Heidegger’s Post-Western Politics

Abstract

The revival of ideologically motivated right-wing political agitation across the Western world demands that its intellectual sources be discovered. Martin Heidegger has occupied a position among anti-liberal, anti-modernist, and anti-Western forces across the globe comparable to that of Karl Marx on the socialist Left. Yet scholars still lack the conceptual terminology for capturing the political import of his work. The recent publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks provides an opportunity for rereading his central political works in order to recover their meaning for contemporary political movements. Such a rereading also illuminates the sources of Heidegger’s remarkable and misunderstood influence on the political Right. It thus explains a matter of urgent and high importance for generalist political scientists.