{"id":3612,"date":"2015-11-10T14:06:41","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T19:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/?p=3612"},"modified":"2017-05-09T13:59:52","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T17:59:52","slug":"everyday-revolutions-anna-verena-nosthoff-on-agnes-heller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/2015\/11\/10\/everyday-revolutions-anna-verena-nosthoff-on-agnes-heller\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEveryday Revolutions\u201d: Anna-Verena Nosthoff on Agnes Heller"},"content":{"rendered":"

The encounter with Agnes Heller at the 2014 Democracy & Diversity Institute<\/em> in Wroclaw\u00a0and in her class on\u00a0\u201cThe World of Prejudice\u201d, inspired TCDS alumna Anna-Verena Nosthoff to write\u00a0a portrait of the esteemed Hungarian philosopher.<\/strong><\/p>\n

[wooslider slide_page=”agnes-heller” slider_type=”slides” limit=”6″ thumbnails=”default” order=”DESC” order_by=”menu_order”]<\/p>\n

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\u201cI felt that I had a debt to pay as a survivor. Writing moral philosophy and philosophy of history for me then became a way to pay my debt as a survivor to the people who could not survive. \u00a0So in this respect my philosophy became a sacrifice but a sacrifice which I enjoyed. And this is not contradictory, I can sincerely say that my whole life became a sacrifice to pay my debt and simultaneously I enjoyed writing philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u00c1gnes Heller[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Everyday Revolutions<\/strong><\/big><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>A Portrait of <\/strong>\u00c1<\/strong>gnes Heller<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>by Anna-Verena Nosthoff<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00c1<\/strong>gnes Heller says she has four identities: she is a Hungarian patriot, a Hungarian Jew, a woman, and a philosopher. Thinking, for her, is the continuation of acting by other means. This is a short portrait of a truth-seeking revolutionary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Funes possesses a perfect memory. No wonder, no childhood.<\/p>\n

The forms of the southern clouds at the dawn of April 30th, 1882, are comparable to those mottled streaks on this one book he had only seen once (a Spanish edition). Following the Naturalis Historia, <\/em>he recounts exactly four historically exemplary cases of prodigious memory: Cyrus, first, Mithridates Eupator, second, Simonides third, Metrodorus fourth. For him, this is all bare retrieval of factual knowledge; he never has to actually pursue thoughts. He is number five, he is Ireneo Funes.[ii]<\/a> Zarathustra having become \u00dcbermensch.<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\u2014Poland in early summer 2014. Mosquitoes dominate the stuffy green of Wroclaw\u2019s Juliusza S\u0142owackiego Park; somewhere, in its very midst: philosophy[iii]<\/a>. Slight coldness surrounds the seminar room; an almost imperceptible air conditioning hums a constant hum. As usual, \u00c1gnes Heller is accompanied by her light sun hat. She lays it on the table, right next to it the calmness of the hands of a philosopher.<\/p>\n

The story of Funes seemingly occupies her mind. She admires the true fictions of his literary creator\u2014not least because they touch on moral dilemmas. By the time Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges invented Funes\u2019 impeccable memory (1942), she was a child of thirteen. Today, being a grown-up philosopher, the Hungarian Jew has enough reasons to question the desirability of a mechanical memory.<\/p>\n

Of course, memory capacity is indispensable to life. Heller has radical skepticism about her own capacity for remembering; she rather trusts in the durability of the letters in her diaries. However, it is not without cause that Borges writes how Funes had little talent for actual, reflective thinking: \u201cTo think is to forget differences, generalize, make abstractions. In the teeming world of Funes, there were only details, almost immediate in their presence.\u201d[iv]<\/a><\/p>\n

Details of a complete lifetime. For Funes, this means that everything will always be available, each fragment of a moment, never again only a slightest loss of time. In turn, surely, this makes any search of time superfluous. By possessing full, radical, and relentless transparency, one would probably win less than one would lose; Heller seems aware of this. The last thing she would want to do is simply juxtaposing Funes\u2019 associations with a composition of recurring Madeleine moments. Lime-tree-blossom tea, Combray\u2014nothing but a beautiful Proustian fiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout having gone through hell, you can never get to paradise,\u201d[v]<\/a> she once said. Each of us knows that she survived the Holocaust and that she lost most of her family in Nazi concentration camps. The question regarding Funes\u2019 memory resides somewhere in the room; pending answers remain quiet. Silence. She wants us to think for ourselves.<\/p>\n

When Heller strings together nets of associations and thoughts, she follows a peculiar consistency, which is far from formal logic. \u201cA good philosopher,\u201d she says, \u201cmust be like a child,\u201d daring to ask \u201cnaive questions\u201d because it is these that constitute his or her essential breeding ground.[vi]<\/a> She shares this reflexive turn to childhood with early Frankfurt School-thinkers such as Adorno, or Ernst Bloch, or with the German filmmaker Alexander Kluge, who was once a student of Adorno. In the seminar room, it so happens that honest candor makes her clap her hands\u2014not infrequently; one senses an always-fleeting splendor of childlike enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Discussions with \u00c1gnes Heller are friendly. The seminar is deprived of battles in which the force of the better argument necessarily excludes others. We read English dramatists and female political theorists, while abstaining from Nazi jurists; Shakespeare and Arendt take Schmitt\u2019s place this time. Rigorous categorization is considered per se immoral, no need for friend-enemy-distinctions. This here is philosophy that touches the political on a different basis.<\/p>\n

