Eros und Freundschaft: Notes on the Hannah Arendt-Martin Heidegger-Walter Benjamin Triangle

Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger

 

 

I.

 

At a 6/20 talk the other day on Walter Benjamin [1], some clever clogs in the audience posed the following thought experiment:

Imagine that Martin Heidegger and Walter Benjamin were both hanging perilously from a cliff edge and she could save the life of only one man; whose hand would Hannah Arendt reach for? 

 

This raised a few knowing laughs in the room, but it is, as a matter of fact, a perfectly serious question; one which obliges us to ponder where her ultimate loyalty lay: to her lover, or to a friend to whose cousin she was married?

 

Without guaranteeing that we'll arrive at a definitive answer, I thought it might be instructive nevertheless to examine the relationships between these three fascinating figures ...

 

 

II. 

 

Let's begin with a few remarks on the woman at the centre of this philosophical threesome and her relationship with Heidegger, who was not only a married man seventeen years her senior, but also her university tutor.

 

Born in Germany in 1906, Hannah was a pretty and brilliantly precocious Jewish child raised in a secular and progressive family, mostly by her mother, Martha (her father having died from syphilis when she was just seven years old) along strict Goethean lines.

 

Fiercely independent, Hannah studied classical literature and founded a philosophy circle whilst still at school, having read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason before her fourteenth birthday. After completing her secondary education in Berlin, Arendt studied at the University of Marburg under newly appointed professor Heidegger, with whom she formed a romantic as well as a close intellectual relationship exchanging love letters and philosophical ideas.

 

Indeed, despite everything that was to happen, Heidegger remained one of the most profound influences on her own work and Arendt continued to acknowledge him as the secret king ruling over the realm of thought (just as he would later confess that she had been the inspiration for his work on thinking as a form of passion) [2]. 

 

They remaind friends until his death in 1976. 

 

III.   

 

In September 1929, Arendt married Günther Siegmund Stern (aka Günther Anders), who, like her, had been a student of Heidegger's (they had first met in 1925, although she took little notice of him at the time). 

 

As mentioned, he also happened to be Benjamin's cousin and, during Arendt's exile in Paris from Hitler's Germany during the 1930s, she and Benjamin became close friends (but not, as far as I'm aware, lovers).  

 

Walter Benjamin is something of an odd duck: as Arendt recognised in the long introduction she wrote in 1955 to a collection of essays by Benjamin known in English as Illuminations [3]. 

 

In this text, she attempts to explain Benjamin's fate as a posthumous individual - i.e. one who, as Nietzsche says, only comes into their own after they die - by referencing his incomparable genius and the fact that this made it difficult to classify his writing. 

 

Not quite this and not quite that, Benjamin was someone who thought both poetically and philosophically, but without being either a poet or a philosopher. 

 

But Benjamin was also, according to Arendt, cursed with bad luck; he himself used to speak of the 'little hunchback' [bucklicht Männlein] who bedeviled him from earliest childhood and caused him to appear as a bit of a bungler (or what our American friends refer to as a screw-up). 

 

Who knows, perhaps this was one of the things Arendt found so attractive about him; hugely gifted, but, like Proust, unable to change a lightbulb, let alone the circumstances of his life; even when the latter threatened to crush him. Some women love winners; some women love losers.           

 

At any rate, Arendt and Benjamin - shared a certain vision of modernity (and, indeed, an angelic concept of history) and they loved to converse and exchange ideas, or play chess together. She admired the older man's "gestures and the way he held his head when listening and talking; the way he moved, his manners, but especially his style of speaking, down to his choice of words and the shape of his syntax; finally, his downright idiosyncratic tastes" [4]. 

 

But did she care for Benjamin (her friend) with the same intensity and devotion with which she cared for Heidegger (her former lover)? 

 

I doubt it. 

 

In fact, I doubt she even cared for her husband with the same passion (whom she divorced in 1937) and it's arguable that what she liked about the cousins was that they each reminded her in some way of Heidegger (whom Benjamin always regarded as his nemesis) [5]. 

 

Thus, despite the 6/20 speaker, Anja Steinbauer, expressing her hope that it would be Benjamin's hand Arendt would grab in the imaginary clifftop scenario set out above, I strongly suspect it would in fact be the latter's. 

