Published originally in German on September 29, 2024 by Walter Grobe
Translation by Google translator, with some improvements by the author
Overview:
– Three examples of innovations in agriculture, philosophy and gender relations
– Why I expect a lot of productive things from the new social unrest
– On Germany’s special situation and role
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Political disappointments, anxiety and fears about the future are currently on the rise and are spreading particularly among relatively well-off citizens. In such a wave, it is easy to overlook the fact that some new things are being created and tried out in our social coexistence. At least some things are being thought about, imagined and fantasized about – fantasy has positive connotations for me.
Three examples that I find noteworthy
- Quite a few citizens (if they can afford it) are concerned with the basics of nutrition and agriculture.
Attention is paid to the nutritional qualities of the food and also to the environmental compatibility of its production. It is not hidden that the big players in the international food industry, agribusiness and international marketing are supplying more and more food on a large scale that is damaging to the health of consumers. The natural basis of plant and animal life is being disregarded and ruined because short-term maximum profit has established itself as the supreme law and is increasingly displacing all other aspects – despite a flood of organic labels and supposedly respected fair trade controls. Water resources are being plundered and soil quality is being ruined to the point of infertility.
For large parts of the world’s population, especially in the ‘less developed’ countries, the supply of the most basic necessities, no matter how poorly they are produced and how little they benefit the health of the eaters, is already shaky and is collapsing here and there. Hunger and malnutrition are increasing worldwide since global capitalism has increasingly taken over production and marketing of global food procurement.
How can we ensure basic supplies under these conditions in the event of collapses caused by wars, disasters or food speculation by financial capital? Groups are being formed which, in loose associations, at the local and regional level, are looking after the foundations for more independent, down-to-earth production. The health of soil, plants and animals and the laws of healthy human nutrition are becoming more and more interesting, and people are also thinking about supplies in the event of wars and disasters.
Such activities require specialist knowledge as well as good cooperation between those involved. Mutual aid, club structures and cooperatives are better suited to this than private capitalist, profit-oriented forms.
- On an apparently completely different subject area: philosophy and sociology .
In recent years I have read one or two texts in which some things have been questioned that previously seemed self-evident in our modern “Western” culture, which is characterized by science, technology and global expansion.
A certain typically Western, modern view of nature, including the nature of man himself, appears to some authors to be overly developed, too strong and too one-sided.
Descartes and other thinkers who gained great influence in the 17th century are cited as key figures in this. They emphasized the measurable aspects of nature, the economic usability, it is said, and understood the human species predominantly as a collection of individual beings. The idea of the “individual” as the ultimate center of knowledge and action, as the basic building block of society, is related to this. Human society appears here as a union of individuals. Earlier views, which were more characterized by collectives, hordes, tribes and also by developed but rather egalitarian civilizations, were suppressed [2] . Social union is thought of as a more or less voluntary action by individuals, or, if there is no other option, it is to be enforced by state power.
In such a framework, individuals pursue their individual interests, and for some thinkers this is primarily and naturally individual economic enrichment. Capitalism and colonialism are here given moral foundations.
For some of these earlier thinkers, the human individual itself appears almost like a machine, including an assumed mechanics of his/her emotions.
Some modern critics declare this way of thinking to be one-sided, an aberration. I can agree with that. In my opinion, only an awareness that every individual can only exist and develop well on the basis of social interconnectedness and in the context of nature can lead us out of the already catastrophic developments.
In contrast, critics of the one-sidedness or aberrations of modern Western thought emphasize other aspects. From my brief reading, I would like to mention the names of Hermann Schmitz (“Jenseits des Naturalismus”) and Judith Butler. That people are part of the overarching context of nature and the collective; that they exist not only through their development of concepts and theories, but also essentially through their “emotional” connections in society and the cosmos; that they are creative and unpredictable – these are some of the aspects as I would formulate them and which I owe to inspiration from such philosophical milieus.
