[OPE-L:8722] Heine

[rakeshb@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

In Stathis Kouvelakis' Philosophy and Revolution: From Kant to Marx
(Verso, 2003) there is a chapter on Heine's profound influence on Marx.
I was able to recommend strongly the attempt to differentiate the kind
of vitalism Heine bequeathed to Marx from Nietzsche's aristocratic
vitalism.

Just back from India. I encourage one and all to make a pilgrimmage to
the 15th century Jain temple Ranakpur, an exquisitely beautiful
architectural jewel...and the roads are new, so the difficulties which
Jainis thought believers should endure in their pilgrimmages have been
removed; the Mughal Emperor Akbar whose multiculturalism seems to put
the present rulers to shame wrote as an inscription on one of thousand
pillars that no harm would ever come to this temple.

My second visit convinced me yet again that it is one of the  world's
most beautiful places. It was a place to marvel at, meditate and think
away from the context of a global clash of fundamentalisms and (speaking
of the spectre of fascism) India's own reactionary political turn (see
the writings of Jairus Banaji, DN Jha, Romila Thapar, Barbara
Harriss-White, and Jan Breman).

Yours, Rakesh