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Pia Lamberty: "We're getting tired of war - but that's exactly what Russia will take advantage of"

2022-08-04T12:42:58.879Z


Pia Lamberty: "We're getting tired of war - but that's exactly what Russia will take advantage of" Created: 04/08/2022, 2:30 p.m By: Anna-Katharina Ahnefeld Pia Lamberty speaks to BuzzFeed News about the lateral thinker movement and the energy crisis in Germany. © Frederic Kern/imago (montage) Is the energy crisis a new projection screen for the lateral thinker: inside milieu? Social psycholog


Pia Lamberty: "We're getting tired of war - but that's exactly what Russia will take advantage of"

Created: 04/08/2022, 2:30 p.m

By: Anna-Katharina Ahnefeld

Pia Lamberty speaks to BuzzFeed News about the lateral thinker movement and the energy crisis in Germany.

© Frederic Kern/imago (montage)

Is the energy crisis a new projection screen for the lateral thinker: inside milieu?

Social psychologist Pia Lamberty expects major right-wing extremist mobilization attempts in the coming months.

Winter is approaching - and the fear of cold apartments is spreading.

As is well known, where fear thrives, enemies of democracy are not far away.

The corona pandemic has long receded into the background.

With Corona, masses can no longer be mobilized.

But other crises are piling up: the Russia-Ukraine war, inflation and the energy crisis are the breeding ground for new protests.

Is the lateral thinker: inside movement already in the starting blocks and could soon take to the streets against a supposed energy dictatorship - with the heating issue as a new field of protest?

Is Germany expecting an escalative winter?

BuzzFeed News Germany

from IPPEN.MEDIA talks

about this with the social psychologist and author Pia Lamberty (38), who researches conspiracy stories.

Energy crisis in Germany: Pia Lamberty on lateral thinkers: inside milieu and Russia-Ukraine war

Mrs. Lamberty, the corona pandemic has taken a back seat.

Germany is dealing with the Russia-Ukraine war and the energy crisis.

Is this also the end of the lateral thinkers: inside protests?

no

The conspiracy ideological milieu was not necessarily about Corona, but about a worldview in which liberal democracies represent an enemy.

Accordingly, all possibilities are used to agitate against a democratic society.

Protests are seen as a way to fuel the overthrow.

Did you expect the lateral thinkers to turn their attention directly to the next crisis?

A year ago I expected things to calm down before the next crisis.

Now the crises have happened faster than I had hoped.

But social problems don't just disappear.

They may be less visible at times, but they keep reappearing if you don't solve them.

In the course of the Corona protests, large networks emerged that can be quickly reactivated.

A big difference to the pre-pandemic.

When we speak of crises, the Russian invasion war in Ukraine must of course be mentioned.

To what extent has the lateral thinker: inside milieu appropriated this crisis?

If you look at the milieu in Germany, there was already strong networking and radicalization in 2014 during the Russian attack on Ukraine.

So it's not surprising that there's an appropriation.

In fact, I would have expected more protests from the milieu from February 2022.

I was surprised when that didn't happen.

We experience the fear of restrictions in the energy crisis.

A parallel to the corona pandemic.

How big is the protest potential?

There will be major right-wing extremist mobilization attempts in the coming months.

They are already in the starting blocks and see the energy crisis as an opportunity to take action against the system and get their agenda out on the street.

It is not yet clear whether this will be successful and has to do with how society reacts to it.

There will be attempts at appropriation, i.e. protests that are not initiated by right-wing extremists, but which right-wing extremists will try to hijack.

And there will also be separate formats.

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About Pia Lamberty

Pia Lamberty (38) is a German social psychologist who researches conspiracy narratives.

Together with political scientist Katharina Nocun (36), she has so far published the non-fiction books "Fake Facts - How Conspiracy Theories Determine Our Thinking (2020)" and "True Facts - What Really Helps Against Conspiracy Stories" (2021).

On September 30, 2022, the third joint book "Dangerous Faith: The Radical World of Esoteric Thought" will be published.

Lamberty has been Managing Director of the non-profit Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS) since March 2021.

She has been working as a doctoral student in the Department of Social and Forensic Psychology at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz since 2016.

Social psychologist Pia Lamberty is a well-known expert on conspiracy ideologies.

Among other things, she researches what makes people believe in conspiracy stories.

© CeMAS

There will be major right-wing extremist mobilization attempts in the coming months.

They are already in the starting blocks and see the energy crisis as an opportunity to take action against the system and get their agenda out on the street. 

