Afterthoughts on Posthistoire Author(s): Lutz Niethammer and Bill Templer Source: History and Memory, Vol. 1, No.

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27 Lutz Niethammer

on Posthistoire Afterthoughts

The Zeitgeist tries to elude specification by resorting to a host of terms prefixed by themorpheme "post-": post-modern, society. That list can be post-industrial, post-revolutionary most the extended yet encompassing of these epithets, namely "posthistoire," enjoys only apocryphal popularity. In articles or notes on research inprogress, you may occasionally chance upon the observation, almost in passing, that history is at an end, that we live in "posthistorical" times. The bald statement usually stands without any further commentary, as if littlemore need be added. Interest in the posthistorical era

is riveted more on aesthetic playfulness as an approach to the potpourri of the past, simulation of arbitrarily selected fragments drawn from bygone eras: one engages in a game with tokens that have some semblance of enduring value, yet are quoted out of context, and thus annulled. The historian reading these terse pronouncements about the supposed demise of the very subject and pith of his pro fessional craft is bewildered, since his field would appear to be enjoying something of a rejuvenation: a rare conjunction

directed by the culture industry.He is plagued by gnawing doubts: perhaps all the historian is in fact involved with is some ambitious enterprise of manipulation, a project akin to the cataloguing of tiny fragments of stone, chosen arbitrarily. He endeavors to arrange them into a pattern, without knowing whether or not they form part of a larger mosaic. Beyond these small specimens looms a chaos: a pile of past debris and detritus, formless and without plan. Is this dust-blown heritage the reflection of posthistoire? into a Before the historian's object of study evaporates to more some it examine be of the would useful mirage, explicit discussions of theZeitgeist,

of increased historical interest, encouragement by the media and an aesthetic reanimation of elements culled from the cultural heritage. He is unnerved and troubled by what the heralds of posthistoire seem to insinuate: that the entire pro ject of rehistoricization may ultimately be littlemore than some sort of simulation itself a phoney spectacle staged and

focusing on the nature of

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28 Lutz Niethammer the presumed "post-ness" of the present era. Scrutiny of such debates reveals that these frequent expressions are neither a passing fashion, nor have they kept to their basic meaning

signifying the portentous final conclusion of something. Mean while we continue to refei; paradoxically, to "our postmodern modern era." This expression does not signal the abrupt end of a dynamic structure, but rather only a diminution of the hopes once pinned upon it.Things go on, but confidence that they could have any meaning is eroded. The various "post" diagnoses are not non-sensical, but their meaning must be carefully plummed. One must probe their origins.

On the Historization of Posthistoire

The concept "posthistoire"1 can be encountered in the 1980s particularly in thework ofWest German post-Marxist philo

sophers and social scientists, and has definite links with French post-structuralism. Its history as a concept is somewhat unclear: it is older than its current popularity as an allusion, but more recent than those who originally coined the term would like to have us believe. Arnold Gehlen, who introduced into German the unusual expression "das post-histoire" sociology in 1952, made repeated references to its supposed origin in the work of A.A. Cournot, although Gehlen appar endy had never read Coumot. Cournot propounded the optim istic notion in the late nineteenth century that history was a contingent transitional phase between two sociocultural situa tions: on the one hand the primitive, instinct-based societies; on the other civilization - administered by socioeconomic in kindred intelligence. Such notions were also advanced World War II by Roderick Seidenberg and Teilhard form after de Chardin. That unusual term did not appear in thework of either thinker; but rather arose in the strained ambience of relations around the Second World War. Franco-German It has two discernable taproots. One isAlexandre Kojeve's

introduced French reception of Hegel during the era when held sway in Paris at the existentialism and phenomenology time of the Popular Front. Kojeve read Hegel's Phenomenology against the background of its contemporary veneration for as a "world soul": Bonaparte, conceived as a Napoleon state of theworld universalist the had established who figure

byHeidegger,with which he readingof Hegel influenced

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Afterthoughts on Posthistoire 29 spirit, abrogating the dialectic of master and servant, and thus bringing history to its fruition and completion. Kojeve at that time was a Communist, and put this concept into optimistic practice by viewing Stalin as the fulfillment of history. After thewar Kojeve, now a high-ranking OECD official, switched historical chessmen, replacing Stalin once again by The new realities of a worldwide culture spelled Napoleon. the final consummation, as it were, ofNapoleon's abrogation of history. The "American way of life," in universalized guise, emerged as the prevailing cultural pattern of a civiliza

notion of posthistoire inpostwar German society. This taproot has its concrete basis in an analysis of the growth of state power written in Swiss exile by Bernard de Jouvenel. Jouvenel admired Kojeve's reading of Hegel and was a member of de Man's French propagandists at the beginning of the 1930s, before he became an intellectual proponent of French fascism. In this volume he returned to his noble origins and to the neoliberal position that in the twentieth century state power had mushroomed ominously as a result of the welfare state. The state now risked becoming a totalitarian "welfare pro tectorate." The masses would flock willingly to serve and obey that protectorate; in it, de Jouvenel believed he saw a merging of the structures of fascism, theNew Deal and Sta linism. For de Jouvenel, these regimes reflected the effects of the uncontrollability and structural constraints of despotic rule. De Jouvenel regarded the disappearance of the traditional freedom enjoyed by governing elites as a transitional phase on the path to non-history.

make-believe, of simulation. The term's second taproot - no less grandiose, and inter twined inmany ways with the first was to become farmore as a in factor and spreading the important popularizing

tion of "posthistorical animals." In this Kojevean view, the Russians were perceived as being highly similar toAmericans, though blessed with far less material prosperity, and Mao's revolution was simply the belated introduction of the Code to China. In the late 1950s, Kojeve added that in Napoleon "one this world," where the dialectic between master and servant had been done away with (along with the abolition of work and struggle itself),man could only preserve his human ity by pursuing a snobbish life in accordance with totally for within an aesthetic-subjunctive malized values realm of

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30 Lutz Niethammer The threat ofmacroorganizations taking on an autonomous

his diagnosis these notions

of the advent of posthistoire. He presented in the form of a concerned deliberation on de anti-Marxist Socialist Jouvenel. Kojevc translated de Man's in 1948 while in exile in Switzerland. He had just been sentenced in Belgium to twenty years in prison as a leading Arnold Gehlen had borrowed this diagnosis collaborates

seizedupon byHendrik deMan as a point of departurefor

leaders from human purpose

of decisionsbypolitical life of their own, and thedetachment

and its historical context were

French Idea (1933),which had beenbanned in Germany,into

imperious disgust to "stationary mobility": world civilization viewed as a massive mechanism, as a standstill full of fury, and Ernst Jungei; in an exchange with Martin Heidegger in contact, in turn, with Kojeve) Carl Schmitt (who was

in the 1950s with growingand fromhim, but had referred

devoid of anyanimatingidea,signifying nothing.