Heller\u2019s critical mind is always influenced by realpolitik; constantly aware of detecting dangerous tendencies. Unafraid of telling political truths, she is banned from speaking on Hungarian television. However, she cares little about this \u2014for the TV ban is just another significant confirmation of her own criticism of the Hungarian government system, primarily directed against the right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n. Orb\u00e1n\u2019s formal bourgeois party, Fidesz, held a two-thirds majority in Parliament until recently, which allowed Fidesz to build up a new media regulatory authority, Nemzeti MEDIA \u00e9s <\/em>H\u00edrk\u00f6zl\u00e9si Hat\u00f3s\u00e1g <\/em>(NMHH) via constitutional amendments by the end of 2010. Since then, not only public but also private media and the internet have been consistently monitored for \u201cbalanced content\u201d and for \u201crelevance to the citizens of Hungary,\u201d amongst other subtle \u201csoft-censorship\u201d strategies[vii]<\/a>. If NMHH disapproves of content, they sanction with fines up to 928,000$.[viii]<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2010, more than 1000 employees forcibly lost their jobs, especially those who had protested. One exemplary case is Attila Mong, who was fired for having interrupted Kossuth R\u00e1di\u00f3\u2019s program with a minute of silence to protest against government sanctions.[ix]<\/a> Given these circumstances, Heller finds it absolutely absurd to still refer to Hungary as a \u201cdemocracy.\u201d She says this with obvious disdain. What she benefits from in dire times as these is her immense political and satirical repertoire, for example, when she talks about the national conservative government and jokingly refers to their inhuman and non-human qualities: \u201cThey\u2019re like parrots\u2014constantly repeating themselves. We cannot tolerate it if neither public speech nor freedom of opinion exist.\u201d[x]<\/a><\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n has spent more than half of his life in the spheres of public policy. He wears his suits with a sense of masculine pride, encompassed by an autocratic aura of efficient pragmatism. Machiavelli would have probably circumscribed Orb\u00e1n\u2019s clever state steering with virt\u00f9; for the author of The Prince<\/em>, however, this would have had little to do with morality (this arguably holds at least for The Prince, <\/em>if not so much for his Discorsi<\/em>). Florence had left behind, at least partly, those democratic practices that had dominated the Greek polis. In contrast, Heller loves to quote the ancient Greeks deliberatively; her wisdom goes way beyond princely efficiency-thinking for the sake of maximizing long-term power. She clearly has meticulously read Machiavelli\u2019s writings; thus, she notes that Orb\u00e1n\u2019s strategy differs from \u201cMachiavellianism\u201d[xi]<\/a> in a crucial point: \u201cA Machiavellian would pretend that he is a peaceful man who wants to cooperate with the EU. And then do the opposite. In contrast, Orb\u00e1n proclaims his goals openly.\u201d[xii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, many call him \u201cPuszta-Putin,\u201d drawing parallels to alleged territorial expansion fantasies of the Russian President. However, it is subject to debate whether Putin\u2019s staged masculinity entirely corresponds to buttoned-shirt wearing Orb\u00e1n. At least, Hungary is still a land without propaganda bodies on superb horses. Beyond the Siberian tundra, however, Orb\u00e1n and Putin are not entirely dissimilar: Heller is convinced that \u201cOrb\u00e1n is a dictator,\u201d though she does not conceive of Hungary as a dictatorship. After all, there is an opposition\u2014at the very least, on the streets of Budapest.<\/p>\n

Yet in 2010 Orb\u00e1n publicly proclaimed that \u201cdemocracy in Hungary was not in danger.\u201d Nevertheless, even then, the alarming omnipresence of nationalist symbols on walls and on \u201cnational taxis\u201d were hard to ignore, such as pictures of the former monarchy Kingdom of Hungary (existing from the Middle Ages until 1946) adorning driver\u2019s doors, side mirrors, and taxi lights. Some believe that they still owe their ancestors a proper fight for \u201cHungarianism\u201d aimed at reconciling ethnic boundaries with state borders. Of course Orb\u00e1n knew about all of this, yet cared little: His sole reaction consisted in a trivial reference to alleged \u201cnormality\u201d: \u201cIn all democracies, there are ten to fifteen percent extremist forces.\u201d That this was a radical and indeed dangerous understatement became obvious with the emergence of the motorcycle club called \u201cGoi\u201d; this Hebrew term means \u201cnon-Jew.\u201d On Holocaust Memorial Day in 2013, Goi planned a motorcycle \u201ccounter-rally\u201d as they called it, which lead past a synagogue. Its self-declared motto was: adj g\u00e1zt \u2013 \u201cstep on it!\u201d In Hungarian, however, this has a perverse double connotation: it literally translates to \u201cgive [adj] gas[g\u00e1zt]!,\u201d carrying an obvious allusion to the Nazi-gas-mass-murders.<\/p>\n

When Heller returned to Hungary a few months earlier, one of the first things she realized was: \u201cLiberal<\/em> is a dirtier word here than Nazi or communist.\u201d[xiii]<\/a> Moreover, she recognized that \u201cOrb\u00e1n says he defends all minorities, including the Jews. So, for the Jews this literally means we are not Hungarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of his opponents accuse Orb\u00e1n of actively contributing to political radicalization of daily life. This is exemplified by Jobbik, the third largest party in parliament since 2010. Some members of the Jobbik party advocate for the introduction of \u201cJew lists\u201d; they consider \u201ctrue\u201d Hungarians to be a \u201csuperior race.\u201d In 2014, they held 20.5 percent of the votes in the parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n tolerated most of this, in fact he used Jobbik\u2019s popularity for his own political purposes. Yet Heller claims: \u201cThe relation between Fidesz and Jobbik changes. When Orb\u00e1n intended to reach far-right voters, he approached Jobbik. When he needed to make a good impression in front of the EU, he distanced himself from Jobbik.\u201d She points out that the party has radicalized; last year, Jobbik spoke in favor of reintroducing the death penalty and exiting the EU. Seemingly, this agenda is too radical even for Fidesz, which recently tried to distance itself from Jobbik. Yet, Fidesz lost around 8% in the last parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Jobbik could benefit from modifying its far-right image to a rather moderate direction. As a result, many voters do not view Jobbik as radical anymore. Nevertheless, Jobbik had countless corruption scandals just recently. In addition, \u201cpoliticians\u201d such as Lajos Rig who reportedly wears a tattoo featuring the motto of the Nazi SS, \u201dMeine Ehre hei\u00dft Treue\u201d<\/em> (My honor is called loyalty) remain in the party\u2019s infamous ranks[xiv]<\/a>. Even if Jobbik’s leader Gabor Vona is believed to indend to push out Jobbik\u2019s extremist elements, he has seemingly not managed to fundamentally change the membership-structure so far.[xv]<\/a><\/p>\n

Heller offers many reasons for the political developments of recent years, but above all, she believes that Hungarian voters are \u201cimmature.\u201d Heller maintains that the central problem is that Hungary lacks democratic traditions and has suffered an \u201cunfortunate history.\u201d The philosopher is convinced that the first step to maturity is for the country to develop a democratic will to learn its own mode of articulation, before it can utter specific content. Thus, much depends on learning how to act politically. Moreover, as Heller points out, it is vital that Hungary finds a voice, which finally manages to emancipate itself from its former invaders (the Germans and the Soviets). The danger, of course, is that this turns into an unconscious and maybe even traumatic form of nationalism.<\/p>\n

Much of this, then, depends on lengthy processes and gently pacing the process; sometimes it might even involve slow failures. Yet, Heller approves of this; for her, democracy can only sneak in at a \u201csnail\u2019s pace,\u201d especially if it seeks to be a counterpoint to loud fascism that only calls for homogeneity. By contrast, Heller resists \u2013isms that try to subsume politically heterogeneous realities under a single term on the grounds of a limited party doctrine, thus criticizing populist ideas of bipolar societies, allegedly divided into \u201ccommunists\u201d versus \u201cfascists\u201d; left versus right. For Heller, this has little if nothing to do with democracy, or what she thinks of as true democracy. True democracy ought not to know resentment, not even when faced with the fate of an utterly oppressive and exclusionary history.<\/p>\n