This corresponds to a basic feeling, an intuition that, in my observation, has developed in quite a few fellow citizens over the last few decades, independent of philosophical discussions: that we live in great global interdependence and will only be able to continue to live if all parts, people and other living beings, are treated with their due. This basic feeling for the great interconnectedness, especially for the global interconnectedness, already seems to me to be a certain trend.
III.
The turning away from patriarchy and the development of different relationships.
As early as in the 19th century, cultural critics said that even before the division of societies into social classes, which can be distinguished primarily by different levels of participation in social wealth [3] , a first fundamental division had begun to develop already many thousands of years ago, namely the oppression of women and their instrumentalization for – male-dominated – interests of a sexual and private economic nature.
Since the Enlightenment in the 18th century, struggles for equal participation of women in political life have gradually developed – gradually in breadth and depth, and only today have some changes been made for the better in the laws of some countries. But now, in current discussions, deeper and still very widespread attitudes that so far had mostly been taken for granted are being taken to light. Cultures of male superiority are currently being discredited, but so are things that – in my view – lie even deeper: that in relationships between people, sexual or physical-mental differences in general can be used as starting points for mutual exploitation, debasement and degradation – and in so many cases still are, whether or not we talk about “equality”.
Perhaps it is a little too pathetic and premature to speak of an approach that has the potential to contribute significantly to a new society in which the cultural and ethical baggage of many thousands of years of exploitation of man by man – baggage that has accumulated since the beginning of the devaluation of women – would be rolled away. Perhaps not.
In my opinion, it is a significant achievement of many activists, authors and movements to raise awareness in society of the diverse and often completely unconscious traditions and feelings of a patriarchal and sexist nature and thus to contribute to future forms of society in which human dignity is better recognized.
Why I expect a lot of productive things from the new social unrest
In the last four years, the political scene has become much livelier – in my opinion. Not since the turbulent years around 1968 have fundamental questions about the social order been addressed by so many people and in such depth. Unrest can be felt far beyond the pandemic issues. Control capitalism, impoverishment and permanent wars are looming and, I am sure, will not disappear. What is leading society into such hardships, what are the foundations of this development, are there ideas and real foundations developing for radical social changes that can be essentially more favorable and peaceful for the large global majority?
It is argued that the debates on social media are often unpleasant, lacking in class, characterized by negative emotions, hostility, hatred, denigration of those who think differently, etc. I would not like to contradict this, but not without asking whether it is not fundamentally in the interests of those in power if division after division arises in the population and common interests can no longer be articulated.
I would also like to say that a new, different milieu can now be observed in the public media debate: authors, artists and journalists who are working on the problems professionally and independently of the now universal funding of the official media by various interest groups (not only by private foundations, but also by dubious governments). As examples of this kind of clarification about political events, to which I personally owe a lot, I would like to mention Norbert Häring and the magazine “Multipolar” under the direction of Paul Schreyer and Stefan Korinth in Germany, and in the English-speaking world authors such as Iain Davis or the magazine “Off Guardian”. But they are not the only ones, and there are probably similar achievements in other European countries such as France and Italy.
Unfortunately, I have not yet had any opportunity to learn about similar developments in China or other large areas of the world. The people mentioned above do not seem to have had such opportunities either. These limitations – I would almost say confinement to a limited area of experience – are dangerous and must be overcome.
On the Difference Between “Resistance” and Social Creativity
Many citizens who are becoming more politically aware have begun to feel “in resistance” in the face of the threats to freedom, life security and health that were presented to them quite unexpectedly with the politics of “pandemias”.
However, such a basic category does not correspond particularly well to the nature of today’s global constellations.
Rather, it is about the fears of the super-rich in East and West: they see the eight billion people to whom they can no longer credibly offer promises of social improvements. Among the eight billion people worldwide, awareness and self-confidence are growing in view of the misery that is actually being offered to them. It is the fears of the billionaire classes worldwide of losing power and control that give rise to the dictatorial presumptions of their politics.
