{"id":7575,"date":"2011-12-31T12:39:54","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T16:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=7575"},"modified":"2011-12-31T12:39:54","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T16:39:54","slug":"european-enlightenment-possibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/european-enlightenment-possibilities\/","title":{"rendered":"European Enlightenment Possibilities?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Today the FAZ<\/a> (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) brings a conversation between Dietmar Dath<\/a>, Slavoj \u017di\u017eek<\/a> and Daniel Cohn-Bendit<\/a>. The conversation is entitled “We Europeans have the resource of\u00a0Enlightenment. [Wir Europ\u00e4er haben die Ressource der Aufkl\u00e4rung”.] I enjoy the possibility of three intellectuals from different fields (Dath is a novelist, essayist & art editor at the FAZ; \u017di\u017eek the LLBean \u2014 i.e. the Leninist-Lacanian-Mr.Bean \u2014\u00a0of Europe &\u00a0beyond; & Cohn-Bendit the iconic radical of 1968 Paris barricades now an elected ecological party\u00a0representative\u00a0at the European Parliament) having long conversations with access to the daily press. I.e this access is\u00a0something\u00a0I do miss in this country.\u00a0Here a few\u00a0excerpts\u00a0in my instant translation:<\/p>\n

\n

(…)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek<\/strong>: My dream would be to rewrite “Antigone” in a Brechtian manner as a triple didactical piece in three versions. As in \u00a0Kieslowski or in Tom Tykwer’s film “Run, Lola, run”. First version: The Story bleibt as we know it. Second version: Antigone convinces Kreon, and the brother is buried. Then happens what Kreon had feared: Rebellion, the city lies in ruins and ashes, and Antigone\u00a0walks\u00a0off saying something like, ” I was made for love, not for war.” Third version: the\u00a0Stalinist\u00a0one. The choir, usually stupid, steps up and constitutes itself as a\u00a0Jacobean Public Welfare Committee, arrests Kreon and Antigone and installs the dictatorship.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Cohn-Bendit<\/strong>: …[h]ow does one evaluate historical\u00a0developments, when it\u00a0concerns\u00a0a specific event? That’s also the question that is raised in the case of the occupy-movement. When one talks with their representatives, they’ll say: the banking system is completely wrong from the bottom up. But they don’t have an alternative to this situation at the ready. And they don’t look for one. The occupy-movement is fed up with the system, and that is what they want to get off their lungs. And I can understand that. We live in a situation where any programmatic attempt at a solution is confronted to a reality so immensely complex, that by necessity it will seem under-complex.<\/p>\n

\u00a0* * *<\/div>\n

\u017di\u017eek<\/strong>: …I was never a critic given to oversimplification. One\u00a0example: We may think about Obama what we want, but despite all of his now recognizable deficits I still have a weakness for him. Because the discussion he triggered\u00a0concerning\u00a0a general healthcare system for the Unites States was extremely important. I touche don the core of American ideology, on that whole inanity of individual free\u00a0choice\u00a0and so on.<\/p>\n

Dath<\/strong>: That one is\u00a0responsible\u00a0only for oneself, that there is no responsibility of the State…<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek<\/strong>: When one speaks of a public health care system, nobody can really claim that that is a extreme\u00a0Marxist\u00a0silliness. And yet Obama touched a purely\u00a0ideological\u00a0nerve with that. We need such themes: on one hand totally pragmatic and on the other ideologically challenging.<\/p>\n

Dath<\/strong>: And that is the difference between you and Debord.<\/p>\n

Cohn-Bendit<\/strong>: There’s one thing I’d like to ask of you: use just \u00a0fewer philosophical terms than you did in your last book. I has to work so hard when reading you.<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek<\/strong>: It was always my conviction that the reader has to feel guilty!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Dath<\/strong>: … is it possible to get by without the pressure of the actual, when one wants to change something? \u00a0Is the pressure of civil society truly enough?<\/p>\n

Cohn-Bendit<\/strong>: If you can answer that one, you’ll get the Nobel prize.<\/p>\n

Dath<\/strong>: The question is, what motivates protest and dissidence. Before 1945 left mass movement articulated the hope for a Golden Age, by the eighties of the last century at the latest, questions from peace to ecology where rather framed as: we are as good as dead if we go on this way. \u00a0Today, \u00a0something like the occupy movement argues at one level apocalyptically, on the other hand however also utopically.<\/p>\n

Cohn-Bendit<\/strong>: The situation on the financial markets is indeed truly\u00a0apocalyptic.<\/p>\n

(…)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can read the whole conversation in German here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) brings a conversation between Dietmar Dath, Slavoj \u017di\u017eek and Daniel Cohn-Bendit. The conversation is entitled “We Europeans have the resource of\u00a0Enlightenment. [Wir Europ\u00e4er haben die Ressource der Aufkl\u00e4rung”.]...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,42,905,43,55],"tags":[1127,1126,671],"class_list":["post-7575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalism","category-essays","category-europe","category-european-history","category-intellectuals","tag-daniel-cohn-bendit","tag-dietmar-dath","tag-slavoj-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7575"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7581,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7575\/revisions\/7581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}