The lecture approaches the topics of power, abuse of power and resistance in ten steps.
I. Can the powerless remedy an abuse of power by legal means?
Answer: In principle, yes - it's never been easier than it is for us today - but they do it far too rarely. I came across this problem through a case in my own scene, in a prestigious writing institution of which I am a member. There, a nonsensical ban on reading poetry was introduced overnight, so to speak. The significance of the details is hard to convey to outsiders, but at the heart of the matter is the question of whether writers have to obey formal orders or bans. I am convinced that they do not: the freedom from hierarchy is precisely the humour of beautiful literature, and this is also its social function: to contribute a free interpretation of life to a world of collective structures, dependencies and taboos. This interpretation is neither more correct nor more important than other interpretations, but it forms a counterweight, as an advocate of the soul, so to speak. From a social perspective, the soul is perhaps only the smallest human entity, but essential drives spring from it: the longing for justice, trust, love, beauty, meaning; and ideally for a truthfulness that is not determined by power interests. This is why the soul works back into society, and why literature, its advocate, is even expressly protected by the Basic Law against interference by power: Article 5 paragraph 3, Art is free. This must apply both inside and outside institutions.
My colleagues could therefore have easily rejected the ban on poetry readings. After all, we were not employees in this voluntary institution, but were appointed for life and could not be dismissed, and we ourselves had elected the functionaries from our circle as spokespersons, not bosses. We could have simply said to them: "This must be a mistake" or, more emphatically: "Sorry, but we won't go along with this nonsense." But to my astonishment, the ban was accepted. Some colleagues disapproved of it, but felt they were powerless. Others defended it aggressively. My attempts at dialogue failed: the more carefully and logically I argued (I made a real effort), the more embarrassment, displeasure and even anger I caused and the more fanatically they submitted to the ban. Although formally watered down after protests, it was enforced for twelve years.
This shook me up for two reasons. Firstly, I thought: it has been known for thousands of years that power changes people's behaviour and personality for the worse. Mankind has been struggling to find solutions for just as long. Now, after terrible disasters and sacrifices, we have a liberal social order that allows the powerless to control the powerful. But they don't do it. They simply don't dare. Obviously, the root of the problem (at present, in our country) lies less with the powerful than with the powerless. Secondly, I was upset that the solution seemed so simple. There was no threat of harm. But a hermetic magic seemed to override all reason. By hermetic I mean inaccessible: covert violence was practised and accepted as a matter of course by simply not talking about it. This created a microclimate in which the violation of norms became the secret norm. Anyone who dared to speak out about the abuse was treated as a norm violator themselves. The phenomenon seemed so general and supra-personal that I wanted to investigate it, because its significance went far beyond our academy.
II. How do you investigate something like this?
Answer: By taking a closer look. I chose three cases of abuse of power and resistance from our recent past. They take place in different milieus, are short and clear and very well documented - that is important, because the key lies in the documents. The result of the research was my essay The elephant in the roomwhich was published by Penguin in 2020. The eponymous elephant is a metaphor for the abuse of power that is not talked about, even though it dominates the room. Why is it so difficult to make it visible? Theoretically, everyone knows what an elephant looks like, and everyone recognises elephants in other rooms. If you ask people in general about room elephants, they say: "Of course, we've known that for a long time!" and shake examples out of their sleeves where such elephants have caused enormous damage.
But if you say: "In our room ...", they reply: "What elephant?" And if you point out the trunk, the foot, the ear, you will reap a storm of indignation. "You want to insult us / take us for fools / slander us? Who do you think you are? - Impudence" - He or she is shouted down. A few sensible people may whisper: "Psst, yes, I see him too, but we can't compete with the majority opinion." At the height of the crisis, someone will shout: "It's not an elephant, it's always been there!", and this is where the whole thing tips over into cabaret. Elephant blindness in one's own room takes hold as consistently as if it were anchored in our genes; this is shown by all the cases I have experienced and heard about. In my essay, as I said, I examine three stories. One takes place in the Catholic clergy, one in politics and one in culture. In each case, I begin at the point where someone pointed out the elephant. Then I describe the ensuing tumult.
The tumult consisted of a few critical people who refused to be intimidated, while the majority of powerful people and witnesses tried by all means to declare the elephant non-existent. It was a struggle for interpretation, a linguistic thriller. Since it was fought with words and not with physical violence, it left behind exciting correspondence. That's why I felt responsible as a writer: These documents store the full energy of the conflict and at the same time hold still so that you can look at them without haste. My thesis has always been that language knows more than people. And indeed, in all my cases, the deniers' language displays such typical denial signals that one can deduce reality from the rhetoric without knowing any further facts. Below are three examples from my first case.
