Richard David Precht and Svenja Flaßpöhler largely avoid the Corona issue on ZDF. In return, they demand that victims please approach their aggressors. The TV review.
Richard David Precht is a sensitive man. The sometimes violent headwind of his mostly disconcerting theses on the subject of vaccination in the joint podcast with Markus Lanz has seriously offended him in his intellectual honor. This can already be seen in a lengthy and self-pitying interview that he then gave to the colleagues of the time.
In an interview with his philosopher colleague Svenja Flaßpöhler on ZDF, Precht proves that Precht is justified in criticizing his oaths with which he served the nationwide radicalizing “lateral thinking” movement – consciously or out of naivety – and continues to gnaw at his self-image. Format “More from Precht”.
The choice of the person to talk to was no more a coincidence than the motto of the show. Svenja Flaßpöhler recently got involved in the conversation about being the “lateral thinker” underdog in the context of the ARD program “Hart aber Fair”. This not only led to a wave of outrage in social media, but also for the high-profile MeToo critic to become a member of the That-will-be-said-yes-to-be-allowed club.
Precht and Flaßpöhler on ZDF: The misunderstood confirm each other
And so the two misunderstood people sit opposite each other on two chairs and confirm each other’s habitus. The motto of the show: “Are we sensitizing ourselves to death?” Similarities to the title of the last book from Flaßpöhler’s pen (“Sensible. About modern sensitivity and the limits of what is reasonable”) can, but need not, have arisen from a whim of chance. Correspondingly “investigatively” Precht then also tries to pass the sister’s mentally nicely framed balls that are bursting with passive aggressiveness. And the Flaßpöhler are only too happy to recycle them.
Since both of them had burned their sensitive philosophers’ fingers on the thin ice of anti-vaccination understanding in a very short time, they are now trying to pin their outrage about a society that is allegedly gender- and Black Lives Matter-driven and monitored by the language police.
Even the introduction to this strange piece of television suggests evil. Precht speaks head-on into the camera: “It has never been so socially accepted as it is today to show one’s own sensitivity and vulnerability. MeToo, Black Lives Matter, gender debates and the discussion about the corona measures are just a few examples. “Ah yes. A “few examples” of this alleged vulnerability. The arrangement and alignment of these “examples” speaks for itself. Just like the airy phrase “Discussion about the Corona measures”.
Richard David Precht shoots MeToo and Black Lives Matter – not a word about “lateral thinkers”
Why exactly does Precht mention MeToo and Black Lives Matter as examples of groups that are supposedly gasping with hypersensitivity in contrast to the “lateral thinking” movement and does not speak vaguely of a “discussion about abuse” or “discussion about everyday racism”? Precht continues: “At the same time, however, the aggression and the general condemnation of those who think differently are increasing.” Oh, that’s why.
Precht again, this time in the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy: “The social fronts are hardening.” And doesn’t even notice how much he satirizes himself with the next question: “Does our increased sensitivity have its downside in increased irritability?” With He wants to discuss his accomplice Flaßpöhler: “And what is at stake for our society as a result?”
And off we go with the first steep pass: “Ms. Flaßpöhler, can you talk about sensitivity without hurting the sensitivity of others?” The surprising answer: “Yes, I would rather talk about sensitivity.” In fact, you could “try”, but do not know whether that would work because one does not know “how a speaker arrives at the other”. So this is how “you can no longer say that today” sounds philosophical.
Richard David Precht on ZDF: “Age of Sensitivity”
With the steep thesis “we live today in the age of sensitivity, when it comes to the question of ‘gender identities’, when it comes to the question of ‘skin color, Black Lives Matter movement’, when it comes to the relationship between men and women Frau goes, ‘MeToo debate’ ”, Precht then initiates a disturbing dialogue. It is “all about debates” in which a “high and also new level of sensitivity” is required. All this goes hand in hand (by the way, once again not a word about the self-pitying and egoistic hostage-takers of the “lateral thinkers”), according to Precht, with social excitement and excitement.
“More from Precht” with Richard David Precht and Svenja Flaßpöhler
“Are we sensitizing ourselves to death?” From Sunday, November 29, 2021, from 11:45 p.m. On the net: ZDF media library.
After less than two minutes, the question arises: Is this actually still dialogue or the big winter festival of refusal to modernize? Svenja Flaßpöhler picks up the thread and swirls nested about prohibitions to speak, which she says: “Stage at which you first have to clarify: What is hurting me? What kind of speaking affects my dignity and so on ”.
