The importance of "political-consciousness"

It's essential that "all beings" participate in the process of "doing politics" (people, animals, plants etc.). If they aren't able to do so themselves they must be represented and considered empathetically. Otherwise it becomes almost certain that their needs won't be met and the whole world gets out of balance.

It's a notorious truth that we're already facing this imbalance today and that it's pace has progressively quickened over the last couple of years.
The exploitation of people, fellow beings and the ecosystem as a whole is undeniable. The only question of depute is the extend and the changeability of this multilayered imbalance.

There are many levels where one can and could confront this disparities today. The needs of depriviliged people, abused animals and exploted landscapes are hard to overlook. Accordingly, the fields of political actions are vast and numerous.

Unfortunately just a few people actually care about politics and ethics today. It seems as if the majority of people only sees their own suffering and not the bigger picture in which it is involved in.

Therefore, the responsibility and power everyone should have is centered only on a few. This forms a “hegemonic power structure” (structure of dominance) which has its own dynamic and “naturalizes” itself trough ongoing repetition. People start to think that they have no impact on politics and withdraw from it even further.

The only solution to this bias I can think of is to gradually rediscover the power and with that the responsibility everyone ought to have. We the society have become the corporate/governmental “nestling” which is afraid of its own emancipation. Regarding to this image there are basically two choices: 1. Aim for a revolution 2. Induce reformations.

In my opinion a revolution can't do any good when there isn’t a common awareness for what to aim for (a public rooted set of ethics). The problem isn’t black and white. It reaches deeper than the notion of “victim vs. villains” suggests. The hegemonic patterns that waft through societies are interwoven with all “actors” (the government, the companies, the society etc.).

So who would we revolt against? The companies we work for and consume from? The government we’ve elected? Or even against ourselves and our own ignorance?

We’re not living in a totalitarian society where every deviant opinion is fought by military force. Our constrains go deeper and can’t be overcome by simply overpowering institutions. We at least would need a shared vision to replace their political functions after the revolution.

Accordingly we might be better off seeking for reforms instead of a big revolution.

One aspect of gaining political capability is by consciously forming "individually" our own opinion about issues of political interest by critically reading/talking and watching about them. This multiple step approach requires time, reflexivity and persistence, but it can lead to a certain ethical/political education which enables you to identify the “political intervention points” – the basis for every sustainable reformation.

But this won’t work if this knowledge only stays within the minds of individuals. Civil reformations need the power of the public in form of social movements or at least many people that share some "core values".

The problem (beside of the feeling of powerlessness) is that society appears to have hardly any time for dealing with political issues. There seems little awareness that their personal problems could be related to their lack of political interest.

This “delusion” can be an important starting point for political action. The question is: How to “enlighten” respectively educate people about their “delusions” without being violent and authoritarian.

For a start I reckon its fundamental that one doesn’t see oneself outside this “deluded body of society”. You’ll always face yourself while approaching others because you are in some sense one with them. I think you can’t educate anyone without educating yourself at the same time. It's almost certain that you yourself as a "enlightener" have your own misconceptions. All in all it certainly requires a degree of openness in combination with doubt towards oneself and others.

In consequence we might need indirect approaches like “Culture Jamming” which e.g. mimics and alters the message of institutions in such a way that their inherit contradictions become obvious. Alteration has been shown as a very useful tool for making people think and face their delusion without harming their dignity.

I’m convinced that doing politics can never be an easy task, because it’s always a process which involves billions of other peoples and uncountable other "factors" which have to be emphatically considered as well, even tough they can't represent themselves as f.i. animals, plants and  the rest of nature.

All of these "factors" have their interrelations and coherences with each other. As a result it becomes almost impossible to be politically just to every element of the world. Nevertheless, this doesn't mean it's indifferent how we act. There is a certain degree of injustice which keeps the world dynamic I would say, but if you raise this degree too high, than everything gets out of balance. It's like the difference between having a bonfire in the garden and setting your house on fire. One is spending us warmth and comfort and the other is making us homeless.

