The Politics of Sociability

Transcription

1 The Politics of Sociability Freemasonry and German Civil Society Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann translated by Tom Lampert THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS Ann Arbor

2 Copyright by the University of Michigan 2007 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoffmann, Stefan-Ludwig. [Politik der Geselligkeit. English] The politics of sociability : freemasonry and German civil society, / Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann ; translated by Tom Lampert. p. cm. (Social history, popular culture, and politics in Germany) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Freemasonry Germany Lodges History. I. Title. hs607.h ' dc Original edition: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, Die Politik der Geselligkeit (Göttingen, 2000).

3 To Reinhart Koselleck ( )

4 Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 Part I. Freemasonry and Civil Society Chapter 1. Secrecy and Enlightenment 17 Chapter 2. The Society of Civil Citizens, Chapter 3. Civic Worlds, Civic Politics, Part II. Improving Men Chapter 4. Civic Virtue and Sociability 171 Chapter 5. Rites of Masculinity 179 Chapter 6. The Mystery of Bildung 214 Part III. Nationalism as Moral Universalism Chapter 7. The Individual, the Nation, and Mankind 239 Chapter 8. The Fatherland of Man 249 Epilogue: The War of World Citizens 275 List of Abbreviations 295 Notes 297 Bibliography 365 Index 405

5 Preface This book grew out of my dissertation, completed at the University of Bielefeld in 1999 and published by Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht in The German edition was received by and large as a contribution to the expanding literature on nineteenth-century bourgeois culture. My primary motivation in writing this book, however, was actually somewhat different. It was the unexpected renewal in the 1990s of a preoccupation with notions like civility, civil society, a cosmopolitan ethos, and moral justi cations for war that spurred my interest in writing on nineteenthcentury Freemasonry. I wanted to explore the unintended political consequences of Enlightenment ideas and practices in an age characterized by the advent of nationalism, anti-semitism, and social discord. The selfimage of Freemasons as civilizing agents, acting in good faith to promote the idea of universal brotherhood, was contradicted not only by their sense of exclusivity. For it is my contention that Freemasons also unintentionally exacerbated nineteenth-century political con icts for example, between liberals and Catholics, or the Germans and the French by what I call moral universalism: the grounding of political arguments on universalist pretensions that obscure the legitimate norms and interests of their contenders. The book appeared simultaneously with other critical accounts of the actual workings of civil society in nineteenth-century Europe, notably by Frank Trentmann and Philip Nord, both of whom shared their insights with me. However, this edition includes studies published after 2000 only in those cases where the German edition referred to earlier versions of the argument by the same author, for example, in an unpublished paper. I do discuss much of the more recent literature in what has now become a growing concern among historians with the cultural context and content of the political in my book Civil Society, , published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2006.

6 x Preface I wish to thank the editors of this series, in particular Geoff Eley, and three anonymous readers for their valuable suggestions. I did, for example, remove most of the statistics, which, however, can be consulted in the German edition. I also bene ted from comments by colleagues, particularly at the Johns Hopkins University, where I submitted my rst paper on the subject as an MA thesis, and Bielefeld, where I had the privilege of working with Hans-Ulrich Wehler and Reinhart Koselleck, and conversing with Svenja Goltermann, Christian Geulen, and Till van Rahden. In the end, of course, I alone assume responsibility for any errors in statements of fact or argument. The translation of a book always takes more time than expected, and I thank my editors at the University of Michigan Press, initially Chris Collins and later Jim Reische, for their patience and support. The Stiftung zur Förderung der Masonischen Forschung kindly sponsored the translation of a sample chapter. Finally, I owe my greatest debt to Tom Lampert, a meticulous translator and keen writer, for working so closely with me on a book that is very much concerned with language. Parts of this book draw on materials that I have published earlier: passages in chapters 2 and 3 were included in Brothers or Strangers? Jews and Freemasons in Nineteenth-Century Germany, German History 18 (2000): ; chapter 5 is essentially the same essay that was published as Civility, Male Friendship, and Masonic Sociability in Nineteenth-Century Germany, Gender and History 13 (2001): ; the argument of chapter 8 was rst presented in The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to World War I, ed. Martin H. Geyer and Johannes Paulmann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Cambridge, Mass., May 2006