The freedom simulation
Today's elites have better techniques for manipulating elections than those of the GDR. Exclusive print from "Tamtam und Tabu".
by Daniela Dahn and Rainer Mausfeld[This excerpt is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-freiheitssimulation.]
1990 is considered the most important year in post-war history. Everything seems to have been said. The taboos survive. In their new book "Tamtam und Tabu", renowned essayist Daniela Dahn and cognitive scientist Rainer Mausfeld take a look at these taboos with a view to previously underestimated connections. Daniela Dahn examines how, in a breathtakingly short time, public opinion was turned with great fanfare in a direction that corresponded to the interests of the West. With her stringent synopsis of rich material from the media, the official narrative about the turnaround is shaken. Rainer Mausfeld's analysis reveals the reality behind the rhetoric in a capitalist democracy. The collaborative analyses are deepened in a fundamental discussion and provide an unsparing assessment of the current state of democracy. An excerpt.
Rainer Mausfeld: The West has a unique arsenal of highly sophisticated psychological manipulation methods. This has been developed and refined for more than a hundred years with great research efforts. In these psychological techniques of population control, the West has an almost inconceivable research advantage over the East. The reason is simple: capitalist democracies, as was recognized early on, depend on free elections to maintain the impression of complete freedom among voters while ensuring that they vote the way they should.
This can only be achieved with the greatest effort in terms of power technology. The methods required for this have been developed to perfection over many decades with the help of psychology and the social sciences, and have been tested in dozens of cases in domestic and foreign policy contexts. There is a large amount of literature on this subject.
The psychological techniques of controlling dissent are also extremely subtle in capitalist democracies. They permeate all instances of socialization. Thus they are practically invisible to us and normally hardly noticeable. We swim in them like a fish in water, as it were, without even having an idea of them.
Since the historical beginnings of capitalist democracies, the respective power elites have been aware that such a form of rule can only be stable if actual power is made largely invisible to the population.
Therefore, for more than a hundred years social technologies have been developed to keep the "confused herd" on course in such a way that they are still convinced that they can follow their own needs freely and without guidance. A project of democracy management that has proven to be immensely successful. Unrivalled success even. So all this has been in continuous application for a long time. Even for extreme situations that
require a particularly high degree of effectiveness in a very short time, an arsenal of methods has long been lying in the drawer of the economic and political centers of power.
In 1989, therefore, it was possible to fall back on long-proven and highly sophisticated techniques at very short notice. In this respect, it is not surprising that they proved their effectiveness with such resounding success during the collapse of the GDR. However, historical situations in which a way of life and an entire social worldview are broken down for the majority of the population, despite sophisticated psychological control techniques, still hold a considerable residual risk for the effectiveness of Western attempts at manipulation. For the dynamics with which new identities and solidarities are formed are hardly predictable and thus difficult to control.
At that time, entire value systems that conveyed orientation and social cohesion disintegrated. Such social upheavals inevitably had to be accompanied by a shake-up of established identities, massive feelings of disorientation and insecurity broke out and existing ones were reinforced. How did you experience these dynamics back then? What values and solidarity still applied?
Daniela Dahn: Of course, it was very different for each individual. In the GDR we also came from a controlled public. But that was rather a contrary control. It wasn't a question of whether, in addition to political intentions, it was also lurid enough to increase sales, but on the contrary. Strict care was taken to ensure that nothing was printed that would cause unwanted excitement. The fact that much that was critical was simply left out was the corrosive part.
This mental paternalism was also humiliating in its own way - no confidence to talk to their own people about the problems they were experiencing from Western television anyway. That was the reason why I retired from GDR television in 1981 as a young editor and have been making books ever since. There is much more room for maneuver, by the way, then as now, than in the mass media.
From today's point of view it is rather astonishing how many dream editions the newspapers have nevertheless achieved by today's standards - the Junge Welt last reached 1.6 million. Nobody could be forced to spend the usually obligatory 15 pfennigs for a certain newspaper. As a corrective and supplement to the western stations, the own media were certainly perceived. Because there what you call "own values" were negotiated. One had also learned to read between the lines, and even the unmentioned was a message. What one had neither learned nor expected was to deal with the unseriousness of the tabloid press, but above all with the disregard for minimum journalistic standards in the "quality media". Drastic fake news was, as I remember, rather the exception in the GDR media.
