At “Markus Lanz”, the guests discussed the subject of freedom of expression intensively.
There is seldom agreement in the character heads group.
On Wednesday evening, “Markus Lanz” investigates the question of whether freedom of expression is threatened in Germany. The reason for this is the current Allensbach study, which found that 45 percent of people in Germany are of the opinion that you can no longer express your opinion freely and 44 percent say it is better to exercise caution when making statements. The journalist Giovanni di Lorenzo says: “Yes, and that's the way it should be. You don't say everything in every situation. "At the same time, he states:" Everyone can say what they want - but I think what can be intimidating to a relatively large number of people are the sanctions that can result from it. "
However, di Lorenzo notes that the responsible opinion bodies have changed: “The classic bodies of repression are the state, churches, the economy - none of this is any longer the case in Germany. They hardly have any influence on what people say. If there is this intimidation effect, it comes from society itself. And that is a relatively new phenomenon and scary to a lot of people. "
Political scientist Emilia Roig believes that “it also has to do with the fact that we realize that the debate has not been democratic either.
That it was and continues to be a debate that has excluded many people and portrayed many people from the outside. "There is actually a paradigm shift in the way we talk about social problems as we do about others," says Roig speak.
And that also comes from the empowerment of people who were previously defined from the outside and who had little power to act in terms of their self-image. "
“Markus Lanz” guests agree on one thing: freedom of expression yes, but also caution
Thea Dorn thinks that society has "naturally become more cautious". “As a writer,” she says, “I of course believe that you can hurt with words and that you therefore have to think about words.” However, this principle has its limits for her: “It becomes difficult when, for example, individual words don't even exist may be quoted more because the pure sound makes them so hurtful or traumatizing by people that it is said that such a word must be completely banned from a vocabulary. Then I tend to feel uncomfortable. "
The blogger Sascha Lobo sees no contradiction in the two positions queried by the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy: “Of course I can express my opinion freely, I agree with all of the previous speakers.
Of course, it could just as well be that I better drive by being careful now.
I do not consider this to be a contradiction, but rather an expression of our time that has been expanded with a very special ingredient.
And that is social media and the Internet [...] For the first time we have the situation that really every person can express themselves and that it can, at least potentially, be received worldwide. "
"Markus Lanz" - these were his guests on June 30th:
Giovanni di Lorenzo
- journalist
Emilia Roig
- political scientist
Thea Dorn
- author
Sascha Lobo
- blogger
Giovanni di Lorenzo also recognizes this fact as a step forward, who, however, recognizes the problem of a “debate culturelessness”: It is less and less a matter of which arguments someone puts forward, but in which drawer someone lets himself be put through an utterance.
"This trend," says di Lorenzo, "to put you in a drawer and unlearn, to argue carefully and to look closely - I see that as an impoverishment." He reminds the audience of the "Lehmann case" and thinks: " It’s too hard.
That was a mistake and you have to admit that someone is rehabilitating. "
“Markus Lanz” group discussed heatedly, but did not draw any answers from the controversy
Sascha Lobo explains that there is such harshness in the reactions: “There is a lot of anger out there from minorities. Especially from people who for the past 20, 30, 40 years have felt as if their voices had not been heard. And in certain situations, for example when someone says something racist, even if someone inadvertently says something racist, then that anger is focused on such people - as a symbol. And regardless of whether this mistake was big or small, a lot of the anger that has been pent up for decades is focused in this one moment. "
Thea Dorn criticizes the resulting “willingness to put the stamp on a person in a buff and not to say: I'll visit him, I'll discuss with him, I want to know what was going on.” Roig, on the other hand, thinks that the negotiation of individual cases does not advance the debate and tries to focus on the overall social dimension: “If we talk about individual cases in conversations, we cannot talk about this anger either.
That anger that is actually the key to everything.
Why is there an enormous anger in this society that expresses itself at every opportunity and leads to cases like Jens Lehmann.
Where does this anger come from?
What can we do with it?
How can we turn this anger into transformation? "
“Markus Lanz” - the conclusion of the show
With “Markus Lanz” one or the other argument was lost in the confusion of voices in the discussion about freedom of expression on Wednesday. The guests lead an emotional debate, into which talk host Lanz himself becomes more and more committed towards the end of the program. The group rarely finds a common denominator, which is also expressed in the closing words of the author Thea Dorn: “You have to demonstrate, and we are doing that in a certain way tonight, that you can talk heatedly and controversially with one another - but with one another talks. "