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Martin Heidegger was one of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers. His ideas continue to have a profound effect on modern thinkers and are taught in philosophy classes the world over. He was also a Nazi.

“There's a popularized version of his theories that’s extremely widespread today among far-right intellectuals,” says Richard Wolin, an intellectual historian and the author of the book “Heidegger in Ruins.” That’s no accident, he tells New Lines magazine’s Danny Postel. It was a strategic choice. The embrace of Heidegger in mainstream academic philosophy allowed them to cloak their ideas in respectability: “The most significant philosopher — according to some — of the 20th century comes, of course, with a lot of intellectual prestige and cachet.”

But that’s not to say that the substance of the philosopher’s ideas had nothing to do with it either, adds Wolin. “Heidegger was an arch critic of Western civilization. And, along with that, goes, of course, the heritage of the Enlightenment, liberal democracy,” he explains. It isn’t just that Heideggerianism was useful for the New Right that emerged in the 1970s and the decades after — his work also played a genuine role in the formation of their political project. “The connections are much, much thicker and much more significant than would meet the eye.” 

Of Heidegger’s acolytes among the New Right, the Russian fascist thinker Alexander Dugin, who has written multiple books about the philosopher, might be the most prominent. “After Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014, Dugin was dubbed ‘Putin's brain,’” says Wolin. “The extent of his influence on Putin is debated, but there's no question that he's a leading intellectual figure, not only amongst Russian ultranationalists but across Europe.”

“It was the New Right who took up this cudgel and began using the phrase ‘population replacement’ in favor of the idea of an Aryan or white nationalist Europe,” says Wolin. “And it has, in recent years, been reborn in rather insidious ways.”

Margaret Atwood is the author of over 50 books of poetry, critical essays, graphic novels, and fiction. Her latest short story collection, Old Babes in the Wood, was recently published this March.

Today, we revisit our 2022 conversation, beginning with essay collection Burning Questions (4:47), which wrestles with catastrophe (5:28), Atwood's upbringing in the wilderness (7:36) under egalitarian parents (10:30), and how she circumvented the traditional roles for women of the 1950s (12:55). She also shares some personal stories: her first book signing event (16:05), the day she met her late husband Graeme Gibson (17:35), and the innumerable ways in which he'd shape her life (20:29).

On the back-half we discuss the historical antecedents behind The Handmaid’s Tale (23:34), its renewed relevance amid threats to reproductive justice (25:04), the debate around ‘the writer as political agent’ (31:24), patriarchal gatekeeping inside the publishing industry (34:12), the limits of art-making (35:08), and why she continues to write at age 82 (38:57). To close, Margaret reads from both her elegiac poem Dearly (41:05) and her essay “Polonia” (47:10).

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This week: why do so many of us stagger through life leaving a trail of chaos and confusion? American poet, Kay Ryan, reveals it’s because we are carrying an invisible ladder. The poems referenced are ‘We’re Building the Ship As We Sail It’, ‘Carrying A Ladder’ and ‘Blandeur’.

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This week, Ted Hughes shows us that writing a poem is like a stinking fox walking across a snow-covered field. The poem referenced are ‘The Thought Fox’ and ‘The Jaguar’.

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This week, our Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, writes a brilliant poem about what some might think is an unlikely subject. The poem referenced is ‘The Patriarchs – An Elegy’.

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Concluding our discussion of On Certainty, with guest Chris Heath.

We try one last time to get a handle on Wittgenstein's philosophy of science. How do people actually change their minds about fundamental beliefs?

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We continue with Ludwig Wittgenstein's On Certainty (written 1951), with guest Christopher Heath.

What is Wittgenstein's philosophy of science as it's reflected in this book? We talk about Weltbilds (world pictures) and how these relate to language games, relativism, verification, paradigms, testimony, and more.

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Continuing to discuss On Certainty, we get deeply into textual quotes.

How does he actually respond to Moore's argument about his hand? How does he extend his account to talk about mathematical and scientific statements? Is Wittgenstein a pragmatist?

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Discussing the notes Ludwig Wittgenstein made at the end of his life in 1951 that were published as On Certainty in 1969.

Can we coherently doubt propositions like "physical objects exist," "the world is more than 50 years old," and "this is my hand"? Wittgenstein looks at these questions via his framework of language games. Is doubting one of these a legitimate move in a game?

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Topics discussed in this episode include: 

-Schedule change!

-My trip to England

-Romanticism

-The charm of Keats

-The tragedy of Keats

-The tragedy of Pergolesi

-Italian sonnet redux

-The creative opportunity that is rhyme

-Why this sonnet is weird

-The riddle of Keats's morbidity

-Ode To A Nightingale

-The Notorious B.I.G.

-Ode On Melancholy

-Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Movement

-The poet is un-poetical, unless the poet is Keats

-Keats's self awareness

-The undescribable feud, described

-On Looking Into Chapman's Homer

-The second-worst thing the Ottomans ever did

-Ubi Sunt

-The Romantic fetish for ruins

-Metrical FUBAR

-The doctrine of The Association of Ideas

-The shift from Objectivity to Subjectivity 

-Suns, seas, and shadows

Text of the poem:

 
On Seeing the Elgin Marbles  

My spirit is too weak—mortality 

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, 

And each imagined pinnacle and steep 

Of godlike hardship tells me I must die 

Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. 

Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep 

That I have not the cloudy winds to keep 

Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye. 

Such dim-conceived glories of the brain 

Bring round the heart an undescribable feud; 

So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, 

That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude 

Wasting of old time—with a billowy main— 

A sun—a shadow of a magnitude.  

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My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)