THE ACOLYTES OF BEING: A DEFINITION OF “TRANSCENDENCE” IN GERMAN HISTORY AND POLITICS by Emily Stewart Long Honors Thesis Appalachian State University Submitted to the Department of History, the Department of Political Science, and the Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science May, 2015 _____________________________________________________________________ Michael C. Behrent, PhD., History, Thesis Director _____________________________________________________________________ Nancy S. Love, Ph.D., Political Science, Thesis Director ____________________________________________________________________ Benno, Weiner, Ph.D., Department of History, Honors Director ___________________________________________________________________ Elicka Peterson-Sparks, PhD., Department of Political Science, Honors Director _____________________________________________________________________ Leslie Sargent Jones, Ph.D., Director, The Honors College 1 ABSTRACT Acting as my Senior Honors Thesis in the departments of History, Political Science, and University Honors, this project, “The Acolyte of Being,” aims to present an aesthetic history of twentieth century German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s concept of “Da-sein:” the “thereness” of Being (or existence) itself. Taking into account 2,500 years of Western metaphysics, my thesis begins by redefining one key philosophical term: transcendence, and in so doing revive four others as well: truth, beauty, freedom and the term metaphysics itself. As such, this work begins with a “Definition of Transcendence,” informing the following five chapters. These chapters, in keeping with the historicity of Da-sein as an aesthetic one, each name great works of art, opening of the oblivions of Being to man. Each of my chapters follow the guiding definition of “Transcendence” and correspond as well to one of five Wagnerian operas: Das Rheingold, Die Walkyrie, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung and, finally, Parsifal. This operatic chapter structure is linked as well to my the naming of my “Acolytes of Being:” Friedrich Nietzsche and his The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, Richard Wagner and his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land, and, finally, National Socialism—as an aesthetic, poetic politics. In constructing my argument in this manner, I am able to communicate that not only is history artistic, but that this aesthetic details the gradual return of metaphysics. With National Socialism acting as the final “Acolyte of Being,” the distinction between the ontic (things as they appear) and the ontological (things in themselves) is defaced and Being as such returns with force to the dwelling of man. With Heidegger himself offering up his ground breaking philosophy to the spiritual impetus of National Socialism we come before my chief question in this thesis: How did National Socialism pose the question of Being in the twentieth century? Certainly a troubling assertion we must also add: What can this mean? 2 To: My Parents, Rachel and James Long My mentors, Dr. Michael C. Behrent and Dr. Nancy S. Love “The world’s darkening never reaches to the light of Being.”1 —Martin Heidegger 3 CONTENTS Preface 5 Prelude: A Definition of “Transcendence” 9 A Review of the Literature 32 I. Das Rheingold 52 II. Die Walkyrie 68 III. Siegfried 87 IV. Götterdämmerung 108 Epilogue: Parsifal 140 I. Appendix One 146 II. Appendix Two 148 III. Appendix Three 150 IV. Appendix Four 152 V. Appendix Five 154 4 Preface “We never come to thoughts. They come to us.”2 -Martin Heidegger This project, which has over the years come to be called “The Acolytes of Being,” is a work I began in the very early days of my freshman year at Appalachian State University, and now acts as my Senior Honors Thesis in the departments of both History and Political Science. Thought on this topic originally took shape during the weeks of my first trip to Berlin in October of 2009, when I was nineteen. In the months and years following the realization of my interest in the Third Reich, my thought on the topic solidified into, truly, a distressing question. It was only after my initial trip to Germany that I was introduced to Martin Heidegger’s thought and works by my long time mentor, Dr. Michael C. Behrent. I have never found any other idea more moving than that of Heidegger. With Heidegger I found the words I was searching for in an attempt to put my troubling question to academic form. Reading Heidegger is an exercise in the most primal thinking and, truly, the most original poeticizing—but not only this. Reading Heidegger requires an openness in the reader, a resoluteness to break forth into the unsaid in a creative, primeval and at times even violent way. What I have found in reading Heidegger myself is that while I am “thinking,” this thinking becomes not simply a rigorous series of processes; rather, a truly artistic