Heller is well-known for being the most popular regime critic. Recently, Budapest has seen a few disturbing incidences of graffiti and anti-Semitic slogans that explicitly refer to her. It would be entirely understandable if the 85-year-old felt threatened. Yet, what has to be taken into account is Heller\u2019s own historical narrative that consistently forced her into opposition, forcibly assigning to her the role of an outsider. Thus, she is too smart and experienced to admit fear now. She understands that this would only prove right the cowardice of her opponents; this is all too familiar to her: a seemingly never ending political game with truths and untruths, with propaganda and ideology. While she always lives conscious of the general assumption \u201cthat people will hate me too,\u201d she knows at what point public defamation becomes really dangerous. Rather than admitting fear, her strategy is to show strength by referring to the powerful commitments of her supporters: \u201cMany people speak to me on the tram and say I love you, please keep on doing what you do<\/em>.\u201d She says it in German (\u201cIch liebe dich, mach weiter, was du machst\u201d), addressing an Austrian audience.[xvi]<\/a> One senses that this is no exaggeration, but part of her everyday reality and microphysical, everyday revolution.<\/p>\n

Her very personal shield is humor. Trying to illustrate the extent of \u201cHungarianisation\u201d in its everyday absurdity she claims: \u201cEvery word is inspired by this \u2018Hungarianism\u2019.\u201d People have become accustomed to \u201csitting in Hungarian<\/em> rooms and drinking Hungarian<\/em> water, while reading Hungarian<\/em> books and talking to Hungarian<\/em> people; they even wear Hungarian<\/em> glasses.\u201d She repeats the term \u201cHungarian\u201d almost ad infinitum, yet in its obvious absurdity one senses that this, too, is an authentic fragment of her daily life.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Orb\u00e1n likes to conjure a \u201cspiritual energy of national culture\u201d. He speaks of authentic roots and the family, drawing rhetorical pictures of \u201cthe homeland,\u201d thus striving to satisfy a longing for nationhood. What Heller has satirized so aptly, sounds frighteningly exclusive in Orb\u00e1n\u2019s very own, idiosyncratic (quasi-Orwellian) Newspeak: \u201cWith Hungarian eyes and a Hungarian way of thinking, following the Hungarian heartbeat, we alone are authors of our constitution.\u201d Orb\u00e1n incorporates a self-declared savior of the nation, thereby emphatically placing Schmitt\u2019s decisionism into concrete practice (and he does so with an obsession close to Schmitt\u2019s permanent insistence on \u201cdie konkrete M\u00f6glichkeit zur Unterscheidung<\/em>\u201d, depicted so nicely by Derrida).[xvii]<\/a> Orb\u00e1n sees enemies both within and outside of the state. For Orb\u00e1n, Heller is clearly a concrete enemy. (Or: Feindin<\/em>, as Schmitt would have written had he cared about gender-sensitive terminology.[xviii]<\/a>)<\/p>\n

For Heller, what is truly democratic, above all, is philosophy itself, as it begins in wonder – what the Greeks called taumadzein<\/em>. In Heller\u2019s terms, however, what Plato referred to as an \u201cattitude of the man\u201d can only lead to truth beyond a pre-established prejudice. She knows too well how the history of philosophy in many parts was a grand narrative that men have written for men. Heller also knows that this is some sort of tautological terror embedded in an almost unbreakable circulus virtiosis<\/em>. Indeed, ink-soaked feathers have all too often managed to pave exclusive ways of thinking, whilst heavy stones have erected immovable edifices, in which many still follow.<\/p>\n

Heller, however, does not wish to pettifog over feminist issues (it is worth mentioning that she does not consider herself a \u201cfeminist\u201d since it involves an \u2013ism, which she rejects as indicated earlier). For her, feminism, at its most basic, is about the acceptance of gender equality; the acceptance of the doctrine that women are equally as capable as men – in particular, that women are capable of using their reason. For Heller, reason and emotion are not necessarily diametrically opposed or mutually exclusive. Rather, her philosophy is based on a straightforward modification of Kant\u2019s radical dichotomy between reason (and, with it, morality and the a priori moral law [Sittengesetz]<\/em>) and sense inclinations. As is well known, the eternal K\u00f6nigsberger held that an act committed out of a sense of pity, compassion, or sympathy was immoral, as was any action sufficiently motivated by sense inclinations (Triebkr\u00e4fte)<\/em>. Heller disagrees, thus reconceptualizing the Kantian heritage of the Enlightenment in some sense. For her, judgment also means empathy; in fact, it requires empathy. Only then can it challenge one-sided, entirely outer worldly and radically abstract ways of thinking.<\/p>\n

To be sure, regarding feminism and its historical emancipatory project, Heller knows how mere insights into an alleged universal truth\u2014that is, \u201cequality,\u201d and the right to equality as well as positive and negative freedom\u2014need not necessarily bring about change on a (real-)political scale. To remind us all, it just took Robespierre two years to put Olympe de Gouges to death on the scaring scaffold of the guillotine after the female author wrote Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen <\/em>in 1791. All of this was rhetorically legitimized as \u201cvirtue\u201d in Robespierre\u2019s very own sense.<\/p>\n

Gouges was already endued with what Heller would later refer to as \u201cattitude.\u201d She challenges Robespierre\u2019s almighty \u201cfraternit\u00e9\u201d with a slight yet significant modification: \u201cLes m\u00e8res, les filles, les soeurs, representantes de la nation\u201d<\/em> \u2013 \u201cWe mothers, daughters, sisters, representatives of the nation.\u201d Implicitly taking into account Gouges and countless lesser-known examples, Heller\u2019s writings are aware of the necessity of formal, legally embedded, and politically practiced equality; in a sense, they are responses to Gouges\u2019 Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, <\/em>which had been written yet never adequately recognized. Besides highlighting the necessity for appropriate juridical and political frameworks to guarantee equality, Heller\u2019s writings also stress the need for one\u2019s own emancipatory will. Emancipation is also about autonomy, about the relation between autos<\/em> and nomos<\/em>, law and self; it must start from autonom\u00eda<\/em> as self-legislation. Thus, Heller consciously speaks of the fact that the woman must \u201cequalize\u201d herself\u2014i.e., in an explicit, active sense.<\/p>\n

In this sense, actualized equality is dependent on a minimum amount of self-achievement. This is what Heller fights for, and why she constructs her own fundamental thoughts unlike most (male) philosophers. Less deductively-analytical, she relies on fewer systems; her thinking grows organically and in correspondence with her life experiences. Moreover, Heller always seems aware of the presence of phenomena over \u201cwhich the thinking being properly has no power,\u201d[xix]<\/a> as Adorno once stated during a lecture in Frankfurt.<\/p>\n

