Botho Strauss Pays Tribute to the Bomb: On Paare, Passanten and Collective Survival
1984; Wiley; Volume: 57; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/405154
ISSN1756-1183
Autores Tópico(s)German History and Society
ResumoProclaimed as the hope of his generation by one critic and denounced as arridregarde by another,' Botho Strauss has commanded increasing attention in discussions of contemporary West German culture. The publication of Paare, Passanten in 19812 prompted feuilleton critics applaud Strauss's renunciation of dialectical theories informed by a desire change the world and, alternately, denounce his works as feuilletonistische Schnellgerichte, all too eagerly consumed by critics nurturing the illusion that their beleaguered cultural elitism is the reservoir of all that is humanly worthwhile.3 The animosity between the cultural establishment and the student activists of the late 1960s, however, has yielded a different generational conflict. In contrast the politicized students, the post-1968 generation in West Germany rejects not only any hierarchy of cultural institutions but any hierarchy of intellectual thought as well. Theory is accorded, at best, dubious status in contemporary West German culture.4 The title of a recent article on the demise of theory is itself revealing: Der Bauch als Avantgarde--Uber den aufrechten Niedergang der Theorie.' The rejection of intellectual analysis in favor of physical perception and response is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored, but neither should it be simplified.6 Strauss's critics may be faulted with such simplification when they reduce Paare, Passanten the following parenthetical declaration and abstract from it an either-or invocation idiocy over dialectics: (Ohne Dialektik denken wir auf Anhieb dtimmer; aber es mu3 sein: ohne sie!).' Strauss implores us discard dialectical method and embrace what seems be ignorance, but the imperative is certainly not renounce thought altogether. The question raised implicitly by Paare, Passanten is not to think or not think, but rather, how think. How can one
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