Troy Paddock

Gedachtes Wohnen: Heidegger and cultural geography

Few figures arouse the kind of passions both for and against as those that are associated with Martin Heidegger do. Perhaps the most important philosopher of the twentieth century (with apologies to Wittgenstein), Heidegger will always be associated with National Socialism. Heidegger the man will forever challenge Heidegger the philosopher, even though the former has led the defense of the latter by trying to distance himself from National Socialism. His critics have not let this claim go unchallenged: Victor Farı́as’ Heidegger and Nazism leads the charge against the philosopher’s revisionist history. Farı́as’ controversial work launched a fierce debate in France among French Heideggerians. Certainly, the link between Heidegger’s thought and his adherence to National Socialism cannot be disputed. Recently, Heidegger’s post-war works, especially those dealing with the impact of technology, have received closer attention. Samuel Weber’s Mass Mediauras: Form, Technics, Media, Miguel de Beistegui’s Heidegger and the Political: Dystopias, and Michael Zimmerman’s Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity are just three works that explore themes prominent in Heidegger’s later works. Ironically, there has been a revival of interest on the left from environmentalists who are interested in Heidegger’s view of the relation between man and technology and the earth. This article will examine two of Heidegger’s essays that have received comparatively little attention and that have implications for environmental thought and reveal, in my view, intellectual affinities to National Socialist thought that Heidegger either did not realize or simply chose to ignore. In two essays written during the 1950s, “Das Ding” (The Thing), and “Bauen Wohnen Denken” (Building Dwelling Thinking), Heidegger develops his ideas of space and the human relationship to space. Most peculiar is his view, expressed in “The Thing,” that the empty space inside a jug is what actually defined the jug as a jug, not the sides, bottom, or handles of the said container. Heidegger makes a distinction between two kinds of space. The first is space as extension, which can be best represented as a mathematical conception of space (e.g., geometry). The second view is somewhat trickier to nail down. It does not consider space as an abstract entity but as

Rethinking Friedrich Meinecke's historicism

This essay revisits the work of the German historian Friedrich Meinecke and offers new interpretation of his major works, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat (1907), Die Ideen der Staatsräson in der neuen Geschichte (1924), and Die Entstehung des Historismus (1936). The standard interpretation of Meineckes work maintains that World War I caused a break in his thinking and caused him to rethink the role of power in the state. By stressing the first half of Weltbürgertum rather than the second, this article delineates a continuity of Meineckes thought and points to the limitations of historicism as a historical narrative. It offers a possible explanation for how the conservative implications in the thought of an individual, who personally and politically was a Vernuftrepublikaner, could escape the author himself. This article also discusses what could be called the classical liberal critique of Meineckes historicism, points to some of its limitations, and offers a more measured criticism of Meinecke that examines him on his own terms—and finds him wanting.

In defense of homology and history: A response to Allen

I would like to thank editors of Philosophy and Geography for the opportunity to respond to Professor Allen’s remarks and to clarify a few points. Ironically, some confusion stems from the concept of Raum, exactly what I hoped to illuminate. The subsequent paragraphs will attempt to briefly highlight the misunderstanding and suggest the importance of discussing what Professor Allen dismisses as a “homology of thought.” My article demonstrates that Heidegger understands Raum in terms of geography, not geometry. Space is lived in by people who have an effect on it and who are affected by it. Accompanying this view is an organic conception of the State based upon the interaction between a people and their land. This position is most closely associated with conservative romantics and what is referred to as volkisch thought in Imperial Germany, but it had adherents across the political spectrum. The most influential exposition of this view was Ratzel’s. For better or worse, Ratzel is acknowledged as the modern founder of German political geography and geopolitical thought. The basic geography books employed in German schools were heavily influenced by Ratzel’s thought, and many acknowledge him explicitly. In a 1901 publication, he offered an explanation of Lebensraum, and although the term is now associated exclusively with Nazi Ostforschung and its attempts to remake Eastern Europe along racial lines, the concept itself is not inherently fascist. The basic Darwinian premise behind the struggle for space also lends itself as a justification of European imperialism and racism even though Ratzel himself explicitly rejected racist arguments. The notion becomes racist or fascistic when peoples and cultures are ranked in a hierarchical fashion. I do not claim that Heidegger embraced the Nazi version of Lebensraum, nor would Ratzel have approved of it. This is why discussing a homology may be more interesting than Allen deems it. A common notion can be combined with other notions for interesting or undesirable results. Grounding the idea of space in geography rather than geometry and linking it to an organic conception of the nation-state is a recognizable concept to anyone familiar with Wilhelmine German thought. What makes it interesting is that it was not just the purview of the Right. Ratzel, who died in 1904, was not a Nazi geographer, and one cannot simply dismiss his work as “fascist” or even proto-fascist and leave it at that, unless one is willing to argue that the entire body of work justifying nineteenth-century

Creating an Oriental Feindbild

One of the first things that Hans Castorp, the protagonist of Thomas Manns The Magic Mountain , learned upon his arrival at Berghof Sanitarium in Davos, was that there was a “good” Russian table and a “bad” Russian table. The bad Russians were characterized as barbarians, more or less uncivilized. Even the good Russians, while more polite, were considered to be an exotic and alien presence, quite different from anything that Castorp, the model of the German bourgeois class, had ever experienced. As Larry Wolff has noted, Russia was a place connected to the rest of Europe by postal routes, but which few Germans ever visited.

