Michael Gove sees a connection between contemporary Germany's sorry state and the failings of the class of '68.
That generation was in revolt at what it saw as the stuffy conformity of the bourgeois Germany which Adenauer created, and the failure of their parents fully to confront the nation’s historic crimes. But far from marking a decisive break with the country’s past failures, the actions in power of the ’68 generation only underline an historic weakness in the German character.Posted by Dr. Frank at February 4, 2003 08:29 AM | TrackBackThere has been a tendency among German elites over the past 200 years to invest the ruling ideology of the moment with the quasi-mystical quality of a political religion. Those thinkers who reacted against the French Enlightenment, such as Hegel and Herder, contributed to a romantic, anti-liberal, nationalist temper in 19th-century Germany. The Wilhelmine state which went to war in 1914 was deeply imbued with a mystical sense that its Kultur was superior to the desiccated, rationalist, mercantile outlook of the British and the Americans.
The anti-liberal beliefs which bewitched Germany in the past led to war. The ideology of the ’68 generation may seem altogether more admirable, because it finds expression in opposition to conflict. But it is, at root, just as anti-liberal, and similarly baleful for Germany’s future health. The freedom which the ’68ers oppose is the economic liberalism of America, and their hostility to the US is the animating force in their opposition to action against Iraq.