvinist Dutch writers, to concoct their brew. There was method in their muddle — they knew what they wanted to prove before they started. Just as Heidegger knew what he would have to say in the Rektoratsrede long before he came to the closing “Heil Hitlers”. No doubt the Sturmabteilung had packed the hall. It doesn’t really matter. The point is that certain “African scholars” are walking the same road, and may be headed for conclusions frighteningly similar to those of Bantu Education and Nazi education theorists. For light relief, here is an example of how Fundamental Pedagogicians used/abused the licence that Heidegger gave them, or which they thought Heidegger gave them, to indulge in vacuous semantics and formulaic reasoning. I quote it in the original (the English translator managed to improve it marginally before booking himself into an asylum for incurably hysterical laughter): “Deur slegs aanwesig te wees, kan opvoeding nie verwesenlik word nie. Omgang moet oorgaan in pedagogiese ontmoeting. Die ontmoeting moet egter nie slegs ’n aangename-kennis-situasie wees nie, maar inderdaad ’n aangenaam-om-jou-te-ken-in-jou eksistensiële-verwagting …” But the side of Heidegger which Paul Trewhela raised was more sinister than his promiscuous ways with language and semantics. Sam van den Berg Cape Town . .less by Sam van den Berg on March 21 2008, 11:19 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Martin Heidegger: Political Texts, 1933-1934 As I know van Onselen and Sinclair (if only in passing) I must say I totally agree about the evaluation of Makgoba by : Deeply Disconcerted and Paul Trewhela. Sam van den Berg remark “Perhaps Peter Horn can clear up the mystery by . .more explaining how Heidegger can be properly understood in English.” Is pertinent. The translation of Sein und Zeit is awful, and I admit I would not want to translate Heidegger into English. Before you set me off on my hobby-horse let me just remind you that Freud, who writes the clearest German imaginable is hardly readable in French and English translations. One needs to remember that translations are always only crutches, which we use because we cannot speak all the languages of the world. But if you want to do any really serious work Plato it does help if you know ancient Greek well, and I am afraid the same is true about Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger and German. N.B. Nie ek moet sê! Nog nooit so gelag! “Deur slegs aanwesig te wees, kan opvoeding nie verwesenlik word nie. Omgang moet oorgaan in pedagogiese ontmoeting. Die ontmoeting moet egter nie slegs ’n aangename-kennis-situasie wees nie, maar inderdaad ’n aangenaam-om-jou-te-ken-in-jou eksistensiële-verwagting …” There are some Derrida-epigones which are equally vacuous. I think neither Heidegger nor Derrida are responsible for their epigones . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 12:33 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

how Heidegger can be properly understood in English As I know van Onselen and Sinclair (if only in passing) I must say I totally agree about the evaluation of Makgoba by : Deeply Disconcerted and Paul Trewhela. Sam van den Berg remark “Perhaps Peter Horn can clear up the mystery by . .more explaining how Heidegger can be properly understood in English.” Is pertinent. The translation of Sein und Zeit is awful, and I admit I would not want to translate Heidegger into English. Before you set me off on my hobby-horse let me just remind you that Freud, who writes the clearest German imaginable is hardly readable in French and English translations. One needs to remember that translations are always only crutches, which we use because we cannot speak all the languages of the world. But if you want to do any really serious work Plato it does help if you know ancient Greek well, and I am afraid the same is true about Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger and German. N.B. Nie ek moet sê! Nog nooit so gelag! “Deur slegs aanwesig te wees, kan opvoeding nie verwesenlik word nie. Omgang moet oorgaan in pedagogiese ontmoeting. Die ontmoeting moet egter nie slegs ’n aangename-kennis-situasie wees nie, maar inderdaad ’n aangenaam-om-jou-te-ken-in-jou eksistensiële-verwagting …” There are some Derrida-epigones which are equally vacuous. I think neither Heidegger nor Derrida are responsible for their epigones . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 12:34 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Online Pharmacy USA Online Pharmacy online buy USA,http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16113 buy phentermine37.5 mg official online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16115 buy tramadol online . .more http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16117 buy V***** online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16118 buy cheap Xanax online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16119 cheap cialis online ********** http://www.audioforums.com/forums/member.php?u=26718 buy phentermine http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347130 buy tramadol online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347120 buy phentermine online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347145 buy cheap V***** online http://rollyo.com/mikre/ buy phentermine officia online http://rollyo.com/tramadolinfo/ buy tramadol official online http://rollyo.com/michel.moris/ buy V***** online http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CIALIS_OFFICIAL buy cialis online . .less by Biadasks on April 26 2008, 10:28 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

