Habermas surveys the German scene in the NY TImes

Any writing by Jürgen Habermas is noteworthy, but his lengthy op/ed piece in the New York TImes (Leadership and Leitkultur) is quite remarkable.  Here Habermas takes stock of Germany's autumn of discontent and finds some cause to worry.

Habermas first turns his attention to the Sarrazin phenomenon and the primitive Bell Curve theories that were long ago discredited in the United States:

In sharp contrast to the initial spontaneous objections from major politicians, these theses have gained popular support. One poll found that more than a third of Germans agreed with Mr. Sarrazin’s prognosis that Germany was becoming “naturally more stupid on average” as a result of immigration from Muslim countries.

After half-hearted responses in the press by a handful of psychologists who left the impression that there might be something to these claims after all, there was a certain shift in mood in the news media and among politicians toward Mr. Sarrazin. It took several weeks for Armin Nassehi, a respected sociologist, to take the pseudoscientific interpretation of the relevant statistics apart in a newspaper article. He demonstrated that Mr. Sarrazin adopted the kind of “naturalizing” interpretation of measured differences in intelligence that had already been scientifically discredited in the United States decades ago.

He then takes up the case of Germany's President Christian Wulff, whose statement of fact that "Islam is a part of Germany" unleashed as a wave of populist backlash that is being exploited by clever politicians such as Horst Seehofer:

After the speech the president received a standing ovation in the Bundestag from the assembled political notables. But the next day the conservative press homed in on his assertion about Islam’s place in Germany. The issue has since prompted a split within his own party, the Christian Democratic Union. It is true that, although the social integration of Turkish guest workers and their descendants has generally been a success in Germany, in some economically depressed areas there continue to be problematic immigrant neighborhoods that seal themselves off from mainstream society. But these problems have been acknowledged and addressed by the German government. The real cause for concern is that, as the Sarrazin and Wulff incidents show, cool-headed politicians are discovering that they can divert the social anxieties of their voters into ethnic aggression against still weaker social groups.

Habermas is concerned by the populist yearning for a charismatic leader.  He sees the current adulation of defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg as symptomatic of this yearning:

The same yearning for charismatic figures who stand above the political infighting can be seen in the puzzling popularity of the aristocratic defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, who, with not much more than his family background, polished manners and a judicious wardrobe, has managed to overshadow Ms. Merkel’s reputation.

Finally, the philosopher turns his attention to the Stuttgart 21 street protests, but it is not clear whether he views these as yet another danger or as an opportunity for more participative democracy:

The state government of Baden-Württemberg, where Stuttgart is located, sees the protests narrowly, as simply a question of whether government is legally permitted to plan such long-term megaprojects. In the midst of the turmoil the president of the Federal Constitutional Court rushed to the project’s defense by arguing that the public had already voted to approve it 15 years ago, and thus had no more say in its execution.

But it has since emerged that the authorities did not, in fact, provide sufficient information at the time, and thus citizens did not have an opportunity to develop an informed opinion on which they could have based their votes. To insist that they should have no further say in the development is to rely on a formalistic understanding of democracy. The question is this: Does participation in democratic procedures have only the functional meaning of silencing a defeated minority, or does it have the deliberative meaning of including the arguments of citizens in the democratic process of opinion- and will-formation?

After such clear and penetrating analysis of the current situation in Germany,  Habermas ends his piece with a rather disappointing call for a more robust, less "defeatist" political class.  Habermas the rationalist doesn't seem to have a strategy for harnessing the populist unrest for positive political change.

Comments

[Zyme]

Highly interesting read - thank you for highlighting it!

[hattie]

I appreciate Habermas on the German situation, which is hard to read from the outside.
However, to say, as he does, that Obama has a clear vision is probably not accurate.