The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism

Fifteen years ago, revelations about the political misdeeds of Martin Heidegger and Paul de Man sent shock waves throughout European and North American intellectual circles. Ever since, postmodernism has been haunted by the specter of a compromised past. In this intellectual genealogy of the postmodern spirit, Richard Wolin shows that postmodernism's infatuation with fascism has been widespread and not incidental. He calls into question postmodernism's claim to have inherited the mantle of the left--and suggests that postmodern thought has long been smitten with the opposite end of the political spectrum. In probing chapters on C. G. Jung, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot, Wolin discovers an unsettling commonality: during the 1930s, these thinkers leaned to the right and were tainted by a proverbial "fascination with fascism." Frustrated by democracy's shortcomings, they were seduced by fascism's grandiose promises of political regeneration. The dictatorships in Italy and Germany promised redemption from the uncertainties of political liberalism.But, from the beginning, there could be no doubting their brutal methods of racism, violence, and imperial conquest. Postmodernism's origins among the profascist literati of the 1930s reveal a dark political patrimony. The unspoken affinities between Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism constitute the guiding thread of Wolin's suggestive narrative. In their mutual hostility toward reason and democracy, postmodernists and the advocates of Counter-Enlightenment betray a telltale strategic alliance--they cohabit the fraught terrain where far left and far right intersect. Those who take Wolin's conclusions to heart will never view the history of modern thought in quite the same way.

Table of Contents:
Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii A Note on Giorgio de Chirico's "Song of Love" xx INTRODUCTION: Answer to the Question: What Is Counter-Enlightenment? 1 PART I. THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY REVISITED 1. Zarathustra Goes to Hollywood: On the Postmodern Reception of Nietzsche 27 2. Prometheus Unhinged: C. G. Jung and the Temptations of Aryan Religion 63 3. Fascism and Hermeneutics: Gadamer and the Ambiguities of "Inner Emigration" 89 POLITICAL EXCURSUS I: Incertitudes Allemandes: Reflections on the German New Right 129 PART II. FRENCH LESSONS 4. Left Fascism: Georges Bataille and the German Ideology 153 5. Maurice Blanchot: The Use and Abuse of Silence 187 6. Down by Law: Deconstruction and the Problem of Justice 220 POLITICAL EXCURSES II: Designer Fascism: On the Ideology of the French New Right 256 CONCLUSION: "Site of Catastrophe": The Image of America in Modern Thought 278 Notes 315 Index 369

About the Author :
Richard Wolin is Distinguished Professor of History and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His books, which have been translated into eight languages, include "Heidegger's Children" (Princeton) and "Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption". His work has also appeared in "The New Republic" and "Dissent".

Review :
"The Seduction of Unreason is a wide-ranging yet subtle consideration of the intellectual's abiding fascination with absolutism, and as such it is a perceptive, compelling and invaluable document. His indignation at the folly and perversity of so many major European thinkers is wholly justified and peculiarly invigorating."--John Banville, The Irish Times "[A] lively, learned, and wide-ranging work... Wolin's subjects have exercised a remarkable impact on certain academic and cultural fields in the U.S. in the last several decades."--Choice "For anyone who has passed through the academic humanities in the last quarter-century and has been exposed to the dubious legacy of postmodernism, The Seduction of Unreason is an indispensable book. It is another important installment in what has become one of the major intellectual enterprises of our time: Richard Wolin's principled defense of liberalism against its most sophisticated enemies."--Adam Kirsch, New York Sun "In this impressive book Wolin does for the Left what Bloom did for the Right; he makes a powerful case for a return to moral seriousness."--Daniel P. Murphy, Magill's Literary Annual 2005 "The topic of Richard Wolin's book is the nexus between postmodernism and politics... Wolin's book raises the right questions at the right time. He forces us to think critically about the deepest philosophical underpinnings of our moral and political ideals. We simply cannot rest content with an unmeasured assault on reason."--Andy Wallace,Ethics "This author's excellent study provides the reader with an informed survey of some of the more important intellectual trends of the twentieth century, employing the writings of a selection of Europe's avant-garde authors."--A. James Gregor, The Historian "Wolin's book will provide much food for thought for the disinterested reader and a veritable feast for critical self-reflection for the post-modern thinker--especially the North American academic who hasn't done his or her genealogical homework."--Jeff Mitscherling, European Legacy