Subject: Re: ontical history
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 17:26:49 +0100


This sounds like a page from the Great Man account of history, 'history is
the biography of great men' (was it Gibbon who said that?).
A classical Liberal account of history, Ubermensch and Godheads mould
movements around themselves, the leadership principle, etc etc etc.
But that doesn't account for the Nazi movement or any other political
movement, which were all made up of more than one individual.
An alternative view is to look at the tensions within the NSDAP leadership
group (why, for instance, did Goebbels call for the expulsion of the 'petit
bourgeois Adolf Hitler' in 1927?), and the mass movement strategies they
adopted, especially their spurious claim to be 'Socialists'?  In extreme
economic situation, a Communist could v quickly become a Nazi, but a
Communist didn't move into the centre so easily, because the Liberal Party
had no appeal for young unemployed people, who needed to be part of
something bigger than themselves, a Totalitarian entity in short.
Totalitarianism therefore appeals to the young, desperate and idealistic,
the Liberals to the kind of Middle Class, middle ages Thomas Mann was at the
time, although his brother Heinrich was farther to the Left.
Perhaps you might have addressed some of these issues, I think you're
posting is a bit of waste of time, but perhaps you could come back at me
with some other points?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hilail Gildin" <hgildin-AT-nyc.rr.com>
To: <heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: ontical history


> As long as we are also discussing Hitler and Marxism, the following
> observation by Leo Strauss might be of some interest: "The weakness of
> the Weimar Republic made certain its speedy destruction. It did not
> make certain the victory of National Socialism. The victory of National
> Socialism became necessary in Germany for the same reason for which the
> victory of Communism had become necessary in Russia: the man who had by
> far the strongest will or single-mindedness, the greatest ruthlessness,
> daring, and power over his following, and the best judgment about the
> various forces in the immediately relevant political field  was the
> leader of the revolution." (Liberalism Ancient and Modern 225)
>
> Strauss' footnote makes clear that this characterization is based on
> Trotsky's description of Lenin.
>
> It goes without saying that Strauss sided with Churchill.
>
> Hilail Gildin
> Queens College
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, at 07:24 AM, Rene de Bakker wrote:
>
> > At 21:19 22-3-03 +0100, Paul Murphy wrote:
> >
> >> do you really think it is surprising that a Soviet appeared in
> >> Muenchen?
> >> You seem to depict that city as a bastion of reaction.  In fact, many
> >> artists and intellectuals were attracted to the city, thus giving the
> >> Soviet
> >> an intriguing basis.
> >
> > Sure, Paul. What I meant was that it was the city where Hitler began
> > his career. In Vienna he had observed the Jews. After four years of
> > trenches and a peace that was considered treason, now the communists
> > were in a very German city. All these things grew into each other.
> > We have to grant to Hitler more historical conscience, or intuition,
> > than to those who 'professionally' oppose him, even so long after
> > his death.
> >
> > Heidegger once said that over against objective history, marxist
> > history is infintely superior. It still has an eye for the question,
> > what
> > history is, what it is to US. Otherwise it is merely the theatre of
> > extantness.
> >
> > Thanks for some history.
