Matt McManus is currently Visiting Professor of Politics and International Relations at Tec de Monterrey.
For Fromm, Horkheimer, and Adorno, this project could only end in a desire for mass death. This is because, in a nihilistic sense, death is the ultimate form of order, stripped of all the anxieties and challenges which come with life.
Some progressives may indeed be primarily motivated by resentment, but that does not in itself invalidate the argument to pursue greater equality.
But it does mean that arbitrary factors, such as whether one is born into a wealthy family or happens to be part of some historically elevated demographic, should not determine where people end up
The primarily political differences, therefore, emerge over how best to realize freedom, and of course, what freedom itself means.
For instance, postmodern conservatives are reticent to trust rationalistic arguments made by cosmopolitan “elites” who stress that we have moral obligations to all individuals, regardless of where they come from.
The ascendancy of technical reason and instrumentalization, Heidegger thought, generated highly inauthentic individuals who were unable to live meaningful lives.
My sense is that Nietzsche is best understood as a radical individualist; one who insists passionately that our duty in life is to become what we are. But what kind of person is that?
If a pregnant woman has the legal option to abort but is unable to raise a child in her financial circumstances, she has fewer meaningful choices than a woman who lives in a society with legal abortion and generously state-subsidized childcare.
Marx was an acute social analyst whose insights have appeared in novel places. Even conservative and pro-capitalist figures—from Max Weber to Joseph Schumpeter—have at times grudgingly conceded the accuracy of his analysis on many points of importance.
It is certainly the case that Rousseau was not an unambiguous friend to the liberal Enlightenment.
This is particularly true of Marx and (especially) Heidegger, who gave concrete support to parties and proposals that resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
Very few of us can actually deal with too much truth, so we rarely enquire too deeply into the justifications for our beliefs.
