Bags full of Brass

Hier in Mitteleuropa trägt fast jeder Mensch einen großen Sack voll mit Frechheiten mit sich herum. Eine Menge gekaufte, ein paar geschenkte und viele, viele, die einem ungewünscht und unverlangt aufgedrängt wurden.

Was machen die Leute damit? Na, wieder los werden, so schnell wie möglich. Wie? Verkaufen, verschenken und natürlich auch anderen ungefragt aufdrängen.

Nur blöd, wenn sich's wer nicht aufdrängen lässt. Noch blöder, wenn jemand eine geschenkte Frechheit unbeachtet zur Seite legt. Und am allerblödesten, wenn ein ins Auge gefasster Kunde trotz aller Verkaufsanstrengungen und liebevollster Umgarnung einfach nicht kauft.

Unsere armen Politiker können ein Lied davon singen. Die meisten anderen Leute kennen das auch.

Completely Good or Completely Bad

In troubled times, people tend to suddenly re-discover history and turn their minds back to it. A close historical parallel to the near-civil war now threatening to engulf France is formed by events in Spain during the years 1492-1612. Those events repay close study. ..... As Machiavelli says, defeat is the result of men not having the courage to be either completely good or completely bad. Reports coming out of France suggest that its government has not yet made up its mind on this point, and indeed it may still be too early to decide which course is the most appropriate. Clearly, however, if France and perhaps other European countries as well are to escape civil war one of the two will have to be chosen. And the longer the decision is postponed, the more difficult things will become.

Just 2 remarks from our editorial staff: It is true that people rediscover history in troubled times. Remember the obsession the Nazis took with it. But their example also shows that exact and openminded study is needed. Nothing worse than superficial and unbalanced study and knowledge of history.

The most visible symptom of renewed interest in history in public these days are the many history volumes in large book stores. Despite many comments to the contrary a large number of people in the political-economical elites, the christian as well as the muslim, jewish, confucian, hindu and buddhist worlds seem to drip with historic awareness. One should never forget that fact. I doubt if that's for good. I rather see half-conscious resistance against globalization.

Die Jagd, die Bank, die Zeitung

Wer in Österreich wirklich Einfluss hat, ist männlich, 50+, konservativ und hat entweder eine Bank, einen Jagdschein oder eine Zeitung. Oder - siehe Christian Konrad - Jagdschein + Banken + Zeitungen ...

Einmal wieder lohnt es sich, im ZIB Tagebuch Die Macht wohnt unterm ... Giebelkreuz nachzulesen.

Harald Katzmair hat analysiert, der Trend hat überarbeitet, die 100 Mächtigsten stehen fest. Bei Wolf kommt schon vor, dass HD der zweitmächstigste ist. Sonst geht es aber um Banken und Jagden. Der ORF kommt nicht vor. Ist irgendwie nicht mehr mächtig genug.

Herr Wolf hat dankenswerterweise ein PDF mit Trends "Die 100 wichtigsten Wirtschaftslenker" verlinkt. Auf Platz 19 Horst Pirker, auf Platz 45 Alexander Wrabetz. WoFe habe ich in der Liste nicht entdecken können. Regierungsmitglieder sind methodisch ausgeschlossen, aus dem Parlament sind Katzian, Neugebauer, Ikrath, Grillitsch, Maier, Kopf, Himmer und Haberzettl drin.

Alles dekodieren heute bitte selber!

PS: Wäre so eine Welt mit movers und shakers ohne Frauen nicht grauenhaft? Moven nur beim Schachspiel und Shaken ohne Tanz? Ich denke schon. Und die Mächtigen wissen das natürlich auch.

Sonntagsbarone und der Kult der Unbildung

Zwei intellektuelle Österreicher haben in den Print- und den Onlineausgaben der zwei übrig gebliebenen österreichischen "Qualitäts"tageszeitungen kommentiert. Wer? Christoph Chorherr und Hans Rauscher. Was? Die durch eine weitere letztmalige Entschließung des langjährigen geistigen Dominators* unserer Nostalschie-Republik Unbildung-Kulturentwicklung-läuft-falsch-Gefahr. Was haben sie erreicht? Sie haben den Unbildung-Kulturentwicklung-läuft-falsch-Gefahr-Jammer-Diskurs wieder einmal für kurze Zeit beleben können.

Christoph Chorherr: Der Baron der Sonntagskrone Hans Rauscher: Der Kult der Unbildung

Chorherrs Fazit: Wir nehmen zur Kenntnis: Die ÖVP denkt ernsthaft darüber nach, einen bürgerliche Grundtugenden verachtenden, evident antibürgerlichen Feudalherrn in das Amt des Bundespräsidenten hieven zu lassen. Indes seine Mitbewerber, Heinz Fischer und (möglicherweise) Alexander Van der Bellen, ein geradezu erotisches Verhältnis zum Buch und damit zu einer ausgeprägten Form von Bildungsbürgerlichkeit pflegen. Die postmoderne Unübersichtlichkeit schreibt ein neues Kapitel.