In general terms, everything we daily do and don’t do is to some extend a political act. Every product we consume and every conversation we have or haven’t has an impact on people and the environment in general. We’re not only voting once in a while – we’re voting all the time.

If one is aware of that impact he/she has, it automatically leads to a general question of ethics. What are my values? Which world do I wanna live in and how can I get it there?

The more people come aware of their influence the harder doing politics will become. A politician has to genuinely convince the people with arguments and can’t just push a bill trough hoping no one will notice because of its apparent “complexity”.

But why should it be easy to govern the interest of billions of people and millions of species? Its ought to be critical. Like I said, I believe that the world will never be completely fair but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing for, don’t you think?

Accordingly, the goal must be to involve as many people in the political process as possible to make the world as socially/ecologically/ethically fair as possible.

The government in my eyes has a similar function like a parent has to their kids. It should protect them till they’re able to live on their own. Therefore I envision institutions (government/corporations) which progressively lower the structure that they provide until they don’t need the restraining tool of hegemony anymore.

This anarchic idea shouldn’t be confused with current neo-liberal politics. I don’t think that just lowering the restrictions will solve all our problems. I’m rather convinced that that it is dangerous to draw off the structure before the society is in the process of literally emancipation. Only at the point when the society is able to handle more responsibilities, it should become more liberal and with that more free. But this is still far off the agenda of today. Especially because the ethically taken responsibility by the majority of the population is still to weak.

We have a long and educational road ahead of us which will include self doubts, setbacks and misjudgments but it’s the only way I can envision, if we want to strive towards a more equal and fairer world.

Breaking a habit

The everyday life is especially formed by the habits you’ve developed with the people around you. You keep on repeating your philosophy of life by living your conscious and unconscious values.

The way you approach the world around you is giving you safety trough structure, but it’s also restraining you from braking with habits.

Not every habit leads you to being genuinely happy with yourself and the life around you. Some of the habits can be offensive and harmful not only for you but also for parts of your environment.

The question is “how much influence and control do we possess in the decision making process?”.

Dualistically spoken we could distinguish between being the victim of our inheritance and being the independent director of our own life.

It’s somehow crucial to form an opinion on that. Because if you don’t know how and to which extend you can influence your life you are very likely to lose your faith and hope in life. How can you be genuinely happy without them?

In my opinion this question can cut multiple ways. It’s not an absolute question where it’s either being in control or the exact opposite. I rather see life as a process you can’t completely control. There are many factors which are co influenced by many other factors like fellow beings and their “habits” and recurring patterns.

Humans don’t entirely differ in the repetition of the past from other living organisms. I claim that most decisions humans make are out of habits therefore to a certain extent predetermined. We somehow construct an inner structure that functions similar to a computer software. The more stimuli we process the more we rely on the existing structure.

The main difference between “us” and an average computer software user is that we’re capable of updating our software on our own. We are the programmers of our life. Even if we don’t always decide in the presence we did influence the software during the past trough reflexivity.

Reflexivity is our tool to shape our future and by our actions the future of our environment. This brings a lot of responsibility with it. Sartre once said: “man is condemned to be free”.

Freedom although often seen as something entirely positive also forces you into action. Whether you like it or not but you have to handle the challenges that live confronts you with.

That does frighten a lot of people. Especially when they realize that they’ve developed profound ambivalences and unrealistic depictions of good and bad people and things. These faulty conceptions can lead to unwanted compulsions and feelings of regret, shame and guilt.

If you’re not able to reflexively work on your issues you may start punishing yourself and most likely your surrounding (un)consciously. Commonly by suppressing compulsions with denial or fighting it with consumption.

Eventually overpowering habits come to place and make it increasingly difficult to work on your issues. The spectrum of live shrinks and the hope declines. At some point of emotional isolation it’s almost impossible to solve the problems yourself and you have to seek help.

Trust in this case is the major quality one needs to regain. At a certain point minds are so troubled with negative expectations and enemy images that they become likely to construct conspiracy theories and hatred against others.

