In the autumn of 1918, in prison in Breslau, Rosa Luxemburg wrote a critique of the Russian Revolution. It was published in 1922. She wrote that freedom only for the supporters of the government, or only for the members of one party, is no freedom. In a note in the margin stands her best-known sentence: Freiheit ist immer Freiheit der Andersdenkenden. Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently. The sentence circulates in several variants. This is the wording of her collected works. On 17 January 1988, civil rights activists and people who wanted to leave East Germany tried to join the state’s yearly march in honor of Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in East Berlin, with their own placards. More than 100 were arrested before they reached it.
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The Effort to Find the Truth
In 1778 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was in a public dispute with Johann Melchior Goeze, the chief pastor of Hamburg. That year Lessing published 15 polemical writings against him. The duke then withdrew Lessing’s exemption from censorship and banned him from publishing on religion. In the same controversy, in Eine Duplik, a reply to the theologian Johann Heinrich Reß, Lessing wrote: Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz irgendein Mensch ist oder zu sein vermeinet, sondern die aufrichtige Mühe, die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit zu kommen, macht den Wert des Menschen. Not the truth that a person possesses, or believes he possesses, but the honest effort he has made to get to the truth makes the worth of a person.
Speak Well of Him
Luther’s Small Catechism of 1529 is still often used in confirmation classes. It explains the eighth commandment, Du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis reden wider deinen Nächsten, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Wir sollen Gott fürchten und lieben, daß wir unsern Nächsten nicht belügen, verraten, verleumden oder seinen Ruf verderben, sondern sollen ihn entschuldigen, Gutes von ihm reden und alles zum besten kehren. We should fear and love God, so that we do not lie about our neighbor, betray him, slander him or ruin his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him and put the best construction on everything.
A Hundred Authors Against Einstein
In 1931 a pamphlet appeared in Leipzig under the title Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein, A Hundred Authors Against Einstein. The physicist Hans Reichenbach called it an astonishing accumulation of naive errors. Einstein’s reply is often quoted: if he were wrong, a single author would have been enough to refute him. The quotation collection The Ultimate Quotable Einstein gives as its source Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, more than fifty years later.
One After the Other
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul sets rules for speaking in the congregation. The Luther Bible renders them this way. Ihr könnt alle prophetisch reden, doch einer nach dem andern, damit alle lernen und alle ermahnt werden. You can all prophesy, but one after the other, so that all may learn and all be exhorted. If someone else who sits there receives a revelation, so schweige der Erste, the first should fall silent. The chapter ends: Lasst aber alles ehrbar und ordentlich zugehen. Let everything be done decently and in order.
Advice for a Bad Speaker
In 1930 Kurt Tucholsky, writing as Peter Panter, published Ratschläge für einen schlechten Redner, advice for a bad speaker, in the Vossische Zeitung. It begins: Fang nie mit dem Anfang an -, sondern drei Meilen vor dem Anfang! Never start at the beginning, but three miles before it. It advises the bad speaker to read his speech from the page. Sprich nie unter anderthalb Stunden, sonst lohnt es gar nicht erst anzufangen. Never speak for less than an hour and a half, or it is not worth starting at all. A short final part gives advice for a good speaker: Hauptsätze, Hauptsätze, Hauptsätze. Main clauses, main clauses, main clauses. Klare Disposition im Kopf – möglichst wenig auf dem Papier. A clear outline in your head, as little as possible on paper.
Knigge on Keeping the Hour
Adolph Knigge’s Über den Umgang mit Menschen, On Dealing with People, first appeared in 1788. In the first chapter of later editions, Knigge tells his reader: Sei streng gegen dich selbst, pünktlich, ordentlich, arbeitsam, fleißig in Deinem Berufe! Be strict with yourself, punctual, orderly, hardworking, diligent in your profession. He gives a reason. Everyone likes to deal and do business with a person whose punctuality in word and deed can be relied on. Then he goes further. Be exactly where you mean to appear, at the set and proper hour, und wärst Du auch der einzige, der diese Ordnung beobachtet, even if you are the only one who keeps this order.
Official Secrecy, Weber’s View
In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Economy and Society, Max Weber described how bureaucracy uses what it knows. Its officials have the advantage of professional knowledge. Diese Überlegenheit des berufsmäßig Wissenden sucht jede Bürokratie noch durch das Mittel der Geheimhaltung ihrer Kenntnisse und Absichten zu steigern. “Every bureaucracy seeks to increase this superiority of the professionally informed even further by keeping its knowledge and intentions secret.” Weber added that the concept of the Amtsgeheimnis, official secrecy, is bureaucracy’s own invention, and that a poorly informed and therefore powerless parliament naturally suits it better.
Dare to Know
In December 1784, Immanuel Kant published his answer to the question “What is Enlightenment?” in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. It begins: Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.” Kant defined immaturity as the inability to use one’s own understanding without guidance from another. The motto of the Enlightenment, he wrote, is Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding.
Rule by Knowledge
Max Weber’s Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economy and Society) was published after his death. In it, Weber sums up bureaucratic administration in one sentence: Die bureaukratische Verwaltung bedeutet: Herrschaft kraft Wissen. Bureaucratic administration means rule by virtue of knowledge. This, Weber adds, is its specifically rational character.