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Would Machiavelli survive in politics today, Mr. Münkler (archive picture)
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Future Image / IMAGO
SPIEGEL:
Do you enjoy being a contemporary witness in the 21st century?
Münkler:
If new answers to old questions are required, it is at least intellectually challenging.
And at the same time, the Germans have never been better off, materially and in terms of security of life than they are now.
You like to be there.
SPIEGEL:
What was great about the 1920s in Berlin?
Münkler:
I only know them from literature and a few films.
My father was born in 1923 and called himself the inflation year.
At the beginning and end of the 1920s, the excessive enjoyment of life in the big cities corresponded to hardship and misery, insecurity and uncertainty.
Much of what we think of as wild and boisterous today was probably numb in the face of a bitter reality.
SPIEGEL:
Do you feel any parallels between then and now?
Münkler:
No.
I'm too old to want to participate in the resurgent club and party culture.
Otherwise, self-intoxication has never been my thing.
And above all, the lockdown did not affect my life, which is essentially taking place at my desk, as deeply as it probably did with many others.
These are the main reasons for my ignorance of parallels.
SPIEGEL:
Will history repeat itself?
Münkler:
History never repeats itself.
But there are certain similarities in their course.
The more interesting ones are not the ones that are obvious, but the ones that you have to track down to find them.
SPIEGEL:
Can you dance on the volcano during Corona times?
Münkler:
Hardly because everything volcanic was switched off.
SPIEGEL:
What did you do during the lockdown?
Münkler: Sitting
at the desk and working, reading, taking notes, writing on a book.
And benefit from the prescribed calm and restraint.
I'm afraid I've been a Corona winner most of the time.
Probably not even the only one.
But at least I admit it.
SPIEGEL:
Are we living in a corona regime?
Münkler:
Without a doubt - from the mask that you have to wear in many rooms to the cell phone that you have to carry with you because of the vaccination certificate.
It should be noted, however, that, according to international comparative studies, the behavior change of most people began before the state took measures to contain the pandemic.
The corona regime was self-imposed for most people.
The state measures were more like guidelines for orientation.
SPIEGEL:
Does the corona crisis also offer an opportunity?
Münkler:
There are opportunities in every crisis: some that impose themselves, such as accelerated digitization or the strengthening of the precautionary state (masks, oxygen, capacities for the production of vaccines), others that you have to think about (more home office, thereby relieving the metropolitan housing market) and finally the ones we have yet to find.
SPIEGEL:
Will we see a time after Corona in which we can regain civil rights?
Münkler:
Certainly, we are currently in a phase of revival of temporarily suspended civil rights or those that we ourselves have not exercised for security reasons.
But we will have to reckon with further pandemics in the 21st century - contrary to the term “pandemic of the century”, which suggests that we no longer have to reckon with such an event in this century.
On the contrary, we should prepare ourselves so as not to repeat the mistakes made recently.
SPIEGEL:
What three things would you change immediately if you were Federal Chancellor?
Münkler:
You overestimate the power of the chancellor;
alone he or she cannot change anything.
But if it does: currently a stricter and more determined vaccination policy with a stronger obligation, because this is the only way we can get out of the corona regime quickly, in addition to a faster implementation of decisions, i.e. reduction of blockade positions and elimination of veto players, and finally an accurate and reliable one Documentation of vaccinations so that you don't have to guess what the RKI is doing now.
SPIEGEL:
Do you have confidence in Germany's parliamentary system?
Münkler:
Yes, but it is permanently in need of reform.
The Bundestag has to become smaller again through a reform of the electoral law, the opportunities for citizens to participate at the local level have to be expanded in order to strengthen the experience of exerting influence, and the legalization of all levels has to be limited in order to shift power back from the lawyers to the citizens .
SPIEGEL:
Are we currently experiencing a "defensive democracy"?
Münkler:
I'm afraid the answer will vary from state to state.
The action taken by some of the Saxon courts to remove posters, the message of which could be understood as a call to murder, is the opposite of a defensive democracy.
SPIEGEL:
Was Angela Merkel a good chancellor?
Münkler:
There is no general answer to this question.
She did some things well, some even very well - but what was her strength in one case was her weakness in the other.
For example, the patience that she has shown in forging compromises, especially in Brussels, has become a problem when it comes to resolutely at the forefront of developments or forcing decisions.
Machiavelli, with whom I have worked a lot, has described this problem as the matching of a political character with the specific challenges of the time, the "qualità dei tempi", as he calls it.
SPIEGEL:
Will everything get better with Olaf Scholz?
Münkler:
We'll see.
In a three-party coalition, he will also have to moderate again and again, i.e. to act in a similar way to Merkel.
If, in retrospect, after four years, we come to the conclusion that a lot went better under Scholz, it will not only affect him as Chancellor, but above all the functioning of the coalition and the efficiency of the federal ministers.