This anger can operate as a poison and totally ruin your judgment. It’s quite common that people with such a perception of the world end up in isolation and aggression. The consequences can be terrible and include a variety of violent acts. Exploitation, discrimination, abuse and murder are just a few examples of violence that have their roots in this misconception.

Therefore it’s important not to ignore or fight these states of mind only with ignorance and war. It has become a bad habit to proclaim war on almost anything, including terrorists, drugs and prostitution.

I’m not per se against a criminal justice system. But it can only be the framework for a context sensitive support system where the people learn to work on their issues.

As long as one thinks that his or her actions have nothing to do with the violence that is happening in the world, we'll progressively continue to hasten the circle of violence.

The result is on the side of the “privileged” the need for security and on the site of the “deprivileged” the aggression and the suffer trough isolation.

I believe it’s not even a win lose situation for the privileged. Despite having more recourses and not being directly violent, they need to justify their privilege trough tools of discrimination and separation. For this one need to construct himself/herself as superior to the deprivileged.

In my understanding one has to dehumanize oneself to do that. I believe that empathy is a strength that every human possesses and that it’s the engine for the personal pursuit of happiness.

Although both groups seem to suffer they don’t have equal power to change this imbalance. The absurdity is that the one’s that suffer the most have less power than the privileged ones. Even this being so there is a great chance to change the situation on both sides. The power deficit on the one side stands against the superior number of people on the other.

The biggest obstacle for change is the common feeling of isolation and hopelessness. If you believe that change isn’t possible than it won’t be.

I don’t proclaim positivism or the idea that there are easy solutions but I feel confident that mentalities can change and that they want to change. I’m convinced that everyone has the inner urge to live connected to their environment and therefore feels the suffering that is happening around them.

Momentarily many of these perceptions are stunned by consumption and other distractions like the media. In this case globalization and global warming can be seen as a great chance to weak up and to change the world.

I think current human behavior can be described by the metaphor of a frog sitting in a cold pot of water. If the water is getting heated progressively the frog won’t notice the heat and will get boiled, but if you pour boiling water into the pot, he’s gonna jump out.

Sure, it’s an oversimplification but I think there is an actual point in it. Movement and change is most likely to happen when the conditions worsen abruptly.

The point is that if we don’t wanna end up having bigger and bigger crisis where we’re forced to act rapidly to prevent worst case scenarios, than we need to rethink our priorities fundamentally.

It’s important to reflect on our prejudices and to question our use of the resources we have. Of course it seems almost impossible to live a fair live in this society, but no one expects anyone to change overnight. Small continuous steps are enough. Change should also bring enjoyment with it. If you become to dogmatic you are very likely to acerbate and fall back into old pattern or become a cynic.

It’s similar to everything else you can train – e.g. sport. If you start exercising excessively you’re very likely to quit after a couple of days. It’s crucial that you’re patient by accepting your own pace and the natural setbacks that come with everything that is unknown.

Einstein once said: “Each possession I own is like a stone around my neck” and he was right about that. Everything you earn brings responsibilities with it. It also makes you lazy, dependent and weakens your intelligence.

It’s not generally wrong to possess things but they rarely solve general problems. If they are additionally or optional than they can make your live easier, but if you’re using them for something you could easily do by yourself than they end up being a burden undermining your independence.

To sum up, I can say that we're all living our habits and that they are basically important do deal with the challenges live is confronting us with. Nevertheless it is crucial to keep them reflexive and not to naturalize them. In my believe everyone is capable of change. It's just not always the same level of effort. With some it is easier and with others is much harder. Particularly if you're in many senses underprivileged. Especially when it comes to education and other basic needs like food and water. I see the responsibility for change therefore on the side of the privileged - people like me. We have to foster some social change to crate a more just world.

