Heideggers Heritage: Philosophy, Anti-Modernism and Cultural Pessimism

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understanding how Heidegger, as was his wont, absorbs various images, themes and
metaphors from his background influences but deploys them in rather new and unique
ways. And, indeed, Zimmerman himself points to many of the similarities which we
examine in the course of our own investigation of Man and Technics below. One has to
wonder then about the interpretative choices that Zimmerman makes in framing this
discussion of the influence of Spengler on Heideggers thinking; he wants to suggest
that there are deep-seated affinities (that Heidegger himself acknowledges as much)
along with a few disclaimers to the effect that Heidegger was critical of Spenglers biologistic conception of history; he then proceeds to elaborate on the similarities of their
descriptions of the technological age: Despite his critique of Spengler, Heidegger was
much indebted to his interpretation of modern technology.22 Ultimately then, while the
surface similarities between Heideggers descriptions of modern, industrial technology
and mass society and Spenglers descriptions in Man and Technics are evident, the
context within which Zimmerman presents these similarities is misleading and obfuscatory. It would be more accurate to say that despite their deep-seated, irreconcilable
philosophical differences, there are nonetheless a series of images, themes and motifs
concerning technology and mass society which both Heidegger and Spengler share.
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In The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger offers an extremely brief
overview of the contemporary situation, popularly understood, that is, mediated
through the views of four influential figures: Spengler, Klages, Scheler and Ziegler.
Heidegger essentially conflates the positions of all four as, ultimately, dependent on a
fundamental opposition between life (soul) and spirit. Heidegger is quick to point out
that his account of these figures is not in any way philosophically sufficient; that is,
his account does not pretend to comprehensively undermine these positions theoretically. What interests Heidegger is how these positions have been mediated for popular
culture through a kind of high journalism. And, when one looks at the readymade,
popular understandings of these figures, Heidegger suggests that one finds a juxtaposition or tension between life and spirit at work in all of them. That is not to say
that Heidegger does not have serious reservations concerning, for example, Spengler;
rather, what interests Heidegger for the time being is the popular reception, if you like,
of figures such as Spengler which he believes is symptomatic of a certain residual effect
of Nietzsches thought the opposition between the Dionysian and the Apollonian:
in Nietzsche an opposition was alive that in no way came to light in the four interpretations provided of our situation, but merely had a residual effect as material
passed on, as a literary form.23

Heidegger does not wish to suggest that the four interpretations are thereby rendered
useless; rather he is looking for the site where a confrontation proper with the four
interpretations can take place:
We know only that Nietzsche is the source of the interpretations we have
mentioned. We are not saying this in order to accuse these interpretations of being