Cultural pessimism

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Culture pessimism generally denotes a pessimism about current tendencies and future developments in culture . The phenomenon has been known since ancient times , but the term only established itself as an antithesis to belief in progress and cultural optimism in Europe in the late 19th century. Since then, the term cultural pessimism has also been used critically in connection with ideological positions that are associated with pessimistic ideas about political cultures .

Cultural pessimists interpret and criticize overall developments and / or certain contemporary phenomena as signs of a general or special decline ( decadence ) of “ civilization ”, “ culture ”, a certain social order or a nation . This attitude can relate to a wide variety of aspects in politics , economics , society , technology , art , the cultural industry and mass media .

Culture pessimists and culture optimists often represent a historical-philosophical determinism , so that “culture” and “history” pessimism overlap.

Greek antiquity

Even in antiquity , culturally pessimistic attitudes and teachings about the decline of one's own culture were widespread, especially during social crises. In the 7th century BC, the Greek poet Hesiod spoke in his epic works and days of a former, but now lost golden age , which had changed from the silver to an iron (warlike) age until his present.

“The myth of the ages of the world: If you want, I will immediately tell you another word. Clearly and with art; but you grasp it with a willing heart, How from the same ground the gods and men sprout. For the time being, a golden generation of decrepit people created. You, the immortal gods, inhabit Olympic houses. "

This motif was later used by Greek philosophers , e.g. B. by Plato and in Hellenism , often taken up.

"[...] then it is probably easy to decide that the former were a thousand times happier about it than the present."

The Greek philosopher and physicist Anaximander von Milet represents an extreme form of culture-pessimistic discourse in antiquity . According to this version of culture pessimism, it is not just culture that perishes and must perish , but all things :

“Wherever things originated from, there they must also perish, according to necessity; for they must repent and be judged for their injustices according to the order of the times ”

This theory was later interpreted and commented on by authors who, according to the state of research, are to be interpreted as pioneers of National Socialism (Nietzsche) and representatives of fascism (Heidegger).

enlightenment

The mainstream of thought in the Age of Enlightenment was optimistic about nature and history, and relied on the advance of reason. However, some thoughts from Enlightenmentists like Jean-Jacques Rousseau are interpreted as cultural pessimism :

“This thought was also upheld by Rousseau, from whom the figure of thought originates that people are educated and influenced in problematic and pathological directions due to unfavorable cultural influences. His cultural pessimism as well as his call "back to nature" and his "negative pedagogy" derive from his anthropology. "

Giambattista Vico used organic metaphors such as aging and death to describe processes of cultural decline.

19th century

In the second half of the 19th century, the idea of ​​progress, as it had dominated the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century, with the advent of Romanticism and later the fin de siècle , gave way to radical criticism, and not only from conservative authors. An end to the current misery, according to the argumentation following the Gnostic apocalyptic , is not to be expected through a continuous process, but at best through an apocalyptic upheaval.

In the age of industrialization and the new mass media , a cultural criticism arose in many European countries around 1800 from a wide variety of approaches, which in some cases was also combined with nationalism , anti-Semitism and opposition to liberalism .

Since the founding period , these views, especially in neo-romanticism and local art , gained ground in Germany. Wilhelm Marr joined cultural pessimism and ethnically influenced racism . In his bestseller The Victory of Judaism over Teutonicism. From a non-confessional standpoint, from 1879 he constructed a fundamental opposition between an allegedly Jewish materialism and internationalism and an occidental culture based primarily on ideas :

“The world and cultural historical events have hurled Judaism into the West. The same found an element alien to it and was alien to this element itself. "

- Wilhelm Marr : The victory of Judaism over Teutonicism. Viewed from the non-confessional point of view

Judaism has achieved a cultural dominance that can no longer be revised:

“The cultural-historical bankruptcy of the West and especially of Teutonicism seems to be merciless. Call it 'pessimism' that speaks out of me. [...] The friction between the two elements of the people began, and in this friction Judaism has shown itself more firmly than the West and especially Germanism. "

- Wilhelm Marr : The victory of Judaism over Teutonicism. Viewed from the non-confessional point of view

A similar work was Édouard Drumont's La France Juive (German title: Das verjudete Frankreich) , published in France in 1880 .

