Wir alle werden in eine bestimmte Kultur hineingeboren, in eine bestimmte Sprache, in bestimmte Denk-, Verhaltens- und Handlungsmuster, die nicht wir selbst erfinden, sondern die uns vorgegeben werden und in die wir durch einen Sozialisationsprozess hineinwachsen. Auch wenn heute durch die fortschreitende Globalisierung die ursprünglichen Herkunftskulturen immer weiter zurückgedrängt werden und einer Internationalisierung und Nivellierung weichen, lassen sich die jeweiligen Herkunftskulturen nicht gänzlich leugnen. Welche Rolle sie spielen, auch welche Schwierigkeiten sie bereiten, zeigt der cross-race-Effekt, die für das Leben (...) erforderliche Gruppenzugehörigkeit. Das vorliegende Buch macht sich zur Aufgabe, grundkategoriale Differenzen der diversen Kulturen aufzuzeigen: Parataxe, Hypotaxe und Vernetzung, die in allen Bereichen der Sprache, Wissenschaft, Kunst, Jurisprudenz, Zeit- und Geschichtsauffassung wiederkehren. Die parataktische Struktur wird anhand der altvorderorientalischen Kultur demonstriert, die hypotaktisch-hierarchische anhand der abendländischen und die vernetzte anhand der modernen globalen. (shrink)

The history of the sciences and humanities follows cycles in some of which there is greater emphasis on the continuity of developments, in others on the breaks in continuity. In recent years the main focus of research for the 20th century has been on the continuities extending beyond the boundaries of 1933 and 1945. The main aim of this study, however, is to examine the impulses for the internationalization of German universities provided by a transnational group of academic migrants. These (...) migrants, whose origins were in the German academic community, represented an alternative continuity beyond the boundaries of this period: they were visiting academics who were the conveyors and interpreters of ideas from Germany into the USA and Britain and vice versa. The study of this group therefore combines remigration history and the history of universities as institutions, focussing on actors, networks and innovations in teaching, with the history of individual subjects and disciplines. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to depict as accurately as possible the ideological conflict between liberal democracy and an insidious present-day version of communism, namely cultural socialism. Obviously, it is not easy to describe the essential relationships between two complex phenomena that evolve nonlinearly within a hypercomplex environment. The ideological systems of liberal democracy and cultural socialism involve both objective and subjective facts, material and immaterial components, neutral and emotion-laden aspects, deliberate and unintentional behaviors, linear and nonlinear effects, and (...) planner-dependent and observer-dependent events. They affect each other and also fall under the influence of different non-political factors that characterize the Euro-Atlantic societies. In order to cope with the complexity of this research object we adopt the methodological dualism and a praxeological approach. The system of discursive liberal democracy can be seen – from a praxeological perspective – as a spontaneous order generated and maintained by three classes of attractors: the attractors of democracy (inclusion, political equality, high level of political participation, and majority rule), the attractors of liberalism (rule-governed political agency and the right to reasonable self-determination), and the attractors of public rationality (publicness, objectivity, verifiability, and revisability). Liberal democracy subsists in any society only if a sufficient number of its members reproduce the corresponding attractors in their political (and non-political) conduct. It is important to note that it is much easier to reproduce the attractors of democracy than the attractors of liberalism and rationality. Maybe because of that the socialists strive to undermine the system of liberal democracy by perverting – in the first instance – the standards of (public) rationality. One of the most important ingredient of cultural socialism is so-called "political correctness", by means of which people are prevented from expressing genuinely and politely certain beliefs or doubts in the public sphere even if they profess the standards of objectivity, verifiability, and revisability. Under the pressure of political correctness the attractors of public rationality tend to wither, the liberal dimension of the political system disappears too, and democracy becomes a sheer tyranny. Choosing a form of political organization is not a scientific, but a socio-political matter. It is not the job of social scientists to recommend or impose political goals in general and a specific political system in particular. However, inasmuch as some goals are set, social scientists can indicate the most appropriate means of meeting them. If the Euro-Atlantic societies still value liberal democracy and want to preserve it, it is important to teach them how to reproduce its attractors and to counteract the pernicious effects of cultural socialism. (shrink)