III. A real story
Its protagonist was the Austrian Catholic Cardinal Groër, who had sexually abused boys, novices and young monks unhindered for decades. It was not until 1995 - the cardinal was now 76 years old - that a former victim accused him in a newspaper interview. The church's first official statement, heavily abridged, read: "Where have we got to? [...] So-called 'investigative journalism' that leaves the accused defenceless against dishonourable suspicions must be rejected in the strongest possible terms."
As I said, this is only an excerpt, but the whole announcement follows this pattern: the church spokespersons, two auxiliary bishops, act as if they are accusing the magazine and defending the cardinal. But anyone who reads carefully will realise that they are doing neither. They only generally condemn "so-called investigative journalism" on the grounds that the accused cannot defend himself against "dishonourable suspicions"; which is not even true, because the accused can defend themselves, insubstantial accusations would be defamation and therefore punishable by law. The public should think that the sentence is about the magazine profile and about the cardinal, but the authors stay completely out of it. The seemingly high temperature of the text - the authoritarian style, the gestures of indignation, the threatening gestures - is intended to cloud people's minds. Only those who have no arguments use this technique, which I call the "anger letter". Rage letters are a bluff. After reading just this statement, you could have known that the accusations were true and that Cardinal von
was covered by the clergy.
Letters of anger are often successful because an emotionalised audience doesn't pay attention to the wording. This almost happened here too: At the next service in St Stephen's Cathedral, Cardinal Groër was greeted with minutes of applause. But afterwards, more and more former pupils, novices and priests who had themselves been abused by Groër or knew about the abuse came forward. And it is astonishing to see how acrobatically the church representatives fabulated along the line of the current state of the investigation at all times: threatening and patronising as long as they thought they could afford to be, flattering and snivelling when things got tight. What united the bishops was their fear of being exposed, as they had presumably known about the abuse for a long time and had tolerated it. Only their tactics differed. One of them, the right-wing populist Bishop Krenn, twisted the facts in an almost ludicrous way by saying: "Many people have long succumbed to the worst prejudices and have condemned Cardinal Groër. He is being denied the most basic human rights today."
Really everything about it is wrong: anyone who believes solid information does not "succumb" to "prejudice" and has by no means been "judged". And an accusation does not mean a denial of human rights as long as the accused has the opportunity to defend himself. Bishop Krenn also masks a lack of arguments with aggressiveness. Incidentally, superlatives - such as "worst" prejudices and "most basic" human rights - are always suspect, because they arise either from stupidity or lies. Krenn is also exposed by his language. But since people tend to abandon their reason in the face of demonstrations of power, he had his fans. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have just proved once again that unrestrained liars can fanatise half a nation.
Did Krenn know he was lying? Did the bishops know that they were deceiving? Did Groër know that he was guilty? That is an extremely exciting psychological question. One highlight of the affair was that, after an adventurous turn of church politics, a younger Benedictine monk dared to confront the sinner with his actions in a personal conversation. As this monk had himself been abused by Groër years before, there was nothing to deny. Groër replied with presence of mind: he had never felt "desire", so his assaults were "morally nothing". He passed off his manipulation of boys' penises in the shower as an education in cleanliness.
Groër reinterpreted a dirty deed into its opposite, so to speak: we encounter such paradoxical rationalisations in all our cases. It seems as if the perpetrators, whether consciously or unconsciously, seek the greatest possible distance from the core of their offence, which indicates that they have a hysterical sense of guilt. But they are not capable of clear confessions. The conscience of cheaters seems to be highly sensitive, suggestively and autosuggestively buzzing between entitlement and fear, dominance and cowardice. It cannot be grasped, but it betrays itself incessantly.
IV. If the perpetrators are constantly betraying themselves - why doesn't anyone notice?
To put it in a nutshell: statements such as those by the auxiliary bishops ("Where have we got to?") and Bishop Krenn ("worst prejudices", "most elementary human rights") are self-revealing to the maximum. They offer a clear view directly into the engine room, so to speak. But the absolute majority of viewers do not look. Why? Apparently, a situation of abuse of power stresses the self-image not only of the victims but also of the witnesses beyond measure. The impulse to rebel against authority seems to trigger such strong fears that those affected are not even able to provide information. There are plenty of theories. A selection:
1. depth psychology approach: Your own survival depends on mum and dad, whether they are good or bad.
