Pulpit culture

Culture war - Pulpit culture

If social discourse were a game of basketball, a coach would now have to call a decisive time-out. He and his players would have to put their heads together, abandon their previous strategy and look for a new one. Then he should chase the team back onto the court with motivation. The debate needs to pause, because these are serious times.

The text preceding my column contains many examples of how hardened the fronts have become in German society. Since the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, however, it has become clear that it is no longer just a question of whether we can still like Winnetou. Now it's a matter of life and death. It is about the influence of parts of the anti-racist movements that demand fair coexistence, but do not want to see Jews as a threatened minority because they are white.

The most recent example: at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), around 100 students protested against a statement by the university management expressing solidarity with Israel. Jewish students no longer feel safe there following anti-Israeli protests. UdK President Nobert Palz tried to talk to the protesters, but they reportedly just shouted at him. It was no longer possible to agree on condemning Hamas terror as a common denominator; instead, Israel, "genocide" and "colonialism" had to be condemned. Finally, someone will surely have said that Palz is just an old white man.

The "new German weepiness"

It exists, the culture war. It is not an invention of right-wing conservatives who want to prevent minorities from fighting for progress. They also want to ensure that women do not gain more power. However, this does not change the fact that there are views and ways of thinking within the anti-colonial, anti-racist movements that make it increasingly difficult to find a common denominator, for example when an icon of gender studies such as Judith Butler sees Hamas as part of a freedom movement even after October 7.

Leftists criticize Israel for the civilian casualties in Gaza, but not Hamas, which is holding its own people hostage. On the contrary, some see the demand to condemn Hamas as racist. Many of them emphasize that one must not lose one's humanity when it comes to empathy for Palestinians - which is true. At the same time, they fail to express solidarity with the victims of Hamas. Such paradoxical appearances can be observed, for example, with the author Deborah Feldman, who complains in interviews that as a Jew she is not allowed to speak in Germany because she is too critical of Israel. However, she had recently given a monologue on Markus Lanz - and Lanz gave her the space. You could form a long talk show chair circle with guests who claim they are not allowed to express their opinion, its title: "New German weepiness".

Many would probably like to proclaim their truth without contradiction instead of examining themselves in conversation with others. Social media encourages this need: hold your cell phone in front of your face and someone proclaims the word of God. Today, the pulpit is the Instagram and Tiktok account. Everyone is an expert on something. Expertise is usually based on follower numbers, rarely on competence. I broadcast, therefore I am. Someone will applaud. The victim role works particularly well, closely followed by denouncing alleged perpetrators. The hostility of the other side is carried around like a trophy.

The case of Gil Ofarim was the depressing culmination of this victim stylization. Ofarim had simulated the discourse and relied on his mechanics. He has now confessed that his video about the alleged anti-Semitism of the hotel employee was a fake. In doing so, he also exposed the media and social media debate reflexes. Every progressive leftist declared their solidarity with Ofarim after the video was published, even before the evidence was clear. People want to be on the right side at all costs when it comes to racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, classism or ableism. Sometimes it is serious and the right thing to do, but sometimes these net activists are making a name for their new product, a book, a podcast or an album. Ofarim has done damage. This cursed speed of judgment in our time!

We for the others - how rare that has become!

When Pegida marched, many human rights campaigners wanted to take action against the advancing shift to the right with the best of intentions and little plan. It started with the demonstrations under the hashtag "We are more". In some federal states, more will soon be the right, that's how stupid this slogan was.

Anti-racism work is important for any democracy. However, parts of the movement have lost their way ideologically, as the discussion since October 7 shows. I admit that I am currently at a loss. Book prizes are not being awarded, exhibitions are being canceled, the reappraisal of the Documenta is a record of continuing helplessness. How are we supposed to manage a dialog if someone is always screaming that they can no longer say what they think?

It was a mistake to put group affiliations before objective discussion. Distinctive characteristics were created and with them groups that then went at each other, for example boomers against Gen-Z. People pretended to belong to only one group; the others became the enemy. I recently saw a brilliant video from a British trade union in which a young black woman is outraged by boomers and an old white man rails against Gen-Z. But neither of them are shouting against the other. But both of them are not shouting against, but for the other group: she is worried about the poor care of the boomers. He's worried about the poor wages for the young. We for the others - how rare that has become!

Surveys show that more and more Germans are prepared to vote for the radical right. Why are we losing them? Why is disinformation winning out over solid discussions? Certainly also because too few discussions allow for a plurality of opinions. For young people, Tiktok plays a greater role than traditional news; all the worse if, for example, the anti-Semitic letter from Osama bin Laden is trending there and shaping their world view. Slogans are catchy, but they are by no means the answer.

The glaring outrage should be reserved for the misanthropes

It exists, the culture war. A group identity is no substitute for thinking about the complexity of problems. An opinion is not a club membership. Parts of the initially progressive left have now locked themselves into their world view, as the issue of gendering shows. Gendering should be voluntary, they say. But as soon as someone rejects gendering or claims that there is a compulsion, the response is that they are on the right and there is no explicit compulsion. But I have certainly sat on committees that denied applicants their progressiveness because they did not use gender. This is not a right-wing delusion. If progressive left-wingers just dismiss the opinions of others, the other side also becomes radicalized.

Success and previous good deeds do not protect either: the successful black author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was labeled a TERF, a trans enemy, by some activists because she said that trans women are trans women. They demand that her books no longer be read. It is the fight for human rights for trans women. Adichie had explicitly not spoken out against their rights, but wanted to talk about her experiences.

After his last hosting of "Wetten, dass...?", show millionaire Thomas Gottschalk whined his way out of his career and said that he could no longer say in front of the cameras what he was bothering his wife with at home. An avalanche quickly rolled across the web: he was playing into the hands of the AfD, it was said. But this outrage does the same. The public space in which such a sentence can be laughed off calmly, shrugged and left as an idiosyncrasy is getting smaller and smaller. Gottschalk's whining was immediately followed by one of those hollow slogans: you can say anything, you just have to expect contradiction. Yes, okay. But what is called contradiction is more and more often a bucket full of devaluations, followed by the question: "Why do you still offer someone like that a platform?" Someone like that! How quickly you become a nobody in this country. Naturally, the conversation escalates. Difficult questions can hardly be mastered when there is no generosity or composure anywhere. We have been unable to tolerate and comment on the wide range of democratic opinions without pigeonholing people for too long. The glaring indignation should be reserved for the misanthropes. Otherwise, after a hundred false alarms, the real fire alarm could get lost in the din.