Re: founders of states

>However, I still have one question, if you don't mind:
>What is Heidegger's idea of the founding of a state in _The origin of
>the work of art_? Don't we find here Heidegger's three musketeers back
>(artist, thinker, founder of state) - in illustrious company (as in
>Alexander Dumas' books), among others in the company of one who brings
>essential sacrifices (like cardinal Richelieu)?
>Kindest regards,
>Henk
Dear Henk,
        My understanding of this is built on Dreyfus's, who gave a paper on
the subject to the Berkeley Theological Seminary, which was published in
their proceedings
[Hubert L. Dreyfus, "Mixing Interpretation, Religion and Politics:
Heidegger's High Risk Thinking,"  in The Center for Hermeneutical Studies,
(Colloquy 61, 1992)].  I think there are works of art of three orders of
magnitude: naming words (micro-paradigms); works of art properly speaking
(paradigms); and macro-paradigms, the ontologically renewing event which
Nietzsche called "politics in the grand style" and which Heidegger seems to
have called "God."  (It is worth noting that the first volume of
Heidegger's _Nietzsche_--1936's _The Will to Power as Art_--combines the
OWA insights with a very sympathetic Nietzsche appropriation.)
Dreyfus argues that in the OWA, Heidegger did believe that the charismatic
leader was capable of effecting this ontological transformation, but that
by 1938 (I forget which piece), Heidegger had dropped the Stateman from the
list you mention!  Dreyfus reads these developments quite cautiously, and
is by no means 'soft' on Heidegger--his paper is in response to a piece by
Hans Sluga and both are well worth reading.
        As for the necessary sacrifice; I find this language very
disturbing--especially in the context of lectures to students during the
war.  And I don't think this dangerous rhetoric, of which Heidegger was
only to fond (as shown by his attempt to give ontological interpretations
of "Kampft, Fuehren, Volk, etc.) can ever fully extricate itself from the
order of that which it contests (as Heidgger himself later taught)--even if
philosophically I think Heidegger's talk about a necessary sacrifice
[Opfer] is getting at the "bearing witness to the earth"--the testifying
and giving one's life for (since the witness is the martyr and vice versa)
that which can never be interpretively forclosed and totalized--the 'earth'
of the 'earth v. world' dichotomy in OWA.  (And here one can see Heidegger
contesting, rather than appropriating--however violently, _Zarathustra_'s
politics of the earth.)
        I find these issues interesting and important--glad there are
others who do to.
Iain




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