"In a living universe, nothing else can enter our bodies more inevitably, absolutely, and irresistibly than love."
The affection with her teacher, Martin Heidegger, has always been one of the perspectives we look back today at the life of the thinker and political theorist Hannah Arendt. This love is deeply appealing to contemporary readers, who try to unearth the light of philosophy and love from their letters, traces of betrayal and lies, and clues of major differences between the two in their later relations with Nazi Germany.
A quote from St. Augustine accompanied Arendt throughout her life, and she did not hesitate to choose the topic of her doctoral dissertation, "On Augustine's Point of View of Love": "I want you to exist where you are." "Existence is where it is" is exactly what Heidegger defined as freedom in a letter on humanitarianism. In this freedom, trust will become stronger and stronger, and love will be affirmed.
In 1941, Forced into war, Arendt boarded a ship fleeing to the United States with only twenty-five dollars in his pocket, following the German philosopher-in-exile Blüge, leaving behind her "childlike fear" and Heidegger's "cunning fox." At this time, in her eyes, he is already an "invisible killer" surrounded by female classmates in the fan club and a terrible wife all day. When Hannah returns to Europe for the first time and reunites with Martin Heidegger, although Heidegger was like "an embarrassed dog with a tail between its legs", Hannah's former love is ignited again, and her former insecurities are awakened again. So she began to think importantly about loyalty, infidelity, and forgetting... In a letter written in 1960 but never sent to Heidegger, she confessed to him that she had "always been loyal and unfaithful to him, and never stopped loving him."
Hannah Arendt died in New York on December 4, 1975. On this anniversary, Interface Culture (ID: Booksandfun) has excerpted relevant chapters from its newly published book Philosophers and Love for the benefit of readers.
<h3><b>Heidegger and Hannah Arendt: The Vibration of the Wings of Eros</b></h3>
Text | [French] Oder Rantherland translated | Zheng Wanling
Martin Heidegger was not a thinker of love. That's why Carl Jaspers wrote one day that the philosopher "not only has no love, but his attitude is not friendly." That is to say, love is not favored here. In 1927, When Heidegger's book Existence and Time was published, a passionate love story occurred between him and his student Hannah Arendt during Marbourg's most important creative period. But Heidegger's silent attitude on the subject of love seems to be more controversial than this story. He himself had spoken openly about the relationship and later said that those days were the most exciting time of his life. As for Arendt, Heidegger admits that she has brought a lot of inspiration to her creations and inspired him to "think passionately". Despite Heidegger's association with Nazism, the love story between "a stateless Jewish woman" and "a bird of the Black Forest" ends up being transformed into a friendship; although this love is deeply appealing to contemporary readers, it does not change the final outcome in the slightest. Nor can we claim that the thinker of the new ontology is a philosopher of emotion alongside Plato or Rousseau on the basis of this story alone, even if it has almost become a myth.
To understand all of this, consider Being and Time: "Being", "Dasein", Time, Death. There is no love. Perhaps there is, in a commentary in the book, it appears only once, at the bottom of the page. The annotations are located on page 29 of the book. The author left no words in the annotation, only two sentences quoted. The first sentence comes from Pascal: "When man discusses earthly things, he tends to say that before he can love a man, he must first know this person, which is a well-known saying; the saints, unlike human beings, when talking about sacred things, they will say that in order to understand man, they must first love this person, and only benevolent charity can enter into the truth, and the saints regard this sentence as one of the most meaningful precepts." The second quote comes from St. Augustine: "We cannot enter into the truth without love." Or rather, love is the beginning of the journey to the truth. At least we can see that these two maxims consistently emphasize that from an ontological point of view, love is the most important thing, and it leads to the truth. Now let's zoom in on the scope of the study. On the whole, all the writings of Heidegger and Arendt, their correspondence, and their correspondence with their respective partners form an extremely valuable and constantly updated library of texts. In view of this, we may be bold and sure to say that love occupies the most central place in the minds of these two men.
