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Scary saber-toothed tiger
Photo: Daniel Eskridge / iStockphoto / Getty Images
"Every day counts now," warned the Chancellor on Saturday.
"That's not enough to avert disaster," she said last week, frustrated about the corona crisis summit with the prime minister.
"That doesn't lead to a happy ending."
That sounds biblically gloomy by their standards.
Nikolaus Blome, arrow to the right
Photo:
Daniel Reinhardt / DPA
Born in 1963, until October 2019 was deputy editor-in-chief and head of politics of the "Bild" newspaper.
From 2013 to 2015 he headed the SPIEGEL capital city office as a member of the editor-in-chief; previously he was deputy editor-in-chief of "Bild".
Since August 2020 he has headed the politics department at RTL and n-tv.
No question, that's how you frighten the citizens, that's how you even scare many.
So: Merkel goes Greta Thunberg (
"I want you to panic!")
?
Is the situation really that desperate or is it just the temptation to really knead the masses?
Evolutionary research shows that the fear of saber-toothed tigers in the savannah was once a reliable advisor to humans.
If this fear had not existed in good time, many exciting questions about humanity could not be discussed today due to the lack of humanity.
Research also shows, however, that persistent or imposed fear paralyzes and causes disease.
The dose makes the poison, especially when administered from above, by government and authorities.
Fear is always like a little exception.
And whoever can impose it is the true power in the state, wrote the constitutional lawyer and National Socialist Carl Schmitt, and therefore the "sovereign".
So who can frighten whom in an open society?
A Federal Chancellor for all Germans, an environmental activist for the whole world?
The responsible milieus are also exceptions
The milieus of the politically mature actually reject fear as a means of politics.
Rightly, they accuse the AfD of fueling people's fears and managing their resentment.
But if politically instrumentalized fear contributes to one's own wishes, the responsible milieus also make exceptions.
For Joe Biden as US President, for example, the fear of what Donald Trump would destroy in another term of office speaks primarily.
I think the US Democrats are rightly campaigning vigorously with this, while they pray every day that their husband does not fall down the next flight of stairs because of old age.
Are Angela Merkel and Greta Thunberg allowed to stir up fears because they are both interested in something indisputably good?
That moved last week Luisa Neubauer from "Fridays For Future".
She asked about the reports on Merkel's "misfortune" quote on Twitter: "Why is it so expected that such a statement will be made after a corona conference - and so unthinkable to hear something like this after a climate conference?"
Um ... because there is a difference.
I don't want to tell anyone to find the coronavirus and a lockdown at Christmas worse than global warming (or vice versa).
I don't want to count one damage against the other either.
I am interested in whether or when creating fear for a good cause at a morally and politically acceptable price actually works in practice.
The Chancellor scares all citizens, so that a certain minority in particular will behave as if the strict rules existed, which the Prime Minister could not enforce.
This is psycho-politics and a daring experiment.
In exceptional cases it could still work: The periods to be overlooked are extremely short, the effort for the individual is limited and is clearly linked to the prospect of avoiding catastrophic damage.
Everything is a bit like the other day in the savannah with the saber-toothed tiger.
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This does not apply to stirring up fear or even panic about global warming, the stimulus-reaction scheme is different: in the eyes of the majority, not the activists, the connections are global and extremely complicated, the individual effort is significantly more expensive and the possible success with personal action is less stringently linked.
In addition, one cannot get rid of the suspicion that a major goal is being promoted here, but at the same time the discussion is stalled, although the selection of the best means is still in progress and the distribution of the costs is still controversial.
Whoever sows fear anyway will therefore reap refusal too often for it to be worthwhile.
If someone wants to call at this point, but climate change is about all or nothing in the next 14 days, as with Corona, then please pause, because it leads nowhere to clear the world of questions.
Of course, global warming is pressing.
But,
face it
, it won't press the Germans as immediately next week as an exponentially spreading infection.
Nevertheless, I will concede one thing: the Chancellor could also spare the citizens her ominously threatening words.
All she has to do is say that she has just bought a hundred pack of toilet paper and lots of red wine in reserve, just like that.
Then the German Hamster Kings would immediately understand that fun is over now.
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