Humanism in response to the Holocaust—destruction or innovation?

摘要

This paper counterposes the desire for a new world wide humanism with the historical experience of the Holocaust. In a first step arguments in favour of creating a new humanism are presented. The idea of this humanism is then confronted with the traumatic experiences of the 20th century, culminating in the Holocaust, leading to the question: Has the tradition of western humanism not been murdered in Auschwitz? Adorno's famous answer, in the form of a new categorical imperative that this should never happen again, is criticized as a-historical. The paper refers to fundamental principles of sense generation in historical thinking and proposes a new approach to historical experience and interpretation by introducing the category of human suffering as an anthropological foundation of historical understanding.