 

Notes

 

[1] The paper, by Dr. Anja Steinbauer on Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project (1927-1940), was given at the 6/20 Club (London) on Sunday 20 October, 2024, hosted (as always) by Christian Michel, a French polymath who has graciously organised twice-monthly events at his west London home for twenty-odd years, during which time an impressive assortment of speakers have presented papers on a huge number of topics.  

 

[2] As might be imagined, Arendt faced a good deal of criticism for her continued admiration of Heidegger due to his involvement with (and support for) the Nazi Party after his election as rector at Freiburg University in 1933. But good on her, I say; isn't this evidence that love ultimately triumphs over ideology?

      For Arendt's description of Heidegger as the hidden king, see Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's biography Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (1982), p. 44. It was this work that first revealed their love affair, although it wasn't until 1995 that Elżbieta Ettinger published her controversial work on the relationship having gained access to their correspondence. 

      In 1998, all the letters between Hannah and Heidegger were finally published. See the English translation by Andrew Shields; Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger: Letters, 1925-1975, ed. Ursula Ludz (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004).

 

[3] Originally published in German as Schriften, this collection of essays, edited by Arendt, was translated into English by Harry Zorn and published as Illuminations by Jonathan Cape in 1970. 

 

[4] Hannah Arendt, Introduction to Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zorn (The Bodley Head, 2015), pp. 24-25. 

 

[5] See Andrew Benjamin and Dimitris Vardoulakis (eds.), Sparks Will Fly: Benjamin and Heidegger (SUNY Press, 2015), a collection of essays which considers points of affinity and friction between these two thinkers. 

      It's interesting that, despite being contemporaries, neither man directly engaged with the work of the other, even though Arendt was keen to point out that Benjamin actually shared more common philosophical ground with Heidegger than he did with his Marxist friends; see her introduction to Illuminations, p. 50.

Spectres of Marx and Derrida: A Post in Response to a 6/20 Paper by John Holroyd

 

The ghostly figures of Karl Marx (1818-1883) 

and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

'Deconstruction never had any meaning or interest 

other than as a radicalization of a certain spirit of Marxism ...'

 

I couldn't help thinking that John Holroyd's paper on Marx presented last night at Christian Michel's 6/20 [1] was something of a missed opportunity. For rather than simply rake over over the ashes of historical Marxism, he might have invoked the spirit of that untimely Marxism which continues to haunt capitalist society and the imagination of those concerned not with communism per se, but the possibility of radical critique. 

 

And rather than argue in favour of positive freedom - i.e., a fulfilled and unalienated form of existence lived within a harmonious community established upon an ideal of justice - Holroyd could have developed the idea of what might be termed posthumous freedom, by which one refers to a model of freedom invested with elements from the past and overshadowed by futurity; a model that embraces uncanny otherness thereby disrupting the presence of what is present (including the self), and renders the question of alienation a non-issue. 

 

That's not to say Holroyd's talk was uninteresting or poorly presented: in fact, Holroyd is an accomplished speaker who clearly has an excellent grasp of his material. But, it was essentially just a reminder of Marx and the messianic or religious nature of his work - the aspect which clearly most excites Holroyd - rather than a daring philosophical attempt to reimagine Marx in spectral form à la Derrida [2].    

 

Of course, Holroyd doesn't pretend to be a Derridean and probably has little truck with différance and deconstruction. And some might argue it's a little unfair to criticise a speaker for what they don't say, rather than focus on the issues that were addressed.

 

Nevertheless, for a writer interested in the persistence of ideas from the cultural and social past and intrigued by those thinkers, like Marx, whom Nietzsche calls posthumous individuals, Holroyd might at least have indicated he was aware of Derrida's seminal text on atemporal Marxism - and if he isn't, then this, in my view, is a serious shortcoming and I would respectfully suggest he add it to his reading list ASAP.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] John Holroyd has a background in theology and philosophy and has taught religious studies (and other subjects) in schools (and online) for many years and lectured at the London School of Philosophy.  He is the author of Judging Religion: A Dialogue for Our Times (Silverwood Books, 2019). 

      Christian Michel is a French polymath who has graciously hosted the twice-monthly 6/20 Club at his west London home for almost twenty years, during which time an impressive assortment of speakers have presented papers on a huge number of topics. 

 

[2] Jacques Derrida's Spectres de Marx (Éditions Galilée, 1993) was trans. by Peggy Kamuf and published in English by Routledge the following year. 