In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche one also finds a critical view of the development of culture. Nietzsche stated in 1878:

“The sum of the sensations, knowledge, experiences, that is, the whole burden of culture, has become so great that an overstimulation of the nervous and intellectual powers is the general danger, indeed that the cultured classes in European countries are consistently neurotic and almost every one of them larger families in one member has come close to madness. "

Emil Hammacher describes cultural decline as a universal phenomenon of the time on the main issues of modern culture .

Analyzes of a civilized end of the western, from capitalism dominated culture can be found in the 1887 and 1912 published popular expectant (the 2nd edition) study community and society of Ferdinand Tonnies . The latter, however, always resisted the label of a “pessimist”, since he saw an - albeit skeptical - reformism as a way out that should always be sought.

20th century

Turn of the century

Sigmund Freud's writings are characterized by a strong cultural pessimism and an "embarrassingly perceived imperfection of culture". In the long run, he regards the prevailing sexual morality as being detrimental to cultural development. In 1908 he wrote:

“It is reasonable to assume that under the rule of a cultural sexual morality, the health and fitness of individual people can be exposed to impairments and that this damage to individuals through the sacrifices imposed on them finally reaches such a high degree that the final cultural goal in this roundabout Hazardous devices. "

In his social-philosophical and cultural-theoretical work Das Unbeagen in der Kultur (1930), he dealt with the general question of why people often have an aversion to their own culture. According to Freud, the needs of culture stand in opposition to the death instinct of man.

Although cultural pessimism is generally more at home in conservatism , authors who are in the tradition of Marxism such as Georges Sorel also partly represented culture pessimistic views:

“All traditions have been used up, all faith worn out (...). Everything unites to make the good person desolate (...). I cannot see the end of decadence, and it will not be less in a generation or two. That is our fate. "

Between the world wars

In the public opinion of the crisis-ridden Weimar Republic , older and more recent culturally pessimistic writings received greater public attention : including Paul de Lagarde's German writings , Julius Langbehn's Rembrandt as an educator from 1890, or Arthur Moeller van den Bruck's The Third Reich from 1923. These authors are also valid today in part as representatives of fascism and are interpreted as pioneers of national socialism .

After the “forerunner” Carl Friedrich Vollgraff (1794–1863), who had already judged the development of peoples and human culture in general to be “pessimistic”, Oswald Spengler's Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Vol. I 1918, Vol. II 1922 ) interpreted as cultural pessimism. Here Spengler creates a model of closed, cyclical cultural units, which, in analogy to biology, are subject to the stages of birth , youth , adulthood , maturity and death. He sees civilization as a late stage and a sharp contrast to the previous culture . Spengler locates this transition in the 4th century for antiquity and in the 19th century for Western culture: civilization is the inevitable fate of a culture. [...] Civilizations are the most extreme and artificial conditions that a higher kind of human being is capable of. It is a degree; they follow becoming as what has become, life as death ...

Spengler does not complain about this development, but only states it, regards it as natural law, therefore rejects the designation pessimism for his work ( “Pessimism?” , 1919) and rather calls for positive conclusions to be drawn from it. Although he is skeptical of the possibilities of creative, artistic production in the civilization sector, he sees the potential of this epoch in the technical and scientific field.

"I am prepared for the objection that such an aspect of the world, which gives certainty about the outlines and the direction of the future and cuts off far-reaching hopes, is hostile to life and a fate for many, ... [...] I do not think so and look at it Teaching as a benefit for future generations, because it shows them what is possible and therefore necessary and what is not part of the inner possibilities of the time. "

Spengler represented neither an upward or downward historical model like cultural optimism and pessimism, but a cyclical historical image . But he resisted the pessimistic interpretations of his book title:

“The word does not contain the concept of a catastrophe . If one says completion instead of downfall, (...) the pessimistic side is temporarily switched off without the actual meaning of the term having been changed. "

The thesis, partly based on Nietzsche, of a “flattening of culture” due to the increasing importance of the “ masses ” compared to the “culture-bearing elites” of earlier eras is an essential element of Ortega y Gasset's 1929 work La rebelión de las masas (1930: The uprising of the masses ) as well as many authors who continued his thoughts. So he writes:

"Today we are witnessing the triumph of an over-democracy in which the masses act directly, without law, and impose their wishes and tastes on the community through the means of material pressure."