"anarchist," a servant of despots and a historian a la Spengler. Junger lauds the "return to the forest" of his hero as a with drawal from the social world of despotism when the regime is in danger, That return is depicted as a retreat into a mythic solitude. In the 1950s, Hans Freycr and Helmut Schelsky, who together with Gehlen in Leipzig had shaped the "Ger

Zeitmauer (1959) and a novel (Eumeswil1972). formulated InEutneswil,Junger of theposthistorical develops thefigure

ThirdReich, or had been shapedby it, man" sociology of the

the notion in cultural criticism of a "second sys propounded tem" of an inevitable technology. In their view, man employed this "second system" in order to free himself from the con straints of nature and create his own world of self-generated structural and material constraints. These then eroded the mobility of history and the structures of democratic control. That body of theory,which had already exercised a certain influenced by Heidegger attraction in the 1960s on Marxists or Carl Schmitt, such as Marcuse, Anders and Taubes, held out appeal in the 1980s to leftists in search of a post-Marxist itwas often orientation. Among younger writers, however merely a game played with quotations culled from the corpus of "grand thought." The posthumously discovered notes of Daniel Peter Bruckner on his approach to Gehlen, Marcuse, some to can serve how notion of such others and give Bell, ideas were employed in an attempt to confront and conquer

to materialize: 60s had failed the thevoid after hopesof thelate

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 31 "Bourgeois society was thus the truly historical society. In it, various ages overlapped in creative tension, and their upheav - in national states and a world market als linked together numerous other regions, populations, social processes and economies which up until then had only been loosely inter connected. One upshot of this is indisputable: the mode of production of industrial society already had begun, precisely by this process of interlinkage, to create a relative universality in living conditions for countless castes, classes, strata and provinces. That universality was unprecedented in historical terms: it encompassed modes of work and transport, leisure time and communication, social organization of the family, sexuality and the hospitalization of dying ... As a result of the equalizing elements inherent in the industrial milieu, there arises the shadow of the 'posthistoire' - a humankind becoming ever more similar in its Views and behavioral modes ... interests and value judgments' (Gehlen).... The up shot of this forming' and integration is a new configuration of 'reality': a ubiquitous 'normality', which views the partic - some ular, the qualitatively differentmerely as aberration physician. What is unique, special disappears, shunted to the margins of society... The differences between supcrordinated eras are levelled and plowed under: urban cores and transport systems, education and nuances of language, forms of social intercourse and modes of perception are all 'modernized'. This reality, now one-dimensional, no longer manifests itself as a historical period, slowly unfolding and evolving, offering time and space for competing parties; rather, it itself has be come a party to the conflict... Even in countries with a devel oped class structure, classes and their fates move from the margin's edge into the shadow of the new version of the 'basic contradiction'. That contradiction is now between the forces of themaintenance of (technical) rationality, adminis tration, and the production of normality on the one hand, and a 'non-simultaneity' (Ungleichzeitigkeit) of revolts encom passing elements of pre-bourgeois and post-industrial criticism on the other. Here lies a powerful source of that second para the revolt against the structures of post digm of upheaval: histoire. This population, revealing itself to us 'at itspoint of cleavage', no longer allows for a synthesis using the construct least of all qua class subject." of a 'collective subject' One of the oddest features among numerous proponents of deMan and Anders excluded - is the posthistoire diagnosis so to speak. Their essential their "optimistic pessimism",

thingbasically best handled by the cops, or treatedby a

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32 Lutz Niethammer position is that world civilization is continuing its uninter - its unity, growth, technicalization, rupted forward march the securing of welfare and expansion of consumerism. In numerous Utopian blueprints, such as those sketched by Ernst

Junge^ there may have been certain catastrophes, but these the world remained without any irreversible consequences: was unchanged. The principal factor alarming the advocates and proponents of posthistoire is not that themegamachines, taking on a lifeof their own, might pose a serious threat and that theworld lives in the shadow of possible self-destruction.

of Rather,what they finddisquieting is the impossibility

piloting theworld, avantgardes. In other words: the proclamation of the "end of history" generally goes hand-in-hand with an unshakable be lief in the continuing progress of modernization. Or; as in Ernst Junger, a belief in the availability of simulated history a laOswald Spengler. In posthistoire, it is not theworld which declines, but rather interest in that world, and the belief in the role of the great intellectual as a motive force. As Kojeve said, there was nothing more that could be expected in any case from the rest of humanity except contented animality. Or; as Gehlen phrased it: "Development has reached an end point, what comes now is already present: the syncretism of a Its melange of all styles and possibilities, the posthistoire." nightmare is the continuation of dubious "progress", rather - not the end of theworld, but than any dangers it may pose the end of meaning. In view of thispeculiar finding, the intention in the following remarks is not to expand and extrapolate on these diagnoses, but rather to reflect upon three questions: sort of history reaches its final conclusion in post 1.What histoire? 2. What is the historical locus of this diagnosis? 3. Does ithave a meaning for thework of the historian?

