3.8 - Brunkhorst, Hauke - The Intellectuals - at the End of History¿ (EN)

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The Intellectuals - at the End of History?

The Intellectuals - at the End of History?

by Hauke Brunkhorst

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 3+4 / 1990, pages: 251-260, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/


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THE INTELLECTUALS - AT THE END OFHISTORY?*Hauke Brunkhorst

What is now gradually emerging as the foreseeable victory of the West inthe Cold War has been accompanied by three theories, each of which hasacquired a widespread following, particularly among conservative and postmodern intellectuals.

(1) Socialism is dead, both as an idea and as a reality.(2) The victory of capitalism marks the end of history, or at least the end ofthe modern age which has always drawn its cultural sustenance fromthe substance of the French Revolution, the Enlightenment andRomanticism.(3) There is no such thing as a Third Way: the choice is bureaucraticsocialism or pluralistic capitalism.

I believe that in one major respect these three theories are true. Yet allshades of conservative intellectuals, from Francis Fukuyama or AndreGlucksmann to Karl Heinz Bohrer, Joachim Fest or Hermann Liibbe, have afalse understanding of these essentially correct theories.Let us begin with the third theory.

1. The ideology of the Third WayThe ideology of the Third Way was a typical product of post-war Germany

and was, at the time, the great illusion nurtured by the left-wing and liberalintelligentsia. The fact that it has now been flourishing, at least for a shorttime again in the East, can probably be explained by the fact that the freepublic discussion which has at last become possible in the GDR often picks upthe threads of an argument at the point where they were so militantly cut off40 years ago.The ideology of the Third Way is an idiosyncratic amalgamation of

romantic Youth Movement reveries of a special combined way with a leftistuniversalism. It can most certainly be characterized as a variant of Hegel'sutopia of sublation and mediation: the Third Way was supposed to lead usout of our disunity and our self-alienation, out of a modern worldcharacterized by economic alienation and cultural dissatisfaction. It wassupposed to liberate us from the temptations ofmoney and power, be it in theguise of capital ism, which had fallen from grace, or iron-handed* This text was written in January 1990. Some of it has now become history, particularly in view of the

'unification' of t he two Germanies.

Praxis /nternational/O: 3/4 ()ctoher 1990& January 1991 0260-B448 $2. 00


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Praxis International 251Bolshevism. To those who considered themselves to be following the ThirdWay, New York and Moscow appeared like distant stars, cold and strange.Thomas Mann, himself an influential ideologue of the Third Way, had manyyears previously already characterized this ideology as "power-proofintrospection."If we disregard the passionate, essentially anti-enlightenment aversiontowards all teachers and educators so peculiar to the Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitung newspaper, then we are bound to agree with Karl Heinz Bohrer'spolemic against the quiet blue wallflower which blossomed forth with suchfreshness and inner beauty, albeit scantily and without an opinion of its own,in the shadow cast on the East Berlin side of the Wall. The intellectuals'dream of a happy, shadowy existence between "star and flower, intellect andclothes, love, pain, time and eternity" (Clemens Brentano), of a pure andsimple life, unspoilt by AIDS, profit and drugs and all the other vices of thegreat whore Babylon is hopelessly provincial. Just as is, incidentally, theterror of many Greens at the prospect of over-high skyscrapers. "What theEast Germans have yet to experience," Bohrer writes, "is the discovery ofAmerica: that unprecedented moment when the American soldiers - to usethe phrase coined by the Italian writer rvlalaparte - set foot on the shores ofEurope like Greek gods and the 20th century really began. This was not thecase in the East." 1 Indeed not. However, Bohrer draws completely false,nationalistic conclusions from this otherwise accurate diagnosis.For all that would have been necessary in order to ensure that not only theBabylonian vices and confusions but also all the other winds of Westernfreedom finally blew eastwards, rather than being filtered through TV, wasthe unconditional opening of the borders on the one hand as well as theinternal forces of political autonomy and self-determination, of popularsovereignty and the constitutional rule of law on the other. However, it is ofutterly secondary importance whether the idea of western freedom holdssway in one or in two states between the Rhine and Oder rivers. If, however,the national question is declared a precondition of the democratic question and that is the tack taken by Bohrer and the Frankfurter Allgemeine - then itis almost logically consequent to transform the democratic movements into

