Terminology and ideology. Five interpretations of the German conceptual antithesis between Kultur and Zivilisation during the First World War

Abstract

This article attempts to highlight the role of ideology in the semantic evolution of "culture" and "civilization", two key terms in contemporary intellectual history. The author has chosen for the purpose a particular language, German, and a specific historical period, the First World War, since it is then when Kultur and Zivilisation became fighting words. The second part of the paper focuses on the analysis of the causes which, according to the main authors who have dealt with the topic, have triggered the genesis, development and survival of the conceptual opposition between the two terms in German. Reference will be made firstly to the antithetical tendency typical of the German language; secondly, to the importance of the model of cultura animi; thirdly, to the division of both concepts into two systems of historically divergent thinking (German, on the one hand, and Anglo-Saxon and French, on the other); fourthly, to other causes of political and social nature; and finally, to the role of the First World War itself in the final idealization of the term Kultur and the consequent undervaluation of Zivilisation. The article concludes with a brief section in which the apparent specificity of this conceptual antithesis in light of the history of the humanities and social sciences is highlighted, given the scarce influence or semantic transfer exerted on the same conceptual equivalence in English or French.