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Again, this is a strategy which is all too common with critics of Heidegger; because
some of his rhetoric smacks at some level of a kind of an anti-modernism which they
associate with German conservative revolutionary views which in turn are seen as
an obvious precursor to Nazism, they merely assume the offensiveness of the ideas
Heidegger is trying to peddle. And, in a way, they do themselves a disservice since
Heideggers onslaught against modernity is genuinely flawed for a number of reasons
which we will examine closely in the chapters that follow. However, to suppose that
these are just the ravings of a German mandarin, or worse, some deluded Nazi hack,
misses again the real problem we have to face and it is certainly easy enough to show
how Heideggers thought does not reduce to such a crass ideology.
There is no question that Adorno catches a whiff of something thats off in
Heideggers rhetoric and, like so many of his contemporaries, is painfully sensitive to
any association with the Blubo rhetoric of the day which Heidegger sutured onto his
philosophy at different junctures. However, Adorno bases his analyses of Heideggers
highly questionable invocation of rootedness on the relatively unimportant and
slightly pathetic paean to provincialism that is his radio address. That being so, he
does identify one line in that piece which relates to a problem which we will examine
in the context of Heideggers philosophical writings concerning the authentic Dasein
of a people and his concomitant conceptions of history, art and truth: Ones own
works inner belonging, to the Black Forest and its people, comes from a century-long
Germanic-Swabian rootedness, which is irreplaceable.12 Adorno could have developed
a line of criticism here and related it to key aspects of Heideggers philosophy. Alas,
he fails to do so, and contents himself instead with ad hominem attacks and further
examples of the genetic fallacy which Heidegger can all too easily be defended against.