nationalistic politics. The question of freedom would then be subordinated tothe identity of the German people. Indeed, the extreme consequence wouldbe precisely that which conservatives and liberals have always, with somejustification, accused Rousseau of propagating. Once popular sovereigntyand the national spirit of a people become identified with one another, whatusually emerges is that which Hermann Liibbe terms "identitariandemocracy" when attempting to denounce democrats.At that moment when the masses in Leipzig found their own voice and, in

order to demolish a wall and rid themselves of a dictatorship, stated with theproductive force of the first four words they had in common: "We are thepeople," at that moment the fortress crumbled at the sound of this call2 , andthe people were indeed sovereign. This was not the civil society of the currentParisian philosophers, it was the Jean-JacquesRousseau they dread so much:the exalted voice of the revolution, a late triumph of the ideas of 1789. 3

cessviaCEEOL NL Germany


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252 Praxis InternationalIn the 18th century the absolute monarch made use of the royal "we" in

order to identify his own anointed body with that of the people. In likemanner, the Party functionaries summarily declared their interests to be oneand the same as those of the people in order to be able to speak of the peoplewhile actually meaning the nomenclature. When, however, the masses on thestreets make a more natural use of the term of identification "we" and thep r e d i c ~ t e "people" than do their rulers, then in the act of saying "We are thepeople" they become the actual sovereign. They disclose for themselves anew world of democratic freedom. They do it by saying it publicly.Yet this time it was only a matter of a few days before the "long shadow ofRousseau,,4 came following on the heels of this appeal to popularsovereignty. A minimal semantic operation transformed the revolutionaryappeal into a nationalist call for unity: "We are one people." Popularsovereignty became the national spirit of a people. In its gradual

transformation into a question of nation, the semantics of democracyapproaches its "identitarian" self-misconception."We are the people." A society requires this much Rousseau in order to befree. "We are one people." This is precisely the semantic inversion whichtransforms equal freedom for all back into Liibbe's "contingent historicalidentity," into the particular "facticity" (to use Heidegger's expression) of acollective destiny. These facticities do indeed exist and we have to take aposition on them whether we like it or not. Whether we accept or reject ourhistorical identity, we cannot simply put it aside like a wet raincoat. This isprecisely the reason for the violent reactions to Kohl's remark about the"blessing of having been born late." The simple fact of our language and ofthat which sociologists term a "destiny of socialization" result in ourbelonging to collective units, to nations, peoples, religious and linguisticcommunities. It comes as no surprise that these self-same sociologists arecurrently under fierce attack - Bohrer goes so far as to talk of the "bulldozers

of a new sociologism" which are spoiling the "specificially 'irrational'tradition of romanticism" in our "colonized consciousness.,,5 Language isalways historically and idealistically speaking the Spirit of a people. Out ofthe facticity of such a spirit into which we find ourselves thrown we must,however, still projectour own identity into the future. Yet, we usually remainbound throughout our lives to a collective identity, even though there arenumerous such identities which overlap within the space of a lifetime. If, toquote an example from the sociologist Talcott Parsons, a "mid-20th-centuryAmerican" were to be converted to communism and desert to China, hewould - even disregarding the biological features - always remain "theAmerican deserter" or the "convert". He would never become Chinese. A"mid-20th-century American" is what constitutes his identity. 6 Thishistorical determination is what Freud terms "the power of the past" andMarx "the nightmare of all dead generations" that weighs down upon theminds of the living.However, whereas our historical identity is part of that which the earlyHeidegger termed "thrownness," that freedom which is the sole purpose ofdemocracy is a thing of our own respectively individual design, our own


