In Franz Kafka’s novel Das Schloss, written in 1922 and published in 1926, two years after his death, the land surveyor K. arrives in a village below a castle. His appointment may go back to a letter that went astray years earlier. The villagers are supposed to bring their concerns to the castle, aber es wird nicht klar, wie dies zu erfolgen hat, da die Zuständigkeiten unbekannt sind, but it does not become clear how, because the responsibilities are unknown.
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Going Personal
In Eristische Dialektik, published after his death and widely read as Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, the art of being right, Arthur Schopenhauer lists tricks for winning an argument. The last one is to go personal. Beim Persönlichwerden aber verlässt man den Gegenstand ganz, und richtet seinen Angriff auf die Person des Gegners: man wird also kränkend, hämisch, beleidigend, grob. In going personal, one leaves the subject entirely and directs the attack at the opponent’s person. One becomes hurtful, spiteful, insulting, rude. German Wikipedia summarizes: the argument against the person is a way out when the opponent seems to be winning.
Trust Anticipates the Future
In 1968 the sociologist Niklas Luhmann published Vertrauen, trust, which describes trust as a mechanism for reducing social complexity. The Tagesspiegel quoted him in 2008: Wer Vertrauen erweist, nimmt Zukunft vorweg. Whoever shows trust anticipates the future. The newspaper added: Wenn auch als riskante Vorleistung, even if as a risky advance.
The Mask of the Role
In 1924 the philosopher Helmuth Plessner published Grenzen der Gemeinschaft, the limits of community. He defended distance, tact and the Sehnsucht nach der Maske, the longing for the mask. German Wikipedia summarizes his idea of the mask. Through it a person becomes general and turns von der Privatperson zur Amtsperson, from a private person into an official person. Tact, in the same summary, dient der Entspannung unter Menschen, die man nicht kennt, eases things between people who do not know each other. Plessner wrote against a strong longing of his time for total community. His view stood largely alone in Germany at the time, and the book was only rediscovered in the early 1980s.
Do Not Talk Too Much About Yourself
Adolph Freiherr Knigge’s Über den Umgang mit Menschen, on dealing with people, first appeared in 1788. Knigge advises: Rede also nicht zu viel von Dir selber, außer in dem Zirkel Deiner vertrautesten Freunde. So do not talk too much about yourself, except in the circle of your most trusted friends. He gives two reasons for not being too open with people. The first is the fear of revealing one’s weakness and being misused. The second is that once people are used to being told everything, they zuletzt von jedem unsrer kleinsten Schritte Rechenschaft verlangen, end up demanding an account of our smallest steps.
Community and Society
In 1887 the sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies published Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, community and society. The following lines are from a later edition. Alles vertraute, heimliche, ausschließliche Zusammenleben (so finden wir) wird als Leben in Gemeinschaft verstanden. All trusted, private, exclusive living together, so we find, is understood as life in community. Gesellschaft ist die Öffentlichkeit, ist die Welt. Society is the public, it is the world. Man geht in die Gesellschaft wie in die Fremde. One goes into society as into a foreign land.
Words for the Impostor
der Hochstapler — the impostor. Duden: a person who pretends to a high social position in betrügerischer Absicht, with intent to deceive. The word comes from thieves’ cant, from hoch, genteel, and stapeln, to beg.
tiefstapeln — to stack low. To understate one’s own abilities.
der Scheinriese — the apparent giant. Duden: an overrated person or thing deren Bedeutung bei näherer Betrachtung geringer erscheint, whose importance seems smaller on closer inspection. The word comes from a figure in Michael Ende’s children’s book Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer. Herr Tur Tur looks huge from far away and smaller the closer one comes.
gefährliches Halbwissen — dangerous half-knowledge. Said with irony of a little knowledge presented with confidence.
The Weimar Edition
In 1883, the year of Martin Luther’s 400th birthday, work began on a critical edition of everything he wrote. Its title is D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, a critical complete edition. It is known as the Weimar Edition. It was planned to be finished in 1983. In a paper published in 1984, the Luther scholar Walther von Loewenich wrote that it had 118 volumes and that der völlige Abschluß, the full completion, would probably not quite be reached by then. The edition was completed in 2009, after 126 years and about 80,000 pages.
A Task Designed for Eternity
The Monumenta Germaniae Historica was founded in Frankfurt am Main on January 20, 1819. Its driving force was the statesman Freiherr vom Stein. The society set out to publish the sources of German and European history of the Middle Ages. Two hundred years later the work continues, with almost 450 volumes. A history the society published for its bicentenary calls the task letztlich auf Ewigkeit angelegt, ultimately designed for eternity, and a Daueraufgabe, a permanent task. Missing editions are named openly. Such a gap is called an Editionsdesiderat, a wanted edition.
The Logic of Failure
In 1989 the psychologist Dietrich Dörner published Die Logik des Mißlingens, the logic of failure. He studied how people act in complex situations, using computer simulations. In one of them, participants managed Tanaland, an imaginary region in Africa. In another they ran Lohhausen, a simulated small town. A chapter on dealing with goals discusses global goals and what Dörner calls Reparaturdienstverhalten, repair-service behavior. Dörner’s first step for acting in complex situations is to become clear about the goal. Many people, he found, already fail at this first step.