<h3><b>The "here and now" in love</b></h3>
Let's look at two more quotes found in this book that once shook the philosophy of the twentieth century. Heidegger also mentioned these references in the last few classes of the summer semester at the University of Marburg in 1928. He thought again and agreed with Max Scheler, who had long believed that love and hate were the basis of all knowledge. Similarly, Scheler quoted Pascal and Augustine in his arguments. In The Order of Love, Scheler writes, "Man, before becoming a thinking person or a willing person, is first a person who will love." "Let's move on. Heidegger's mentor Husserl proposed volitionality, arguing that the relationship between the subject and the object forms a kind of cognition, while Heidegger, who is bent on transcending the concept of the teacher, put forward his central idea of "here and now", that is, a way of being, which is always in the state of "being". This means that the "here-and-now" itself has a systematic transcendental capacity to relate to all things and other beings. Within all the tectonics of cognition or subjectivity, existence is always open to the whole world. Heidegger wrote in Being and Time, "The knowledge itself already exists in some existing being in advance. George Forrest Ben agreed with Heidegger in a short and wonderful essay, arguing that Heidegger quoted Augustine and Scheler because, for him, love transcended all knowledge and existed in a more innate open model. In a sense, it can be said that this is "the core problem in Existence and Time". Maybe reading this, it's still a bit obscure, but read on.
In a 1936 course on Nietzsche's thought, Heidegger established a theory of passion. First, he defines passion or emotions as "the most basic way in which man proves his existence in the 'now' (Da) and in the state of openness and obscuration of man in the being who is 'who he is.'" Heidegger then defines love and hate as passion, distinguishing it from other simple emotions. He argues that these two emotions are perpetually present in our bodies and run through our entire existence in a more primitive way." The evidence here is that we can say "breed hatred" but never "breed anger." "Hate and love are not only the longest-lasting, but only they can remain in our existence continuously and steadily." It is only in passion that "emotional bondage drifts away and opens up to self.". At this point, Heidegger explains, emotional bondage not only takes us beyond our own bounds, but also "concentrates our existence in the emotion itself." Passion will release us who are concentrated and shelved, "so, it is through passion, it is in passion that we step on our own existence, we soberly become masters, control of our existence and the existence in us." In the emotion of love and hate, man acquires all kinds of accidents, at first he is lost by chance, and in the end he returns to himself. All in all, these two passions are two basic ways for human beings to experience existence in the chaos that exists itself.
In 1953, despite the differences in thought with Heidegger, Hannah Arendt wrote a similar statement: "In a living universe, nothing else can enter our bodies more inevitably, absolutely, and irresistibly than love." "Love is an energy that exists as much as possible. Moreover, on May 13, 1925, two years before the publication of Existence and Time, Heidegger wrote to Arendt: "Do you know that of all things, the most bearable thing is the most difficult thing for man? Because there are always ways and assistance for everything else, there is always a fence that helps people find themselves, and when they are captured by love, they are thrown into the existence of the most "own". Love (Latin, Amor), meaning "I want to exist" (Latin, voloutsis), so St. Augustine said: I love you – I want you to exist 'where you are'. These words explained or almost explained everything. To exist in love is to simply and purely experience the existence that is most "of one's own", to be with the loved one, to understand that being "thrown" into one's own existence also means longing for the existence of others at the same time. Again, this desire is so intense. "You exist exactly 'as you are,' now and in the future, that's how it is, and I love you," Heidegger said to his student Arendt.
<h3><b>The responsibility of love</b></h3>
In love, when we return to our own existence, we also get another existence, which has its own story, its own possibilities and its own world. When this being is given to us, it is always full of mystery, because for us another being is always both close and unfamiliar, otherwise it would not be another being. People look at their lovers, feel his or her obvious existence, and even see him or her as an extension of their own existence, but still do not understand what is going on in his or her heart, what his or her feelings are, and who he or she really is. And whatever this existence, which cannot indicate everything, will always exist independently and remain strange, there must be a gift in all this. "In such a fate, the other person will entrust himself to you." If another person suddenly floods into our lives like a flood, "then our power and energy will not be able to intercept this torrent."
In early 1925, shortly after Heidegger and Arendt had made their hearts clear to each other, such deliveries began. The situation was clearly complex and painful. They secretly started a relationship. Heidegger is 17 years older than Arendt, a husband, and a father of two. Arendt just turned 18. Given the illegitimate nature of the relationship, Arendt naturally worries about the future of the relationship. In contrast, for Heidegger, these problems do not exist, because this love leaves them no other choice, they can only "accept each other and exist as they are." "It is where it is", which is Heidegger's definition of freedom in a letter on humanitarianism. Perhaps the only way to love is to allow everyone to exist freely in their own way of existence. This is why a quote from St. Augustine accompanied Arendt throughout her life, and she did not hesitate to choose the topic of her doctoral dissertation, "On Augustine's Point of View of Love": "I hope you are the place where you are." "In this freedom, trust will grow stronger and stronger, and love will be affirmed." Only trust in essence," Heidegger adds, "that is, trust in the love of the other person, can truly keep that 'you'." Love is about letting the other person exist as they are, and then "keeping that you, not trying to occupy him." We are outside our control and cannot fully and utterly occupy this gift, even if it is deliberately given to us, we can only accept it. "Whatever love becomes, the burden of happiness bestowed upon existence will always exist, so that every being can exist." Love may regulate every being. Perhaps Heidegger's philosophy is "not friendly," but love plays a prominent role in it.
