More fervent hypocrisy

[Skybird]

Nice insights form the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
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Pretending to have a good conscience - left-wing symbolic politics help neither the climate nor gender justice.

If you don't eat meat, you save the planet. Those who write with asterisks are doing something for gender equality. Both are nonsense. Substitute actions achieve nothing. They just make you feel good.

Politics is no longer measured by what it achieves, but by whether it strives fervently enough for the good. Four examples show how morality displaces politics:

The synod of the Reformed Church in Germany will serve only vegetarian food in the future. Meat production is harmful to the climate, church president Susanne Bei der Wieden told the EPD news agency.
The city of Zurich is banning public viewing on public property during the World Cup in Qatar. Thus it protests against the violation of human rights in the desert state.
The German government appointed an anti-discrimination commissioner who thinks Germans are potatoes. This is to promote equal treatment for all people.
Hardly any German-speaking university today can do without detailed rules on how professors and students should speak, write and thus think. A "gender-appropriate language" is supposed to make women "more visible."

How the city of Zurich is putting the fear of God into the Emir of Qatar

All four examples are pure symbolic politics: the main thing is to stand up for the right goals. Whether one comes closer to them with the well-intentioned commitment is completely irrelevant. The rise in temperature in the earth's atmosphere is not dampened by one part per thousand of a degree if German Christians eat tofu.

Neither the Emir of Qatar nor any other ruler in the Gulf changes the way he treats his subjects and the guest workers, who are often employed under precarious conditions, for fear of the long arm of the Zurich city council. If European cities set an example, as the saying goes, the rest of the world cares little. And rightly so.

After all, no German or Swiss local government would think of banning the serving and consumption of alcohol because a Saudi city decides that public health in Europe can only be strengthened by banning the drug.

It is true that the red-green bubble is immensely pleased that it was able to get a controversial person like Ferda Ataman through as a representative of the federal government. Again, "a signal was set". However, every political life experience teaches the opposite. Attitudes change when politicians integrate instead of polarizing society.

A substitute action is also the use of gender asterisks and all sorts of fancy pronouns to denote a gender identity. It is magical thinking to assume that language use alone promotes equality.

At best, universities achieve this by appointing more female professors and offering good childcare. But that would be more expensive than a language guide devised by an administrative director with all the feeling for language that administrative directors are generally capable of.

Everyone is free to adhere to magical thinking. However, universities were once places of enlightenment. The absurdity of the discussion can also be seen in the changing imperatives for gender-appropriate language.

Whereas in the past the indented I was considered the means of choice for expressing an identity, it was subsequently the asterisk. That is just being supplanted by the colon. In magical thinking, every spell loses its effect as soon as the wrong signs are used. This makes it all the more important to stick to the ritual that is currently in effect.

When almost everything has already been achieved, further improvements are hard to make

But why has symbol politics replaced the internal struggle for direction as the favorite occupation in left-wing circles? Leftist ideology is progressive and combines a belief in progress with ideals such as equality and the empowerment of individuals and entire classes.

Symbolic politics are a convenient way out when improving the world proves to be more arduous than hoped. At least one propagates one's ideals and can hope to lay the foundation for a better future.

Conservative worldviews, on the other hand, are skeptical and preservationist. The right is more inclined to conspiracy theories when it cannot cope with the complexity of the world: evil forces are destroying what was well established long ago. The left glorifies the future, the right the past.

On top of that, many of the left's identity-forming demands have long since been fulfilled. The once hard-won eight-hour day is almost considered an attack on human dignity by the leisure society. In democratic industrialized countries, prosperity and participation for all have been achieved to an extent that makes substantial improvements difficult. Moreover, any tinkering with the system brings with it undesirable side effects.

After a brief and heated dispute, the traffic light coalition and the CDU/CSU parties have reached agreement on the citizen's income. However, it was only a matter of detail. If the reform had failed, Germany would still have a very generous welfare system, especially for refugees and migrants. Accordingly, many foreigners have made themselves comfortable in the German welfare state.

If the welfare state now becomes even more generous, people who live on low-paid gainful employment and not on Hartz IV will feel cheated. For this reason, the citizen's income triggers rather mixed feelings even among supporters of social democracy. No reform without side effects.

At the same time, many problems can no longer be solved by national legislation. Climate change is the prime example of this. Global issues require global negotiations, but these take a long time and are prone to setbacks.

The interests of rich and poor states, industrialized and developing countries, fossil fuel producers and consumers are divergent. It's much easier when there's only tofu in the church. The effect is immediate.

How can an evangelical synod achieve what the UN members failed to do at the climate conference in Egypt? There it was decided to set up a fund to pay for climate damage such as floods and droughts in poor countries. Only two tiny details could not be agreed upon: who has to pay into the fund - and how much. Desperation makes you want to bite into a veggie burger.

The conspiracy theory is the ugly brother of symbol politics

The world is complex and complicated. People therefore instinctively tend to reduce complexity. To this end, societies have developed taboos and traditions. They clear the jungle of options. The individual is suspended in a meaningful order; this relieves him.

But when, as in the accelerated present, the corset of rules becomes rotten and crumbling, individuals and social groups must look elsewhere for support. Some take refuge in prejudices and resentments. Those who believe they have seen through the elites' secret power strategies find meaning in them. The conspiracy theory is the ugly brother of symbol politics. Both serve to make sense of the world.

The leftists and the "do-gooders" - and don't most people want to be good? - apodictically insist on their ideals. If everyone uses the gender asterisk, full equality is within reach. If all people give up meat, global warming can still be stopped. The most important thing is to believe in it. Of course, this is hypocrisy, but at least it provides a clear conscience.

Symbol politics mediates between desire and reality, between moral demands and reality. That, too, provides relief. It doesn't help the climate, but it does help people.
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Magical thinking has replaced competent politics. Quota takes precedence over qualification. The obvious deficits of this destructive approach are to be concealed by enforcing ever more sectarian opinion regimes and collectivist rituals. Rome is burning - we pull the covers over our heads and recite magic rhymes from Harry Potter that (are supposed to) make everything all right again. Wjhat do I say: they make it even better than ever beforer!


Od dont't you want things to be better, fairer, more just? Are you one of these guys...? Watch your mind. If you do not tic correctly, we make you.