Germany, Persuasion, Complexity - understand-culture

The Ideal Type

In 1904 Max Weber published an essay on objectivity in the social sciences. In it he defined the Idealtypus, the ideal type. It is formed by stressing one or a few points of view one-sidedly. Many scattered single phenomena that fit these points of view are joined zu einem in sich einheitlichen Gedankenbilde, into one unified mental picture.

Weber added that in its conceptual purity this picture cannot be found anywhere in reality. Es ist eine Utopie. It is a utopia. For historical work, he wrote, the task is to establish in each single case how near to or far from this ideal picture reality stands.

Solving Problems Mathematically

Germany’s national education standards for mathematics name the process-related competences that mathematics teaching is to build. The standing conference of the state education ministers first adopted them in 2003 and 2004 and revised them on 23 June 2022. The list includes Probleme mathematisch lösen, solving problems mathematically, and Mathematisch modellieren, modeling mathematically. In the primary school standards of 2004, Problemlösen, problem solving, comes first.

The standards describe the first competence step by step. It starts vom Erkennen und Formulieren mathematischer Probleme, from recognizing and formulating mathematical problems. It goes on to choosing suitable heuristics and developing a way to the solution. Modeling, they say, is about das Lösen eines realen Problems mit Hilfe von Mathematik, solving a real problem with the help of mathematics.

Words for the Wider View

die Gesamtschau
the overall view, taking everything together

im Zusammenhang sehen
to see something in its context

das große Ganze
the big picture

die Querschnittsaufgabe
a cross-sectional task, one that concerns several departments

einen Rattenschwanz nach sich ziehen
to drag a rat’s tail behind it, to set off a long chain of consequences

Reading a Law in Its Context

In 1840 the jurist Friedrich Carl von Savigny named four elements of interpreting a law: “ein grammatisches, logisches, historisches und systematisches”, grammatical, logical, historical and systematic. German law students still learn them.

The systematic element reads a provision in the light of where it stands in the whole legal system. A Göttingen teaching script gives an example. A rule of the Trade Regulation Act stands in the title on established businesses. By general view, it therefore does not apply to traveling traders.

Peace, Justice and Creation as One Question

From 1988 to 1989 the churches in East Germany held an Ecumenical Assembly on three themes at once: justice, peace and the integrity of creation. The plenary met in Magdeburg from 8 to 11 October 1988. On 30 April 1989 the results were handed to the 19 churches that had commissioned the assembly.

The three themes belong together in the churches’ thinking. In 2011 a synod paper of the Protestant Church in Central Germany spoke of “der gegenseitigen Abhängigkeit”, the mutual dependence, between justice, peace and the care of creation.

The Catholic Academy in Berlin calls the assembly a forerunner and signpost of the Peaceful Revolution of autumn 1989.

War as a Continuation of Policy

Der Krieg ist eine blosse Fortsetzung der Politik mit andern Mitteln. War is merely a continuation of policy by other means. Carl von Clausewitz wrote this in Vom Kriege, On War, published in 1832.

Clausewitz did not treat war as a separate technical field. He wrote that war is not only a political act but a real political instrument, “eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs, ein Durchführen desselben mit andern Mitteln”, a continuation of political dealings, carried out by other means.

The Magic Square

The Stability and Growth Act of 8 June 1967 requires German economic policy to pursue four goals at the same time: stable prices, a high level of employment, external economic balance, and steady and adequate growth.

German students of economics learn the four goals as the magisches Viereck, the magic square. It is called magic because the goals are hard to reach together. School materials also teach a magic hexagon with two further goals.

Body, Mind and Circumstances

In 1992 the German Medical Assembly created an independent medical specialty for psychotherapeutic medicine, with five years of specialist training. Since 2003 it has been called psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy.

Basic psychosomatic care asks doctors to include biological, psychological and social factors in diagnosis, treatment and the understanding of illness. The physician Thure von Uexküll (1908–2004) helped establish psychosomatics as a university discipline in Germany. He worked with the bio-psycho-social model.

No Funding Without the Whole Picture

A German town that wants federal and state money for urban renewal must first write an Integriertes Stadtentwicklungskonzept, an integrated urban development concept. It is a condition for almost all funded projects. Its purpose is to make sure that as many local interests as possible are considered systematically.

The Bavarian municipality of Wörthsee completed its concept in June 2019. The chapters cover population and households, green space and landscape, the economy, social infrastructure and mobility. The concept works out the main connections and dependencies between them.

The Ethics Commission on Nuclear Power

After the Fukushima accident, the federal government set up an Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply. It began its work on 4 April 2011. Its seventeen members included Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Ulrich Fischer and the sociologist Ulrich Beck.

The report was handed over on 30 May 2011. It said that reducing the risks to purely technical aspects would not meet the demand for ganzheitliches Denken, holistic thinking. “Ökologische, wirtschaftliche, gesellschaftliche und technische Risiken sind zudem eng miteinander verzahnt.” Ecological, economic, social and technical risks are closely interlocked.

The commission concluded that, with the measures it proposed, Germany could complete its exit from nuclear power within a decade.