[lit-ideas] Re: Heil Heidegger?

Walter:
'Well we seem to have ourselves an interesting pingpong match here. On one end ofthe table we have Phil who may willing to accept the view that Heidegger was a bastard but believes his philosophical work is not fascistic. At the other end, 
we have Robert who claims that Heidegger's philosophical work is fascistic and
(because?) he was a bastard. (Perhaps conversely, as well.)I suggest the first
match play around the view that a phenomenological ontology of Dasein is
fascistic. Robert to serve ...'
I don't recognize myself in any of this. I do not claim that Heidegger's work is fascistic or that Heidegger was a bastard or that his work constitutes some sort of fraud. Something like this may be what Fayer is claiming and Romano endorsing, but as I said a couple pf days ago, in response to something Lawrence said, I have no dog in this hunt or cat in this cradle: I have my own views on Heidegger, but they are beside the point.
The view that if an artist or politician (the common offenders) engages in wrongdoing his or her work is thereby diminished or tainted or made unfit for public display is widespread. It has a long history. A typical response to this view is that child molestation is one thing and the use of light and shade in Renaissance painting another, and that they should be judged differently.
Romano/Fayer claim that this response-cum-defense will not work in the case of Heidegger, for here there are not two things, the work and the wrongdoing: the work IS the wrongdoing, insofar as it is an expression, and not merely an endorsement of, the principles of National Socialism. Here I've simplified many things (what are 'the principles of National Socialism'?); but I believe I've set out the form of their argument, or, if you like, the nature of their claim, in enough detail to show that these are immune to the sort of defense that might be offered of Shakespeare, just in case it turned out that he was a scoundrel.
John Wager is bored with the discussion. I can see how that might be; but so far, rather than engaging in a ping-pong match, we seem to be misunderstanding one another, and, whatever we're playing, it seems so far more like air 
ping-pong than the real thing.

Robert Paul,
on a rainy afternoon
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