ALL DRUGS are here. http://www.asianave.com/oxycontin buy oxycontin official online 98623147 http://www.asianave.com/V***** buy V***** official online http://www.asianave.com/phentermine buy phentermine official online http://www.asianave.com/tramadol buy tramadol . .more official online http://us.cyworld.com/viagrabuy http://www.stickam.com/phentermineonline buy phentermine 37.5 online custom http://profile.talkcity.com/phentermine http://profile.talkcity.com/tramadol http://my.gay.com/buyphentermine . .less by Muteaska on April 26 2008, 17:54 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Online Pharmacy USA Online Pharmacy online buy USA,http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16113 buy phentermine37.5 mg official online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16115 buy tramadol online . .more http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16117 buy V***** online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16118 buy cheap Xanax online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16119 cheap cialis online ********** http://www.audioforums.com/forums/member.php?u=26718 buy phentermine http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347130 buy tramadol online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347120 buy phentermine online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347145 buy cheap V***** online http://rollyo.com/mikre/ buy phentermine officia online http://rollyo.com/tramadolinfo/ buy tramadol official online http://rollyo.com/michel.moris/ buy V***** online http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CIALIS_OFFICIAL buy cialis online . .less by Nolaserxe on April 26 2008, 19:53 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Online Pharmacy USA Online Pharmacy online buy USA,http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16113 buy phentermine37.5 mg official online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16115 buy tramadol online . .more http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16117 buy V***** online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16118 buy cheap Xanax online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16119 cheap cialis online ********** http://www.audioforums.com/forums/member.php?u=26718 buy phentermine http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347130 buy tramadol online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347120 buy phentermine online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347145 buy cheap V***** online http://rollyo.com/mikre/ buy phentermine officia online http://rollyo.com/tramadolinfo/ buy tramadol official online http://rollyo.com/michel.moris/ buy V***** online http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CIALIS_OFFICIAL buy cialis online . .less by Biadasks on April 26 2008, 10:28 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

ALL DRUGS are here. http://www.asianave.com/oxycontin buy oxycontin official online 98623147 http://www.asianave.com/V***** buy V***** official online http://www.asianave.com/phentermine buy phentermine official online http://www.asianave.com/tramadol buy tramadol . .more official online http://us.cyworld.com/viagrabuy http://www.stickam.com/phentermineonline buy phentermine 37.5 online custom http://profile.talkcity.com/phentermine http://profile.talkcity.com/tramadol http://my.gay.com/buyphentermine . .less by Norkasut on April 26 2008, 17:55 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Online Pharmacy USA Online Pharmacy online buy USA,http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16113 buy phentermine37.5 mg official online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16115 buy tramadol online . .more http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16117 buy V***** online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16118 buy cheap Xanax online http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/member.php?u=16119 cheap cialis online ********** http://www.audioforums.com/forums/member.php?u=26718 buy phentermine http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347130 buy tramadol online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347120 buy phentermine online http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=1347145 buy cheap V***** online http://rollyo.com/mikre/ buy phentermine officia online http://rollyo.com/tramadolinfo/ buy tramadol official online http://rollyo.com/michel.moris/ buy V***** online http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CIALIS_OFFICIAL buy cialis online . .less by Pedasert on April 26 2008, 19:52 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

