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EUGEN ROSENSTOCK-HUESSY FUND News & Reflections (September 2008) Rosenstock and Rosenzweig most serious attention. “Attention,” Conference obviously, does not mean total appro- bation, which is never expected. But The conference held on the Dart- what is precisely needed now, above mouth College campus July 11 and all, after the paying of heed, is critical 12 was pathbreaking in that six of the examination, penetrating interpreta- nine presenters had never before spo- tion, and the evocation of historical ken or written a word about Rosen- context which together will fathom stock-Huessy. As we mentioned in a the depths, uncover the architecture, newsletter last year, the current flour- and test the originality of Rosen- ishing interest in Franz Rosenzweig stock’s thinking, whether one agrees in academic circles is to some degree with him or not on any question. generating interest in his close friend Rosenstock-Huessy; but much credit History must be given also to the persuasive To summarize here each of the papers powers of Prof. Susannah Heschel at presented at the conference is impos- Dartmouth, who induced colleagues sible, but phrases stand out. Rosen- near and far to pay heed to Rosen- stock-Huessy clearly believed that stock and to speak about his thought there is a universal history of man- at this gathering. kind, a structure and a direction evi- For those of us who long ago were dent in the course of many centuries captivated by Rosenstock-Huessy’s controverting Hamlet’s fear that life often astonishing insight, there is al- is no more than a tale told by an idiot ways the lingering doubt that maybe signifying nothing. The notion that we are somehow peculiar or, even humankind has a destiny is embod- worse, “true believers” who have ied in Judaism and Christianity, and abandoned their critical faculties from that source, by one means or an- when it comes to our appreciation of other, the message was disseminated this great German émigré. How reas- to the entire world. Everywhere, mi- suring it is, then, to see fresh faces on raculously, the present year is 2008, the scene, approaching Rosenstock’s and the substitution of the politically work without predilection or preju- correct c.e., if anything, emphasizes dice and finding it deserving of the even better than a.d. what has been ERH FUND • SEPTEMBER 2008 News & Reflections 2 achieved in two millennia of striving Education amidst unending catastrophes. The conference made evident how This subject received healthy dis- much there is yet to be said about cussion in the two days of the con- Rosenstock-Huessy’s varied and pro- ference, and the term that Prof. H. found writings on education, as it is Michael Ermarth brought forward conducted on all levels. In his first to characterize it was not the old- decade in the United States, Professor fashioned providentialism, or divine Rosenstock gave talks at such places design, concepts that Rosenstock as Wellesley College, to a class reunion himself never sought refuge behind. (“The Rhythm of Society: Life and Instead, it was asked whether there Learning Co-ordinated,” 1934), and at is an invisible “watermark” underly- the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, ing history. What is more subtle than Massachusetts (“Soldiers of the Im- a watermark! Who made the paper possible,” 1942), and we have among upon which the narrative is written? his works in English from that period But don’t look skyward for the an- “Man Must Teach” (ca. 1940), which swer; look inward. “Man is the ani- is available in photocopy from Argo mal who can be inspired,” to quote Books. As usual, he defies the con- Rosenstock. ventional thinking and illuminates One unexpected benefit of Pro and imbues with import what usually fessor Ermarth’s presentation was the passes without notice. For example: dispelling of the charge sometimes heard that Rosenstock-Huessy was “Never once does [John] Dewey tell misogynistic. Feminine contributions us why he must write his books or go on or “gifts,” Ermarth noted, are “utterly teaching. In discussing the foundations integral to the timeless existential and underlying principles of education, watermarks that suffuse all times” in the only regard he shows is for the little Rosenstock’s philosophy of history. victims of our educational activities. The teacher is happily taken for granted. That “Western man . includes Western he might be just as vitally affected as the woman—albeit in the background student, injured, harmed, shellshocked, or watermark sense that it is always perfected, is no concern of most educa- somehow more significant than the tional discussions. male-dominated fuss of the fore- “Does this lack of reciprocity result ground and top echelons. These rev- from the idea that a teacher is a paid em- erentially female-friendly