We Found the W.M.D. | NYTimes.com - Op-Ed Columnist - Thomas Friedman
So, I have a confession and a suggestion. The confession: I go into restaurants these days, look around at the tables often still crowded with young people, and I have this urge to go from table to table and say: "You don't know me, but I have to tell you that you shouldn't be here. You should be saving your money. You should be home eating tuna fish. This financial crisis is so far from over. We are just at the end of the beginning. Please, wrap up that steak in a doggy bag and go home." <...> This is the real "Code Red." As one banker remarked to me: "We finally found the W.M.D." They were buried in our own backyard -- subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them. <...> "A great judgment has to be made now as to just how big and bad the situation is," says Jeffrey Garten, the Yale School of Management professor of international finance. "This is a crucial judgment. Do we think that a couple of hundred billion more and couple of bad quarters will take care of this problem, or do we think that despite everything that we have done so far -- despite the $700 billion fund to rescue banks, the lowering of interest rates and the way the Fed has stepped in directly to shore up certain markets -- the bottom is nowhere in sight and we are staring at a deep hole that the entire world could fall into?" <...> "The biggest mistake Obama could make," added Garten, "is thinking this problem is smaller than it is. On the other hand, there is far less danger in overestimating what will be necessary to solve it." Conventional wisdom says it's good for a new president to start at the bottom. The only way to go is up. That's true -- unless the bottom falls out before he starts.
This is the real "Code Red." As one banker remarked to me: "We finally found the W.M.D." They were buried in our own backyard -- subprime mortgages and all the derivatives attached to them. <...>
"A great judgment has to be made now as to just how big and bad the situation is," says Jeffrey Garten, the Yale School of Management professor of international finance. "This is a crucial judgment. Do we think that a couple of hundred billion more and couple of bad quarters will take care of this problem, or do we think that despite everything that we have done so far -- despite the $700 billion fund to rescue banks, the lowering of interest rates and the way the Fed has stepped in directly to shore up certain markets -- the bottom is nowhere in sight and we are staring at a deep hole that the entire world could fall into?" <...>
"The biggest mistake Obama could make," added Garten, "is thinking this problem is smaller than it is. On the other hand, there is far less danger in overestimating what will be necessary to solve it."
Conventional wisdom says it's good for a new president to start at the bottom. The only way to go is up. That's true -- unless the bottom falls out before he starts.
Well Suck. On. This. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Wow. Friedman makes a lot of sense when he talks about green jobs and the green economy. And since I had not seen much writing by him lately regarding Iraq, I thought he had gone contrite. That video clearly shows otherwise.
Which presents what I call a Heidegger Dilemma. I know a lot of people think Martin Heidegger was full of shit as a philosopher, but I was drawn to and impressed by a lot of his ideas. Thus, when I discovered that he had been a Nazi who had not altogether repudiated or explained his involvement with Nazism, I had to ask myself: "If someone is so fundamentally wrong on such basic moral issues, are all his philosophical thoughts automatically suspect?"
Here, Friedman demonstrates an appalling, almost bestial lack of moral sensibility with respect to the invasion of Iraq. So what are we to make of his thoughts on greening the economy, which at face value are so rightheaded? Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
From the start, Hitler had assumed direction of the major strategy of the war. ... He then struck against France, invading through the Ardennes rather than through the Low Countries. ... The campaign as a whole was a brilliant success and Hitler could claim the major credit for its overall planning. ... Allan Bullock: ADOLF HITLER: A STUDY IN TYRANNY http://www.holocaust-trc.org/wmp07.htm
Allan Bullock: ADOLF HITLER: A STUDY IN TYRANNY
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/wmp07.htm
I am not saying that we should reject everything that Friedman (or Heidegger) wrote out of hand. But I believe that egregious errors in judgment are fair grounds for approaching an individual's views on any topic with a dose of skepticism. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
I agree. This echoes your comment above as well.
