No More Learning

If we now look at the potent time span from 1806 to 1945, which is for our theme of the greatest priority, we are confronted by an entire sequence of entangled but yet culturally produc- tive post-war periods, (although this productivity had primarily pathological roots). In his recent book Rene? Girard has pro- vided important stimuli in understanding the mimetic proc- esses of exchange in the Franco-German duel and its extremist dynamic - I will return to this later. Suffice it to say I can only but broadly outline the agenda in such an enterprise as this. We will content ourselves with the fact that it was Napoleon's appearance that marked a fateful turning point in the relations between the two countries. The abundant consequences of his interventions were literally incalculable for the course of Ger- man affairs - and would possibly still be if it had not been for Germany's and France's rapprochement and reconciliation under the two previously mentioned statesmen which finally unshackled the two countries from this fatal state of affairs. For it is Napoleon, from a German standpoint, who was not only the liquidator of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, not only the man whose military genius defeated Austria and Russia in the Battle of Austerlitz of 1805, not only the victor of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 - in short not only the 'war god', as according to Clausewitz, through whose intensity France, torn apart by the revolution, succeeded in transforming the transi- tion from monarchy to republic from an internal to an external
15
affair and moreover to a global messianic campaign for the dis- semination of French principles in the form of launching a glo- bal war of conquest. Through this, his impact became so great, that he created the epoch making archetype of political genius which due to his brilliant successes fatally sowed the seeds of resentment and imitatory rivalry fed by love and hate, and this in all the European countries he had attacked from the Atlantic to the Urals.
If one wishes to attach full meaning to the term 'post-war period' in regard to the entire European development after 1815 then there is no avoiding the fact that the chain of reactions triggered off by French attacks, despite the influence regional diversity, spanned more than 150 years, was most effective in the anti- liberal and anti-modern currents in Germany which lasted until Hitler's suicide in the spring of 1945, and in Spain where the blockade against political and cultural modernity continued until Franco's death in 1975. It should also be pointed out in reference to the 'post-war period' that Napoleon's image as role model or bogeyman in the art, in the philosophy and the politics of Europe remained virulent for over a century. From a clinical point of view too, it was not until the second half of the 20th century that the number of patients who considered themselves to be Napoleon began to steadily drop at least in asylums. The way in which the Corsican continued to make his presence felt on the scene is called to account by Andre? Glucksmann in a chapter of his political autobiography which he titled not with- out a touch of bitter humour "A nous deux, Napole? on! ". Here we learn what price had to be paid but until recently before a French adolescent was healed of the disease of 'Napoleonitis' - including homeopathic treatment employing Maoism. 2 Histo- rians of political ideas have quite rightly pointed out the fact
Andre? Glucksmann: Une rage d'enfant, Plon 2006, p. 104-127
? 16
that reviewing the Napoleon shock in the European countries most effected, led to the separation of nationalistic tendencies from the liberal modernistic currents. This modernising pathol- ogy typical of large parts of the 19th and early 20th centuries is due to an immediately transparent but nonetheless irresistible psychopolitical mechanism which was to play an especially im- portant role for the Germans in their catastrophe dictated by the resentments of having been vanquished. Incidentally the outcome of this first European experiment in nation building under French leadership leads one to fear that the results for enterprises along the same lines in our own times will be simi- larly poor.
17
4 Italy 1918: Falsifications of the results of war, politics in a big way
At this point I do not wish to restrict my focus to the post-war periods of the 20th century. And it is here that attention will be paid to German and French developments which took place af- ter 1945 and their possible correlation. In order to illustrate the conceptual framework of this examination which is becoming more concrete, it will be essential to introduce an analytical in- termezzo dealing with certain anomalies of consequence in the post-war period starting in 1918 so that the processes are co- herent. We will focus our attention on Italy because it is the key to understanding further considerations, and it is here that the concept of 'war result falsification' first materializes clearly. In connection with Mu? hlmann's model of post-stressory decorum- revision we have already mentioned that the rule is that after battles fought a culture gets the opportunity to re-evaluate and possibly revise its basic normative attitudes, one could also say its moral grammar, in the light of the results of the combat. The benchmarks for this examination are called affirmation in the case of victory and metanoia in the case of defeat.
Now we should remember that in 1918 the Italians found them- selves in a position where neither of these two alternatives was applicable. As is generally known the Italians withdrew from the alliance of 1882 with Germany and Austria-Hungary (the so-called Triple Alliance) in August 1914 thus signalling their having become ambivalently neutral. Sometime later as a result of the secret treaty of London (which promised Italy in the event of victory considerable territorial gains) it defected to the Al- lied camp by declaring war on Austria-Hungary at the end of May 1915. But despite many heroic sacrifices victory was not to be for the Italians. Only thanks to massive allied assistance was it possible that Italy, although it was completely finished
18
militarily and on the verge of political collapse (especially after the disastrous defeat in the 12th Battle of the Isonzo near Tol- mein in October 1917), found itself on the winning side at the end of the war.
