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PARTISAN REVIEW
Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Heidegger, with similarly radical
aspirations, who saw in the Nazi movement the "possibility" for Ger–
many to be "born to itself," would have been outdistanced by
Rosenberg and Krieck as the Party philosophers, and by the move–
ment itself which took a different turn .
This theory is plausible, even probable, just as the documents
which Farias reproduces offer a revolting image of Heidegger taking
an active part and striving to secure his ends by denunciations,
betrayals , and a few racial slurs . But Farias's account leaves one un–
comfortable for other reasons as well. The thrust of the work is
deeply polemical, even inquisitorial. Not content to show that
Heidegger wished to play a larger part in the movement but was
prevented from doing so, Farias erases the distinction (the book's
thesis!) altogether in order to argue that he was nothing less than ex–
emplary, the archetypal Nazi. Farias offers conjectures as well re–
garding Heidegger's youth, attempting to show that anti-Semitic
(and Nazi) positions characterize him from the start and down to the
very end . The case will not bother readers for being slightly over–
schematic; it admits of no ambiguity whatsoever.
And yet there is something embarrassed about this full-scale at–
tack. Denouncing Heidegger's denunciations, Farias makes his case
so airtight that it shows its limits everywhere. The scholarship in
many instances is partial or inexplicably shoddy. Quotations are ex–
cerpted in order to say only what they contain in the way of condem–
nation. Arbitrary associations of ideas take the place of causal
arguments whenever they serve to incriminate. Farias's "revelations"
promise us, at long last, the truth on Heidegger's activity - except
that the bulk of his supposedly original information has been
available for a long time across the Rhine (and to interested readers
in France), and it is not the magic formula proving Heidegger's
guilt.
At best, as another participant in the debate has said , the book
"furnishes bad arguments for a real debate." There are increasingly
good reasons for looking critically at Heidegger's career: his posi–
tions on technology, democracy, "high" culture, and urban life (to
name only these) amount to massive refusals, statements ofa tension
with the modern world as great as two continents rubbing together.
But at worst, Farias's disquiet is spread evenly across the board,
making this media event no better orchestrated , no more cogent,
than the debates which have concerned a narrower audience in the
past. Some of the more journalistic advocates of a harsh stance savor
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