Building a bridge can be quite pointless if only the proverbial two muttons horn to horn block the passage. A satire by Jan Böhmermann is a good way to show what is going wrong in our culture of debate.
Online tirades, political storms far removed from the facts or off-topic talk shows: For several years now, one has been able to see from more and more new examples how malade the culture of debate is in this country. And the complaints about this state of affairs don’t stop either: it is quickly agreed that this shouldn’t be the case. Since this “This must not be!” but is often also one of the “main arguments” in most disputes and has long since proven its unsuitability, it is worth taking a look at the causes: Why are we less and less able to have a good debate?
lack of respect?
At first glance, it seems to be due to the lack of respect for the other person: “We have to stop hating other opinions,” wrote the virologist Hendrik Streeck recently in an article for “Zeit”. That sounds good, but it’s half wrong: Of course, it’s about rejecting and wanting to refute the opinion of the other person. The debate is the right tool for that. (The fact that emotions are also involved doesn’t make things any easier, but it always has to be dealt with.)
Instead, the problem is that more and more people are withdrawing from this very debate and ending up in fruitless arguments: each demanding respect that is independent of the content, the parties then stand like two muttons on the bridge, which is a good idea to build, and build it impassable by refusing to give way. This puts opinion above the argument and ultimately above the facts and any consensus that could or should be based on them, and there are two surefire ways to do this: dumb it down or complicate it. Two recent examples show how deeply embedded these problematic mechanisms are now.
Böhmermann’s poster
Take, for example, the scandal surrounding Jan Böhmermann’s “wanted poster”: The comedian satirically portrayed FDP politicians and well-known right-wing conservative journalists in the style of the iconic RAF police poster as the “Lindner/Lehfeld gang”. A wave of indignation followed: the people pictured had been equated with terrorists. Anyone who had ever had to interpret a poem at school could easily understand that in his program Böhmermann used this poster to actually criticize a dishonest type of argument in current discussions, in which supposed connections are based on small, incorrectly linked snippets be bent towards any desired result. According to the motto: Students are often left-wing radicals, left-wing radicals are often active in social media – Christian Lindner was a student and uses social media very actively, so Lindner must be left-wing radicals. The poster showed the absurdity of the obviously wrong conclusion. But instead of debating it, many of those involved, including a number of those pictured, acted as if someone had been seriously compared to the RAF: people like said Streek or “Welt” journalist Anna Schneider, who one has to assume that they have such a simple get through. With “stupidity” you can get out of the debate and kill your topic.
Saxony’s left and the interpretation of feminism
The other example was provided by Saxony’s left at one in Connewitz. It is well known that the party is currently struggling badly – but during a round of discussions on the realignment, various left-wing groups counter-protested, which were about the correct interpretation of feminism, which was then carried out in social networks in such detail that even Interested people could no longer follow, especially since supposed defenders of women’s rights had even attacked and insulted women. In the process, one threw at one another with more and more subtle, more far-fetched arguments – a classic case of overcomplication: if one does not want one’s own explanations to be meaningfully addressed, one only has to hang them far enough “up”. The debate is already over.
The fatal thing: fools and complicaters think they are right afterwards – they were not disproved. No debate can succeed like that. The first requirement would be that you get involved in the arguments and really want to clarify the issue. Finally, respectful endurance also means accepting that there are debates that you don’t want to have. But if you think you have to participate, you have a responsibility to bring each other up to speed. It is therefore part of the discourse culture to name such “tricking” participants: After all, a common level of debate can never be one’s own: you have to meet on neutral ground. And preparing this is the task of everyone involved!