Andreas Reckwitz – Where has the progress gone?

I can still remember how Professor Jürgen Kuczynski once demonstrated the crisis nature of capitalism in the GDR in the large hall of the ND building using various diagrams. “It’s rotting capitalism,” said my department head as we left, “but it’s well perfumed.” He had just been to the Frankfurt Book Fair in the West. When I first came there in 1988, my stomach felt like it was stuck shut. Because of all the colorful excess that forced itself on me and because I had been given so little western money.

Kuczynski’s book “The Crisis of the Capitalist World Economy” didn’t really appeal to me at the time. It was clear to us that capitalism would eventually outlive itself. But first we had to deal with ourselves. The fact that “Loss”, the new book by Andreas Reckwitz at Suhrkamp, ​​has a similar blue cover to Kuczynski’s from 1976 at Dietz, is of course a coincidence. Kuczynski’s name cannot be found in the register. The GDR economic historian would have accused his West colleague of not having dealt with the systemic crisis radically enough. But Andreas Reckwitz doesn’t want to bury capitalism yet. He sometimes uses this term, but prefers to speak of “modernity” so that he can leave the power and distribution relationships (he is certainly without illusions) in the background. What sets this book apart, however, is a clear identification of the losses that everyone feels in some way.

The world has certainly always been in a process of growth and decay. But the fact that capitalism in the present has lost that narrative of progress (which was ultimately always illusionary) affects us directly. “Glaciers are melting, working environments are disappearing, orders are collapsing,” writes Reckwitz. In addition, fear of war is increasing, but he does not want to discuss it. As a sociologist, he looks at the social and individual consequences of these changes. And yet he also delves into the depths of appearances and emotions, which he wants to make rationally comprehensible.

How are losses processed? Time and time again I found my own experiences while reading. It wasn’t long ago that negative emotions were hidden and losers and victims were stigmatized. Almost the opposite is now common. “Showing one’s own feelings and recognizing those of others is becoming a central competence in late modern society – in private life, at work and in education – and a proof of individual authenticity.” But this openness at the same time makes people “more sensitive to loss.” And yes, carrying injuries is a real trend in the book market.

Of course, such topics first have to be initiated, as Christian Baron managed to do in this country with his book “A Man of His Class,” which has now been made into a film. Whether Annie Ernaux, Didier Eribon or Édouard Louis, a whole movement of autofictional literature emerged that deals with overcoming social disadvantage.

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Charging those affected with responsibility for the unfortunate reality of their lives is met with a polemical counter-speech in the collection of texts “It’s Yourself” recently published by Wolfgang M. Schmidt and Ann-Kristin Tlusty, written by Baron, Dietmar Dath, Sarah-Lee Heinrich, Özge İnan, Şeyda Kurt and others. In the pressure for self-realization, especially in the intellectual area, emancipatory energies are all too often combined with a desire for competition. “Wokeness” boils over and congeals into a kind of pedagogy that also affects crime novels. In his new book “Criticism of the Grand Gesture,” Armin Nassehi has analyzed the consequences.

Reckwitz sees it this way: “Liberal post-industrialization not only produces the winners of the knowledge society, meritocracy and liberal culture, but also the losers of deindustrialization, marketization and cultural liberalization.” He calls it “democratic regressions” that the “rise of populism” entails. In general, the “withdrawal of belief in progress” is fatal. Because then “anticipations of losses in relation to the future” are almost cultivated.

Conversations I had in bookstores and libraries confirm this finding: apocalyptic scenarios, long fashionable in the entertainment genre, are increasingly losing their appeal. The oppression has become so strong that many readers are looking for other medicine by reading. If media consumption fuels feelings of powerlessness, self-reflection is more likely. Four new titles from Insel-Verlag may be representative of this: »The Magic of the World. Finding comfort in troubled times” by Katherine May, “The Dream Book” by Marie Bernhard and Mehrdad Zaeri, “Taking new paths. Stories and poems about wintering” and “Wishes come true. Reading between the years”, edited by Clara Paul.

Feel-good reading, to be sure. Arm yourself with wishes – how many smart people have already tried it: Rose Auslander wanted to “be a magnolia tree”, Rainer Maria Rilke wanted to “enjoy holy solitude”, Peter Handke expressed his delight at the sight of a drop of dew, and Ernst Bloch demanded the “breakthrough of being here”. «. Don’t bury yourself in fears about the future by concentrating on what you need to do every day – that’s what Stefan Zweig also told himself. It has been my wish for a long time to have the magical power that Hermann Hesse dreamed of.

“What makes us resilient?” – the audio book by Andreas Reckwitz and Svenja Flaßpöhler is currently only available as a download. In “Loss” the author combines resilience with political necessities: he wants to “calculate the negative and take precautions against it” and “protect individuals and institutions in their vulnerability.” Balancing “the gains of some and the losses of others” would “remain an important task.”

The latter is formulated so carefully that I immediately think of another book: “Enough! Why we need a political change of course” by Ines Schwerdtner and Lukas Scholle. Radical counter-speech from a left-wing perspective – in fact it actually works for Andreas Reckwitz. Because his findings and forecasts have made him a sought-after discussion partner for decision-makers.

His illuminating book “The End of Illusions” (2019) was about the winners and losers of modernization, including the “old middle class”. Answering the new social questions, including the urban-rural divide, requires control all the more urgently, since “‘the West’ is probably irretrievably losing its hegemony, its privilege to accumulate wealth and political hegemony.” I even see Jürgen Kuczynski nodding. Of the many doctors at the bedside of capitalism, Professor Andreas Reckwitz is probably one of the smartest.

Andreas Reckwitz: Loss. A fundamental problem of modernity. Suhrkamp, ​​464 p., hardcover, €32.

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