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Armin Laschet: He uses the term »ideology« contradictingly
Photo: Christoph Hardt / imago images / Future Image
Election campaigns are always kind of embarrassing, but you can't look away completely either.
When Armin Laschet speaks, for example.
At a rally by the CDU and CSU he said a few days ago: "I will fight with everything I can to ensure that this country is not taken over by ideologues." The SPD and the Greens have forgotten the social issue and jobs, "because they only care about their ideology. "
Armin Laschet has something with the concept of ideology, that much can be said.
In the spring he said: "The future cannot be shaped with ideological left-wing experiments." And: "We are the bulwark against ideology-driven politics that intervene in all areas of people's lives." her position on abortion intervenes directly in the uterus, but only incidentally.
In an interview on the Protestant Kirchentag two years ago, Laschet said: "The religions offer a medicine against ideology that inflates itself and wants to create the kingdom of heaven on earth."
Three ways to understand ideology
Now there are broadly three different ways in which the term "ideology" can be understood. Either by "ideology" one simply means the same thing as "Weltanschauung" or "Weltanschauung". Then ideology is not a bad thing, but something that everyone has somehow. That cannot be what Laschet meant, because then he would also be an ideologist. Or by “ideology” one only means the worldview of the other: as if one had a neutral view of the world and one could, as it were, recognize the naked reality and the others simply not. It could be, but of course that would also mean that Laschet thinks he is better in a somewhat exaggerated sense. Or by “ideology” one means something like a “false consciousness”, but then Laschet would have a concept of ideology based on Marx and how funny would that be?
It may seem a little word-stealing to examine the concept of ideology in Armin Laschet, it also feels a bit like a doctoral topic from hell, but it's also interesting. If someone uses the term "ideology" particularly often, one can take a closer look at how and why he is doing it.
Because one can actually expect from politicians that they use political terms more or less consistently. In fact, Laschet uses the term "ideology" in a contradictory manner, because in the interview on religion cited above he also said: "Of all the ideas, ideologies and religious beliefs in the world, the Christian message that is taken seriously is the best I know." That he himself has an ideology seems to be quite clear to him. Just not an ideology which - see above - "exalts itself and wants to create the kingdom of heaven on earth". He has made it clear several times that Laschet himself does not want to create the kingdom of heaven on earth. Another time he said: "Belief in God is formative for my understanding of the world [...] if one believes in it,that it somehow continues after death, politics is done differently than, for example, a communist who urgently wants to create paradise on earth by all means until the end of his life. "
more on the subject
Chancellor candidate staging: Laschet's path to paradiseA column by Samira El Ouassil
My colleague Samira El Ouassil has already devoted herself in detail to this grotesque own goal from a quotation, but for our purposes there is another hint: Armin Laschet rarely says more specifically what he means by ideology, but then mainly he seems to be against »ideology «When he means leftist ideas.
On the one hand this is understandable, on the other hand it is interesting, because he could also explicitly turn against leftists more often.
Or against communism or atheism or non-Christian religions.
Now, of course, the concept of ideology does not only appear in Armin Laschet.
A look at the news of the last few weeks: Sebastian Kurz recently spoke of the Taliban's "sick ideology", a psychotherapist recently warned on Deutschlandfunk Kultur that Corona has meanwhile "not been able to convince the rank of a certain ideology where you can't talk, but everyone has their own position «.
The “Welt” asked whether the Greens “ideology is more important than the Basic Law”, the Austrian “Kurier” said “Climate protection needs facts instead of ideology” and “Die Presse”: “Refusal to vaccinate is a dangerous ideology”.
Dogmatism
When the term ideology is used, it usually means something like dogmatism. That is a shame, because "ideology" is actually a term with which one could do a lot if one were to use it in the way that Critical Theory used it, building on Marx: with Adorno, ideology is "objectively necessary and at the same time false consciousness, (...) entanglement of the true and the untrue «. So not just a wrong worldview that can be straightened out with a few facts, but a worldview that somehow works for those who have it and that results from the circumstances in which people live.
All current discussions about the pandemic, about climate or migration policy, about strikes and wage increases, about education and health care are discussions that are shaped by ideologies. In all of these debates, the question arises again and again whether the prevailing bourgeois, capitalist, racist and sexist worldview, to which we have all at least in some way become accustomed, does not stand in the way of the good life for everyone. Finding ideology in others does not mean that you don't have one yourself. But one would have to spend less time with symbolic debates about currywurst and cargo bikes if one were to more explicitly name the underlying fears of certain developments and ideals of a society. Or to put it another way: if it were clearer to peoplethat their worldview is not neutral, but arose from the conditions in which they live, one could better talk about how one wants to change the conditions for the better. Then the election campaign might also be less embarrassing.