      The ideas that Derrida introduces here - such as hauntology - were first presented in a series of lectures during a conference on the future of Marxism held at the University of California, Riverside in 1993. For Derrida, the spirit of Marx contines to haunt the modern social imaginary even in a world that is post-Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union (and this will continue to be the case so long as there is injustice, inequality, oppression, and exploitation). 

      For a critical reading of this text by Fredric Jameson, Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, and others, see Ghostly Demarcations, ed. Michael Sprinkler, (Verso, 1999).

 

 

A Brief Note on the Psychology of Philosophy

I think, therefore I'm ill

 

I. 

 

After a recent 6/20 presentation [1], someone in the audience surprised me by saying that she didn't really wish to address the philosophical aspects of the subject (mourning), as whenever she started to think about such ideas they made her feel unwell. 

 

This raises a question that the London-based writer Sam Woolfe discussed in an interesting blog post a couple of years back: Can Philosophy Harm Your Mental Health? [2]

 

Obviously, the answer is yes - what would be the point of it otherwise? However, I'd like here to briefly pick up on Woolfe's work on the relationship between psychological traits (if they exist) and philosophical beliefs (if that isn't an oxymoron). 

 

 

II.  

 

Although I'm wary of turning philosophy into just another all too human discipline rooted in the personality and biography of the practitioner, I have to acknowledge that Nietzsche would often do this in an attempt to expose the prejudices of philosophers and demonstrate how rationality is a peculiar abberation that has grown out of unreason (i.e., the unconscious forces, flows, fears, and desires of the body) [3].  

 

However, to conclude that philosophy is simply the attempt to turn the universe into a home for man by ascribing moral logic to it via an exploration of one's own temperament - as the neo-Platonic philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch concludes - is, ironically, too depressing a thought. 

 

Ultimately, I think Ray Brassier is right to argue that philosophy should do more than simply further human conceit and that its nihilistic destiny is to acknowledge the fact that thinking has interests that do not coincide with the feelings of the philosopher (nor, indeed, with his life and wellbeing) [4]. Whilst it might be fun, therefore, to look for correlations between psychological traits and philosophical beliefs, there's more important work to be done by those courageous (or perhaps crazy) enough to do it. 

 

 

III.

 

Having said that, like Woolfe, I found it interesting to discover from the work of David Yaden and Derek Anderson [5] that those who, like me, subscribe to a model of hard determinism tend to rank higher on the depression/anxiety index [6]

 

I've certainly been feeling fed up lately and perhaps that is due (in part at least) to my philosophical pessimism. However, I'd rather be down in the dumps but intellectually honest, than happy and full of false hope as a result of only reading optimistic authors who pangloss over the tragic character of existence. 

 

And, who knows, just as one can eventually transform suffering into a form of passion via which one discovers bliss, perhaps we might also transform the darkest depression and profoundest pessimism into a form of fröhliche Wissenschaft. As Woolfe notes, "it is certainly possible and consistent to live a happy, joyful, and meaningful life while taking philosophical pessimism seriously".

 

So, my advice is keep reading Schopenhauer and Cioran, invent new reasons to live each day and, when stuck in a hole, just keep digging and discover for yourself whether there's any truth in the China syndrome. 

 

For even if Woolfe is right to conclude that some philosophical ideas - such as antinatalism, solipsism, or existential absurdism - may contribute to or worsen poor mental health [7], so what? I sometimes think better madness (or at least a few sleepless nights) than the bourgeois model of sanity (or common sense) we are expected to preserve. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the TTA Events page for an abstract to the talk 'In Praise of Mourning' (presented at Christian Michel's 6/20 Club, on 6 July 2023): click here.  

 

[2] Sam Woolfe, 'Can Philosophy Harm Your Mental Health?' on samwoolfe.com

      Whilst I'm not sure we'd agree on all that much, I admire the fact that Woolfe has maintained a blog since 2012 (the same year that Torpedo the Ark began) and that he describes himself as a writer with "a penchant for complex and challenging subjects that involve a multitude of perspectives".  

 

[3] See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886). In §6 of the first chapter of this work - 'On the Prejudices of Philosophers' - he famously writes: 

      

"It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy has hitherto been: a confession on the part of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir [...]" 

      

I am using R. J. Hollingdale's translation of this work (Penguin Books, 1990).  

 

[4] Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), xi. 

