But Hitler did build highways! I hear this more and more often lately. It is difficult to go on talking at this point, because a certain argument that I find very important is quite complex and is rejected by people who want to relativize fascism and the Holocaust. The argument, prompted by Adorno, is: after Auschwitz, no more poems can be written. In rough outline, it goes like this: The scale of the horror of the Holocaust is so great…
For so many years I have thought about Marx. Who has not? The idea of an equal and solidary community, free of ideological superstructure or irrational will-o’-the-wisps. A world that knows only matter and sees in it a scientific, progressive movement. Its goal? A world in which humanity is complete, that is, harmonious, without envy and ill will, solidary and equal in rights, without alienation and external determination, which alone makes possible the unfolding of the individual within a collective.…
