Risk as religion, envy of the future

Who still marches at the forefront of progress?

The environmentalist debate of the 1970s and 80s gave rise to the theory that saw risk as the defining moment of modern society. Today, risk-oriented politics is itself seen as suspicious, writes Jörg Lau. [more]

"Reform must cause discontent"

And its implementation is always a failure, as Joseph II experienced

Gerhard Schröder's reform programme "Agenda 2010" was successful yet it cost him his post. Two hundred years ago, Austrian Kaiser Joseph II experienced the same. A pattern of euphoria followed by rejection emerges, writes Ralph Bollmann. [more]

The fleeting perception of art

A feast of Adonis in Alexandria

To learn how people truly deal with art, writes Heinz Schlaffer, it is worth listening to Theocritus, a worldly poet who in a short play shows how two petty bourgeois women experience the Feast of Adonis in Alexandria 273 years BC. [more]

Under the shower

Have you ever caught yourself musing about shower gel? Then you have been responding to what product designers call "cue management". Wolfgang Ullrich looks at how cue-management creates a set of stimulants for the senses and communicates these to the consumer. [more]

The daily state of emergency

Or: Necessity knows many commandments

The state no longer keeps its distance; invasion of privacy, surveillance, CCTV, and strip searches influence the daily lives of ordinary people. Has the state of emergency shifted into society's interior for good? [more]

On the difference between "serious" and "popular" music

"Good popular music is not advanced mathematics but it teaches us the basic multiplication table of emotions." Jens Hagestedt marks the distinction between serious and popular music while revealing the errors in the reasoning of popular music sceptics. [more]

The incapacitation

How the state corrupts its citizens

The welfare state is considered one of Germany's greatest achievements. But even Bismarck called his own social legislation a kind of "state socialism", promising an authoritarian, guaranteed security rather than freedom. [more]

Religion versus the religion of art

German art critics were outraged after the bishop of Cologne found Gerhard Richter's new stained-glass window for Cologne cathedral to be insufficiently religious. Their response reveals the enduring Romantic ideology of artistic genius, writes Wolfgang Ullrich. [more]

Craziness

"Craziness only half believes in the ideology to which it prescribes, but also believes that it can't believe in anything else. The top priority becomes to constantly repel doubt via relentless activism." [more]

The science of others

Laymen's publications observed critically and with only slight irritation

The venerable sub-academic institution of laymen's publications has found a huge new platform in blogs. Is this cause for celebration or concern? [more]

Muslims and the decadent West

Young Muslims in Europe who criticize western "decadence" are rejecting mainstream norms, argues Jörg Lau. Nevertheless, some commentators interpret young Muslims' self-segregation as the fault of the majority. What motivates this alliance between liberal self-critique and Muslim religiosity? [more]

The imperial temptation

French foreign policy: rhetoric and reality

Contrary to belief, French and American political traditions have much in common. Both countries make global missionary claims; both are unaccustomed to pluralistic decision-making processes; and both find it hard to resist imperial temptations. [more]

The old man's magic horn

Bob Dylan's radio

Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour" won over listeners and critics and broke broadcasting records. "Dylan undertook acoustic cross sections through the cultural archive of the US", writes Heinrich Detering. "Each of his themes contributed to a common mythical story -- just as every landscape, every social group, every state contributes to what is called 'America'." [more]

Decadence as export hit

Semantics and strategy in the clash of cultural critique

The accusation of decadence is an old one, but now, for the first time, we must not deny it with disgust but can instead recognize it as a rhetorical strategy. [more]

Military and decadence

War has always been the best means of suppressing decadence, with the soldier as the counterpart to the spoiled and softening civilian. The military's rejection of decadence, however, can be costly. [more]

"Put the past to use in the present!"

The Nanking Massacre and the politics of Chinese history

The Nanking Massacre serves as the paradigm for the victim perspective in Chinese nationalism. The Chinese government strikes a balance between promoting anti-Japanese sentiment and maintaining beneficial relations with Japan. [more]

"The Zionist state as toehold of imperialism"

Forty years ago the New German Left turned anti-Israeli

Until the Six Day War of June 1967, sympathy for the Israeli state reigned on the Left. All that changed as the APO began to regard the Jewish state as a "toehold of US imperialism". According to Martin Kloke, anti-Zionism is now embedded in German society. [more]

Thoughts on the new function of writing

Nowadays, an empty surface not covered with advertising text induces horror vacui. Commerce and new media are changing the way we use and understand script, writes Klaus Laermann. [more]

Learning to die in order to live

Medical advances combined with humanitarian dispositions mean that death is brutally dragged out beyond tolerability. We need a new "Ars moriendi", a new art of learning to die, in order to unlock the preciousness of life. [more]

The concept of God - and why we don't need it

In these newly religious times, it no longer seems superfluous to rearm the atheists with arguments. When push comes to shove, atheists can only trust their reason. [English version added] [more]

Ich wäre gerne European

European identity as confusion of tongues? The Tower of Babel casts its shadow over Marco Pautasso's experiment in authentic European essay writing. [more]

On the future of the class society

While some Germans see nothing but pauperized masses, obdurate observers deny that social classes even exist. Hans-Peter Müller on the discourse and reality of today's class society. [more]

The suppressed division

In the reunified Germany, the public memory of the division has been suppressed. But these four decades were crippling: more visibly in the East, less so in the West. [more]

Europe - nothing but a promise

A new narrative

Wanderlust has made Europe into a transcontinental continent. Will the world and its cultures ever be able to disentangle themselves from their Europeanization? [more]

The cultural bases for economic success

Why are there rich and poor countries? The relative prosperity of immigrant groups internationally suggests that it isn't geography, climate, or economic policy that decides the success of a country, but culture. [Lithuanian version added] [more]

Self-esteem and self-improvement

The patriotism of the Berlin republic

In Germany, both Right and Left have shifted the patriotism discourse away from the past towards the present and the future. Following Richard Rorty's idea that patriotism is to a nation what self-esteem is to an individual, Jörg Lau welcomes the new patriotism's integrative potential. [more]

Dispatch from Oceania

An outsider's view of the absurdities, both great and small, of the official Berlin. [more]

In the national museum tradition invents itself

Cracow's monumental painting

The Polish national museum of nineteenth-century art does not represent a real past but the ideas of a group of conservatives from the last century. For contemporary Poland, however, it has become the authentic image of the past. [more]

On the secular spirit of politics

It is not merely political freedom that leads to political independence from religion, but the freedom of faith that makes religion necessary. [more]

Blasphemy

On the structure of mass insult

Satire, a necessary instrument of rationalist critique, becomes triumphalist when directed at the humiliated. It was the perception of the Mohammed cartoons as the West's victorious mockery that so incensed the Islamic world. [more]