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Riccardo Bavaj: Western Civilization
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Themen: 1968 Kategorie: Veröffentlichungen/Paper
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| Autor: |  |
| Veröffentlicht: | März 2010 |
| Veröffentlichung: | Themenportal Europäische Geschichte |
| Thema: | Geschichte |
| Lizenz: |  Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell, keine Bearbeitung |
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Essay
Dokumenterstellung: 26.02.2010 Seite: 1 von 8
“WESTERN CIVILIZATION” AND THE ACCELERATION OF TIME. RICHARD LÖWENTHAL’S
REFLECTIONS ON A CRISIS OF “THE WEST” IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE STUDENT REVOLT OF “1968”1
By Riccardo Bavaj
“The West” was in crisis – yet again. And Richard Löwenthal was deeply worried. The socio-political order of the Federal Republic had been challenged by the student revolt, and its impact was felt particularly strongly at the Free University Berlin where Löwenthal, born in 1908, had been professor of International Relations since the early 1960s. West Germany’s intellectual foundation had been attacked, and for someone like Löwenthal who had experienced the demise of Germany’s first experiment in liberal democracy, it seemed as though Weimar’s shadows were hanging over the Federal Republic
deeper than ever before. The fateful tradition of German romanticism, “antiliberal and anti-Western” as he put it, appeared to have resurfaced once again. This time, however, it was not outright authoritarianism, but a leftist renaissance of romanticutopian thought that haunted the “second republic”.2
Avowed advocate of what he saw as “Western values”, Löwenthal was amongst the most articulate exponents of “consensus liberalism”, which was, as Michael Hochgeschwender has argued, the “fundamental ideology of the West” from the 1940s to the late 1960s.3 For liberal scholars like Löwenthal, whose self-imposed mission was to anchor the Federal Republic firmly in the realm of what had come to be known as “Western democracies”, nothing less than the success of their chief political project was at stake in “1968”. It seemed as though West Germany’s stability had been seriously undermined, and its security jeopardized.
Gesamtes Dokument lesen »
Dokumenterstellung: 26.02.2010 Seite: 1 von 8
“WESTERN CIVILIZATION” AND THE ACCELERATION OF TIME. RICHARD LÖWENTHAL’S
REFLECTIONS ON A CRISIS OF “THE WEST” IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE STUDENT REVOLT OF “1968”1
By Riccardo Bavaj
“The West” was in crisis – yet again. And Richard Löwenthal was deeply worried. The socio-political order of the Federal Republic had been challenged by the student revolt, and its impact was felt particularly strongly at the Free University Berlin where Löwenthal, born in 1908, had been professor of International Relations since the early 1960s. West Germany’s intellectual foundation had been attacked, and for someone like Löwenthal who had experienced the demise of Germany’s first experiment in liberal democracy, it seemed as though Weimar’s shadows were hanging over the Federal Republic
deeper than ever before. The fateful tradition of German romanticism, “antiliberal and anti-Western” as he put it, appeared to have resurfaced once again. This time, however, it was not outright authoritarianism, but a leftist renaissance of romanticutopian thought that haunted the “second republic”.2
Avowed advocate of what he saw as “Western values”, Löwenthal was amongst the most articulate exponents of “consensus liberalism”, which was, as Michael Hochgeschwender has argued, the “fundamental ideology of the West” from the 1940s to the late 1960s.3 For liberal scholars like Löwenthal, whose self-imposed mission was to anchor the Federal Republic firmly in the realm of what had come to be known as “Western democracies”, nothing less than the success of their chief political project was at stake in “1968”. It seemed as though West Germany’s stability had been seriously undermined, and its security jeopardized.
Gesamtes Dokument lesen »
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