 

[5] See David B. Yaden and Derek E. Anderson, 'The psychology of philosophy: Associating philosophical views with psychological traits in professional philosophers', Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 34, Issue 5 (Taylor & Francis, 2021), pp. 721-755. DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2021.1915972

[6] As Woolfe points out, for those who wish to posit a link between determinism and mental illness, it makes sense that a lack of belief in free will can be associated with depression, given that the latter is often characterised by feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.

 

[7] What Woolfe actually says is this: 

 

"I would not go so far as to say that reading or studying philosophy is likely to be the major defining cause of a mental disorder. But I am open to the possibility that some philosophical ideas - and philosophising itself - may contribute to, worsen, or vindicate poor mental health." 

 

The fact that he adds the idea of vindication is certainly striking and something readers might like to consider for themselves.

Federico Campagna: A Man of Faith and Folly

Federico Campagna identifies himself as a Sicilian philosopher based in London. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this is entirely true. He is Italian and he does work and live in London, but is he a philosopher or is he not merely a moral and political idealist who uses philosophy whenever it's convenient to do so simply to underpin his metaphysical and, indeed, quasi-mystical search for what he describes as a fundamental architecture of emancipation?

At any rate, his current work revolves around the question of contemporary nihilism, viewing the latter as something that we need to move beyond in order that we might reconstruct reality - and not merely reality as understood by science, but an enchanted or magical reality that is more originary and which supports the ontological primacy of Dasein or mankind's manifest self-understanding. 

Thus, Campagna's dreary, dated, and clichéd characterization of nihilism as a deep crisis of truth that paralyses all human action and imagination is one which I would decisively reject. If we must talk about a topic that has been so overly-discussed, then it seems to me the starting point has to be with Ray Brassier and not Ernesto de Martino, the anthropologist and historian of religions whom Campagna refers us to.     

For unlike Campagna, I don't think nihilism is something to be overcome and I certainly don't think we should attempt to do so in the name of values which, he says, reside in some kind of ethical core and stretch from the gates of Being into our everyday lives, constituting one of the mysteries of existence of which he is so fond. Rather, like Brassier, I think nihilism is a speculative opportunity, not an existential dilemma or disease; a chance to think (even if it turns out thinking has interests that do not coincide with human welfare or happiness). 

Ultimately, Campagna, by his own admission, is a man of faith. In an article published earlier this year, he explicitly tells us that faith is what we need today to accompany an ontological awakening. Faith in what? Faith in life and the intrinsic value of life, which cannot be objectively determined by science, only subjectively affirmed by the faithful individual. Only faith in life transforms Dionysian chaos into Apollonian harmony; noise into music. He writes:

"It is only the interplay of the forces of Being and faith that empower and ... will realize our new architecture of values ... And [result in] the establishment of ... an oasis of limit and freedom, where the chorus faithfully sings for its own glory and Apollo benignly looks on from beyond."  

To which we can only shout hallelujah and not know whether to laugh or cry ...


Notes: 

Federico Campagna was speaking at the 6/20 Club on Sunday the 20th of September, 2015. His paper was entitled On Magic and the Reconstruction of Reality After Nihilism. A version of this paper was given to the Art/Work Association earlier in the year and details of this presentation can be found by clicking here. 

The other paper by Campagna  to which I refer and from which I quote, is entitled After Nihilism, After Technic: Sketches for a New Philosophical Architecture. It was published in the online journal e-flux and can be read by clicking here. 

For Ray Brassier's brilliant discussion of nihilism in terms of enlightenment and extinction, see Nihil Unbound (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Intimacy Issues

After a recent presentation at the 6/20 Club in which I discussed the seductive and disturbing character of Kawabata's sleeping beauties, I was informed by a woman who believes passionately in love, humanity, and her rights as a sexual subject, that my interest in object-oriented ontology and objectum sexuality betrays the fact that I have underlying intimacy issues. 

This has amused me all week: for the fact is that rather than manifesting an all-too-familiar psychological disorder, I'm advancing a far more radical philosophical objection to the very concepts of interiority, depth, and essential being, of which intimacy is but one aspect.

In brief, Vivienne, I don't think we have an authentic inner self in need of discovery, expression, or liberation; I don't think we have a soul to be saved, a sex to be proud of, or a psyche that is mysteriously unconscious and revealed only in dreams and secret desires in need of analytic interpretation by a therapist. 

To put this in even briefer Nietzschean terms, I remain, madam, superficial out of profundity ...