Thus, it is not without reason that Heller responds to the question of philosophical influences with the name of two women. Maybe she does so because of what Rousseau, Hegel, and Plato wrote about women. Most of all, she does so as she finds both women to be peculiarly wise\u2014irrespective of the gender debate. First, there is her grandmother, Sophie Meller, who Heller refers to as a \u201crebel\u201d and \u201crevolutionary.\u201d Her grandmother was a \u201crebel\u201d because she wanted to be a teacher in Vienna during the 19th century, and a \u201crevolutionary\u201d as she actually succeeded in realizing this ambitious dream after she was awarded her university degree.<\/p>\n

What Heller finds most fascinating regarding her grandmother\u2019s character is that she managed to realize a plan that was not actually part of the historical realities of that time. From the beginning, Sophie\u2019s wish sprang from mere, mental solitude. There were no exemplary role models her grandmother could rely on\u2014many of her sisters had married, thereby imposing upon themselves a corset that matched the more \u201cappropriate\u201d allocation of gender roles. Thus, at a time when the emancipation process was still searching for a manner in which to express itself, Sophie had already aspired to become an intellectual. Heller would say, her early desire was somehow existent in what she terms the space of \u201cSein-Sollenden<\/em>\u201d[xx]<\/a>, which for her is a space of obligation, which negotiates between is<\/em> and ought<\/em>. Indeed in Austria, such an abysmal gap between is<\/em> and ought<\/em>, in which so many impossible wishes for emancipation dwelled, remained predominant at least until the 1920s. It was only then that Article 7 of the Austrian Federal Constitution Act<\/em> claimed at least formal validity for the right to equality. The establishment of the first Viennese Women\u2019s Association and the Prater uprising of the female navies had already occurred 50 years earlier.<\/p>\n

Today, when Heller remembers Sophie, she leafs through a mental photo album of memories to admire her grandmother. She does this with a precision that can rival Funes\u2019 skills, yet she goes beyond his capacities, as she excels the art of reflexive, emphatic abstraction. She will see Sophie in her entirety, even if she writes that she is unable to draw an adequate picture of her, as one would need Goethe\u2019s genius to do so. Nonetheless, she speaks about Sophie, claiming that she had always wanted to build her own life, how she aspired to live from her own work, how she sought to raise her own children; Heller says her grandmother was \u201ca very strong woman, who respected strength in women.\u201d[xxi]<\/a><\/p>\n

It was not easy for Sophie; she was one of the first women to officially enroll at the University of Vienna. Of course she felt alienated and she surely experienced discrimination. In the lecture room she remained hidden behind a partition, so that her physical presence always remained some sort of a bodily signifier pointing to actual unwantedness. Her invisible body thus constituted an impossible image, an image representative of isolated aspirations for freedom and equality; for truly universal justice.<\/p>\n

When she found herself in this situation, Sophie\u2019s first affective wish was to escape. However, the exams came around at a much faster pace than the constant humiliations, which urged her feet to run. The pre-exam period marked a small-scale turning point at which male classmates suddenly consulted her. They asked her questions about the exam. As Heller remembers: \u201cMy grandmother was a very wise woman.\u201d[xxii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Heller is not Goethe, yet Sophie\u2019s story and the way she tells it touches upon a truth that goes beyond a naturalistic image. Watching Heller encounter Sophie in her memories offers an insight into \u200b\u200bwhat autonom\u00eda \u2013 <\/em>the relation between autos <\/em>and nomos<\/em> \u2013can and should be in praxis. Most certainly, Sophie had a lasting influence on Heller\u2019s philosophy; on the image, form, and dimension of what would later become her very own life. One can hear a constant echo of Sophie\u2019s own life history in Heller\u2019s words, especially when she speaks about herself in retrospect: \u201cI never wanted to be beautiful, but smart. Beauty is dangerous; wisdom good.\u201d[xxiii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Like Gouges, Sophie was endued with what will later be found in Heller\u2019s overall ethical project: \u201cattitude,\u201d \u201cpersonality,\u201d and \u201ccharacter.\u201d In Philosophy of Left-Wing Radicalism<\/em>, she writes about the inseparability between thought and life: \u201cThe respective categorical imperative of the philosopher is: Act according to your own theory!\u201d An un-experienced philosophy is inauthentic. \u201cPhilosophy is acting, acting is philosophy: Deed is an argument.\u201d[xxiv]<\/a><\/p>\n

The second authentic role model in her life is her aunt R\u00f3zsi Meller, an early female intellectual and writer. And of course, there was her mother, who\u2014although adopting a traditional role\u2014never stood in drastic contrast to R\u00f3zsi\u2019s early emancipation. Heller\u2019s mother was also a great source of inspiration; perhaps her mother sought a different form of emancipation, a rather silent, tacit form\u2014far from the public. Heller says: \u201cIt is a stupid thing to say that we are born free. We are dependent on our mother\u2019s love.\u201d[xxv]<\/a> What she recalls in particular are long walks with her mother. Heller also remembers that she would ask her mother question after question, and how she would not always receive immediate answers. Her mother would often say: \u201cNo, not now, I am thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Heller adopts the practice of walking and simultaneous thinking\u2014or, wandering as she calls it. She will quote Novalis from the Fragments<\/em>: \u201cPhilosophy is really homesickness, it is the urge to be everywhere at home.\u201d[xxvi]<\/a> However she is not a flaneur<\/em> in the classic sense, as she does not waste time becoming involved in social spectacles while strolling; rather, she walks for hours thinking about ethics. While doing so, she might recall Heideggerian thrownness, the sense of being-in-the-world <\/em>without there being a possibility to have ever actively chosen one\u2019s own place\u2014a sense of being forced to be-there. Thus, she comes to learn that Heidegger discovered a strange truth in his quest for Sein<\/em> and the need for an existential analytic – yet she believes that he is still not entirely correct. The loneliness of a black forest farm house risks reinforcing the tacit wish of a probably all-too-classic male philosopher to squint at a hypothetical philosopher king post. She writes: \u201cI understood from Heidegger\u2019s work (not without any justification) that one should leave everydayness behind in order to be authentic. My whole self (including my female one) protested vehemently against this conception. One of the main messages of the first part of Everyday Life, <\/em>I formulated as an answer to Heidegger\u2019s claim. According to my alternative suggestion, a person\u2019s authenticity does not depend on leaving everydayness behind, but on her relation to her world and to herself.\u201d[xxvii]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>In contrast to Heidegger thus, Heller holds that thinking which is insensitive to time\u2019s actual (which also means, political and social) being is immoral. Morality also implies the necessity of a form of expression, or forms of practice, and in that sense it might not be too surprising that wandering is one of the few constants in her life; indeed her \u201cform of life\u201d[xxviii]<\/a>\u2014her form of interaction with the world. Yet, it took her a while to become a cosmopolitan life-traveler, or an actual citizen of the world (in the literal Greek sense of kosmopolit\u00eas)<\/em>: \u201cIt occurs to me that I had to grow old for the great dream of my childhood to come true. When I was nine, or ten, under the influence of travel diaries, I decided to become a “world traveler” when I grew up.\u201d[xxix]<\/a><\/p>\n

