From National Guilt to Constitutional Patriotism: Jürgen Habermas's Reflections on Post-War Societal Identity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21847/2411-3093.2025.7210Keywords:
communication, social institute of history, social transformation, historical memory, dialogue, deliberative democracy, identityAbstract
This article deals with the conceptualization of J. Habermas's discourse on historical memory and post-war societal identity. Analysis covers his criticism of Marxism as a tool of "essentialization of history" and social reductionism that devalues identities. It is substantiated that Habermas engages in active public communication directed against the traditional vision of the social institution of history, particularly against German historians who question the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the guilt of the German community. The author focuses on how Habermas, appealing to collective intelligence and rationality, rejects the reproduction of collective memory tied exclusively to conventional German identity. Analysis also covers the theoretical distinction of Habermas from the postmodern discourse of F. Lyotard on the role of the historical factor in the conditions of deliberative democracy. Habermas emphasized that effective public communication and the intention to form a com-mon European constitutional identity were the factors that helped overcome the conse-quences of the past and united societies against the violence of Nazism and Communism.
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