tradition and appropriating the past in heidegger

A huge task for Western reason has been showing us that there is a gap between the particular world an agent happens to occupy and the dictates of reason itself. This is necessary because of the strong tendency to view one's own environment as the right and just one. For instance, if you ask a group of high school or college students what the right kind of political system is for humans, they will answer, "democracy." Or, if you ask them about the prospects of a political system that is not the one they grew up in, they will say it is unreasonable and irrational. They have a hard time separating out what is just and rational from what they are familiar with.

"A dictatorship like the one proposed by the famous English totalitarian, Thomas Hobbes, would never work because for all of his discussion of human nature, he forgets that people want to participate to some extent in political life," would be one way such an objection could be formed, the problem being that human history is full of examples of just such regimes. And Heidegger is all over this tendency to think of the world one happens to occupy as the right, rational, or inevitable one.

Dasein not only has the inclination to be entangled in the world in which it is and to interpret itself in terms of that world by its reflected light; at the same time Dasein is also entangled in a tradition which it more or less explicitly grasps. This tradition deprives Dasein of its own leadership in questioning and choosing. / Dasein hat nicht nur die Geneigtheit, an seine Welt, in der es ist, zu verfallen und reluzent aus ihr her sich auszulegen, Dasein verfällt in eins damit auch seiner mehr oder minder ausdrücklich ergriffenen Tradition. Diese nimmt ihm die eigene Führung, das Fragen und Wählen ab. (Being and Time §6, p. 18 of Stambaugh translation)

We tend to approach our tradition as a "first-born" truth that is not subjected to much questioning or understanding. We are subject to a lot of propaganda from media of all kinds, upbringing, and education – but none of it, Heidegger says, is done in the right way. On the contrary:

The tradition that hereby gains dominance makes what it "transmits" so little accessible that initially and for the most part it covers it over instead. What has been handed down it hands over to obviousness; it bars access to those original "wellsprings" out of which the traditional categories and concepts were in part genuinely drawn. / Die hierbei zur Herrschaft kommende Tradition macht zunächst und zumeist das, was sie "übergibt", so wenig zugänglich, daß sie es vielmehr verdeckt. Sie überantwortet das Überkommene der Selbstverständlichkeit und verlegt den Zugang zu den ursprünglichen "Quellen", daraus die überlieferten Kategorien und Begriffe z. T. in echter Weise geschöpft wurden. (Being and Time §6, p. 19 of Stambaugh translation)

Think of the education we get concerning American history and government in grade school and beyond: doesn't it fit Heidegger's description like a glove? In this way, tradition loses respect and cannot support itself when "reason" gets going and starts making fun of the George Washington and the cherry tree myth, among other things. One result is that "reason" and "tradition" get presented as natural enemies. This is too bad, because a "positive" return to the past is needed. We are so selectively blinded by the tradition, Heidegger says, that we are able to do with foreign cultures what we are unable to do with our own:

The tradition uproots the historicity of Dasein to such a degree that it only takes an interest in the manifold forms of possible types, directions, and standpoints of philosophizing in the most remote and strangest cultures, and with this interest tries to veil its own groundlessness. Consequently, in spite of all historical interest and zeal for a philologically "objective" interpretation, Dasein no longer understands the most elementary conditions which alone make a positive return to the past possible – in the sense of its productive appropriation. / Die Tradition entwurzelt die Geschichtlichkeit des Daseins so weit, daß es sich nur noch im Interesse an der Vielgestaltigkeit möglicher Typen, Richtungen, Standpunkte des Philosophierens in den entlegensten und fremdesten Kulturen bewegt und mit diesem Interesse die eigene Bodenslosigkeit zu verhüllen sucht. Die Folge wird, daß das Dasein bei allem historischen Interesse und allem Eifer für eine philologisch "sachliche" Interpretation die elementarsten Bedingungen nicht mehr versteht die einen positiven Rückgang zur Vergangenheit im Sinne einer produktiven Aneignung ihrer allein ermöglichen. (Ibid.)

