Krampusnacht

He sees you when you're sleeping 

And he knows when you're awake ... [1]

 

 

One of the more amusing festive trends of late has been the rise in popularity (in the US rather than the UK) of a horned figure born within Central European folklore known as Krampus. He is, if you like, the anti-Santa, who punishes children who misbehave during the run up to Christmas, in contrast to St. Nicholas who rewards the well-behaved with toys and other gifts. 

 

Speaking personally, I would've loved as a child to have had a visit from Krampus with his long pointed tongue hanging out, rather than some faux-jolly fat man with a beard ho-ho-ho-ing down my chimney, even at the risk of being eaten or kidnapped and carried off to Hell. Similarly, I would have much preferred to find a lump of beautiful black shiny coal in my stocking than an orange.  

 

Hated by all the usual suspects - the clerical fascists of the Vaterländische Front prohibited the Krampus tradition in Austria during the 1930s - there has been a popular resurgence of activities in recent decades, not just in Austria, but also Bavaria and other alpine regions. 

 

The fact is, no matter how hard you attempt to shut the Devil out, he always finds a way to creep back in and enthrone himself. Just as Christ had to have a Judas among his disciples, so does there have to be a hairy-bodied demon in the Yuletide celebrations. "Why? Because the nature of man demands it, and will always demand it." [2] 

 

Papa Noël, the baby Jesus, and Bing Crosby only appeal so far ...        

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie (1934).

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 67.  

Thanks to Thomas Bonneville for suggesting this post.

Thanks for the Memory (Notes on Hope and Heidegger)

Thanks for the memory / Of faults that you forgave

Of rainbows on a wave / And stockings in the basin

When a fellow needs a shave ...*

I.

Bob Hope was an Anglo-American actor and comedian whose career spanned almost 80 years. He appeared in more than 70 movies, starring in 54 full-length feature films, including seven Road movies alongside Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour.

Whether he ever read - or even knew the name - Martin Heidegger is not certain: but I doubt it. The latter wasn't particularly known for his witty one-liners. Having said that, it's equally doubtful that the German philosopher was a fan of Hope's, although I suspect he might have smiled at his signature tune ...

II.

Thanks for the Memory is a popular song composed by Ralph Rainger, with lyrics by Leo Robin, for the film The Big Broadcast of 1938 (dir. Mitchell Leison) and starring - amongst others - Bob Hope and Shirley Ross, who perform it [click here].

It won the Academy Award for best original song and has regularly featured on the American Film Institute's list of top 100 cinematic tunes. But that's not why I think Heidegger may have had a sneaky regard for it.

That, rather, relates to the fact that the song title - which in German reads Danke für die Erinnerung - could easily have been lifted from his work, as it neatly summarises his idea that thinking is both poetic recollection and an act of gratitude: Denken ist Danken, as he liked to say (having picked the phrase up from 17th century pietism).

In order to explain what he means by this we need to turn to his brilliant series of lectures published as Was Heißt Denken? (1954) ...  


III.

In What Is Called Thinking?, Heidegger pays homage to Mnemosyne [Μνημοσύνη], the daughter of Heaven and Earth, bride of Zeus, mother of the nine Muses, and goddess of memory.

It is clear, says Heidegger, knowing his ancient Greek mythology and having read his Hölderlin, that the latter term - memory - means "something else than merely the psychologically demonstrable ability to retain a mental representation, an idea, of something which is past" [11].  

Memory is a special type of thought:

"Memory is the gathering and convergence of thought upon what everywhere demands to be thought about first of all. Memory is the gathering of recollection, thinking back. It safely keeps and keeps concealed within it that to which at each given time thought must be given before all else, in everything that essentially is, everything that appeals to us as what has being and has been in being. Memory [...] the thinking back to what is to be thought is the source and ground of poiesis.** This is why poiesis is the water that at times flows backward toward the source, toward thinking as a thinking back, a recollection. [...] Poetry wells up only from devoted thought thinking back, recollecting." [11]  

And thinking-as-memory understood in relation to and in terms of poiesis, is also a way of giving thanks, which we understand once we know that the words think and thank have the same etymological root. In Old English, for example, the verbs thencan (to think) and thancian (to thank), are closely related and the Old English noun for thought, thanc, surely places gratitude at the heart of thinking.

Heidegger describes thanc as the great clue-word. But it means something very different from the modern word thought, which usually involves ideas and opinions: "Compared with the root thanc, thought in the sense of logical-rational representations turns out to be a reduction and an impoversishment of the word that beggar the imagination." [139] 

Thanc is more a word of the heart than the head; i.e., "that innermost essence of man which reaches outward most fully and to the outermost limits" [144].

This might all feel a bit contrived. But it seems a brilliant observation to me that invites us to think further about the relationship between the words thinking, thanking, and memory. For what these words designate "is incomparably richer in essential content than the current signification that the words still have for us in common usage" [142].   

And further, Hedegger's work obliges us to hear Bob Hope's signature tune with new ears. In giving thanks for the memories, Hope is giving thanks for the many gifts he has received; from the love of a good woman to the gift of being. That is to say, for all the things - great and small - that he cares for and that touch him as a human being, defining and determining his nature:

"If we understand memory in the light of the old word thanc, the connection between memory and thanks will dawn on us at once. For in giving thanks, the heart in thought recalls where it remains gathered and concentrated, because that is where it belongs." [145]     

See: Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking? trans. J. Glenn Gray, (Harper Perennial, 2004). All page numbers given in the text refer to this edition. 

*Note: I have slightly modified the translation here. Gray's use of the word poesy for ποίησις just feels wrong to me, so have replaced it with poiesis (which seems a little less literary and a bit more philosophical).  

Thanks for the Memory lyrics © Sony/TATV Music Publishing LLC