Wednesday, November 1, 2017

"My Nights Without Heidegger" -- Editorial from Charlie Hebdo (4 October 2017)


It would seem that Martin Heidegger’s philosophical contour is beginning to assume a fairly definitive form in the history of philosophy. Finally. Hopefully. Because at best, there is dubious philosophical value in the thought-product of morally and spiritually vacuous philosophers; this is only increased, hence at its worst, where there is also deliberate deception and hidden agendas. So, the History of Philosophy presents Martin Heidegger.
Phrontisterion here renders a recent Charlie Hebdo editorial (4 October 2017 / No 1315), from Yann Diener’s rubric: “Stories from Father Sigmund”
[« Les Histoires du Père Sigmund »].

~Translated by David Aiken~


“My Nights Without Heidegger”

An escapee from Auschwitz turned psychoanalyst after going through analysis with Lacan, Anne-Lise Stern used to spit on the ground every time she had to pronounce Heidegger’s name. Including on the lovely carpet at The House of Human Sciences (la Maison des sciences de l’homme), where for thirty years she held her seminar entitled, “Camps, History, Psychoanalysis: How They Tie into European Current Affairs.”
            As it happens, Martin Heidegger, considered for a long time to be the most important philosopher of the 20th century, was a member of the Nazi party. A fact that has not kept generations of philosophers, from Sartre to Levinas, and not forgetting Hannah Arendt, from being fascinated by his program of returning to Being—this God [i.e., lapis philosophorum - TN] of the philosophers, which was, according to Heidegger, perverted by 2000 years of Judeo-Christianity.
            Up until the end of the 20th century, Heidegger’s admirers attempted to separate his ideas from his commitment to the Nazi party. This hypothesis fell apart completely in 2005 with the publication of Emmanuel Faye’s book, Heidegger, The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy. Rereading the German documents and accessing others that had not yet been published, Faye showed that the philosophy of Heidegger is inseparable from his antisemitism and from his conviction concerning the superiority of the German people.
            For a long time his most fervent devotees would systematically contort themselves in order to deny this state of fact; but the coup de grace was given by the master himself: Heidegger had demanded that all of his most explicitly anti-Semitic and Nazi writings not be published until after 2001, which is to say well after his death in 1976. So, it is from the grave that the philosopher explains to us that he had to encrypt his early texts while awaiting a more receptive environment. He used what he himself called ‘cover-words’. For example, he would speak of Being when he wanted to say Fatherland or the Being-race [l’être-race]—which changes somewhat the interpretative game.
            And then there are his Black Notebooks [i.e., Schwartze Hefte], which are being published in Germany, and which show themselves to be full to overflowing with anti-Semitic formulas: the great philosopher is obsessed by the “calculating Jew”; he speaks of the “extermination of the interior enemy” and regrets that Hitler’s failure had to interrupt a total destruction that was necessary.* To such a degree that Günter Figal, the president of the Martin-Heidegger-Gesellschaft—the Martin Heidegger Society—resigned in January 2015, explaining that he could no longer see himself defending Heidegger.



But what does that have to do with psychoanalysis, you might ask? Well, at the beginning of his teaching career, Lacan referenced Heidegger a great deal. Notably, he found support in Heidegger for the elaboration of his conception of ‘symptom’ as a ‘covering’ [voilement] and ‘un-covering’ [dévoilement] of a truth. But then Lacan openly separated himself from Heidegger. One could expect nothing less from the brilliant clinician. In a variety of ways and means, he said that Heidegger is a dead-end. But the problem is, that there are a great many Lacanians who continue to reference Heideggerian notions as if Lacan had always been Heideggerian. You might be tempted to think that this is a matter just for Lacanians. But no, it is a political question that deals with the very real disinhibition [désinhibition] of identity hatreds and identity points of view.
            The translation of the Black Notebooks is late in coming to France, where the official translator seems overwhelmed by the task. But Philippe Sollers, a great fan of the master from the Black Forest, has recently announced that he will publish next February a book intended to clear Heidegger’s name.** It so happens that his press announcement is also illustrated with a photo dating from 1955, where one sees Lacan and Heidegger together.
            It is up to us, Lacanians, to show that Lacan was not Heideggerian, in order that he should no longer be used in this way to provide credibility for a racist and hygienist philosopher.

 *  See Naufrage d’un prophète. Heidegger aujourdh’hui, de François Rastier (PUF).
** Martin Heidegger. La vérité sur ses Cahiers noirs, de Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann et Francesco Alfiere, à Paraitre chez Gallimard.

Further reading about Martin Heidegger on Phrontisterion:
·      Phrontisterion’s Heideggeriana page @ http://nonimprimatur.blogspot.fr/p/blog-page_24.html



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