When reading it, what was remarkable to me was with what self-confidence and how long the majority of East Germans tried to defend themselves against being appropriated by the FRG. Values did not tip over so quickly. Then you had to reach deep into the
toolbox of manipulation to get the robust crowbars out. How clearly you point out that the social sciences have been working for a long time on refining the techniques of subjecting the psyche of people to the wishes of the respective rulers is impressive and also frightening. Precisely the "miracle" described by David Hume, which is why it is such a surprisingly easy game to exercise power. I wondered whether science had gained these methods by analyzing political practice or whether it was the other way around. Did they submissively provide the rulers with means from their knowledge of the psyche, which they then use more or less consciously?
Rainer Mausfeld: The answer to this question is quite clear: the orders for this research came from the centers of power. It is true that long before the emergence of modern science, there was a sophisticated practice of psychological methods of exercising power. They related primarily to techniques of generating fear or methods of political rhetoric, as they flourished above all in ancient Rome. Think of Cicero, for example. But the systematic investigation of psychological techniques of the exercise of power came much later. This led to the emergence of new academic disciplines, especially the social sciences. Until the beginning of the last century, psychology was also predominantly a basic science. It thus dealt with questions that were far removed from pragmatic contexts of application.
Through application questions and needs that were brought to psychology from political and economic areas, efforts arose in psychology to break away from the basic orientation and to aim for an application benefit in a direct and pragmatic way. These efforts were strengthened by the fact that incomparably larger financial support funds were available for practice-oriented research. In this way, areas were created that were then called "psychotechnology" and are now called applied psychology. These practice-oriented subjects reached a great bloom within a few decades due to their close connections to economic fields and have dominated the subject ever since. Especially the rapidly growing advertising industry had great expectations of psychology.
In the social sphere, the tension between capitalism and democracy became increasingly apparent. Trade unions and social movements gained influence and were perceived by the centers of power as so threatening that large sums were invested in the development of psychological and socio-technological methods that could divide and disintegrate them. Therefore, even before the Second World War, there was an extremely effective set of instruments for opinion management, invisible indoctrination, division and decomposition, and much more, with which the "democratic risk" in capitalist democracies could be limited very effectively even then.
Resistance as a life form
Urgent social protest needs both vision and a strong community with perseverance and courage to subvert in order to be sustainable.
by Roland Rottenfußer[This article is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/widerstand-als-lebensform.]
In Germany, the long overdue mass protest against the presumptuous neoliberal plutocracy is floundering. Corona has awakened many, but by no means enough to overturn a system that has long been running in the wrong direction. Presumably many simply lack the ability to imagine a better world. One reason for the capitulation of creative fantasy to "Realpolitik" is the unjustly bad image of visions. It is not enough to go to a demonstration in protest against the neoliberally dominated world order and then complain that the powerful do not immediately flinch in awe. We need forms of resistance that can be sustained over the long term and integrated into the everyday life of the individual. Politically active "communities" that socially support the whole person in all aspects of his or her life could be a solution.
Politicians - so one might think after years of gruelling "reform politics" - are people we pay for thinking up and enforcing deteriorations for our life situation. From the money we give them, we also pay for the propaganda apparatus with the help of which the deteriorations in question are to be sold to us as improvements - or as fateful necessities. In the case of the "Corona measures" we have seen this effect in a drastic way. After a brief period of rebellion, the people ducked under the heel of supposed economic and health constraints: "All right, as you wish, as long as we are allowed to live and work a little longer. Of course - the politicians don't mean any harm, but unfortunately they can only spend as much money as they have, and mysteriously this is becoming less and less.
Yet the money would be there for the essential social and ecological tasks of our time, it is just - as so often in history - unjustly distributed. And one would rather let broad sections of the population become impoverished or - as in many countries of the Third World - die before one would dare to claim the sacrosanct right to private property (i.e., to income from usurious interest rates) "There is enough there for everyone's needs," said Gandhi, "but not for everyone's greed.
