Roman Popov 1
Heidegger’s Antimodernist and Elitist Ideas in the Context of the «Conservative Revolution» in 20th-Century Germany
2025,
vol. 24,
No. 3,
pp. 152–172
[issue contents]
This article is devoted to the philosophical reconstruction of Heidegger’s anti-modernist ideas from his early and middle periods, with an emphasis on his attempt to overcome modernity not through political reaction and cultural pessimism, but by raising questions about the ontological foundations of modernity and the prevailing modes of thought within it. The external analytical framework used in this article is Jeffrey Herf’s concept of «reactionary modernism», which describes the ways of overcoming modernity that were advocated by the ideologues of the so-called «Conservative revolution» in Germany. In contrast to these intellectuals, whose criticism is embedded in the logic of Modernity and expressed through the inverted concepts of modernist thinking (nationalism, aestheticism, decisionism), Heidegger proposes a more radical strategy of criticising modernity, seeking to go beyond its usual ontological and epistemological instruments. The article reconstructs three antimodernist concepts — technology, decision, and folk — present both in the rhetoric of the «Conservative revolution» and in Heidegger’s philosophy, but acquiring a fundamentally different meaning in the latter. In addition to the concept of reactionary modernism, the author provides an analytical distinction between «weak» antimodernism (the internal reaction of Modernity to itself) and «strong» antimodernism, which seeks to go beyond the boundaries of modernity. It is shown that Heidegger’s criticism is an expression of this strong position — it allows him not only to criticise modernity, but also to develop an original theoretical framework that is not reducible to the symbols and concepts of Modernism. Heidegger, thus, formulates the possibility of a transition towards the «Another Beginning» — that is, a historical reality that lies outside the patterns of Modernism.
Keywords:
Antimodernism;
modernity;
Heidegger;
technology;
resoluteness;
folk;
reactionary modernism;
conservative revolution;
Another Beginning
Citation:
Popov R. (2025) Antimodernistskie i elitistskie idei M. Khaydeggera v kontekstekonservativnoy revolyutsii v Germanii XX stoletiya [Heidegger’s Antimodernist and Elitist Ideas in the Context of the «Conservative Revolution» in 20th-Century Germany]. The Russian Sociological Review, vol. 24, no 3, pp. 152-172 (in Russian)



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