Revolutions, wars and the Jewish and Christian contribution to redemptive cosmopolitanism in Franz Rosenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Abstract

This article addresses the important contribution of Judaism and Christianity to cosmopolitanism through the works of Franz Rosenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. It argues that while the usual approach to cosmopolitanism is to consider its philosophical origins, the European roots of cosmopolitanism as an actual process are deeply indebted to the central importance of redemption within the Jewish and Christian faiths. Whereas Rosenzweig explores the mutual interdependence and respective social significance of Jews and Christians (in spite of the fundamental inimicalness between these two faiths), Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy argues that the messianic logic inherent in the redemptive tradition also spawned the messianic aspirations behind the great European revolutions, including the anti-Christian and atheistic French and Russian. The article concludes by looking at the United States after the Second World War as continuing the ‘mission’ of redemptive cosmopolitanism.