Thus the word "reform" has now been perverted to the point of weariness, although it originally inspired hope.
Today, the caste of politicians defines "reform" as the gradual deterioration of our quality of life that they impose on us in order to allow the owners of already large fortunes to continue their unlimited growth of wealth.
The "representatives of the people" are more and more transformed into "tax tenants", comparable to the figure of the customs officer Zacchaeus in the Gospel: tax collectors in the service of a foreign, supranational occupying power. It is the task of these tax collectors to ensure the orderly transfer of the values generated by the service providers into the hands of a few recipients of unproductive "income".
As for the raids of international financial capital, there is no lack of brilliant analyses and heart-rending elegies. But it is not a question of complaining about the hand reaching into our pockets, but of stopping it. "Not the people should fear their government, but the government should fear the people," says the script of the Hollywood film "V for
Vendetta" - created by the brilliant Wachowski siblings ("Matrix"). On the state of our current political landscape, I also recommend my article "Democracy gone astray".
From a historical perspective, our decade can be characterized as an epoch in which one section of society - the pharmaceutical and IT industries, as well as the financial sectorhas massively terrorized all other areas such as culture and social life, imposing its laws, its concepts and its way of thinking on them. Future generations will note, with a mixture of contemptuous smiles and unbelievable head-shaking, how little resistance we have offered to the obvious, dangerous nonsense of the ruling ideology.
Those who have no visions should see a doctor
What do we lack - courage? Insight into the facts? Energy to put into practice what we have recognized as right? Certainly all of this. But I would like to emphasize another point that seems important to me:
Man needs visions like the air we breathe. Without visions he suffocates in the hostile narrowness of the reality principle.
The grey veil of so-called Realpolitik has covered our intellectual landscape so comprehensively that we have forgotten how to think, dream and wish beyond the actual state of affairs. "Anyone who has visions should see a doctor," said Helmut Schmidt. I think the reverse is true, it becomes a shoe: Whoever no longer has visions is no longer whole, no longer whole, and therefore needs healing.
Why, I ask, have we been given the corresponding brain areas with which we can imagine new worlds that do not (yet) exist in superficial reality? Industrially manufactured escape spaces such as fantasy movies and video games still bear witness to the suggestive power of the still uncreated. Only the direction of this force has turnedinwards. Creative impulses are drying up on the socially infertile mind-fuck playgrounds of our private television and computer worlds.
We are not only latently dissatisfied, we have forgotten how to imagine what could make us more satisfied. We have forgotten how to complain where we feel unjustly treated, how to cry out where we are hurt because every "I want more" is bludgeoned down by argumentative clubs ("vested interests") - similar to Charles Dickens' novel character Oliver Twist, when he asks for a bowl of soup more in the poorhouse. As long as we are graciously allowed to keep our shirts, we are ashamed to protest against the fact that they stole our skirts.
"The Germans complain too much," is the unanimous verdict of the brainwashing campaigns with which politics, business and the mainstream media cover us. What is meant, of course, is that instead of complaining, we should swallow what is presented to us. I mean: even whining, complaining can be fruitful as long as it marks the beginning and not the end of the resistance. All the energy of those who still refuse to give up is currently fizzing out in the gruelling Sisyphus struggle against the "inevitable" deterioration of our living conditions decreed from above - for example, against the
decreed "corona measures", against environmental destruction or the open racism of the police.
Thus, for many, the last remaining vision of our time seems to be the desire to slow down the speed at which deterioration takes place. Understandably, such a castrated "vision" is no longer able to motivate, let alone inspire. So the first appeal to our German compatriots must be: Have the courage to use your imaginary power! Every groundbreaking innovation is a former fantasy, something that was initially ridiculed by the "ancients" as a thing of impossibility.
Isolation: the great wound of society
The rulers of every color and nationality make use of a double strategy, which is already the first step to regain their own sovereignty: Whoever wants to rule must a) give the lie supporting the rule the appearance of the alternative, omnipresent, b) give the individual, who intuitively resists the lie, the feeling that he is alone with his truth - hopelessly isolated and "off track" to the point of ridiculousness. But that is what the process of emancipation is all about: getting "off track", getting off the tracks that others have designed for us as intended life paths, and paving our own way. Perhaps to our surprise we will then discover that we are not as alone with our loneliness as we thought.