At the age of nine or ten, she dreamt ambitious dreams; at the time, she had already been radically excluded, with the situation of the Jews in Hungary having already been precarious for a long time: A so-called \u201cnumerus clausus law\u201d determined how many Jews were allowed to study at university\u2014at that time; it was no more than five percent. When Heller was born in 1929, the situation had calmed down briefly, for two rabbis had been appointed to the Upper House of Parliament; however, it did not take long before anti-Jewish tendencies intensified and were institutionalized under the influence of the German National Socialists. By the end of the 1930s, Hungary saw its first \u201cJewish laws.\u201d Faced with a fatal situation, her father told Heller to learn a craft, although he had always wished for her to once become a philosopher or a composer, \u201cbecause this is the most absurd for a girl, and I want you to be the most absurd.\u201d[xxx]<\/a><\/p>\n

A little later those who considered themselves omnipotent makers of history rushed in. Heller was fortunate to escape fascism. Her father and numerous relatives were murdered in concentration camps. While in Auschwitz, her father continued to write to her. In his testament, he wrote to \u00c1gnes how he had not lost faith, despite the circumstances. He wrote that Good will prevail despite the fact that evil had triumphed. Her father also wrote that every good person could contribute to the victory of the Good: \u201cMy dear daughter Agi, if you think of me, you should remember that if you choose the path of love, your life will be outbalanced and harmonious; you only need a little greater share of luck than had been allotted to your father (…).\u201d[xxxi]<\/p>\n

Soviet terror followed Nazi terror. Heller studied chemistry and physics before she occupied herself with the dialectical philosophy of Georg Luk\u00e1cs, whose monumental History and Class Consciousness<\/em> set the most important foundations of Neo-Marxism at that time. Arguably, choosing philosophy was Heller\u2019s first existential<\/em> decision. This time she was able to choose her own fate, and she chose to reside and dwell in thinking, while the decision manifested that\u2014as a thinker of the act\u2014she had actively found thinking while having found herself\u2014her personality\u2014in active thinking.<\/p>\n

Simply yet aptly, she writes: \u201cPhilosophy is thinking.\u201d[xxxii]<\/a> This juxtaposition has far-reaching consequences for a concrete, philosophical praxis; it implies a need to constantly attempt to advance to the peripheral edges of a text, it requires effort to think about thinking itself, to permanently cross arbitrary borders. This task, which, again, involves both thinking and acting, or, an active thinking or a thoughtful (self-reflective) action, is based on an imperative: \u201cThink about how to think, think about how to act, think about how to live.\u201d[xxxiii]<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1955, she earned her doctorate under Luk\u00e1cs, and became his research assistant and a member of the Communist Party. During this time, the hope to find real, existing socialism without totalitarian elements never waned. This continued with a manifest belief in the ability to grasp and, consequently, to realize a classless society – that is, without the allegedly \u201cnecessary\u201d intermediate step of \u201cdictatorship of the proletariat.\u201d However, during that time, Heller always remained skeptical, arguing on the grounds of her very own, idiosyncratic, and down-to-earth pathos of distance, informed by ethical concerns. It seems consequential that she never responded to Luk\u00e1cs\u2019 request to write a treatise on Lenin\u2019s ethics. Although she adopted his materialism in the early years, she wrote: I already knew that \u201cLenin had no ethics.\u201d[xxxiv]<\/a><\/p>\n

1956 came, and with it, the Hungarian uprising against Soviet oppression, in which Heller participated emphatically. The uprising was brutally quelled; Heller was fired as a philosophy professor and excluded from the party. She continued her resistance though, and signed a resolution against Soviet invasion even after the end of the Prague Spring<\/em>; what she had to accept in turn was to lose her job at the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences<\/em>. In addition, what she needed to face from now on, was a public speaking ban within the socialist bloc.<\/p>\n

Both revolutions urged a renewed, critical interest in Marx. As a consequence, she began thinking through another form of resistance, which she terms a \u201crevolution of everyday life,\u201d a revolution being \u201csuperior to any political revolution.\u201d[xxxv]<\/a> What Heller proposed was a non-violent uprising able to change human behavior and consciousnesses in the long-term, while not remaining particularistic. Heller\u2019s idea of revolution naturally opposed all Soviet-type-systems, including their ideology: \u201cI made a case for a revolution which does not aim at seizing \u2018the\u2019 power, but rather rejects such attempts as counter-productive.\u201d[xxxvi]<\/a> She sought a revolution that abstains from leaving ethics behind when faced with the necessity of pragmatic means-end-considerations.<\/p>\n

Today, she is far from seeking a perfectly just society. This is understandable given her background. She understands the fine line between utopias and ideologies, and she is familiar with houses of cards being built of stone, yet on false foundations. Thus, she understands thinking as an intervention, which infinitely negotiates between is<\/em> and ought<\/em>. Her approach to ethics is linked to a concept of \u201cought\u201d residing on two pillars – the citizen on the one hand and the moral being on the other. Reflecting on ethics, she says: \u201cHappiness is exorbitant in today\u2019s world.\u201d[xxxvii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Listening to Heller, one is reminded of Karola Bloch, who in the 1960s spoke in similar tone after she moved to Germany with her husband Ernst – also a neo-Marxist and friend of Luk\u00e1cs. The Western world\u2019s saturated consumption seemed to be a \u201cvacuum against the fighting spirit\u201d to her\u2014a thoughtless renunciation of the \u201cfight out of love for the human,\u201d[xxxviii]<\/a> which for Karola, always meant life. It is worth noting that her husband had also turned against the communist SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands<\/em>, i.e., the Socialist Unity Party of Germany\u2013\u2013the governing Marxist\u2013Leninist<\/a> party of the German Democratic Republic<\/a> from 1946 until 1989) regime subsequent to the Hungarian popular uprising; he held a lecture titled \u201cProblems of the development of Marxism after Marx\u201d (\u201cProbleme der Fortentwicklung des Marxismus nach Marx<\/em>\u201d). One is also reminded of Adorno\u2014again\u2014to quote him once more: \u201cIt is no longer possible to live privately in the right manner\u201d (\u201cEs l\u00e4\u00dft sich privat nicht mehr richtig leben<\/em>\u201d).[xxxix]<\/a><\/p>\n

Arguably, Heller fights in a similar manner and for equal purposes. She does so because she knows that the history of real socialism is still far from covering the intellectual breadth of a possible non-totalitarian Marxism. Each of her sentences seem to say that as long as there is injustice, the struggle is not yet over, and for that time, the struggle has to remain. Regarding Luk\u00e1cs, she says: \u201cFor the young Luk\u00e1cs there is only one, \u2018either-or \u2019: There are those fighting for the truth and those who do not.\u201d[xl]<\/a><\/p>\n

