Language creates reality

You wake up at night to a loud bang. Still half asleep, still in a vague dream world, you look out of your bedroom window because you want to know where the deafening noise came from. You see that your neighbors' lights are also going on, but after a while they go out again. So you are not the only one who heard the loud bang. You shrug your shoulders, shake yourself briefly and go back to bed. The next day, nobody in the village talks about the night-time incident. No talk among neighbors, no conversation at the bakery. For whatever reason. Are you the first to mention it? Probably not. There is suddenly a huge hole, a crater, in the village. Strangely enough, people walk around this hole in silence and as if it were a matter of course. They will  then probably also do it in silence. Like everyone else. Your local newspaper doesn't even mention the bang, and the large hole is initially concealed, then described in small print as a bump in the town center. You see the deep hole with your own eyes and yet you only see a small dent. You heard the bang with your own ears. Yet you don't remember it at all. I promise. At some point, you no longer believe your own eyes and ears. Why? Because you too will shut it up like everyone else. Because only language creates reality. Or do you want to be one of five weirdos in town who wants to talk about it? You don't want to. I'm rambling? Maybe you do.

I'll ramble on by claiming that the phenomenon also works in reverse. Whether it's in a conversation at the bakery, gossiping with a neighbor or on a continuous loop on the front page of your local newspaper, an invisible danger is being discussed. For whatever reason. You yourself have never seen, heard, tasted, smelled or sensually perceived this danger. You also don't know anyone personally who feels this way. Nevertheless, at some point you will also believe in this danger. Regardless of how big, small or non-existent this danger is. Or do you want to be one of five weirdos in town who denies the problem? Everyone is talking about it. So it must be true.

I would like to reproduce two statements and superimpose them. The first is from Ralph Brinkhaus. In a speech in the Bundestag, he thanked the media for "supporting" him with many touching stories about Covid. Supported? Supported who and with what? To save and protect lives. That was his ambition, his motivation for entering politics, said Brinkhaus afterwards, full of self-praise and pathos. For reasons of politeness, I would like to keep to myself what I think this performance says about the media and Brinkhaus. On the other hand, there was a remarkable response from the Sociologist Prof. Heinzlmaier in response to a question from Markus Langemann. Here in this channel. The question was why his youth study, which shows the mistrust and extent of suffering among younger people as a result of government measures, hardly ever reaches the public? Heinzlmaier's answer: because politicians know and are afraid that language creates reality. That's the truth. Language creates reality. And language can also prevent reality by keeping things quiet. Still nonsense?

Would you like to join me on another theoretical journey of thought? In the coming week, you will read nothing about incidence and death figures. No rising curves, no imminent overloading of the healthcare system. No pictures of intensive care units. No touching story of a C-list celebrity suffering from long covid. No scare scenarios based on a study. Neither on TV, nor on the radio, nor in the newspapers, nor when you open your email page or a new tab. Instead, you see images and reports in a theme week and in a continuous loop that show the extent of the suffering caused by government measures. On Monday, you will see overcrowded youth psychiatric wards, destroyed children's souls, reports on the psychological consequences of wearing masks and the rise in suicides. Exponentially increasing. Tuesday is dedicated to the economic and social consequences for an entire society for years to come. Destroyed livelihoods, destroyed businesses, unemployment and hopelessness. And it is dedicated to the rat's tail of human suffering. Domestic violence, alcoholism, loss of home or property, depression and much more. Wednesday focuses on the small matter of the abolition of fundamental rights and freedoms and the division of an entire society. I am fast-forwarding to Sunday, because seven days alone would not be enough for all the consequences of the measures anyway. On Sunday, every newspaper and every TV channel will cover the consequences for the so-called vulnerable groups. In other words, those who were supposedly to be protected. Carers for the elderly and old people are shown and heard talking about what loneliness and social deprivation do to people. It shows how retirement homes, which are actually residential homes, have been turned into sterile clinics by government measures. An 87-year-old broken man is shown in close-up, tearfully saying "I'm in the post-game period of my life. I want to fill the rest of my time with life. Stop it. Stop it at last."

What would the conversations at the bakery be like? What would the mood in society be like? And would Ralph Brinkhaus thank the media for their coverage? I doubt it. Maybe I'm one of five weirdos in town and a swearer. A person who hasn't heard the bang. That's exactly my problem. I have heard it. And I know that language creates reality.