The Happy Burden of History: From Sovereign Impunity to Responsible Selfhood

"Germans are often accused of failing to take responsibility for Nazi crimes, but what precisely should ordinary people do differently? Indeed, scholars have yet to outline viable alternatives for how any of us should respond to terror and genocide. And because of the way they compartmentalize everyday life, our discipline-bound analyses often disguise more than they illuminate. Written by a historian, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian, The Happy Burden of History takes an integrative approach to the problem of responsible selfhood. Exploring the lives and letters of ordinary and intellectual Germans who faced the ethical challenges of the Third Reich, it focuses on five typical tools for cultivating the modern self: myths, lies, non-conformity, irony, and modeling. The authors carefully dissect the ways in which ordinary and intellectual Germans excused their violent claims to mastery with a sense of 'sovereign impunity.'They then recuperate the same strategies of selfhood for our contemporary world, but in ways that are self-critical and humble. The book shows how viewing this problem from within everyday life can empower and encourage us to bear the burden of historical responsibility - and be happy doing so. -- Contents: Myths: - Selfhood and Responsibility [Sovereign Impunity; Self-Cultivation; Historical Responsibility; Our Approach] - Myths of the Self [Progress; Systems of Violence; The Self; Academic Traditions; Our Challenge] - The German Sisyphus [The Source of Meaning; Slave Narratives; The Nazi Past; Responsible Selfhood; The Happy Burden of History]; / Lies: - The Kaiser's New Clothes [Our Lying Selves; Our Approach] -The Ease of Being Duped [Nietzsche on Vanity; Nietzsche on Hypocrisy] - Social Lies [Theodora's Aspirations; Social Climbing] - Fascist Lies [The Sincere Deceiver; The Dupe's Paradox; Why We Believe Liars; Theodora's Decision in Principle] - The Lie of Normalcy [Hans the Perfect Aryan; Hans the Bystander; Hans and Heinrich] - Performing Lies [Goffman on Selling the Self; Brecht on Performing the Self; Galy Gay the Performer; Galy Gay and the Soldiers; Galy Gay the Poseur; Galy Gay the Murderer] - The Lie of Coherence [Benjamin on History; Benjamin on the Self; Brecht on Forbearance; Metz on Remembrancing; Hans in Fragments; Owning Up to Our Lies]; / Non-Conformity: - A Walk in the Woods [Our Unruly Selves; Our Approach] - Acting on Principle [Kant on Ethics; Nietzsche on Resentment; Adolescent Rebellion] - Working for Utopia [Schreyer's New Man; Gerhard and Hartmut; In the Middle of Things; Hasenclever's Son] - Rejecting Politics [The Conviction to Have No Convictions; Theodora the Unpolitical; The Algermissen Civil War] - Sovereign Impunity [Günther the Non-Conformist; Theodora the Führerin; Theodora the Teacher; Everyday Knowledge] - How We Take Sides [Arendt on the New; Nietzsche on the Child] - The Unruliness of the Child [Thilly and Sarah; Ruth and an Anonymous Hitler Youth]; / Irony: - Yes, Hitler, No? [Our Ironic Self; The Challenge of Irony; Our Approach] - Defining Irony [Hamann on Reason; Irony and Dialectics; Irony as Criticism] - Liberating Irony [Hamann on Enlightenment; Brecht on Bourgeois Theater; Reinhard in Bourgeois Society] - Ironic Politics [Some Idiot; Macheath the Generous; Reinhard the Clever; Too Clever] - The Consequences of Nihilism [Jürgen the Apprentice; Jürgen the Hitler Youth; Jürgen the Mechanic; Jürgen and Sarah] - Committing Irony [Hamann on Intersubjectivity; Brecht's Mother Courage; Anna's Choices; Larmore on Committing Ourselves; Beauvoir on Maneuvering in Doubt]; / The Finish [Outside Himmelsthür; Epic Scholarship; Macular Degeneration; Open Models; One Way to Imagine It]; Bibliography