Harper’s is really down on the Germans these days. I guess it’s a change from bashing the Irish!
If I were reading this commentary on, say, the CNN website, I would be asking myself, “What is the pro-Democrat purpose this article serves?”
Is there a similar interpretive filter to be applied to Harper’s? What political agenda is served by devoting so many column inches to Germans’ weekend habits?
It should be interpreted in the spirit of the time (Zeitgeist). There was and had been a steady stream of new ideas coming out of Germany, including ideas in philosophy over the previous few decades (Kant/Goethe/Hegel), all of which collectively untethered morality from religion, and then more explicitly anti-religious ideas (David Strauss), which frontally attacked Christianity.
Marx had published his Communist Manifesto about 10 years earlier, in which he espoused the ideology of class struggle in a materialistic world.
In addition, there were uprisings and revolutions going on to unify Germany, and were spilling into other parts of Europe.
Harper's was reacting to the importation of these destabilizing ideas into the calm, rustic landscape of America, where traditionalism reigned supreme, and shining the spotlight on a class of new Americans who would bring their disruptive lifestyles into the new country.