[lit-ideas] Re: Survival strategies then and now
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:39:34 -0800
Mike,
I just reread your note. There is a section in it that gets close to what I
meant when I referred to "tradition" positively. You quote someone (
http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/2007/05/tradition_and_a.html ) to say
"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."
I was influenced in that direction by Julian Young in Heidegger, Philosophy,
Nazism. On page 70 he writes "To be opened up to one's past, however, is to
be opened up to the value tradition or heritage which, in Hegelian fashion,
remember, Heidegger takes to be constitutive of Dasein's very being. Unlike
unauthentic, authentic Dasein is not carried away by a rage for the 'modern'
(BT 391), but is opened up to the historical richness of its 'throwness' -
of, that is, itself. It achieves 'authentic historicality', a rootedness in
the history of its community. Given that, it discloses the current social
norms of its community in relation to those of that heritage which, as
resolute, it 'takes over' (BT 383); ceases, that is, to repress,
acknowledges as its own. This endows it with critical distance from current
social norms. It becomes able to judge which current norms match up to the
values of heritage and which do not . . ."
Heidegger, of course, never had America in mind when he wrote those words
and yet he intended them to apply beyond Germany. If we try to apply them
to America, using for example the "tradition" of slavery in the south, we
might say that represented an unauthentic tradition which did not match up
to the values of our heritage which some of our founding fathers such as
Washington and Jefferson realized while at the same time being unable (or
unwillingly) to break loose from the unauthentic tradition they lived in.
Our authentic tradition, we might assert, involves freedom and civil rights
for all and not just white property owners.
Lawrence
From: Mike Geary
[cut]
Lawrence: "I think Heidegger is right in respect to tradition. Tradition is
important, and we revolt against ours at our peril."
[Mike writes] Lawrence obviously wasn't reared in the South, else he'd know
how dangerous tradition can be. Tradition, ah yes, every knuckle-dragging
nitwit racist down here thinks he's the descendant and defender of a proud
tradition. What Heidegger have to say about tradition? Not what Lawrence
seems to think, I think.
[cut]
"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
<http://www.glc.k12.ga.us/seqlps/sudspres.asp?SUID=267&SSUID=281&SSTitle=Fou
rth+Grade+Social+Studies> 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."
[from http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/2007/05/tradition_and_a.html ]
Mike concludes: It seems to me that Heidegger doesn't advocate clinging to
tradition, rather that we get beyond tradition to the true nature of man.
That assumes that man has a true nature, and Heidegger apparently thinks so
and is discoverable through abstruse Greek and German etymology : )
Whatever the case, Heidegger's interest in tradition is not in the passing
down of a culturally approved tradition.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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