The relevance of Heidegger in contemporary South Africa I do think that the words of the French Jewish poet Edmond Jabes, cited by Pierre Joris, should be addressed: “In Heidegger's Germany, there is no place for Paul Celan”. Joris places this sentence at the head of his article “Celan/Heidegger: Translation . .more at the Mountain of Death”, available on the internet at http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/joris/todtnauberg.html . As to why Celan, who wrote poetry in German but chose to live in Paris, nevertheless then chose to visit the former Nazi Rektor of the University of Freiburg in his Hutte at Todtnauberg in 1967, Joris provides many helpful clues in another valuable essay, “Heidegger, France, Politics, the University” (1989), available on the net at www.anti-rev.org/textes/Joris89a/index.html . Joris comprehensively surveys the literature on Heidegger, and concludes with an attempt to discover in the categories of Sein und Zeit (1927) the threads leading to its author’s subsequent Nazi politics and his post-war refusal (inability) to acknowledge the enormity of the Holocaust: a matter Celan perceived, with hurt, in that meeting at Todtnauberg. Joris convincingly locates several of these threads. One of these is Heidegger’s concept of existential decline, leading to his call to “battle” in his Rektoratsrede of May 1933, when he looked to “when the spiritual strength of the West fails and its joints crack, when this moribund semblance of a culture caves in and drags all forces into confusion and lets them suffocate in madness”. Well, that is what Nazism itself precipitated, and to which Heidegger himself contributed. In his final paragraph, Joris finds that “essential Heideggerian concepts as first developed in Being and Time lend themselves without ambiguity, and in Heidegger's own practical thinking, to implementation in the context of a fascist university structure. …[The] time has come to rethink and recontextualize essential aspects of the pre-war European intellectual endeavors, especially those who fell prey to what [Georges] Bataille termed ‘la tentation fasciste’ [the temptation of fascism]”. It is time this critique took place with South Africa in mind, not forgetting Heidegger’s attack in his Rektoratsrede on what he too called “academic freedom”. Three months after being installed as rector at Freiburg university, as Joris points out, Heidegger “established the Fuhrerprinzip, according to which the rector would henceforth no longer be elected by the academic Senate of the university but would be appointed by the nazi minister of education and provided with new, sweeping powers.” Not just an affair in a far-away country of which we know nothing…. . .less by Paul Trewhela on March 21 2008, 13:22 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

On "Todtnauberg" I think that P i e r r e J o r i s ‘s analysis is very fair and describes clearly the ambivalence of both men: “It is therefore not surprising to find Celan concerned with the figure of Martin Heidegger. This concern is ambivalent, to say the . .more least, involving both attraction and repulsion. Pöggeler reminds us that as far back as 1957, Celan had wanted to send his poem "Schliere" to Heidegger, but also, that, when somewhat later Heidegger had his famous meeting with Martin Buber in Münich, Celan felt very uneasy and was not ready to give Heidegger a "Persilschein", a "Persil- passport" i.e. did not want to whitewash the politically compromised philosopher. Celan, at that time, was reading Heidegger's Nietzsche as well as Nietzsche himself, and seems to have thought highly of Heidegger's interpretations. Nietzsche's thought is also, albeit liminally, present in Celan's poetry, for example in "Engführung," where the line "Ein Rad, langsam, rollt aus sich selbst", is a formula used by Nietzsche in the chapter "Von den 3 Verwandlungen" in Zarathustra. Heidegger himself was intermittently interested in Celan's work and came, whenever possible, to the rare public readings Celan gave in Germany.” Joris’s critique of the two translations is correct. There is a better translation by Michael Hamburger, which is not perfect but closer. Celan would have liked to become part of the pantheon of German poetry as established by Heidegger: Hölderlin, Trakl, Rilke; and Heidegger admired Celan’s poetic genius – as I said before he was not an antisemite, and agreed with Nietzsche: A Jew among Germans, what a relief; but he might also have wanted to receive the “Persil-Schein”, i.e. to be absolved of his guilt by Celan, the Jew. The problem is that Heidegger does not explain or ask for forgiveness. “In Lacoue-Labarthe's reading of the poem, the non-arrival of the "coming word" becomes symbolic of Heidegger's refusal throughout the postwar period to explain his involvement with National Socialism.” (cf. The "Impossibility of Poetry": Celan and Heidegger in France. Mark M. Anderson. New German Critique, No. 53. (Spring - Summer, 1991), pp. 3-18.) . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 13:53 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