2. sociobiological approach: without group bonding one does not survive.
3. philosophical approach: The vain, transient human being seeks self-assurance through identification with power. If power falters, he falters too.
4th Pragmatic approach: In conflict situations, people prefer security to freedom.
All of this is plausible. Such impulses are neither wrong nor bad; we are like that. However, as they challenge our rational self-image, we tend to suppress them, and the more we suppress them, the more powerful they work underground. In stressful situations, they effortlessly overwhelm the conscious mind. Then we forget that the powerful are only functionaries in need of correction and get caught up in a metaphysical wave in which we only orientate ourselves upwards in order not to be swallowed up. Anyone who proposes other solutions is pushed aside as if contemplation meant mortal danger. By metaphysical, I mean that moralising continues into the agony, albeit in a hectic way that mixes facts and assessments according to need. Almost all people tend to do this, and the less social control they experience, the more so. Moral motives play a huge role, although or because they are often distorted. The perverters also betray themselves, and the anger with which they reject exposure paradoxically reveals the moral duck under which they stand and the lurking shame. Human beings are contradictory down to their very atoms.
V. Nevertheless, resistance does occur, and it works.
I have taken the bishop's quotes from a documentary produced by the Austrian journalist Hubertus Czernin. Title: The book Groër. During the scandal in the years 1995-98, in the midst of the clamour of opinions, Czernin collected documents and facts, arranged them chronologically and created orientation so that one could learn from history later. What is special: He not only quotes the official revelations and announcements, but also the quiet clerical correspondence behind the scenes, which is at least as exciting. For after the revelation of that first victim, internal witnesses also increasingly spoke out, exchanging information, collating experiences and believing they had to (or could) enlighten the bishops.
And here, from ordinary priests, monks and ex-monks, a completely different language is spoken: one that endeavours to be truthful, at first awkward and overcautious, but then increasingly powerful and fearless. Without the press, the Enlightenment would not have begun, but without courageous members of the church and clergy, it would not have continued. "I have vowed Christian, not military, obedience," wrote one monk to his abbot, "all too long have I misunderstood this in my life under Groër,
which I still suffer from today."
In a letter to a Vatican visitator, twelve resigned monks described Groër's sectarian regime, which abused confession as an instrument of power, demanded absolute spiritual obedience and ostracised unpopular or dissenting persons, who were then also cut off by their fellow monks. Another wrote: "To what extent did I become guilty of others when I supported this system - and that time did indeed exist?"
A touching confession: he, at the time an immature novice seeking authority and bound to obedience, felt responsible, while the powerful bishops, who could have put the brakes on Groër, denied any responsibility until the end.
Solidarity among the powerless also finally materialised. When a critical parish priest was to be removed from his parish, those ex-monks organised a demonstration in which the parish also took part. This happened, mind you to This was the beginning of the affair, and that critic was the only priest who was to be punished in this scandal about decades of abuse tolerated at all levels of the hierarchy. The measure was only suspended because of the demonstration and a particularly clever letter of protest. The spokesman for the demonstrators admonished a bishop: "Whether bishop or not, we are all committed to the truth."
That is why Hubertus Czernin's Book Groër also an encouraging read. Outwardly, little came of the riot: After an epic struggle, the now 78-year-old perpetrator was placed in a nunnery, without charge and without punishment; that was all. But the relief of those who suddenly dared to speak and think openly is almost physically palpable. Today, 25 years later, the church can no longer get away with sovereign silence. Sexual abuse by clerics is no longer a taboo subject, it is being researched, analysed and in some cases sanctioned - a process that began with the Groër affair.
VI. How do you measure the effect of resistance?
There are no generally applicable criteria; the assessment depends on the perspective. If you take the distribution of power as a yardstick, resistance changes almost nothing: at best, a few figures are replaced at the top and the cycle of temptation, abuse, damage and protest starts all over again. From the perspective of the powerless, there is often a feeling of helplessness. You do cause considerable turmoil, but not because of your superior agenda, but because you destabilise the hierarchy according to general understanding. The bosses shoot back with the biggest bullets, the colleagues flee from the line of fire. Some people - myself included - claim that the self-awareness of courage and integrity justifies the hardships, but this cannot be objectively proven. And as far as "the circumstances" are concerned, there are minimal corrections at best.