What did Arendt say in The Diary of a Thought? "Love is first and foremost a force of life; the living know the fact that this force controls us. A person who has not been tempered in this power is not alive, he does not belong to the living. But for those who accept this gift and want to truly experience love without disfiguring it, there must be a burden, a task and a responsibility. In Heidegger's words, "We want to grow ourselves around it." We must be grateful to the one we love, and this gratitude gives us the grace of love, and this gratitude must also be sublimated into "loyalty to ourselves." Investing in absolutely pure love means "always maintaining the strong and vivid spirit of self-sacrifice on the first day." Perhaps this is also the first meaning of loyalty?
We all know how attractive and chaotic this kind of thinking was to Arendt at that time, a flower girl. In his Shadow, which was sent to Heidegger, an autobiographical novel full of girlish sorrows, Arendt wrote that he wanted to "faithfully focus on one man" for him. But this is ultimately impossible love. If Heidegger really loved her, if Heidegger really encouraged her to exist as she was, and at the same time helped her affirm herself, then he would not later refuse to change her life for her. They must have had their own two-person world, but it only existed briefly in certain moments. Arendt is "supreme" in these short moments, like "five to seven," but how pleasant these times are for Heidegger, and how painful they are for Arendt. At that time, she wanted to be "a part of herself" and wanted to live her own life. Heidegger, on the other hand, selfishly hopes that she can always be her own happiness, hoping that she can continue to stimulate her theoretical creation. It was impossible for Heidegger to leave his wife. So the person who left was Hannah. Even if he didn't want Hannah to be just a "shooting star", Heidegger did not keep her, but he always held out the hope of getting her again.
In Berlin in 1929, Hannah married günter Stern, a classmate she had met at a Heidegger seminar in 1925, but she never really fell in love with the man. Even on her wedding night, she wrote a request to her old lover: "Please don't forget me. Hannah's love for Heidegger lasted until 1933, when Heidegger joined the Nazi Party. Four months after Heidegger's famous "inaugural speech" at the University of Freiburg, Hannah fled from Germany to Paris to found a Zionist organization in France, "Alia". In 1936, she became acquainted with what she would later call "true love"—heinrich Bruch, a German philosopher-in-exile who had joined the Spartacus League, which had close ties to the Communist Party. In 1941, Hannah was forced into the war and followed Bruges aboard a ship fleeing to the United States with only twenty-five dollars in her pocket, leaving behind her "childlike fear" and Heidegger's "cunning fox." At this time, in her eyes, he is already an "invisible killer" surrounded by female classmates in the fan club and a terrible wife all day.