A "decline of culture" (and, as a result, the extinction of the educated middle class ) was noted by many scientists and writers. This is how André Gide wrote in his diary in 1938:

“… The cultural achievement that seemed so admirable to us (and I'm not just talking about the French one). If you continue like this, there will soon not be many people who need it, who understand something about it, not many people who notice that you no longer understand anything about it. "

After 1945

In 1953 the historian Fritz Stern published his work, widely recognized as groundbreaking, Cultural Pessimism as a Political Danger . In it he showed lines of continuity from the late cultural criticism of the imperial era through its reception in the Weimar period to National Socialism.

Adorno described the culture industry , which had " reified " people's consciousness in such a way that they would be seduced to affirm the status quo by being fed with meaningless products . The people are caught in the “ delusion context ”.

A pick-up on Gasset's figure of "cultural decline" through the increasing influence of the " masses " can be observed until recently:

"Culture in the normative sense that is necessary to remember like never before, embraces the epitome of attempts to challenge the masses within us to decide against themselves."

- Peter Sloterdijk : The contempt of the masses. Attempt on cultural struggles in modern society

In 2007 Roger Griffin analyzed various types of cultural pessimism, which he does not, however, simply equate them with fascism :

“Far from being a form of anti-modernism, cultural pessimism, nihilism, or 'resistance to transcendence', fascism is born precisely of a human need for a sense of transcendence, cultural optimism, and higher truths compatible with the forces of modernization. ”

- Roger Griffin : Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler

In current discussions, too, the term appears in a variety of contexts, such as the criticism of increasing technology hostility and an exaggerated fear of globalization . The Senator for Economic Affairs of the Federal Association of Medium-Sized Enterprises, Michael Müller, says:

“In Germany we must finally have a more relaxed relationship with technology, progress, science and discovery. [...] Our key words are above all intellectuals who warn against economic totalitarianism , create horrors of globalization and indulge in gloomy cultural pessimism. "

The discourse on the change from written to visual media presence is also conducted using the catchphrase cultural pessimism .

"Whether images displace language and the media world becomes actual reality, so that we not only have reason for cultural criticism but also for cultural pessimism, is being discussed by scientists from eight countries at a symposium on the subject of 'picture in text - text and picture' [ ...] "

- "Picture in text - text and picture": Reason for cultural pessimism?

Culture pessimistic works

Modern times

  • Charles-Louis de Montesquieu : Greatness and Fall of Rome. [1734]; Fischer, Frankfurt 1980
  • Edward Gibbon : History of the Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire. London, 1st vol. 1776, 2/3 Vol. 1781, 4th - 6th Vol. 1788

20th century

literature

General

  • Arthur Herman, prophet of decline. The end-time myth in western thought , Berlin: Propylaen 1998.
  • Jerzy Jedlicki, The degenerate world. The critics of modernity, their fears and judgments , Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp 2007.
  • Gerhard Henschel, Menetekel. 3000 years of the fall of the West , Frankfurt a. M .: Eichborn 2010.
  • Theo Jung, a sign of decay. Semantic studies on the emergence of cultural criticism in the 18th and early 19th centuries , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2012.

Antiquity

  • Franz Altheim , The Decline of the Old World , 2 vols., Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 1952
  • Paul Widmer, The Inconvenient Reality. Studies on the subject of decline in antiquity , Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1983.

20th century

  • Stig Förster: "Art, cultural pessimism and war in the German Empire", in: Anselm Gerhard (Ed.), Musicology - a belated discipline? Academic music research between belief in progress and denial of modernity , Stuttgart 2000, pp. 99–118.
  • Oliver van Essenberg: Culture pessimism and elite consciousness . On texts by Peter Handke, Heiner Müller and Botho Strauss . Marburg: Tectum Verlag 2004.
  • Rolf Peter Sieferle , enemy of progress? Opposition to technology and industry from romanticism to the present , Munich: Beck 1984.
  • Fritz Stern : Cultural pessimism as a political danger. An analysis of national ideology in Germany . Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 2005.
  • Otto Karl Werckmeister , Citadel Culture. The fine art of decline in the culture of the eighties , Munich: Hanser 1989.
  • Mark Siemons: Do not be afraid, we are with you: a literally old world, lost in cultural pessimism: this is how China sees Europe. (...) in: FAZ, March 9, 2009, p. 25.