I now recommend that these minimal corrections should not be seen as a compromise, but as a success. Anyone who believes that reporting a grievance will lead to a remedy will be disappointed, because the report is what starts the fight in the first place. The disproportion between effort and result is shocking at first glance. However, if you realise that you are not fighting to win, but to prevent the situation from getting worse, you will come to a different conclusion. Ultimately, most decisions between self-interest and responsibility are determined by the social climate. And everyone who does not allow themselves to be intimidated contributes to a liberal climate. We have (here, at the moment) fairer conditions than ever before because our system allows for criticism and resistance. What happens when systems are left to the powerful can be seen all around us: they are robbed. Here too is a paradox: if we believe that everything is in order, it is not. If we see mistakes and take care of them, we at least prevent the worst disorder. A certain order arises from this effort, but it immediately degrades if we consider it sufficient.
VII. What role does reason play?
Apparently, it evaporates in the face of power. Upton Sinclair wrote: "It is difficult to make someone understand something when their income depends on not understanding it." That's right, self-interest overrides reason. Nevertheless, the explanation is not enough, because accepting the abuse of power often means direct harm. Reason is therefore not sacrificed to any real advantage, but to the instinctive and irrational impulses of power. Reason is the ability to perceive and recognise independently of one's own advantage. If it comes into conflict with hierarchy, rational behaviour requires courage because an authoritarian climate suppresses open communication. Groër's evil was able to spread for decades because it was not talked about. But when the first open words brought oxygen back into the case, individual spiritual life awoke and the ability to judge returned.
Everything really is paradoxical. I have shown how perpetrators betray themselves against their will and how the powerless (want to) fall for it, whereby they also betray themselves. Everyone is so reluctant to expose this self-betrayal as if it were about their poor souls. Perhaps it really is about their poor souls? Perhaps the truth is much less acceptable to people than they think? After all, it always confronts them with their existential inadequacy. In any case, power and deception dominate the visible part of social life. It is the other way round with reason. It does not disguise or betray itself, urges truthfulness and resists hierarchical manipulation. Where dissent is encouraged, it is fruitful for both sides. In a climate hostile to criticism, on the other hand, reason leads to social isolation; it then has nothing more to say and, whether consciously or unconsciously, dissolves into conformity.
VIII. Nevertheless, the thriller is not that reason is defeated, but that it exists at all.
Reason is an individual endeavour. It can create a particularly powerful and joyful connection precisely because of its independence. And thanks to the miracle of written language, it is not dependent on a short-term response, but can survive in the long term. By overcoming isolation, it generates social power. This is why authoritarian systems fear open (i.e. non-lying) words so much.
A good example is Plutarch's Solon book. As a refresher: Plutarch, a Greek historian of the first century AD, described the life of Solon, another Greek statesman and sage. Around 700 years before Plutarch, Solon had attempted to create justice through a set of laws. This failed: as soon as the laws were passed, the rich and powerful demanded changes. Solon refused and went travelling for ten years. When he returned, chaos reigned: although the laws were respected in theory, they were not adhered to. A charismatic named Peisistratos seized power. Peisistratos agitated like today's populists with smear comedy, threats and fake news, and Solon warned against him in vain. When Peisistratos had become a tyrant, Solon laid down his weapons on the doorstep, saying that he had done his bit.
On the surface, it is the story of an ongoing defeat of reason. But, paradoxically, it is a pure pleasure to read. Plutarch wrote in a calm, friendly and lively manner, with clever, never pretentious humour. One marvels at how clearly all the problems we are struggling to solve today were discussed even then. For example, while Solon was working on his laws, he had a smart lodger called Anacharsis. I quote slightly abridged: "Anacharsis [...] laughed at Solon's endeavours when he thought he could put a stop to injustice and greed among his fellow citizens through the letter. The letter was just like a spider's web: like this, it could only hold the weak and small [...]; it would be torn apart by the powerful and rich. Solon is said [...] to have replied that people also honour treaties, the violation of which is of no benefit to any of the parties to the treaty. And he adapted the laws so completely to the interests of the citizens that he showed everyone how much better righteous behaviour was than transgression." Plutarch comments with gentle humour: "Admittedly, the later success corresponded more to the assumptions of Anacharsis than to the hopes of Solon."
One colourful episode concerns Solon's visit to Kroisos, the legendarily wealthy king of Lydia at the time. In order to impress Solon, Kroisos had "hung on his body everything he thought he possessed in the way of precious jewellery, purple robes, golden works of art, splendid or enviable things" in order to make an impression on Solon. When Solon did not respond, Kroisos had him shown round his treasure chambers, "which, by the way, was not at all necessary with Solon. For the king himself was enough in himself to give a completely clear idea of his way of thinking."
