In contrast to all the tendencies that are still having an impact today, to narrow the term leading culture to nationalistic or Christian interpretations, this book is primarily about finally giving it a truly democratic meaning. What should characterize a leading culture are rather all those avant-garde efforts since the end of the 18th century, which point beyond political, socio-economic and educational grievances and design forms of a higher type of society. In doing so, it is above all those objectives to be considered that are expressed in the various arts and with which the utopia of a social order based on solidarity and responsibility in the best sense of the word, which has been striven for since the Age of Enlightenment, could be realized. Only that should be understood in the future under the term leading culture .