“Wenn ich Zeuge werde, wie der Bundespräsident seinen geprüften Ernst den getauften Kameras anvertraut, spüre ich, dass mein Innenleben ungetauft heissen muss. Verglichen mit den Pflegern der Sagbarkeit komme ich mir unvorzeigbar vor. Mein Selbstgespräch macht mich auch mir selbst verdächtig. Das verdanke ich den edlen Bemühungen derer, die jeweils wissen, was das Richtige ist.”
Martin Walser, NZZ Nr. 300/2000

REFLECTIONS, COMMENTS, NOTES

Trends Of Our Time
The German spelling reform is an absolute disgrace – infantile, teutonic and primitive. A perfect “Kinder- und Banausenreform”.
The pre-reform DUDEN was an elaborate normative masterpiece. A work of art. Clear, unequivocal and immensely useful.
Now we are looking at a mess; logic, lucidity, elegance and vital nuances have been given up.
Why? So that the educationally challenged can write a sentence or two with five mistakes instead of ten.
Thank you, German philologists! Great work ...

The linguistic quality of text on the Internet is, generally speaking, deplorable. This applies to both German and English (the rest I can’t judge).
Personal homepages, adverts, messages and social media comments testify to the fact that we are heading for an analphabetic world in which grammar, typography, style, beauty and precision have no place anymore.
Generations of teachers seem to have failed miserably. And generations of politicians: Immigration, in the long run, destroys not only nations but also their languages.

Stefan Dornuf, in a book review (NZZ Nr. 121/2001), writes: “[Heute] grassiert eine alarmierend anwachsende Analphabetisierung, die selbst vor Verlagshäusern nicht haltmacht [...] auch dieses äusserlich schön gestaltete Buch [enthält] Aberhunderte von teilweise sinnentstellenden Druckfehlern.”

Literary criticism by the populace – this is the fashion now. Surfers are invited to say something about a book or a movie. Great. Boy, I am really interested to read what someone who can hardly write one correct sentence has to say about literature.
Equality, here too, is pretty ridiculous ...
Literary criticism requires knowledge. Background information that comes from relentless reading and systematic study. Any text, and indeed a literary one, is a complex and intricate thing; various entirely different methodological approaches are possible. If I am not aware of this, I produce garbage. Worthless crap that I wouldn’t even have the courage to entertain my girlfriend with.
Emil Staiger – good job this trivialization and complete destruction of philological textual analysis was spared to you. RIP.

The media campaigns against “new” minorities (smokers, dog owners, “sex offenders”, real estate owners) piss me off; they remind me of NS-Germany or mediaeval Europe. Communities seem to need enemies. Witches they can hunt. Hunting seems to be so much fun for some.
But hunting and burning witches is not widely accepted anymore these days. Nor is lynching negroes. Women, negroes, homosexuals, gypsies and Jews (the victims of the past) have powerful lobbies now. Therefore the mob needs other victims, so it can continue to hate.
Let’s not forget one thing:
A little more than 100 years ago Oscar Wilde (one of the most brilliant writers Great Britain has brought forth) was sentenced to two years of hard labor for “sodomy” – because he admitted to be gay. Now we have gay street parades and gay mayors and gay generals and gay judges and gay theologians. (I even know one – a cunning bitch.)
And gay couples that want to get married ...

Today the biggest crime of all seems to be pedophilia – thanks to feminist lobbies, hysterical mothers and embittered old women (and their contemptible male accomplices) all over the world. It does not really matter what a man may have done wrong; that label has the potential to ruin careers and lives, and that’s the intention of the apologists of hard laws against “deviant” sexual preferences, however harmless they may be.
What a wonderful instrument for vindictive ex-wives they have created!
Women can say what they want – the judge wasn’t there to see what happened.
To punish a man 60 years ago, a wife just had to tell the Gestapo “My husband said Hitler is a moron”, and the guy was history a week later. Today it’s equally easy. Perhaps even more fun because the men are not executed right away (that’s so short, isn’t it) but publicly ostracized. They have to live on with this label of shame and unworthiness.
In today’s world Nabokov and Lewis Carroll would probably be jail birds. Cleaning toilets instead of writing books.

DNA databases: Nice. Just what we need. For men only, of course.
I think this is a very dangerous project. Many rape victims will lose their lives because of it.
A better solution in my view would be a jurisdiction that focuses on the important facts: the strong attraction women exert on men; the seductive power women have over men; the question whether violence was used or not; the question whether serious harm was done or not. And the question whether the guy is a felon or a small caliber novice offender.
Taboos and hard laws create crimes; soft laws prevent them and save lives.
Lao-Zi said: “Law creates crime.”

On the one hand our laws emphasize children’s autonomy. Children have a will that adults must respect. Children can’t be beaten or physically punished like they could be in my day (instead they beat up their teachers or shoot their parents, if they crack).
On the other hand we have laws to protect these same minors from all kinds of things that our lawmakers consider “dirty”.
This is an enormous contradiction in my view: Children have more power than adults in many respects because of their sacrosanctity; but with respect to sex they are being patronized more than ever before.

Two tears, and the kindergarten teacher diagnoses “sexual abuse”. And then the father has to prove that he never even thinks of touching his daughter. That’s real easy, isn’t it. And such episodes are really great for the daughter’s development. She will think that men are some kind of monsters that one should give a wide berth at all times.
And then these daughters marry ... Beautiful. And a year (or three months!) later they are back with daddy. They don’t even try to live with a man – because they don’t know what a man is.
If my daughter came running back to me, I’d tell her to kneel in front of the guy she left – for as long as it takes. And beg. And promise to be a good woman henceforth.

Docking Rottweiler tails is done when the puppy is two days old. The nervous system is not fully developed at that time, and the pain should be bearable. A docked tail has certain advantages for a dog. Since they wag a lot, they quite often incur wounds by hitting door frames etc.
One should keep in mind too how much real torturing of animals is going on in the laboratories of the chemical industry or in abattoirs.
This EU docking ban therefore is eyewash, aimed at the minority of pet owners. Because they have no lobby.

Dangerous dogs: The more dangerous our life becomes, the more harmless our pets should be. The ideal pet of today is supposed to lick a burglar’s face (before he gets shot by the burglar).
Dangerous dogs: Maybe giving birth ought to be forbidden instead – the mortality rate of life is 100%.
A few pimps with dangerous dogs in Berlin, and the politicians of Basel are legislating ...
Just like a few decades ago. “They have a Judenstern, so we must have one too.”
Perfect kindergarten stuff.
If I were a mother, I’d worry a lot – but not about my child being bitten by a dog or raped by a psychopath. These are rare occurrences. (But the media want one to believe that they are the number one threats to humanity. Right next to smoking cigarettes ...)
I would be worried about real horrors: tumors, leukemia, traffic accidents, drug abuse, depression, suicide, poverty, wars.

How come my parents were able to live without drugs? Through a world war? And today even reasonable people say nobody can stand life without drugs.
If drugs are so important, they should be legalized. Everybody has the right to destroy themselves.
Crimes committed under the influence of drugs should not be treated differently than ordinary crimes; otherwise I can do anything and just say: “Sorry, Your Honor, I didn’t know what I was doing because I was stoned.”