What is racism? And what is not? To address Peter Horn’s claim that Heidegger “was not an anti-semite”. He certainly had a Jewish lover, a Jewish teacher, Jewish students and Jewish admirers: moths to the flame, as it happened. But how to explain the following? 2 October 1929: . .more “Heidegger denounces Jewish influence in Germany in grant applications”. April 1933: Heidegger’s teacher and mentor Edmund Husserl, a Jewish convert to Christianity, “forced to retire for racial reasons”. 29 April: Heidegger “Writes to Husserl”. 3 May: 1933 “Joins National Socialist Party”. 20 May: “Sends telegram to Hitler…”. 27 May: Rectorship address, Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitat. 30 June 1933: Denounces “dangerous international alliance of Jews” at home of philosopher Karl Jaspers (who was married to a Jew). 12 July 1933: “Writes to ministry of education supporting anti-semitism”. September 1933: “Tips off authorities that Chemistry professor Hermann Staudinger (Nobel Prize 1953) was a pacifist. November 1933: “Expresses support for Hitler at public meeting in Leipzig”. 16 December 1933: “Secretly denounces Gottingen philosophy professor Eduard Baumgarten”. April 1936: “Stops corresponding with Jaspers”. This is an adequate selection of items from the Heidegger Chronology available on the internet at: www.webcom.com/paf/href.html . In South Africa that person is called a racist. Nietzsche would never have compromised himself in that way. Unlike Heidegger, Nietzsche openly and publicly separated himself from such words and such behaviour. Sies. . .less by Paul Trewhela on March 21 2008, 14:48 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

What is racism - and what is not racism? What is racism? Racism is defined not by what we think or feel, but by the things we do of our own free will. For a philosopher saying is doing. Things Heidegger said and did of his own free will condemn him as a racist and (much worse) a . .more treacherous friend and colleague. Denouncing colleagues and, in the Rektoratsrede, going well beyond what was strictly necessary in order to survive, were acts of will — and the will was something which Heidegger himself valued above all things. He was a racist and therefore not worthy of the name philosopher. He set a dangerous example for half-baked intellectuals in his own circle and in Nazi Germany, who would follow in his footsteps, confident that the Herr Professor Doktor can surely not be wrong. Those who consider themselves to be scholars — especially those who consider themselves to have exceptional intellectual qualities — have exceptional responsibilities. They should heed warnings of hubris as Heidegger never did. One thing that even Heidegger would not have said of himself: "I am today a sophisticated man ... who has earned accolades from some of the world's best and leading institutions, mainly because of my unquestioned brilliance as a scholar and pioneering achievements as a [….] scientist, with few equals in my field and even fewer superiors." Who allegedly wrote this? See http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v1/3/6.htm What is not racism? Belonging by birth and upbringing to a group of which some members committed crimes is not racism. Not all Germans were Nazis, and not even all Nazis were complicit in the holocaust. Dr Albert Battel was a member of the Nazi Party from May 1933. He was an Oberleutenant in the Wehrmacht under Hitler. Yet, on January 22, 1981, Yad Vashem decided to recognize Albert Battel (posthumously) as Righteous Among the Nations. Why? See: http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous/bycountry/germany/battel_dr_albert.html The majority of whites in South Africa now alive were not willingly complicit in the crimes committed by the authoritarian apartheid regime. Tens of thousands did what they could in their small way to ameliorate the harshness of the system. An overwhelming majority approved the new constitution in a referendum. Many became adults after 1994. Yet whites are yet again being badgered by silly people to “apologise for Apartheid.” Most whites are not racists. Those who believe in their collective guilt are racists. And those who call all who dare to disagree with them racists, are themselves the most dangerous racists of all. . .less by Sam van den Berg on March 21 2008, 16:28 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

I was unaware of these facts I was unaware of these facts: 1. 2 October 1929: “Heidegger denounces Jewish influence in Germany in grant applications”. 2. 30 June 1933: Denounces “dangerous international alliance of Jews” at home of philosopher Karl Jaspers (who was married . .more to a Jew). 3. 12 July 1933: “Writes to ministry of education supporting anti-semitism”. I accept that they are true, inspite of the fact that they sound strange coming from Heidegger. And they do inf act show "anti-semitism". Nevertheless I would like to have the source and the context. April 1933: Heidegger’s teacher and mentor Edmund Husserl, a Jewish convert to Christianity, “forced to retire for racial reasons”. 29 April: Heidegger “Writes to Husserl”. Note: that this was before Heidegger became Rector, I would like to know the content of that letter. Treatment of Husserl (Wikipedia quoting Rüdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil (Cambridge, Mass., & London: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 253-8. On April 14, 1933 (thus prior to Heidegger's rectorship), Husserl was given an enforced leave of absence because he was Jewish. It is not true, as is sometimes claimed, that during the rectorate Heidegger denied Husserl access to the university library. He did, however, break off contact with Husserl, other than via a "go-between" (though Heidegger claimed that the relationship with Husserl had already become strained after Husserl publicly "settled accounts" with Heidegger and Max Scheler in the early 1930s.[20]) Heidegger did not attend his mentor's cremation in 1938, and in 1941, under pressure from publisher Max Niemeyer, agreed to remove the dedication to Husserl from Being and Time (restored in post-war editions).[21] 12 July 1933: “Writes to ministry of education supporting anti-semitism”. September 1933: “Tips off authorities that Chemistry professor Hermann Staudinger (Nobel Prize 1953) was a pacifist. November 1933: “Expresses support for Hitler at public meeting in Leipzig”. 16 December 1933: “Secretly denounces Gottingen philosophy professor Eduard Baumgarten”. So one must accept that as Sam van den Berg says: Things Heidegger said and did of his own free will condemn him as a racist and (much worse) a treacherous friend and colleague. . .less by Peter Horn on March 22 2008, 08:43 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Postscript - Celan Kam, kam. Kam ein Wort, kam, kam durch die Nacht, wollt leuchten, wollt leuchten. by Peter Horn on March 22 2008, 09:11 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

