Persuasion Archives - Page 3 of 18

Geography as a Systems Science

The educational standards for geography at the intermediate school level start from one idea. Da sich die Geographie als Systemwissenschaft versteht, ist das Hauptbasiskonzept des Faches das Systemkonzept. Because geography sees itself as a systems science, the main basic concept of the subject is the system concept. Its parts are structure, function and process. The German Geographical Society published the 10th edition of the standards in 2020.

The subject looks at the earth as a system of people and environment. The society’s standards for the Abitur of 2024 speak of die komplexen und dynamischen Wechselbeziehungen innerhalb und zwischen physischen und anthropogenen (Sub-)Systemen, the complex and dynamic interactions within and between physical and human systems.

What Holds the World Together

In the scene Nacht of Goethe’s Faust I, published in 1808, Faust says why he has turned to magic. Daß ich erkenne, was die Welt / Im Innersten zusammenhält. So that I may know what holds the world together at its innermost core. He wants to see all working forces and seeds, and no longer rummage in words.

Base and Superstructure

In January 1859, in London, Karl Marx wrote the preface to Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In a few sentences he summed up his theory of society. The relations of production together form the economic structure of society, die reale Basis, worauf sich ein juristischer und politischer Überbau erhebt, the real base on which a legal and political superstructure rises.

Die Produktionsweise des materiellen Lebens bedingt den sozialen, politischen und geistigen Lebensprozeß überhaupt. The way material life is produced conditions social, political and intellectual life as a whole. Es ist nicht das Bewußtsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewußtsein bestimmt. It is not people’s consciousness that determines their being. It is their social being that determines their consciousness.

The Family as a System

From 1974 Helm Stierlin taught in Heidelberg. Around him grew the Heidelberg group of family therapists. A 2006 article on his work describes their subject as problems of the family system that show themselves in the behavior of one person, im individuellen Verhalten sich ausdrückenden Systemproblemen.

On 22 November 2019 the Federal Joint Committee decided to make systemic therapy for adults a benefit of the statutory health insurance. In January 2024 it decided to extend this to children and young people. The committee says the method looks nicht auf die einzelne Person, sondern auf die Interaktionen zwischen Mitgliedern der Familie, not at the single person but at the interactions between members of the family.

Thünen’s Rings

In 1826 Johann Heinrich von Thünen published the first part of Der isolirte Staat, The Isolated State. He imagined a state with one city as its only market, surrounded by rings of farming. What is grown in each ring depends on its distance from the market. In German the model is known as the Thünensche Ringe, Thünen’s rings.

The national biography says that Thünen gave important impulses to location theory and to economic geography. Teaching material for upper secondary geography still presents the rings as a thinking model zur Erklärung räumlicher Ordnungsmuster in der Landwirtschaft, for explaining spatial patterns in farming.

Central Places

In 1933 the geographer Walter Christaller published his dissertation Die zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland, the central places in southern Germany. It described towns as a hierarchy of central places, each serving the area around it. In 1968 the conference of ministers for spatial planning fixed a hierarchy for the whole country with four levels: upper, middle, lower and small centers.

The concept is now in federal law. Section 2 of the Spatial Planning Act says that settlement ist vorrangig auf vorhandene Siedlungen mit ausreichender Infrastruktur und auf Zentrale Orte auszurichten, is to be directed first to existing settlements with sufficient infrastructure and to central places. Die soziale Infrastruktur ist vorrangig in Zentralen Orten zu bündeln. Social infrastructure is to be concentrated mainly in central places.

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.

Who Can Solve It?

The ZDF Politbarometer, the opinion poll of Germany’s second public television channel, has long asked Germans: Was ist Ihrer Meinung nach gegenwärtig das wichtigste Problem in Deutschland? What, in your opinion, is the most important problem in Germany at present? It has also asked which party can best solve the country’s current economic problems.

On 7 November 2025 ZDF reported a result under the headline Mehrheit zweifelt an Problemlösungskompetenz der Bundesregierung, majority doubts the federal government’s competence in solving problems. Only 38 percent thought the government was making an important contribution to solving the problems in Germany. 58 percent doubted it.

The Industrial Master’s Exam

A German industrial master, the Geprüfter Industriemeister, earns the title in an exam at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce. In the exam for the metal trades, the second part consists of integrated situation tasks of at least 240 minutes each, followed by a technical interview.

The rules say what the candidate must show. He must be able betriebliche Aufgabenstellungen zu analysieren, zu strukturieren und einer begründeten Lösung zuzuführen, to analyze and structure tasks in the company and bring them to a reasoned solution. In the interview he must show that he can analyze practical problems in the company and work out possible solutions.

When a Problem Arises

In 1935 the psychologist Karl Duncker published Zur Psychologie des produktiven Denkens, on the psychology of productive thinking. On the first page he defines a problem. Ein ‚Problem‘ entsteht z.B. dann, wenn ein Lebewesen ein Ziel hat und nicht ‚weiß‘, wie es dieses Ziel erreichen soll. A problem arises, for example, when a living being has a goal and does not know how to reach it.

Thinking, Duncker wrote, is called onto the scene wherever the given state cannot be turned into the desired state by simple action. Its task is to design the action that leads from one to the other. In 2003 a seminar at Heidelberg University opened with this definition.