Hartmut Rosa: “Now that the catastrophe has arrived, it could trigger a new beginning”

Hartmut Rosa calls the election result in Saxony-Anhalt a disaster, but says the shock could also mark the end of a long period of political paralysis.

“We have been heading toward this disaster for a very long time,” the sociologist told Die Zeit. Society, he said, had seemed trapped in a kind of tunnel journey. The result might now offer a chance for that journey to end.

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We have been heading toward this disaster for a very long time.

Rosa rejected the idea that this meant the AfD should govern. Instead, he said he hoped liberal forces would break out of their rigidity and bring about democratic renewal. That would require reviving the belief that people could shape the country together and creatively.

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I hope that liberal forces will break out of their rigidity and that democratic renewal will take place.

He placed himself in the left-liberal camp and said it had long lacked that sense of constructive hope. “Instead, there was a prevailing feeling that we were rushing toward catastrophe,” he said. “And since the catastrophe is now, in a sense, here, it could perhaps trigger a new beginning.”

The interview’s central question is how democratic parties can respond to alienation and the AfD’s success. Rosa’s answer is that they must connect with a longing for collective action, rather than leave hope and the sense of agency to their political opponents.

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And since the catastrophe is now, in a sense, here, it could perhaps trigger a new beginning.