> >
> > Rene
> >
> >> The causes of WW1 was a general collpase of diplomacy and the checks
> >> and
> >> balances that held up the status quo.  The status quo was undermined
> >> by
> >> Germany's aggressive desire for an overseas empire, a place in the
> >> sun.  But
> >> all the other W European countries had expanded globally, Germany's
> >> insistence flew in the face of British interests, as did the arms
> >> race that
> >> preceded the war.  I don't think we can attribute guilt.  Everyone was
> >> guilty, in fact the notion of guilt, a legalistic term, I believe to
> >> be
> >> irrelevant, or of marginal relevance (and this applies to recent
> >> events
> >> too).  The system that had been in place collapsed, because it was
> >> only a
> >> temporary solution.  Cut and paste solutions, such as Israel and
> >> Ulster - in
> >> essence, ahistorical states, and Yugoslavia can be named as another
> >> one,
> >> remember Gavrio Princip, the member of the Black Hand terrorist
> >> organisation
> >> that assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, was Serbian, and
> >> thus
> >> another terrorist from one of these marginal 'ahistorical' states -
> >> hold an
> >> uneasy truce, but are never permanent solutions.  They were never
> >> meant to
> >> be.  All the purported 'solutions' to the problems in these regions,
> >> were
> >> later exposed to be as phoney as the brokers who 'solved' them.  If
> >> diplomacy has broken down again, it is because the uneasy truce
> >> established
> >> in these ahistorical states has once again broken down, and this
> >> break down,
> >> as profound as anoraexia or a psychotic episode,  threatens the
> >> hegemony of
> >> the main powers, or of the superpower.  The schizophrenic
> >> relationship of
> >> the Imperialist to the Colonised, a relationship of inverted, unreal
> >> 'dependency', has to be addressed, and cured, but not in the sense
> >> that any
> >> physical or mental illness is 'cured', ie with drug therapy, the
> >> stages of
> >> recovery, the final cure.  No, in reality the Imperialist and the
> >> colonised
> >> have formed a symbiosis, one with the other, an inverted dependency,
> >> algebraic equation, and deeply, intrinsically suicidal for both
> >> parties.
> >> The illness, because that is a better term than 'guilt' which
> >> establishes a
> >> clear dichotomy, guilt/innocence hence leaving no middle ground, of
> >> course,
> >> because the middle ground is where most life is - and its deepest
> >> presumptions and assumptions, have to be questioned at an absolute
> >> level,
> >> and then ameliorated by tactics of disguise, flight and, possible
> >> labyrinthine strategems, on the part of the colonised, to displace and
> >> ridicule the Imperialist, not perhaps by crashing jets into tall
> >> buildings,
> >> a possibly understandable act in regard to other events both
> >> nihilistic and
> >> barbaric, only leading to another uneasy cut and paste solution.
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
> >> To: <heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> >> Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 8:28 PM
> >> Subject: Re: ontical history
> >>
> >>
> >>> Rene de Bakker wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>>>> Germany practically started WWI for
> >>>>>>> reasons that had nothing to do with the assasination of Franz
> >>>> Ferdinand
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Germany made important mistakes,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "important mistakes"????
> >>>>
> >>>> Now we're so far that every word leads to confusion. You've cut my
> >>>> sentence,
> >>>> which simply said that when you blame one you can blame them all.
> >>>> Germany only makes a difference, insofar it became a significant
> >>>> power
> >>>> only in the second half of the 19th century, because the Prussians
> >>>> assessed what was necessary for Germany to keep on living in
> >>>> a nationalistic imperialistic Europe. The 'mistakes' I was talking
> >>>> of,
> >> are
> >>>> 1. competing in colonies  2. building a fleet  , which
> >>>> lead only to England's mistrust, and nothing more (Skagerrak)
> >>>
> >>> Then your reply did not address what I said, because I specifically
> >>> and
> >>> explicitly referred to (1) Germany's deliberate pressuring of
> >> Austro-Hungary
> >>> to make their ultimatum to Serbia so impossibly demanding that they
> >>> KNEW
> >>> Serbia would never accept it, thereby leading to war with France,
> >>> and (2)
> >>> Germany's deliberate undermining of all British attempts at peaceful
> >>> mediation with Serbia. When you replied to this by saying that
> >>> "mistakes
> >>> were made," I therefore assumed you were talking about the things I
> >>> specifically brought up, which were those two things. So to reply by
> >>> referring to other "mistakes" would then not even address my
> >>> argument for
> >>> German culpability from those two things.
> >>>
> >>>> The analysis of the factual beginning of the war is less
> >>>> interesting, but
> >>>> as to that, all in all the fingers are pointing to Russia now.
> >>>
> >>> Still waiting for that text Rene.
> >>>
> >>>> And the most important of all: Germany lied in the middle.
> >>>> Then one can permit oneself no "either...or...", but only
> >>>> and...and... . Philosophically this is advantegeous
> >>>
> >>> Um, someone can be in the middle and still be an unjustified cause
> >>> of war.
