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Useful Illegality

In 1964, the sociologist Niklas Luhmann published his book Funktionen und Folgen formaler Organisation, functions and consequences of formal organization. One of its chapters is titled Brauchbare Illegalität, useful illegality. The term describes rule-breaking that helps an organization to work. Organizational sociologists still use it as the technical term for such rule-breaking.

In 2015, the sociologist Stefan Kühl applied the term to the emissions scandal in his paper Volkswagen ist überall, Volkswagen is everywhere. He wrote that generous readings of the law and small departures from rules are functional for an organization, and are therefore tolerated. In his view, Volkswagen’s leadership did not fail because of these everyday departures. It failed because it managed its useful illegalities unprofessionally.

Trigger Points

In 2023 the sociologists Steffen Mau, Thomas Lux and Linus Westheuser published Triggerpunkte. Konsens und Konflikt in der Gegenwartsgesellschaft, Trigger Points: Consensus and Conflict in Contemporary Society. Their finding is that on many big questions there is a fair degree of consensus.

Conflict breaks out at particular points. Mau calls them Sollbruchstellen der öffentlichen Debatte, the built-in breaking points of public debate. One example from the book: Gleichstellung ja, aber bitte keine „Gendersprache“! Equality yes, but please no gender language! The authors doubt that two clearly defined camps have formed.

Germany Abolishes Itself

At the end of August 2010, Thilo Sarrazin, then a member of the board of the Bundesbank, published Deutschland schafft sich ab, Germany Abolishes Itself. The book was about falling birth rates, immigration and integration, especially of immigrants from Muslim countries. By February 2011 it had sold 1.25 million copies, and by 2012 about 1.5 million.

The Deutschlandstiftung Integration published a volume of the texts that major German newspapers printed about it in the first six weeks. Sarrazin left the Bundesbank board. The SPD began proceedings to expel him and finally did so in 2020. ARD’s chief pollster Jörg Schönenborn said that there had never been a majority among the population for Sarrazin’s theses.

Three Hours Every Morning

In exile, Thomas Mann kept a fixed working day. Jeden Morgen um neun zieht er sich für drei Stunden zum Schreiben zurück. Every morning at nine he withdrew for three hours to write.

After dinner he read the pages of the morning aloud to his wife and family. The Thomas Mann Archive at ETH Zurich runs a long exhibition on his study, Im Schreiben eingerichtet, Set Up for Writing, from 2023 to 2029. It asks how his working day and his family life were arranged around his writing.

Late Invitations

Frida Hummel’s etiquette book Lebensart has a chapter on the midday dinner party. It says that invitations should be sent out early. The guests need time to accept or decline. The hostess needs time to prepare, and to invite a replacement if a guest cannot come. Then the chapter adds a short sentence: Späte Einladungen werden übel vermerkt. Late invitations are taken badly.

A Job Through Jachmann

In Hans Fallada’s novel Kleiner Mann – was nun?, published by Rowohlt in 1932, the clerk Johannes Pinneberg loses his job. In Berlin, Jachmann, the lover of Pinneberg’s mother, gets him a position as a men’s clothing salesman in the Mandel department store. There a consultant introduces a compulsory sales quota. Pinneberg falls behind it, and a customer’s complaint is used as the reason to dismiss him.

The Castle

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.

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.