I say, let's break some bad habits :)

Individual-Atom-Theory Part I - friendship

further explainations and the model extension to the double-bind of love relationships will follow soon :)

How to bake a fruitcake

I just realized that I’ve been blogging only in German so far. Ok, there was this one blog about  “Othering”. But this wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have to do it in the first place. The main reason for that are obviously my language skills. It’s much harder to write in English than in German for me. But that doesn’t have to be so. That’s why I wanna practice my English a bit. Another reason is my trip to NZ next month. I’m really looking forward to that. Primarily because of my girlfriend – she’s travelling there currently - but also because of the beautiful landscape and my best friend accompanying me. Let’s face it Germany at this time of the year is a bit too grey. Don’t get me wrong I love the winter, snow and cold temperatures. But this muddy mixture of winter and not jet spring is exhausting. There are still the leftover fireworks from New Years Eve. By now all of them are frozen in the remaining snow-piles. It’s almost art, but not more beautiful than frozen doggie doo. Speaking about which how do you like my German blog? - barely joking. I think my English entries will be a bit different from my German ones. I’m gonna intent to write mainly without any big topic - just brainstorming some impressions and ideas. It’ll be more fun for me, because in my German texts I’ve already started to adapt them to the reader. Because of the smaller audience I think I don’t have to work for expectations. The good think is that if it works out one can start to read wherever he/she wants. Of course there’s gonna be a line of thoughts, but not with one intentional direction. The goal is to create circles. That doesn’t say that I’ll repeat everything, but I’m hoping topics are closing up from itself without any big management. You could also call it creative writing I guess. If I stop to write I try to organize myself while typing. That’ll be fun especially with my language skills “haha”. If you don’t understand something just go on. It doesn’t matter if you get everything – anything should be the goal. Just catching some ideas and see what they do with you. It might be a bit like meditation for you. But if you watch TV you’re probably used to it. At least on this channel I’m not switching program like TV does. There’s Fleaflo on presumably for the whole time. If not call someone for help, because that’ll mean that I eventually lost my mind and that would be awful, because I really need it to stay sane, some say. What would I do if I weren’t sane? Am I sane? Maybe not, but who is? So please just call when I sound like a real fruitcake. I’m just thinking if I should install something to prevent me from going mad. That’s maybe not a bad idea at all. What would do that job for me? I know – a reflection in the end. At least I’ve to suffer with you after typing. That’s an excellent idea, because usually I don’t read anything I write. I mean, I don’t wanna be narcissistic or so. No, honestly I love reading my lines. ^^ Another joke – isn’t it amazing how I plant them? No it’s not. Having brought so much to bear, I can finally close the case for today - time to check if I’m already nuts!

A short story about Racism and the construction of the “Other”

Racism is and has never been a stable unchanging phenomenon. It’s a discourse through and trough. Speaking about the “New Racism” therefore can be slightly misleading. Usually an old image of race pops into our minds. You might think about Nazis, genocide and the biological picture of race. It can feel greatly old-fashioned like bygone tales of plague and scurvy. No reasonable sane person would admit to believing in race theory today. Considering this, why is racism still an issue today? Why can’t we do file it then? 

As already mentioned - racism is very flexible. It doesn’t primarily describe the idea of race. It rather stands for the characteristics of the construction of race. Therefore the “enemy image” and more boldly the construction of the enemy images alias “Othering” might be less misleading for understanding racism. Whenever you’re dividing people in unalterable groups whether on ethnic, race or broad culture, you’ve created the matrix for racism. This usually isn’t a very conscious process and doesn’t explain much without further explanation. Everyone generalizes at some point every day. If your hairdresser gives you an unsatisfactory haircut and that happens a couple of times with various other barbers. What would your attitude be like when the next haircut is unavoidable? Would you have the same attitude like the first time or do you expect “Edward Scissorhands” and “Sweeney Todd”? 

