Greg Johnson (a reliably outstanding writer) weighs in on the recent publication of volume one of Heidegger’s Schwartze Hefte (Black Notesbooks):
Martin Heidegger
Now it appears that Heidegger also turned his attention to the Jewish question. Again, it is a mistake to read too much into a few leaked lines, but we are told, for instance, that Heidegger speaks of Jews as “rootless” and “calculating,” which for Heidegger are general traits of modernity. But it is not yet clear whether Heidegger regarded Jews as the subjects or the objects of modernity, or both.
Heidegger apparently regarded Jews as hypocritical insofar as they live according to the principle of race (Rasseprinzip) but attack Germans for seeking to do the same. Heidegger also reportedly notes that Jews foment wars to advance their interests but are loath to shed their own blood.
Such remarks instantaneously transform modern liberal journalists into elderly Victorian spinsters, clutching invisible cameo brooches at their throats as their cheeks blanch (the original meaning of “appalled”) and all ratiocination is paralyzed by the vapors. But a quick comparison of Jewish political preferences in the United States and Israel proves the hypocrisy charge, and a cursory knowledge of Jewish lobbying to for the US to attack Iraq, Iran, and Syria proves the warmongering charge. Nothing, apparently, has changed.
In the initial reception of the Black Notebooks — as with everything else in European and American life — the tiny Jewish tail is wagging the dog. But when scholars turn their attention from a few sentences about Jews to the 1,200+ pages of other material in the Black Notebooks, the contrived controversy about anti-Semitism will be quickly forgotten.