torn and the fromthe handsof thecaptainsof culture political

steering iton course: the rudder has been

The Legacy of the History of Salvation

In Jewish-Christian tradition, three aspects of historical also which elsewhere, are linked here in a appear material, con unique manner: themyth of origin (story of creation) is

of theworld inwhich the tinued in a temporalstructure

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 33 expectation for salvation is embedded (history of salvation). The nearing of salvation and/or Judgment Day is brought about or proclaimed by a process inwhich the divine takes on human form (Messiah). Thus, in the religious heritage of Judaism and of the West, there is a basic understanding of the world as something historical. This is interwoven with the hopes for salvation of the individual and the identification of (incarnate) God with man as the redemptive turning point in this history. However, an experiential science of worldly events also developed within this framework, based on his toriographical precedents from classical antiquity. It aimed at preserving the past in its individual detail (including ex ceptional events and deeds) and the normative evaluation of recurrent situations. Such a situation, where chronicle narrative and analogical believer's

historical thought were contained within the framework of the history of salvation, necessarily entered a crisis phase when reasons which were quite clearly world-immanent arose

of experiential data. On the other hand, such experiential processing had tomeasure itself increasingly in terms of the embracing character and meaning of the history of salvation. In other words: "world history" had now to be crystallized from the numerous individual (hi)stories in which humans about the origin of their respective groups communicated and institutions and passed on experience useful for the business of living.And this in a double sense: by incorporating these histories within a historical perspective encompassing the entire world, and simultaneously providing a basis and framework for themeaningful understanding of theworld, a role which had formerly been the function and province of religion. The critical phase of this process of intermingling was reached when it could be claimed that the historical element in the history of salvation had been relegated to the sphere of

for changing the basic conditions of existence, freeing them from the cyclicity of nature. Whenever discoveries broke - and commerce, through the former limits set to the world and institutionalized power relations liberated at technology least certain segments of society from a direct bond with natural processes -, it became possible to transpose elements of a total explanation for the world. They were now no longer subordinate to the authority of history of salvation, but had been shifted to another sphere: the scientific processing

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34 Lutz Niethammer human authority and competence, and that the religious

and the individual believer's soul. This process had begun in preliminary form during the Reformation. Enlightenment period, the critical phase in thought period") had been reached. It then commenced with

betweenGod elementshould be limitedto the relationship

already By the ("axial restruc

technical-industrial revolutions. The advance of scientific claims into the religious realm of the history of salvation rendered the intellectual efforts of the axial period truly grand in their scope and sweep, because they had to measure themselves against the embracing and profound character of myth. This was the heroic age of intellectualism, the passing of whose depth and breadth later (educated burgher class) and generations of Bildungsburger cultural workers, right down to the present day, have not ceased nostalgically tomourn. Intellect tasted here the prospect of power. During the victorious phase of the expansion of the claims were staked out in those areas Bildungsburgertum

via theagencyof thepolitical and of thesocial sphere turing

that had been wrenched from the control of the history of salvation. This was done in a systematic fashion: by develop ment of architectonic edifices of thought projected to include the entire world. Such intellectual edifices attempted to struc ture thatworld genetically, imbuing it with a meaning linking

the efforts of the individual with the development of the world as a whole. In actual fact, the theoretical blueprints successful here have a history of impact inseparable from the evolution of bourgeois society in the 19th and 20th centuries. All subsequent theoreticians stood on the shoulders of giants like Kant, Hegel or Marx, whose Promethean feats were a response to the gigantic challenge of the substitution of myth substitute formyth by reason. However, the world-historical was in the most This to its mold. clearly manifested clung history was conceptualized as moving toward a final endpoint whose quality was oriented in terms of the earlier hopes that had been pinned on a world beyond theworld: eternal peace would arise from themidst of history itself, spirit come home to itself, resulting in a society without exploitation and alien
ation.

fact that history in the earlyphase of the philosophy of

Such a conspectus surveying the entire span of history, and the discovery of itsmotive principles, was only feasible by of means of a drastic reductionism and the presupposition

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 35 weighty assumptions. The desire for a meaningful explanation of existence could only be satisfied by transposing basic fea tures of the aspired meaning into history itself.The passage through history, however, provided the previous positions of

reins of political leadership and the hopes to find a substitute for theworld beyond in thismundane world. That concomitant end to humility contradicted the fund of experience of all ancient cultures. Yet it had been unleashed by the same release of the forces of production which had also facilitated a reduction of the primacy previously accorded to religion; in a countermove, it served to strengthen the ex pansion of the new civilization. In other words: themeaning of progress, historically certified and teleologically fixed, be came the lubricating agent, as it were, for the dynamic of so cial progress. That meaning provided the privileged with an untroubled conscience, while granting the disadvantaged and downtrodden a modicum of hope. Yet that lasted only for a certain limited period of time. The philosophy of history grated against the abrasive surfaces of social reality. The empirical involvement with history which it had galvanized showed history to be farmore contingent and differentiated than anticipated, militating against deriving binding conclusions or synthesizing total, all-embracing per spectives from that history. Above all else, however, the process of progress in society itself did not lead to the predicted

with an objectified ofhistory theearly legitimation: philosophy theyhelped bolster the claims raised by knowledge to the

trammeling the vitality and spirit of its bourgeois class in economic chains and bureaucratic fetters,while it expanded themisery of the proletariat, ameliorated in certain circum scribed strata, to the entire world. Though the old masters were gone, the servants had remained servants nonetheless. The answer consisted in renouncing the notion that history was ruled by ineluctable law - which one might accomodate oneself to and grasp through reflection, thus accelerating its

was

goals: fraternity, eternal peace, autonomous freedom, the spirit come home to itself, the realm of beauty, and that social revolution meant to usher in an emancipated new era in which the needs of one and all were to be satisfied. It was precisely the sensitive observers at the end of the 19th century who diagnosed the reality and future prospects of a society characterized by increasingly hardening structures and bureau cracies. This was a society which, with historical inevitability,

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36 Lutz Niethammer pace. IfGod was indeed dead, therewas no need to transpose the humility owed to him to the plane of history. Rather; men could liberate themselves from the grip of history by means of the will to power. Now, those goals for whose sake men had once embraced the history of salvation could be forced upon history more generally. For bourgeois individualism, this might mean, in a Nietzschean perspective, the fragmen tation of historical reality into an eternal recurrence of the - and same, thus draining history of itsmeaning replacing that meaning by the claim to power or the asocial aesthetics of the "great personality". Following Sorel, one might, in the intermediate strata, seek a renewal of vitality through violence,

in order to forge a third path between "capital'' and "labor" and to mediate these politically in the name of the nation. In terms of a Leninist view, itwas still possible within the pro letariat to bring to bear historical regularities which as such were inadequate - by means of a collective organization of power in centralized party bureaucracies. Such voluntaristic approaches were still in theminority as a programme in all these spheres beforeWorld War I, but were given a mass existential basis via the experience of war: In the postwar period, they developed into themost dynamic forces, seeking fulfillment in the implementation of goals legitimated