On some level Othering is a very natural and helpful tool to manage your life. If someone is sitting in front of a cash register you can be very certain that this person will take your money and let you pass with your groceries. The problem arises when your drawers get literally stuck in the cabinet. In this case it’s getting more and more complicated to empathize with the Others. You emotionally withdraw yourself what makes you literally not able to understand him/her realistically. This lack of connection and direct communication can lead to severe enemy images. By that goes a progressive growing fear. I remember being a toddler and moving in my first private room. After a couple of weeks I’ve been convinced that there were creepy monsters under my bed. Every time I wanted to get out of it, I made huge (for my age and condition) jumps to avoid getting snapped by these monsters. With time my phobia raised to a level where I was very certain how these monsters look like and how to fight them. I had no ambition to confront them personally, so I took my slipper and began to slap the parquet floor from now and then, just trying to keep them in their hiding place. I’ve obviously been a weird kid... 

However, what I wanted to point out is that imagination plays a major part in the enemy construction. You don’t really need the presence of the "enemy" to construct it.

In today’s Germany and obviously anywhere else in the world the media has become the most canalizing and powerful tool for opinion making. It presents itself as impartial and objective and finds its ways trough television, newspapers, radio and internet. Even if you manage to avoid these media, you have to deal with the snowball system. Humans and societies are of permeable character. What influences one individual ultimately passes via communication to another. With the ongoing growth on technological level the ties between people multiple. Trough networks like Facebook, Twitter, mobile phones and E-mail accounts one is permanently swamped with information. It becomes increasingly harder to track the roots/sources of all this information. In the end it’s essentially a matter of trust. We are living in a weird bivalence. Although we have an increasing number of publications, the actual variety of information seems to shrink. I came to the thesis while watching a documentary about US media. On several points the news coverage especially while covering the “War on Terror” was in every medium almost identical. Whole phrases seemed cloned. The only difference was the wrapping. The problem in my opinion is that almost no publisher in the world really does "independent research" (whatever that means) or at least tries to. Usually they buy their sources from press agencies. It’s a bit like shopping regional food in Germany. You can’t expect to get e.g. grapes during wintertime and if you get them you'd better be very careful eating them thoughtlessly.

The 'problem' is that you can’t really blame the press or the farmer in this metaphor. It’s a bit like asking the queen about homeless people. Their lives are presumably so far off from each other, that you can’t seriously expect her to develop real empathy. At best you're getting pitty, but what's that good for? This example is obviously overstating but I hope you’re getting the picture. 

Anyhow, there doesn't seem to be the one cause for racism and other forms of discrimination. Neither  does a powerful minority oppresses us with discrimination. Without us as citizens no discrimination would be possible. We're a very vivid part in the mechanism. The media is just one jigsaw in this far bigger framework and works more as catalyst than source of racism. If we wanna dig for the core we have to take a look at the reasons, why groups and individuals alienate themselves from others. 

The process of Othering is not a one way scenario that only affects the other. It also affects the one that alienates him- or herself. I think that someone who suppresses the natural human empathy to another being on a rational level automatically grows uncertainty and fear or dulls. It seems very inhuman to do so. Why then would anyone take that path? Again, it’s obviously not a self-centered conscious choice. Moreover it might be a semi-conscious choice which is closer to our everyday life than maybe expected. Haven’t we all at some point been on the stage where we asked ourselves whether we continue a relationship or not? Be it mother, father, friend or partner. In my family half of my relatives have stopped talking to each other. However that didn’t stop them from talking about each other. With my examples I don’t wanna apply that canceling a relationship is ultimately racial. I’m just trying to reveal the basical psychological patterns of othering. 

I do remember talking about history at school. It always seemed very ‘romantic’ and far off. The Holocaust seemed like something abselutely ungraspable and undeletable. I just thought that these people impossibly could have been humans. But seeing someone as inhumane can be the breeding ground for xenophobia. I’m not sure how accurate the term phobia in this case actually is, because it’s a clinical term for a mental illness. Accordingly there is the term ‘mentality’ to describe the behavior of groups. I think in both cases it’s just from limited use. It can be helpful to understand some general behavior, but it can also become a huge stigma in the micro level when e.g. analyzing a single individual. I think it is more important to understand some dynamics than establishing a generalization and theory which adapts on other cases. I guess we’ve all witnessed Thilo Sarrazin and his research on migration in Germany. It really gave us a cautionary tale for what happens if you want to explore the mentality of groups. I hope it’ll get into the history books as a good example of how quantitative research can worsen the conflict it claims to solve. 

