The New Conservatism (PDF)

Jürgen Habermas is well known for his scholarly writings on
the theoretical foundations of the human sciences. The New
Conservatism brings to light another side of Habermas's work,
showing him to be an incisive commentator on a wide range of
contemporary themes.

The 1980s have been a crucial decade in the political life of
Western democracies in general, and of the Federal Republic of
Germany in particular. The transformations that accompanied a shift
from 13 years of Social democratic rule in Germany to government by
the conservative Christian Democrats are captured in this series of
insightful, often passionate political and cultural commentaries.
The central theme uniting the essays is the German problem of
'coming to terms within the past,' a problem that has important
implications outside Germany as well.

Of particular note are the essays on what has come to be known
as the Historian's Debate: Habermas's attack on the revisionist
German historians who have been trying to trivialize and
"normalize" the history of the Nazi period, and his defence of the
need for a realistic and discriminating approach to the Nazi period
and its legacy. Habermas also takes up the recent debate concerning
Martin Heidegger's involvement with Nazism and the rise of the
neoconservative movement in Europe and America. In particular, the
essay on The New Obscurity combines Habermas's analysis of
the problems of the welfare state with his suggestions for avenues
open to utopian impulses today.