The last Merkel cabinet had some slack.
SPIEGEL:
Do you love Europe?
Münkler:
I like to go on vacation in Europe, look at cities and landscapes and enjoy the fact that the border controls have in principle been dropped (the Corona regime has reminded us of the old days) and the annoying exchange of money has become superfluous thanks to the euro is.
I really appreciate it.
SPIEGEL:
Do you love Germany?
Münkler:
The concept of love is too intimate for me to denote the appreciation of political developments.
SPIEGEL:
Does Germany have a problem with anti-Semitism?
Münkler:
Without a doubt.
Of course, some other countries also have that, in Germany it is particularly noticeable.
And it is expected that there are no provocateurs in Germany who use anti-Semitic statements to put themselves in the limelight.
SPIEGEL:
Does the country lack an intellectual compass?
Münkler:
Not really.
We have a lively culture of debate that can be seen as an intellectual compass.
What we do not have or only marginally have are intellectuals who play a political leadership role, as has long been the case in France - by no means only with happy consequences.
With us, intellectual leadership is less spectacular, but probably more sustainable.
SPIEGEL:
Who are the three brightest minds in the republic?
Münkler:
Oh dear!
I'm afraid I'll have to pass, because I find some of the people I actually think to be very clever, simple-minded, if not to say stupid, in some of their positions, and some simple-minded sometimes impress me.
And above all, I don't have anyone in my sights so permanently that I could really assign the superlative to them.
SPIEGEL:
In your new book "Marx, Wagner Nietzsche" you describe the intellectual explosive power of three men of the 19th century.
Why should anyone read your book?
Münkler:
Because with all three, with one more, with others less, very clever considerations can be found alongside terrible errors and you can never distinguish between the clever and the wrong as well as in the retrospective.
So dealing with the three leads to a certain reluctance to face current ideas.
And at the same time you can find different answers to a social upheaval among the three, all of which are right, including against each other.
If one has been cheeky beforehand, one becomes rather meek if one engages in the analyzes and interpretations of the three, and one is amazed at how much their ideas have been misunderstood and thus falsified by the adepts.
SPIEGEL:
Your favorite Wagner opera?
Münkler:
Without a doubt the "Ring of the Nibelung", and of that the "Valkyrie".
SPIEGEL:
Which »Ring« production in Bayreuth was the most impressive?
Münkler:
Patrice Chéreau's from 1976, but I didn't see her in Bayreuth, but a few years later in film recordings.
This has to do with the cross-fades made by Chéreau of the material with the constellations of the 19th century, through which the mythical in the broader sense became the diagnostic of the present.
That then set a course.
SPIEGEL:
Is Marx's analysis of capitalism still valid today?
Münkler:
Basically yes, and perhaps more than at the time of its creation, because Marx anticipated a lot (such as globalization) that was only just beginning at the time;
not in many details.
Apart from that, Marx repeatedly made modifications to his considerations right up to the end, meaning that he himself did not assume that what he had written was the last word on the matter.
SPIEGEL:
Is politics doomed to fail on an aesthetic basis?
Münkler:
There is hardly any politics that does not have an aesthetic side, we can see that in the constant struggle for images and the implementation of certain ideas with the help of certain images. Such images have a stronger emotional access to our thoughts and actions than words and texts. Much has been written about this. You probably don't mean the aestheticization of politics, but the politicization of aesthetics, i.e. the attempt by artists and intellectuals to intervene in politics with the means at their disposal. Success and failure stand side by side. Goya's »disastres« from the anti-Napoleonic war in Spain changed our view of the war, but the project of re-enchanting the world with the means of art has more of an effect on the personal-emotional level.than it actually changes the world.
SPIEGEL:
What remains of Nietzsche?
Münkler:
Above all, his keen eye for what he called "human, all-too-human," that is, Nietzsche, who linked up with the French moral studies of Montaigne and La Rochefoucault.
SPIEGEL:
What do you think of Nietzsche's art songs?
Münkler:
They didn't bother me any more than Nietzsche's compositions.
SPIEGEL:
What makes a good joke?
Münkler:
That you don't guess the punch line straight away, but that it comes as a surprise.
Because that's what makes us laugh.
SPIEGEL:
What makes a good restaurant?
Münkler:
Good food, so quality instead of chichi, attentive service and an attractive space.
SPIEGEL:
Do you mourn old Europe?
Münkler:
Not the Europe of nationalist opposites, not even the Europe of colonialist or imperialist expansion, sometimes the Europe of enlightened spirituality, calm and serenity - but these are more imaginations than real experiences.
It is probably an ideal that is projected into the past.
SPIEGEL:
Do you believe in a new Europe?
Münkler:
What does it mean to believe?
I have wishes and expectations, plus ideas of what is politically necessary, but I am not particularly optimistic that I will experience that.
SPIEGEL:
Was Brexit a mistake?