The ambiguity of this position accounts for the troubles of post- war history in Italy. One spoke of vittoria mutilata when one should have termed it a defeat which had turned into a coun- terfeit victory. This explains why Italy was only in a position to achieve a semi-metanoia. The first signs of this manifested themselves in the initial successes of the Socialists in 1919 and 1920 in which a newly emerged ultra-nationalist party called for an immediate heroic affirmation and shortly afterwards es- tablished itself along these lines - Mussolini winning nothing less than 66% of the votes in the elections in January 1924.
Out of this situation, which fed the most vehement forms of dis- clamatory affirmation, emerged the movement of pure activism, mobilization for its own sake, which went down in history under the name of Fascism. Among the countless enquiries devoted to this subject there is hardly one which befittingly sheds light on the basic fact that primary Fascism was the result of a falsification of the actual outcome of the war in which the real or virtual loser presented himself as victor nevertheless, or better still as hyper- victor. It wished to indulge in the illusion that it could avoid the work involved in reviewing its cultural decorum and substitute it by reinforcing the pattern which had led to failure. In general terms this merely proves that of all people, it was those who had most reason for a metanoic turnaround contrary to the rules that had applied up till that time, who often most furiously plunged into the affirmation of values which had all but propelled them into total disaster. There is no need to demonstrate in detail that this also applied to the extreme German rightwing of the Weimar Republic. In Germany the falsification of the results of the war
19
had begun shortly after November 1918 with the infamous 'stab in the back' of the supposedly undefeated army and as of 1933 displayed the well-known consequences.
In the light of these considerations, Fascism in its original form appears not only as the much discussed transfer of modern war- fare to the modus operandi of the entire culture and eo ipso as the neutralization of the difference between war and peace un- der the prefix of permanent mobilization, but moreover its psy- chopolitical form betrays its wilful falsification of the outcome of war and rejection of metanoia. Its distinguishing marks are the triumphalism of the loser and the forced affirmation of the heroistic code by those, who in view of their recently acquired experience, would have been better advised to radically review their relationship to the set of rules of the heroic life.
20
5 France 1945: The double falsification
At this point of my discussion I can leave the stage of preview- ing and explication of theoretical premises and turn to the sub- ject matter proper, the comparative examination of the Franco- German post-war periods as of 1945. What immediately strikes us is the similarity of the French position after 1945 with the Italian position of 1918. Just as the Allies erected a last front for the Italians as of November 1917 who were then able to stay the course until the German surrender, so did the Allies bear the brunt of the war for the French until the unforgettable day of libe? ration in August 1944 on which de Gaulle, at the head of his own improvised forces, returned to Paris. The decisive difference lies in the fact that the defeat of the French in 1940 turned out to be much more unequivocal than that of Italy in 1917 in that the French ranks (who were absent only in Yalta) were much more conspicuous under the allied powers than the Italians at the end of the 1st World War. It is well known that the latter were only conceded a subordinate role in the peace treaties of 1919. Above all one is astonished at the analogy between the Italian and the French dilemmas as soon as they find their basis in the above-mentioned model of post-stress self-evaluation. In both cases we can see that after being given victory there is an oscillating between metanoethical and af- firmative tendencies, an oscillation which finally is neutralized in order to initiate a more or less comprehensive falsification of the results of the war.
All the same one can say that the French, while reviewing the shadows of stress after 1945 despite all tendencies to reverse the facts, against all the odds, were lucky, because in the end their form of national reconstruction 'only' led to Gaullism. The trivial phrase "de Gaulle was not Mussolini" assumes formi- dable meaning in this context. It marks, despite all the simi-
21
larities, the considerable gap between the post-war reactions of these peoples. While the Italians with their near defeat made things much worse by taking flight by marching forwards, the French, after the indecisive and ambivalent interlude of the Fourth Republic, chose the lesser of two evils, the Gaullistic therapy. Furthermore the French interpretation of the defeat of 1940 which miraculously led to victory in 1945 was deeply di- vided right from the beginning. Running parallel to the Gaullist evasion in the national affirmation the French left-wing devel- oped a second front of falsification according to which the 'bet- ter' France or the France of the re? sistance, we may now, evoke German analogies, was supposed to have won the war on the side of Stalin and the Red Army.
Only within the framework of such a theory of the post war pe- riod is it possible to grasp that the much cited division of the overpolarized political camps, that hermeneutic gallic war be- tween the French post-war right-wing and the French post-war left-wing, was in reality the conflict between two incompatible strategies the purpose of which in both cases was to falsify the results of the war.
