Habermas on Creating Order from Crisis

"The age of privatisation is over. Politics not the market is responsible for promoting the common good. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas talks to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order."

"Q: Speaking of Uncle Sam – you must be deeply disappointed with the United States. For you the US was supposed to be the draft horse of the new world order.

Do we have any alternative except to bet on this draft horse? The United States will emerge weaker from the current dual crisis. However, it remains for the present the liberal superpower and it finds itself in a situation which encourages it to overhaul its neoconservative self-image as the paternalistic global benefactor. The worldwide export of its own form of life sprang from the false, centralised universalism of the Old Empires. By contrast, modernity rests upon the decentralised universalism of equal respect for everyone. It is in the interest of the United States not only to abandon its counterproductive stance towards the United Nations but to place itself at the head of the reform movement. Viewed historically, the confluence of four factors – superpower status, the oldest democracy in the world, the assumption of office of a, let's hope, liberal and visionary president, and a political culture that provides an impressive sounding board for normative impulses – represents an improbable constellation. Today America is deeply distraught by the failure of the unilateral adventure, the self-destruction of neoliberalism and the abuse of its exceptionalist consciousness. Why shouldn't this nation, as it has so often in the past, pull itself together and try to bind the competing major powers of today – the global powers of tomorrow – before it is too late into an international order that no longer needs a superpower? Why shouldn't an American president – buoyed by a watershed election – who finds that his scope for action in the domestic arena is severely constrained want to embrace this reasonable opportunity – this opportunity for reason – at least in foreign policy?"

Full interview on SightandSound.com. Conducted by Thomas Assheuer and originally appeared auf deutsch in Die Zeit on 6 November, 2008.

Pathétique and Peanuts

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor- "Pathétique"
- animated in the film "Snoopy, Come Home".

Rise

A spectator raises her fist in celebration seconds after it was announced that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008.

"So you may shoot me with your words,
you may cut me with your eyes,
and I'll rise - I'll rise - I'll rise - rise - rise.
Out of the shacks of history's shame,
up from a past rooted in pain,
and I'll rise - I'll rise - I'll rise - rise - rise."

- written by Maya Angelou, as performed by Ben Harper

A seemingly endless string of disasters, a hardening of the spirit that drew new rifts between us, the elicitation of the corrupt, the incompetent, and the cruel; do we let ourselves believe that these dark times are over? Is this one sign enough to bring the wearying soul even the briefest respite? Is it a crack in these storm clouds that reminds us that the sun lies just beyond? Or is it first ray of a new dawn, that makes us realise the depth of the night and the inevitable direction of change?

As he said himself, "This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change". It may yet be a symbolic victory, but in a decade that seemed to lose the very meaning of "freedom", "democracy" and "human rights" as symbolic casualties of war, the promise of new meaning to these symbols is incredibly assuring. It may be simply changing the hands who wield power, but when those hands had become so stained with blood and money, there can be few things more important.

The million stories that have forged this piece of history reveal again that there is something in us which hungers for this light, a common part that yearns for freedom from a yoke that was bought in fear and desperation. It is a light, that no blindness can truly take, because we realise that for all the shadows and the chains that bound us in the cave of ignorance - the light itself was always there, burning from within us all.

May our children mark this as a vital and profound new chapter in the history of our interwoven civilisation. Peace.

Soundbites

• That this is history.
• It feels freakin' great to believe.
• Finally, one apocalyptic netherworld we didn't manage to steer ourselves into.
• Just stay alive Obama...
• Did we just manage to survive the outburst from September 11?
• It was always going to get horribly McCarthyist.
• Please, spend the political capital.
• At least one night before the illusion bursts.
• Did we actually learn something?
• Peace, and sweet rememberance of this Moment.