Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith: Heidegger within the Debates of his Time

Rohkramer, Thomas (2011) Fighting Nihilism through Promoting a New Faith: Heidegger within the Debates of his Time. In: The Movement of Nihilism. Continuum, London and New York, pp. 39-53. ISBN 978-1-4411-6809-2

Abstract

Heidegger not only engaged with the great minds of the occidental tradition but also drew on trends of his time and responded to current debates. He was, above all, part of a strong tradition in German history that saw a pluralistic and divided society as a dangerous form of nihilism which needed to be overcome by a new single communal faith. In 1933, Heidegger sided with Hitler and the Nazis because to him they promised such a new faith. While he came to distance himself from Nazism by identifying the Third Reich with the 'technological frenzy' that also characterised in his mind the Soviet Union and the United States, he continued to hold on to the belief that only a new communal faith could save humanity. Technology was not the ultimate danger for him, but a humanity which was not guided by a non-humanistic faith.