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

468Appendix Ilost its binding character. Within the enlarged horizon of futurepossibilities, the topicality of the present moment acquired excessiveprominence in contrast to the normativity of an existing realitythat merely protruded into the present. Hannah Arendt associatedthis emphatic confidence with our "natality," the moving affectionthat is always aroused on seeing a newborn infant and that bringsthe expectation of a better future.This vitality, however, lot its revolutionary form long ago. For thereflexive liquefaction of traditions has by now become permanent;the hypothetical attitude toward existing institutions and givenforms of life has become the norm. The Revolution has itselfslipped into tradition: 1815, 1830, 1848, 1871, and 1917 representthe caesurae of a history of revolutionary struggles, but also ahistory of disappointments. The Revolution dismisses its dissidents,who no longer rebel against anything except the Revolution itself.This self-destructive dynamic is also rooted in a concept of progress,already discredited by Walter Beamin, that dedicates itself to thefuture without remembering the victims of past generations. Onthe other hand, the effects of student revolts and new socialmovements in Western-style societies lead one to suspect that thecultural dynamic unleased by the French Revolution is having aneffect in the less-conspicuous value transformations of broad strataof the population, whereas the esoteric consciousness of contemporaryrelevance, penetrating continuity, and violated normativityhas retreated into areas of post-avant-gardist art.(b) Revolutionary consciousness was further expressed in theconviction that emancipated individuals are jointly called to beauthors of their destiny. In their hands lies the power to decideabout the rules and manner of their living together. As citizens,they give themselves the laws they want to obey, thereby producingtheir own life context. This context is conceived as the product ofa cooperative practice centered in conscious political will-formation.A radically this-worldly politics understands itself as theexpression and confirmation of the freedom that springs simultaneouslyfrom the subjectivity of the individual and the sovereigntyof the people. At the level of political theory, individualist andcollectivist approaches, which respectively give priority to theindividual and the nation, have no doubt competed with one