At this point it is not necessary to expound in detail how the Gaullist departure into neo-grandeur took place. Nor does a mention have to be made of the beginnings of an authentic French metanoia which miscarried during the Fourth Republic mainly due the humiliations the nation suffered in the conflicts in Indochina and North Africa at time of decolonialization. It will have to suffice to point out the main symptom of the French reaction: As de Gaulle returned a second time as a knight in shining armour to the pinnacle of power he dictated the con- stitution of the Fifth Republic which is still valid today and whose strong presidential fixation was to prove a problem for the country itself and for the rest of Europe. The elevation of
22
the presidency only makes sense if one suspects the Elyse? e of wanting to be a sort of European White House, or to use exam- ples closer to home, something somewhere between Versailles and Bayreuth. The fantasy had been prevalent in the Elyse? e Palace for some decades as Parisian students suddenly got it into their heads that their fantasy should replace the prevalent one in a turbulent month of May. The President's command of France's newly acquired nuclear weaponry (the Force de dis- suasion nucle? aire fully operational since 1964) utterly embod- ies the form of expression which has come to a head of a post- stressor strategy of affirmation, or to use clinical terminology a contraphobic compensation.
De Gaulle never wanted to be a Gaullist and it would be unjust to simply deny that the General's work had certain metanoethi- cal qualities - the scene in Reims mentioned at the beginning alone speaks against a one-sided affirmationistic interpreta- tion. Moreover the fact that terms such as de? tente, entente and coope? ration increasingly appeared in his vocabulary empha- sized like leitmotivs, reveal how he was trying to show the con- servative elements in France the way to reviewing their colo- nial, imperial and heroistic legacy. One of his greatest achieve- ments will always be his reconciling of the old right-wing with modern republicanism.
The more interesting as far as the history of ideas are con- cerned, and in terms of ideology much more alluring form of falsification of results of war took place however on a different side of the inner French front. While the Gaullist departure into semi-imperial affirmation succeeded in getting by with stand- ard emotions and basic processes of accentuation of a national identity, i. e. patriotic enlargement of the self and modernising their weaponry, an ideological and psychopolitical transforma- tion occurred in the left wing which was to have unforeseeable
23
consequences. It was here that as of 1944 a singular form of pseudo-metanoethical literature developed the critical reflec- tion of which has still hardly begun. 3 It simultaneously trig- gered off a large importation of German philosophers such as Hegel and Heidegger or Marx, Nietzsche and Carl Schmitt. This occurred as if to illustrate the observation put forth by cul- tural theoreticians that romanticism flourishes if, in the realm of ideas, a compensation for political defeat is on the agenda.
The main approach of the Left in falsifying war results was not, as was the case of the Right in escaping into the national tradi- tion of greatness, but an escape into socialist super-greatness. This naturally had the grave error that its representative on the world stage in that critical time bore the name of Stalin. Strangely enough this detail hardly seemed to trouble anybody as long as the French left-wing, thanks to this manoeuvre, not only could save its injured conscience but also could construe a victory of its own - simply as if it were possible to reattribute the successes of the Red Army to the left-wing resistance. And by means of this, one was free to pseudo-metanoethically deal with the failure of the Third Republic, with the infamy of col- laboration and French colonialism not to mention the internal contradictions of Gaullist reconstruction without ever having to come down from the victor's high horse. As a result a rhe- torical apparatus for the articulation of triumphal self-hate and hypermoralistic aggression against national and bourgeois tra- ditions came into being which lent itself well for use at home and abroad.
In the second nucleus of victory falsification a culturally he- genomous scene speedily consolidated and raised the banner
Cf. Tony Judt: Past Imperfect. French Intellectuals 1944-1956, Berkeley Los Ange- les Oxford 1992
? 24
of militantism thus managing to make the word 'commitment' a synonym for French intellectualism throughout the world. By these means every form of collaboration was to be severely criticized in future including collaboration with the elemen- tary facts. This battling church of belated resistance grasped how to promote itself for the general criticism of the bourgeois society and neo-capitalistic age by blending Marxism, semiol- ogy and psychoanalysis into a suggestive amalgam. The export successes of French theoretical literature which continued on into the 90's relied above all on their polemical utility value for analogous critical subcultures of the countries importing it, notably Italy and Germany. In the USA it was made especially welcome as the young intelligentsia of the country were, after the debacle in Vietnam, suddenly willing to learn a foreign lan- guage in order to radically and critically talk about their own culture. Even today the remains of this product under the cat- egories of French Theory or Critical Theory can be acquired in bookshops on American campuses.