Inventing the Nation: Germany: Berger, Stefan: New York: Oxford University Press, 274 pp., Publication Date: July 2000

context of the exile of the Jews from England. Even though the Jews accept baptism, they are exiled from the city by the bishop denying the concept of healing penance. Nisse contends that the exile at the end of the play reflects the continued movement from town to town of medieval players. In The Seven Poyntes of Trewe Wisdom, the allegorical figure of Wisdom directs its message to women religious. As such, like the work of Walter Hilton, it describes the tensions present in living a mixed life of devotion in the world. It is not an argument against the mixed life, but instead a criticism of those who would define it in such a way as to defend the oppressive policies of some of the gentry toward their tenants. Readers interested in fifteenth century Lollardy can find better works than Dejning Acts. At times this book seems to conflate conventional popular religion and Lollardy. However, it provides insights into the fifteenth century controversy concerning the access of the laity to scripture. Theatrical works reflected this controversy, as well as opening up the politics of interpretation in new directions. Most historians will seek elsewhere for analyses of the role of religion in fifteenth century England. This is to be expected, for this is a work of literary criticism, not history.

Constitutional Failure: Carl Schmitt in Weimar: Kennedy, Ellen: Durham: Duke University Press, 288 pp., Publication Date: July 2004

White terror, Admiral MiklBs Horthy’s reactionary government, the decision to join Germany in attacking the Soviet Union, the Nazi occupation, the Holocaust, the Arrow Cross Fascist regime, Soviet occupatiodiberation, 1956 revolt and suppression by renewed Soviet invasion, the collapse of Communism, and the several post-Communist governments that have followed. The book analyzes and compares the manipulation of symbols in the experience of Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Romania. Ostensibly focused on Communist management of the dead, burial customs, autopsies, and political manipulation of justice, RCv’s account is much more broad, illustrating how predecessors and nationalist successors of the Communist rulers of Hungary have engaged in the same kinds of politicized processes. On another level, the emergence and interpretation of symbols of mortality, fame, and evil are referenced by discursive examinations of Jewish and early Christian approaches to death and funerary memorials. This is a distinctive, not to say unique, historical account, written for specialists rather than a general or student audience. It is difficult to suggest similar works, but one might compare it to George Mosse’s imaginative Nationalisation of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in G e m n y from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich (1 975). Two more recent books that examine related topics in Soviet history include Nina Tumarkin’s The Living and the Dead: The Rise & Fall of the Cult of World War I1 in Russia (1994). and David King’s The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsificrrtion of Photographic Art in Stalins Russia (1997). For narrative accounts that cover the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe more conventionally, a good place to begin is the work of historianjournalist Timothy Garten Ash, who has written several books on this topic.

Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity

A professor of ethnicity and nationalism at thc London School of Economics, Anthony [I. Smith has written numerous books about national identity and nationalism and is one ol’ the leading proponents of the ethnohistorical view of nationalism. In many respects, Chown Propli‘les builds on Smith’s earlier works as it explores the sacred roots of iiationalism. The hook’s scope makes it prolouiidly original; however, its methodology owes a great deal to the pioneering work of the late George Mosse. Claiming that the staying power of nationalism cannot be explained solely through ethnic ties. Smith argues, in direct contrast to the modern secularist school of nationalism, that ;I religious thread runs through nationalistic inyths, ideas, and practices. After defining how he employs the concepts of nationalism and religion-Smith consciously limits his research to monotheistic religions, focusing on Judaism and Christianity-the work investigates the idea of the nation as a sacred comintinion. Then Smith discusses “cultural resources” focusing first on how themes which have their origins in religion (covenant, election and mission) manifest themselves in nationalist myth and ideology. The next chapters explore other cultural resources and their contributions to the sacralization of the bond of nationalism, territory, ethnicity, and the idea of sacrifice. The strength of Chosen Peoples is its hreadth. Smith’s analysis draws from virtually the entire span of world history, ranging from ancient Israel to Medieval Ethiopia to pre-Petrine Russia and even touching on modern Egypt and Japan. This strength is d s o its weakness. Smith is forced to paint in very broad strokes, the result is a loss of nuance that will certainly irritate specialists i n most, if not ell of the fields that he discusses. Of greater concern is an occasional lack of precision with key concepts. His modest caveats aside, Smith attempts to drnionstrate certain relations between elemenls of older belief systems and the sacred foundations of national identities. He often moothes over significant differences within thc same nation, and he exhibits such an elastic notion of the sacred that the term ;itmost becomes meaningless. On more particuliir levels, his analytical apparatus is