Rereading Georg Lukács’ “The Destruction of Reason” in the Time of Trumpism

A blast from the past

Philosopher Georg (György) Lukács’ 1952 work Destruction of Reason, which has just been reissued for the first time in decades by Verso Press, is an 800-page warning “addressed to the thinking people of all nations”.

The atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Third Reich, Lukács maintains, were so great that “each individual and each nation should try and learn something for their own good” from their confrontation. This responsibility is especially pressing for philosophers, “whose duty it should be to supervise the existence and evolution of reason in proportion to their concrete share in social developments.”

Yet, in 1952, Lukács expressed the concern that philosophers “have neglected this duty both within and outside Germany”, especially given the troubling ease with which the German Professoriat was “coordinated” by the Nazis. It could happen again, and philosophers should make every effort to understand how what happened in Germany became possible, to prevent its recurrence.

Nevertheless, Destruction of Reason is arguably the only study by a leading 20th century philosopher (as against scholars from other disciplines) of the intellectual foundations of National Socialism.