> Wait a second here. Heidegger did in fact repudiate the Nazis, as I am
> sure you know, with the statement (paraphrasing from memory) that they had
> vulgarized and corrupted the essence of National Socialism, turning in
> into something bad.
Apart from a few die-hards, which ex-Nazis didn't "repudiate" Hitler's "errors"? It's the price of readmission to society, a common ritual demanded of losers by victors. You won't have too search far in Iraq today for old Saddam sycophants more than willing to repudiate their Ba'athist past in order to pursue their careers.
> Anyway, I think this whole argument is muddled on many levels. Mainly, as
> is often done, it conflates Nazism and Fascism.
The Nazis and Fascists themselves conflated the two. They were ideological allies, right through to the gotterdammerung of the Second World War.
> Heidegger's thought obviously had a lot of shared features with fascist
> thought (since he was basically a fascist, this is not exactly
> surprising). However, what is singularly evil about the Nazis is not that
> they were Fascists but that they were GENOCIDAL fascists WITH A RACE
> THEORY on which they based their genocide...Assuming genocidal intent is a
> defining characteristic of Nazism that distinguishes
> it from run-of-the-mill Fascism, which is about .000001% as malevolent,
> Heidegger is part of the Fascist group but not the Nazi group, Party
> membership notwithstanding.
Trade unionists, socialists, democrats, ethnic minorities, gays, and independent women who experienced fascist regimes in Spain, Italy, Central Europe and elsewhere would not be comforted by the distinction you draw between a genocidal Naziism and what you characterize as a relatively benign fascism. I'm hesitant to use a term which is much abused, but in your case a curious "softness" towards "run-of-the-mill" fascism doesn't seem to be out of order.