As radically normal as Milgram

by Peter Löcke //

This is not normal! 

How often have you said, thought or felt this sentence? Probably very often. What seems normal to people and what doesn't depends on many factors. There are subjective factors such as different political and moral ideas, the upbringing one has enjoyed, the social milieu in which one moves, age and so on. Of course, objective factors such as the prevailing zeitgeist and, above all, laws also play a role. When I celebrated my birthday thirty years ago, there was an ashtray on every table and my guests had the choice between goulash and goulash. That was normal back then. Today it would be abnormal because smoking indoors is frowned upon or prohibited and many acquaintances expect a vegan alternative. You could have philosophical debates about normality. I would like to focus on one aspect that plays an underestimated role. Normality always has something to do with interpretative sovereignty, power and authority. This can be clearly seen in the Milgram experiment from 1961 [1]

The Milgram Experiments. Subject in the Study (c) Yale University

This experiment, named after the psychologist Stanley Milgram, was about the question of how far people are prepared to go to do inhumane things when instructed to do so by a supposed authority. Unfortunately, people went very far. The result was sobering. People tortured other people with electric shocks because they believed in the authority of the experimenter. Their own abnormal actions seemed normal to them in the context of the experiment. That will be right. It will be normal.

Another Milgram experiment took place in March 2020. The experimental laboratory was not New Haven in the USA, it was the whole world. The German Milgram was Merkel. As an authority, as the mummy of the nation, the German Chancellor announced the new normal in a TV speech on March 18, 2020 [2]. The inhuman was declared human and vice versa. An excerpt from the televised speech as a reminder:

"We have to keep our distance from each other out of consideration. (...) No more handshakes, wash your hands thoroughly and often, keep at least one and a half meters away from the next person and preferably hardly any contact with the very old, because they are particularly at risk."

From one day to the next, a new normality was defined. Distance was the new closeness, cold was the new warmth. The human being as an empathic, social being was erased. No more visiting grandpa, no more hugging mom, keep your distance and cover your face with a mask. Have you known all your life how important facial expressions are for human communication, how important movement and physical contact are for mental and physical health? All this was normal for you? From one day to the next, it was no longer normal. From March 18, 2020, it was abnormal, because all this can kill. If you were one of the few who said NO out loud to this Milgram experiment, if you didn't want to accept this new normal, you were a nutcase and a weirdo. This is how Rainald Becker insulted dissenters in an ARD commentary when he predicted that there would be no return to the old normal [3]. Basta!

Corona is over. The issue is over. Humans have recaptured human behavior and the old normality of life. You might think so, but that's not the case. After all, there is the looming climate apocalypse. In the face of the climate catastrophe, normality must be redefined in order to avert the impending end of the world. Welcome to "Futur Zwei" [4], a taz talk format hosted by Peter Unfried. I watch the show regularly to understand what other people consider normal.

Hedwig Richter and Bernd Ullrich were guests of the chief reporter of the Berlin daily newspaper last week. Richter, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich, and ZEIT journalist Ullrich, leading analyst of German politics according to host Unfried, presented their new book. It is called "Democracy and Revolution", subtitled "Ways out of self-inflicted ecological immaturity" [5]. That sounds pleasantly enlightened because it is reminiscent of Immanuel Kant. As I have not read the book, I cannot review it. What I can say, however, is what the two authors want humanity to do. The path lies in a new normality. Hedwig Richter puts it like this:

"Our whole everyday life, how we buy clothes, what we eat, how we move, all of that contributes to destruction and that is the normal thing. And it's considered radical to speak out against it. And what is radical, so to speak, is that we shouldn't eat meat, we have to get around differently. That is a very important point for us in this book, that we say that this normality must be reversed, that we need a new normality and that we need to get out of this normalism, that it is no longer considered radical to point out that we are living in destruction."

So we have to change radically, in everything. The radical must be seen as normal and the normal as radical. The old normal must be radically replaced by a new normal. I'll summarize the rest. It's about revolution and transformation, it's about change and this change lies in renouncing everything we are used to. It is about renouncing internalized behaviours, human life dreams and goals. All these individual goals should be subordinated to a collective goal. The collective goal is called "saving the planet".

My blood ran cold throughout the entire program. I find the proposed radicalism dystopian and abnormal. The three people present, on the other hand, see the new normal as imperative. As mentioned at the beginning - what is normal and what is not can be deeply subjective. Sometimes the difference in perception is simply due to a different approach. I analyze the past and live in the present tense. Other people model the perfect future and, like Peter Unfried, live in a future two. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I am abnormal. It's healthy to never rule that out. 

