Abstract

Two methodological remarks are needed at the outset. First, while I am going to treat the redemptive paradigm in full, I will — for obvious reasons of length — analyze the democratic paradigm only insofar as it is related to the alternative under discussion. Second, under the heading of “redemptive paradigm in radical politics,” I will address both left and right political theories. It is, however, only to the degree that conservatives embrace the redemptive paradigm that I speak of “conservative political radicalism.” Redemptive politics was born at the end of the 18th century. It entered the theater mundi in the person of the hero whom Hegel appropriately called Weltgeist zu Pferde and on whom Weber modeled his principle of “charismatic legitimation.”