Emotionally, however, I still feel uncomfortable when a thinker can be so repugnant ethically on one issue and yet have compelling philosophical ideas on other issues. Is this what they call "cognitive dissonance"? But these are feelings, nothing more than feelings. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
Even this guy could appreciate the difference between ideology and philosophical merit:
In 1967 Heidegger had an encounter with the poet Paul Celan, a Jew who had survived concentration camps operated by the Nazis' Romanian allies. While admiring aspects of Heidegger's writings, Celan had long been aware of Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism. On July 24 Celan gave a reading at the University of Freiburg, attended by Heidegger. Heidegger there presented Celan with a copy of What is Called Thinking?, and invited him to visit him at his hut at Todtnauberg, an invitation which Celan accepted. On July 25 Celan visited Heidegger at his retreat, signing the guestbook and spending some time walking and talking with Heidegger. The details of their conversation are not known, but the meeting was the subject of a subsequent poem by Celan, entitled "Todtnauberg" (dated August 1, 1967). The enigmatic poem and the encounter have been discussed by numerous writers on Heidegger and Celan, notably Lacoue-Labarthe. A common interpretation of the poem is that it concerns, in part, Celan's wish for Heidegger to apologize for Heidegger's behavior during the Nazi era. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger
On July 24 Celan gave a reading at the University of Freiburg, attended by Heidegger. Heidegger there presented Celan with a copy of What is Called Thinking?, and invited him to visit him at his hut at Todtnauberg, an invitation which Celan accepted. On July 25 Celan visited Heidegger at his retreat, signing the guestbook and spending some time walking and talking with Heidegger. The details of their conversation are not known, but the meeting was the subject of a subsequent poem by Celan, entitled "Todtnauberg" (dated August 1, 1967).
The enigmatic poem and the encounter have been discussed by numerous writers on Heidegger and Celan, notably Lacoue-Labarthe. A common interpretation of the poem is that it concerns, in part, Celan's wish for Heidegger to apologize for Heidegger's behavior during the Nazi era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger
If he were a formal logician or an analytical philosopher, I would be far less concerned (though even in those cases I suppose it is conceivable that one might find some connection between his philosophical ideas and his moral sentiments, remote and contrived though it may appear.) Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
If, for Heidegger, Nazism is a nihilistic and dehumanizing ideology based in the metaphysics of subjectivity, a modern ideology with which his thought cannot be identified, how should we then understand his most controversial statement from the Introduction to Metaphysics, about the "inner truth and greatness" of National Socialism? (52) First, this statement, made during a lecture delivered in 1935, can be regarded as ironic and as an expression of Heidegger's growing disappointment with actual National Socialism. To assess it properly, we have to consider the context in which it was made. In the context of a totalitarian state, where attitudes of loyalty to the ideology and hostility to its opponents are imposed in a particularly intensive fashion, even a slight criticism of the regime can be subjected to severe punishment. On the other hand, in such a context, any critical allusion or covert criticism becomes transparent to those who keep their ears open. It would then be immediately clear to the attentive audience of Heidegger's lecture that the "inner truth and greatness" of National Socialism did not imply its outward truth and real greatness. They would regard this statement not as a support of the actual Nazi movement but rather as a criticism of it. ... What follows from these statements is that Heidegger initially associated National Socialism with a movement that would bring Germany back to its "age-old traditions," renew its spiritual strength, and take it away from the heritage of modernity that has been developing since the seventeenth century. (59) Bringing Germany back to its ancient traditions constituted for him the "inner truth and greatness" of this movement. (60) He saw in it an antidote against modernism. However, he was soon disillusioned. Although the Nazis indeed tried to revive German traditions and regarded modernism as a disease, they at the same time engaged in building a totalitarian state and developed an ideology that was philosophically unacceptable to Heidegger. (61) The actual National Socialism, run by people who "were much too limited in their thinking," and with its political violence and book burning, totalitarian control of the vital resources of the state and the racial composition of the people, and politicization of society and mass rallies, was precisely the ideology which he covertly criticized in his writings, along with Americanism and Communism. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3545/is_2_61/ai_n29399025/pg_7?tag=artBody;col1
... What follows from these statements is that Heidegger initially associated National Socialism with a movement that would bring Germany back to its "age-old traditions," renew its spiritual strength, and take it away from the heritage of modernity that has been developing since the seventeenth century. (59) Bringing Germany back to its ancient traditions constituted for him the "inner truth and greatness" of this movement. (60) He saw in it an antidote against modernism. However, he was soon disillusioned. Although the Nazis indeed tried to revive German traditions and regarded modernism as a disease, they at the same time engaged in building a totalitarian state and developed an ideology that was philosophically unacceptable to Heidegger. (61) The actual National Socialism, run by people who "were much too limited in their thinking," and with its political violence and book burning, totalitarian control of the vital resources of the state and the racial composition of the people, and politicization of society and mass rallies, was precisely the ideology which he covertly criticized in his writings, along with Americanism and Communism.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3545/is_2_61/ai_n29399025/pg_7?tag=artBody;col1
The article goes on to suggest it was even more complex than that. It starts by saying:
MARTIN HEIDEGGER IS WIDELY ACKNOWLEDGED to be one of the most original and important philosophers of the twentieth century, while remaining one of the most controversial. His thinking has contributed to such diverse fields as phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, aesthetics, literary criticism, and theology. His critique of traditional metaphysics and his opposition to positivism and technological world domination have been embraced by leading theorists of post-modernity. He influenced such prominent thinkers as Gadamer, Arendt, Habermas, Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard.
