History of Being, Machenschaft and Anti-Semitism: Implications of Heidegger’s “Black Notes” for a Critical Theory of Technology

Introduction

One of the thinkers who influenced the studies on the technique and technology throughout the twentieth century was the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. His theory has influenced even many researchers who think the phenomenon of internet, as Paul Virilio, Arthur Kroker and Peter Sloterdijk, to refer only to some familiar names. The reception of his work, however, has been marked by controversy, especially because of his explicit support to National Socialism for a period of life.

For many authors, the concepts formulated by Heidegger are essentially marked by the same convictions that led him to National Socialism. However, until a little over a year, despite the stain of his adherence to National Socialism, there was no concrete evidence of anti-Semitism in his work. This changed with the publication of the first part of the “Black Notebooks” at the beginning of 2014, where there are passages that express a certain resentment toward the Jews.

According to the editor of the “Black Notebooks,” Peter Trawny [1], that there are anti-Semitic passages is quite clear. What is not clear yet is to what extent his work as a whole is affected by them. For the area of philosophy of technology, the question is more specific: How is his newly confirmed anti-Semitism related to his concept of technique? What implications does the anti-Semitic passages from “Black Notebooks” have to the reflection on contemporary technologies and especially on the internet?

In order to contribute to this debate, this paper intends to present the first results of a research that is still in early stages, namely reflections drawn from an analysis of the main passages of the “Black Notebooks” which refer to the Jews and of the book “Heidegger und der Mythos der jüdischen Weltverschwörung” by Trawny.

Methods

The discussion is divided into three parts. First, it is necessary to present Heidegger’s definition of technique. This will be done by a revision of the author’s basic text on the subject, “Die Frage nach der Technik”, of relevant passages in other texts of his work and of commentaries by various researchers who have extensively addressed the issue. The second part aims to highlight the main anti-Semitic passages present in the “Black Notebooks,” accompanied by Trawny’s explanation about the implications for Heidegger’s idea as a whole. In the third and final part, I intend to discuss the connections between Judaism and technique in those passages. The excerpts contain ties with Heidegger’s concept of technique. The argumentation intends to explore these links in order to understand to what extent the concept of technique is tainted by his anti-Semitism.

Results and Discussion

For Heidegger, the decisive question in technology is beyond the technological object. Heidegger believes that the object is only the manifestation of something, not what is decisive in itself. The technique is rather a way of framing reality, reason why Heidegger says that its essence is “enframing” (Gestell, in the original German) [2].

The technique has become a planetary phenomenon, trying to cover everything and everyone. In its planetarized phase, it represents the hegemony of calculative thinking, which seeks to control the development of all processes to optimize the final product. It is an attempt to measure and represent the real that culminates in the transformation of everything in raw material (Bestand) for the operation of the very economic, political and technological system. In the technical era, every aspect of the real (nature, objects and human beliefs and practices) only makes sense if it contributes to the permanent reproduction of this framework.

It is important to remember that the mode of self-presentation of the real for Dasein is exactly what Heidegger had in mind with his concept of “Sein,” to be. In his history of being, things appear to humans from different perspectives, and this is directly related to the beliefs of each era. Depending on what the human beings believe the real to be, they will see it under certain aspects and deal with it in a certain way. In the age of technology, according to Heidegger, the real presents itself for humans as raw material. This moment when everything would be seen as raw material is, for Heidegger, the completion of metaphysics, the maximal point of the long history of Western thought since Plato.

Michael Zimmerman considers this a very interesting interpretation. The history of the West would be a succession of stages of a long decline of what it means “to be,” culminating in the simplistic way of the technological age in which “to be” would mean “to be raw material for the self-enhancing technological system” [3]. However, Zimmerman suggests that this is exactly the kind of interpretation that Nazi political right had adopted in Heidegger’s period. Then, it would not be original and, even worse, would contribute to a conservative view of society. Moreover, far from representing a great novelty, his thought would have been just limited by this political alignment. Johannes Fritsche is even more emphatic. For him, the work of Heidegger “belongs unequivocally to political right, and Heidegger opted also for its extreme, the National Socialism” [4]. As such, there would be no room for his work on the list of politically progressive perspectives.

The picture becomes even more complicated with the emergence of anti-Semitic passages in the “Black Notebooks.” According to Trawny, these are passages that clearly point to a “seinsgeschichtlichen Antisemitismus,” an anti-Semitism that is connected with the “history of being.” Heidegger would have seen in the historical moment of the early twentieth century the last stage of the Greek proposal of understanding of being. In this order, humanity would be living a uprooting phase (Entwurzelung), lack of perspective, nihilism. It would be the opportunity for a new beginning in the history of being, and the Germans would be called to propose this new beginning. Who was imposed as enemy? Precisely those who would be “worldless” (weltlos) and “homeless” (heimatlos), which would adopt a cosmopolitan lifestyle and that would threaten the achievement of the German people destination. What is clear, with the “Black Notebooks,” is that Heidegger saw the Jewish people as fulfilling this gap.

