Wiggershaus, Rolf

Rolf Wiggershaus

What I find still interesting and exemplary in what is termed the "Frankfurt School" is the kind of interdisciplinary thinking and research that was practiced there. Although multidisciplinarity has long since become an academic fashion, things tend to look different in reality, as a rule. Even if a whole group of people work together, they seldom do so over such a long period of time in such an intensive way; a way in which the participants are reacting to their own, immediate historical experiences, and in doing so bring science, philosophy and the theory of art together. At the same time, the concept and understanding of philosophy that existed then extended into the domains of religion, so that all of the factors that - as in the case of a philosopher such as Hegel, for example - constitute the "objective Spirit," were really united, and were combined with empirical research in addition. A title such as "The Dialectic of Enlightenment" has not merely become a topos, it also stands for a work in progress, and a diagnostics of the times that remains open for self-criticism.

Jürgen Habermas, the most prominent representative of Critical Theory, pleads in recent remarks on religion for the recognition of religious statements as candidates for truth as well, and for their translation into public discourse; we are currently observing a resurgence of religion in general. What do you think of these developments?

If one views Habermas within the context of the Frankfurt School, one sees that he differs from Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin - or Marcuse, too, in that his reliance on rationality was always more pronounced than was the case with the others. It is thus hardly surprising that he makes use of a kind of self-corrective function in the sense of a complementary concept of rationality when presented with noteworthy new developments. Apart from this, one cannot speak so much of a return of religiosity as of a shifting of attention caused by an Islamism that has become terroristic. This shift in our attention has taken place for truly fatal reasons, as the fact that religion actually still does play an important role today has only penetrated into general consciousness in the wake of September 11, and not before. Since then, many have been finding fault with a Euro-centric perspective according to which developments in Europe, characterized by a strong trend towards secularization, are not only perpetuated here, but in addition influence the rest of the world, thanks to globalization and the exemplary status of the western way of life. The truth is that this has not taken place in quite this fashion; the west's view of itself has become more modest and our eyes are more open to what is happening in other parts of the world. In addition, all of those social and economic Utopias that in the past had taken the place of religious world-views and hopes have disapppeared. These are the reasons why variants of religion are able to play a greater role in the world again, right up to and including us here in the west. But it must be said here that this simply constitutes a greater emphasis in part on what was already the case in the first place.

To what extent can western philosophies and concepts be of relevance to the Arab world? What is your estimation of their readiness to enter into an open exchange?

In societies such as Iran or Egypt, there have always been intellectuals and artists who were on the one hand believing Moslems, but who at the same time had had experience with the western way of life or were democratically-minded, and who were influential in their own world, through the arts or through their role-model status in the daily life of their societies. But they frequently did not receive enough support, or were not taken note of by western countries – let alone taken seriously - until very late. For example, when Nagib Machfus was awarded the Nobel Prize – he is the first and the only Arab author until now to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature – the reactions here were astonishment and even outrage that such a person could be awarded this prize. He was very well-known and successful in other countries, even though he had difficulties in Egypt itself.

Can the west in its turn learn from the developments and discussions in the Arab world, perhaps even from the critique of western modernity being formulated there?

Yes, I definitely think so. The faculty of self-criticism, often depicted as a western virtue, should actually make one be especially curious and open-minded towards what exists in other countries, such as those of the Arab world. One problem here is, of course, the language issue, and here, too, it is worth pointing out that beautiful literature from the Arab-speaking world is now - at last - being translated and favourably received here. The direction in which the public's attention is steered, what intellectuals and artists are taking note of and what interests them, is always a factor here, too. If religion is then embedded in complex ideas of culture as such, then, seen as a part of a culture, it has less of that alien quality that it takes on when one is confronted with it in isolation. Conversely, the numerous foreign students and intellectuals here are living proof of how very many people from the Islamic-Arabic cultural area come to the west and then attempt to create combinations that connect both their way of life at home and the western way of life. So there really is this openness, even though many people here are perhaps not so conscious of it.