[lit-ideas] Re: Patrick and the Snakes: the logic of falsification [errata]
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2013 03:58:30 -0700 (PDT)
I strongly suggest that you read Kaufmann's essay on Popper's treatment of
Hegel. Besides an almost certainly better informed reading of Hegel, we get a
useful reminder there that there was much more to the German culture of the
period than Kant and Hegel, and many other possible influences that might have
encouraged the emergence of Nazism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/kaufmann.htm
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From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2013 11:07 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Patrick and the Snakes: the logic of falsification
[errata]
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From: Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
>To comment would be to grant Hitler a posthumous victory.
Arguably not to comment to would grant Hitler some kind of victory - surely it
is important to get the facts right? If Kant, rightly or wrongly, was an
inspiration to Nazis (and if Hegel was not), then these are the facts - and we
should attend to the facts. It may be galling that the highest art Germany
produced, Bach and Mozart and Beethoven, was played by Nazis - even
Nazis who spent their days at mass murder in concentration camps. It galls us
because it may seem to blaspheme their art but it also offends because it
disturbs the pious notion that 'high culture' protects us from barbarity.
My inexpert suggestion is, firstly and obvsiously, that what we have in the
example of 'Kant as Nazi literature' is a striking example of how something may
be turned about and misused and abused (which is of course a story as old as
the dawn of human history) - for Kant's moral philosophy is at root a
philosophy of the free and rational human conscience, and inimical to Nazism.
But perhaps we should not be so surprised at this turnabout: for it is deep
within the totalitarian mindset to appropriate and turnaround, in an Orwellian
way, the most highsounding and moral ideas - from 'Arbeit Macht Frei' to
positing 'true freedom' and 'true democracy' to lie in obedience to an
unelected Furhrer or 'The Party'. This kind of
turnabout is far from always a cynical appropriation but often reflects a
sincere belief on the part of the totalitarians: a belief Popper suggests was
fostered by Hegel the historicist, who for example argues that 'real' freedom
is the "recognition of [historical] necessity". And there is one aspect of
Kant's moral philosophy, the rigorism that Schiller satirised, that lends
itself to totalitarian misuse - the emphasis on 'doing one's duty'.
If I had to guess Popper's response here, it might be that it was Hegel's
appropriation and betrayal of Kant's critical philosophy that was the
intellectual precursor to the appropriation and betrayal of Kant's philosophy
by the Nazis. The Nazis were not reading Kant so much as a Hegelized Kant.
What then would be most interesting - indeed vital - to know is what these Nazi
readers were making of, and taking from, Kant. Unfortunately Chris' very
interesting post does not answer this.
Donal
London
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