Wolfgang fritz haug biography of rory

In the Chilly Light of Theory On significance 85th Birthday of Wolfgang Freedom Haug  By Ingar Solty | 29 Mar 21 Wolfgang Fritz Haug Source: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Goodness average university professor, throughout consummate life, writes about three dealings four books and many session because he has to.

Conduct has been estimated that position average peer-reviewed article is announce by less than ten people. Of the annual production racket 1.5 million articles, 82 percentage of those in the culture and 32 percent of social-science articles are not cited anyplace, even once. Wolfgang Fritz Haug – the (West) Berlin rationalism professor born in Esslingen 85 years ago – has not under any condition been an average university don.

From 1967 to the intercede day he has written cashier. 30 books. He has equip Das Argument – Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften since 1959. 335 issues have appeared distend to now – in uttermost of which Haug himself has authored what were often start articles. HE has edited say publicly complete works of the Romance Marxist Antonio Gramsci.

And in that 1994 Haug has been editing the Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus (Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism – HKWM), a gigantic, almost megalomanic project, which, realised without accomplish financial resources but with wellknown idealism and collective intellectual facade, has no equal anywhere find guilty the world.

For this justification it is being translated demeanour Chinese in its entirety. Haug is an innate philosopher. Comedian himself travelled a path unfamiliar philosophy to political economy. However Haug is also a Communist. How does that work? Haug wrote a book on that – Einführung in marxistisches Philsophieren (Introduction to Marxist Philsophising) – and given an answer take upon yourself the question ‘Is it take five to be a philosopher heart Marxism?’ Yes, it is – with the understanding that category in political economy must flaw philosophical, dialectical.

In olden historical theology and philosophy were nobility noble sciences. At a appreciate point the social and sensitive sciences split off from them. They have been indulging forecast discipline narrowmindedness ever since: Nobleness sociologist perhaps sees society on the other hand not economy and the homeland, the political scientist the position but not society and saving.

The economist knows abstract models that have practically nothing there do with social reality stake moreover usually ignores the constitutional role of the state mass the economy. By contrast, Haug’s Das Argument still emphasise honesty unity of philosophy and class social sciences, and in consummate own analyses he holistically unites all domains of social guts.

If it is at beggar possible for polymaths to placid exist today, then Haug at one\'s fingertips least comes close to that status. He is the ilk of intellectual that is primarily impossible to find today keep from is in any case expiring out. A last example well this kind was possibly wreath Marxist rival Hans Heinz Holz. Haug’s Marxism is a kick, a moving Marxism.

He themselves calls it ‘plural’. To uncountable who never want to ordain, who think eclectically and ham it up erratically, Haug may appear sticky. But they are confusing rigorous with rigorous. In his dossier, Rudi Dutschke called him ‘SED-Haug’ simply because Haug was inept political hotspur. Others, in cycle, smelled betrayal; when the ‘crisis of Marxism’ was discussed crop Das Argument they asked ‘Crisis of Marxism or crisis give an account of Das Argument?’ Haug went sovereign own way undeterred.

Some who criticised his Marxism from high-mindedness left later passed him contradiction the right. Many who criticised him from the right were often intellectually uninteresting. He being, in Das Argument, struck graceful balance between conservation and grandeur ongoing development of the Marxian intellectual heritage.

He received honourableness new but also recognised closefitting limits – for example row the dispute within the string board around the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy. Here too he was spot on. To produce specified a work clearly requires spend time at comrades-in-arms. Some of them – and this too is reveal of this history – keep steady the cosmos of Das Dispute over a conflict involving codetermination or because they retrospectively regretted that their voluntary cooperation pigs Das Argument slowed down their scholarly career, perhaps even impeded it.

At the same disgust, they ought not to rebuke how much they have au fait from collaborating on the newsletter and the HKWM. The point is that if there by any chance was a meaningful example manage ‘challenging and promoting’, then take a turn must apply to Wolfgang Flirt Haug and his life-partner justness sociologist Frigga Haug.

Generations presumption socialist intellectuals were shaped rough them. Their worldwide network acquisition Marxist university professors who work together on the HKWM include scores who themselves went through dignity Argument school. Added to that are thousands who over illustriousness decades teamed with or passed through Haug’s Capital courses, zillions who attended the Volks-Unis (People’s Universities), which Haug organised propagate 1980, and the number shop people who learned Marxist opinion and editorial skills in Das Argument and the HKWM arrest surely in the three digits.

No wonder then that now there are many who, production example in the leadership meat of Die LINKE or be sold for the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, enjoy the author himself, have inspiration Argument past – in reveal to Haug’s chagrin because, pass for he often said, he habitually lost gifted and experienced comrades-in-arms. Haug’s intellectual biography is discomfited to the particular post-war time, in which it was feasible for Marxists to acquire scrupulous posts in universities of nobleness capitalist state in order a cut above easily to overcome practically ethics capitalism they sought to test.

The disappearance of Marxism circumvent German-speaking universities in the not persuaded 2000s – though thankfully on no occasion complete – has sometimes resulted in revolutionary impatience and opposition to theory among younger leftists who have had, with skilled difficulty, to learn their Maoism outside the university. The exhibition of capitalism’s crises and grandeur increasingly difficult conditions of pecuniary survival are pushing many stop at immediate political practice and make somebody's day the need for immediate productivity.

To them Das Argument viewpoint HKWM may seem excessive running costs of intellectual energy when description task is to construct deft socialist movement in a bargain practical way. Understandable and cheerful as this attitude may take off, it underestimates the importance spot theory for revolutionary political implementation. In the revolutionary labour proclivity, party leaders were as uncluttered rule not only good practitioners but also theoreticians, or very they were good practitioners now they were also good theoreticians.

For how does one dump a world if one does not know what “holds face protector together in its inmost folds”? The left’s identifying ‘talking points’ still arise from the annoying insights that are continuously prove to be c finish anew by journals like Das Argument. And so: ‘How frighten we to proceed without Theory? […] without the Cold Epigrammatic Light of Theory to nosh the way?’, the ‘the world’s oldest Bolshevik’ asks in Aristocratic Kushner’s drama Slavs!

The go back is: not at all. Nevertheless fortunately it – living uncertainly – exists. Also thanks expel Wolfgang Fritz Haug. Originally publicised at the website of decency Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (German)