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Praxis International 253construction. Freedom, as we are told in Sophocles' Antigone, is a life lived"according to our own laws." Rousseau and Kant referred to this as"autonomy" or "self-legislation." In this modern understanding of the term,freedom is individual self-determination, which, as we know, is onlydelimited by the freedom of all the others. Our historical identity preciselydoes not play a constitutive role in this kind of freedom, which is ratherdetermined by that limitation. The whole point behind the modern idea offreedom lies in this sharp contrast to all other limitations which are merelyfactual and contingent. The spirit of modernity becomes free by "tearingitself free" (Hegel) of its historical origins, which constantly catch up with itagain. Thus, despite being obliged to live with our contingent identity, it isour ability to overstep its limitations, to l iberate the spirit from its own,home-made particularity, that is the quintessence and the only measure ofour freedom.These somewhat abstract deliberations have an important bearing on atheory of democracy. The institutions of the modern constitutional state existexclusively in order to safeguard and maintain equal freedom for all.This is the sole basis of its legitimacy. The modern state cannot be founded

on God, the Kaiser, the unity of the nation or even, as Bohrer would wish, ona "German teleology" stretching back to the "legend of Armin, Leader of theCherusci.,,7 The sole source of its justification is the idea of freedom.The constitutional state must not under any circumstances be identifiedwith a particular force of destiny to the extent that it is defined and limited bythis idea. In the interests of equal freedom for all, a distinction must therefore

be upheld between the particular identity of the nation and the universalpower of institutions designed to guarantee freedom. And it must be adheredto even in cases where state borders and linguistic borders happen by chanceto coincide. An anti-conservative insight ofHegel'swas that the modern statemust adopt a cold and heartless, an aloof and abstract att itude toward thequestion of national identity and all other "holy bands of friendship."To blur such distinctions as those between party and state or between state

and nation, however, is to play with the fire of "identitarian democracy",even if it is Social Democrats who shuffle the pack. Unity ultimately stiflesfreedom wherever national unity, no matter how subtly, is allowed to bar thegates to freedom. For national unities, owing to their inevitable particularity,cannot constitute the unity of reason: this is why the primacy of freedomapplies here as elsewhere. 8 Identifying popular sovereignty with theemphasis of the nation was the only really disastrous mistake made by theFrench Revolution, the paradigm of all modern revolutions.It is an important yet secondary question, which chiefly concerns theadministrative economic details, whether or not unification actually

happens; whereby the foreseeable bickering about the contractual mechanicsof the unification process could ultimately become the alienating force thatensures that the two Germanies remain a confederation. However, imbuingits symbolic and libidinous properties with the heart and spirit of the nationrepresents a danger to freedom because they unite the free spirit with theparticularist spirit of the extreme patriotism of the erstwhile German


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254 Praxis Internationalrefugees from Eastern Prussia and national descent. This can only be at theexpense of freedom. It would not be the price of freedom, but its totalsurrender.AlthoughBohrer of all people certainly does notwant this, the iron logic ofhis own argumentation forces it upon him. Bohrer believes that WesternfreedolTJ can only flourish in the Eastern part of the country ifwe liberate thespirit of German modernity from Kant to Kafka, from its Rhenishprovincialism in order then to return it by political decree to the geography ofits powerful origins, namely Leipzig, Jena and Berlin. This could only beacommplished by shifting the centre of power back to Berlin, the formercapital of the Third Reich. 9 Let us assume for the moment that this daringconstruction could indeed be propped up; it would automatically invalidateBohrer's vehemently repeated declaration of the inviolability of the Polishand Russian borders. If the productivity of the spirit of German modernity isto be made dependent on returning it to its original geographical sites, thenthere is absolutely no reason why Germany should not demand the return ofsuch sites as Kaliningrad and Prague, not to mention Vienna.However, the modernity of the German spirit - and this is, quite rightly,Bohrer's sole concern - would, of course, be destroyed if the recent confusingcombination of the power of this spirit, a power which is indeed identitygiving, as represented by figures ranging from Mendelsohn to Heidegger,from Fichte to Hannah Arendt, from Marx to Freud, with the question of aunified German state were to be upheld. And the threat to this modernitydoes not emanate from Bonn's provincialism and ineptitude. The trulyobscene side to Bohrer's proposal that we should become a unified nationstate once again immediately emerges when we remind ourselves that theJewish element is an essential part of precisely the modern German spirit,which would be indeed unthinkable without it. Precisely because of this anddespite it, I would go so far as to maintain that Bonn's provinciality has beenresponsible for ensuring that the German modernity which was forced by theNazis to flee has long since been scattered throughout the world. It is moreproductive in California and Paris than in Berlin or Munich. Today, althoughdispersed throughout the world, we speak with one tongue. Even ifEnglish isusually the language spoken, it is not only the accent which reveals ourorigins. This is why it is becoming increasingly frequent for many tongues tobe speaking in one place.If we are to talk about "spirit" and "modernity," then in terms of theprinciple that all national spirits become independent of a particulargeography, native soil or state to an extent exactly proportional to their abilityto liberate themselves to embrace modernity. The urbanee) places at whichthey fleetingly touch each other in flight and become concentrated in asudden intensity have long since become multicultural. In the interests of itsown modernity, this spirit must resist the renationalization of the national