Isolation is the great wound of our society. And perhaps this wound is deliberately kept open - by those who have an interest in us not finding each other.
It is not without reason that "rotting together" and "mutiny" in the military are the worst offences that are punished with the harshest penalties. Today we live in the time of "social distancing". The physical rapprochement between people - actually a basic needis dismissed as a deadly ruthlessness. Even children have to reckon with rude rebuke if they follow their natural urge for rapprochement and community. Even if there were no other negative "effects" of the fear and distance society - this would be highly frightening and would have to challenge our spirit of resistance.
"Social Distancing" follows the logic of a long-established mentality of the power elites. People who support each other, who give each other support, mental stimulation, a sense of belonging and human warmth, are not so easily controlled and harnessed for destructive purposes. The isolated apartment honeycombs of our metropolitan living silos - equipped as single cells with promising multimedia equipment for distraction - are an external expression of the alienation, the lack of relationships to which so many singles have apparently become accustomed as prisoners to their isolation. But the walls that separate us exist only in spirit, they are not real. What if we were to start "flocking together"?
But who are "we" anyway? Is there even a "we", an overarching commonality? What is important is that the "scene" I am trying to address here is in itself very colorful, very diverse. We are dealing with people who are socialized "left-wing", with those who are interested in enlightened love of their homeland or simply in more freedom, with rationalists, atheistic and agnostic thinking people or those who are interested in
spirituality and alternative medicine; with culturally and socially creative people, communards and employees in ecological and sustainable projects; with people who like to demonstrate and with people who express their otherness in a very withdrawn way; with biophilic flower and animal lovers as well as with ingenious technical tinkerers and bingewatching nerds.
A generalization is very difficult, the common is best revealed in contact and conversation, as long as it is not prevented by interested parties. Certainly it is difficult to believe in the coming of spring in the bleak "February" of the neoliberal winter. And yet I would have to be very surprised if there weren't many people like me: often cynical on the outside and yet inside full of buried longing to be able to get excited about something again. Crucial for a new spirit of optimism would be the overcoming of an attitude of resignation and depression, which had arisen in the wake of the 1968 movement, because its practical results had partly disappointed expectations.
What could a new movement - of whatever kind - look like? Perhaps it would be gentler, but more lasting than the 68 revolt. It would be based on a better understanding of the necessary slowness of organic development processes, on a deeper insight into the innerpsychological prerequisites of one's own actions, and on the knowledge of a spiritualpsychological inside of all processes taking place on the outside.
The new movement would not primarily rely on refusal, struggle, resistance against the existing system, which is recognized as insufficient. It would thus avoid the effect of the "barking dog in front of its mirror image", which wonders about the aggressiveness of its counterpart and as a result increases its own rage more and more until it collapses exhausted.
Instead, the "New Revolutionaries" would invest energy in building positive countermodels. The "exit" would become the entry into the avant-garde and pilot projects of a new, more humane world order. The lament about the present - as much as it sometimes forces itself upon me - would have to be transformed into a desire for the future. However, this joy in revolting and agitating, but also in imagining, planning and trying things out, is difficult to awaken in oneself alone. You need a community, the exchange with like-minded people and those with similar interests.
"It is not possible to create a future out of fear, isolation and disappointment," writes author and ecology expert Geseko von Lüpke. "It must attract us with the power of Eros, it must be inspired by the inner visions of quality of life, peace and love. Political commitment for a future worth living is important, but it needs the inner fire of those who are already developing the urgent change for the world within themselves. Founding families of the spirit
An essential idea to advance the new movement is the foundation of "families of the spirit". The binding power of consanguinity must not be underestimated. On the other hand, unless one has the rare good fortune of having a father, mother, brother and sister who share one's own interests and political goals, one feels that consanguinity alone is
not enough. The so-called "Generation Greta" has shown itself to be quite brave and cheeky in recent times, but even this wave has ebbed away in times of Corona's lack of alternatives. A family festival is not automatically the place where one feels understood with those ideas for which one is burning.
