Every few decades, writes Adam Kirsch, the fact that Martin Heidegger was enthusiastic about Nazism—and not just “an unworldly man who briefly blundered into it”—seems to be rediscovered, and promptly forgotten again. The latest rediscovery has come with the publication of the philosopher’s Black Notebooks, now partially available in English, as well as a volume of scholarly essays about them. Based on the former, Kirsch expounds on the connection between Heidegger’s rejection of ethics and his embrace of the Third Reich:

Of course, Heidegger’s thought does not lead directly to fascism. . . . But in an important sense, Heidegger leaves the door open for fascism, because he values the intensity and authenticity of a belief over its goodness or truthfulness. In a world defined by nihilism, any source of strong new beliefs and convictions is potentially redemptive. That is why, in the early days of the Hitler dictatorship, Heidegger could take the new Nazi regime as a potential source of new values—an assertion of will that would create an entirely new spiritual and philosophical world.

Nonetheless, admirers of Heidegger persist in finding reasons to ignore his inconvenient beliefs. Now that the Black Notebooks, which contain explicit references to Jews, make his anti-Semitism undeniable, apologists assert, correctly, that Heidegger disavowed any condemnation of Jews based on their biological race:

But this is hardly exculpatory. On the contrary, [Heidegger’s comments on Jews] bring anti-Semitism into the central precincts of his thought. For Heidegger, the “uprooting of beings from Being,” [which he blames on the Jews], was the metaphysical curse of the modern world, the source of the nihilism that afflicted humanity. . . .

Heidegger is a writer who cultivates a mystique of complexity; this is part of what attracted me to him because it makes reading him feel like an arduous quest that promises high rewards. And it is quite true that with such a subtle and profound thinker, Nazism and anti-Semitism will take subtle and “profound” forms. But this does not mean that our judgment on them is not, in the end, simple. The most important thing we have to learn from Heidegger today is how the allure of profundity and authenticity can lead to the destruction of ethics and of thought itself.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.