Post-Enlightenment-Society: What we are losing and what lies ahead

Description

Enlightenment is the noblest achievement that mankind has ever created. Its essence lies in the pursuit of objectivity and intersubjective justification. It is an elitist minority project to which large parts of humanity owe enormous benefits. Nevertheless, the end of the second Enlightenment era can currently be observed. This is due to the immense burdens of an emancipated way of life, as well as current political and sociological stress factors. These include a capitalistically reduced understanding of freedom, rising migration trends, a weakening defense of universal ethics, and an anti-racism devoid of an awareness of negative dialectics. This erosion brings about a return to the standard authoritarian models of humanity, coupled with the technical and media potential of modernity. It is time to look back in gratitude and to take a critical look at what lies ahead. Front Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Introduction and the concept of Enlightenment Chapter 1 Looking back in gratitude 1.1 An amazing coincidence 1.2 A titanic project and its wonderful consequences 1.3 Rare, proud and fragile Chapter 2 Simply the Best! 2.1 Related, but not identical 2.2 Facts and arguments of a higher order: not ultimate, but best justified 2.3 Freedom: not absolute, but transcendental 2.4 Ethical universalism: European, but not Eurocentric 2.5 Racism: despite, not through, Enlightenment 2.6 Alternatives: possible, but inhumane 2.7 Take it or leave it Chapter 3 Transience 3.1 The eternal competition 3.2 The reproduction problem 3.3 The self-destructive tendencies of freedom 3.3.1 The instrumental shortening 3.3.2 Uprising of the masses 3.3.3 Education without Humanism 3.3.4 Wrong use for the right thing. Cancel Culture and language loss 3.4 Current stress factors 3.4.1 Destruction of natural resources 3.4.2 Extremism 3.4.3 Migration 3.5 The digital catalyst 3.5.1 The aestheticization of the living environment and the problem of unequal acceleration 3.5.2 Structural loss of the public sphere Chapter 4 And now? The Post-Enlightenment Society 4.1 The return of the classics 4.1.1 Child-adults 4.1.2 Autocracy 4.2 Marginal existence: surviving on the periphery 4.3 Speculative consolation 4.3.1 Speculation 1: Putin, the savior of the West 4.3.2 Speculation 2: bad for freedom, but good for the climate 4.3.3 Speculation 3: digital options Ciao Bella Postface to the second German edition Literature Back Cover