"Spiritual families" could, so to speak, mark a third stage in the evolution of human forms of organization. From the "clan" based on consanguinity, through the intermediate stage of the greatest possible individualistic isolation and lack of ties (as can be seen in many contemporary metropolitan existences), to the building of freely chosen communities based on intellectual, emotional and ideal kinship.
Perhaps the lack of interest in demonstrations, with few exceptions, is also due to quite banal psychological factors. When I go to protest events alone, for example, I myself often feel isolated - in the midst of a throng of "like-minded people". Of course, this feeling of isolation helps above all the "opponents", such as the participants of the annual "Munich Security Conference", who can be lulled into the feeling that there is not exactly a popular uprising underway against their often destructive and shabby political decisions. The stream of protesters often resembles - measured by the importance of the issue at stake - more of a trickle. We must therefore think about closer, more humanly satisfying forms of association - not only for reasons of greater human "comfort", but also for the sake of the political goals at stake.
Basically, three forms of organization can be distinguished: Community (commune), community and network. Added to these are the fourth, looser, more "theme-centered" action alliances: From large NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) like attac and Greenpeace to citizens' initiatives like "Save the trees in Werdenfelser Straße! A characteristic of these action alliances is that they do not accompany and ideally "enclose" the whole life of a person. In such alliances - as well as in parties and associations - people are only addressed in a certain, limited aspect of their personality: as bearers of a certain world view, as advocates of solar energy or opponents of animal experiments. People put up posters together in the pedestrian zone, but as a rule they do not feel "carried" by their comrades-in-arms when they are lovesick, when one of their parents is dying or when they quarrel with God because of the suffering in the world. Such problems simply "do not matter". How do you escape the "activist burnout"?
In my opinion, this is one reason for the often short lifespan of many of these alliancesor for the high staff turnover in larger idealistic organizations. Members of action alliances easily fall into resignation if they do not achieve the action goals to the desired extent. After a phase of euphoria, a feeling of "It-hat-yes-doesn't-mean-something-thatyou-have-no-meaning" can easily arise. It can be that the number of members begins to crumble after an initial rapid rise. Such alliances also often have an exclusively negative motivation, for example "against the right", "against nuclear power". Even more constructive formulations such as "for the environment" often cannot hide the fact that the fight against the existing is part of the activists' everyday life.
A third point:
Action alliances often have a disgruntled, dogged basic mood. One places oneself ready to make sacrifices up to self-exploitation and joylessly in the service of the "cause", becomes thin-skinned and quickly smells a lack of appreciation and "betrayal" by fellow combatants.
Not for nothing it is said: Those who are concerned about the health of our environment must first take care of those of environmental activists. After all, fundamental rights demonstrations in connection with Corona often reveal a cheerful, relaxed festival atmosphere, there are signs that these activities are trying to appeal to people as a whole, not just political "brains". Heart-shaped hand signals and minutes of meditation are often smiled at, but are signals for a more holistic approach to political work.
In order to break the dominance of the neoliberal-technocratic paradigm in society, the formation of new resistance cells and the strengthening of already existing ones is necessary. To make these more successful, we can learn from the positive experiences with other, quasi "foreign" forms of organization such as the church community. What there is to learn could be summarized, for example, as follows: Involvement of the whole person in all aspects of life, a culture of community that goes beyond the concrete political thrust, a not exclusively success-oriented orientation (but concentration on doing), integration of joyful, sensual elements such as music, dance, pictorial symbols, food, drink, campfires and the like, a (also) positive orientation and the embedding of the individual action in a larger idealistic context.
Then again a culture of resistance could emerge that is appropriate to the seriousness and scope of the problems at hand, because:
There is nothing good unless you organize it.
Among the forms of organization of a possible resistance and the alternative models of society, some stand out that are worthy of closer examination. Besides the targeted political action alliance, these are mainly communities (municipalities), networks and communities.