- if elites, realization of national greatness, classless society possible on a global scale). All authors who have formulated concepts of posthistoire sinceWorld War II were shaped by
such

ofhistory(leadership in terms of the by intellectual philosophy

can formulate our first discovery more generally: history, which terminates inposthistoire, is an attempt at a meaningful construction of thought which points toward a historical de velopment concerning theworld as a whole. Its essence consists of generalizing experiential knowledge about reality (earlier events, the nature ofman, the dynamics of process structures). that generalization should not clash with a deter Moreover, mination of the telos of history, but should rather enhance it. We Since

aggregates.

involved here are interpretations of selective knowledge. Their or norma interpretive criteria are derivable from speculative tive statements about the future. Insofar as man is accorded freedom, the interpretation can appeal to his freewill to ef fect change in the perceived trends in history by means of

what isbasically of any singleindividual, abilities intellectual

this fund of experiential

knowledge

surpasses

the

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 37 action. If such action fails, or turns out to be catastrophic or criminal, what remains is either the choice of interpreting reality or human freedom as such.

The Will to Powerlessness

Posthistoire is not a developed theory.Rather, its character is more like a symptomatic feeling about reality. It is a codeword full of allusions for the initiated, expressive of a mood and presupposing a great deal of theory. Its first key criterial pre supposition is themeaningful, goal-oriented history contained in the classical philosophy of history. Its second presupposition is a voluntaristic shift in that philosophy: the implementation of themeaning and objective of such history, no longer dis

mentation and instrument for those already holding power. On the contrary: Geist seeks to recruit and instrumentalize power in the revolutionary educated middle classes, in order then to utilize that power to promote itsmeaningful designs against the prevailing power structures in society. This rebel lious rearing-up before the abyss of unmeaning derives from the contradictory consciousness of the claims of intellectual greatness2 and the absence of its impact on themasses. These masses are conceptualized as being unconscious. Yet as long as this spirit of bourgeois decadence wishes to revolt against

coverable within historical reality, using the agency of power. This marriage of intellect and power, however, was not in in which keeping with that frequently encountered mesalliance science and art prostitute themselves as a meretricious orna

the social power structures and does not flee from them into an aesthetic form of existence, it is compelled to enter into a pact with its adversary, themasses. This brings us back to the third presupposition of posthistoire: namely, that such an was a failure. in fact enterprise and its associated failure involve a subjective Any attempt and objective dimension, a type and a locus. The temporal specification of that locus is simple: it is the postwar period, and, in a later wave, the period beginning with the 1970s. The situation is characterized biographically by previous ex perience: fascism and its debacle on the right; on the left, the replacement of various militant forms of communism initially of Stalinism, later of the various communist sects and group lets. But that is only one element. The strange mixtures in our

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38 Lutz Niethammer group of authors are also striking: in later years, de Jouvenel wrote about Che Guevara.

Ernst Junger experimented with see Schmitt, de Man to read aloud drugs, Kojeve journeyed extracts from the biography of a German socialist in theGer man Institute for Industry, etc. For this reason, Iwould like to sketch what I feel is typical in the life and work of ten

became a member of theClub of Rome, and Carl Schmitt

posthistoire authors.3 The term "revolutionary Bildungsburger" mentioned earlier is descriptive and meant to differentiate this category from those revolutionary intellectuals who were in fact loyal adher ents of some political organization for a longer period of

mass parties (NSDAP, PPF,KPD, PCF), members of radical

time. In this group of authors, only de Man fits that descrip tion: over the span of a decade, he held positions in the bu reaucracy of Belgian socialism, yetwas also a professor at the same time and in between. At least five more authors were

of the PCF; Gehlen attempted to organize Leipzig professors for the NSDAP. All stem at the very least from middle-class (only Heidegger and Schmitt were parvenus in backgrounds these social circles), all were endowed with great intellectual gifts. They were neither disposed toward nor condemned to a - the fastest yet riskiest upward professional career in politics ladder in the twentieth century. Seven of the ten became pro fessors, two were well-known writers, one was a high-ranking bureaucrat. However^ such positions only describe them ex ternally. They were all, by temperament and interest, public men, hommes de lettres, insiders of the Zeitgeist and, in any case, an elite in terms of any criteria, especially their own. About half were politically active on the extreme left,half on the extreme right during crucial phases of their lives i.e., activity they were involved in programmatic-propagandistic toward political forces which sought to galvanize themasses

but never served as functionaries (in the sense of a way of involvement was too brief for this, life). Their organizational as in the case of JouvenePs two years as head of the Doriot for example, party organ, or too peripheral: Baudrillard, served together with Althusser in a commision of intellectuals

into taking political action aimed at bringing about funda than their characteristic mental systemic change. More orientation toward a specific political direction, however^ is the sociocultural tension and brevity of duration of these In pacts between intellectual circles and large organizations.

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 39 the case of eight of the ten, it is possible to note at least one more or less voluntary change in fundamental political out look. Given the political breaks and changes that have shaken Europe in this century, that fact would not be particularly

forced after the October Revolution, with which he sym pathized, to leave his Russian homeland due to his "unsuit able" social background. Another grew up in a foreign en vironment, since his father had been compelled as a rabbi to emigrate. Five oscillated between several countries, and it is not always possible to clearly distinguish political from oc cupational reasons in this regard. One was forced to leave Nazi Germany as a Jew and left-wing intellectual; he returned in 1950 to Austria. Two so-called "half-Jews" - one from a communist family, the other in the wake of a flirtwith fascism sought out "marginality as a safe refuge." Four lost their positions during thewar or at its end; four were obliged at that time to change countries. The minority, all of these right-wing de Jouvenel, Freyer, Gehlen, Jiinger managed to achieve success under all prevailing regimes, though they were forced to bide their time. Although none was without a fairly respected elite position from the 1950s on, those on the lefthad a more trying time of it: Bruckner was fired from his job, scapegoated and hounded after (and even before) the re pressive-violent "German autumn" of 1977 (though the courts later ruled that this had been unlawful), and not finally re habilitated posthumously until 1980. Yet these historical breaks and tensions in the biographies of our authors are not just an arbitrary example of the con in the majority of cases, fusion of our century. Moreover, there is no justification for a simplistic explanation of their

