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donate Summary for Merkur 01/2009
Enough with greed and gluttony, out with the moral decline! We want to start off the new year virtuously! In the January issue (Number 716), Clifford Orwin addresses compassion's triumphant career, which once counted as a nice emotion, yet now has become a central virtue. Ute Frevert traces the tricky dialectic of the call to "trust me" (the banking crisis sends its regards); Mark Lilla explains why Paul has become the Left's favorite apostle and is venerated by nowadays' cuddly Leninists and Mao apologists; Hans-Peter Müller wants to know what we can make of the often discussed "new bourgeoisie" (not much).
Scholarship is a further focus of the issue: Peter Uwe Hohendahl reports on American criticism of neo-liberal university reform; Hubert Markl shows why scholarly hodge-podge – a physicist, a theologian, and a neurologist discuss something (and make a pretty little book out of it) – as a rule does not work and belongs in the esoteric section; Eduard Kaeser has a go at "pop science," which has an eye to being an event but in the best case settles for being considered edutainment.
In his aesthetic column, Wolfgang Ullrich introduces the secrets of the internet world: welcome to YouTube! Uwe Jean Heuser bids farewell to the Homo oeconomicus with whom the economists again just disgraced themselves: it's fairness, not greed, that in reality drives Homo reciprocans! Dirk Baecker looks beyond the economy's own nose and explains the whole mess using cultural theory.
In his review, Stephan Schlak takes Hans-Ulrich Wehler's Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte to task; Thomas Sparr praises Geschichte der Sexualwissenschaft by Volkmar Sigusch. And finally, delicately coalescing knowledge and virtue, the Humboldts in a likable portrait by Hazel Rosenstrauch (although we can't conceal that Wilhelm was a radical liberal and a strong opponent of the intervening state and Caroline, even worse, was induldged in virulent anti-Semitism all her life).
Ute Frevert
Those who solicit trust rouse mistrust
Political semantics between challenge and appeasement
"Trust" and "mistrust" are highly emotional concepts – concepts that refer to close personal relationships. But in public life as well, in politics and economics, one can't get by without these categories. When trust in the financial system collapses, as we are currently experiencing, its agents – the banks – go broke. So bankers and politicians alike must solicit trust. But he who does so at the same time engenders mistrust... Note: Trust can result from talk and action, but those who noticeably go to such efforts more likely rouse mistrust.
Published 2008-12-31
Original in German
© Merkur
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