That’s the nice thing about the happy culture of debate: It also produces its evergreens. Here is a small selection from the past year.
Debates are also about a trial of strength: We will not lose our pleasure in arguments anytime soon.
Gender language
cmd. · The New Year’s Eve hangover was hardly gone when we had to worry about the Duden in January. At the beginning of 2021, it was decided to consistently change person names for the dictionary: The reader and the reader, the author and the author, they all now have separate entries in the online Duden. Of course, the French also. These people are currently having their own lexicon debate: Recently, the “Petit Robert” introduced the pronoun “iel” as a gender-free alternative to “il” and “elle”. In the twelve months that lie between these bangs, there was of course no calm either. Whether the gendered forms prescribe a doctrine or reflect social change was just as heatedly discussed across Europe as the question of whether the fragmented human identities really have to be reflected in the grammar.
Are there any arguments that have never been heard in these discussions? Stay curious and read the newspaper again from January 2022.
Nobel Prize without End
rbl. · The first Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded in 1901, but the idea is a child of the 19th century. A small circle of gray eminences elected for life sits together every year in the far north to fulfill its second most important task (after enjoying the privileges): to conjure a prize winner (rarely a female prize winner) out of the hat. The process is as antiquated as the Swedish Academy that awards the award. Some claim that this is the origin of the incorruptibility of the judgment. The dubious decisions of the past few years show the opposite: an insignificance caused by arrogance.
Before the Nobel Prize for Literature completely sinks into insignificance, the Swedish Academy could posthumously honor those it has deliberately overlooked in the coming years: from Marcel Proust to Virginia Woolf and Marina Zwetajewa to Paul Celan. You would never come to an end in the far north.
#Me too
ces. When the campaign spread under the hashtag #MeToo on the social platforms in October 2017, it was said that the grievances were very specific because Hollywood has a misogynist macho culture due to the pronounced power imbalance there. In the meantime, millions of women across all cultures and industries have made their experiences of sexual assault public. In 2021 it became clear once again how such revelations are dealt with differently according to cultural and political conditions. While Harvey Weinstein, the most prominent US case in Los Angeles, is being continued in another court case, China responded with repression: tennis player Peng Shuai, for example, disappeared after allegations of abuse.
#MeToo has long since ceased to “just” outline rape and violent abuse. In the past few months, the debate has intensified that sexism that has established itself as explicit contempt for women (e.g. the rap scene) or exists in the systematic looking the other way or neglected protection of employees by employers (e.g. SRF or Reichelt-Springer).
The divided society
ben. · Do we live in a divided society? Journalists like to raise this question when a topic has been discussed controversially for more than a week. Accordingly, society is already widely divided and threateningly falling apart: Let us think of the refugee crisis or the Corona period. The culprits for the divided society are quickly found: oathers, opponents of vaccinations, agitators of all kinds. In Switzerland there is the sub-discourse on the “urban-rural ditch”. In recent years, journalists have used the urban-rural divide to explain every voting result. Until the SVP turned analysis into propaganda and made the disadvantage of the rural population and the arrogance of townspeople its subject. Since then, journalists have been declaring that the urban-rural divide does not exist.
On the one hand, the hooliganism on the Internet has increased; on the other hand, society as a whole seems to have become more addicted to harmony. Third, the media love the drama of division. All of this suggests that the debate about the divided society will remain lively in the coming year.
Bührle Collection
phi. · With the press briefing jointly convened by the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Bührle Foundation at the beginning of December, a new round was heralded in the dispute over the collection of the Zurich armaments industrialist Emil Georg Bührle. The attempt to justify it with half-hearted concessions did not help to smooth things over; on the contrary, it sparked a storm of indignation: with the statement by the Bührle Foundation that there was no reason for the Nazi-persecution-related deprivation of cultural assets in Switzerland during the Second World War Given the facts, allegations of anti-Semitism were even provoked on Heimplatz. If there is no decisive change in course in dealing with the Bührle Collection, the presentation of which has been subject to sustained criticism in the extension that has been open since the beginning of October, this debate about the Zurich arms manufacturer and his works of art from formerly Jewish possession should not be the subject of the matter anytime soon in the coming year go out.
Who has the right to get well?
rib. We will soon be in year three of the corona pandemic, but sometimes it seems like we are still at the beginning. The number of infections is exploding, the hospitals are filling up, and intensive care places are becoming scarce. Will it be possible to give all Covid-19 patients the treatment they need? Who else is treated when resources are exhausted? Yes, we already had that. Only things are different today. There are fewer intensive care beds in Switzerland than there were a year ago. On the other hand, we have a vaccination that largely prevents severe courses. The question arises again. Can the chances of survival be the main criterion for triage? No, decided the German Federal Constitutional Court: Disabled people must not be disadvantaged. That’s right. When it comes to vital help, there must be no discrimination. But what if that is no longer possible? Playful who is not vaccinated, the right to treatment? These questions are unsolvable, but we must discuss them.
Zurich theater
ubs. The Schauspielhaus certainly offered reasons for controversy in 2021. One could, for example, have discussed the topicality of the «old lady», who was visiting once again. With the pornographic staging of “Interviews with nasty men” apparently even caused a scandal. Instead, the people of Zurich argued about the dilapidated Pfauensaal. One wondered whether the plush red peep box should be freshened up with a careful restoration or whether it would have to give way to a new building. Citizens’ committees accused the city government, which is in favor of a radical solution, of barbarism. This in turn tried to act as a savior: the house, once a haven of artistic freedom, can only be led into a secure future by means of technical upgrading, architectural extensions and contemporary comfort. In 2022, the theater around the theater will continue to occupy the people of Zurich. First of all, Parliament will have to take a position. And at some point there will be a showdown at the ballot box.
Cancel culture
lsc. If the coronavirus didn’t exist, cancel culture would have been named word of the year long ago. Or to be honest, because the term is, as it is called, controversial. Specifically, it is about the question of whether unpopular voices are increasingly suppressed and deleted (“canceled”) under pressure from aggressive activists. Although many journalists and politicians believe that the phenomenon does not even exist, in the last year alone there have been more than 2000 reports dealing with it.
Conservatives, liberals and some classic leftists consider the cancel culture to be such a great danger that they are founding their own universities, discussing CC bans (according to the British government) or announcing self-cancellations in order not to be canceled (according to John Cleese). For Adolf Muschg, cancel culture can even be compared with Auschwitz. For woke Neulinke, this comparison was in turn proof that cancel culture is an invention of complacent old white men who cannot stand criticism. Recently, however, woke leftists have been claiming that cancel culture exists, but that it is only directed against “marginalized groups”. If this view prevails, there will soon be anti-CC training courses in schools and companies.
Climate change
mml. · The worst part of the climate change debate is that it is getting old – even Greta Thunberg will be nineteen in a few days. There has been movement recently, but in the form of stop-and-go. China issues targets and builds hundreds of coal-fired power plants. Biden is working hard, but his climate protection package is blocked. In Europe one sets lofty goals, but stumbles over the naming – “Fit for 55”. The time of fundamental struggles seems to be over, but the debate only begins with the practical questions. How do we protect ourselves from what can no longer be averted? Where does a rich, small country use its resources with the greatest leverage?
And now there is again space for the big questions that affect us as a species. Humans get to know each other anew through the climate – as the animal that can turn the world off its hinges. The term Anthropocene is likely to appear again and again in 2022.