Now Kroisos, who was displeased with Solon's silence, asked if Solon knew anyone who was happier than he was. Solon first named a righteous fellow citizen who had fallen in battle, then, when Kroisos followed up, two young men who had pulled their old mother to the temple themselves in an ox-cart after the oxen had broken down. At this point, Plutarch, an excellent writer, picks up the pace seamlessly without abandoning the cosy style: "Then they sacrificed and drank, but the next day - they did not get up again, but had died." Kroisos became angry: "And you don't want to count me among the happy people?" Solon replied: "To call one blessed who [...] is still in the dangers of life: that is to recognise the victory of a fighter [...] in the midst of battle. And therefore it is uncertain and vain."
Coincidentally, the fabulist Aisopos was also a guest of Kroisos at the time. He thought he had to warn Solon: "Dear Solon, you have to talk to kings - as seldom as possible or without scolding them." Solon replied: "No, [...] not as infrequently and rarely as possible, but as truthfully as possible." Kroisos maintained his contempt for Solon. Plutarch recounts, once again confidently accelerating: "Later it was different: [Kroisos] engaged in battle with Cyrus, was defeated and lost his capital, indeed he himself was captured alive and was to be burned. The pyre was ready; he was dragged up in shackles." On the pyre, Kroisos cried out in despair: "O Solon! O Solon! O Solon!" When Cyrus wanted to know who this Solon was, the doomed Kroisos told him about the Greek sage "whom I had sent for, but not to hear or learn anything [...]. No, he was only supposed to gawp at me and then leave as a witness to my good fortune - oh, my good fortune, the loss of which was a far greater misery than the possession of a blessing!" Kroisos was pardoned.
Plutarch's Solon narrative transforms the real failure of justice into a fable of human destiny by allowing the short-term criterion of victory and defeat to be only the material, not the basis of destiny. Through truthfulness and humour, the author sets our milder strings vibrating - at least for as long as we read and understand it. Perhaps we will keep the sound in our ears.
Solon lived 700 years before Plutarch. Nevertheless, so many Solon stories and fables had been circulating since then that Plutarch was able to draw from the full. In the meantime, there had been serial wars and tyrannies, hubris and violence regularly ended the phases of reflection and peace, democracy was in practice little more than a PR formula, the skilful application of which brought this or that exploiter to the helm.
Everything is closely interwoven; hubris, egoism and violence are not the antagonists of knowledge and consideration, but also generate them. Seen from the outside, this is striking. Experienced from the inside, it is terrifying. One example: our current democracy, which is the envy of half the world, is also a result of the hellish journey of the "Third Reich": it is unlikely that we would have found the discipline for this differentiated political construct without this disaster. At present, anti-liberal tendencies are once again gaining strength with the symptoms of anti-intellectualism, historical forgetfulness, black-and-white thinking and an addiction to primitive solutions. Who knows what catastrophe will be necessary this time to save us?
to bring them to their senses.
IX. Reason keeps justice in play.
In this respect, it improves the overall picture and offers guidance after the excesses of corruption, injustice, frenzy and destruction that seem to be part of human nature. Solon was regularly disregarded or misunderstood and yet he was always right. Ironically, this was last confirmed in the 21st century by a biographer who declared him a "failure" because he "could not prevent" Peisistratos. Strange criterion. Did Jesus Christ "fail"? In the short term, the ethical position always loses out to trumped-up power.
My essay The elephant in the room I wrote this book under the impression that a wave of unreasonableness was building up in our country after a decades-long period of liberalism and prosperity. The first symptoms I observed in my environment were a deference to authority, weak thinking and a loss of language. I found the latter in particular disturbing, comparable to the sight of someone cutting off their head in front of your eyes without need. I thought: If people are already decapitating themselves in the face of such trifles, how will they be able to face real challenges? My fears from back then have been confirmed by further developments.
X. Open conclusion
Paradoxes at the end: The more thoroughly you think, the easier it is to get lost in aporias. The decisive riddles lie in these aporias. They are unsolvable, but if you don't face them, you won't find an answer to the problems that arise.
result from this.
--
This is the slightly edited version
of a lecture I wrote two years ago. At the time, I ended it with a reasonably optimistic quote from George Eliot, the last paragraph from her novel Middlemarch. Today I'm replacing it with another, somewhat shorter quote: "Pessimists are cowards, and optimists are cowards.
Fools." (Heinrich Blücher) 
