Summary of Merkur 11/2007
The November issue (Number 702) deals with politics. Robert Kagan explains why all those dreams of the end of history and the final victory of freedom were nonsense and why we should recognize that we again live in the world of political realism – that is, in the normality of power and violence, interest and conflict. Thomas Speckmann analyzes French foreign policy, which maintains an imperialistic touch. Christian Schneider and Friedrich Pohlmann study the foundations of terrorism. One takes on Islamistic assassins, the other the German RAF and their sympathizers.
Michael Rutschky describes the fear of the crash that has so tortured the Germans for nearly one hundred years, in times of good and bad. Sigbert Gebert deals with the unifying function of violence, be it as political demonstrations or as sporting and music events. William Easterly asks why the ideology of development, which has proven only a failure for fifty years, cannot finally be put to rest. Caroline Neubaur attended an international conference of psychoanalysts in Berlin that, oh miracle!, lived up to its title: "Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through".
Plus, portraits of writers Wolfgang Hilbig and Ross Thomas. In the architecture column Christoph Mäckler takes on the window, which today, with the exception of the rhetoric of "transparency", is hardly given any attention. Volker Gerhardt adjusts the current debate over romanticism: in his philosophy column he puts it in the historical and intellectual framework that best suits it – enlightenment.
Published 2007-10-30
Original in German
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