However, I will definitely maintain one criticism. My criticism is directed against the hypocrisy of the apologists of asceticism, against their hypocrisy in asking other people to go without something they are not prepared to do themselves. It seems implausible to stand in front of an empty buffet with a full stomach and burp while calling on people to starve. No one put it better than the well-heeled Eckart von Hirschhausen in an interview from September 2021, which he gave to the editor-in-chief of taz, Peter Unfried.

"It's precisely the people who talk most about the environment who objectively have a higher footprint because they are more educated and richer, can afford a bigger apartment, more cars and vacations. These contradictions also apply to me."

In other words? Those who are least affected by restrictions are also those who call for restrictions the loudest. For reasons of politeness, I'd better keep to myself how uneducated this Hirschhausen statement is. My spontaneous thought was a different one.

"Hirschhausen is not normal!"

Articles identified by name do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher.

Share post:

4 Responses

  1. Over the last 30 years, I have cycled through this country from north to south several times. And, with a few exceptions, I have probably enjoyed the same view of the landscape as the Romans did, the Germanic tribes, Franks and possibly Neanderthals shortly before they ran out of steam and died out. You can ride almost all the way through the country on forest and meadow paths without getting too close to civilization. On my last trip, in 2023, that was over. Huge power lines cut through floodplains and meadows, wind turbines make forests and fields inedible for the aesthete. What remains are destroyed natural and cultural landscapes. You have to hate yourself, everyone else, nature and basically the whole of evolution if you treat one of the cleanest and most unspoiled countries on this planet in this way.

  2. Before she became chancellor, Mrs. Merkel said that she wanted to govern through. I never liked her, I didn't believe she had any particular ability as head of government. She more or less sold Schröder's important impulses as her success, including allowing Hartz IV to become so inhumane in practice that - far too late - the Constitutional Court intervened at some point. She further weakened the CDU, which had already become a social democratic party in Kohl's time, and her efforts were limited to maintaining her power. During this time, the courts and the media were gradually brought into line, which was an important prerequisite for governing during the coronavirus pandemic. I don't want to comment on taz and Die Zeit after their statements on compulsory vaccination and arms deals. The widespread demonization of natural climate change as man-made makes many people completely forget about environmental protection and does not bring us more quality of life and health. If you want, you can see analogies to dealing with corona. However, after all the absurdities of recent years, large sections of the population have become more aware and are questioning the general narrative. Many see a slowly spreading crisis of legitimacy. After very tight comes very loose... .

  3. Thank you, Peter Löcke, this contribution could not be more apt in view of the current developments in this country. A "highly educated" foreign minister (by the way, from the environmental protection party par excellence) is diligently collecting bonus air miles by flying around the world every week and defending the future of Europe. What unqualified hypocrisy. A politician is fined for saying something, while others are promoted to minister for saying the same thing. The so-called Basic Law celebrated its birthday and was buried in 2020 by the most brutal, and incidentally, government-ordered crackdown on peaceful demonstrators. An extended form of the Milgram experiment. It's been done before, but the uniforms were a different color

  4. When I entered the street three years ago in the morning and saw the threat "New Normality", which had been posted overnight, emblazoned all over the floor, on the walls and in display cases, it sent shivers down my spine. I hadn't even understood what it was about, but when I saw this threat I quickly realized that others were so quick to decide what was normal and abnormal. And woe betide me if I don't go along with it.
    For me, what is "normal" has nothing to do with morality, decency, right or wrong, but simply says something about the quantity ratio.
    Common sense and no one else tells me whether it is right or wrong.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Welcome to this platform for the cultivated exchange of arguments.

We have forgotten how to endure contradiction. It is okay to disagree here. I would ask you to remain respectful and polite. Insults and hate comments will be removed in future, as will calls to vote for political parties. I reserve the right to delete insulting or derogatory comments. This public forum and its inherent opportunity to exchange arguments and opinions is an attempt to uphold freedom of expression - including freedom of dissent. I would like to see the old-fashioned virtue of respect cultivated here.

"Controversy is not an annoying evil, but a necessary prerequisite for the success of democracy." Federal President Dr. h.c. Joachim Gauck (ret.), only 5 years ago in his speech on the Day of the Basic Law.

en_USEnglish