On reason and racism I am so pleased we have been able to have this high-level, cultured discussion on reason and racism on a South Africa-focused website, by courtesy of Politicsweb. The issues are universal and timeless, as the necessary attention in this discussion . .more to the work and life of Martin Heidegger further illustrates. If there were an epicentre for discussion of this subject in the early years of the 21st century, however, it would probably have to be South Africa. It is appropriate, also, that we have been able to contribute to this discussion when it is a major subject in the early phases of the presidential elections in the United States. To my knowledge, this is the first time the subject of racism – the defining matter of political and cultural discourse in South Africa – has been able to be discussed in terms of the philosophical heritage of one of the most major thinkers of the last century. The extraordinary complexities posed to us by the inter-relation of Heidegger’s work and life offer rich scope for much further study and thought, not least because of the hugely respectful reception of Heidegger's thought in France, Celan’s adopted home, as Peter Horn has pointed out. The fact we have been able to place discussion of racism in this context is especially important, given the fact that the fate and the future of the universities in South Africa is at stake. The question; “What is racism? And what is not racism?” is a prime issue for our times, in South Africa first of all. I feel we have helped to clarify the parameters in which matters of reason and racism can fruitfully be discussed in South Africa and elsewhere. I should like to point out that Sam van den Berg was one of three very brave brothers of a white Afrikaans-speaking family who stood out against apartheid in Pretoria, the capital of the racist system, in the late Fifties and early Sixties. I had the honour to share a cell beside his brother Maritz under 90-day detention without trial in Local Prison, Pretoria, with interrogation to match in Compol Buildings, Pretoria, in July/August 1964. Their nephew, Professor John van den Berg, professor of Mathematics at the University of KwaZulu Natal, has now become the subject of allegations of racism as a member of the Senate at the University, in the course of a conflict over issues of academic freedom – notoriously sneered at by Professor Heidegger in his Rektoratsrede at the University of Freiburg in May 1933 – involving the Vice Chancellor, Professor Malegapuru Makgoba. Hopefully, issues relating to Martin Heidegger might help define a context in which this conflict may be resolved. I must also express my gratitude to Peter Horn for the tremendous assistance he has given to this discussion, especially in the light of his life’s attention at a high cultural level in South Africa to the issues which devastated the Europe of his childhood. South Africa should be grateful for the quality of his contribution. I must also thank Dr Zweledinga Pallo Jordan, the Minister of Arts and Culture and member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress, for introducing me to Herbert Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution (1941)while we were both in exile in London in 1968. I still have with me my copy from our study with Moeletsi Mbeki from that time. Paul Trewhela 22 March 2008 . .less by Paul Trewhela on March 22 2008, 13:32 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