In these shelves, and only in these shelves by the way, has the only phenomenon occurred which perhaps deserves to be termed a Franco-German relationship - that is the convergence of all those discursive machines purporting to explain every- thing, which were to be found on both sides of the Rhine in sug- gestive elaboration and with which young people were taught until recently to see through and to condemn the existing con- ditions as if they themselves did not have a part in them. Since however, the analogous discourse in German criticism of itself and the world after 1945 arose in an entirely different context and operated in entirely different climate than the French one, then even this seemingly close affinity must be considered to be a misunderstanding.
25
What distinguishes French from German criticism is their en- tirely different types of cultural integration and consequently their diametrically opposed tendency as to policies of the truth. While German criticism speaks to a population which, de- spite their reluctance, was not able to deny being guilty of the charges, French criticism was directed at a society acquitted, and in need of elucidation as to their dro^le de libe? ration. This may well be the reason why the intellectual Germany is the only place in the world where an old-fashioned correspondence theory of truth still dominates. Here defeat is called defeat (and a crime a crime) - and the remaining words are also gauged to this semantic primal scale. It is only here that the religion of the objective referee holds sway. The intellectual France prefers the politically more elegant and rhetorically more attractive po- sition where words and things belong to separate systems.
26
6 Germany 1945: Metanoia
It goes without saying that the German population had plenty work to do after 1945 which was generally termed the 'Wied- eraufbau' (rebuilding the nation). The priorities for rebuilding the nation were something they had in common with their de- feated and yet liberated French neighbours even though this assumed an entirely different manner. In its German connota- tion the word of course particularly signifies the material aspect of dealing with the damage done by the war which was evident enough after the bombardment by allied forces. Furthermore, it signified the sum of the efforts which the Germans subjected themselves to in order to recover morally and culturally. Cer- tainly Adenauer was not de Gaulle - yet another trivial sentence with formidable implifications. The name of the first German chancellor stands for national reconstruction with very little in common with the affirmative arts of Gaullism. He symbolizes the pragmatic and everyday side of the metanoethical work in Germany. In the course of its unwavering progress the Wied- eraufbau combined the reconstruction of the towns and cities with a political and moral reorientation. The German economic boom as it was subsequently named, acted as an economic con- firmation of the course that had been taken to bring about the metamorphosis.
In order to plot the graph showing the progress of this self- reconstruction it will suffice to recall the admission of guilt by all German Protestant Christians in Stuttgart on 19th October 1945 which can be legitimately termed the beginning of spir- itual history in what was to become the Federal Republic of Germany. Further points along the curve mark, apart from the treaty of reparation with Israel in 1952, were the scene of 12th July in 1962 in Reims and Willy Brandt kneeling at the memo- rial in the Warsaw ghetto on 7th December 1970. The inaugu-
27
ration of Berlin's memorial to the Jews killed in Europe, the subject of many years of discussion, on 10th May 2005 forms a contemporary cornerstone of this evolution. 4
From the point of view of the theory of post-stressor decorum reviews in post-war periods it can be easily seen that the above- mentioned events all lie on the same line. They may all be at- tributed to the same process which at no time was uncompli- cated, but at no time threatened by a reversal of the metanoeth- ical tranformation process of the vanquished German people. Seen from today's standpoint one may justifiably claim that it formed the most reliable of constants in the history of ideas and mentality of Europeans after 1945. Only if we look at the process as a whole can we comprehend how it was possible for Germany to rearm itself without this involving a general remili- tarisation of politics, and how social and cultural rebuilding could occur without any connection worth mentioning to nos- talgia for antidemocratic traditions, and how there was a boost- ing of efficiency nationwide without re-germanification, and a West German economic boom without submitting to imperialist temptations, and a national recovery without opinionatedness. Nobody will deny that political and cultural life in Germany did not have to face some hard tests during this period. In the notorious 'bleak period' (die bleierne Zeit), the suffocating at- mosphere of which those who experienced it recall with the greatest uneasiness, the silence reigned long concerning what had happened. As the silence was finally broken the pendu- lum suddenly veered in the other direction. Therefore hybrid forms of hate also flourished against their own kind. Here also, outraged later generations exploited their interest in achieving
The fifteen-year debate is well-documented in the book Der Denkmalstreit - das Denkmal? Die Debatte um das ,Denkmal fu? r die ermordeten Juden in Europa' (Ute Heimrod, Gu? nter Schlusche, Horst Seferens (eds. ), Philo Verlagsgesellschaft, Dres- den 1999.
