REWRITE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS’ SONG: HEIDEGGER, HEIDEGGER WAS A NAZI OLD BEGGAR WHO WOULD SEND YOU OFF TO BELSEN. “Professor Shocked, Shocked To Find Out Prominent Nazi Was An Anti-Semite.”

The chair of Germany’s Martin Heidegger Society resigned in genuine horror after some of Heidegger’s private papers were released and showed that, surprise, surprise, he was an anti-semite.

The immense awkwardness that is Heidegger’s Nazi affiliation is always quite a thing to behold. The simple fact of the matter is that, in terms of influence and also perhaps quality, Heidegger is a giant of 20th century philosophy, and one whose influence was felt primarily on the “Left.” The fact that a man who exercised such a tremendous influence on postmodern and progressive philosophy was also a Hitler supporter obviously raises eyebrows.

Well, they were the National Socialists, something most intellectuals today are at pains to ignore, just as they were for years at pains to explain away Heidegger’s Nazism, which it turns out he actually believed in.