Historical (in)justice as an emancipation paradox: Gaza and the failure of Frankfurt school critical theory

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

In the framework of the Swiss Chair Seminar Series, this session features a talk by Dirk Moses (CUNY).

An emancipation paradox haunts Germany and the Frankfurt School tradition of Critical Theory that provided the blueprint of its political culture. The paradox inheres the flawed implementation of Theodor W. Adorno’s famous educational maxim to produce an anti-racist and anti-genocidal country: Every debate about the ideals of education is trivial and inconsequential compared to this single ideal: never again Auschwitz, he told West German radio listeners in 1966. Instead of leading to emancipation from the nationalist and militaristic traditions that powered Nazism, as he hoped, ‘never again’ has been become vehicle for the racist policing of migrants and staunch support of Israeli’s war in Gaza. In the name of preventing another 'Auschwitz' German institutions, with a compliant media, are engaging in an authoritarian crackdown on anti-war protestors and ‘postcolonial' thought. Rather than making Germany more open to migrants and strengthening its commitment to internationalism, 'never again' functions to reassert the white Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community) and to undermine international law and diplomacy in order to shield Israel from justice.

A. Dirk Moses is the Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the City College of New York. Before coming to City, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Sydney, and the EUI. He is the author and editor of volumes on German intellectual history, genocide and memory studies. He edits the Journal of Genocide Research..