Communities - of love and shadow
The community (commune) is essentially a living community of like-minded people who live and often work close to each other. Depending on its size, it can be a single apartment, a house or village structures. Communities are practical workshops for testing alternative models regarding lived spirituality, ecological management, living together, decision-making, love, friendship and raising children. Some may think of the "Commune 1" co-founded by Rainer Langhans, some of them of the large Bhagwan community in Oregon, Damanhur, Auroville or the "Center for Experimental Social Design" (ZEGG) with its free-loving and at the same time politically ambitious inhabitants.
The term "Experimental Social Design" is characteristic for the entire community movement and refers to a certain courage to engage as a whole person in the creation of new models of living together. However sophisticated the ideology of the community in question may sound, it humanizes considerably everywhere. The "smugness" chased away through the front door often sneaks back in through the back door. People argue about the (male) urine droplets on the toilet seat, about the degree of necessary commitment and loyalty to principles. The non-vegetarian broth becomes as much a stumbling block as the non-energetized water or shirking of the garbage disposal. "Ruthless chaos" complains about "control freaks" - and vice versa.
In the worst case, the community thus becomes a forum for solving problems that would not have arisen in the first place without the community in question.
The density of living together reinforces all group processes as if under a burning glass: this applies to the formation of shadow carriers (scapegoats) as well as to dominance disputes over which of two leaders now represents the overcoming of the ego with greater purity. It is not surprising that municipalities went a bit out of fashion with the end of the hippie era and that another, somewhat more abstract model is on everyone's lips today, in which human inadequacy is less evident if only because people are not really encountered: the network.
Networks - good intentions and many holes
The network is a forum for the exchange of ideas, information and support among likeminded people, held together by modern means of communication. In contrast to the commune, the network is non-local, i.e. not bound to a specific location. Network members can live in the neighboring city, in Tuscany or in New York. Through the Internet and e-mail, these people of different origins can be connected in seconds.
"Anarchic" communication channels such as Internet forum and serial mail are excellent tools of a "soft conspiracy", which cannot completely escape the control of counterforces of whatever kind, but still function quite well in the current phase of dismantling democracy.
Networks are loose, liberating, and at the same time integrative forms of organization that broaden consciousness. They are democratic and decentralized, inasmuch as each "network node" is, in its own view, part of the whole. Networks are fundamentally compatible with functioning, authentic forms of community, but also with the biological family. They form a counterweight to the "circling around oneself" and "swimming in one's own juice" that is often observed in small families and local communities.
Critics note, however, that networks consist mainly of holes. Often they remain bloodless and abstract, spirit without flesh. While in a couple relationship two people know (almost) everything about each other, networkers know (almost) nothing about a potentially unlimited number of people. Similar to the cloudy field of communication science, the network does not focus on content and substance, but on the way the participants are connected to each other. Specifically, networks are often threatened to "fall asleep" soon after they are founded because nobody really knows what they are all
about. Networks are usually no fun unless they develop "sensual" forms of encounter and rituals.
Communities - personal, but not too close
Now that I have subjected community and network - perhaps also somewhat exaggerated and generalized - to a critical examination, it may become clear why I see the community as the organizational form with the greatest potential. In terms of the geographical space in which it unfolds, it lies between community and network, somewhere between a renovated farm in the countryside and the global community that spans the world.
Communities will generally cover the catchment area of a medium to large city or county. The main difference between a community and a network is therefore that a community allows personal contact in geographical proximity. It differs from the community in that the community members are in different households, scattered throughout the catchment area and also - this is important! - mixed with non-members. Sectarian tendencies, the demonization of "unbelievers" and a lack of spiritual fresh air are thus excluded from the outset.
One could perhaps compare the form of existence of a politically motivated "community", for example through criticism of capitalism and corona, in a mainly neoliberal environment, with Protestant parishes in the predominantly Catholic Bavaria. In the more liberal and progressive regions, members of different denominations will not become suspicious of each other, wage war against each other or declare each other impersonal. They will live side by side and together in a natural neighborhood. However, it cannot be ruled out that there will also be friction, especially since the "old world" will try to impose its rules on the "new". Recently, for example, one thinks of the obligation to wear masks and to keep a distance.
