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The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians' Debate
Jürgen Habermas is well known for his scholarly works on the theoretical foundations of the human sciences. The New Conservatism brings to light another side of Habermas's talents, showing him as an incisive commentator on a wide range of contemporary themes.The 1980s have been a crucial decade in the political life of the Federal Republic of Germany. The transformations that accompanied a shift from 13 years of Social Democratic rule to government by the conservative Christian Democrats are captured in this series of insightful, often passionate political and cultural commentaries. The central theme uniting the essays is the German problem of "coming to terms with the past," a problem that has important implications outside Germany as well.Of particular note are the essays on what has come to be known as the Historians' Habermas's attack on the revisionist German historians who have been trying to trivialize and "normalize" the history of the Nazi period, and his defense of the need for a realistic and discriminating coining to terms with the past in Germany. Habermas also takes up the recent fracas concerning Martin Heidegger's involvement with Nazism and the rise of the neoconservative movement in Europe and America. In particular, the essay on "The New Obscurity" combines Habermas's analysis of the problems of the welfare state with his suggestions for avenues open to utopian impulses today. The New Conservatism is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.
306 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Jürgen Habermas
378 books697 followersJürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and American pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere, the topic of his first book entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics—particularly German politics. Habermas's theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to deliberate and pursue rational interests.
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October 17, 2024
A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, INTERVIEWS, AND SPEECHES
Jürgen Habermas (born 1929) is a German philosopher and sociologist who is one of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School.
The Introduction by Richard Wolin states, “The present volume comprises a variety of occasional political and cultural writings conceived by Habermas in the 1980s---an extremely significant decade in the political life of the Federal Republic---which saw thirteen years of Social Democratic rule (1969-1982) come to an end in favor of a coalition headed by the conservative Christian Democrats… The multifarious ramifications of this era of neoconservative stabilization in the Federal Republic---in the political, cultural, and intellectual spheres of life---are explored by Habermas in the essays that make up this volume.”
In the first essay, he observes, “At first the expression ‘postmodern,’ as it was applied in America during the 1950s and 1960s to literary trends that wanted to set themselves apart from works of the early modern period, was also used to merely designate new variants within the broad spectrum of late modernism. ‘Postmodernism’ became an emotionally loaded outright political battle cry only in the 1970s, when two opposing camps seized the expression: on the one side the NEOCONSERVATIVES, who wanted to get rid of the supposedly subversive contents of a ‘hostile culture’ in favor of revived traditions; and on the other side the radical CRITICS OF GROWTH for whom the … New Architecture had become a symbol for the destruction produced by modernization.” (Pg. 4)
He states, “the New Obscurity is part of a situation in which a welfare state program that continues to be nourished by a utopia of social labor is losing its power to project future possibilities for a collectively better and less endangered way of life.” (Pg. 54) Later, he adds, “I hold to my thesis that the self-reassurance of modernity is spurred on, as before, by a consciousness of the significance of the present moment in which historical and utopian thought are fused with one another.” (Pg. 68)
He asserts, “As a contemporary, Heidegger is thrown into an ambiguous light, overtaken by his own past because when everything was finished and done he could not adequately relate to it. His behavior remained, even according to the standards of ‘Being and Time,’ ahistorical. But what makes Heidegger into a manifestation, typical for his time, of a widely influential postwar mentality concerns his person---not his work. The conditions of reception for an oeuvre are largely independent of the behavior of its author. That holds, at least, for the writings up to 1929…
"Heidegger’s philosophical work is faithful enough to the stubborn logic of his problematic that those portions of it explainable in terms of the sociology of knowledge and relating to the context in which it arose do not prejudice the context of justification. One does Heidegger a favor when one emphasizes the autonomy of this thought during this most productive phase… particularly against Heidegger’s later self-stylizations, against his overemphasis on continuity.” (Pg. 165)
He concludes his ‘Remarks from the Römerberg Colloquium,’ “I am not a historian, and I am known for making emphatic judgments and perhaps also for having emphatic prejudices; but even if I take that into account to my detriment, as a daily reader of the [newspaper], after reading this article I have to note a ‘qualitative leap’ in dealing with our historical consciousness. This is what is behind my question: If historians proceed in such a transparent manner, so functionalistically, how can they hope to be successful, given the conditions in which we live today?” (Pg. 211)
More explicitly “political” than most of Habermas’s other writings, this book will interest those studying this side of his thought.
Jürgen Habermas (born 1929) is a German philosopher and sociologist who is one of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School.
The Introduction by Richard Wolin states, “The present volume comprises a variety of occasional political and cultural writings conceived by Habermas in the 1980s---an extremely significant decade in the political life of the Federal Republic---which saw thirteen years of Social Democratic rule (1969-1982) come to an end in favor of a coalition headed by the conservative Christian Democrats… The multifarious ramifications of this era of neoconservative stabilization in the Federal Republic---in the political, cultural, and intellectual spheres of life---are explored by Habermas in the essays that make up this volume.”
In the first essay, he observes, “At first the expression ‘postmodern,’ as it was applied in America during the 1950s and 1960s to literary trends that wanted to set themselves apart from works of the early modern period, was also used to merely designate new variants within the broad spectrum of late modernism. ‘Postmodernism’ became an emotionally loaded outright political battle cry only in the 1970s, when two opposing camps seized the expression: on the one side the NEOCONSERVATIVES, who wanted to get rid of the supposedly subversive contents of a ‘hostile culture’ in favor of revived traditions; and on the other side the radical CRITICS OF GROWTH for whom the … New Architecture had become a symbol for the destruction produced by modernization.” (Pg. 4)
He states, “the New Obscurity is part of a situation in which a welfare state program that continues to be nourished by a utopia of social labor is losing its power to project future possibilities for a collectively better and less endangered way of life.” (Pg. 54) Later, he adds, “I hold to my thesis that the self-reassurance of modernity is spurred on, as before, by a consciousness of the significance of the present moment in which historical and utopian thought are fused with one another.” (Pg. 68)
He asserts, “As a contemporary, Heidegger is thrown into an ambiguous light, overtaken by his own past because when everything was finished and done he could not adequately relate to it. His behavior remained, even according to the standards of ‘Being and Time,’ ahistorical. But what makes Heidegger into a manifestation, typical for his time, of a widely influential postwar mentality concerns his person---not his work. The conditions of reception for an oeuvre are largely independent of the behavior of its author. That holds, at least, for the writings up to 1929…
"Heidegger’s philosophical work is faithful enough to the stubborn logic of his problematic that those portions of it explainable in terms of the sociology of knowledge and relating to the context in which it arose do not prejudice the context of justification. One does Heidegger a favor when one emphasizes the autonomy of this thought during this most productive phase… particularly against Heidegger’s later self-stylizations, against his overemphasis on continuity.” (Pg. 165)
He concludes his ‘Remarks from the Römerberg Colloquium,’ “I am not a historian, and I am known for making emphatic judgments and perhaps also for having emphatic prejudices; but even if I take that into account to my detriment, as a daily reader of the [newspaper], after reading this article I have to note a ‘qualitative leap’ in dealing with our historical consciousness. This is what is behind my question: If historians proceed in such a transparent manner, so functionalistically, how can they hope to be successful, given the conditions in which we live today?” (Pg. 211)
More explicitly “political” than most of Habermas’s other writings, this book will interest those studying this side of his thought.
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