Great examples of the "interest in the manifold forms of . . . the most remote and strangest cultures" can be found throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, which is when Europe, spurred by the exigencies of empire, growing populations, and a newly discovered world just filled to the brim with land, treasure, and slaves showed up and started implementing the King of Spain's "prime directive," which, though never written down, read like this: "take what you can put onto a ship (especially gold and silver) and send it to me; enslave anyone who can be forced to work; transform the land into a feudal economy paying tribute to Spanish lords; crush and ban all local culture and compel the natives to become Christians. Kill at will and en masse as required." Part of the "surplus" produced by the European invasion of the Western hemisphere was exactly the fascinating stories Heidegger refers to. There was an insatiable appetite for accounts of the adventures of brave sailors and their stories of strange cultures in which, most thrillingly, sexual norms were quite different! A great example is Denis Diderot's fictional 'Supplement' to the famous and widely-read account written by Bougainville. (Diderot's work can be found here.)

Above Heidegger talks about a "productive appropriation" of the past that will see past poorly constructed "first versions" of history that are designed precisely to get people not to think about history. (Here is an example of a study plan from the Georgia Department of Education that provides an idea of the kind of thing Heidegger is talking about.) What do we think of, for instance, the kind of work Bernard Bailyn, Gordon S. Wood, J.G.A. Pocock have done on the "republican" origins of the American Revolution – is that a good example of a productive appropriation of the past? Is it possible to distinguish between the right kinds and the wrong kinds of appropriation? Clearly Heidegger does not want to leave the last word with "reason," tending as it does to regard the institutional and ideological formations deposited by history as arbitrary, irrational, and in general not so very purified of everything empirical.

Comments

[Cornchops]

This is a very confusing post, because you seem to be holding out the prospect that Heidegger can teach us how to 'appropriate' our history more... appropriately. Or in any case how to prove your oppoents to be 'totally' out to lunch. When, as you may recall, Heidegger emphatically declared, 'Only a god can save us.' We can take this in the banal sense of, 'stop asking philosohpers to save you already,' although he does say that he arrived at this conclusion after much serious thought (so all you theologians out there, don't despair).

On another tact, it really is strange that we think philosophers (or 'theorists') are the key to a safer, saner society. It's as strange as rappers becoming role models (except that rappers haven't had years to cultivate their inborn sense of efficacy). Heidegger's great for thinking, deep, deep until you're almost comatose, but he's not much for action. You don't need Heidegger to manhandle you through the fog, just read the shit (if indeed that is what it is) and make up your own mind whether it's "a good example of a productive appropriation of the past." That's what I say, anyway. It's time for a common sense revival, people. All this obscurantist Continental philosophy is making for bad air. Bad air!

[rob]

One result is that "reason" and "tradition" get presented as natural enemies. This is too bad, because a "positive" return to the past is needed. We are so selectively blinded by the tradition, Heidegger says, that we are able to do with foreign cultures what we are unable to do with our own

This is Husserl, right? I mean, I know Heidegger is pretty much Husserl's first heir, but this part is through and through Husserl, no?

I ask this simply because my Husserl is woeful; I've never been able to read him. I've given up trying, in fact, and prefer now to try to reconstruct him out of Derrida's and Heidegger's (et al.'s) appropriations of him.

[Perezoso]

"A dictatorship like the one proposed by the famous English totalitarian, Thomas Hobbes, would never work because for all of his discussion of human nature, he forgets that people want to participate to some extent in political life," would be one way such an objection could be formed, the problem being that human history is full of examples of just such regimes...."

You are misreading Leviathan, like completely. Hobbes did not make apologies for the monarchy as it existed; he wanted to establish a social contract in place of the monarchy and aristocracy. He objected to the royals, at least in part. Additionally, Hobbes lived centuries before the great wars and revolutions, so "totalitarian" seems misplaced; are Plato and Aristotle totalitarians as well? (Popper thought so).

