To be denounced on the Internet, a single misguided sentence is enough. Clubs are swung, emojis replace arguments. Discussions thus end in nothing. That can only lead to division in society.
It is fashionable to take a person to a virtual court at lightning speed, without a hearing and to be released for shooting because he or she has expressed an opinion that does not suit those who claim to be judges. In order to be pilloried in the a-social media, it is now sufficient to say something unsolicited or not be able to carry out a thought.
The writer Marko Martin is experiencing this right now. In April, the Berliner was a guest in the “Literary Quartet”, in which Christian Kracht’s “Eurotrash” was discussed. He criticized the fact that Kracht portrayed Switzerland as “wonderful” in his new novel – “in contrast to Germany, where” – Martin now quoted from the book – “the blood of murdered Jews is still stuck in every street”. One has to realize: “There is no blood in German streets because the German Jews were murdered in parts of Eastern Europe – and they went up in smoke.”
Certainly the sentence was irritating or repulsive for some viewers who immediately thought of the pogrom nights of 1938. The other participants in the discussion did not follow suit, as they had read “Eurotrash” and knew that Martin had been dealing with totalitarianism and the persecution of the Jews for a number of years. In “Dissidentisches Denk” he tells of 22 European refugees, among them the Jewish writer Mariana Frenk-Westheim, who, with foresight, emigrated from Germany to Mexico in 1930. On Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Martin said that he wanted to draw a dividing line with those who call themselves dissidents today, but are “often just neo-right troublemakers, conspiracy theorists and people who publicly dump their fascist filth” under the label of allegedly breaking taboos.
It’s a shame that presenter Thea Dorn didn’t ask Martin to explain the sentence. The author wanted to denounce, as he later told ntv, that Kracht “makes the Holocaust a minor point in the first-person narrator Suada, as well as an imprecise metaphor according to the motto: It probably has something to do with the Jews. Me has irritated that large parts of the local literary criticism attest a book preoccupation with the past, which is obviously primarily about self-referential showmanship. ”
One can discuss this excellently, although that presupposes a debate. The Twitter people, however, had long since passed their judgment on Martin. One user missed the fact that Dorn Martin did not “immediately build one, drag him out of the studio by the collar and make it clear to him that he should never be seen again in the literary quartet” – which would mean excluding him from the public discussion about books. Another wrote: “The model of glasses he wears (in combination with the hairstyle) looks pretty ‘AFD’.”
It got even more violent at the end of April when a column in a feminist magazine said: “With the permission of ZDF, Martin continues to work on the fairy tale that there were no concentration and extermination camps in Germany.” The suffix “and they went up in smoke” is denounced as a “mockery of the industrially organized murder” of the Jews, and the ZDF has to file charges for sedition.
Black and white good-or-bad statements
The example shows how quickly a discussion – even one that is critical of literature – turns into black and white good-or-bad statements. A single misleading sentence is enough for an author who regularly writes for the “Jüdische Allgemeine” to be declared a Holocaust relativizer, outlawed and wished the plague on his neck: insults, (pre-) convictions, calls for prosecution and Withdrawal of professional assignments. Something is asserted without bothering to deal with the person, their professional background and the context. It really hits the wrong person with Martin.
Being ignorant and ignorant is one of the many phenomena that the internet has brought with it. Competent or not: Everyone can say something about anything – and does it extensively, preferably in the firm belief that they are much smarter than the rest of the world. Know-it-all and dangerous half-knowledge form a toxic mixture. In debates, emojis replace arguments. Thumbs up or thumbs down – like in ancient Rome.
The swinging of the usual clubs to discredit a person can also be seen in Martin’s example. Here it was once again the stick with the inscription AfD. On the other hand, to name just two examples, the do-gooders and mainstream clubs are used as instruments of verbal aggressiveness. This is usually accompanied by arrogance, because club swingers believe that they have leased the truth for themselves, even though its perception is based on strong subjective components. Anyone who does not follow the club swing will be declared stupid.
Probably the most popular stick at the moment is to put people in the right corner. If you look at how often it is said that this action or that verbal contribution plays into the hands of the AfD – it should be at least 20 percent nationwide. Measured against this claim, the AfD survey values should have skyrocketed in the course of the video campaign #allesdichtmachen – but they are not. So people can’t be so stupid that they make a pilgrimage to the AfD because of a few satirical films.
Talking badly with a club on your head
The main problem with clubs is that discourse, if it is still taking place at all, briefly flares up, is debated in a black and white scheme and the dividing line between good and bad runs sharply, without allowing nuances. Anyone who says “Gypsy schnitzel” is a racist. Point and off. The fact that he or she may just not have understood why the term is offensive is ignored. With the racist club on your head, it’s bad to talk about.
The WDR show “The Last Instance” showed how something like this works. After the guests had declared after a questionable and very trivial discussion that they would reject the deletion of the term “gypsy schnitzel”, they experienced a shit storm, as is well known. The actress Janine Kunze apologized including the usual assurances that she is not a racist who is degenerating more and more into a penitential ritual, important and correct, but hardly or not at all helping in the fight against everyday racism. It is no longer shaken up, but leads to fatigue.
It will be interesting to see when and if Kunze will speak publicly again on a political issue. In the past few days she has not even responded to requests for an interview. That alone is questionable, since it has the right to freedom of expression under the Basic Law. That also includes saying things that others don’t like. After all, it is not the case that Kunze and her colleagues are the only Germans who reject the renaming of the gypsy schnitzel. You speak for an anonymous mass that hits the hard blows of the racism club as well. It is therefore only logical that large parts of the population can no longer find themselves in the media.
Controversies that keep society alive are imperative. Banishing them to the Internet, the realm of alternative facts, is anything but helpful, because there they tend to take place in bubbles. The culture of debate is increasingly degenerating into a war of faith. But it doesn’t bring people together, it just divides them even more.
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