Schon ein wenig sophistizierter, Rauschers Fazit (mit Unterstützung durch einen ???): Der "Philosoph" Konrad Paul Liessmann definiert in seinem Buch Theorie der Unbildung recht halbscharf immerhin eine Absicht: "Unbildung heute ist kein intellektuelles Defizit, kein Mangel an Informiertheit, kein Defekt an einer kognitiven Kompetenz - obwohl es das alles auch weiterhin geben wird -, sondern der Verzicht darauf, überhaupt verstehen zu wollen. Wenn aber die Meinungsführer eines Staates und einer Gesellschaft aus Angst, "obergscheit" zu wirken, oder aus kaltem Kalkül verkünden: "Nichts wissen und verstehen wollen, ist ok" - dann läuft was schief.

Trotzdem haben alle 3 natürlich unrecht. Inwieferne? Das Vorspielen von Unbildung durch Politiker und andere "Leader" ist nicht nur eine Anpassung, sondern erfüllt auch einen wichtigen soziopolitischen Zweck. Es ist als Verhalten effizient und erfolgreich und keine Fehlentwicklung. Politiker, die ihre echte oder eingebildete Gescheitheit "heraushängen" lassen, sind ineffizient und zum Scheitern verurteilt, was unser letzter Bundeskanzler, aber auch van der Bellen und der aktuelle HBP mehrfach bewiesen haben. Was die Bevölkerung will und braucht, sind schlaue Politiker und Politikerinnen, nicht gescheite Politiker.

Die aussenpolitische Nachteile dieser Taktik können meistens in Kauf genommen werden. Dass George W. Bush, der gerade abgetretene Weltmeister dabei zu Anfang und zuletzt stark übertrieben hat und damit einen Umschwung provoziert hat, ist kein Beweis des Gegenteils. Auch Herr Obama bemüht sich sehr, dass er recht schlau und nicht zu gescheit wirkt. Dass sich sein Stil von dem der Prölls unterscheiden muss, sollte klar sein. Die amerikanischen Eliten differenzieren sich als Zielgruppe schon ein wenig von der Mehrheit der Niederösterreicher. Lesen Sie hier die historische Analyse unseres Redakteurs StefanL:

The Rhetoric of a "Simulated Lack of Education" On 2 coupled modern political and linguistic phenomenons: Simulated Lack of Education (SLE) and Simple Man Acting (SMA)

The Perception

A long row of specific changes in the rethoric structure of formal presidential speeches and seemingly spontaneous presidential remarks from the 70ies to the 90ies, and from Richard Nixon to Jimmy Carter and on to Ronald Reagan for the first time drew the attention of linguists and social scientists to a phenomenon, that until then had been mainly attributed to

• defects caused by the inbreeding of European Royal Houses
• the rural descent of second and third world leaders like Nikita Khrustchev.

The long reign of the Reagan administration in the eighties spawned some research into the phenomenon, mostly by political science now, but the topic lost its appeal fast outside the most conservative intellectual politic cycles who had their own philosophical problems with that specific tactic. This loss of interest strangely had to do with the synchronous adoption of that same rhetoric and behavior tactic, expressed in the selection of personel and style, in the top tier of global leadership and in middle management. A further factor has been a certain well-founded disinterest from the majority of specialist as well as mainstream media. Whatever the mix of reasons, it seems habituation had its way.

The nineties and the proliferation of newer communication and marketing theories into more traditional science fields like history and political science brought about a bit more clearing of the facts.

The political and historic background

In the seventies a chain of political developments like the Watergate scandal and the following demise of the Nixon Administration had given strong hints about changes in the presentation of national policies. The result of the democratic primaries in 1976, the adoption of its winner, Navy lieutenant and peanut farmer James Earl Carter jr, by the national media elite and the well known outcome of that year's presidential election had finally made it clear to even the most conservative wire-pullers and think tank members in the GOP that the days of old style politicians in the mould of Johnson and Nixon were finally over, at least for big leading roles with lots of media exposure.

What Carter had that his opponents did not was the acceptance and support of elite sectors of the mass communications media. It was their favorable coverage of Carter and his campaign that gave him an edge, propelling him rocket-like to the top of the opinion polls. This helped Carter win key primary election victories, enabling him to rise from an obscure public figure to President-elect in the short space of 9 months.

In 1976 the son of a shoe salesman and 50ies B-movie actor Ronald Reagan had still lost the primaries to Gerald Ford. But now in 1980 Reagan was installed as the chief sales man for the next great republican 8-years project and his chief opponent George H. Bush was forced to run as his vice for the presidential campaign. The high level of Reagan's political role playing and salesmanship had been proven in his run for governor of California in the sixties and his coining of immortal slogans. He had been completely focused on two topics: "to send the welfare bums back to work and to clean up the mess at Berkeley", a strategy later copied with success in national politics all over the world. The outcome in 1980 is history and brought us Star Wars and many blessings more.

The Democratic Party on the other hand suffered a relapse so severe that it took them 12 years and a defeat at the hands of said Mr. Bush sr. to recover and find a salesman able to present the projects and policies of its main proponents and in the meantime refine their think tank conceptual work and become competitive again.