? 28
rapid superiority over the older generations with their complex life stories, and here also as on the other side of the Rhine ap- peared pseudopolitical 'Maitre Penseur' to boot, who treated the distinction between a totalitarian state of the past and a democratic state of the present like something of negligible significance - so that one had the impression of seeing reve- nants from the NS period everywhere when it would have been enough to observe unpractised democrats learning their roles. Here too there were as was the case in France, a heinous repu- diatory hardening on the right-wing and self-righteous pseudo- metanoethical excesses on the left-wing. One almost antici- pated a restaging of left-wing fascism which for the purposes of sidetracking called itself anti-fascism and just like its role model advocated the use of weapons - which is why in the style of Lenin it claimed the right to kill self-proclaimed enemies of the people for the better good. Nevertheless, these eruptions were not able to bring the German post-war process decisively off its basic course. It remained unperturbedly orientated to its task and that was to re-evaluate and review the German deco- rum handed down complete with its gloomily romantic, hero- istic and resentful hereditary burden in the light of the results of the war and, moreover in the light of the catastrophe in which they had been complicit.
29
7 France 2007: Imperial temptation and the implosion of the left-wing
In front of the backdrop of these observations on French and German post-war periods and the differences which have thus come to light during the cultural evaluation and integration of results of war, I would like to now pursue the question as if one had to give a speech based on the cultural political aspects of both countries. To begin with the case of France, one thing would be appear to be clear especially in the light of 2007, and that is that the Gallic war for the political and ideological appropriation of the Libe? ration has been decided in the mean- time. The result lies on the borderline of average psychopoliti- cal plausibilities. With increasing remoteness from the critical events a post-Gaullist moderate left wing has established itself on the broadest of fronts, which no one wishes to call middle- class simply because nobody is really certain what the word 'middle-class' means under today's conditions. The unusually compact centre-right currents in France at present cater for the everyday political Narcissm as a matter of routine and at a safe distance from the dramatic tension of the first post-war period. It is this Narcissm which supplies the material from which pa- triotism is created in non-neurotic peoples.
The rest of Europe including Germany could live with that if it were not for the fact that France's Gaullist structural heritage has developed a life of its own which is by no means harm- less. This ranges from the scantily veiled unilateralism of the French nuclear doctrine, to the anti-European tendencies of France's sovereignism and on to the sub-imperialistic antics of the French army in Africa and overseas. 5 However the most
Which will be compensated for by President Sarkozy's announcement of France's return to NATO
? 30
dubious is the hysterogenous potential growing out of the liai- son between presidentialism and media populism, a potential with which de Gaulle as a political Nietzschean and illusionist reverted to with great virtuosity in serving the whole. Even with its worn down profile the genetic material of Gaullism poses a volatile risk for Europe. And members of the European Union will be well advised to observe closely the Sarkozy experiment which the French chose in May 2007. After the new president was forced to realize that a Cecilia Ciganer cannot be a sec- ond Jacky Kennedy the next lesson for him would be, despite suggestions to the contrary, that there is definitely no room in Europe for a White House. If he really wants to show generosity of spirit and make a big impact by remodelling France in a con- temporary manner he could, by introducing the much overdue post-Gaullist constitution and thus becoming the first man of the sixth republic to make the headlines.
The clear outcome of the neo-gallic war over the interpretation of Libe? ration contains a historically ideological and remarkable characteristic. Numerous observers have recently unanimously come to the conclusion that the previously high-profile French left-wing has after a prolonged weak phase, beginning in Mit- te? rand's last years if not earlier, sunk into oblivion within a very short time. This process which was to recently become apparent by the number of ballot boxes, is accompanied by an intellectual erosion which beggars all description. Even the in- terpretation of the above by those concerned leaves a lot to be desired, (there has been for some time talk of the demise of la Grande Nation as if France had happened to collide with an iceberg one cold night) but this heavy-handedness comes as no surprise in view of its record. All the same the new theoretical nonentity of the left camp in France and its far-reaching practi- cal disintegration represents a serious brainteaser for histori- ans of mentality and ideas.
31
With reference to what was mentioned above we now have a plausible explanation why the implosion of the left-wing in France should not be entirely attributed to local appropriation of the neo-capitalist and postpolitical Zeitgeist which has been impressing every Western nation for well over twenty years. The question with this phenomenon has much more to do with the final collapse of the pseudo-metanoethical system with which the French left-wing understood how to create falsified victo- ries and phantomatic sovereignty in the troubled area of post- war affects and post-war discourse. They continued to defend these achievements for decades without taking contexts into account - well over the best-before-date for illusions. In the meantime however, they too have been overtaken by the change in affairs. The disruption of French discoursal culture becomes apparent simply by the fact that the country's left-wing has for many years failed to produce a book of any merit not to men- tion new perspectives. What was left was only the romantic po- lemical stance which allows it adepts to swear by militancy and deviation as in the good old days. The intellectual decomposi- tion has been most evident during recent years in the media driven witchhunts sweeping the nation against alleged converts or traitors of the progressive cause who one tried to sacrifice to public opinion after pseudo-moralistic propaganda trials on the Place de Gre`ve. For the external observer these attacks were against the new reactionaries as they are derisively called or more recently the conservateurs, unmistakable evidence that the French left-wing having stooped to resorting to helpless and hysterical progressivism has been standing in the rain for a long time and whose day is only brightened by the occasional flash in the pan. The analogy to the German phenomena of scandal of the last fifteen years is obvious - for here in Germany too, the dominant leftist liberal feuilleton was only able to compensate for its ever increasing disassociation from the workings of the world by getting overexcited and moralising. In this connection
32
the number of votes by the Left in the referendum against the European Constitution was symptomatic. Those who appreci- ated and loved la belle France with its savoir vivre and generos- ity were well advised, in the view of the predominantly pite- ous niveau of the 'nonistic' propaganda at the time, to spread a cloak of silence over these events.
