There are several books that deal with the question of why adults regularly – every day – put on an act and do and say things that aren’t really compatible with their innermost selves. Why do so many adults play roles? Why do they pretend? Why do they speak differently in certain situations than they actually would?
Of course, the answers to this complex question are very diverse. I believe it can also be explained, among other things, by the fact that for a very long time we lived in small groups – in so-called herds, if you like, or “bands” – and of course we had to adapt to the way that group thinks, how its members interact with one another and what rules it sets. Because if we had broken away back then, it would have meant certain death for us. This is connected to the so-called Dunbar number – because the British researcher Robin Dunbar put it in a nutshell, but he’s far from the only one who has recognized this.
If we then move into more recent history and take Germany as an example, Hitler, with National Socialism, made a promise to the so-called “little man”, who of course had already existed before: the Biedermeier, or rather the petty, narrow-minded bourgeoisie – what we’d call the middle class today, the bourgeois centre. Back then Hitler put this narrative into circulation that only Germans in the “völkisch”, ethnic-nationalist sense had the right to a decent, bourgeois – perhaps petty-bourgeois – life in modest prosperity. And he created things and institutions like the Volksempfänger, the “people’s receiver”. My father, born in 1932, told me how back then a radio set found its way into almost every German household, and it was very cheap, so that the Germans could above all listen to Goebbels’ propaganda machine and prepare themselves for “total war” and the so-called “Final Solution” against Jewish women and men. On top of that, part of the Nazi narrative was that the German family was entitled to a mid-range car – the so-called Volkswagen, the “people’s car” – and that it could drive on a German Autobahn, for all I care, straight from Cologne to the equator or all the way to Siberia; that was the promise. The Nazis handed out even more sweets on top of that – but of course only for the so-called “Volksdeutsche”, while other groups were quite deliberately discriminated against and excluded. And the first and biggest group to be discriminated against, dehumanized and denied their very humanity were the Jews.
Then the Allies ended this nightmare, this catastrophe, by force and gave Germany another chance to start over, in two divided countries. In the Federal Republic, Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard came along, and Erhard proclaimed the so-called “Social Market Economy” (Soziale Marktwirtschaft). That was an adapted narrative: he took over elements of this petty-bourgeois promise of prosperity, modernized the whole thing and, logically, of course, took out the völkisch note. But it still stayed the same: the average family must be entitled to a bourgeois life – and this bourgeois life was defined in a similar way: with your own car, with trips in that car, ideally all across Europe, with holidays, of course with a home of your own – something small but nice, “and it’s mine”, maybe with a garden and garden gnomes – plus education, a pension and social security.
This promise worked for a relatively long time, as long as I signed up to the so-called Social Market Economy. That means: I had to agree that I get grades at school, that I’m well-behaved, that I do what the teachers tell me, that I follow the curriculum, that I then dutifully go to work, keep training, and so on. And of course that meant I had to make compromises in many areas and do things that weren’t in harmony with my innermost self. I had to accept that there’s an executive floor, I had to accept the patriarchy. Yes, for a long time in this republic you had to accept that women are worth less and have fewer rights, that rape within marriage went unpunished for a long time, or that women used to be allowed to sign an employment contract only if their husband agreed. So even in the Federal Republic, which was supposedly so free and democratic, adults have always played a role, put on an act and constantly betrayed their true inner selves – in exchange for a petty-bourgeois or pseudo-bourgeois existence.
And now exactly this trade-off just doesn’t work anymore. That means: no matter how much I bend over backwards and bow and scrape now, no matter how well I “sell” myself, as they so nicely put it, no matter what CV I write, how few so-called “gaps” there are in my CV and how many diplomas and degrees I can show – none of that will help me anymore today. There’s no longer an easy, pre-drawn path into the so-called bourgeois centre, into the middle class. That time has run out; for all sorts of reasons, that era is simply over.
Of course, this leaves many people even more unsettled, unable to see what the solution could be. And instead of finding themselves now, standing up for who they are and being honest with themselves and with their children, they bow and bend even more. They put on even more of an act – hoping that they’ll still get a slice of the ever-shrinking so-called prosperity pie of the bourgeois middle before it’s all over.
Of course, I too filled roles for a long time, ever since childhood, and did and said things I would judge very differently today. That’s in the nature of a society and of a political system. And I’m grateful that I belong to Generation X: because I still spent enough time in the GDR to learn, for example, discipline, decisiveness, but also humanity and, above all, of course, Russian – and then to get to know a new system, to consciously live through this rupture, this Wende, this transformation. That allowed me to take the best of both systems with me and shape my life with it.