Communities are supposed to be filling stations of power, not refugees from the harsh reality. One recovers in exchange with like-minded people, in order not to be constantly exposed to the loss of power through friction with completely different, "absurd" opinions.
But then one goes outside with the collected strength and the filled quiver full of argumentative arrows and stands up for one's conviction. Island-like communities are less suitable for this. They run the risk of closing themselves off - according to the motto: "With people with such a low level of knowledge, any conversation is unnecessary.
The term "community" still has the smell of a certain stuffyness, because many associate it with perhaps boring childhood memories: Church coffee with pig-headed elderly ladies, singing "Lord merciful you", the smell of old wood and dust, tootling, temperamentless organ music... All this still exists, but even these traditional congregations have advantages that are completely missing in some "cooler" forms of organization. Younger parishioners visit older people in the old people's homes, there are "circles" for different age groups in which people meet regularly, there is (albeit ideologically determined) pastoral care by a "spiritual teacher", the pastor, who by no means always lacks integrity.
Persons who would be completely without a chance on the free market of vanities as too unattractive, too slow, too problematic - the old, the quirky, the shy, the lonely, the stubborn, the
oppressed, and those with problems - are integrated into intact congregations as a matter of course. They simply belong to it, no matter how much they may sometimes get on the nerves of the "more normal" among the community members. The film "As in Heaven" paints a picture of such a community integrating the most diverse personality types with a unique, humorous humanity.
Eternal return of the same
Of course the traditional church community also has its limits - apart from the fact that not everyone can accept its ideological basis. The activities of a church community are subject to a cycle of repetitive celebrations and are not goal-oriented. The cycle of the year (the "church year") with its recurring festivities, anniversaries and holy days of remembrance characterizes the life of the congregation and can be seen as a limitation of creativity for people interested in longer-term projects.
Since I have started out from the necessity of organized resistance against neoliberalism, it is clear what is meant. It is not good when people are put to sleep by the monotonous rotation of the cyclical wheel. The future should be perceived as open in principle, shapeable and not too strongly influenced by recurring events. Obvious, but also distant, "utopian" goals (such as the replacement of world capitalism by a more just world order) could motivate those involved. Their personalities could grow with the tasks set, a pull from the future could seize them and carry them forward.
"See that you, leaving the world, were not only good, but are leaving a good world.
Bertolt Brecht's sentence is an outstanding wake-up call for all those who think that it is enough to "be". On the other hand, one cannot create a good world with people who have bitten themselves joylessly into wanting to be good.
Resistance as a way of life
Simply "being", staying human, enjoying and swinging with the rhythms of nature is more likely to be possible in a community structure; developing, growing, achieving goals, on the other hand, is demanded in development-oriented communities and in political action alliances. Without community structures, resistance easily leads to overstrain and human paralysis; without the drive of an action group, however, it becomes toothless and stagnates at a low level of self-satisfaction. So what I am proposing is the establishment of "action communities" in a regional frameworksupplemented by supra-regional network structures, whose comparatively impersonal character is not perceived as a deficit to the same extent when one is also involved in more personal communities.
What I would like to encourage is resistance as a long-term way of life. At the same time, I would like to avoid reducing people to their function as "resisters". Experience shows that people have only a limited capacity of time and energy to stand up for their political goals. If their idealism is overstretched, a pendulum swing in the opposite direction occurs, a return to apolitical lethargy. It is therefore important to use and organize this limited capacity optimally, to make the resistance persistent and sustainable, and in doing so to integrate man for what he is: not a walking vessel of line-true opinions and correct behavioral patterns, but a being that has weaknesses, sometimes loses courage and "buckles down", but nevertheless with a basic disposition to hope and joy of life that cannot be brought down. PP
Roland Rottenfußer, born in 1963, worked as a book editor and journalist for various publishing houses after studying German. From 2001 to 2005 he was editor at the spiritual magazine
Connection, later for "Zeitpunkt". He currently works as an editor, book copywriter and author scout for Goldmann Verlag. Since 2006 he is editor-in-chief of Hinter den Schlagzeilen.