ABSTRACT
Max Weber identifies two pathologies of post-Enlightenment modernity: loss of freedom and loss of meaning. Loss of freedom consists in our reduction to robotic Berufsmenschen. Loss of meaning consists in ethical 'polytheism', our loss, not of meaning as such, but of shared meaning, the loss of a shared conception of the good life, the loss of community. The notions of 'tradition', 'homeland', 'people', and 'community' were hijacked by the Nazis. It is unsurprising, therefore, that in mainstream post-war political thought, in Germany and elsewhere, such notions have been anathematized. What the new political forces make clear is that through its sanctioning of unconstrained economic and cultural globalization, of mass immigration with little or no attempt to turn it into assimilation, the liberal orthodoxy has neglected a basic human need, the need for community. The challenge that now faces the liberal thinker is that of understanding the character of this need and of assimilating it into liberal thought.
