Why Jürgen Habermas disappeared

Adam Tooze on why Habermas "may be the foremost intellectual in Europe." The renowned historian and author argues that in advocating for Europe’s economic and political integration, Jürgen Habermas was one of the 20th century’s most influential public intellectuals. Nonetheless, it seems that in the context of the 21st century, the philosopher's relevance has all but fizzled out. In Foreign Policy, Tooze explores. "The British historian Perry Anderson once defined the task of Marxism after the collapse of hopes for a proletarian revolution as the 'search for subjective agencies' capable of overturning capitalism. Habermas’s growing irrelevance suggests that European liberalism has mistakenly committed itself to a similar project of trying to find volunteers for its predetermined goals — and that this project may come to the same bitter end as communist aspirations. His decline as a public intellectual is more than the product of changing cultural trends or unfortunate circumstances that have thwarted some of his cherished causes. It represents the potential exhaustion of the sort of politics that his career embodies."