She continues her own fight under publication and speech bans – out of love for the human. Eventually, she received an unexpected appointment offer from La Trobe University <\/em>in Melbourne. She moved to Australia before she became the successor of Hannah Arendt at the New School for Social Research in New York in 1986. Even if Heller prefers not to be compared to Arendt in certain respects, (\u201cwhen the romance between Heidegger and Arendt was discovered, (…) analogical thinking suspected that something similar had been the case between Luk\u00e1cs and myself\u201d[xli]<\/a>\u2014these were ill-founded rumours), it is worthwhile to open a short philosophical dialogue between them. For, the ethico-moral question that Heller poses\u2013following her own experiences with totalitarian regimes\u2013is rather close to Arendt\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n

Heller asks: How are good human beings even possible? Good human beings, she says, have always existed and will always exist. It is a sign of her unbroken faith and never completely dried-up basic trust in the potential for authentic human existence that she always takes its mere possibility as given. Arendt, in a quite similar sense, challenged Heidegger\u2019s continued insistence on being-towards-death <\/em>as authentic being\u2019s most originary (eigentlich<\/em>) source by revaluating natality as the starting point of an ever-present renegotiation with the world. Similar to Heller, she asked: \u201cWhy is there somebody at all, rather than nobody?\u201d[xlii]<\/a><\/p>\n

The personalized portrait of such a \u201cnobody\u201d has become the almost uncannily popular: Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi mainly responsible for the Hungarian deportations. Eichmann cited the Kantian categorical imperative in an amended, false kitchen formula in his bulletproof glass house to substantiate the directive guiding his \u201coperations.\u201d To Arendt\u2019s account, Eichmann was a ruthless, shameless organizer. Further, it seems true that one can hardly speak of \u201cact\u201d in this context without indirectly affirming a bottomless euphemism.<\/p>\n

Like Arendt, Heller delivers lectures on the subject of evil. It speaks for her that she does not confront Arendt\u2019s controversial term \u201cbanality.\u201d No need for pseudo-debates, Heller is far from being inclined to strive for popularity within academic recognition regimes determined by socio-philosophical capital. Taking this into account, her dictum that only modern genocide was \u201cradical<\/em> evil\u201d (she consciously uses the Kantian term in an analogical sense in this context, opposed to Arendt) seems all the more energetic. Perhaps she knew the full interview Eichmann had given the former SS officer Sassen.[xliii]<\/a> Perhaps she knew that Eichmann presented himself as an \u201cidealist\u201d in it, as one who had thought along, who completely and emphatically supported the Nazi cause, including plans for the \u201cfinal solution.\u201d Reading through the interview, Eichmann seems far from being a \u201cSchreibtischt\u00e4ter<\/em>\u201d, i.e., a bureaucrat. Or, at the very least, Eichmann himself describes his deeds as resulting from both a sense of organization and doing one\u2019s (un-Kantian) \u201cduty\u201d and from ideological anti-Semitism. \u201cYes, I was a cautious bureaucrat,\u201d Eichmann confessed to Sassen, \u201cbut a fanatical fighter joined this cautious bureaucrat, to fight for the freedom of my blood, that I descend from.\u201d[xliv]<\/a><\/p>\n

Maybe evil in the modern age is therefore above all: radical. Heller is convinced that totalitarianism is part of the history of modernity, that genocide is implied therein; if \u201conly in a broader understanding.\u201d \u201cRadical evil,\u201d she writes, \u201chas not disappeared, but has just taken new forms.\u201d[xlv]<\/a> She wrote this in 2010, at a time when evil was everywhere and nowhere, where time appeared to be out of joint, and when an obvious abyss separated is<\/em> from ought<\/em>. In earlier days, Heller cited Novalis in such circumstances, thus writing with even more energetic rigor from the perspective of an infinitely demanding normativity: \u201cIch will, dass die Welt das Zuhause der Menschheit sei\u201d<\/em>[xlvi]<\/a>\u2014 \u201cI want the world to be home of mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heller\u2019s hopes concentrate on finding a potential balance between nihilism and fundamentalism. For her, fragility is an inevitable, basic constant of the human condition\u2014to which she does not respond by proclaiming a radically arbitrary canon of values, but with an old Socratic sentence from Plato\u2019s Gorgias<\/em>: That it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. Anyone who claims not to know this fundamental truth has already given up on humanity.<\/p>\n

Heller calls for an active engagement of the individual with his or her respective, individual self. The existential moment of decision constitutes the heart of her philosophy. Everyone can decide to become a decent human being – a human being not only capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, but also keen on doing right and acting justly; a human being not insensitive to the responsibility for subsequent generations. In this sense, Heller modifies Nietzsche\u2019s often misleadingly transformed and frequently cited \u201cBecome who you are\u201d; she writes both content and time into his words, as she is keen on filling Nietzsche\u2019s blank \u00dcbermensch <\/em>with moral decency. Being human implies finality; it implies humility as well as fallibility. At the same time, humanity is dependent on thought, in specific praxis of reflective thinking, to possibly be more than bare life before the law. Although Heller was not always in entire agreement with Adorno, she knows that for him, \u201cintelligence\u201d is also \u201ca moral category.\u201d[xlvii]<\/a> In the end, only the choice of the single individual – not merely a formal imperative – can ensure that enlightenment does not turn into radical barbarism.<\/p>\n

For Arendt, Heller would have been a somebody; a person who understands that historical events do not tolerate abstractions that ignore potential complicities with totalitarianisms, and concepts merely called universal without actually being universal, are nothing but a blurring of socio-political realities. A person who is aware of the problematic demands imposed by a specific situation upon the moral selves\u2019 ethico-political responsibility can remain unrecognized. Which brings us back to Funes. If thinking really takes place, then it does so somewhere in between abstraction and the individual case, between the universal and the particular.<\/p>\n

As Borges writes: \u201cFunes remembered not only every leaf of every tree of every wood, but also every one of the times he had perceived or imagined it. He decided to reduce each of his past days to some seventy thousand memories, which would then be defined by means of ciphers. He was dissuaded from this by two considerations: his awareness that the task was interminable, his awareness that it was useless. He thought that by the hour of his death he would not even have finished classifying all the memories of his childhood.\u201d[xlviii]<\/a><\/p>\n

The German novelist, Martin Walser, recently wrote about his \u201chabit\u201d to search for traces of childhood in adult\u2019s faces. Walser claims that once his search is successful, he finds an easy emotional access to them.[xlix]<\/a> Borges does not really write about Funes\u2019 face. Sometimes his words come close to Funes\u2019 face, however, they then decide to avert their literary gaze from a detailed description. Funes\u2019 \u201cimmobile and Indian-like\u201d face remains \u201csingularly remote,\u201d in the far distance, behind his cigarette.[l]<\/a> One has reason to believe that there is little in his face that indicates childhood.<\/p>\n

