46

Heidegger, History and the Holocaust

the giant non-sequitur which Habermas, Adorno, Wolin, Bourdieu, Farias and Faye
would have us swallow, albeit in a variety of dishes and seasoned according to their
own prejudices. In short, according to these critics, because there are traces of other
ideas and other movements in Heideggers work, Heideggers philosophy reduces to
nothing more than a recapitulation of those same ideas and philosophical views!

Adorno and the jargon of German authenticity

The excessively polemical and often rash nature of Habermass assessment of
Heideggers philosophy is consistent with a disappointing lack of genuine philosophical engagement not least as part of the invective levelled against Heideggers
criticisms of technicity.5 As it turns out, Habermass offhand dismissals of Heideggers
critical encounter with technology bear a strong resemblance to the various denunciations one discovers in the work of Adorno. Adorno is deeply suspicious of Heideggers
rhetoric and sees it as, fundamentally, of a piece with the jargon of authenticity which
permeated German cultural and intellectual life. Habermass criticisms to the effect
that Heideggers negative views regarding technology were derivative of a certain
attitude specific to a class of German mandarins then are clearly of a piece with
Adornos assessment. One finds comments very much to that effect, identical even in
tone, throughout The Jargon of Authenticity. We have to conclude then that Habermass
own criticisms are disappointingly derivative in this regard, not only because they
are variations on an earlier theme, but because they are variations on claims with
little in the way of philosophical substance to begin with. Adorno may well have had
sophisticated philosophical refutations of Heidegger cached away in his intellectual
armoury, indeed, he confidently prophesied, according to Heidegger, that he would
single-handedly destroy Heideggers philosophical reputation inside five years.6 And
while his conspicuous failure to achieve this objective has no bearing on the merits (or
lack thereof) of the arguments designed to accomplish as much, the arguments that he
does in fact provide (if one can call them that) must be subjected to scrutiny.
The Jargon of Authenticity, among other things, is written as a sustained rejoinder
to Heideggers rhetoric of authenticity. And yet, in terms of the expected refutation
of Heideggers account of authenticity, the book is all bluster and style with little
substance. Adornos great weapon in his war against Heidegger, as it turns out, is
not to be found in his arguments (one rarely finds any), rather Adornos strength
resides in his stunning rhetorical abilities. Interesting and eloquent as his forays may
be, however, they dont offer much in the way of substantive criticism of Heidegger.
Adornos guerrilla tactics founder against the walls of the Heideggerian fortress and
rarely, if ever, suggest even the merest breach. For our purposes, we find that Adornos
ambushes rely on the very tactics later employed by the likes of Steiner and Bourdieu,
who, similarly, reduce some of Heideggers most important notions to the antimodernism of these same German mandarins invoked by Habermas in his polemic.
For example, Adorno addresses something that Steiner has a similar gripe with in
his well-known, and disappointingly jaundiced, introduction to Heidegger;7 both are