"Heideggerian challenges to the late-modern, Western political order will have to be met with the courage that liberal democracies have summoned in their own defense in the past."

Heidegger’s GhostsALEXANDER S. DUFF

Heidegger has powerful adherents in societies as disparate as Russia and Iran. If liberal democracies are to reckon with his followers, they must wrestle with his thought.

"The radical discontent that Heidegger’s followers articulate poses a challenge that transcends the normal limits of Left and Right in the political life of mature liberal democracies. Even the extremes of normal political partisanship fall well within the target of Heidegger’s critique. Liberals should acknowledge the genuine, practical limits to universalism by drawing from the rich tradition of liberalism itself—Tocqueville and Montesquieu, to name only two. They should also draw from the deep wells of classical political rationalism that long predate liberalism in order to respond to the grievances raised by the Heideggerians. The post-Heideggerian political thought and activity of Václav Havel might provide an inspiring model for such a recovery. In doing so, however, liberals must insist on the dignity that derives from our common human nature, which is, indeed, foundational to the liberal order. This common nature is discerned, and its dignity confirmed, by our rational capacities.

Heideggerian challenges to the late-modern, Western political order will have to be met with the courage that liberal democracies have summoned in their own defense in the past. But they must be understood for what they are, and be met with good sense and prudence—hence the need for a reckoning with Heidegger’s thought."