Ultimately, no elite is strong with its social credit system, with its artificial intelligence which claims to be able to control citizens down to the last detail of their behavior. To me, such perspectives seem more like panic reactions from a small global upper class that is presenting the perspective of the most brutal division of all time between rich and poor and the destruction of all fundaments of life because they cannot manage their economy any other way and must rely on dictatorship.
In my view, it is therefore not primarily a question of a “resistance” that seeks to avert the worst effects of such a development, hardly questioning its economic foundations, but rather of the socially new, which has long been developing in its early stages.
The new is reflected in the growing awareness of what some call the “human family”; it can also be understood as an awareness of the global interconnectedness and interdependence of people. Anyone who strolls through IEKA puts the facts in their shopping cart, albeit in superficial forms of convenient consumption. What we can buy is mostly the result of the work of the most diverse and distant people, who are often exploited to the point of subsistence. Most of it also comes from a raw material procurement that plunders and squanders the resources of mankind as if there were no tomorrow.
The globalization of the last few decades has made us feel the reality of international interconnectedness more intensely than ever before. Even if the excesses of global capitalist centralization are replaced by more decentralized structures in the future, these will have to coordinate with each other globally.
The sense of the natural foundations of life, of the naturalness of human life itself, the sense of the dignity of every fellow citizen and the relativity of cultural, religious and political differences is now growing among larger numbers of fellow citizens – at least that is what I think I can note. No one can know what concrete political forms the conflict between the old, the stubborn, destructive profit economy and the new may actually take, but I am certain that these conflicts will become more vital and more intense.
As one of those who have spoken out against the interference with freedom, self-determination and real health since the beginning of the “pandemic”, another aspect of the development soon became clear to me: that the majority of fellow citizens have submitted to the measures out of an understandable impulse, above all out of concern for the common good.
The insults that both sides have hurled at each other – critics of the measures are a threat to public health; the majority that supports the government are made up of sheeple who have no idea what is going on – largely arose, in my view, from the fact that both sides were ultimately striving for the best possible social and collective solutions to major problems. They were divided as to which measures were appropriate, but not in the quest for the common good. For the first time long since, different, often opposing segments of society have begun to show signs of deriving political behavior from the principles of good overall development.
On Germany’s special development and role
I would like to add a few further comments.
It is likely that certain contradictions in international development are becoming apparent in this country in a very clear and possibly particularly destructive way.
As a German, I naturally feel a connection to this wonderful country and the depths of its development, as far as I understand them. In certain phases it has produced radical evil, but at other times it has also produced immense impulses of enlightenment, humanism, and more social economics (think of the earlier workers’ movement before World War I, for example). For example, in the so-called German classicism of the period around 1800 (think of the centers such as Weimar and Jena, Goethe, the Humboldts, Hegel, and numerous others), the foundations of the development of nature, society, and culture were thought through in depth, even before most modern sciences could develop concretely. Perhaps it was not without purpose that the Nazis placed the Buchenwald concentration camp right next to Weimar.
In the 20th century, the country also became a focal point of global great power rivalries. I mean not only that arrogant and greedy German elites tried twice to join the ranks of the great imperialists (first in the form of militarism and imperialism, which played a major role in the constellation of World War I, and then in the form of the National Socialist mania for conquest and enslavement), but also that the country itself was and still is the object and scene of rivalries between the real great powers.
Germany’s current situation can still be described as occupying a middle position between “East” and “West”. Already at the end of the First World War, tensions were building up between the two greatest powers of the following decades, the USA on the one hand and – at least in its initial stages – revolutionary Russia, the Soviet Union plus the large swarm of countries fighting against Western colonialism, such as China, on the other, and this tension then literally tore the country in two in 1945.
According to a geostrategic doctrine that has been repeatedly expressed in the USA since at least 1900, the Eurasian double continent – from Portugal to Vladivostok or Hong Kong – must under no circumstances develop into a political unity vis a vis the global neo-colonialism of the USA, but must always be kept divided. Otherwise, a power would emerge that the outside USA would no longer be able to cope with.