On the Führerprinzip This is where I am entirely on your side: It is time this critique took place with South Africa in mind, not forgetting Heidegger’s attack in his Rektoratsrede on what he too called “academic freedom”. Three months after being installed as . .more rector at Freiburg university, as Joris points out, Heidegger “established the Fuhrerprinzip, according to which the rector would henceforth no longer be elected by the academic Senate of the university but would be appointed by the nazi minister of education and provided with new, sweeping powers.” Applied to South Africa: The Vice-chancellor at UCT, where I worked was always appointed by the Council (a democratic body) but after intensive involvement of Senate, staff and students. Deans were elected (not selected and appointed) by faculty. I think changes in these procedures have been made to disempower academics and shift power to "managment" - what a word for a Vice-chancellor. I think the concept of "academic freedom" has been eroded dramatically: the university no longer decides who teaches, what is taught, or who gets taught. Anything which is critical of "managment" can be the cause of "disciplinary action" (not that different from the seventies and eighties). . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 14:00 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Martin Heidegger: Political Texts, 1933-1934 Since the political texts from the period 1933-34 are not easily accessible (and they are the only openly political texts) you might want to consult: Martin Heidegger: Political Texts, 1933-1934 William S. Lewis New German Critique, . .more No. 45, Special Issue on Bloch and Heidegger. (Autumn, 1988), pp. 96-114. They are, admittedly, awful, and there is nothing one can say in defense of them . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 10:26 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Martin Heidegger: Political Texts, 1933-1934 It is perhaps interesting that the word Jew does not occur in these texts at all! Karl Löwith; Richard Wolin; Melissa J. Cox write in The Political Implications of Heidegger's Existentialism in New German Critique, No. 45, Special Issue on . .more Bloch and Heidegger. (Autumn, 1988), pp. 117-134. (You will realise that New German Critique is left rather than right). The petty-bourgeois orthodoxy of the party was suspicious of Heidegger's National Socialism insofar as Jewish and racial considerations played no role. Sein und Zeit was dedicated to the Jew, Husserl, his Kant-book to the half-Jew, Scheler, and in his courses at Freiburg, Bergson and Simmel were taught. His spiritual concerns did not seem to conform to those of the "Nordic race," which cared little about Angst in the face of nothingness. . .less by Peter Horn on March 21 2008, 10:37 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Makgoba How ironic: Makgoba was a brilliant medical researcher who dabbled in sociology and black conciousness, fields where he has absolutely no expertise or skill, and as a result he was hounded out of Wits, admittedly on trumped-up charges of falsifying . .more or padding his CV, by Wits the St John's old boys' brigade. Had he stuck to microbiology, he had the ability to win a Nobel prize; as an administratory he suffers from the academic's inability to lead (similar to Mbeki) and is tripping over his own ego (similar to Mbeki). That this victim of academic tyranny from the aforementioned mafia should now be the one to quash dissent is indeed an ironic victim-perpetrator role-reversal. . .less by Theseus on March 31 2008, 21:30 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Makgoba, Mbeki and St John's OB Brigade ... St John's Old Boys Brigade, eh? Suddenly I feel sympathetic to Prof Makgoba. I have no problem with the undeniable civilising influences of British colonialism (in fact, I'm only too grateful as a born rock spider to have benefited from it), but we could . .more have done without the Old Boys Brigades (the template for all kinds of nomenklaturas, from the Broederbond to Mbeki's inner-inner-cabinet). We could also have done without the British Special Branch model, the source of the leave-no-marks torture techniques employed by a wide range of goons, from the Apartheid security apparatus and Comrade OR’s gang of thugs to Mossad. No doubt Stalin and Beria also learnt a few tricks from the British … But Prof Makgoba is a brilliant man, and he should know better than to fool around with nonsense outside his field.. I’m puzzled by your comment “he suffers from the academic's inability to lead (similar to Mbeki) …” I don’t think Mbeki can be accused of being an academic. A bit of sociology or political science or whatever, and some silly marxist economics, at some redbrick outfit does not make him an academic, or have I missed some ground-breaking doctoral thesis? . .less by Sam van den Berg on April 17 2008, 17:25 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Nobel prize? Brillant researcher? Oh please. A legend in his own lunchtime. Like another Wits non-entity administrator with an Oxon DPhil I could mention. Considering the mess that Makgoba has made at UKZN the past actions of the `old boys brigade' to rid wits of this idiot . .more should be applauded. Also, they really weren't part of any `old boys brigade' (van Onselen is as far away from being an old St John's boy as is possible to imagine); rather a group of deeply concerned academic citizens who were horrified at the behaviour of one of the most senior members of the university. . .less by Still Disconcerted on April 02 2008, 10:53 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

trumped-up ? trumped-up ? St John's old boys' brigade? by Peter Horn on April 17 2008, 16:49 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Name
Subject
Comment