JAN-WERNER MOLLER
569
described as a kind of Raymond Carver of East Germany, pleaded for
peace in Kosovo in
I999,
his intervention seemed as noble as it seemed
anachronistic. Arguably, this is not just a matter of wider "postmodern"
predilections, as some observers have claimed. A fundamental dilemma
is the lack of any easily identifiable "general interest" which intellectu–
als could responsibly advocate. The democratization of West Germany
after
I945
was such a clear interest, and the intellectuals, by perform–
ing the role of "democratic citizens," could directly contribute to it.
There is an important theoretical and practical link between democracy
and what intellectuals tend
to
do best-deliberate. In that sense, the
effectiveness of the skeptical generation has been not least due to the
fact that they promoted a goal to which intellectuals-as
intellectuals–
could make a genuine contribution.
The reverse side of the paradox of the democratic intellectual who
speaks for, rather than to the people, is that, like democrats more gener–
ally, the democratic intellectual does not need any particular expertise.
There are no "experts" in democracy, and the intellectuals' lack of exper–
tise only proved the point that citizens needed the right attitudes, rather
than particular knowledge. Arguably, all of this is much less true with
current issues such as ecology, moral disagreements about bioethics and
technology, or instances of international conflict that are less moralized
and ideologized than the Cold War. In these fields, which are of course
also hotly debated in Germany, the experts and potentially even the old–
style cultural pessimists are back with a vengeance, while the past and
ideas about "Westernization" hardly illuminate the moral and political
stakes. Younger German intellectuals will have to think again.