never changed theirminds, or claimed they had always been correct in their views. With two exceptions in each group, theywere all born before or around the turn of the century, and lived on into the 1970s. Several of them (have) reached a ripe old age. As a rule, they all lived through the experience of twoWorld Wars, at least three breaks in cultural continuity, and two ruptures in political continuity. These were times that were changing more rapidly than ever before, and they had to change with those times - pas sionately, though for some with an apparent gesture of in difference to their era. World War I left a powerful imprint on the intellectual profile of at least two of them. One was

ifthey had not talkedand behavedas ifthey had noteworthy,

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40 Lutz Niethammer changes inposition: by reference, for example, to that "bundle of excess energy" with which the renegade is endowed. They neither see themselves as pawns at themercy of history, nor

with Junger and de Man, the autobiography has been gone over and reworked until a level of personal consistency had been reached which is tantamount to a declaration of inde

earlier political errors. Rather, the intellectual productivity of were these men goes on in unbroken continuity as though it necessary to demonstrate the independence of their intellect. Their work, as in the case of Gehlen or Baudrillard, remains untainted by any biographical references to their own person as a topic, or - as in the case of Heidegger or Kojeve - it is liberated from history by means of self-interpretation and by transforming it into a kind of principle. In some instances, as

do they wish to help preserve theworld from theirown

pendence from society. In actual fact, theywere not simply at themercy of events unlike the greater proportion of the countless victims of the war and the dictatorships. Rather, they engaged in radical political action for the sake of themeaningfulness of "history" and gave those radical currents their pen, name, and counsel. Even their elitist self-image was not merely illusion: because they did in fact have substantial amounts of intellectual pow er.The illusionary aspect of theirmegalomaniacal imagination was possible to lay in the practical sphere: in their view that it both keep one's distance from the masses and the bureau cracies, and yet lead them. That illusion became evident at

the very latest when political activity, radicalized by the search for meaning, was transposed from open opposition and transformed into an embarrassed relationship with an in regard to details was established power. A compromise such a compromise had not been envisaged then unavoidable; as part of the project to provide meaning. In the confrontation with the violence of bureaucracy, the sense of self of these men was offended to the point of meaninglessness. Instead of leading the pact between bourgeois intellect and themasses, they experienced themselves as the ornamental embellishment of a pact between power and themasses. In accordance with their self-respect and chances of survival, this insight led to a retreat from the sphere of history. That defeat in the practical realm was compensated by intellectual production. Such productivity linked up with the content of the recent past in order to shield and protect that content

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire

41

from nature, from reality permitted them, had detached itself as a plane open to empirical experience, from time as a mean - and from the intervention of each individual ingful evolution actor. In the view of this diagnosis, itwas no longer possible to associate the freedom of the individual in a meaningful manner with the totality of events as a whole. Rather, that freedom realized itself only in niches of that totality: in recol lective phantasy, inmyth, in simulation, the hypotheticality of the "as if".

from any suspicion that it was responsible for their own defeat and for the historical consequences flowing from the abortive pact. The warding off of this suspicion, which was a powerful threat to their self-understanding as intellectual leaders, blocked a concrete discussion of their own participa tion in and experience of history. In place of that discussion, therewas an exonerating diagnosis of the external world: the pact between power and themasses had, this diagnosis held, become a self-regulating system on the historically acquired basis of the technical domination of nature. This system, with marginal differences in political configuration, encom passed virtually the entire planet and was in the process of unceasing self-reproduction, irrespective ofwar and upheavals. This "second system", which neither required new ideas nor

History and Posthistoire

My interpretation here of the genesis of posthistoire notions as a specific projective relief, an exoneration (Entlastung), is based on a reading of these authors against the very grain of their opus. It gathers together fragments of historical attach ment and involvement precisely at that point where these writers speak about a loss ofmeaning in historical thought. It turns inward where the authors of posthistoire point outward. If one subtracts the exonerating element from the genesis of the notion of the posthistoire, as well as an exit out of history back toward the notion of histoire based on a voluntaristically shiftedHegelianism, then the diagnosis itself is not meaningless and devoid of any objective referent.Rather; itopens itselfup for a more differentiating evaluation for the historian's work. In all posthistoire authors, there is an evaluative categori zation of world civilization which is often termed "crystal lization." This metaphor has been borrowed from the bio

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42 Lutz Niethammer logical theory of evolution; it posits that from accidental genetic mutations and the survival of the fittest variants, species evolve. These then stabilize genetically and continue to reproduce in the same manner for as long as they can

survive in their environmental niche. In transposing this to history, there is a process of sociocultural development: human history arrives at the end of itsqualitative changes concomitant with a high degree of independence of advanced, technical industrial civilization from nature and its uniform implemen tation on a world scale. It then congeals and hardens into a structurewhich reproduces itself,quasi-genetically. This could be viewed as an evolutionarily expanded theory of modern ization. Yet it iswritten in a minor chord, so to speak, be cause crystallization simultaneously portends the end of free dom and meaning; i.e., it is a "reanimalization" of man. De Man and Anders

note a further consequence of such evolvement: namely, the tendency toward thanatos. Both authors are under the heavy impact of the destructive energies World War II and the uncontrollable machinery unleashed in of war and destruction. Peculiarly, it is precisely the person who coined the concept of the posthistoire who likewise like Teilhard, Bertaux, or Serres. hopes for a "mutation," here signifies a basic change in social structure "Mutation" and attitudes, and thus an epoch-making historical trans formation. The most important slogans appearing then on the agenda are: an end to "exterminism," limits on growth,

decentralization, protection of resources, environmental and social compatability and non-material satisfactions. While such a catalogue can still be comprehended as a kind of paraphrase of the programme of the Enlightenment namely, as a return of alienated progress to the inward world this framework is shattered bymeans of the powers of reason by further theories applying the slogans "entropy" and "death wish" to society as a whole. Their global conceptions of de clining life-energies and diminishing options, along with the notion of lifeas a detour to death, were not conceptualized as

the final historical "mutation" in the expansive hope for pro gress during the axial period. Since the historicity of nature belongs among the great discoveries of the last century, and has relativized the oppositions between the natural and human sciences, itwould be reasonable to expect that a theoretical mediation between the finitude of human existence and that

would give world on the levelof historyand society of the

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Afterthoughts on Posthistoire 43 rise to alternatives ization. to the paradigm of growth and modern