In this context, the technique seems to have crucial role. Firstly, Heidegger associates the increase of power of Judaism with the Western metaphysics and, as previously mentioned, one of the technical definitions is that it represents the completion of metaphysics [5]. Elsewhere, Heidegger speaks of the Jews as having the “ability of calculating” (Rechenfähigkeit). They “live with their stressed calculated talent” [6]. If the technique is the calculative thinking itself, by associating calculative thinking as a Jewish capacity, Heidegger suggests somehow that his technical concept is at least a significant embodiment of the Jewish people. Trawny points out that Heidegger does not want to suggest any kind of biological association [1]. Bernhard Radhoff had already made clear that Heidegger’s concept of people was radically different from the one of National Socialism, and–instead of collective subject–meant the horizon from which the being differentiates itself from other beings [7]. Anyway, the Jewish people would be provided with this calculative thinking, which is in itself technological.

Finally, the most characteristic point is that Heidegger clearly relates the global Jewish with “machination” (Machenschaft). “The establishment of racial breeding does not come from the ‘life’ itself, but from the overpowering of life through the machination” [6]. Machination was the first concept coined by Heidegger to define the essence of the technique, later replaced by Gestell. Machination highlights how the human being understands the technique as a making (“machen”, in the original world, means “to make”) and how things appear for the modern humankind as “makable”, available to its experiences.

To live “worldless” would be just a consequence of machination, and as Trawny places, Jews were characterized by Heidegger as worldless. They would, according to Heidegger, be dominated by machination. “The Jew appears as the worldless calculative subject, dominated by ‘machination’” [8]. The global Jewish, thus, would be the first people dominated by technology. With this, the Jews would have become vehicle of the technological uprooting, to transmit to the world a worldless lifestyle.

Conclusions

Although this research is still in its initial phase, the results above help to strengthen the hypothesis that the anti-Semitic passages in the “Black Notebooks” present problems for Heidegger’s idea of modern technology. There is no doubt that Heidegger saw the technique in the light of his anti-Semitism. There seems to be no doubt even that such a concept was born embedded in his resentment against the Jews.

If this means that all Heidegger’s interpretation of the technique needs to be discarded is another point. Some of the most fruitful critics of the technological world, as Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio and Arthur Kroker, developed provocative theses based on Heidegger’s insights, without thereby containing any trace of anti-Semitism in their works.

By itself, stating that the technique causes uprooting can not be discarded immediately, although in the context of the philosopher that is related to the Jews. Arguably, along with Paul Virilio [9], for example, the contemporary technological thinking is causing uprooting process while it accelerates human life and removes its reference to time and space. This is not an anti-Semitic thesis.

To Trawny, even identifying the Jews as a cosmopolitan people, which seeks to establish itself without actually taking root in a certain culture or country, can not be considered anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is to assign responsibility to the Jews and turn them into enemies for the alleged destruction of the identity of a people.

Specifically about internet, at least part of its success seems to lie precisely at its amazing ability of representation, measurement and control (contacts on social networks, visits to pages, file downloads, profiles, etc.). While this interpretation corresponds to Heidegger's thesis that in the age of technology the human being is eager to represent, measure and calculate everything, it does not seem to depend on a political position that identifies a people or specific ethnic group as its vehicle, even less as an enemy to be overcome.

No doubt Heidegger was a conservative, but the very thesis from Fritsche, that the only thing Heidegger craved was to repeat the past, needs to be reassessed, for instance, when taking into account the text “Gelassenheit” [10]. Heidegger says that it is not the case of exterminating technology–back to a past that no longer exists–but develop a peaceful, serene relationship with it, not the mere refusal but at the same time without the illusion that, by adhering to it, we are taking significant steps to progress. Perhaps the main lesson to be drawn from this debate is precisely that technological development per se will not lead humanity to a more peaceful, fair and harmonious existence.

To summarize, his concept of technique was coined in the context of his anti-Semitism. To some extent, one can even admit, updating Zimmerman’s thesis, that his anti-Semitism has restricted his understanding of technology. But at least important parts of his concept do not depend on anti-Semitism. However, even if one can enjoy aspects of Heidegger’s conception of technology to a critical reflection on the contemporary context, especially in relation to internet, it is clear the need to build a new narrative to such criticism, rescuing it from the hornet’s nest in which Heidegger himself put it.

References

1. Trawny, Peter. Heidegger und der Mythos der jüdischen Weltverschwörung. Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, Germany, 2014.
2. Heidegger, Martin. Vorträge und Aufsätze; Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, Germany, 2000, pp. 5-36.
3. Zimmerman, Michael. Heidegger‘s confrontation with modernity; Indiana University Press: Indianapolis, USA, 1990, p. xiv.
4. Fritsche, Johannes. Geschichtlichkeit und National-Sozialismus in Heideggers Sein und Zeit; Nomos: Baden-Baden, Germany, 2014, p. 8.
5. Heidegger, Martin. Überlegungen XII-XV: Schwarze Hefte 1939-1941; Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, Germany, 2014, p. 67.
6. Heidegger, Martin. Überlegungen XII-XV: Schwarze Hefte 1939-1941; Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, Germany, 2014, p. 82.
7. Radhoff, Bernhard. Heidegger and the question of National Socialism: Disclosure and Gestalt; University of Toronto Press: Toronto, USA, 2007.
8. Trawny, Peter. Heidegger und der Mythos der jüdischen Weltverschwörung. Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, Germany, 2014, p. 38.
9. Virilio, Paul. The Information Bomb; Verso, London, UK, and New York, USA, 2000.
10. Heidegger, Martin. Gelassenheit; Klett-Cota, Stuttgart, Germany, 2008.