Summary

Germany in the 1920s was full of poverty and dissatisfaction. There was a conflict between two extremist parties— the Communists and the Nazis. Nazi power in Germany quickly began to intrude on basic daily life, and many felt powerless to stop it. This gave the public an uncanny feeling of numbness, anxiety, and unreality. Though they heard about and often saw morally repugnant and gory events, they barely reacted at all. Their emotional responses were also largely nonexistent.

In Being and Time, Heidegger stood up against a failure to think, and for the internal voice of one’s conscience. He discussed the ideas of self-questioning and freedom. A central concept in Heidegger’s work was the concept of making sure to live led by Dasein rather than by influence of the concept of the “they,” an “impersonal entity that robs us of the freedom...