Heideggers Heritage: Philosophy, Anti-Modernism and Cultural Pessimism

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Again, to recapitulate a variant of Lyotards perspicacious insight, if Bourdieus

assessment is correct, then there really is no Heidegger controversy since we are not
dealing with an important thinker and certainly nothing of philosophical substance is
to be found in his thought. Or to put things somewhat differently, we are dealing with
a very different controversy (which may interest some people), that is, the possibility
that those of us who have been labouring away on Heideggers thought for so many
years have been on something of a fools errand. Of course that is what some people
would have us believe but it is not, I contend, the real issue that should animate people
who become interested in this topic only to be dragged into the mudslinging that
dominates the recurring controversy which is really just a flimsy front for the ongoing
hostilities between so-called analytic and continental philosophers.

Zimmerman and the influence of Spengler

In Heideggers Confrontation with Modernity, Michael Zimmerman examines the
development of Heideggers thought through the 1930s, including the emergence
of his critique of technicity, in the light of various intellectual, political and cultural
factors that appear, so Zimmerman believes, to have forged Heideggers particular
brand of anti-modernism. Zimmerman suggests that Spengler exercised a significant
influence on Heideggers mature conception of technology and mass society noting
that though Heidegger appeared to offer some clipped criticisms of Spenglers
approach in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, he nevertheless presented
an account of technological society which bore a marked resemblance to Spenglers
descriptions. Unfortunately, as was Zimmermans interpretative Achilles heel in
an earlier study,18 there is a propensity to rely on tenuously established genealogies
when it comes to Heideggers paths of thinking. Zimmerman is inclined to paper
over substantial cracks of incompatibility between Heidegger and his putative intellectual forebears (in this case Spengler) as he looks to amplify any and every possible
affinity, no matter how superficial, as though crucial aspects of Heideggers unique
philosophical vision reduce directly to his intellectual, cultural and political heritage.
Zimmerman discusses Spenglers influence on Heidegger in a specific sub-section
from Chapter 2 of Heideggers Confrontation with Modernity the sub-heading
reads Heideggers Critical Appropriation of Spengler in the Fight Against Modern
Technology. He frames this discussion with a truncated overview of Heideggers
brief discussion of Spengler in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. In these
lectures, Zimmerman explains, Heidegger chose to disclose Germanys mood at the
end of the 1920s by examining the works of four representative authors Oswald
Spengler, Ludwig Klages, Max Scheler, and Leopold Ziegler. Heideggers comments
on Spengler and Scheler are particularly important.19 Zimmerman misjudges the tone
of Heideggers highly qualified remarks in this short section from The Fundamental
Concepts of Metaphysics suggesting that Heidegger was largely in agreement with
Spenglers assessment of things; in fact, this short section from Heideggers 1929
lectures reads as a fairly straightforward criticism of Spengler, on Heideggers part.