This is the fourth chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Four: The Climate of Collectivism [mp3] [YouTube] [102 minutes] From postmodern epistemology to postmodern politics [mp3] [YouTube] The argument of the next three chapters [mp3] [YouTube] Responding to socialism’s crisis of theory and evidence [mp3] […]
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This week in my Contemporary European Philosophy course, we are reading Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944 at the height of World War 2. “It is a common mistake to regard National Socialism as a mere revolt against reason, an irrational movement without intellectual background. If that were so, the movement would
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The third printing (!) of the 2006 documentary is now officially available at Amazon and at a new, lower price. Here is a full image of the cover wrap of the third printing. (And of course, this being the Christmas season, who wouldn’t want a book about the Nazis as a present?) For more information
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[This is Section 40 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] Part 8. Conclusion: Nazi and Anti-Nazi Philosophies 40. Hindsight and future resolve We know from historical hindsight that it took a world war to defeat the Nazis. Tens of millions of human beings died in that war. Actual human beings who lived, loved, cried, had dreams—and
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[This is Section 41 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 41. Principled anti-Nazism Philosophically and politically, the Nazis stood for five major principles: They stood for collectivism, for instinct and passion, for war and conflict, for authoritarianism, and for socialism. National Socialist Principles: Collectivism Instinct, passion, “blood” War and zero-sum conflict Authoritarianism Socialism That means we
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[This is Section 17 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 17. Economic controls Through education and censorship, the Nazis attempted to socialize the German mind. Through public health measures and eugenics, they attempted to socialize the German body. A natural extension of both policies was to socialize German economic production. As would be expected by the
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[This is Section 8 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 8. Economic socialism, not capitalism The second theme of the Program is a stress upon socialism and a strong rejection of capitalism. Numerically, socialism is the most emphasized theme in the Nazi Program, for over half of the Program’s twenty-five points—fourteen out of the twenty-five, to
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[This excerpt is from Chapter 5 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Marcuse and the Frankfurt School: Marx plus Freud, or oppression plus repression Marcuse had long labored in the trenches of academic philosophy and social theory before coming to fame in America in the 1960s. He studied philosophy at Freiburg
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