Web links

Wiktionary: Kulturpessimismus  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Stern: Cultural pessimism as a political danger . An analysis of national ideology in Germany. Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-608-94136-3 .; Kirsten Wechsel: Crossing the boundaries between reality and fiction . Göttingen 2001, p. 10, ISBN 3-525-20587-2 ; Jin-Sung Chun: The Image of Modernism in the Post-War Era. The West German “structural history” in the field of tension between criticism of modernity and scientific innovation 1948-1962 . Munich / Oldenbourg 2000, p. 24, ISBN 3-486-56484-6 .
  2. ↑ Hesiodos Works and Days (ΕΡΓΑ ΚΑΙ ΗΜΕΡΑΙ) German
  3. ↑ Plato: Der Staatsmann ( Politikós ), in: Platon: Kratylos, Parmenides, Theaitetos, Sophistes, Politikos, Philebos, Briefe , Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-55563-8 , page 271
  4. ↑ Diels wreath No. 12
  5. ↑ Steven E. Aschheim. Nietzsche, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
  6. ↑ Emmanuel Faye. Heidegger. The Introduction of National Socialism into Philosophy.
  7. ↑ Katja Mann: Pedagogical, psychological and cultural-analytical traditions and perspectives in the work of Ellen Keys . Inaugural dissertation, Humboldt University Berlin, Chapter 14, Summary
  8. ↑ Michael Plauen: Dithyrambic of Downfall - Gnosticism in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Modernism , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-05-002659-6 , page 8 ff.
  9. ↑ Wilhelm Marr: Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum (original text as pdf file; 1.7 MB) , p. 37ff
  10. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches , Vols. I and II edited by G. Colli and M. Montinari, dtv-Taschenbuch, 1999, ISBN 3-423-30152-X , p. 244
  11. ↑ quoted from: Rüdiger Safranski: Das Böse oder das Drama der Freiheit , Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-TB 1999, ISBN 3-596-14298-9 , p. 247
  12. ^ In: Sigmund Freud, The cultural sexual morality and the modern nervousness , in: Achim Thom (Ed.): Psychoanalysis - Selected writings , Reclam, Leipzig 1984, ISBN 3-379-00535-5 , p. 345
  13. ↑ quoted from Kurt Lenk: The problem of decadence since Georges Sorel. In: Heiko Kauffmann, Helmut Kellershohn, Jobst Paul: Völkische Bande. Decadence and rebirth - analyzes of right-wing ideology , Unrast-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-89771-737-9 , p. 54
  14. ↑ Oswald Spengler: Der Untergang des Abendlandes - Outlines of a Morphology of World History , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 10th edition, 1991, ISBN 3-423-00838-5 , p. 43 f.
  15. ^ Oswald Spengler: Der Untergang des Abendlandes - Outlines of a Morphology of World History , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 10th edition, 1991, ISBN 3-423-00838-5 , pp. 62 ff.
  16. ^ Oswald Spengler: Der Untergang des Abendlandes - Outlines of a Morphology of World History , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 10th edition, 1991, ISBN 3-423-00838-5 , p. 55 f.
  17. ^ Oswald Spengler: Der Untergang des Abendlandes - Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 10th edition, 1991, ISBN 3-423-00838-5 , speeches and essays, page 63 f.
  18. ↑ At this point his concept of the masses should be introduced, which he used "as a cultural critic" and with which he tried to "probe" "the change in values ​​of modernity". This mass can be assigned to the citizens who live without meaning and criticized by Nietzsche. According to Renate Reschke, Nietzsche knew that the mass was necessary to preserve culture, but he saw it as incapable of being able to set values ​​on his own. to Stefan Hirschstetter: On modern nihilism and its overcoming. Friedrich Nietzsche's Critique of Civilization, in: Politlounge.de ( Memento from August 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ^ Ortega y Gasset: The uprising of the masses , Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt 2002, ISBN 3-421-06503-9 , page 77.
  20. ↑ Peter Sloterdijk: The contempt of the masses. Attempt on cultural struggles in modern society , Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2000, ISBN 978-3-518-06597-6 , p. 95
  21. ^ Roger Griffin: Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a New Beginning Under Mussolini and Hitler , Palgrave Macmillann, 2007, ISBN 1-4039-8784-X , page 14
  22. ↑ Culture pessimism instead of enthusiasm for technology: Germany needs a more relaxed relationship to technology, progress, science and discovery - says Michael Müller, Senator for Economic Affairs of the Federal Association for Medium-Sized Enterprises.
  23. ^ "Picture in text - text and picture": Reason for cultural pessimism? Symposium at the University of Leipzig