Precisely because I was socialized and grew up in the GDR, I learned to appreciate the value of the Federal Republic’s order all the more. If I hadn’t had this comparison, this contrast, I would never have been able to value and appreciate freedom like that – the freedom to travel, for example, but also the chance to speak freely and develop freely – because I simply wouldn’t have known anything else. It’s like someone born as the descendant of an aristocratic family or a very, very rich family who simply inherits: that person can’t appreciate many things at all, because freedom has to be earned and many inner values only emerge through a real process of maturing.
And now it’s time for us to reflect again. For those of you who, like me, still lived through the GDR: remember, and have the courage to name what you see today, too! Just say out loud what you’ve so far only discussed behind closed doors. Just say that there are hardly any secure jobs with a future left, that they’re the exception rather than the rule, and that this situation will keep getting worse – that things won’t get “better” in the old sense anymore, that economic growth is no solution, but that we now have to change something systemically.
Just say that it’s a fairy tale when politicians or officials stand up and claim we need to “create jobs”. Nobody in today’s system wants to create jobs! In the so-called market economy, in capitalism, there’s only one single goal: the optimal, maximum return on the capital invested. And, above all in Germany, that never works by creating jobs – that’s completely far-fetched nonsense, that’s dumbing people down, that’s demagoguery. Ask an entrepreneur whether creating jobs is really his goal, and if he’s honest he’ll say: “I can’t, because the system doesn’t even allow me to have that as my goal.” His goal has to be satisfying the greed of his owners. They always want more – more and more money, more and more power. Look at an Elon Musk, look at a Trump, a Peter Thiel and so on. Or all these supposed role models like Jeff Bezos: he can’t get enough, he wants to rake in billions – he doesn’t want to create jobs, he wants to cut them! So say that, too! Just say it: this system, the way we have it now, is breaking us.
1000 Thoughts combines a digital diary, blog and microblogging into a new foundation for human relationships. Real social connection doesn’t happen on classic networks, where self-promotion, competition and the next career step take centre stage, but only when people are ready to open up honestly with their thoughts, doubts and dreams.
Instead of wearing masks for professional advantage, many people – as described in the book Everybody Lies – search unobserved at three in the morning for answers to their real questions about life. Local networks like nebenan.de do try to connect neighbourhoods, but there’s still a big gap. What’s missing is a protected space (SafeSpace) that offers support and solutions while everyday pressure keeps rising and traditional institutions provide less and less security. 1000 Thoughts builds this bridge to bring people together organically on a deeper level.
And you can do exactly that here – just like me – very safely, because nobody is looking over your shoulder, and because it’s a misconception that the whole world immediately reads what you publish. We have a real SafeSpace here, precisely because the algorithms steer and assign who reads what, where. That’s why this model I’m living out here – and you’re welcome to copy it – is a digital SafeSpace for me: I can connect with the world here and at the same time be protected from people who might disagree with my ideas and my criticism and want to harm me for that reason. The algorithms protect me, that’s my experience: people like that won’t even read what I write. And even if they actually did read what I write, they’d have to engage with my thoughts and what I’m putting forward here, and question it critically – and then I’d have achieved exactly what I want!
So: throw off your masks! Learn from your children – and from animals, too. Your cats show you exactly what they feel. Your children tell you, unfiltered, what they think and feel. Small children above all, as long as they haven’t yet been “spoiled” and conditioned for competition, assertiveness, the elbow society and the achievement society, tell you crystal clear with their body language, or quite directly in words, what they think. If, for example, you bring someone along, or have someone around you, with whom your children feel discomfort and are uneasy, your children will tell you right away. They’ll say: “Hey, I don’t like so-and-so, for such-and-such a reason.”
And that’s exactly how you should do it too, if you don’t want to betray yourselves – because in the long run you can’t. In the long run you can’t work against your innermost convictions and pretend forever. At some point you have to stand by who you are – to yourselves, and to your children, to society and of course to the generations to come. For me, that’s truthfulness: saying openly, “Hey, after 80 years of economic growth we don’t need any more damn economic growth!” Economic growth is destroying our ecosystems, it’s destroying the very foundations of our lives. Stop this ideology, stop the economic growth, stop this permanent pressure! Take the pressure off, and let’s return to what truly makes us who we are as beings, as humans. That’s my appeal to you: “Humanity at her best.” Don’t be afraid, I’m with you. I’m showing how it works – we’re showing how it works!
Who would you like to talk to about this thought?
Thank you. Every answer fits – take it with you into your day. Would you like to share something yourself?