<h3><b>A two-headed system</b></h3>
Similarly, around 1950, Hannah Arendt began to think about the thorny issue of loyalty. In fact, reality pushed her to this question. After fleeing to the United States in 1941, when Hannah returned to Europe again for her first reunion with Martin Heidegger, he was, as she put it, heidegger at the time was like "an embarrassed dog with a tail between its legs." For Hannah, the love of the past is ignited again, and the insecurity of the past is awakened again. In addition, her existing family has just experienced a storm. In fact, Hannah learns that her husband is having an affair with a female writer named Rose Federerson. The young Jew of Russian descent, vibrant, feminine and sexy, was part of their common circle of friends, a member of the exiled "tribe." Despite his extremely sensitive temperament, Arendt eventually chose to understand and agreed with her husband, promising not to keep any secrets between the two in the future. So they invented the "two heads of the body" rule, as the writer Randall Jarrell described in his book The Works of institutions in 1954, which has no controlling relationship, and both sides consider the happiness and independence of each other's lives. On the "important matters of life", the husband and wife are consistent, and their appreciation and approval of each other closely link the two sides, even in the family quarrel, they maintain the identity of "philosopher's little citizen". In addition, the writer Alfred Qazi recalls in his book The Jews of New York that "the couple shared the excitement of some unexpected philosophical discovery." She gave Lü Buch a cold face, even if she agreed with him in her heart, and the most passionate seminar I had ever heard in my life was a discussion between the men and women who lived together." She rightfully dedicated the book The Origins of Totalitarianism to Lübhe, calling it "our book" or even their "children of thought." Of course, there is definitely no pure friendship between them intellectuals. "No friendship can take on the responsibilities required by marriage," Hannah Arendt writes, "when marriage as an institution is reduced to nothingness by the free decision of two men, love, in itself, can be assumed." ”
Jealous, Hannah seemed to have completely overcome it. Bruges encouraged her to get in touch with marburg's teacher again, and she reported each letter to Bruges, even telling him in the process that she missed Heidegger. When she was enraged by the fear that "Madame Martin"—whom she and Bruges liked to call Elfred by this name—Blüge would do everything in his power to reassure her: "Let those people be jealous of everything here, and you stay at home and wait for your 'never jealous gentleman' who is deeply in love with you in his own way." "Well, my dear," Hannah responded, "our hearts have grown toward each other once, and we move forward in unison." This tacit understanding will not be blocked in any way, even if life follows it closely. The madman thinks of abandoning the vibrant life, one after the other, stepping on one after the other, becoming the only 'only' who is loyal, who not only cannot experience a common life, but often does not have a life at all. If we can, we should one day tell everyone what marriage really is. At the end of the storm, Hannah Arendt's greatest fear of betrayal was not her husband's adultery, but his abandonment, his abandonment of the love that had bound their fate of escape in 1936, which was the "four walls" that surrounded them in bleak and gray days. This is also why, as she travels around explaining the root causes of mediocrity, her "husband" who has been carrying with her has been slow to write to her, and this woman, who seems independent and confident and well-cared for by the outside world, has once again fallen into the same fragile and pitiful situation as before. In a 1950 letter, she wrote to her husband that she could not bear to "roll down the heights of the crowd like a tire out of the body, with no connection to her own existence, no one or anything to rely on." Blücher, who loved her faithfully but could not be her faithful lover, comforted his "female fan of Kant": "Your home is here, it is waiting for you to return." Everything is quiet there. ”
<h3><b>The sin of infidelity</b></h3>
In the Philosophical Lab, The Collection of Ideas, Hannah summarizes the stages she has gone through in recent years. In the end, she distinguishes between "innocent infidelity," which takes place as a sign of "living and living people moving on, and "murdering all the stories that have really happened in the past" and deleting everything we bring to the world. The latter is a "complete elimination" that truly makes the deceived person feel pierced by a thousand arrows. Because "in and only" loyalty we can control the past, it guarantees that our stories exist in the past and in the present, as we actually experienced. Loyalty depends entirely on us, and it depends so much on us that facts in the world don't necessarily exist. And if facts and the possibility of "being a fact" do not exist, Arendt emphasizes, then loyalty may ultimately be foolish "stubbornness." Conversely, if loyalty does not exist, the fact is even less likely, it is not enduring, it is not eternal, it is "completely unreal." To be precise, given the relationship between loyalty and fact, "all obsessions" should be removed from the definition of loyalty. In a way, we can't force loyalty, just as we can't demand that things that are not and have never been true become real. Thus, justifying "what people habitually think of as infidelity" out of jealousy is in fact a perversion of loyalty. Rigidifying things, or "stripping away the vitality of mankind," is a pathological attempt to transform this exuberant vitality into a fiery anger that is antithetical to the idea that life can continue in a different place and another person. The most serious infidelity, in Arendt's view, is that "the only real crime is the crime of erasing the facts and denying the facts that have really happened", "forgetting", forgetting the past.
Hannah Arendt at the time was well aware that "great love is as rare as a great work," and she rewrote Balzac's famous quote into this sentence. No doubt this is why, despite her deep fear of Martin Heidegger's pursuit of the Nazis, she chose to save his life in the relationship. This is not only forgiveness, on the other hand, whether or not to really forgive him is not the focus, what should be seen at this time is that it is difficult to give up the past experience, to the love "events" that have happened. In a letter written in 1960 but never sent to Heidegger, she confessed to him that she had "always been loyal and unfaithful to him, and never stopped loving him." The story between Hannah Arendt and Heidegger is certainly not a faithful love story, but a story of loyalty to love.
An excerpt from The Philosopher and Love: From Socrates to Beauvoir, published with the permission of the publisher, is abridged from the original text.