comments ployee and that his salary is his reward? But if the pay is all he gets out of teach- recur constantly in [Rosenstock’s] ing, then teaching would be nothing writings. Balancing his respect for in his life; and then, he can’t be a good the ‘warrior,’ [is] his esteem for the teacher. Nevertheless, educational the- eternal feminine.” ory modestly treats the sufferings of the ERH FUND • SEPTEMBER 2008 News & Reflections 3 teacher as pudenda not to be mentioned Leithart, who has the courage and the in good society. The parents, the pupils, capacity to speak informatively about the alumni, the public, are told why Rosenstock-Huessy and time, offered such and such a treatment will give the to do so. boy or girl the best possible education. A ware is sold. And this discredits our Rosenstock resented and ridiculed theories of education as advertising. the prevailing, near universal, reduc- “Any realistic approach would have tion of time to an appendage of space, to show how and why and that an adult the so-called fourth dimension. That can be induced to fool around with young description is simply a victory for the people in this business of teaching and physicists, as though they had a cor- learning, some sporadically, some pro- ner on reality. Time itself has three fessionally, but all passionately.” (“Man Must Teach,” pp. 3-4). dimensions, and “Man,” Rosenstock said, “is a peculiarly temporal being, Time ever but a pilgrim and an exile in the The nature of time was a major topic of world of space” (“Teaching Too Late, discussion in the past century—think Learning Too Early” [1940], in I Am an of Bergson or Heidegger, to mention Impure Thinker, p. 92). just two prominent philosophers—but Leithart finds Rosenstock-Huessy it is doubtful that anyone in the era nearly unique in his integration of so- made time so fundamental a factor ciological and theological accounts of in understanding God, man, and the time, and suggests that his analysis of world as Rosenstock-Huessy did. And the present, sandwiched between past some of the writing on time by philos- and future, historically so problem- ophers coming after Heidegger mask atic and misunderstood, is “the most lack of true insight into the subject fruitful philosophical insight into the with paragraphs of abstruse, and pos- nature of time,” surpassing St. Augus- sibly nonsensical, jargon. Rosenstock is tine’s famous account. luminous on the subject, not opaque. An entire book could be written Judaism Despite Christianity about Rosenstock-Huessy’s view of As planned, three papers related to time. It is basic to his thinking in ev- Franz Rosenzweig and his classic ery category. In a 40-minute presenta- correspondence with Rosenstock, tion at a conference, a speaker can, at published fifty years later as Judaism best, only touch on the matter. Time Despite Christianity (1969). Certainly for Rosenstock is after all a subject to one of the great outcomes of their ex- be considered in philosophy and the- changes over more than fifteen years, ology, in sociology, in history, in psy- by which both men were deeply in- chology, although none is disparate. fluenced, was their common realiza- We were fortunate that Prof. Peter tion that Judaism and Christianity are ERH FUND • SEPTEMBER 2008 News & Reflections 4 forever interlocked. The mission of is definitely one of the right words to the latter is to carry the central Jew- describe Rosenstock. Listening to him ish message to the world; the mission or reading him is always elevating and of the former is to stand permanently enhancing to human dignity because as a guardian against Christian back- so much that we ordinarily take for sliding into paganism. granted is movingly invested by him with new purpose and meaning. These passing remarks about the July To ruminate a bit, it is an illusion conference merely skim the surface, of those living at any time in his- but it is likely that some results of the tory that they are somehow self-suf- stimulus provided by the event will ficient and at the pinnacle of human be evident in scholarly journals in the achievement. In particular today, the next few years. Then one hopes for incredible progress in science and the transition from the specialized technology since the seventeenth and sometimes esoteric academic century reinforces this false notion. journals to classroom teaching, and Rosenstock-Huessy like no one else from the teaching into the minds of makes manifest our dependence on students, undergraduate and gradu- several thousand years of cultural ate, who will in time write books that and institutional inheritance, which convey to a wide audience the signfi- is mostly invisible and must be re- cance of Rosenstock-Huessy’s work. called and elucidated when needed No plans are afoot to publish as for our salvation.

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