The posthistorical appropriation of sociobiological metaph ors (crystallization, termite state), which have accompanied discourse in this realm since the Enlightenment, fails to do this. Such an appropriation arbitrarily mixes the dimensions of nature and culture in itsguise as a kind of social Darwinism instead of conceptualizing culture within the framework of nature on the one hand, and as a social dimension on the other. It remains fixated on traditions it rejects as long as it fails, adhering to the tradition of the Enlightenment, to under subject in species-historical terms and fails to consider societal clashes of interest, thus eliminating right from the start any element of motion from history. For this reason, the perspective of posthistoire as an elitist, cultural-pessimistic revaluation of the optimism of progress appears tome to be a diagnosis of the times that ismore con of its proponents stress the fusing than enlightening. Most own of concentrating on the their instead of interest, primacy new problems of the century. They are enthralled by the ex

scorethe finitude ofnature,ignores thedeathof theindividual

meaningless but infinite flow of events. Moreover, posthistoire presupposes meaningful construc tions in the form of "mega-narratives9 on world history, and thus the legacy of the history of salvation. In this traditional mold, work on a concept of what is historical, taking cogniz ance of the finitude ofman and theworld, would only under go a radical volte-face, shifting from euphoric optimism about the future to its polar opposite: apocalyptic anxiety. On the other hand, the pseudo-empirical narrative structure of world history would be retained, as though we knew something in contential terms about its beginning and end. But we do not have such knowledge, so that a macrotheoretical frame work for historical data always remains a hypothetical con struct. The origin and verificational status of theory-making differ from a historical-critical processing of tradition. It is true that meaningful history generally comes about via a

aggerated symptoms of the palsy of civilization, instead of calling attention to its capacity for self-destruction. The ques tion about meaning eclipses the existential question. From of the Kojeve and Gehlen to Baudrillard, the proclamation end of history (as a movement beyond the bound of traditional rests on the ossified phantasy of a horizons of meaning)

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44 Lutz Niethammer process of working through preliminary interpretations using the sparse, trace-like legacy of actual events. another proviso is decisive for the relationship However; between history and all practical action: the status of macro historical patterns of interpretation (and their derivatives) must not be blurred in such a way by historical processing as to let it appear as though the interpretation arrived at were immanent to the events themselves. It should be underscored thatwithout such macrohistorical patterns of interpretation, there is no possibility to demonstrate a meaningful connection between the segments of past event-sequences examined by research. All attempts at reification of the tentative, model like character of world history by a pseudo-empirical embel as in of the theories lishment, grand cyclical Spengler or a eventuate in self (more modesdy) Toynbee, meglomaniacal to instead of of the leading predictive certainty deception creative cross-tension generated by differingmodes of orienta tion toward historical reality. Most posthistoire authors adhere to one or another tradition of theHegelian philosophy of history. That approach seeks to elaborate a meaningful genetic explanation for the reality of universal history. This enterprise comes up against at least two difficulties. For one, a meaningful rough blueprinting of the perception of historical reality is always the first step in the process. It can deal with such perception only sector wide, and with a concomitant drastic reduction of its com plexity. Even in the most optimum case, selective reduction

limits the power of concepts for prognosis, and such prognosis is often given the lie by historical events viewed from later retrospective vantage. Secondly, a history (due to itsnarrative structure) does not reveal its meaning until its final chapter is that all of history closed. The enterprise thus presupposes - as "mean must be nearly at an end before its significance - can finally be elucidated. This helps to ex ingful" history plain the close affinity between thematerialist philosophy of history and various chiliastic currents. Such currents may, - or is nigh like Romanticism, contend that the apocalypse Marxism, may, like regard the repeal of the necessity of his torical motion within the framework 6f a desired society as ma being an option which is historically preordained and terially practicable. Or the interpretive analyst himself may, likeHegel, believe he is privy to absolute knowledge (which, on this plane, can only be followed after the end of history by

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 45 a return of the eternally recurrent). Shortcircuiting the point of departure with the goal of a re<z/-historical interpretation of meaning, such an end of history reveals itself to be little more than an artifact of thought. even by means of such objections, one cannot However, so facilely of the diagnosis of posthistoire. On a se dispose cond level, there is still the matter of its characterization of the current societal configuration and its relationship with is striking in this connection are the the individual. What

similarities between the various diagnoses made sinceWorld War II of the "megamachine" (Mumford), "post-industrial (de Jouvenel), "se society" (Bell) and "social protectorate" "new the normality" (Bruck condary systems" (Freyer) and links these diagnoses is that they relativize the ner). What

importance of the political constitution, property relations and other basic categories of traditional social theory; in their stead, they posit a common technical-social structure self-reproducing, and slipping out of control. As a result, the conditions for that control are of secondary importance. This socio-technical structure is conceptualized as a state of affairs which has been produced historically, but is in itself no - since there is no longer historical longer any basic contra diction at work in advanced societies, impelling structural change. Rather, it is hypothesized that the contradictions which exist are only partial and marginal, and therefore sub ject from the outset to the enduring power of inertia common to basic social structures. Consequently, these contradictions no longer tend toward revolution or a transformation of societal reality, but rather are discharged via the safety valves of an innocuous rebelliousness or a retreat into the inner self. The dynamics of social homogenization can be observed on several planes, and linked with technical progress. On the economic plane, increases in productivity have made possible a relatively broad mass prosperity without class struggle, transforming the contradictions between capitalists and work ers into a tension-laden cooperative relationship between This is and labor. bolstered capital relationship by corporative organizations, and is both underpinned and relativized by the secular growth of public service bureaucracies and private service industries. In the socialist countries, homogenization has progressed even further as a result of state control over the organization and disposition of capital and labor, yet that unification is less efficiently organized.

