NEUERSCHEINUNG
Regimes of truth and the discontent of memories
Self-deception and denial during the growing together of the two Germanies
Thomas Lindenberger
2023
Beitrag in:
Pehe, Veronika/Wawrzyniak, Joanna (Hg.):Remembering the Neoliberal Turn. Economic Change and Collective Memory in Eastern Europe after 1989
Routledge, London/New York 2024, S. 93-111
This chapter departs from combining Foucault’s concept of ‘regimes of truth’ and Hannah Arendt’s poignant observations about ‘factual truths’ as fundamental and at the same time contested prerequisites for a democratic polity. It argues that public discourses during the post-communist transformation were marked by a systematic insincerity with regard to the representation of the multifaceted and fractured processes of change and rupture which the German economy, society and culture had to undergo during the so-called unification crisis of the 1990s. In particular, turning a blind eye to the revitalization of aggressive and violent nationalism and chauvinism is identified as having been part of the widespread unwillingness to confront the negative aspects of post-communist transition in unified democratic Germany.