Radio Utopie

[This free eBook (PDF) is available from Aboriginal Press Books]

This is not a book about Martin Heidegger, (1889-1976) nor is it a study of
his written philosophy. This is instead a collection of previously
published APNS editorials examining how otherwise intelligent people and
entire educated societies can descend into political madness in the
name of nationalism, race and the free-market social order.

Heidegger as intellectual is a subject beyond the scope of this eBook. And this is in no way a lay attempt to answer the unpleasant philosophical quarrel as to how his academic labour weighs against his political and personal history as a card-carrying member of the German Nazi Party. I leave such questions to those who sit quietly in private rooms thinking deeply about the ‘why’s’ and ‘if’s’ of our all-too-confusing existence to make those critiques.

Heidegger the philosopher is not the focus here. What is at issue is his example as a rational human being who should have known better. The question of how an intelligent academic of philosophical insight could be a xenophobic fascist born and raised in what was supposed to be the most enlightened nation in Western Europe is a messy and emotional one. Martin Heidegger was a real person. Which means like the rest of us, he wasn’t perfect and had glaring contradictions that he learned to live with.

His long and passionate affair with Jewish political writer Hannah Arendt in spite of his noted Judeophobia is one such contradiction and there are numerous parallells in the multi-ethnic, yet mono-cultural modern West. His Nazi sympathies are not in dispute, only his judgment as an analytical person. And I contend in these commentaries that conservatism in US, UK, Canadian and Australian politics since 9/11 and even earlier laid the foundations for the contemporary rise of Christian capitalist extremism we are currently witnessing in the international #Occupy
Movement.

What is most surprising about the resurgence of Anglo-Christian totalitarianism in the 21st century is the queer fact that such a thing could happen at all. There are still those who personally witnessed the insanity of the 1930’s and 40’s walking about, able and willing to talk freely about their experiences. Every year numerous lectures, documentaries and remembrances are conducted in the spirit of ‘Never Again’, but apparently no one in the Anglo-phone world is listening any longer. No one considered these issues during the Balkan Wars and still more ignore the linkages between the secular State of Israel’s practise of anti-Arab ethnic cleansing and the European rejection of all human morality under the sociopolitical leadership of the Christian Fascist governments of Europe.

The existence of the far-right in the English-speaking world is not new, but what is new is the intensity of the fear behind such movements. From the pro-Nazi English Defence League (EDL) to the neo-Confederate Tea Party that rose in response to the election of Barack Obama, the first US African head-of-state, White supremacist sentiments have forcefully come out of the closet.  Conservative, White Christian capitalist angst, rooted in little more than a primitive, ignorant fear of the unknown, has become the acceptable order of the day again.

Why ?

Because the White society is afraid of what it has created. The global economic crisis, which was spurred on by the racist anti-African sub-prime home loan swindle, is just one example. There are many , many others but it remains abundantly clear that conservative thinking and the cultural xenophobia that goes along with it is detrimental to collective human survival. Political paranoia abut immigration, interracial marriage, Islamic terrorism, religious fundamentalism and the uncertainties of new multicultural identities emerging in the White World has provoked the European ‘Master Race’ to lose its collective mind. And unfortunately, sociopolitical conservatives in the Anglo-phone world have used these anxieties to further their economic and political goals despite the conspicuous dangers to Western democracy.

As we are witnessing during the #Occupy protests in the United States, democracy is a privilege reserved for the wealthy. The connections between the corporate sector, (s)elected government and civilian law enforcement have been laid bare in the brutal and clearly unconstitutional and unethical treatment accorded to peaceful American, Canadian and British protesters struggling non-violently and honourably for their human and civil rights. Conservatism has a legitimate place in politics. But conservative extremism deserves no such consideration. It has shown itself by the lessons of history to be a philosophy of destruction and genocide and we would do well to consider its dangers.

George Orwell warned us of what was coming. Shall we ignore the current class-war taking place in the streets of the world? Are we still foolish enough to believe that ‘our’ fascism will be ‘better’ than Adolf’s version because a few Homosexuals and ethnic minorities have been invited to participate in the system? Can endless war and corporate exploitation continue indefinitely?

I have no idea what Martin Heidegger would say to these pressing questions. I am asking you, the reader, if you think that your life will be better under Democratic Fascism. Do you think that maintaining the extant power structure with all its economic, political and educational injustice is
worth cheating the meek of the world? Is economic, social and political genocide a good thing? No, it isn’t. It is wrong and it is just the opposite of logic in a world that uses violence to ‘prove’ its sanity.

The modern rise of fascism is not the responsibility of Mr. Heidegger but it is his legacy. Had he not been tolerated as a great mind following the fall of the Third Reich perhaps we would not now be dealing with the likes of Newt Gingrich and the other far-right politicians trying to convince us lesser mortals‘ that the only way to salvation is through the rule of race, money and broad Europocentric-controlled military power. Have we learned nothing from classical Rome, Greece or mid-20th century Europe?

Conservative politic is at its base irresponsible, selfish, intemperate and it breeds violent fascists who will always attempt to force and bully others into conforming with their particular worldview. Instead of trying to reason with unreasonable Nazi wannabes we should be calling them out as the hypocritical, vicious and small-minded  frightened bastards that they really are.  Our failure as intelligent people to do something positive to prevent the negative may be the end of rational humanity as we have come to know it.

Our intellectual inaction may in fact lead to our destruction. And we have only ourselves to blame.

-TheAngryindian