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46 Lutz Niethamtner the political plane, spheres free from state influence and thus social autonomy in pure form have largely disap the growing power peared in the wake of bureaucratization, and presence of state bureaucracies of violence, the interlacing On

social welfare). The augmentation of this simul taneously compact and immobile power eliminates the elbow room for potential development of a fundamental opposition within society, and impedes even quite minor corrections in political direction. On the other hand, internal conflict regula dividual omic growth, a circumstance which dictates a perpetuation of these systems in their fundamental dynamic of expansion. Finally, on the cultural plane, the relative autonomy of regional and class cultures has been eroded as a result of high mobility, state-controlled education and the omnipresent mass media. That autonomy has been supplanted by a market oriented culture of atomized masses, whose temporal and spatial horizons grow hazy, a culture in which appearance and reality can no longer be differentiated, and where simula tions and simulacra are frequendy more fascinating, and at

of the social fabric with governmental regulations, and the dependence of all individuals, and every "private" initiative, on state support and subsidies (especially in the area of in

on thedistribution of econ of thefruits tion isbased largely

times even more realistic, than primary experience of reality. The principal feature of this culture is a contradiction which has been shifted to the locus of the individual: on the one hand, his practical behavior is determined by the practical behavior of economic constraints and the bureaucracies, now an indelible component of everyday routine; on the other hand, his expressive world is released into a whimsical pot pourri of fanciful flight. There would appear to be a great deal of evidence in favor of such a tentative description of current social realities, since this perspective can accomodate a large number of everyday the problem with this and scientific observations. However, draft is the vantage point from which it has been sketched: was authored by an observer from another planet. perhaps it

or herself to the estrangement of experience (Entwirklichung) and the inescapability of the structures described? Yet maybe there is really something akin to a "man-from Mars" point of vantage: detached observers who, although era that they are in contemporaries, are so little a part of their

Can itpossiblyhave been drawn by anyone subjecthimself

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 47 a position to look down upon it from the outside, as itwere. If one wishes to open oneself up to the diagnostic power of - or fallen - out of history, one those who have stepped should listen to their message very carefully, heedful of its

the latter instance, the requisite remedy is obvious: attention must be redirected back to the differences between systems. These differencesmust then be made evident using the criterion of the level of life-quality the differing systems facilitate, the sacrifices they engender and the ability they contain for gal vanizing self-reflection upon their problems. it comes to the relationship between subjectivity and When the masses, the problem ismore complex. The posthistoire authors do not view themselves as a part of themasses; they as an entity reacting instinctively and regard the masses mechanically

part of these masses, thus dissolving the concept of the 'mass' into individual subjects. In this regard, their error is identical with that distancing which makes them valuable in our eyes as detached observers. However, this distance can be objec tively qualified by the specific perspective of the authors. That specific perspective consists, on the one hand, in the in the objective concept of the inclusion of contemporaries societal mass and, on the other hand, in the attempt to blur and mask their own responsibility for the content of their political commitment. These excesses must be remedied. In

limitations. The basic problem of the posthistoire authors is that they have a mistaken view of the relationship between intellectuals and themasses in a critical phase. As educated - a Bildungsbiirger elite or avantgarde bourgeois theywere unable to countenance the notion of seeing themselves as

to societal demands, and thus devoid of itsown or any ability to achieve historical knowledge subjectivity, and undergo change. To that extent, theirmodel of societal structures - inwhich themasses constitute themediating link between economy, politics, and culture - would like to exit from history. That blueprint would be less objectivistic and pessimistic if the individuals composing the social masses were equipped with subjectivity. This would mean that despite the totality of structural constraints, thought would be opened up by thatmodicum of freedom which the observer claims, in any case, for his own. As soon as the observer of themasses realizes that he himself is a part of that entity, those masses dissolve into individuals who are aware of their inclusion in social processes, reflect on such processes and are able to

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48 Lutz Niethammer relate to them. Of course, there should be no illusionary hope

- is not substantial change in these structures. Yet he - or she alone: all have the same option, though itwould appear to be extremely insignificant in view of the immensity of the then would be based precisely on the mass problems. Hope character of reflective and communicating subjectivity rather on of the object "mas than any process of "subjectivization" ses" or of any other collective singular entity. Posthistorical diagnosis views societal formation as being shaped by an objective process of homogenization/unification via power structures moving from the center outward. This process no longer holds out the promise of any qualitative movement, but rather extends outward until it congeals and hardens. Any deviations from this are residues from earlier histories, elements of the non-European world, and a post

that the individual will, by himself,be able to effect any

in this historical, aesthetic realm of simulation. Reflected dialectic of center and periphery, drained of reality, is the of the intellectual leader. If, based on a per marginalization mass of spective subjectivity, one does away with the anti thetical contrasting of intelligence and themasses, so necessary for defining the intellectual, then itwill also be possible once again to perceive the true differences within and between so cieties as points of departure for historical action. This could be done without completely sacrificing the value of the post historical description of societal development. But itwould then alter its status: a menacing image impelling reflective subjectivity toward a search for initiatives to action emerges from the paralyzing diagnosis that these structures have indeed become independent and threaten annihilation. Posthistoire becomes historical if it is not read as a general diagnosis, but rather as a specific negative Utopia for the loss of future per spective within advanced industrial societies. Yet is it possible to imagine any historical perception and reflection whatsoever of mass subjectivity in contemporary

culture? In his posthistorical fiction Eumeswil, history for Ernst Junger becomes the paradigmatic activity within post histoire. In privileged Luminar; the anarch occupies himself with its contents in simulated timelessness and lack of respon same in the sibility: i.e., with the eternal recurrence of the - to which he offers his services in kitchen cabinet of power his main profession. In this hybrid admixture of Nietzsche and Baudrillard, history with the estranging of the mean

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Afterthoughts on Posthistoire 49 ingful coherence of itsmega-narratives degenerates into a video archive packed with past figures and events, whose fascination offers him solace in the face of themeaninglessness of his own existence and theworld. In visionary form, there appears here the elitist variant of the intended addressee at the postmodern culture industry and cultural bureau cracy seem to direct theirmessages. That variant is characteriz ed by the simultaneous availability, reification and simulatab ilityof arbitrarily selected bits of tradition, the structuring of thismaterial in terms of the educative goals as laid down by the given power relations, as well as the aesthetic processing

which

world history, and that its interpretation of the present only makes sense if substantially altered. The aesthetic, media oriented dimension of posthistorical history, in contrast, is the times. The search for a critical alternative would have to proceed from the question as to the type of services which a historian can offer in order to bolster the subjectivity of the individual in his/her historical self-perception. Such a per

of thatmaterial for passive and isolated observers. The recip ient here is indeed posthistorical, in that he is constantly con fronted with fragments of the past which estrange him from his own historical situation and subjectivity. Such fragments do not permit him to find his own true self, so to speak, but rather catalyze his departure from his own historical existence, as he is literally inundated with material from the past. I have attempted to show that on the most general plane, - as a the posthistoire diagnosis disappointed postscript to of fails to recognize nineteenth-century philosophy history the essential problems of a relevant communication regarding

and rhythm with therhyme of practicaland inkeeping highly

which can What is involvedis not a philosophyof history

vouch formeaning, and which, in structured constructions or narrative presentations about broader contexts, events and

ualism, but would have to abandon its ideal of greatness and power, in order to achieve a realistic evaluation of the available - and - societal against options and scope for action within structures. It could also link up with material interests and collective traditions, but should not harbor any hope that objective features will automatically be transformed into action - if one really wishes to utilize possible options for action. a Such perspective could also be labelled "history from below,99 since it upends the traditional hierarchy of historical tasks.