Unlike say the anti-democratic sections of Plato's Republic, Hobbes holds that humans will form political and economic covenants for their own benefit (and Hobbes' economic materialism seems quite more PC than about any german metaphysics, except to postmodernist aesthetes, perhaps). The sovereign exists to enforce the contracts and covenants, which are as the opening chapters of Lev. suggest, egalitarian, secular, even socialist to some degree: and all people (or their representatives) are to participate in the contract and society- construction. Yes, he may have errored, theoretically speaking in assuming that the sovereign (or sovereign state) would not overstep the limits that the contract--- and covenants---specified, and become a tyrant: but that's sort of a moot point: the contract was never really implemented, at least to the extent that Hobbes had envisioned.

It's sort of amusing how a LS leftist attacks Hobbes in the sort of fashion that conservatives attack Marx's writing: Marx is tied to communism by conservatives (not without some reason), or Heidegger and Nietzsche to fascism, and Swifty here suggests Hobbes' sovereign has some relation to monarchy. Of the three, I'd say Hobbes' hands are by far the least bloody. But for the seasoned postmodernist that blood may count for some of the appeal of a Heidegger or Marx. Heidegger actually par-tayed with the Wehrmacht: now there's some Praxis............

[Swifty]

Hi Rob, I can't speak for Husserl, as I am pretty woeful there myself. The name that comes to my mind on the argument between reason and tradition that Heidegger is bringing up is Gadamer's Truth and Method which a friend of mine once recommended as a Being and Time for dummies. I don't know about that, but I did get a lot out of reading Gadamer, also in the sense of criticizing the attempt made there to reconcile reason and tradition. I can provide refs if they would be useful.

Heidegger as we know thinks 'time' is an essential part of being (or at least of Dasein). And he has a complicated argument about how the past, the present, and the future work together. In this context, he discusses Kant's theory of time, also Aristotle's in Physics, and makes reference to the more contemporary Henri Bergson several times, a reference that links Heidegger back to him (critically) and through him, Lukacs and the 'vitalist' scene of the early twentieth century that includes Georg Simmel. Deleuze, you know, wrote a very interesting and positive book on Bergson, and Deleuze has been characterized as a 'vitalist' as a kind.

But also when thinking of the reason and tradition debate, it does not hurt to think back to the French Revolution and the debates that swirled around it concerning the viability of the past in our today. Burke's Reflections and the responses to it by Paine, Wollstonecraft, and others are very much in play.

[Swifty]

Perezoso writes that Hobbes "wanted to establish a social contract in place of the monarchy and aristocracy."

No, that's not right. Go over Leviathan, Part 2, Chapter 18, paragraph 4, which reads in part: "Secondly, because the right of bearing the person of them all, is given to him they make sovereign, by covenant only of one to another, and not of him to any of them; there can happen no breach of covenant on the part of the sovereign; and consequently none of his subjects, by any pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection. That he which is made sovereign maketh no covenant with his subjects beforehand, is manifest..."

It's not a social contract that anyone would recognize. Hobbes' sovereign is a Führer, a decider. I saw a History Channel program on the nazi regime, and one individual, older now, recounts how he asked his father once, back in the day, what "national socialism" was. His father replied unhesitatingly: "National socialism is the will of the Führer." In other words, don't try and set up any kind of potential opposition between Nazi ideology or "the Nazi Party" and what the Führer thinks! As in, "wait a minute, mein Führer, what you just did or said contradicts what we read in the party platform at Article 9 subsection d." No, the doctrine of national socialism was the will of the Führer. And its the same logic in Hobbes.

Perezoso writes: "Yes, he may have errored, theoretically speaking in assuming that the sovereign (or sovereign state) would not overstep the limits that the contract--- and covenants---specified, and become a tyrant..."

No, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of Hobbes. The Leviathan does not contract with the people, and so cannot overstep the limits of the contract. If you want a contract between the sovereign and the people it is meant to serve, you need Locke and republican thinking.

[Perezoso]

NO, you are mistaken, but of course in your usual clever, if not xtian manner: you want to suggest Hobbes and economic materialists are really the nazis, and of course Heidegger, who affirmed national socialism even after WWII (there are pics of him at one of the Brownshirt's beer blasts) was the real beacon of social justice! Nicht.