Social psychologist Pia Lamberty

Pia Lamberty: Russia-Ukraine war disappears from perception - uncertainties in the energy crisis

So heating could become the new vaccination as a topic of conflict.

Will there be protests against an “energy dictatorship” in the future?

I think that's very likely.

This milieu takes up social questions and fears and reinterprets them.

Right-wing extremists sense a great opportunity for their own propaganda here.

As a society, but also as a politician, there are ways to counter right-wing extremist issues.

People must be heard with their real concerns, because we all experience price increases.

The fear of additional payments, the fear of how the winter will turn out, affects people with low incomes in particular.

It is therefore important to focus on social justice and create spaces for democratic discourse.

Of course, it is not yet possible to say what will happen and how escalating the winter will be.

However, it is very certain that these attempts will be made.

The energy crisis is caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.

Is the mobilization potential particularly high when people are affected themselves and experience limitations?

Of course, you feel a cold apartment much more directly in Germany than a rocket hit in the Ukraine.

The Ukraine war is disappearing from the public eye.

We're getting “war-weary” so to speak – I hate that word – but that's exactly what Russia will take advantage of.

Russian disinformation campaigns are already aimed at undermining social cohesion in Germany and reducing solidarity with Ukraine.

The goal: fewer arms deliveries and easing sanctions so that the EU, the USA and NATO countries falter.

Accordingly, attempts are being made to heat up the mood, especially in view of the uncertainties regarding the energy crisis.

I fear a discourse shift in the direction of: why should we forgo Nord Stream 2 and sit in the cold while Ukraine gets so and so much money?

The current situation is that, with the exception of AfD voters, a majority is in favor of sanctions and support for Ukraine, even if this involves financial burdens.

But we are actively working against it.

We see a mélange of internal and external forces working to accelerate this process.

The protest events surrounding the energy crisis must not only be viewed at a national or local level, but must be understood in a geopolitical context.

Who do you mean by inner and outer forces?

On the one hand, there are right-wing extremist conspiracy ideologues who are waging precisely this kind of agitation against Ukraine and promoting solidarity with Russia.

On the other hand, there is the external threat of Russian disinformation campaigns.

This is an interaction.

Russia-founded foreign TV channel RT has been sanctioned in the EU - and what happened?

For example, former RT employees are now employed by the Putin-loyal YouTube channel InfraRot.

About IPPEN.MEDIA

The IPPEN.MEDIA network is one of the largest online publishers in Germany.

At the locations in Berlin, Hamburg/Bremen, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart and Vienna, journalists from our central editorial office research and publish for more than 50 news offers.

These include brands such as Merkur.de, FR.de and BuzzFeed Germany.

Our news, interviews, analyzes and comments reach more than 5 million people in Germany every day.

Russia played down in the lateral thinker milieu – potential for escalation of the energy crisis

How can you rate Alina Lipp in this context?

Individuals are playing an increasingly important role in Russian disinformation campaigns.

Alina Lipp shares Russian propaganda, travels to Russia, sits on talk shows there and spreads false information about the situation in Germany.

The problem is: Individuals are more difficult to sanction because the financial flows are not so easily verifiable.

People from the milieu of conspiracy ideology are particularly open to this mixed situation, because it is the worldview that these people have: NATO is evil and the Americans only want bad things for us.

Russia is played down and romanticized.

Why is Russia of all things being played down in such a way?

In the milieu of lateral thinkers, we observe a transfigured view of Russia, also in the sense of: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

They are against NATO, against the USA, and are therefore siding with Russia and see Vladimir Putin being demonized.

For these people, Russia symbolizes traditional values ​​and strong figures of masculinity.

How specifically could politics react to the escalation potential of the energy crisis you described in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war in autumn and winter?

We are in crisis and the answer cannot be conspiracy stories.

Unfortunately, solidarity was very often lost during the pandemic.

We must learn lessons from the Corona crisis.

Protests are only problematic when they become a projection screen for right-wing extremists.

Something has to be done to counter that.

It is important that politicians and civil society deal with what awaits us in autumn and how we can support people who are hit even harder by all these price increases.

Do you also expect decentralized protests like we saw last fall and winter?

Yes, I'm afraid so.

These mean less planning and quickly overwhelm society and security authorities.

Possible mobilization potential must be discovered and reacted to in the local and communal area.

Politicians should also deal with what are special challenges in certain areas, for example in view of the differences between eastern and western federal states.

We have to prepare for the fact that there will be challenges and consider what democratic answers can be.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-08-04

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