What do you make of
 

Heidegger's affair with Hannah Arendt?

It is perplexing that the leading figure of the 20th century in terms of philosophy, was a NAZI, had an open marriage and had a long-standing affair with a Jewish woman philosopher.

Was Martin simply an opportunist in terms of his personal relations? Did he really have no politics? His famous Spiegel interview wasn't very convincing.

Did he simply think with his small head?

I find him interesting and perplexing, and certainly don't understand him as well as AA and SIEQ. Personally I admire the works of Gadamer more, and some degree of Russell or Husserl, though I'm not certain I understand Husserl. William James interests me as well.

Back to Arendt and Heidegger. What should we make of an interpreter's life?

I'm not as versed in the specifics of this as you. But I can say that many Germans were Nazis out of convenience. Sitting here safely in America it's easy to judge people's actions, but outright opposition to the Nazi regime would mean you may well lose everything and put your family and yourself at risk. On the other hand, if you were, say, a young ambitious lawyer or politician, the temptation to survive and and even succeed within the system taht appeared destined to last a thousand years must have been great. One of the things that piqued Gunther Grass (who was from a class of middle class merchants) after the war was that the U.S. turned a blind eye to the participation of many German elite in the Nazi party and got the Nuremburg trials over and done with as quickly as possible in order to set about the task of re-building "West Germany" as a bulwark against communism. Many of these eilite bearing the Nazi stain were important to Germany's reconstruction and rise to what it is today. It was part of Truman's post-war reconstruction of Western Europe which was overall a stroke of genius but involved some dirty dealing.

Heidegger did more than just go along. He as rector of his university immediately eliminated all democratic processes at the University of, I believe, Freiburg.

His works were genius, but his association with the Nazis were so obvious that much of Europe rejected his thoughts just to be disocciated from his politics.

Here's a Wikipedia link on a fascinating but perplexing figure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegger

Again, you know more about this specific example than I do. But I do know that there was much about the Nazi movement at least initially and superficially appealing to intellectuals. The Nazis criticized the UK's and the United States' seemingly exclusive focus on materialism and commerce and the attendant popular culture, international trade and cultural cross-polinization (of course the Jews were a huge component of this activity, as they are today, disproportionately represented among financiers, business executives, etc.). (Through most of history business people were regarded as crass, and outside the aristocracy, bear in mind.)Seemingly in the first world intellectuals and philosophy (so dominant in the 19th century) were pushed to the side in favor of practical, capital and economic growth generating concerns. The Nazis romanced a mythical past and self-perception founded on the philosphy and literature of the ancients including as brought back to life in the Nineteenth Century. Like Communism, Nazism was a sort of state religion, and integral to its appeal was abstract intellectual ideas (really just crack pot stuff) and high culture (itself a sort of fantasy land though deeply satisfying to anyone who acquires a taste for it). They robbed European art galleries of much of their priceless stuff and magnificent operas and symphonies were a regular feature in Germany until the allies started to rain on their parade. During the 1930's Germany became the most "civilized" nation in the world. It's truly a facinating, cautionary tale.

Read "Doktor Faustus" by Thomas Mann, if you haven't already read it.

I haven't read it but it's on my list. Yes, Mann's preoccupation was with this fatal flaw in Germany. To his credit, he did oppose Nazism, fleeing the country of his birth. (He was gay, btw.)

But I think I'll read this one first:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140...534341?ie=UTF8

It has been since my college days but I like Mann. And I didn't know and don't care if he were gay, as I don't remember that issue coming through his writings. Of course, I was struggling through it in German, so a nuance such as that, may have slipped me.

In German, it's called, Buddenbrooks, so I didn't recognize the title in English.

Doktor Faustus is fascinating though. Because of its fascination with the flaws of Nazism, it interested me more than Buddenbrooks.

Oops I'm wrong. Buddenbrooks is about the Luebeck family. I haven't read that tetralogy. Who writes or reads tetralogies nowadays. Harry Potter I suppose.