Recasting Democratic Theory, 1984–1996 185
ruin to West Germany’s “spiritual hygiene” – but neither did he
consider it acceptable to assume the “role of judge in this waste-
disposal project.”^56 To the question Was bleibt? – What remained
worth preserving in the history of the GDR? – Habermas argued
that it had left no positive legacy at the level of institutional design.^57
Habermas thereby oscillated between affirming the legitimacy of
GDR citizens’ experiences and culture and fearing that absorption
of the GDR risked weakening the relatively liberal political cul-
ture attained in the Bonn Republic. Meanwhile, however, the GDR
political culture could not be neglected without risk, he warned:
Self-understanding, the political self-consciousness of a nation of
citizens, forms itself only in the medium of public communica-
tion. And this communication depends on a cultural infrastructure
which is at this moment being allowed to fall into ruins in the new
states.^58
Habermas was concerned that if the GDR’s cultural infrastruc-
ture – universities, museums, theater, film, and literature – were
handled roughly and recklessly, there was a politically worrisome
possibility that East Germans could be humiliated. Treating all of
GDR culture cavalierly as “waste” to be disposed of risked weaken-
ing the ground into which the institutions of the Rechtsstaat were to
be transplanted. In a formula that echoed his more abstract reflec-
tions in BFN, he explained: “Political culture is made up of a delicate
fabric of mentalities and convictions that can neither be invented nor
manipulated through administrative measures.”^59 Habermas seemed
split between his respectful concern for GDR citizens’s experiences
and anxiety about its fundamental illiberalism: “The institutions
of the Basic Law can only function as well as they are allowed by
the civil consciousness of a population accustomed to institutions of
freedom.”^60 When Habermas lent his support to the project of a new
constitution-giving assembly, therefore, he expressed his republi-
can convictions that political community should be formed through
public communication. But this plan did not resolve his liberal anxi-
eties that a democracy could not be built without democrats.
(^56) Ibid., 51.
(^57) Ibid., 34.
(^58) Ibid., 47, 51.
(^59) Ibid.
(^60) Ibid.