Abstract
This book is an exploration of the German Bildung tradition, understood as a process of education, cultivation and development along the lines of a self-realising humanity. The tradition is read as a counterpoint to ‘modernity’s autistic notion of the self’ (p. 2) in the pursuit of an exclusive self-interest. Whereas, on the one hand, the ideal of Bildung was rooted in an individuality that took responsibility for itself as opposed to bending to the demands of paternalistic authority, on the other, it was cosmopolitan in its outlook in that it imagined identity as being based on a shared humanity as opposed to subordinate forms of commonality such as nation, culture or religion. The book explores the emergence of this tradition, charting the rise of German philosophy and literature, paying particular attention to the role of the novel, the newspaper, and public space. The major authors that are considered include Johann Gottfried Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
The finest chapters are the early ones that sketch the background, raise the pertinent issues and set the scene with considerations, among others, of paideia, pietism and providentialism. There is something salutary, for example, in reminding contemporary academia that the concept of Bildung took shape in a specifically theological context, where Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland mystics forged a vocabulary in the German vernacular that would serve in time as the working tools for later developments. Even the remotest origin is a theological one, namely, in reflection on the creation of humankind in the image and likeness of God and the implications of this for human self-understanding and development. The various, subsequent, secularizing tendencies in Western culture never quite obliterate this primary archaeological foundation; and it is valuable, even necessary, to renew (and, perhaps, stabilise) foundations every now and then.
Conceptions of the integrity, identity and determination of the human person inevitably raise more awkward questions of race, slavery, Eurocentrism and imperialism. Such issues are dealt with throughout in the discussions of various authors and in different cultural situations. The degree to which the Bildung tradition itself promoted or nuanced more general considerations (for good or for ill) and the question of how we come to terms with our collective moral responsibility vis-à-vis the past and in the ever-recurring concerns with norms, practices and identities are part of this same conversation.
Early on, the author, Jennifer Herdt, observes that ‘my particular focus . . . is on texts and thinkers who are not part of the theological canon, despite the theological resonances of their thought’ (p. 7). Indeed, the most significant, explicit theological voice is that of Karl Barth, who is drawn on not simply as a figure of interlocution and dialogue, but whose Protestant Theology of the Nineteenth Century defines ‘the scope of the present project’ (p. 16). I am not entirely convinced that this was a wise choice for two reasons. First, because of what Bonhoeffer calls Barth’s radical Offenbarungspositivismus (and which Bonhoeffer memorably characterised with the phrase: ‘Friß, Vogel, oder stirb!’), suggesting a theological clarity that is not particularly welcoming of multiple or other points of view, and, secondly, because in many instances, he simply has little enough to say in terms of a real encounter and serious exchange with the Bildung tradition as delineated in this book. It is, for example, remarkable that one is forced to set up a ‘condured encounter’ between Barth and both Humboldt and Schiller in the chapter on ‘Ethical Formation and the Invention of the Religion of Art’ (pp. 130–32), and even when Barth does have something to say as in the case of Herder, Herdt admits that what he articulates says more about Barth himself than Herder (p. 110). Someone of the stature of Hans Urs von Balthasar would have been a much more interesting figure to have chosen in terms of an explicit and extensive engagement with German literature from the perspective of theology.
Whereas there is an enormous amount of fascinating material to be had throughout the book (rich in insight and information), at times, it is not always easy to ascertain it being ad rem. I am not really sure what the section on Schiller is doing in the chapter on Humboldt (pp. 124–25). Some of the discussion, for example, in the chapter on Herder (chapter 3) could easily be shortened without any loss at all to the general statement of the chapter. The same could be said of the one on Hegel, which is the least successful chapter in the book. This is so, largely because it attempts to enter Hegel’s world via a selection of secondary literature and a relatively limited assortment of primary sources. For the reader, who has little knowledge of Hegel, I fear that this chapter might be difficult to decipher (one has to be prepared, for example, to hop, skip and jump through the Phenomenology of Spirit), and for those who are familiar with Hegel’s world, it may appear blind to the complexity and real depth of this same world. It is strange that the section entitled ‘Hegel and the Bildung Tradition’ (pp. 229–31) is very short and comments more on Humboldt, Goethe, Schiller and Herder than on Hegel. Like a hovercraft on turbulent water, this chapter moves smoothly and confidently over categories and arguments as if there were no underlying problems in terms of philosophical consistency on a macro-level and categorical stability on the micro-level. There are, in addition, some particular issues that did not help in terms of reading this chapter: thus, for example, in the long quotation on p. 224 some material from the original text is omitted, notably the phrase ‘Ihre Religion hat etwas Kinderhaftes’, which made the text as presented quite cryptic on a first reading. Likewise, the addition on p. 215 of ‘in the subject’ and ‘in the object’ (taken over from an English translation, I suspect) to the translation is not particularly helpful and misleads more than clarifies the statement. Hegel himself goes on in the next paragraph to speak simply of ‘Liebende’ (which makes perfect sense), mentioning even Romeo and Juliet!
The book is beautifully produced and typeset by the University of Chicago Press on high quality paper. The general academic apparatus of the text is excellent, with great care being taken in terms of the formalities, although here and there a few typographical slips can, inevitably, be located.
In general, this book is a rich historical, literary and cultural analysis from within a theoretical narrative framework that would resonate best with religious studies. It is a superb ‘thick description’ of a range of fascinating material in terms of the encounter between religion, literature, culture and social dynamics, from the perspective of the Bildung tradition. In the overall presentation of the material, there is, however, little acknowledgement of, or engagement with, concerns such as the distinction between Geschichte and Historie, the dynamics of philosophical hermeneutics, first philosophy, or semiotics and textual analysis. Likewise, and connected to this, there is little by way of theological reflection per se in the book, which means that in the end it is less a contribution to theology as a discipline and more an extension of literary and cultural studies (and allied disciplines).