Wolfgang Schäuble has been a member of the Bundestag for exactly 50 years, making him the sole record holder. For the anniversary, the CDU politician will basically be with Markus Lanz. He criticizes Germany’s “know-it-all” on many issues, which means that Germany is met with a lack of understanding from many international partners and allies.
As an example, Schäuble cites the discussion about the “One Love” armband at the World Cup in Qatar. This moral exaggeration does not fit the federal government’s gas deal with Qatar. Germany needs this relationship right now. And don’t stick to what other countries would like to dictate.
But even in the debate about the raid in the “Reichsbürger” milieu, an internal contradiction becomes clear. Such a successful search is only possible thanks to a certain level of surveillance of suspects, for example by wiretapping communications. Here Germany must find the right balance between freedom and security. And between security and morality.
It is similar for Schäuble in energy policy. Germany has been going its own difficult path here since Nord Stream 1. But with Nord Stream 2 at the latest, they have moved far too far away from the other Europeans and the Americans.
German academic training focuses on methodology. The quality of results – whether in the natural sciences or in the humanities – is determined by the quality of methodology. German students are taught that the person applying the methodolgy, but not the methodology itself, is interchangeable:
“… the conclusions verifiable; the starting point and operating assumptions logical and understandable; the individual steps taken re-traceable; so that the same results are arrived at by anyone taking the same path of inquiry.”
The academic (scholar, scientist, inquirer) is fully detached from the topic substance, both in the execution of the inquiry and in the presentation of results. Message and messenger are kept separate.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ambivalence as “simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action; continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite); uncertainty as to which approach to follow.”
Attraction and repulsion. Germans are attracted by logical, well-researched and -argued statements. But they are also attracted by personal appeal, by a speaker who is both appealing and appealing to. Appealing to as in reaching out to.
Germans are repulsed by an imbalance between rational (objective) and personal (subjective) appeal. Mehr Schein als Sein, which translates into more appearance than substance, is a severe criticism. But they are also repulsed, perhaps moreso, by a sophisticated and effective appeal to emotions, to the less rational.
Germans are also capable of persuading by placing themselves front and center, by establishing a personal connection, by appealing to emotions. They choose not to, however. They choose not to teach, train or reinforce it. Ambivalence. They can and often want to, but are wary of the negative effects. Instead, Germans feel the need, the obligation, to constrain themselves, to not go there.
Why? Partly it is their strong scientific, rational, intellectually rigorous approach. Partly it is their belief that persuasion should not be deceptive. Appealing to human emotions – pushing all of the right buttons without the listener being aware of it – is a form of manipulation.
For if the listener is not aware that their thinking is being steered by their emotions, she is not in a position to freely choose to accept or reject the arguments presented. That person is reduced from subject to object. Deception. Manipulation.
Robert H. Goddard, now considered the American father of modern rocketry, was often mocked and ridiculed by his fellow Americans during his lifetime, but was well-respected in Germany, largely because of his persuasive techniques.
Early in his rocketry research, Goddard funded his own testing, but as his work grew in scope he began to seek outside funding. However, as a publicity-shy man who tried to keep media-focus on his work instead of himself, most of his attempts to solicit financial assistance failed, with the exception of the Smithsonian Institution, which agreed to grant Goddard modest funding.
In 1917, Goddard made several proposals to the U.S. Army and Navy about the possibility of his rocket research being used in the military. Although both organizations were interested, the only one of Goddard’s proposals that he was allowed to develop was his idea for a tube-based rocket launcher to be used as a light infantry weapon. This launcher became the precursor to the bazooka.
After WWI, Goddard returned to researching rockets, and in 1919 he published a book titled A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. As part of this book, he mentioned the possibility of sending rockets to the moon. At the time, this was considered an outlandish and impossible suggestion. Although this was only a small part of the book, Goddard was soon subjected to what David Lasser, the co-founder of the American Rocket Society, called the “most violent attacks.”
In 1926, Goddard successfully launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. Partly due to Goddard’s poor reputation and partly due to his media-shyness, this launch was largely unnoticed. In 1929, following one of Goddard’s rocket launches, a local newspaper mockingly printed the headline “Moon rocket misses target by 238,799.5 miles”
Although Goddard had difficulty convincing Americans that his ideas were useful, his work was very persuasive to Germans, and it wasn’t long after his book was published that Goddard began receiving queries from German engineers asking about his work. Initially Goddard answered these queries (his help is even acknowledged in Hermann Oberth’s 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen) , however, increasing aggression from Germany began to worry him, and by 1940 he had stopped responding to the engineers’ questions.
Realizing that he may have inadvertently assisted in German development of long-range missiles, Goddard attempted to warn the U.S. Army and Navy about a potential German threat from rockets. Although Goddard was not able to sell his idea that long-range missiles were a possibility (both organizations considered his warnings too far-fetched to be worth contemplation), he was able to sell himself well enough that between 1942 and 1945 the Navy employed him as Director of Research in the Bureau of Aeronautics, where he worked developing experimental engines.
The safest way to win an NBA championship is to land one of the league’s few unstoppable players. But even superstars require the right surrounding parts. They are the Australians. And every team in the NBA could use one.
Australian players tend to be the opposites of most American players. They don’t seek superstardom. They actively avoid attention. They excel in the egoless roles that most players reject.
Aussies can be so obsessed with their teams, in fact, that individual awards make them uncomfortable. They want to win more than anything else. “The kids in the U.S. are told from the time they’re 12 years old that they’re the next Michael Jordan.”
Sunday. September 26, 2021. Federal elections in Germany. Angela Merkel, after sixteen years in office, four consecutive terms, had decided not to run for re-election. In a few weeks we’ll know who her successor is.
Serge Schmemann, one of the world’s sharpest observers and analysts of events in Germany, and in Europe, wrote about Frau Merkel:
“These traits of honesty, modesty, discipline, persistence and reserve would seem almost quaint elsewhere, in New York City, say. But when someone facing almost insurmountable political odds — as a woman, an East German and a scientist — rises to the pinnacle of German power and stays there for four terms, there’s something for America and other democracies, where decent people are increasingly shunning politics, to learn and emulate.”
Relations between German employers and employees are extensively regulated under German labor and employment law. German labor and employment law is strongly biased in favour of employees and is probably best referred to as the “employee protection law”.
Differences in the workplace environment can be reflected in the sorts of extra-workplace relationships that develop between co-workers. Company policies aside, of course. Two recent independent surveys of couples in Germany and the U.S. yielded the results that 24.5% of U.S. couples met their partner at work, while in Germany this number lies at only 12%. However, the most common way in which couples met was the same for both countries: through friends.
Günter Jauch, moderator of the very popular German version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, is known for his dry, rational delivery and his uncanny ability to open up his quiz show guests with wit, irony and subject matter knowledge.
Germans believe that it is unimportant who actually presents the arguments as long as the topic has been understood in both its depth and breadth, analyzed with stringent methods, leads to a logical and actionable conclusion, and is communicated in a structured and clear way. The presenter could be a junior member of the team.