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CSUDH - Habermas - UWP

Caliifornia State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: August 22, 2001
Latest Update: August 25, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

This essay is based on In the Shadow of the Wall By Seyla Benhabib. Review of Juergen Habermas' A Berlin Republic: Writings on Germany. Translated by Steven Rendall. Nebraska. 187 pp. Paper $14.95.

Benhabib cites Habermas as saying: "That a liberal political culture could develop in a culturally highly civilized society such as Germany only after Auschwitz is a truth difficult to grasp. The fact that it developed because of Auschwitz, because of reflection on the incomprehensible, is less difficult to understand if one considers what human rights and democracy mean at heart: namely, the simple expectation that no one will be excluded from the political community, and that the integrity of each individual, in his or her otherness, will be similarly respected."

Teaching essay up soon, with some reference to Habermas' Inclusion of the Other. jeanne August 25, 2001.

Scroll about half way down the Benhabib article in The Nation for:

"Philosophically, the revival of these forms of nationalism suggests for Habermas the dangerous "return of the repressed" in Germany's political culture. The characteristic German critique of Enlightenment liberalism, individualism and rationalism took two forms: Either elitist intellectuals, beginning with Nietzsche and continuing down to Ernst Jünger and Martin Heidegger, were revolted by the rise of the masses, the cultural rule of mediocrity, the triumph of vapid materialism and the decline of aesthetic values; or like Carl Schmitt, and his student Hermann Lübbe, they dug the grave of parliamentary democracy by striking repeatedly at the conceptual weaknesses of rationalism, deliberation and consent. Liberalism, which Schmitt called "government by chatter," was said to be distinct from democracy, which was based on the idea of the "we"and of "they," the others. The distinction between "friend" and "foe" is, according to this line of thought, constitutive of all politics, and democracy requires "homogeneity and the elimination or eradication of heterogeneity." The aesthetic revulsion of the elite against the Enlightenment and liberal democracy meant that when the time came Heidegger was unable to resist the temptation "to lead the leader" (den Führer zu führen), whereas Schmitt, who was the "crown jurist" of the Third Reich, left a jurisprudential legacy that would give precedence to the state in determining the civil and political rights of individuals, and that would defend the oneness of the nation in the face of its Überfremdung--a difficult to translate concept that ranges in meaning from "infiltration by foreign elements" to "hyper-estrangement."

Discussion Topics

1. Pull out a useful definition of what human rights and democracy mean to Habermas. What about nation-state politics could put such a definition in jeopardy?
   jeanne's notes:

   Consider particularly the role of the Other. Nation-state politics calls upon our recognition of ourselves as one union, one nation, one people. But such a principle of oneness means an assumption that there are Others out there who are not a part of our nation. To the extent that we fail to respect such others, nation-state politics jeopardizes the human rights of those others and the legitimacy of our nation-state.

2. "Elitist intellectuals," like Nietzsche and Heidegger, "were revolted by the rise of the masses, the cultural rule of mediocrity, the triumph of vapid materialism and the decline of aesthetic values." Is there a similar movement of popular culture in the US today?
   jeanne's notes:

   All these arguments are raised today by the elites of both ends of the spectrum, right and left. But consider who has the power to dictate the popular, the aesthetic? The market shapes some of this power, giving young people, who make up a formidable market the chance to create a new canon with their purchases. But it is usually those with some sort of institutionally sanctioned power who make such pronouncements as what is culturally good or not good.

   See RESONANCE the acclaimed new music magazine & CD published by London Musicians' Collective (ISSN 1352-772X). Link to Publications, then to subscribe to Response magazine, then to Volume 8, No. 1, for a discussion of this with respect to the music canon. (March 2000) Canon Blasting.

   "New art and music do not communicate an individual's conception in ordered structures, but they implement processes which are, as our daily lives, opportunities for perception.
   John Cage on the influence of Marshall McLuhan on his music.

3. Can you draw a parallel between the cultural preferences of the "masses" and the social definition of crime?
   jeanne's notes:

   Pay particular attention to who defines culture. The power of a ruling elite or an intellectual elite or a radical elite might define culture in different instances. Then recollect Quinney's emphasis on how crime is defined socially. That is, those who have considerable property define laws that will protect their property. Those who have no such property interest must nonetheless adhere to the laws that protect property. That includes the homeless who have the right to sleep under a freeway. That right does not entitle them to take another's property, such as food, simply because they are hungry. Those of you interested in law might want to look at the "necessity" defense."