Was Heidegger a bastard?

This is an email that I sent Eric the other day. Probably get my house firebombed by Rush Limbaugh... Nah, it's pretty innocuous.

I'll just cut and paste and do no editing. Eric's email had been something to the effect of well if you had been around when the Nazi's were in power, you'd have gone along with them (it wasn't a slam, just an observation). We were talking about Heidegger after I mentioned trying to learn Spanish and Eric said he could read a little German and Latin... at any rate, I'm becoming long-winded:

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I would’ve been a Nazi at the time. Much the same way as most of us stand idly by and keep our heads down while the “Patriot Act” is still on the books, and journalists are strong-armed into revealing their sources in the name of “Counter Terrorism”. SO, much the same as the German citizens who claimed, after the war, “we just did what we were told, we had no idea it was that bad”, we go on thinking that Arabs in general are not to be trusted and that the USA is AOK while our CEO (I won’t give him the title of President, he doesn’t deserve it and longer) goes on the books and down in history as officially condoning torture of prisoners. Meanwhile, we are left to consider the things that affect us more day to day, like our jobs and friends and local IT policies.

So, no, I’m not blaming Marty. If I were in his position and Unkle Adolf walks in and says, “Hey, you’re smart, we want you to be our official smart person spokesperson,” even if you think the guy is insane (especially if you think he’s insane actually), there’s no way you’ll turn him down. You’ll thank him for the honor and go about your business, just trying to keep on keeping on, all the while watching your back and hoping it doesn’t get any worse.

Then history makes you into a bastard.

On the other hand, Mr. Sartre can sit in his smoky underground resistance lair and pen all kinds of goodies about responsibility and taking it. Since he’s on the side that can get killed for saying boo… why not go the distance and really lay it on thick? So, Sartre (who was actually involved in the resistance, I’m not calling him a weak-kneed academic) goes down in history as a hero who stood up for his cause and Heidegger goes down in history as Nazi scum. Ironically enough, they’re both Existentialists whose works I greatly admire.

Much like Americans during the time of McCarthyism, and Germans during the Third Reich, think that we’ll look back one day and shake our heads in shame that we let it go that far. Much like Senator Joe finding commies, I think most Americans think Crazy W will just give up if he finds one more terrorist… if he shreds one more amendment to the Constitution.

So, actually, I said it also for humor, but I also chide myself for not being more like Sartre than Heidegger. However, we’re more in the boat of the Germans than the French (insert your own joke there), so we don’t have the “luxury” of being able to put our finger solidly upon something for which we stand, since there’s no oppressor’s boot in our face, rather a velvet glove around our throat.