Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: TopQuark
Understand that I'm not making excuses for his cowardice. He should have taken a stand and he did not. He should have openly opposed the regime and he failed to.

I just find it amusing that so many academics on the left, including Hannah Arendt, are willing to make excuses for Heidegger - who openly allied himself with the Nazis, gave public speeches in support of the regime and never apologized for advocating it - while they damn Schmitt for not having the courage to speak up. To this day, Heideggerian philosophers like Derrida and Deleuze dominate the academy.

The main reason: Schmitt never stopped vocally opposing Communism and, both before and after the war, advocated parties like the Catholic Center and the Christian Democrats who were more classically conservative in the American sense of the word.

68 posted on 11/21/2002 2:55:12 PM PST by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies ]


To: wideawake
Understand that I'm not making excuses for his cowardice.

Oh, no: if one is not a hero, that does not make him immoral either. If your interpretation is correct, I would not even call him a coward: to sacrifice oneself is one thing, and endanger one's family is another.

Thanks for the clarification, but I think I understood you as you had intended.

70 posted on 11/21/2002 3:07:06 PM PST by TopQuark
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson