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These examples are of technical education. German rocket scientists, and British blast-furnace wizards (to France). These things are important of course but see

by iguy 6y ago

These examples are of technical education. German rocket scientists, and British blast-furnace wizards (to France). These things are important of course but seem orthogonal to political institutional memory. Scholars deeply steeped in Bismark's thoughts & mistakes, or in English constitutional law, didn't make these jumps.

paganel 6y ago
> or in English constitutional law Carl Schmitt did in fact made the jump, and he's one of the most read constitutional law writers in the last century. Not sure if Max Weber would have done the same, most probably not (he was really versed in English constitutional law, his "Economy and Society" has lots of quotes to Maitland's "History of English Law"), but he didn't strike me as a fervent supporter of democracy rights either. And there was also the definite jump made by Heidegger, not exactly a legal scholar but a very well-read person nonetheless (and a mentor to Hannah Arendt, among others).
- Der_Einzige 6y ago
  Not just mentor, he was her boyfriend!!! And an ironic situation, given his nazi ties and her jewishness...
- iguy 6y ago
  These don't seem like the sort of jumps I had in mind. I meant the wholesale import of a school of knowledge to a new place. As happened for instance with the arrival of many modern sciences in the US; lots of fields where everybody's family tree goes back to germany. The germans you mention were certainly well-informed about foreign traditions, but their knowledge didn't create a living continuation of these traditions where they ended up. (The context is, since it's been a few hours, was a claim that education was a way to circumvent this 50-year institutional forgetting, which I took to mean national institutions. And the counter-claim is that many places have good education and terrible institutions, why haven't they imported this ersatz institutional memory? If it works for local preservation, why doesn't it work for international transplanting? And I don't completely know, but the successful international knowledge grafts seem to be technical subjects. )

by iguy 6y ago

paganel 6y ago

> or in English constitutional law Carl Schmitt did in fact made the jump, and he's one of the most read constitutional law writers in the last century. Not sure if Max Weber would have done the same, most probably not (he was really versed in English constitutional law, his "Economy and Society" has lots of quotes to Maitland's "History of English Law"), but he didn't strike me as a fervent supporter of democracy rights either. And there was also the definite jump made by Heidegger, not exactly a legal scholar but a very well-read person nonetheless (and a mentor to Hannah Arendt, among others).

Der_Einzige 6y ago
Not just mentor, he was her boyfriend!!! And an ironic situation, given his nazi ties and her jewishness...
iguy 6y ago
These don't seem like the sort of jumps I had in mind. I meant the wholesale import of a school of knowledge to a new place. As happened for instance with the arrival of many modern sciences in the US; lots of fields where everybody's family tree goes back to germany. The germans you mention were certainly well-informed about foreign traditions, but their knowledge didn't create a living continuation of these traditions where they ended up. (The context is, since it's been a few hours, was a claim that education was a way to circumvent this 50-year institutional forgetting, which I took to mean national institutions. And the counter-claim is that many places have good education and terrible institutions, why haven't they imported this ersatz institutional memory? If it works for local preservation, why doesn't it work for international transplanting? And I don't completely know, but the successful international knowledge grafts seem to be technical subjects. )