Quote:
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/...-16782949.html
Many people consider the out-of-control culture of disputes on the Internet as a consequence of technology. It is primarily concerned with the country of origin of the network companies.
When you fly to America for the first time as a tourist, you experience an eye-opening moment. He sees the streets, the taxis, the people and understands: the world he knows from American evening series is not an artificial, over-the-top television fantasy. It is the ordinary American everyday life.
It is similar with our discussion culture on the Internet. Many Germans see the way people argue on the Internet as something artificial. They believe that this is due to the technology. On the net, they say, things are just wild and uncontrolled. Others believe that hatred arises because we hear speech files on the Internet without context. What an anonymous tiradeur pounds into the keys after a third glass of red wine at night shakes his head at breakfast in the morning. It is far too rarely noticed that the ultra-liberal culture of disputes that American companies create on the Internet has something to do with their country of origin. The network is not simply the network. It is deeply American.
In America, a citizen must not only publicly deny the Holocaust, assert the superiority of the white race, and call for the establishment of a one-party communist dictatorship. He can also count on his fellow citizens to answer his suggestions in a very open manner. America is a confrontational society in many areas. The prosecutor speaks against the accused, who defends himself with everything he has. The doctor sells the most expensive treatment, the patient changes his practice indignantly. Young people practice the greatest possible confrontation even in school debating clubs. If one roars, it is roared back.
Freedom of speech also has limits in America. Calls for direct violence, the spreading of nude photos, copyright violations and - keyword Corona - lies are forbidden, which put people in immediate danger. Germans know this as a Facebook rule: Liberality is great when it comes to agitation, but female nipples are strictly prohibited. It is the values of the American Republic. Not all of them fit Germany.
At Corona, too, Facebook, Google and Twitter follow these American values. There they act brutally against false news and conspiracy theories. Your algorithms suddenly prefer reputable sources. It is difficult to find conspiracy theorists via Google under “Covid-19”. An invisible hand sorts information into good and bad. This is not the end of the propaganda, but it is more than the companies have ever tried. You only try it because it is about health. They would not be so keen on political extremists. This is not common in America.
German and American democracy are not defensive in the same way. In America, the citizens theoretically do this on their own initiative. In Germany they are more likely to wait for authorities. Who is cut off depends on whether and when the authorities classify someone as extremist. Those who prefer American must allow sedition and let neo-Nazis run free. Otherwise it is not consistent. The Corona period should therefore lead us to think about how American our network culture should be.
Justus Bender
Justus Bender, editor in the politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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The American differences to Germany both have positive and negative aspects. Both countries in my view represent extremes, and extremes in themselves hardly ever cause moderation and modesty.
Trump is a destructive, hyperaggressive agitator, his aggressiveness is bred by his inborn extreme narcissism; no rethoric trick is to cheap, no lie to obviously a lie and no rumbling behaviour too indecent as if he wpould not bring it if he sees a personal advantage - its always about his
personal advantage, not necessarily the country's advanatge. Now this enfant terrible, further encouraged by his intellectual deficits and lack of education, performs on a stage like the Americna culture as outline din that article above, a culture that is extrenely focusse don competition, fightign for the purpose fo fighting, and winning so that the winner can, must and is expcted t always take it all. Two parties: not three, not four. The election system again takes no prisoners. Everythign seems to be desoigned for maximising polarization and a "dualization." How could have thigns gone any different than they have in the past decades? Notice, I say decacades, not just "the past three years". I repeatedly said that I see Trump not as the cause and origin of the deep division in American politics and society, but as a symptom. He is a logical result of the cirucmnstances.
Where the winner always takes it all and only Black and White, Ones and Zeroes, exist, there is no middle ground left left anymore where one could meet and talk.
America is an ill-tempered power-giant on steroids. Thats what makes it an unpredictable danger and completely unreliable actor for everybody else. When things do not go like it wants, this aemrica now stomps its feet in blind rage, and kicks and beats and yells around blindly. It hurts itself that way, it hurts other,s and it does not care.
Because the looser has to fall.
The extreme fixiation of America on "cxomeotitipon" I compoare to an auto-.immune n reaction. A stroign immuhne system is all nice and well, but it could start to bite at an invading bug so strn gly that it starts toattack its own body, and its organs. And then it is becoming a problem for the whole organism.
This attitude makes communicaiton impossible. And the political debate here shows it, since long time. It snot about arguments, its nto about provavbly truths and confirmed untruths, but.lies are acceptable and cheating is fully respectable, becasue it is no loner about all this. Its just about winning for the purpose of seeing the other loosing.
This is what Trumps depends on to secure his power, to feed the masses' craving for this: their gladiator standing tall and triumphantly in the arena, and the other's blood in the sand.
This is not the death of reason. Reason was assassinated already long time ago.
That are all the reasons why I think that if Trump one day leaves office, not much will change. Hardly anything. And many, many people will even demand that it shall be like that.