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The work of the German political philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, provides the framework for the analysis of the formation of national identities in the public sphere, and their erosion by means of systematically distorted communication. The object of this article is an exhibit that traveled throughout Germany, one designed to undermine a myth concerning Germany's "unmasterable" past, the legacy of its brutal conduct in World War Two. The history of the exhibit and its reception trace a path from courageous confrontation to prudent retreat in the face of systematically distorted communication. The article concludes by reflecting on the rhetorical significance of systematically distorted communication.
Introduction
According to Jürgen Habermas, society is held together by three "steering mechanisms:" power, money, and solidarity (Between 269). The first two operate within systems-the political system, the economic system-while the third operates within the "lifeworld," the taken-for-granted cultural and social environment in which we ordinarily interact (Communicative Action II, 119-52). The world of systems is dominated by strategic action, whose goal is the success of plans; the lifeworld, on the other hand, is the product of communicative action, interchanges of speech acts whose goal is mutual understanding and whose sole force, in the best case, is the force of the better argument. Between system and the lifeworld there exists-there must exist-a vehicle for communication, a switching station (Between 278-79; 409). This is the political public sphere, the set of forums in which the conflicts originating in the social and economic inequalities the system creates can be engaged and, possibly, resolved. It is this engagement and resolution that is the source of solidarity among citizens, strangers who share a common passport and a common past: "the communicative mastery of these conflicts constitutes the sole source of solidarity among strangers-strangers who renounce violence and, in the cooperative regulation of their common life, also concede one another the right to remain strangers" (Between 308). At the level of the nation, this solidarity has a name: national identity.
National identity can become especially problematic in nations such as Germany, in which an "unmasterable" past is palpably present, in which there is no avoiding the steady and uncomfortable realization that Goethe and Kant share a common past with Auschwitz and the Einsatzgruppen, the killer squads...