“Not only the perspective of those affected” should be allowed, says Flaßpöhler (although this is “absolutely necessary”) – and does not forget to bring the Holocaust and “the Jews” into play. The next cold shiver spreads. Instead, the “affected person’s perspective” must be “conveyed” with a “not affected person’s perspective” – respect. Because after all we “all live in one society” and “have to get along with one another”. Translated: Those plagued by everyday racism and misogyny should please approach their aggressors. A kind of perpetrator-victim conversation, with the responsibility of those affected. Are you serious, Ms. Flaßpöhler?
Flaßpöhler at Precht on ZDF: “Ontological limits of empathy”
Is it: “Because both positions see something that the other cannot see.” Ah yes. The white, old man sees something that blacks or sexually harassed women cannot see for themselves. What is that supposed to be, Ms. Flaßpöhler? The need to long for the good old days when these people kept their mouths shut? Precht seconded: So far, the topic has seldom been viewed from a “perspective”, as Svenja Flaßpöhler does, but rather resorted to “outrage” straight away. Mess. How can one react emotionally and indignantly when one is reduced to one’s skin color or one’s gender? More objectivity in the moment of humiliation, here you go!
You can switch off in less than five minutes. Or ask Precht whether he has not found any black people in the wide circle that he could have asked about it. Instead: Old white people are once again discussing the sensitivities of blacks who are not allowed to have their own say.
Flaßpöhler defends this fact with alleged “ontological empathy limits”. One should not say, “Whites cannot understand blacks and, conversely, blacks cannot understand whites”. That could not be what “we call progress and participation”. What she doesn’t mention is the tiny difference that whites haven’t had to fight against racial inequality for decades, even centuries.
Richard David Precht misses “eroticism” in the workplace
Precht makes it worse. His book “Who am I and if so how many” was finally translated by a black woman. He didn’t have the feeling that she couldn’t feel into him. The suspicion arises that this smug man has never been in a police check because of the color of his skin and simply does not understand what it is about.
Instead, he complains that “eroticism” has now got its “own subject” and is being separated from the professional world. This ensures that the professional world becomes “more sterile”. And some really thought that the workplace has always been primarily a place to, well, work. Of course, like Precht and even more obviously a certain former editor-in-chief, you can also mourn the open-plan office as a dating site. Flaßpöhler agrees: The new sensitivity would go hand in hand with a “hardness”, a “very strict regulation”.
Precht: “That is the downside of free societies.” He describes this “free society” as “a need for self-censorship”. It is a society of “thinking five times over, I’ll say that, I’ll do that, I’ll do that”. In fact, Precht rarely looks like he’s thinking five times. Especially not when he babbles about a “public” that “strongly stigmatizes deviant behavior”.
Richard David Precht is reliably engaged in a perpetrator-victim reversal on ZDF
Precht chatters without blushing that one is “surrounded” by “very, very sensitized people who feel very, very easily injured”. The philosopher longs for “earlier times” when “vulnerability was not shown”. Because: “Today vulnerability is legitimate. The vulnerability is shown and it is often shown in aggression or outrage.
How people who are exposed to discrimination and marginalization on the basis of external characteristics such as skin color or gender identity can rebel against this bullying, simply does not want to find a place in front of his horizon. Instead, Precht says: “According to the motto, how can he say that about me when I’m a woman.” It is difficult to bear.
According to Precht, the blame for all this evil of modernity is “a merciless media competition for attention”. Those “the media” to whom he owes his stage in the first place. And the attention it gets. Flaßpöhler wants to break a lance for “the left woken”. Aggressive irritability is not exclusive to them, right-wing extremists also have a “very high irritability”, which sometimes has “murderous consequences”. She mentions the gas station murder of a person who felt “so irritated” by the mask requirement that he shot a young man in the head.
Richard David Precht lacks the guts to talk to black people about black realities
Precht dims this short, bright moment directly. Irritability has no political color, says the philosopher. And takes the “lateral thinkers” under protection by granting them a “fear” at a time that is like “at war”. Mask wearing on a par with bombs, murder and displacement. The man really means it. And really says that a war would at least be over at some point, whereas there is currently a feeling of having to live with this pandemic forever. It resonates: In contrast to the mask dictatorship, war is actually quite okay.
Towards the end of the conversation, Svenja Flaßpöhler again unabashedly ignored the fact that Jasmina Kuhnke was avoiding the Frankfurt Book Fair because, as a black author, she felt threatened by the henchmen of the right-wing publishing pack. And not for reasons of boycott, driven by a vaguely alleged social media public. She should have gone on stage, says the philosopher.
With this, she makes it clear for the last time that as a white woman she understands very little about the reality of life of people who are exposed to hostility and death threats because of their skin color and the fact that they no longer want to shut up. And makes it clear that Richard David Precht, if this snowflake had just a little bit of guts, should have invited Kuhnke himself instead of Flaßpöhler. But why, as long as whites are still content to negotiate the sensitivities of black people among themselves. (Mirko Schmid)