spirit called for by the apologists of unity. It is as least as close to New Yorkand Paris as it is to Frankfurt or Bielefeld, not to mention the protestantPrussian provinces.Rather than coming to rest in a unified state and nation, wherever it dons a


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Praxis International 255national dress the restless spirit of modernity is utterly without a geography,and yet wherever it has a location it is utterly cosmopolitan and multicultural.Thus at the end of this story, the lofty enactment of the great phantasm ofnation turns out to be no more than a shoot of the little blue Germanwallflower.Yet is history itself at an end? This brings me to the second theory.

2. The Victory of CapitalismCapitalism has triumphed. But what does this mean? Fukuyama followsHegel and Kojeve in believing that this would finally be the long desired good

end of history, the final "rule of Reason," its identification with the modernWestern state. 10 If this version of the old story about the end of history werereally true, then the end could not be a good one. It would be more likeAdorno's "All's bad that ends badly." However, the story about the end ofhistory is of course not true, but rather a mere (Platonic) story, nothing morethan a fiction made up by philosopher-kings living a yuppy lifestyle.Let us assume that the western societies were really as marvellous, asproductive and liberal and egalitarian as Fukuyama portrays them. Eventhen, the end of history could not be a good end. For the very notion of apossible end of history already entails the total loss of our freedom. Ends arealways paradoxical. The definitive realization of a free society would at thesame time be the end of its freedom. No one perceived this as clearly as Max

Weber in the diagnosis of his age with which he concludes the "ProtestantEthic',.11 He does not paint a rosy picture of a good end, but rather anightmare vision of "cold skeletal hands of rational orders" which stifle alllife; alluding to the sinking of the Titanic, he speaks of a future "polar night oficy darkness and hardship," or of the much-quoted "iron" "cage of obedienceto the future" which is utterly "inescapable.'" Here Weber was by no meansreferring merely to ancient Egyptian fellahs and the modern slaves of thelabor society. He too already had his sights on what is for us perhaps the morepressing danger of a loss of freedom in the golden cage of consumerism and inthe air-conditioned boutique framework of narcissistic "sensualists withoutheart," who sociologists describe as "enclaves of a lifestyle." 12The reason for Weber's gloomy diagnosis is not so much a Germanromantic aversion to technology, an emotional rejection of machines andmechanisms, cogwheels and gears rooted in a philosophy of life, although itdoes always contain an element of that too . Yet the real reason for hispessimism lies in his view that in the course of its triumphal worldwideadvance, capitalism had lost its spirit. Its path leads it from spirit to victory,and at the end of modernity "victorious capitalism" as Weber called itdestroys its own spirit, that once so proud protestant ethic. For Weber,however, the spirit of capitalism is nothing other than the climax of

occidental rationalism, the core ofwhich had from the outset consisted of theideas of freedom and equality: every individual should be able to reactnegatively to eve!ything which presents itself as mere pre-given fact. 13 Thiskind of rationalism regards every innerworldly limitation as something which


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256 Praxis Internationalcan be overcome and changed. accidental rationalism is the invention,development and adoption of alternatives, even those alternatives thepossibility of which might today still appear utopian. The kernel ofWeber'sprophetic diagnosis is: "The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we areforced to do SO.,,14This, however, would indeed be the end of history: a social si tuationcompletely lacking alternatives (or, and this would amount to the same thing,a situation characterized by complete arbitrariness). The positivisticidentification of idea with reality would have destroyed the idea by realizingit. Unlike the false prophet from the American State Department, however,Weber the sociologist was able to distinguish his own prophecy from hisscience. The prophecy is a meant as a practical warning, not a forecast as towhat the future course of the world would be. As long as we remain capableof countenancing the possibility of an end to history, we shall also remaincapable of averting it.But what of today's situation? Are there alternatives to what is, onceagain, a "victorious capitalism"?At first sight there seems to be much to be said for Fukujama's diagnosisonce we separate it from the purely historico-philosophical construct of afictitious end ofhistory. There are at present no alternatives to the American

