Ronald Beiner, "Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018)

Jan 14, 2022

Ronald Beiner, a political theorist and author, delves into the philosophical foundations of modern far-right movements in his book. He discusses Nietzsche and Heidegger’s critiques of liberal democracy, revealing how their ideas resonate with contemporary extremists. Beiner explains the far-right’s embrace of Nietzsche's anti-egalitarian views and the implications of Heidegger's philosophy, including his complex legacy despite Nazi affiliations. The conversation challenges listeners to critically engage with these influential thinkers.

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ADVICE

Read To Recognize, Not To Ignore

Read Nietzsche and Heidegger to understand their core political messages rather than dismissing them.
Use that understanding to better respond to current anti-liberal movements.

INSIGHT

Philosophers With A Political Project

Nietzsche and Heidegger contain an explicit political project aimed at overturning liberal egalitarianism.
Understanding that core helps explain their appeal to contemporary far-right movements.

ANECDOTE

Author's Personal Intellectual Journey

Beiner describes his decades-long personal engagement with Nietzsche and Heidegger and his own seduction by Nietzsche's rhetoric.
That personal history motivated him to 'square accounts' with these thinkers given current political stakes.

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Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and demise of the Soviet Union, prominent Western thinkers began to suggest that liberal democracy had triumphed decisively on the world stage. Having banished fascism in World War II, liberalism had now buried communism, and the result would be an end of major ideological conflicts, as liberal norms and institutions spread to every corner of the globe. With the Brexit vote in Great Britain, the resurgence of right-wing populist parties across the European continent, and the surprising ascent of Donald Trump to the American presidency, such hopes have begun to seem hopelessly naïve. The far right is back, and serious rethinking is in order.

In Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018), Ronald Beiner traces the deepest philosophical roots of such right-wing ideologues as Richard Spencer, Aleksandr Dugin, and Steve Bannon to the writings of Nietzsche and Heidegger--and specifically to the aspects of their thought that express revulsion for the liberal-democratic view of life. Beiner contends that Nietzsche's hatred and critique of bourgeois, egalitarian societies has engendered new disciples on the populist right who threaten to overturn the modern liberal consensus. Heidegger, no less than Nietzsche, thoroughly rejected the moral and political values that arose during the Enlightenment and came to power in the wake of the French Revolution. Understanding Heideggerian dissatisfaction with modernity, and how it functions as a philosophical magnet for those most profoundly alienated from the reigning liberal-democratic order, Beiner argues, will give us insight into the recent and unexpected return of the far right.

Beiner does not deny that Nietzsche and Heidegger are important thinkers; nor does he seek to expel them from the history of philosophy. But he does advocate that we rigorously engage with their influential thought in light of current events--and he suggests that we place their severe critique of modern liberal ideals at the center of this engagement.

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