Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

Appendix IPopular Sovereignty as Procedure ( 1988)In view of its impressive historical influence, the French Revolution ·can "scarcely be compared with any other historical event."1 Thisone undisputed statement explains why almost any other statementis subject to debate. In our day a new controversy has arisen:whether the Great Revolution has ceased to be relevant.Under the banner of postmodern farewells, we are now alsosupposed to distance ourselves from that exemplary event whoseeffects have been felt for the last two hundred years. The eminentLeipzig historian of the Revolution, Walter Markov, still claimed in1967 that "The French Revolution has been experienced by nosubsequent generation as a self-contained episode or museumpiece."2 At that time Fran(ois Furet and Denis Richet had justpublished an impressive analysis of the Revolution in terms of thehistoire des mentalites. 3 A decade later, when the self-criticism of theLeft in Paris developed into the more extreme poststructuralistcritique of reason, Furet could laconically conclude that "theFrench Revolution has ended."4 Furet wanted to escape the hold ofa "testamentary historiography" that conceived the French Revolutionas the action-orienting origin of the present. He declared theFrench Revolution finished, so that the "contamination of the past"by narcissistic reference to the present would stop.This impulse toward a more dispassionate, scholarly approachmust not be confused with the most recent attempt to faith heal anallegedly contaminated present by normalizing and leveling outanother, negatively charged past. The clocks of collective memory