"Secondly, because the right of bearing the person of them all, is given to him they make sovereign

That right is given, from the people establishing the contract, to the sovereign. Deciding on the the sovereign to enforce the covenants is part of the contract construction: and some might grant he didn't do enough to prevent timocracy. Oh well.

Like most continental ideologues who have an axe to grind against anything British (or American), you select a few quotes from the chapters following the earlier material on his ontology, and on ethics, and think you can prove Hobbes was a totalitarian. Nyet. Now advocating "the liquidation of the reactionaries," as Marx did, repeatedly: that's a totalitarian. Marx, however, for all of his sophistries, would never have given his blessing to a crypto-theologian such as Heidegger anyways, though in your strange Dasein-laden world, you seem to suggest as much.

[Perezoso]

from XVII, Leviathan.

..... the multitude so united in one person is called a COMMONWEALTH; in Latin, CIVITAS. This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN........ For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the Commonwealth; which, to define it, is: one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defence.

The Leviathan exists simply to enforce the covenants, and as suggested here, one of those covenants is to work towards peace and common defense. Not quite fascism.

I agree that Locke grants citizens rights beyond those that Hobbes grants: the right to petition the govt. for grievances, for one (that raises the spectre of the tyranny of the majority and other problems of democracy, however). But Hobbes would have argued, I believe, that those democratic rights are superfluous once an authentic social contract has been formed. I don't worship Hobbes' concept of the sovereign: but it's the process--the covenant construction--- leading up to the sovereign that is interesting, and still relevant (Rawls thought so), even if one chooses to rejects it (and I think Nietzsche in some sense was rejecting the social contracts of Hobbes as well as of Rousseau and Locke).

[Swifty]

You quote Hobbes: "one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defence."

Right the "great multitude" has made a "covenant one with another" but not with the Leviathan. And then the Leviathan will use "strength and means of all of them as he shall think expedient for their peace and common defence." If you don't like the comparison with fascism, then you should like the comparison with absolute monarchy. Wasn't the wet dream of absolute monarchs to be given carte blanche to pursue their own vision of the common good without any interference whatsoever from parliaments, the nobility, or the people? Well, Hobbes provides the theoretical basis for that wet dream. And you want to say "no he did not"?

Is it possible for anyone in the great multitude to accuse the sovereign of an injustice? Hobbes answer is no: "Fourthly, because every subject is by this institution author of all the actions, and judgments of the sovereign instituted; it follows, that whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to any of his subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of injustice."

Will this sovereign allow freedom of opinion or of the press? No. "Sixthly, it is annexed to the sovereignty, to be judge of what opinions and doctrines are averse, and what conducing to peace; and consequently, on what occasions, how far, and what, men are to be trusted withal, in speaking to multitudes of people; and who shall examine the doctrines of all books before they be published. For the actions of men proceed from their opinions; and in the well-governing of opinions, consisteth the well-governing of men's actions, in order to their peace, and concord."

Any division of powers for Hobbes' Leviathan, say for instance in the important area of the judiciary? No. "Eighthly, is annexed to the sovereignty, the right of judicature; that is to say, of hearing and deciding all controversies, which may arise concerning law, either civil, or natural; or concerning fact." And again, with specific reference to England, he writes: "If there had not first been an opinion received of the greatest part of England, that these powers were divided between the King, and the Lords, and the House of Commons, the people had never been divided and fallen into this civil war; first between those that disagreed in politics; and after between the dissenters about the liberty of religion; which have so instructed men in this point of sovereign right, that there be few now (in England,) that do not see, that these rights are inseparable..."

Now, for some reason, you think that I have some weird agenda about Hobbes. But I don't. But there's no pretending that Hobbes is not writing in favor of an unlimited and unchecked central sovereign. He thinks the lack of that unchecked central sovereign (as we can tell from his comments about the division of powers in England) is what caused all of England's troubles, including especially the civil war.