endeavor. In the openness of thinking as a primal poeticizing, we find ourselves listening to the low thunder of the giants, calling to one another across the great abyss of Being. In this process of thinking as a paroxysmal poeticizing, much of my own work on Heidegger makes the attempt to “fetch back” concealed definitions of several key 5 metaphysical terms (including the term metaphysics itself). One such term I attempt to recover in this work is “beauty,” by which I mean: the first sight of existence as such. From this notion of the beautiful I make the effort to “fetch back” another term as well, which acts as the driving force of my argument. From Heidegger’s writings during his Kehr [turn], a notion of “transcendence” can be unearthed in harmony with his notion of the “being beyond beings.”3 During the Kehr, Heidegger’s thinking of Being makes its return to the dwelling of man in an aesthetic, political landing. As such, my question in this work is this: How did National Socialism pose the question of Being in the twentieth century? Certainly a disquieting assertion we instinctively add: What can this mean? Investigating National Socialism as an aesthetic, poetic politics bringing Being out of history into the world, each of my chapters corresponds to a different “great work of art” as well as an opera in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungens. With this structure, I’d like to communicate that Being has a history, which has remained in the shadows of myth and legend at the periphery of metaphysics, scattered and divided in doubt. The question my thesis grapples with details this return. Opening up in the work of art, my chapter structure articulates the history of Being as the history of “the great work of art,” which allows man to glimpse “truth” in his given historical age. As questioned by Dr. Richard Wolin: “If Being has a history, might it not also have a politics?”4 Making its resolute return in an aesthetic politics, I name National Socialism as (with the word Wagner used to describe his dramas, apart from any other) ein Gesamtkunstwerk—a total work of art, and the final “Acolyte of Being.” As Heidegger wrote, “Only a God can save us.”5 Thus, each chapter of this thesis tells of a different Acolyte on the way through Western history towards modern Germany. These Acolytes—a Da-sein, who, through a 6 great work of art, open the world to the light of Being—act as the guardians of the truth of Being in each appointed age. Beginning with Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, on to Richard Wagner’s conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk itself in his own operas, and then to T.S. Eliot’s jarring modernist work The Waste Land, my thesis attempts to think Being in music and poetry—as the ontic within the ontological, teased out over time by, what Heidegger names “the coming preservers.” To make my connection of German myth and legend as told by Der Ring des Nibelungens clearer to readers, I have added appendices, which contain summaries of the Wagner dramas as written by Jessie L. Weston—whose book T.S. Eliot claims his most important poem, The Waste Land, is based. In addition to the more literary elements of the structure of this work, I also want to make it clear to readers that the texts Heidegger used in this thesis are limited to “What is Metaphysics?,” “The Essence of Truth,” “The Origin of the Work of Art,” and “The Question Concerning Technology.” I selected these works in an effort to elucidate Heidegger’s thought during his Kehr, a time when his concept of Dasein made the turn to Da-sein, and the thinker began to think Being in a manner synonymous with the metaphysical hopes he attributed to National Socialism’s rise—a “fetching back into its essence” of Germany, of truth and of the question, which first founds all history. As an aesthetic, poetic, politics, National Socialism’s attempt to not only challenge modernity, but to dominate it signals, for Heidegger, Poiēsis reaching out to retake technē (art extending its hand to bring technology back under the primal sway of its Greek origin). At this critical moment in Heidegger’s thought, the very essence of his concept of Da-sein makes room for the return of Being to the world of man. It makes room for the appearance of a God. 7 For Heidegger, who hung all his metaphysical hopes on the “inner truth and greatness” of National Socialism’s potential, which threw itself against the bastion of the ontological difference. In this way, Heidegger’s notion of the Seinsverlassenheit [the abandonment of Being] is always already contained within the notion of a Götterverlassenheit [the abandonment of man by the gods].6 With National Socialism corresponding to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, we know from the legend that only one who foreswears all love can wield the power of the ring, and that only through love, the innocence of the gods can be restored.