or North Atlantic course (with or without NATO), at best mere variations:Swedish, Spanish etc. No alternatives from Manhattan to Berlin and possiblyin the near future Moscow: back in the USSR. It is after all completely clearwith regard to the East - despite late Habsburgian dreams of the centralityand ancient traditions of Europe - that this Western alternative, thediscovery of America which has yet to be historically attained in the East, isthe only desirable alternative among those currently imaginable. For thisreason, the historical struggles in the militarily organized societies ofbureaucratic socialism are still best explained in terms of the theory of "civilsociety. " This theory currently holds such a fascination for many intellectualsin both East and West and is, infact, merely the rehabilitation of the "citoyen"whom Marxism cultivated in a rather stepmotherly way. This rehabilitation isshot through with nostalgia in that it no longer reckons with the other face ofthe citoyen, namely the bourgeois. Nonetheless, the theoretical model ofdemocracy does fit the East given that, to put it in oversimplified terms, it is acase of civil opposition to a military society. However, it must beremembered that the civil forms of communication in autonomous publicdomains, and the life-blood of any democracy consists of allowing these freerein, always contain what Marx termed the "civilizing tendency" of an initself not at all friendly and civil bourgeois society based on self-interest, themarket and capital. If one thing is certain, it is that the communicativepowers of autonomous public domains and social movements (or even thegood will of corporate managements) are not in turn in themselves sufficientto civilize the uncivilized might of capital and its mobilization of humanresources. In order to achieve this within the bounds of mortal life it is alsonecessary to mobilize the utterly uncommunicative organizational power of awelfare state and strong trade unions whose power is based on a mixture of


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Praxis International 257free association and bureaucratic organization. 15 In fact, one look at EasternEurope is all that is necessary to recognize this, for here not even the firstcondition for a functioning modern constitutional state and a rationalbureaucracy fundamentally free of nepotism has been fulfilled: namely theabolition of private ownership of the state. 16If, then, there are no alternatives beyond victorious capitalism, then wemust look for them, as did Hegel and Marx, where they are: within victoriouscapitalism. For the claim that capitalism, in the course of its triumphalmarch,has long since lost its self-willed driving force, the spirit of occidentalrationalism, is completely without foundation, a purely historicalphilosophical protect ing wall, a castle in the air, not science but sciencefiction. And if there are alternatives, then they can only be expected tooriginate in the next wave of mobilization of the "capitalist" spirit against amerely victorious capitalism - for the spirit of capitalism is by no meansidentical with capitalism itself. Francis Fukuyama was right to follow Hegeland Kojeve in championing the role of ideas in history against the naIve andvulgar forms of utilitarianism and materialism. However , he unjustifiablyidentifies such ideas with the status quo and is therefore incapable of doingmore than hold up an idealistic, rose-tinted mirror to crude materialism.Yet, it is the gradually foreseeable victory of capitalism which is opening

up completely new opportunities for an alternative to the final victory ofcapital. And I am thinking of opportunities for an increasingly radical butnever complete realization of equal freedom for all, opportunitieswhich untilnow were systematically obstructed.Let us bear in mind the initially surprising affinity between Fukuyama'sdiagnosis of the age and Marcuse's much older and meanwhile utterlyforgotten diagnosis of Western civilization as expressed in One-DimensionalMan, which appeared in the early sixties. In this light, the factor separating

mere victory from the necessary final victory in the Cold War immediatelybecomes apparent. At the core of Marcuse's diagnosis is the onedimensionality of industrial society. This is the same as saying that thissociety can no longer avail itself of any alternatives. In other words, anothercase of post-histo ire. However, unlike Fukuyama, Marcuse takes a dialecticpremise as the point of departure for his forecast. It states that theopportunities for a radical democratic and a cultural revolutionarytransformation of the Western welfaring and warfaring state are primarilyfettered by the fact tha t the entire potential of Western wealth is bound upwith combating the external enemy and the Russian anti-utopia. This fetterwill be removed, however, if capitalism triumphs. If the peoples are relievedof the enormous pathology of a Cold War then there will be a growingprobability of alternatives - as hazardous as they are utopian - within thatwhich in Frankfurt was once called "the extant." It is the possibility, vaguelyanticipated in the theories of civil society, of a discursive civilization of latecapitalism. What will, at any rate, become apparent, if a long transformedcapitalism triumphs, is whether what Hegel called the "vast power of thenegative" has indeed already been exhausted or - to use one of the young


