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Author Berg: Let's be gentle with all of us
Photo: Soeren Stache / picture alliance / dpa
What justification is there for "opinion columns" at a time when opinions are greatly overrated because, unlike knowledge, they can be changed like underwear?
Especially now that public speaking out has been democratized and anyone is free to speak out on blogs or social media.
That's good, hooray.
But loud.
What is meant twice cannot be wrong
When the high school of »thinking through« collides with the hysteria of the messages, an opinion is nothing to be expected of applause. The only thing that still lends an aura of validity to the regularity of the expression of opinions in, well, what do you call it, the paid media – which are sometimes also free (apart from a few data that are tapped and exploited) – is perhaps a better one Style. Or the notoriety of the authors. Or the need to fill space.
In order to gain additional competence, many column fillers came up with the idea of linking other opinions. What is meant twice cannot be wrong. Others have taken to elevating science below its felt, momentary truth in order to place the ephemerality of your thoughts on a foundation of the sublime. For example something like: Consider the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis! So the assumption, approved by studies, that language influences thinking. As a culture pessimist, you may ask what kind of thinking.
Which brings us to the left and my feeling that the division of people into left and right has been tiring me for ages.
As if there were only fat entrepreneurs on the one hand and soulful new wool wearers on the other.
I support this opinion with the philosopher of science Bruno Latour, who is astonished that the political landscape is based on the “obsolete” distinction between left and right, “only because in 1789 the members of parliament got used to sitting in front of the chairperson in this way to take".
Let's not put too much stock in the certainty of having an opinion
The many members of a more anti-capitalist worldview, i.e. many of those who have theater subscriptions and are overflowing with joy about the honey that is being bee-cultivated on the roof (their own) have discovered framing in the past two years. In other words, how complex information is selected and processed in a structured manner by appropriation or reinterpretation or disproportionate frequency of use in order to achieve a specific problem definition, causal attribution, moral evaluation in the sense of the framing creator.
For example, the old, left-wing battlefield "solidarity" has been repeated so vehemently over the past two years, as if many had just discovered the Human Rights Charter.
In most cases he meant: nothing.
There was little sign of solidarity, for example when it came to protecting residents of the Global South from serious illnesses.
There were also a few left-wing groups trying to provide concrete help to those living below the poverty line, who organized interpreters to educate population groups who cannot get information about the pandemic from the press or podcasts on a daily basis.
No matter which political spectrum he or she feels part of, as we have learned after long capitalist training, he or she is closest to himself.
This is perhaps very human and can be seen particularly well in times of crisis.
And the repetition of the word "solidarity" doesn't change that.
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Sibylle Berg
GRM: Brainfuck.
novel
Publisher: KiWi Paperback
Number of pages: 640
Publisher: KiWi Paperback
Number of pages: 640
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01/15/2022 2:34 p.m
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But that's just my opinion.
Underpinned with many not very meaningful theses, reinforced with complicated box sentences.
And provided with a simple final apotheosis:
Let's be gentler with all of us, less self-righteous, and less concerned about the certainty of having an opinion.
Let's resist the impulse to announce them out loud.
That goes for everyone but me.
Because my opinion is also very great in the new year.