The arising question at this point for me is: what does one give this Othering? It must have some positive impact on the subject mustn’t it? Assuming that the human is a social being we could conclude that one can’t live without other humans. Therefore it wouldn't seem far from seek that we define ourselves in relation to other people would it? Consequently we gossip and bitch about colleagues, professors, employees, strangers etc. pp. We don’t even know some of them. We’re constructing images out of sciolism. I’ve approximately trashed about 1000 times more people than I’ll ever learn the names of. When I look back it mostly gave me confidence and drew me closer to the people I gossiped with. It on some level unified us. The problem with gossiping is that there eventually comes the bad feeling that folk might be talking similarly about you. Whether that is true or not, the thought alone can be scary, can't it? I’m talking from experience when I add that it can become a dangerous vicious circle. The more you bitch about the more your self esteem depends on it. 

The dynamic of your group begins to change while the invisible other becomes the main topic. Even if you want to take a step back you are very likely to get lost in group dynamics. I guess that’s the core reason why many consolidations fail. Every semester the students of the ASH experience similar dynamics while the mutual election for the seminars. When one seminar is overcrowded some have to move. Since the first semesters some peer groups have emerged. They mostly want jointly in the very same course and don’t want in other courses even though they don’t really know the prof. they deny or the alternatives in their schedules. If finally one brave individual switches courses, he/she picks usually to some unfortunate often another overcrowded course. You have to consider various interdependence chains. Finally it  appears easier to stay status quo than working it out on the personal level. For our university it might be unfortunate but ok. 

Talking about racism it gotta be challenged on every level I say. It’s not just affecting in which courses you sit, it’s lowering the quality of everyones lives on several levels. Similar to mental disorders you have to carefully and patiently find ways to change the information processing. According to a survey of the University Leipzig in 2004 almost half of the questioned Germans agreed to the statement that Germany is dangerously alienated by its many foreigners. That seems like dangerous breeding ground for enemy constructions to me. 

Differing to the Third Reich, there isn’t a strong right wing party yet, nonetheless there are alerts like a poll for Thilo Sarrazin book “Germany abolishes itself” unveils. It stated that half of those polled agreed with his racial theses. But there are some signs of hope. One might be Germany’s democratic-parliamentarian history. Even though it’s no more than half a century old, it has more or less successful overcome some challenges. Politics aren’t ignoring the problem of racism completely. Thus in 2006 Germany established the General Law on Equality, which shall provide the tool to challenge all kinds of discrimination. Besides, simply the remembrance (if we would do it properly) to the atrocities during Germanys Nazi period should prevent the government and the population from collapsing into former patterns, shouldn’t it?

Nonetheless, we are facing a racial German society today. Even though we are an immigration country, we’re still not practicing proper integration with our new neighbors. The act as equal partner in the integration process hasn’t worked out yet. Often both sides have stopped the negotiation and communication. Our society is torn apart, like other countries in the world we've a separation between the people who life here for many generations and those who joined later. The sad part in this story is that we really could get along together. It would be enriching for everyone and many fears would vanish in thin air. Instead we’ve discrimination in almost every field of life. If you take a look at the labor marked you see migrants working either in the low wage sector as cleaners, cashiers, farm workers etc. or not at all. Every 5^th young migrant is unemployed. In this stage of life this is a precarious circumstance. Similar discrimination occurs when it comes to housing, education and surprisingly health care. Even though Germany has a public health care for all citizens, migrants lack in accessibility. One cause for that is probably the language barrier. Germany is very strict on the monolingual approach, unlike other countries like India, which e.g. has around 20 official languages, Germany sticks only to German. But I don’t think that monolingualism will endure eternally. Many young people speak 3 or more languages. If we don’t wanna lose diversity and ‘freedom’, everyone has to open up to prevent assimilation and frustration in our society. You can only start with yourself by trying to comprehend your own enemy images. It’s a discourse it’ll never be over but it’ll become much easier with practice - I promise.