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258 Praxis InternationalLukacs' metaphors - the mighty river beds ofwestern rationalism have driedup for ever. In any case, history is open.Which brings me finally back to the first theory, the obsolescence of bothreal and ideal socialism.3. Socialism is deadNow I too have to advocate unification. This is made all the easier for thefact that what is now to be unified was never really divided - if I may beforgiven for expressing myself in such a Platonic manner.If we watch old Social Democrats beings asked on television about the

future of socialism they make an embarrassed impression, like people havingto strain to remind themselves of something they have forgotten, but whichthey still know they once held very dear. They remember their youth. Andfor some of them this brings life back into their stiffened old faces. Of course,in the struggles for power over the decades it was not solely a question ofpower, norwas it, as in previous years, solely a struggle against the Nazis, butrather it was a struggle for something. And this is followed by the reemergence of vocabulary centering around words like "community" and"solidarity." What bobs up to the surface, however, is often the last reservesof authenticity left over from a left-wing version of the Youth Movement, asocialist scout camp. And once the television viewer realizes this he or sheunderstands why the old Social Democrats still today want to avoidappearing as unpatriotic figures with a clear conscience, why many of themresurrect their socialism out of the ashes of nationalist kitsch. Behind thissentimental socialism, however, lies an error of reasoning. The idea ofsocialism has since become almost as hollow and empty as its dismalbureaucratic reality - and not only among older Social Democrats.The simple reason for this is that there is no idea as such, but merely aconcretistic vision of an ideal socialism. This, in turn, depending on thelocation, functions as a distorting or rose-tinted mirror of Eastern blocsocialism. As with everything else in life, here too it is a dist inction which iscrucial, namely that between idea and idealism. The former is indispensable,

whereas we have no use for the latter. It is easy using the simple means of aMarxist critique to demonstrate that ideal socialism is nothing other than theaffirmative superstructure of the Eastern bloc socialist bureaucracy. Rightdown to Honecker's last political utterance, which he read from a preparedspeech: "Socialism is the more human society." Right down to Ceaucescu'sfalsified weather reports which, faithful to the words of the old song, madesure that "the skies were not cloudy all day."Yet, in so far as an idea of socialism actually exists - and of this there can be

no doubt - the idea cannot itself be any more socialist than the spirit ofcapitalism is itselfcapitalist. Both the spirit and the idea in question are in factone and the same: the modern understanding of freedom we have inheritedfrom occidental rationalism. And that is all I can think of to say on the subjectof unification and the heritage, to paraphrase Ernst Bloch, of this particularage.


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Praxis International 259This, the only unity at stake, is the unity of the idea and the spirit of

freedom, which permits me to conclude with a remark on the theory of "civilsociety" and its "citoyen" who have disappeared in German sociologeseunder the notion of an "Aktivbiirger", an ' ~ a c t i v e citizen". 17The basic notionunderlying this theory is the assumption that the legitimatory foundations ofmodern democracies have undergone a radical secularization, making them ahazardous and (ostensibly) undirected project. IRI believe that it is correct to draw this conclusion for a theory of democracyfrom the secularization theory. Plural minorities are the most productivemotor behind democratic modernity. Their fundamental location indemocracy is the principle (made possible by secularization) that all opinionsand decisions can potentially be revised. However, the secularization theoryitself is at best imprecise. Which ultimately leads, as exemplified in the bookby Dubiel, Frankenberg and Rodel, back to the premature identification ofthe negation potential of the modern idea of freedom with concretemovements and public domains that merely exist de facto.If we are to talk of ~ ~ r a d i c a l secularization" - and I believe it is correct to doso - then there must also be somethingwhich is secularized and sublated (auf

