Nathan Gardels is the editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine. He is also the co-founder of and a senior adviser to the Berggruen Institute.
In the decades following Germany’s complete defeat in World War II, the philosopher Jürgen Habermas argued that the state and civil society must strive to counter the historical pull of the “anti-civilizing, anti-Western undercurrent in the German tradition from the Romantics to Heidegger” that gave rise to Nazism.
This could only be achieved, as he saw it, if his nation firmly anchored itself in “the West” through a liberal democratic constitution in a Federal Republic cemented by Atlanticist ties to America.
For Habermas, the way to detach allegiance from association with the ethnic nation and Volk was what he called “constitutional patriotism.” In other words, loyalty to democratic institutions and norms over and above any nativist appeal to the authoritarian tribal politics of us versus them. Though Habermas understood democracy could be improved through more deliberative practices, this baseline was for him what would make Germany “truly Western.”
It is therefore no small irony that, on the 35th anniversary celebration of the post-Cold War unification of Germany last week in Saarbrücken, the present chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was compelled to defend liberal democracy “as a way of life,” not least against the threat emanating from America these days.
In effect, the tables have turned: Once prodigal Germany now hopes America will remain anchored in the West as it steadily lurches toward illiberal democracy at home and wobbles on defending Ukraine and the rest of Europe from Russian aggression.
“The centers of power in the world are shifting to an extent not seen since the end of the Cold War,” Merz observed. “An axis of autocratic states that challenges the liberal order around the world is directly challenging Western democracies. That is why we must regain the ability to defend our freedom. … The radiance of what we in the West call liberal democracy is noticeably diminishing. It is no longer a given that the world will orient itself toward us, that it will follow our values of liberal democracy.”
Though obviously referring to Russia and China, previous comments by Merz leave little doubt that he also had America in mind. The U.S “has changed so fundamentally over the last few years, perhaps decades, that rules are no longer being followed, parliamentary democracy is under pressure, freedom of expression is being called into question, and the independence of the judiciary is being repressed,” he told a business conference in Berlin in September.
The Dark Enlightenment
French President Emmanuel Macron followed up Merz’s remarks in Saarbrücken with equal alarm about “the degeneration of democracy” across the West.
Beyond threats from the outside, he warned, “on the inside we are turning on ourselves; we doubt our own democracy. We see everywhere that something is happening to our democratic fabric. Democratic debate is turning into a debate of hatred.”
He continued: “We’ve been incredibly naïve, handing over our public democratic space to social networks owned by big American entrepreneurs and Chinese firms whose interests are not at all the survival and the good functioning of our democracy.”
Macron even raised the specter of “the return of the Dark Enlightenment” of authoritarianism. In the present-day context, the “Dark Enlightenment” refers to a movement that promotes an alliance of autocrats and Silicon Valley AI accelerationists to more efficiently run societies like corporations, with a decisive authoritarian CEO, algorithms that replace democratic deliberation and a belief in technological solutions to all of humanity’s problems.
The French president called on Europeans to mount a “resurgence” to “rebuild a 21st-century democracy” if “we want science, culture, education and learning to be at the heart of the public space.” Otherwise, he said, “we risk becoming a continent, like many others, of conspiracy theorists, extremes, noise, and fury.”
Patriotism In Diverse Societies
Habermas formulated his theory of “constitutional patriotism” as a historical response to an authoritarian ideology of racial superiority in what was then a largely homogenous society. It was conceived as a brake against any temptation to succumb once again to the siren call of the Volksgeist transmuted into aggressive nationalism.
Yet, the idea of constitutional patriotism that Habermas believed would make his nation “truly Western” could also serve today as a guiding political philosophy and rallying cry of the oppositional forces to the relentless creep of illiberalism in the most diverse of all nations: America.
If allegiance to individual rights, due process under the rule of law, the separation of powers, judicial independence and free expression are what constitute the West and distinguish it from the axis of authoritarianism, then defending constitutional rule is the most patriotic stance Americans from all walks of life can take.
That it is has fallen to Germans to remind America of what the West is all about suggests we have come full circle to a point where the most ardent pupils of democracy must now tutor their mentors who seem to have forgotten the lessons they once taught so well.
