Adorno etc.

[ChrisD(RJ)]

James Heartfield:
Sadly, given Adorno's rather brilliant critique of Heidegger (Jargon of 
Authenticity), the argument of Dialectic of Enlightenment is a 
warmed-over version of Heidggerianism. Indeed it is the same argument 
that Hannah Arendt gives in On Totalitarianism.
------------------------------
Coincidentally, my never-completed dissertation was largely on the influence
of Heidegger on the Origins of Totalitarianism.

There is a Heideggerian basis of OT, but it is a negative one (if you
believe the thesis I was developing in my diss.). The structure of
totalitarian ideology she outlines in OT resembles rather closely the
structure of one of St. Augustine's interpretations of love she mapped out
in her dissertation (and said was incapable of grounding social being,
because it leads to viewing other people only as use-objects), which, in its
turn, is suspiciously similar to certain aspects of the structure of Dasein
given in Being and Time.

At the time she wrote OT, Arendt was completely and totally hostile on every
level -- personal, philosophical, political, everything. Her 1946 Was ist
Existenzphilosophie? is mostly one long slam of H's philosophy. This was
when Arendt was in her "Heidegger is a potential murderer" phase. She was so
foaming-at-the-mouth Jaspers had to talk her down.

OT has nada to do with Heidegger's theory of technology. As a matter of
fact, it never influenced Arendt to any enormous extent.

Chris Doss
The Russia Journal