Lars Rensmann. Demokratie und Judenbild: Antisemitismus in der politischen Kultur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, GWV Fachverlage, 2004. 541 S. EUR 44.90 (broschiert), ISBN 978-3-531-14006-3.
Reviewed by Anthony Kauders (Keele University)
Published on H-German (October, 2005)
Wissenschaft for Wissenschaftler
It is perhaps not surprising that postmodern irony did not originate in German academe. The reader of German dissertations, for instance, is often impressed with their massive learning, extensive documentation, and theoretical acumen. At the same time, it is easy to feel disheartened when the book is a tome, the language streng wissenschaftlich, and the overall posture humorless. Insofar as scholarship is at stake, reviewers of such works tend to ignore length, jargon, and stance. Indeed, it is not rare to find Geistes- and Sozialwissenschaftler for whom style is simply irrelevant. In this case old-fashioned types might wax nostalgic, recalling as they do the now seemingly outmoded (though pace Derrida fairly up-to-date) question of whether history is an art or a science--and where to place it on the continuum separating the two. Lars Rensmann's Demokratie und Judenbild, albeit political science, provokes similar reactions, ranging from awe as to the seriousness with which he confronts the subject to utter disbelief as to why he needed over five hundred pages to present his findings. In other words, Judenbild and Demokratie is one of the best works on antisemitism in (post-unification) Germany, but it could have been even better had the author trusted the well-worn adage: less is more.
In the introduction (60 pages), Rensmann seeks to substantiate the connection between antisemitism on the one hand, and the lack of democratic values on the other. Like Hajo Funke and other specialists in the field, he believes that the subject is of hoher demokratiewissenschhaftlicher Relevanz(p. 15). His aims are manifold, but perhaps best summarized by focusing on two passages in particular. First, he endeavors to examine "die Ursachen, Ermöglichungsstrukturen, Motive und politischen wie diskursiven Gelegenheits- und Opportunitätsstrukturen von antisemitischen Mobilisierungsversuchen in der Demokratie" (p. 19). Second, he wishes to study "wie Juden/Judenbilder in der politischen Öffentlichkeit und in politischen Kommunikationsprozessen repräsentiert werden, welche symbolischen Ordnungen und kollektiven/nationalen Selbstbilder dabei konstruiert und bearbeitet werden, und wie sich jene Bilder im Kontext ideologischer Begründungsmuster, diskursiver Opportunitätsgrenzen und gesellschaftlicher Vourteilsbereitschaften im politischen und kommunikativen Prozess verschieben oder transformieren" (p. 19). Put differently, the author sets out to analyze the means by which society condones, facilitates, or proscribes antisemitism, based on the discursive boundaries that are relaxed, broadened, or upheld.
Rensmann is already well known for his excellent earlier book, Kritische Theorie über den Antisemitismus, in which he outlined Adorno's, Horkheimer's, and Löwenthal's approach to the subject.[1] Not surprisingly, his methodology is heavily indebted to their work, and to that of Adorno especially. He therefore concurs with Wolfgang Benz that the concept of the authoritarian personality can still be used. He is also keen to advance Adorno's notion of a "secondary antisemitism" that emerged in the wake of Auschwitz and centered on the need to fend off guilt. He appropriates, finally, both Freud's tripartite system as adopted by Critical Theory, for whom the ego-weakness of antisemites derives from their inability to deal with "inner or social conflicts and anxieties" (p. 65); and Freud's idea of projection, which he adumbrates in the following passage: "Die kritisch-theoritische Theorie der pathetischen Projektion vermutet im antisemitischen Bild vom Juden somit einerseits wesentlich Repräsentanzen des Eigenen des Autoritären: Judeophobie verspricht ein 'erlaubtes' Schwelgen in verleugneten Bemächtigungen, Betrafungs- und Zerstörungsgelüsten, die den Juden zugeschrieben werden, welche zugleich das Glück verkörpern, das den autoritär Zugerichteten versperrt scheint; den Wohlstand ohne Arbeit, das Glück ohne Macht, die Heimat ohne Grenzenstein" (p. 140).
In his section on theory (140 pages), Rensmann provides helpful discussions of several issues. He repudiates the term Judeophobia (which he nevertheless employs occasionally as the quote above demonstrates), because it refers to individuals, ignores societies, and suggests that antisemitism is pathological. He qualifies the argument that economic crises cause Jew-hatred, reminding the reader that Germany would then have to be suffering from a very protracted period of dislocation indeed. He welcomes the observation that antisemitism can evolve into a code, whereby allusion and innuendo replace explicit abuse as a result of political exigencies. Demokratie and Judenbild often takes on the character of a Handbuch, a lexicon that can be consulted whenever the reader requires a brief overview of a particular subject. This is also true for the empirical section (280 pages), whose encyclopedic range includes analyses of racism in East Germany; historical revisionism; left-wing anti-Zionism; the Goldhagen, Walser, Finkelstein, and Holocaust Memorial debates; as well as the Möllemann affair.
What about Rennmann's conclusions? For one, he is able to show that within right-wing and left-wing circles alike, antisemitism is embedded in discourses on national identity and cultural identification. Whenever the Jews are blamed, be it as part of critiques directed against Israel or in the shape of resistance to globalization, their detractors skirt the actual question that is cultural, political, and economic modernization. For another, he demonstrates that "antisemitic projections" are frequently dependent on the limitations within a given political culture to indulge in that kind of thinking. After unification, narratives on nationhood allowed for greater freedom in this respect, leading figures on the left to engage in anti-Jewish verbiage and figures on the right to emphasize German victimhood. Rensmann dismisses the thesis, put forward by Werner Bergmann, that (West) Germany has witnessed a quasi-linear process of coming to terms with past (kollektiver Lernprozess), maintaining instead that antisemitism remains an embattled political terrain within German democratic self-understanding (p. 501). He thus holds that since 1989, the discursive boundaries vis-à-vis Jew-hatred have been considerably relaxed--and not only among those committed to an overthrow of the democratic system.
Individual temperament no doubt influences the way in which one responds to this assessment. For historians whose primary goal is to trace change and discontinuity, Rensmann's position appears too theory-laden in disposition, resembling as it does the language of high criticism and the hermeneutics of suspicion. To their minds, concepts such as projection and ego-weakness presuppose norms that posit superlative, ideal, and absolute super-egos; that disallow for senseless evil; and that underestimate what has already been achieved. For those, by contrast, whose aim is to discern continuity within change, Rensmann's book is absolutely convincing, the best theoretical elucidation of present-day antisemitism, and further proof that the demons of yesteryear are yet powerful still.
Note
[1]. Lars Rensmann, Kritische Theorie über den Antisemitismus: Studien zu Struktur, Erklärungspotential und Aktualität (Berlin and Hamburg: Argument Verlag, 1998).
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Citation:
Anthony Kauders. Review of Rensmann, Lars, Demokratie und Judenbild: Antisemitismus in der politischen Kultur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
October, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11165
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