Münkler:
The British have to decide that.
In any case, it did not strengthen Europe.
And he is now tempting the Poles to further perforate the European project in the shadow of Brexit.
So more of a fatality.
SPIEGEL:
Is Pope Francis a good Pope?
Münkler:
Probably someone who means well, but is too weak to enforce what is well meant.
SPIEGEL:
In one sentence: Machiavelli was ...
Münkler:
... a staunch republican who wanted to defend a republic built on a broad social basis in a time of bureaucratic concentration of power and was convinced that this could not be achieved through prayer and pleading.
SPIEGEL:
Would Machiavelli survive in politics today?
Münkler:
It depends where he would live.
In Russia - very doubtful.
As an American whistleblower, he would be in exile or in prison.
But above all: Which Machiavelli do you mean: the active politician who was deposed and banished because of his republican convictions, or the thinker and writer who described politics with cynical frankness?
SPIEGEL:
Are you for or against gender asterisks?
Münkler:
They block the flow of reading and disrupt the composition, but they respond to a major problem that is that what is said or written dominates what is conceivable.
You have to think about it further, without the asterisks being immediately seen as the solution.
SPIEGEL:
Are you missing the »Literary Quartet« around Reich-Ranicki?
Münkler:
As a literary program, definitely;
the follow-up programs did not take shape because they lacked the sharpness of judgment and the amusement of Reich-Ranicki.
SPIEGEL:
How much do you research / write every day?
Münkler:
There are days when I mainly read and take notes that I can refer to later, and there are days when I write, i.e. produce text.
When writing, it is between five and eight pages - it depends on how complex what is to be presented or analyzed is.
When taking notes, I can't put a figure on the scope.
SPIEGEL:
Which books are you reading right now?
Münkler:
Books about the Turkish wars from the 14th to the 18th century.
I am currently thinking about the emergence of world orders and their imagination in the minds of political actors, and I am interested in the struggle between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs.
SPIEGEL:
Which three books on politics should everyone have read?
Münkler:
If it can only be three: Aristotle's “Politics”, Machiavelli's “Principe” and Marx's “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”.
SPIEGEL:
Do you still read the newspaper?
Münkler:
Yes, even several newspapers.
I read there more closely and attentively than when I go online.
SPIEGEL:
Did Peter Handke deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature?
Münkler:
Not according to my ideas, but he's not the only one.
SPIEGEL:
Has there been a military achievement in recent years that you admire?
Münkler:
No.
SPIEGEL:
Are you afraid of the asymmetrical war?
Münkler:
Fear is almost always a dysfunctional reaction.
It is one of the most important tasks of politics to transform fear into fear, i.e. to transform a diffuse disposition into a directed precautionary behavior, and this not only among the specialists in problem solving, but also among the general public.
Instead of fear, there is attention and preparation.
SPIEGEL:
Who was the best James Bond actor?
Münkler:
Sean Connery.
SPIEGEL:
Which world event would you have liked to have attended?
Münkler:
As a reader of many books, I have the chance to be present at every world event - and on top of that to know that it is a world event, that, based on Goethe, a new era is starting here and now.
Most contemporaries don't even know that.
It is much easier for the reader who enjoys the benefit of "in retrospect".
Physical presence is not that important.
SPIEGEL:
We won't do that for you.
Münkler:
Okay, if it absolutely has to be: at the imperial proclamation in January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, as a civilian, without a uniform and without a saber, but in the first row.
If Anton von Werner hadn't just painted me there, but a citizen could have been so prominent, it would have resulted in a different course of German history.
Physical presence would have been worth it for that.
SPIEGEL:
Does time pass slowly or quickly?
Münkler:
The older I get, the faster.
Unfortunately.
SPIEGEL:
Are you in favor of a speed limit?
Münkler:
Not necessarily as an (unreasonable) driver, but as a (responsible) grandfather of two grandchildren.
SPIEGEL:
Who would you like to have dinner with?
Münkler:
I don't know.
There are many I would talk to - but dinner?
So you have the problem of which restaurant this should take place in, and then the choice of food, the definition of the courses ... So, why not prefer a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.
And dinners are reserved for friends and family.
SPIEGEL:
What is on your shopping list today?
Münkler:
A scannable printer and copier.
SPIEGEL:
Your tip for the next generation?
Münkler:
Don't let yourself be distracted by the abundance of diffuse information and work against the diversion.
SPIEGEL:
Which club are you a member of?
Münkler:
In none.
SPIEGEL:
What is the meaning of life?
Münkler:
That it was one from which, as Luther's translation of the Bible puts it, "full of life" can be eliminated.
SPIEGEL:
Do you believe in life after death?
Münkler:
No.
But to an afterlife through what one leaves behind - if possible not only in a material sense.
SPIEGEL:
What should be on your gravestone?
Münkler:
That should be decided by my wife or my children.
