Heidegger’s Post-Western Politics

• Published date: 01 June 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129221113771
• Author: Alexander S. Duff
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2023, Vol. 76(2) 801–813

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129221113771

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Heidegger’s Post-Western Politics

Alexander S. Duff

Abstract

The revival of ideologically motivated right-wing political agitation across the Western world demands that its intellectual

sources be discovered. Martin Heidegger has occupied a position among anti-liberal, anti-modernist, and anti-Western

forces across the globe comparable to that of Karl Marx on the socialist Left. Yet scholars still lack the conceptual

terminology for capturing the political import of his work. The recent publication of Heidegger’sBlack Notebooks

provides an opportunity for rereading his central political works in order to recover their meaning for contemporary

political movements. Such a rereading also illuminates the sources of Heidegger’s remarkable and misunderstoo d

inf‌luence on the political Right. It thus explains a matter of urgent and high importance for generalist political scientists.

Keywords

Heidegger, post-Western, metaphysics

The hostility to liberalism on the right in European and

American democracies has drawn inspiration from the

thought of Martin Heidegger (Beiner 2017;Lilla 2016a,

2016b). This reinforces long-standing interpretations of

Heidegger that locate the political import of his thought on

the far right (Adorno 2002;Habermas 1977,156–57; Faye

2009).

1

The recent publication of the Black Notebooks has

clarif‌ied, contrary to tergiversations by Heidegger’s

devotees, the extent and ugliness of his anti-Semitism and

the genuineness of his support for National Socialism,

dating back to 1930 (Heidegger GA 94, 95, 96). Inter-

pretations of Heidegger must now accept without cavil the

identif‌ication he himself made between his thought and

the politics of the German right.

2

Yet his National Socialism is inadequate for a full

understanding of the political meaning of his thought. One

need think only of the political left’s appropriation of it

(Hemming 2012,Rorty 1991), and his inf‌luence in Iran

and other non-Western contexts (Love 2017,Mirsepassi

2017,Shari’ati 1980).

3

Thus, as with reducing Marxian

political thought to Bolshevism, the old debate about

Heidegger’s National Socialism is too narrow a basis for

assessing his enduring political import.

4

The key element one must grasp is Heidegger’s own

critique of the politics he once publicly endorsed. While

his status as a f‌igure of the political Right never should

have been in doubt, the taxonomy of his politics requires

understanding his own self critique. The Black Notebooks

provide the path for navigating this question. Both in their

own right and above all in the way they invite a

reconsideration of overlooked waypoints in Heidegger’s

published andcarefully composed statementson politics—

in Introduction to Metaphysics,“Question Concerning

Technology,”and WhatCalls for Thinking—the Notebooks

offer clarityon the puzzle of Heidegger’squalif‌iedcriticism

of his own National Socialism. Following the guidance of

the Notebooks allows us to integrate several periods of

Heidegger’s thought to show their unity, and compensates

for the language of Heidegger’s later formulations, which

are more evasive about politics.

5

Rereading these works in light of the Black Notebooks

shows that for the length of his philosophic career,

Heidegger argues that the attempt to orient our communal

political existence by “culture”(Kultur) is a damaging

aspiration, the roots of which lie deep in the Western

inclination to understand Being in light of the stable

aspects of the beings, that is, “metaphysically.”The lofty

orientation by culture, Heidegger argues, implies that the

world without subjectively-bestowed culture lacks its own

meaning. His initial enthusiasm for the National Socialists

in Germany in the 1930s was inspired by the hope that

they would be a vehicle for annihilating any such ori-

entation. This included a zeal for their “barbarism,”zeal

University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Alexander S. Duff, University of North Texas, 201 McGuinn Hall,

Denton, TX 76203, USA.

Email: alexander.duff@unt.edu