All the same it would be unjust to assess the French left-wing's attempts to re-evaluate national decorum as being totally nega- tive. It can above all, thanks to its more moderate spokesmen, produce a number of authentic metanoethical achievements, which will have enduring significance, even if they have never managed to secure hegemonic status trapped as they are be- tween rivalling systems of successful, much too successful, falsification of the results of war. In this context Jean Paul Sar- tre's bitter defeat of Albert Camus in the 50's is of special sig- nificance. It betrays the precarious status of the energies which were aimed at a genuine intellectual prevention of failed ideo- logical traditions. Voices like those of Camus sought to enforce a theory of human moderation and the symbolic relativity of existence, while all around them neo-revolutionary symbol- ism and extremist surrealism were running wild. With all their might the authors of this radical tendency attempted to main- tain faith in life, above all the defeat of 1940 had proved that the world was in urgent need of French ideas particularly after they had taken an invigorating Stalinist or Maoist bath.
In the long run it has become more than clear that it was Camus who had the right answers to the fundamental questions back in the late 40's. He was the one who, after the excesses of violence of the first half of the century, incorruptibly reminded us to keep our feet on the ground and it was he who raised the banner of the nonnegotiable obligation to civilizing reflection. "Each tells the other he is not God; this is the end of romanticism. " - with
33
this sentence his L'homme re? volte? of 1951, much maligned and ridiculed by commentators of the left-wing, ends, thereby artic- ulating an axiom which outshone all other metanoethical work. It was Camus who found the words of reconciliation for all of Europe after the war as he wrote, "Today the calamity is we all share the same mother country". As of 1945, although at a safe distance certainly, Sartre was playing with the fire of armed revolt - from his fatal foreword to Franz Fanon's The Wretched of this Earth (1961) an anti-colonial manifesto of violence to his foolhardy visit to Stammheim, where to his disappointment he encountered a moron by the name of Baader who was not worthy of a visit of such a great mind. Whether this showed a dubious appetite for understatement or not, Sartre made himself avail- able as a figurehead for French pseudometanoia until the last.
I need hardly emphasize that the names of Camus and Sartre in the context of these observations have a purely typological function and imply no judgement as to their literary and philo- sophical ranking - in the case of both, we raise our eyes to heights which hardly any contemporary author can climb. With the former I associate tendencies which stand for the return of a self-critically level-headed, post-imperial, post-ideological France at the centre of Europe. With the latter however we find a still virulent tendency to neurotic exceptionalism and mes- sianic export of aggression.
If I am not entirely mistaken I will conclude by commenting that the Camusian position has gained importance in recent years. The few living authors who, unnoticed by the general intellectual mediocritisation of France, have succeeded in join- ing the ranks of the country's glorious era, can be characterized as being Camusians from the typological standpoint. The politi- cal moralists, also called the Nouveaux Philosophes, by nature stood typologically closer to the Camus-pole than to the Sartre-
34
pole. This also applies to Bernard-Henri Le? vy who, with his hastily written pamphlet Ide? ologie franc? aise of 1981, produced a sensitive if not, due to its polemic exaggeration, justifiably controversial contribution to French metanoethical literature. In the light of this analysis he now appears as a Camusian who has mistaken himself for a Sartrian.
35
9 Happy disassociation: Polemological prospects with Rene? Girard
In conclusion I would like to go into the question as to what sense the expression "Franco-German relations" has from the standpoint of what has been considered here. It will presuma- bly come as no surprise if the word "relations" acquires a some- what ironic aspect here. Of course I have no intention of belit- tling the multifaceted network of Franco-German interactions which came into being as a result of the Elyse?
e treaty - from the transformation of state visits into routine consultations, to the regular meetings of foreign and defence ministers, from joint economic boards to the production of the Airbus. The exchange of students is also an excellent idea as well as bilingual edu- cation wherever it is practised. However, I would at this point like to refrain from dealing with these, in themselves valuable forms of organized contact, leaving them to those in charge and relying on these professionals of such encounters to keep these relations functioning irrespective of any philosophical and cul- tural theoretical commentary.