could linkup with the legacy of bourgeois individ spective

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50 Lutz Niethammer persons, suggests an impression of a reality which has really and is then ultimately served been proven and demonstrated up didactically for consumption inaesthetically pleasing forms. Rather; the point of departure here lies in the explication of the life-history of the individual, embedded in its social and historical contextual web, its experiences and omissions; in the abilities of the individual to reflect upon this life-history, to narrate to interested others about himself, and in thisway to establish communication with them about the history which links them all. Such a process of clarification must necessarily also come to include aspects of contemporary historical reality and the earlier histories of one's family, because it group, factory, locality, political direction, etc. requires such histories for its own self-understanding and self-explanation. Many people need exemplary models before embarking upon the search for such a clarification of their own life-history.This helps account for the current popularity of oral history and the numerous talk shows on radio and

TV. Every person requires the aid of professional historio graphy when the extended web of interconnections of a con nature is temporary-historical and personal-prehistorical further these extend temporally and in the involved. The dimensions under consideration, themore exclusive is a per son's dependence on the elucidative and communicative func tion of historical science. What can historiography offer if it wishes to enhance an individual's historical self-understanding and ability to take action, rather than subordinate the individual to the fiction of an objectively meaningful historical process, or brush him offwith an arbitrarily selected handful of aesthetic fragments? There are at least three possible areas which appear crucial. 1.Narrative reworking of data and contexts in contemporary historical reality, and the respective historical presupposi tions of a group: these extend over a broad range, including objective conditions, political decisions, sociocultural in fluences on everyday life, and collective and exemplary individual experiences. Such elements offer a possible basis for giving a societal framework to the outreaching process of individual understanding of one's own life-history. 2. The structuring of large-scale historical contexts (extending constructs. Some conceptualization of such contexts is neces sary for historical communicable self-understanding. How

all the way toglobalhistory)isalwaysbased on hypothetical

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 51 ever, it is equally important not tomistake such constructs for reality, but rather to comprehend them in their character as blueprints or provisional sketches. For this reason, read able theoretical summaries and discussions of differing ap more useful than pseudo-empirical syn proaches would be theses for the elucidation of more distant and larger-scale

realms of historical reality. 3. Finally, a mode of communicable historical understanding proceeding from the conditions and experiences of one's own existence requires the exemplary experience ofwhat is alien and different: the foreigner, the stranger. Such expe rience serves to broaden social phantasy in dealing with the fund of experience. It renders recognizable what is normally taken for granted as self-explanatory, allowing one to pin point such material and thus make it amenable to change. does not require any overly hasty transposition to the "here and now," but rather raises this into consciousness through the perception of distance. Nor does itneed the construction

ofwhat is foreign and different Such amode of experience

about such a context. Rather, itdemands a complex concrete ness,which also illuminates the deep strata of another culture by means of example. Historical effortwhich can be linked with the elucidation of one's own experience, shattering what it takes for granted

even thoughit of a linking context, may trigger curiosity

their search for orientation into fundamentalistic collective identities, discharging it in the short circuit between popular masses and political power. The return of political theology

and disclosing orientational blueprints of historical intercon nection, moves beyond the juxtaposition of intellectual leader vs. broad masses. Trammeled over by that antithesis of the intellectual against themasses, the interpreters take on a task which is too demanding, and individuals are not encouraged in practical terms to make history on their own, with the powers and abilities at their disposal. In such a juxtaposition (and this iswhat a reading against the grain of posthistoire - not diagnoses reveals), history freezes solid or explodes simply abstractly, but in concrete actuality. Potential explosions loom as a threatwhenever the historical groundwork for a self-understanding in history is unable to reach Subjekte in their own existential locus, but rather leads

then signals cultural bankruptcy and the violent collision of unmediated identities. The other extreme might be labelled

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52 Lutz Niethammer "crystalline or atomic death by freezing." This can arise from the autonomous functioning of "secondary systems," their cultural paralysis and the risk they entail of a catastrophe for all humankind. That danger; rooted in the system, can be pointed out by intellectuals, but its threat can only be gen - an aggre uinely diminished by the action of the "masses" gate of individuals endowed with a modicum of freedom and responsibility, to whose ultimately also belong. inclusive ranks the intellectuals

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Afterthoughtson Posthistoire 53 Notes

presented in the following sections. 2 Characteristic of themeaning-crisis of the bourgeois intel lectual is the self-attribution of an authoritative special time in event role, defined as someone who manipulates to construed the sequences according philosophy of history. The conservative segment of the intelligentsia then discovers its "nobility of intellect": it isprecisely the bourgeois intel lectual who is thereby raised above thematerial push-and shove of bourgeois society, and ismeant to be thus granted

1 I can only make a few rough references to this here. De tailed comments and materials on the discourses inwhich this concept arose and took on significance are contained inmy small book on "Posthistoire," to be published in the autumn of 1989. The concluding remarks of that book are

in the ancien regime. the audience befitting the Grandes is the predominant This attitude among posthistoire authors. The movement party, in contrast, sees itself as an aristocracy of (historical) propellant velocity: as "avant it rushes on out ahead of the forward motion of garde," history, experimenting and setting the direction. 3 Those authors under scrutiny are mentioned here in the order in which the perspective of posthistoire appears in theirwork: de Jouvenel, Kojeve, Jiinger, deMan, Gehlen,

Freyer, Anders, Baudrillard, Bruckner, Taubes. As related thinkers, Benn, Schelsky, Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt, for example, might also be considered along, more generally, with certain French post-structuralists and recent German contemporary philosophers and philosophical anthropolo gists.

Translated

from the German

by Bill Templer

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