> >>> Yes tensions had long been building between Russia, Germany, and
> >>> France.
> >>> That does not change the fact that Germany deliberately triggered the
> >>> explosive release of that tension, by using the assassination of
> >>> Ferdinand
> >>> as a convenient excuse.
> >>>
> >>>>> Rene YOU were the one who brought up the killing of millions of
> >> peasants,
> >>>>> aristocracy, etc., in Russia. I simply reasoned from the criteria
> >>>>> that
> >>>> YOU >yourself provided (the killing of millions of peasants...) in
> >>>> your
> >>>> parallel >between America's right to attack today with a German
> >>>> right to
> >>>> attack Russia >at that time, and showed that there's one little
> >>>> problem
> >>>> which breaks your >attempted comparison: millions were also
> >>>> similarly
> >>>> killed in Germany at that >time.
> >>>>
> >>>> You don't understand. You know about the end of the war and the
> >>>> Russian
> >>>> efforts to export revolution to Germany, Muenchen of all places?
> >>>> The fear towards Russia, the KNOWLEDGE that the peasants and
> >>>> shopowners
> >>>> had been murdered there so close to Germany, was one of the main
> >> propaganda
> >>>> weapons of Hitler. But when Nolte brought this in the
> >>>> Historikerstreit,
> >> he
> >>>> was
> >>>> defamed. Auschwitz HAD to be worse than Gulag.
> >>>
> >>> Ok, but the fact that the Gulag was worse than Auschwitz does not
> >>> change
> >> the
> >>> fact that the same criteria you brought up occurred at Auschwitz too
> >>> (admittedly less in numbers, but still millions of peasants... were
> >> killed).
> >>> So your comparison fails, because the standard you yourself brought
> >>> up
> >> would
> >>> then apply not only to Russia, but also to Germany.
> >>>
> >>>> Without all this one cannot understand the period between the 2
> >>>> ww's,
> >>>> and Heidegger made this clear, also after ww2. (Stalin winning a
> >>>> battle
> >>>> every day)
> >>>> But i began this for this reason: you don't want to be compared with
> >>>> Hitler Germany. Then when you say: we are threatened and take
> >>>> action,
> >>>> i say: can you imagine Germany felt threatened?  And when you say:
> >>>> 9/11 is reason enough, then i say: is ww1 (that's where the millions
> >> died)
> >>>> reason enough, and please study the disaster that is called
> >>>> Versailles
> >>>> treaty,
> >>>
> >>> First of all, I NEVER said that 9/11 is reason enough. Rene it is
> >>> simply
> >>> willed blindness to characterize in that way the arguments I have
> >>> been
> >>> giving. I said that Iraq has blatantly violated UN resolutions 687
> >>> and
> >> 1441
> >>> (thereby violating John's supposed "mitsein"). I also said that the
> >>> crimes
> >>> against humanity which have occurred in Iraq surpass what Milosevic
> >>> did,
> >> and
> >>> das Man certainly took care of Milosevic, didn't it (without UN
> >>> approval,
> >> I
> >>> might add, and therefore without John's supposed mitsein). I also
> >>> referred
> >>> to the North Korean parallel. Those are reasons I have explicitly
> >>> referred
> >>> to, which do not have to do with 9/11, so how you can characterize my
> >>> argument the way you did is simply beyond me.
> >>>
> >>>> The Endloesung began AFTER the Russia campaign. In fact, this war
> >>>> gave Hitler the opportunity. thoughtprovoking.
> >>>
> >>> The fact that it began after the Russian campaign does not change
> >>> the fact
> >>> that it occurred, thereby satisfying the very criterion you gave
> >>> (killing
> >> of
> >>> millions of peasants...). That is enough to break your parallel,
> >>> because
> >>> then "today's standards" would point at both Russia AND Germany.
> >>>
> >>> Anthony Crifasi
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _________________________________________________________________
> >>> MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.
> >>> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>      --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >>
> >>
> >
> > -----------------------------------
> > drs. Rene de Bakker
> > Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
> > Afdeling Catalogisering
> > tel. 020-5252368
> >
> >
> >      --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> > ote
>
>
>
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