gehoben) rather than being totally destroyed in the course of the secularization process. And thatwhich should be salvaged is the continuity of occidentalrationalism, somethingwhich must be preserved even given the most radicalbreak with tradition. And this continuity stands or falls with the claimmodern freedom makes to having an absolute and unconditional element.Now, it is possible to discern at the very heart of the completely secularizeddispositive nature of democracy itself one such point of continuity of modernfreedom, and one that abolishes the normative monotheism of Westernreligions. ll) It is rooted in the radical revisability of all decisions, opinions,constitutional principles and laws, but in particular of all majority decisions.Whenever the right to contradict the decisions of the majority is exercised bya minority or an individual., whenever they demand revision or reexamination over and over again, they refer to an absolute, non-relativizablecomponent of such democracies: namely the contrafactual idea of freedomand thatwhich goes hand in hand with it, namely the truth of the opinions andthe correctness of the decisions. Under finite conditions, this principle ofunconditionality, indispensable as it is to the cause of freedom, always takeseffect exclusively as the sanction-free power of arguments to compel us tochange our opinions or the world. I regard this and this alone as the realcontribution of minority opposition.Rousseau's mistake was to project the universal will onto that of themajority of a concrete community modelled in the fashion of the Greekpolis. This portentous projection - which Hegel was later to attack severelyleaves no breathing space for pluralism or for an open conflict of opinions andinterests. Rather, these become stifled by chance majorities being declared

artfully to be the will of all. The transition from this self-misconception ofmajority will to the rule of a party leadership is then not a qualitative leap.Society under a reign of terror is a closed society: that was the tragic logic firstof lacobinism and later of Bolshevism. The only true location of the universal


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260 Praxis Internationalwill is therefore to be found where minorities or individuals contradict thefactual will of the majority. In such a contradiction, the universal will is a trueforce and yet something over which one can not dispose, i.e. it is not privateproperty. For anyone can contradict every contradiction at any time, if he orshe has the argumentative means to do so. The never-ending nature of thisprocess is the political location of a universal will. It is not this that forms thebasis of the catastrophe of terror, but rather the recantation - be it militant orsubdued- of the distinction between the truly universal and the contingentwillof the majority.

NOTES1. K. H. Bohrer , "'Warum wir keine Nation sind," in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,13.1.1990.2. Cf. F. Oieckmann, "'Friedensfeier," in Merkur 491, p. 10.3. For a different interpretation, cf. Oubiel/Frankenberg/R6del, "'Wir sind das Yolk,"Frankfurter Rundschau, 2.1.1990.4. J. Habermas, "1st der Herzschlag der Revolution zum Stillstand gekommen?" in Forumfur Philosophic eds, Die Ideen von 1789 (Frankfurt, 1989).5. Bohrer, Ope cit.6. T. Parsons, ""Ocr Stellenwert des Identitatsbegriffs in der allgemeinen f-Iandlungs-

theorie," in Entwicklung des Ichs (Konigstein, 1980) p. 84.7. Bohrer, Ope cit.8. Cf. J. Rawls A Theory of Justice, (Oxford, 1973).9. Bohrer, Ope cit. Cf. Bohrer, "'Editorial," in Merkur 490, p. 1038.10. F. Fukuyama, ""The End of History," in The National Interest.11. M. Weber, Gesammelte Aufsiitze zur Religionssoziologie (Tubingen, 1978) pp. 202 ff;cf also pp. 560 ff and Schriften zur theoretischen Soziologie und zur Soziologie der Politik undVerfassung (Frankfurt, 1947) pp. 204, 222.12. Cf. Robert Bellabua Beitrage zur Judischen Gegenwart Gewohnheiten des Herzens,

Cologne 1987.13. Cf. H. Brunkhorst, "'Exodus - Ocr Ursprung de r modernen Freiheitsidee unddie normative Kraft der Erinnerung", in Babylon, 6, 1989, pp. 22 ff.14. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism, tr . Talcott Parsons (London,1930) p. 181.15. Cf. C. Offe, "Bindung, Fessel, Bremse," in Zwischenbetrachtungen, (Frankfurt, 1989)esp. pp. 760 ff, and on the Swedish model, pp. 766 ff.16. Cf. H. Brunkhorst, ""Hegel und die Franzosische Revolution" in Die Ideen von 1789,op. cit., pp. 166 ff.17. Frankenberg et al., Die demokratische Frage, (Frankfurt, 1989).18. Ibid.

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