Now if we want to compare Hobbes' writing on sovereignty and Heidegger's writings on being and ask "which thinker's theoretical work coincides with the practical activity of fascists and nazis," then I think we would have to answer "Hobbes." But neither Mussolini nor Hitler ever made much of a reference to Hobbes -- nor to Heidegger, that I am aware of. You know who else didn't "use" Hobbes? The absolute monarchs of Hobbes' own time, who one would think might be interested. In particular, the British monarchy never turned to Hobbes and said "finally we have someone who writes out the theory of absolute monarchy and explains why unchecked monarchic power is needed!" Why is it that all these practitioners of highly centralized and unopposed power did not make much, if any, reference to Hobbes? And does this lack of reference thereby excuse Hobbes of all totalitarian/monarchic tendencies? But I sense you are uninterested in the answer.

[Perezoso]

No. You are disregarding the material from like V to XVI. It's not a justification of monarchy; it's the construction of a social contract. The sovereign is not a king necessarily either. Hobbes asserts the Leviathan-sovereign is an assembly of qualified persons entrusted to enforce the covenants. Now whether they actually will uphold those egalitarian, economic covenants specified in the earlier chapters is another matter: and as I said, Locke's insistence that citizens have the right to petition the govt. does seem important (though, read some Hawthorne and you might note what NH thought of those Lockean inspired yankee rebels).

As a reading of French Rev. follies demonstrates (or the follies of the Bolsheviks, maoists, etc.), entrusting politics to the sans cullottes is about like handing over the prison to the inmates. The Warden and his pigs may suck; but letting the inmates run things could be worse, and indeed the history of communism shows that it is. And the fascists certainly had populist aspects as well: the Brownshirts were very anti-intellectual. And Heidegger had no problem defending the primitive aspects of german nationalism (occidental Dasein or something), and in promoting a sort of anti-rationalism (as his criticisms of Descartes suggest)

Leviathan then is premised on a social contract, but it is different--less democratic and populist than Rousseau's say---but a secular social contract it is: and Hobbes was vilified by clerics of the say, regardless if he was sympathetic to the royalists on occasion. (I am not that acquainted with 17th cent. English history, yet the puritans of Cromwell's faction were hardly superior to the royalists: and yet Locke had no problem defending puritans and the fundamentalists of the time.). Hobbes was no Orangeman, at least.

[Perezoso]

I compliment you, however, Herr Doktor Swifty, on your nearly Goebbels-like ability to shift the discussion from the totalitarian inclinations of Heidegger and his cronies to some old musty Tory. And I agree that it's hard not to be drawn to some aspects of german nationalism: such dread gear they had--the Luftwaffe, say. DeutschLand Ueber Alles! And the Germans were definitely screwed by the Treaty of Versailles. Personally, ah think Winston Churchill was a rather sinister character, ultimiately. Some of us draw the line, however, like at siding with someone, who, however sublime and scholarly he may have been, really never repudiated his flirtations with fascism, nor did he really condemn the nazis. Didn't the Frankfurt leftists claim that? So are you now sort of suggesting Adorno and pals were all F.O. S.? It seems like it.

[Rommel]

Ich habe die Wahrheit gesehen, und es ist Die Geschichtlichkeit DES Daseins!!! Sehr schoen.

[Perezoso]

WTF happened to Swift-chen? Lung Slumday needs its weekly Dasein chant.

[Mickey Dwyer]

Stambuagh's translation is incorrect - try the original by M + R. The word 'groundlessness' is the source of the problem - Tradition dominating us does not leave us groudless, it provides a ground which is not our own - and building a ground of our own is the solution. Stambuagh's translation missed this point which happens to be the whole ball of wax (just about). The connections to education are direct, but even at an early age, not just for higher education.

[CAP]

Who makes the nazis?

[ShannonGoodwin]

People all over the world receive the home loans in different creditors, just because that's easy and fast.

[Bill Bales]

I invite you to read my recently posted blog "The 'Leap'" at http://beyondheidegger.blogspot.com It might clear a few things up for you, add to any confusion you may have, or you think you may not have any time to read it. Read it anyway, I think you will enjoy it. You will especially enjoy the reference to Hubert Dreyfus.