I would like to conclude by dealing with the question as to the inner distance between both countries after the last war. I be- lieve I have offered arguments for that and why this is much greater than can be expressed by the customary speeches of friendship and cooperation. The reasons for this can be found in both countries' poststressor evaluations of the results of the war which have been briefly mentioned here. After 1945, the French and the Germans in cultural and psychopolitical terms went each their separate ways while at the same time on the level of official political relations they formed a new mutually beneficial friendship. I contend that these two aspects, the drifting apart and the friendship, signify one and the same.
44
This hypothesis requires further explanation. Let us return again to, from the Franco-German perspective, the most mov- ing scene of the second half of the 20th century, de Gaulle and Adenauer's meeting under the arches of Reims Cathedral. What these two old men in fact negotiated was nothing other than the healing disentanglement of the two nations. It was the disinte- gration of something fatal, something that had been more than just a relationship going back at least as far as the era of the Napoleonic Wars whereby the Germans and the French had, culturally and politically, become caught up in an endless cycle of mimicry, imitation, one-upmanship and projective empathy with each other. This began acutely with the French importing German romanticism with Germaine de Stae? l's influential book De l'Allemagne of 1813 and the Prussians importing the Napo- leonic art of war through Clausewitz' book Vom Kriege (post- humus 1832-1834). In this sense one could say that it was in Reims that the two nations officially parted company and what de Gaulle and Adenauer pledged each other was an everlast- ing non-attachment and in some ways even a permanent state of not understanding each other, including refraining from any new attempts in this direction. The good relations which since then have been enjoyed between Germany and France rest on the solid foundations of the non-attachment which was finally achieved - diplomatically described as friendship between the two nations.
On the 8th July 2012 we will be commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Franco-German reconciliation - in doing so we should remain aware of the fact that this is the date when our sa- lubrious estrangement from each other, our growing disinterest for each other, our serene coexistence, which has remained for the large part unperturbed by any detailed knowledge, assumed
45
definite shape. 10 It was then, in the talks between the two great elders that the deadly clinch was released which had caught both nations in its spell in a political form of animal magnetism ever since the confrontation at Valmy in September 1792. The cannonade of Valmy not only signified as is well known the mo- ment of neutrality as of which the French Revolution switched from the defensive to the offensive but also the restrained fore- play to the age of the masses which began with the French in- vention of general mobilization. This led in a straight line to the synchronized excitation of an entire people through national panic, national enthusiasm and national outrage against the common enemy. The French were the firstborn of the new mass dynamic and taught Europe a lesson with after-effects lasting 150 years by overrunning her. Yet Prussia hit back at Leip- zig and Waterloo and since that time the spark of reciprocal hypnosis had been jumping to and fro in a dance which Rene? Girard in his recently published work Achever Clausewitz has described as the unification of mode`le and repoussoir.
For me there is no doubt that the above-mentioned book, which by attempting to unveil the mystery of a pathogenic mutual fas- cination, is the first to appear for a long time giving new im- pulses about reconsidering France and Germany. It shows very impressively how Clausewitz enviously emulated Napoleon and, how the highly gifted Prussian officer wished to repeat the unprecedented successes of revolutionary French bellicism for the German side. It suggestively explains how the Napoleonisa- tion of the cultures of conflict in Europe took place via a detour through the book Vom Kriege, and especially the copious use of contingents of young volunteers and later in conscripted armies - a trail leading almost in a straight line from Jena to Verdun.
Crosscheck: It is where there is more knowledge that the irritation significantly in- creases. Then the maligne fascination continues to act anti-cyclically by means of evoking seemingly indispensable images of an enemy.
? 46
It was in Reims that de Gaulle and Adenauer de-Napoleonized their nations and thus paved the way for a defascinated neigh- bourhood.
One is tempted by Girard's stimulating insights to go one step further. It would indeed not be difficult to demonstrate how the stress field of our two countries was not only structured by Napoleonic magnetism and its Prussian-Austrian mirror im- ages but also, if not more so, by the stress which the drama called the French Revolution caused on this side of the Rhine. Apart from the imitatio Napoleonis it was above all the imita- tio revolutionis which took effect affectively dynamically and ideologically not only in Germany but beyond it on a gigantic and precarious scale. Seen through eyes of studies in mimicry it is finally possible to see Karl Marx for what he really was, namely the central consolidation point of German ambitions provoked by the French. In him both imitations coincide, the commander on horseback embodying the soul of the world and the triumphantly aggressive people of the revolution whose role it was to be filled by the mobilized Proleteriat of the world after the intervention of German intellectualism. Marx's entire work confirms the thesis proposed by Heinrich Heine that wherever Germans meddled in French affairs these became one degree more universal, acrimonious and disastrous. When finally the double fascination of the Russians through the dual partners of Germany and France intervened and when Germany recipro- cated this fascination for the unleashing of violence of October 1917 felt throughout the world, then the facts of the case are fulfilled which Girard calls in the case of Clausewitz la monte? e aux extre^mes 'striving for extremes'.
