Sentences like sleeping pills

Jürgen Habermas's death makes me sad.

Reading his books was often torture: sentences like sleeping pills. His famous belief in the „casual compulsion of the better argument“ seemed naive to many of us young students in the 1990s. Too trusting of discourses that in reality are often shaped by power, money, media, and institutions. And his role as a kind of state philosopher of the Federal Republic, which was reflexively invoked in philosophy seminars, was rather irritating: too much a part of the official self-understanding of German post-war society.

While the old Federal Republic slowly dissolved, Habermas remained persistent.

In 2003, on the occasion of the Iraq War, he jointly published a manifesto with Jacques Derrida that appeared in several major European newspapers. After decades of philosophical animosity, two of Europe's most important thinkers appeared together, calling for an independent European voice in international politics – a voice of international law, multilateral institutions, and international cooperation that would not simply disappear in the shadow of the United States.

For me, and for many others, the fateful War on Terror was a time of renewed political awakening – and Habermas and Derrida were our voices. That a French and a German philosopher buried their dispute to demand a common European language in international politics was a political act in itself.

Today, we are witnessing how weak European policy is in the face of authoritarian and fascist developments in the United States – and how a German Chancellor is debasing himself to be a lackey of fascists. But while he bows down to those above, Friedrich Merz kicks down, thereby opening the floodgates for far-right ideology.

At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that conservative forces in Europe have long been making pacts with the extreme right. What was considered a political taboo a few years ago is now being normalized step by step. In this way, the murderers of tomorrow gain positions of power, influence, and control.

It was and remains correct to draw a democratic conclusion from the catastrophe of World War II: that politics must be based on understanding. Not on friend-enemy thinking, not on cynicism, not on the mere logic of power.

Habermas was among the last great intellectuals to embody this communicative project of post-war European modernity.

He remained loyal to this stance. While the war in Ukraine increasingly militarized political discourse, Habermas reminded us that political reason cannot consist of demonizing the opponent. Criticism and clear condemnation do not preclude the insight that conflicts between nuclear powers can ultimately only be ended through negotiation. Many considered that naive as well.

Over the decades, Habermas has transformed from a wunderkind to a friend for me. He embodied the voice of a generation that knew where total enemy images lead. It is the generation of my parents. My parents' fathers, my grandfathers, German soldiers, rest in graves in Ukraine.

Today, fanaticism, ignorance, obsession with power, and ideological delusion are driving politics in many places. In the Middle East, the attack by the USA and Israel on Iran is unfolding a dynamic that not only further destabilizes the region but could trigger a global economic crisis and lead to military escalation—the likes of which we haven't seen since World War II.

At the same time, we are witnessing the resurgence of authoritarian and fascist movements worldwide, which reduce politics to an endgame between good and evil, thereby advocating cruelty and destruction. In parallel, large parts of the digital information infrastructure have been hijacked by far-right actors and their lackeys and replaced by algorithmic outrage logic. The communicative space itself is under massive attack.

A world in a state of emergency.

Habermas wasn't always right. But he unswervingly insisted that political reason is possible. That arguments count. That the democratic public sphere can be more than propaganda, outrage, power struggles, and manipulation.

This voice is now silent.

I miss Jürgen Habermas.