Abstract
The Enlightenment is often equated with Kant’s Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment (1784) and the charge that humanity must ‘dare to know’ and ‘have the courage’ to understand in order to be liberated from ‘self-imposed immaturity’. The new authority of critical reason as the basis of knowledge and the hope that this could lead to freedom and equality amongst people separated this period from earlier ways of thinking. Kant can be seen as emblematic of this hope for the emancipatory project of the Enlightenment. Yet, while the Enlightenment led to increased political and social emancipation in France, England, and the United States – the German Aufklärung did not follow the same trajectory; its population remaining ‘naively unpolitical’, advocating instead for an educational revolution, spread through dedicated private individuals and benevolent rulers (Epstein 1966: 33, 35). This was expressed in the uniquely German idea of education as Bildung in which the Enlightenment ideal of progressive self-liberation was framed first and foremost as the internal development of the individual, rather than as requiring social expression and change: self-cultivation rather than political emancipation.
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Notes
- 1.
Klaus Epstein argues that this contrast was due primarily to four major factors: Germany’s economic backwardness and weak bourgeoisie; its monarchical-authoritarian patterns of government that stifled civic consciousness; the prestige of the universities that encouraged elitist intellectual movements, and Germany’s unique preoccupation with religious controversy (1966: 31–32).
- 2.
Although self-cultivation in this instance should be understood in terms of the humanist tradition of Erasmus, nevertheless, Germany’s Lutheran Protestantism significantly influenced the Bildung ideal of good internal character expressed outwardly in fulfilling one’s duty in society (Bruford 1975: 14; Hahn 1995: 32).
- 3.
In that time, Berlin changed from the imperial state of the German empire or Der Kaiserreich founded by Bismarck in 1871, to the Weimar republic after 1918, to National Socialism by 1933.
- 4.
Benjamin Lazier notes that this ‘Oedipal revolt’ of the sons turning against the father could also be seen amongst Jewish thinkers. He particularly notes Kafka as the most notable example, with Rozensweig as the last remaining ‘Liberal German-Jew’ (2008: 7).
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
The inclusion of five essays on Barth’s role in the Weimar Moment: Liberalism, Political Theology, and Law (Lexington Books 2012) not only examines Barth’s contribution in this historically significant context, but considers the influence of religious thought and language during this period.
- 8.
We note that Harnack’s belief in history as enabling action with regard to the future, although still informed by a Christian eschatology, is far more conservative in its scope than a more radical figure like Marx’s.
- 9.
Harnack was editor, while Barth had served at one stage as assistant editor for 2 years following his 1909 graduation from Marburg.
- 10.
See Harnack’s lectures on ‘What is Christianity’ (Das Wesen des Christentums, 1902).
- 11.
This theme of opposition could of course be traced back to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. It found expression throughout wider scholarly and cultural debates. During this time Georg Simmel published ‘Die Krisis der Kultur’, in the Drittes Morgenblatt (1916); Rudolf Pannenwitz published The Crisis of European Culture (1917); Eugen Varga, Die Krise der kapitalischen Weltwirtschaft, (1921); Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi, Krise der Weltanschauung (1923); Alfred Weber, Die Krise Des Modernen Staatsgedankens in Europa (1925). The crisis language following the war can also be found in Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West (1918 and 1922 [see Chapter 2 below]), Rosa Luxemburg’s Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie (1919), Thomas Mann’s Confessions of an Unpolitical Man (1918), and more.
- 12.
Indeed, crisis, in its original Greek meaning, suggests a sifting or separation that leads to a judgment or point of decision. In German, the linguistic play with Scheidung (separation) and Enscheidung (decision) fosters the idea of a ‘decisive judgment’.
- 13.
See the chapters in this volume by Altman, Potter and Sharpe.
- 14.
Bullivant differentiates between the ‘older generation’ of conservative revolutionaries, represented by Thomas Mann, Ernst Troeltsch, and Friedrich Meinecke, who believed the desired ‘middle way’ could be found by working within the Republic, and the ‘younger generation’, who either aided those who worked against the Republic, or distanced themselves from the political arena (Bullivant 1985: 56). Here again, the outbreak of the war in 1914 was decisive for the younger Conservative Revolutionaries, who had volunteered in large numbers.
- 15.
Tracey B. Strong referred to Schmitt as the ‘Martin Heidegger of political theory’ in her Introduction to Schmitt (2007: xxxi). See also Eric Wilson’s argument that Heidegger provides Schmitt with the tools for a secular mythology that informs Schmitt’s own friend-enemy distinction, in Wilson (2012), 1–28.
- 16.
Indeed, Karl Barth was from the beginning, and remained throughout the war, a vocal critic of the Nazi regime. See Gorringe (1999).
- 17.
As Ringer points out, German philosophers were almost unanimous in treating the Marburg tradition as part of the decline of philosophy; its representatives were accused of ‘logicism’ (Logizismus) and of positivist tendencies (Ringer 1989: 306–7). Yet, the Marburg school did attempt to affect political change ‘from above’ (Moynahan 2013: xxi).
- 18.
Kelsen’s alleged ‘positivism’ was not a true positivism, insofar as in his view legal norms should be seen as the meaning of the acts of human will, rather than natural law. See Jabloner (2000: 69).
- 19.
For arguments that Heidegger remains a ‘transcendental’ philosopher, see Cromwell and Malpas (2007); Rockmore ed. (2000).
- 20.
While Barth is often framed as turning against the Protestant Liberalism of his age, what counts as Protestant Liberalism is itself contextual. It is as difficult to define Protestant liberalism, as it is to assign individual theologians to this particular camp. Theologians such as Schleirmacher, Ritschl, and Harnack are now included in ‘liberal theology’ but saw themselves as beyond this (Oakes 2012: 52).
- 21.
The nature of Barth’s break from Protestant liberalism continues to be debated amongst Barth scholars. Oakes argues that even before the outbreak of the war, Barth had already experience a conversation to religious socialism, and became increasingly involved in political activities – in and out of the pulpit, in the latter adopting a ‘bleaker, or more apocalyptic style’ of preaching (Oakes 2012: 40). See also McCormack 1995: 98. Noteworthy also is Harnack’s intellectual influence on Barth’s own crisis theology.
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Brown, P. (2017). The Sons Destined to Murder Their Father: Crisis in Interwar Germany. In: Sharpe, M., Jeffs, R., Reynolds, J. (eds) 100 years of European Philosophy Since the Great War. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50361-5_4
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