The most blatant manifestations of this division of the Eurasian continent, which has been driven by the USA for more than a hundred years, were the incorporation of Germany, which had been defeated in World War I, into the Western alliance after 1918 in opposition to the emerging Soviet Union, culminating in Hitler’s coup in 1941, which was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and had been prepared in the background for a long time by key forces in the US establishment; and then the “bloc confrontation” on the inner-German border from 1945 to 1989.
In the wake of the rivalry over Ukraine, we are once again witnessing an intensified involvement of Germany in Western interests and military strategies towards Russia – and China, which now appears to be its background power.
However, this integration of our country into the West (as one could call it in a very simplistic way) never suited really well its own situation, the interests of most citizens and its culture, and consequently it was always opposed from within. A relatively well-known example can be found under keywords such as “Rapallo”. Significant parts of the German upper classes, including its military leadership groups, were then opposed to the Nazis’ plans for the East and were disempowered by them.
In recent decades, economic relations with Russia have once again grown to great importance for both sides and had to be curtailed by drastic interventions such as the destruction of North Stream 2 [4] . To put it bluntly, Germany’s geographical and historical intermediate position is once again not in line with US interests, with the result that heavy US offensive weapons and command centers are now being stationed in Germany against Russia. However, with such a statement, I am in no way taking sides with the interests of the Russian criminal oligarch regime, which in its exploitative and authoritarian nature is not significantly different from that of the USA.
However, it sometimes seems to me something like this: in the current global conflict over regions of control and influence, which is currently pitting the USA and some of its allies against Russia and its backbone power China, the USA could rely on provoking Russia into launching serious military strikes against Germany. This would more or less finally eliminate a long-standing, annoying and disruptive problem, namely, the existence of Germany, along with its damned intermediate and mediating position, along with its unreliability. Perhaps there would remain a greatly reduced and demoralized population without internationally significant economic potential, which would not need to be given special attention.
A scenario like this – Russian nuclear weapons on Germany, which destroy this country in the interests of the US – also fits quite well with the economic liquidation of Germany, which now seems to be gathering full speed – also due to the destruction of North Stream 2. What was already apparent around 1975 is now apparently becoming the dominant movement.
At that time, the interest in relocating “German” capital abroad was already clearly articulated and began to lead to significant restructuring. The VW Group, which now makes the majority of its investments and profits elsewhere in the world, especially in China, can serve as an example of the current situation. The trend of this deindustrialization [5] also includes such strange developments as Germany’s now almost complete dependence on external energy suppliers.
A party like the Greens, in terms of its core economic goals, was from the outset little more of a propaganda disguise for this capitalist trend rather than a real environmental and peace party.
The scenario that results from what has been outlined here – I neither wish it nor do I consider it to be the only possible one – is, in short and brutal terms, as follows: after Germany’s remaining economic strengths, which have been somehow indispensable for international capitalist events up to now, have been demolished and the country has been converted into a venue for serious military confrontations, the atomic bombs will be dropped and the problem bear will be eliminated, finis Germaniae. For the remaining people perhaps a situation rich with opportunities to develop new, better forms of society would emerge.
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In summary, I would like to say that in some developments that seem to have been taking place in recent years with increasing speed and with increasing frequency in some people’s minds, in our country and of course in many other places around the world, there are significant beginnings of major social changes. The historical movement will not only be determined by the dystopian and catastrophic trends, as some currently fear, but also by those people who can conceive and implement better, non-exploitative conditions.
[2] A good example is the work of David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, which seems to be gaining a large readership.
[3] Examples: the aristocracies, the slaves, the bourgeoisie, the proletarians
[4] while economic relations between US corporations on the one hand and Russia and China on the other appear to be developing relatively undisturbed, despite military confrontations such as in Ukraine.
[5] which will now also result in the loss of many other domestic VW jobs (and of course other jobs things that depend on them), according to some clear new announcements.
Posted in General | Tagged with China , Germany , agriculture , food , pandemic , patriarchy , philosophy , Russia , Ukraine , USA
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