\u00c1gnes Heller\u2019s face does one thing: it invites one to think. The traces of her childhood find one before one has even started actively searching for them.<\/p>\n

**<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Anna-Verena Nosthoff<\/strong> is an alumna of TCDS’s 2014 Democracy & Diversity Institute<\/em> in Wroclaw, where she participated in Agnes Heller\u2019s seminar on \u201cThe World of Prejudice\u201d. This encounter inspired her to write a portrait of the esteemed Hungarian philosopher who is currently Professor Emeritus at The New School for Social Research. She is currently pursuing graduate studies in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Before she studied Political Theory at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.<\/p>\n

You can watch a video of the first session of Agnes Heller\u2019s course on \u201cThe World of Prejudice\u201d here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A shorter German version of this article has appeared in the German online-reportage-magazine, weeklys.eu, <\/em>and on the newly established krautreporter.de<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>The author is thankful to Orsolya Bajusz for helpful advice regarding Hungarian terminology and crucial remarks on the current political situation in Hungary, as well as to Ilona N\u00e9meth for kindly providing a transcription of her interview with \u00c1gnes Heller.<\/p>\n

**<\/strong><\/p>\n

ENDNOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n

[i]<\/a>Cited from Polony, C. (1998), \u201cThe essence is good but all the appearance is evil\u2019: Interview with \u00c1gnes Heller.\u201d Left Curve, <\/em>22.<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> I refer to Jorge Luis Borges\u2019 short story \u201cFunes the Memorious.\u201d Cf. Borges, J.L., \u201cFunes the Memorious,\u201d in: Borges, J.L. (2007), Labyrinths, <\/em>transl. James E. Irby. New York: New Directions, 148\u2013154.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> \u00c1gnes Heller\u2019s seminar \u201cThe World of Prejudice\u201d was part of the 2014 Democracy & Diversity Institute held by TCDS (NSSR) from July 3 – 19, 2014.<\/p>\n

[iv]<\/a>Cf. Borges, Funes, <\/em>154.<\/p>\n

[v]<\/a> Cf., \u201c\u00c1gnes Heller\u2013Ungarn\u2019s Mahnerin,\u201d Bayerischer Rundfunk,<\/em> April 17th, 2014.<\/p>\n

[vi]<\/a> Cf., \u201c\u00c1gnes Heller\u2013Ungarn\u2019s Mahnerin,\u201d Bayerischer Rundfunk,<\/em> April 17th, 2014.<\/p>\n

[vii]<\/a>Cf. Shnier, D. (2014), \u201cSlow and steady: Hungary\u2019s media clampdown,\u201d Open Democracy, <\/em>August 1st, 2014; available at https:\/\/www.opendemocracy.net\/opensecurity\/diane-shnier\/slow-and-steady-hungary\u2019s-media-clampdown.<\/p>\n

[viii]<\/a>Ibid.<\/p>\n

[ix]<\/a>Cf. Dunai, M. (2014) \u201cHow Hungary\u2019s government shaped public media to its mould,\u201d Reuters, Feb 19th, 2014. Available at: http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2014\/02\/19\/us-hungary-media-insight-idUSBREA1I08C20140219<\/p>\n

[x]<\/a>I quote Heller from a talk about Hungarian politics, given in Vienna at Austria\u2019s Republikanischer Club, <\/em>April 22nd, 2014.<\/p>\n

[xi]<\/a> For clarity\u2019s sake, it should be noted that references to Machiavelli made herein are\u2013\u2013for the sake of this short text\u2013\u2013inevitably superficial. It is necessary to add that, in particular, Machiavelli\u2019s Discorsi <\/em>permit for democratic readings (cf. John P. McCormick\u2019s brilliant and highly important Machiavellian Democracy, <\/em>which expands on Machiavelli\u2019s resolute criticism of elites and oligarchic tendencies and his admiration of the Roman concilium plebis<\/em>), and even inspired Marxist readings from Gramsci to Althusser (yet, to be sure, also nationalist interpretations exist (think of, for instance, National Socialist Hans Freyer\u2019s Machiavelli <\/em>written in 1938). Also, what nowadays is often commonly referred to as \u201cMachiavellianism\u201d should not be equalized with Machiavelli\u2019s entire Oevre (as Quentin Skinner aptly pointed out).<\/p>\n

[xii]<\/a>I quote Heller from a lecture on Hungarian politics delivered in Vienna at Austria\u2019s Republikanischer Club, <\/em>April 22nd, 2014.<\/p>\n

[xiii]<\/a>I quote Heller from an article written by Paul Hockenos, \u201cA Scholar is back Home and defiant in Hungary,\u201d New York Times, <\/em>Dec 8th, 2013.<\/p>\n

[xiv]<\/a> Toth, C.T. (2015) \u201cHungarian far right pushes moderate image,\u201d DW Online, April 13th, 2015. Available at: http:\/\/www.dw.de\/hungarian-far-right-pushes-moderate-image-and-wins\/a-18378981.<\/p>\n

[xv]<\/a> Thorpe, N. (2015) \u201cHungary’s nationalist Jobbik party woos centrist voters,\u201d BBC News, April 13th, 2015. Available at: http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-32248965.<\/p>\n

[xvi]<\/a>I quote Heller from a talk about Hungarian politics, given in Vienna at Austria\u2019s Republikanischer Club, <\/em>April 22nd, 2014.<\/p>\n

[xvii]<\/a>See Derrida, J. (1997) The Politics of Friendship, <\/em>London and New York: Verso, 117ff. Derrida nicely depicts how Schmitt\u2019s insistence on the \u201cconcrete\u201d itself depends on a concrete sense of the concrete, thus ending up in a performative contradiction. In turn, according to Derrida, this gives rise to an uncannily \u201cspectral\u201d dimension, which not only haunts Schmitt\u2019s Concept of the Political, <\/em>but also his Ex Captivitate Salus <\/em>(written in prison), <\/em>amongst others.<\/p>\n

[xviii]<\/a> This would be the feminine version of \u201cenemy\u201d at the least in Schmitt\u2019s German terminology. It is worth noting, that Hungarian, being non-Indo-European, is a rather Gender-neutral language, -n\u0151 exists as a way to distinguish between male and female persons having a certain profession, thus \u201cFeindin\u201d (female enemy) would translate into \u201cellens\u00e9g-n\u0151,\u201d yet this version is hardly used). I am thankful to Orsolya Bajusz for this remark.<\/p>\n

[xix]<\/a> Cf. Adorno, T.W. (1958). \u201cEinf\u00fchrung in die Dialektik\u201d\u00a0In:\u00a0Nachgelassene Schriften, AbteilungIV:Vorlesungen, <\/em>edited by Christoph Ziermann. <\/em>Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 241.<\/p>\n

[xx]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1. (1978) Philosophie des linken Radikalismus. <\/em>Hamburg: VSA Verlag, 18.<\/p>\n

