Jürgen Habermas has had enough. The philosopher is doing all he can these days to call attention to what he sees as the demise of the European ideal. He hopes he can help save it — from inept politicians and the dark forces of the market. Jürgen Habermas is angry. He’s really angry. He is nothing short of furious — because he takes it all personally.
That’s why Habermas is so angry: with the politicians, the “functional elite” and the media. “Are you from the press?” he asks a man in the audience who has posed a question. “No? Too bad.”
He sees a Europe in which states are driven by the markets, in which the EU exerts massive influence on the formation of new governments in Italy and Greece, and in which what he so passionately defends and loves about Europe has been simply turned on its head.
“If the European project fails,” he says, “then there is the question of how long it will take to reach the status quo again. Remember the German Revolution of 1848: When it failed, it took us 100 years to regain the same level of democracy as before.”
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