Jurgen Habermas Quotes

• After September 11, the European governments have completely failed. They are incapable of seeing beyond their own national scope of interests.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• A threatened nation can react to uncertain dangers solely through administrative channels, to the truly embarrassing situation of perhaps overreacting.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• Historically, terrorism falls in a category different from crimes that concern a criminal court judge.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• Each murder is one too many.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• I cannot imagine a context that would some day, in some manner, make the monstrous crime of September 11 an understandable or comprehensible political act.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• If the September 11 terror attack is supposed to constitute a caesura in world history, it must be able to stand comparison to other events of world historical impact.

  Jurgen Habermas

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  Tags in Attack

• In the U.S.A. or Europe there is no realistic way to estimate the type, magnitude, or probability of the risk, nor any way to narrow down the potentially affected regions.

  Jurgen Habermas

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  Tags in Way

• I consider Bush’s decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Topics in Decision

• Manhattan… capital of the 20th century, a city that has fascinated me for more than three decades.

  Jurgen Habermas

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  Tags in Capital

• Instead of the international police action we had hoped for during the war in Kosovo, there are wars again – conducted with state-of-the-art technology, but still in the old style.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• One never really knows who one’s enemy is.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Topics in Enemy

• Osama bin Laden, the person, more likely serves the function of a stand-in. Compare the new terrorists with partisans or conventional terrorists in Israel. These people often fight in a decentralized manner in small, autonomous units, too.

  Jurgen Habermas

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  Tags in Terrorists

• Partisans fight on familiar territory with professed political objectives to conquer power. This is what distinguishes them from terrorists.

  Jurgen Habermas

  Topics in Power

• Perhaps at a later point important developments will be traced back to September 11. But for now we do not know which of the many scenarios will actually hold in the future.

   

  Jurgen Habermas

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• Perhaps September 11 could be called the first historic world event in the strictest sense: the impact, the explosion, the slow collapse – a gruesome reality literally took place in front of a global public.

  Jurgen Habermas

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• Since our complex societies are highly susceptible to interferences and accidents, they certainly offer ideal opportunities for a prompt disruption of normal activities.

  Jurgen Habermas

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  Tags in Societies

• Since the intervention in Afghanistan, we suddenly began to notice when, in political discussions, we found ourselves only among Europeans or Israelis.

  Jurgen Habermas

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  Tags in Political

Jurgen Habermas (29)

Birth:	18th June, 1929
Nationality:	German
Profession:	Philosopher, Sociologist

About

Habermas was born in Düsseldorf, Rhine Province, in 1929, to a middle class and rather traditional family. A cleft palate made it difficult for him to speak clearly and form social relationships, as he was often met with rejection. He received corrective surgery twice during childhood. Habermas argues that his speech disability made him think differently about the importance of communication and prefer writing over the spoken word as a medium.

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