[xxi]<\/a>Quoted from an interview conducted by Ilona Nemeth, displayed in her wonderful, interactive video installation \u201cZs\u00f3fia Meller\u201d (2012).<\/p>\n

[xxii]<\/a>Quoted from Ilona Nemeth\u2019s \u201cZs\u00f3fia Meller.\u201d<\/p>\n

[xxiii]<\/a>Quoted from Ilona Nemeth\u2019s \u201cZs\u00f3fia Meller.\u201d<\/p>\n

[xxiv]<\/a> My translation. To my knowledge, the German version has not yet been translated into English. Cf. Heller, \u00c1. (1978) Philosophie des linken Radikalismus<\/em>, 27.<\/p>\n

[xxv]<\/a> I quote her from the short TV-documentary \u201cAgnes Heller\u2013Ungarn\u2019s Mahnerin\u201d for the German Bayerischer Rundfunk,<\/em> produced by Gabriele Pfaffenberger, April 17th, 2014.<\/p>\n

[xxvi]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1. (1978) Philosophie des linken Radikalismus. <\/em>Hamburg: VSA Verlag, 18.<\/p>\n

[xxvii]<\/a> Heller, \u00c1 Short History of my Philosophy, <\/em>31.<\/p>\n

[xxviii]<\/a>Heller, \u00c1. (2011) A Short History of My Philosophy, <\/em>Plymouth: Lexington,110.<\/p>\n

[xxix]<\/a>Ibid., p. 110.<\/p>\n

[xxx]<\/a> Quoted from: Duda, S, \u201cAgnes Heller,\u201d fembio.org, <\/em>available at: http:\/\/www.fembio.org\/biographie.php\/frau\/biographie\/agnes-heller\/#literatur.<\/p>\n

[xxxi]<\/a> Cited from Bernstein, J. (2009) \u201cExistential Choice: Heller\u2019s Either\/ Or,\u201d in: Terezakis, K. (ed.), Engaging <\/em>\u00c1<\/em>gnes Heller: A Critical Companion, <\/em>Plymouth: Lexington.<\/p>\n

[xxxii]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1. (2011) A Short History of My Philosophy, <\/em>Plymouth: Lexington, 42.<\/p>\n

[xxxiii]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1., A Short History of My Philosophy, <\/em>42.<\/p>\n

[xxxiv]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1., A Short History of My Philosophy, <\/em>9.<\/p>\n

[xxxv]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1., A Short History of My Philosophy, <\/em>35.<\/p>\n

[xxxvi]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1., A Short History of My Philosophy, <\/em>35.<\/p>\n

[xxxvii]<\/a> She says it in German, the terms are a bit complicated to translate: \u201cGl\u00fcckseligkeit ist etwas Unversch\u00e4mtes in der heutigen Welt.\u201d The German \u201cGl\u00fcckseligkeit\u201d entails both -dignity (Seligkeit) and Gl\u00fcck (-happiness). Cf., \u201c\u00c1gnes Heller\u2013Ungarn\u2019s Mahnerin,\u201d Bayerischer Rundfunk,<\/em> April 17th, 2014.<\/p>\n

[xxxviii]<\/a> I quote from the following documentary: \u201cKarola und Ernst Bloch \u2013 Die T\u00fcbinger Zeit,\u201d by Helga Reidemeister (WDR\/ SWR,1983)<\/p>\n

[xxxix]<\/a>This sentence (my own translation) is an earlier version of what later became Adorno\u2019s most popular claim, which dominated his Minima Moralia: <\/em>\u201cEs gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen,” which is often translated as \u201cThere is no right life in the wrong one.\u201d (cf. Adorno, T.W. (1997), Gesammelte Schriften 4, Frankfurt\/M.: Suhrkamp, 43.) The originary version cited herein is documented, for instance, in Martin Mittelmeier\u2019s (2013) Adorno in Neapel. <\/em>Munich: Siedler, 222.<\/p>\n

[xl]<\/a>I quote from Heller\u2019s lecture, \u201cZwei S\u00e4ulen der Ethik,\u201d Alpen-Adria-Universit\u00e4t Klagenfurt, April 15th, 2013.<\/p>\n

[xli]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1., A Short History of My Philosophy, <\/em>29.<\/p>\n

[xlii]<\/a> My translation. Arendt contends: \u201cWarum ist \u00fcberhaupt Jemand und nicht vielmehr Niemand? Das ist die <\/em>Frage der Politik.\u201d Cf. Arendt, H. (2003). Denktagebuch, <\/em>M\u00fcnchen: Piper, 520.<\/p>\n

[xliii]<\/a> The German version goes: \u201cDer vorsichtige Bu\u0308rokrat, der war ich, jawohl,\u201d aber \u201czu diesem vorsichtigen Bu\u0308rokraten gesellte sich ein fanatischer K\u00e4mpfer fu\u0308r die Freiheit meines Blutes, dem ich anstamme.\u201d Cf. Wojak, I. (2004) Eichmanns Memoiren: Ein kritischer Essay, <\/em>Berlin: Fischer, 63.<\/p>\n

[xliv]<\/a> Cf. Wojak, I. (2004) Eichmanns Memoiren: Ein kritischer Essay, <\/em>Berlin: Fischer, 63.<\/p>\n

[xlv]<\/a> Heller, \u00c1. (2010), \u201cRadical Evil in Modernity: On Genocide, Totalitarian Terror, and the Holocaust,\u201d Thesis Eleven, 101, <\/em>116.<\/p>\n

[xlvi]<\/a> Cf. Heller, \u00c1. (1978) Philosophie des linken Radikalismus<\/em>, 140.<\/p>\n

[xlvii]<\/a> Cf. Adorno, T.W., Minima Moralia, <\/em>127. I quote Jephcott\u2019s translation (Verso 2005).<\/p>\n

[xlviii]<\/a> Cf. Borges, Funes, <\/em>153.<\/p>\n

[xlix]<\/a>See, for instance, the obituary he wrote for German journalist Frank Schirrmacher in 2014: Walser, M. (2014), \u201cJ\u00e4hes Ende, j\u00e4her Tod.\u201d Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, <\/em>June 14th, 2014. Available at: http:\/\/www.faz.net\/aktuell\/feuilleton\/frank-schirrmacher\/martin-walser-ueber-frank-schirrmacher-12988843.html.<\/p>\n

[l]<\/a>Cf. Borges, Funes, <\/em>149.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The encounter with Agnes Heller at the 2014 Democracy & Diversity Institute in Wroclaw\u00a0and in her class on\u00a0\u201cThe World of Prejudice\u201d, inspired TCDS alumna Anna-Verena Nosthoff to write\u00a0a portrait of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50909],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fieldnotes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/users\/177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3612"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4821,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612\/revisions\/4821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-test.newschool.edu\/tcds\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}