If one imagines the Girardian stimuli beyond being a global dramaturgy of mimetic frictions then we begin to understand why it is not possible to simply understand Franco-German 're-
47
lations' in merely bipolar terms. In truth our relaxed and defas- cinated bipolar 'rapport' is for its part a segment of a domain of some complexity which contains several three-way relation- ships full of tension. Here the energies of fascination, still strong, flow charged with attraction and repugnance. Among these is especially a triad with a French, a German and a Jew- ish pole as well as a triad with the US-Americans replacing the third in the above-mentioned constellation. In these triads 'relations' actually occur in the real sense of the word, but to describe them here and to fathom their potential for collision is beyond the scope of this work. Let us at least note the bat- tle rancorously fought between French and American spheres which could be described as the jealous duel of two sinking forms of political messianism.
If there is anything to be questioned about Rene? Girard's mas- terstroke it is the lack of dimensions of theoretical media in his work. This will come as somewhat of a surprise since the huge affective and military mobilisation between the duelling nations, of which the author quite rightly notes: la mobilisation ge? ne? rale est la pure folie,11 could be given more than adequate coverage by the mass media - and these media, as a vehicle of the danger- ous mimesis, are today with the addition of electronic technology even more effective than before. More than ever, they present themselves as channels to stimulate the madness, whether it be virtual or real, and only in them can that phantasmal event take place which is called 'international terrorism'. Anybody wishing get to the bottom of extremism gone global cannot avoid combin- ing the mimetological analysis with the mediological. By this I mean, in order to study Girard seriously, and that will prove to be indispensable, one will also have to reread Karl Kraus (a critic
Rene? Girard: Achever Clausewitz, Paris 2007, p. 242: ? Die allgemeine Mobil- machung ist der pure Wahnsinn. "
? 48
of a semi-totalitarian and degenerate press) and to lend our ears to Hermann Broch (the author of Massenwahntheorie). And with- out further ado we go to Marshall McLuhan and reconsider his elegant theoretical media deductions on nationalism. Then we begin to understand why the global village has not only not found peace, but also why it could not help becoming the all encom- passing arena for anger and envy that it has become.
Furthermore Rene? Girard emphasizes that the people who shaped the Franco-German reconciliation were sons of the Catholic church, Adenauer no less than de Gaulle and Schu- mann. We will note this hint. All the same I find I cannot adopt Girard's convictions as my own, that Europe and the world can only be helped by means of a general conversion to Christian truths which are at the same time the truths of mimetology. The pragmatic way into a benevolent and non-violent coexistence as I have already suggested leads if anything to mutual disinterest and defascination without us misinterpreting the value of the symbolic reconciliatory highlights. Only after detachment from one another has occurred can the good and useful things, which we describe with such contemporary cardinal words such as cooperation and integration, start to gain momentum.
If Germans and Europeans have any advice for the rest of the world, especially for those contemporary arenas of conflict where the duellists are hot with fascination for each other, such as India and Pakistan, Israel and its neighbours, the Islamists and the Oc- cidentalists and possibly also the USA and China - then it might well sound like this. Do it the same way that we did, don't be too interested in each other! And be careful how you choose your foreign correspondents for the newspapers, make sure that those reporting from neighbouring countries are sure to bore their read- ers to death! Only in this way can those happily separated from one another live in friendship and peace with each other.
49
About the Author
Peter Sloterdijk:
1947: Born in Karlsruhe
1968-74: Studied philosophy, history and German language and literature in Munich.
1975: Postdoctoral studies on the philosophy and history of modern autobiographical literature in Hamburg
Since 1980 freelance writer. Publication of numerous works concerning questions on temporal diagnostics, cultural and re- ligious philosophy, artistic theory and psychology
Since 1992 Professor of Philosophy and Media Theory at the Karlsruhe University for Arts and Design
Since 1993: Director of the Institute for Cultural Philosophy at the Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna
Since 2001: Principal of the Karlsruhe University for Arts and Design
Since Januar 2002: Chief coordinator of the TV programme (ZDF) "Im Glashaus - Das Philosophische Quartett", with Ru? - diger Safranski
1993: Ernst-Robert-Curtius-Prize for essay writing
2000: Friedrich Ma? rker- Prize for essay writing
2001: Christian-Kellerer-Prize for the future of philosophical thought
2005: Sigmund-Freud-Prize for scientific prose
2006: "Commandeur de l ? Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" of the Repulic of France
2008: CICERO-Prize for outstanding rhetoric
Guest lectureships at Bard College, New York, at Colle`ge Inter- national de Philosophie, Paris and at the ETH "Eidgeno?