All of this was not very well received in the old continent. Political parties were still dominated by law school educated tricksters in the Adenauer style. Over the years, some of them like Helmut Kohl adopted one or the other simplistic tricks of rhetoric and facial expression. With Helmut Schmidt and Margaret Thatcher who were both quite unable to play that fiddle the difference was that Mrs. Thatcher had the advantage of having roughly the same ideology as atlantic partner Reagan and thus had an easier job than Mr. Schmidt who had to work harder to get along with the atlantic and his party youth at the same time.

A certain unpopularity of simplistic farmer and worker images with the more mediterranean elites in France, Italy and Spain did more to keep Europe from looking to America and learning more than maybe some little pieces of the new and refined communication methods for political strategy. Even now the boss in those countries must rather be of the trickster mould as Misters Chirac, Sarkozy and Berlusconi illustrate very well. The fact that the big European political parties did not adopt newer marketing methods and personel for them on the other hand made life easy for minor regional political talents like Dr. Haider in Austria. A bit of training in com methodology for dummies and 2 or 3 workshops in the United States was enough effort to really shake up smaller countries with correspondingly small and unbalanced elites.

20 years after the 80ies, large fractions of the economic and political elites of Europe still cling to law studies based universalism. Their performance in today's decisive policy fields like ICT (information and communications technology) regulations are almost catastrophic. Their command over the second tier of political regional princes and the media is near zero and their sales power for the European project is quite simply not existant. One large political project of the European Union after the other fails, the last national proponents of the European unification project are removed from their posts and the media, while the young bureaucrats in Brussels lose all touch with reality in the member countries.

The particular case

Under all these circumstances a man like Mr. Pröll who understands division of labour issues and has selected a strong and comfortable position for himself is not interested in obsolete roles like chancellor of the republic of Austria. Thus he need not do too much. This man and the likes of him have just accepted that you can't do everything and, most importantly, not everything yourself. They stay put where they are and need not prove themselves in too competitive a league. In the meantime they also know that the front man role is not the most strenous role any more. Many jokes in this country make fun of the bookwise smartie pusher type. The assertment of having read only one book that Mr. Pröll coined is one that makes fun of his Viennese counterpart, Mayor Häupl, who is of the same generation as Pröll but comes from a different party tradition.

It is well known that Häupl is a trained scientist. By the way, that is what Mr. Pröll is too. Allthough Mr. Häuple tries hard he will never be quite able to make a perfect show of being a simple man. He rules a large city, with a mix of urban population sectors and thousands of farmerly minded people at the same time. This is not as easy as ruling a province that is deeply nostalgic for the time when their boring home country was an archduchy and all the state officials, farmers and small city bourgois could still imagine they were the inhabitants and elite of the center of a vast empire.

Pröll knows full well that his opponent Häupl has a harder job than he and must work harder to get his target groups together. While for sure there have been many many occasions when Häupl tried too hard to impress the other provincial governors of Austria, the rhetoric specialization of Mr. Pröll has produced a slightly higher fault rate at the level of communication where you adress other elite members. The more gratifying for Mr. Pröll it must have been, when he landed that sort of subtle fun making that the main protagonists and their closest staff must all have understood. The outgoing media elite of the country on the other hand, lacking intuitive humour and wit just did not get it. As most of the time they used the occasion to pull off a little show to prove to themselves that at least they were not part of the common cultural decline of the occident.

It may well be true, that life is boring for Mr. Pröll and being what he is too easy. Becoming President of the republic is practically the only cool choice for him. If the twin brother number has worked in Poland somehow the uncle and nephew number could well work out here. Both countries share many common traits like being ludicrous, whiny and the world champions in antisemitism. Life may also have become boring for Mr. Dichand. He still has to eliminate many of his undarlings. He has not got much time left and all of his handsome substitute sonnies have disappointed him over the years, one way or the other.

To deduce a cultural problem from such trivial occurences of a special branch of the art of acting is a kind of indictment for the boboesque intermediate elite of our middle ages.

General conclusions For a long time politics might have been the domain of professionally and socially competent universalists, be their education in law, in economy or philosophy. Our European ideals of a politician are still formed by this concept born in the english, american and french civic revolutions. For everybody who wanted to know, national politics started to become obsolete in the 1930ies at latest. In 7/7 hindsight we could say it never kind of really worked out to well, given diplomacy and the corresponding general condition of international economic, political and media elites, but but for a while it apeared to be all powerful and at least generated intense nationally structured competition.

Today at least the front men and women of the rests of national policy have to be and are good actors and sales persons. Factual and communicational strategies are worked out by think tanks. Wire pullers and heavy weights in the background match and coordinate, negotiate the compromises and strike the deal. The "can do it all" - top politicians modeled after the myths of Caesar, Frederic the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin have no use anymore and so in fact have ceased to be produced by society.

What the developed societies today lack is not well educated workers for whom - thanks to the ever ongoing progress in technical productivity - it would not have enough jobs anyway and who then - given to much free time - could ponder reform or revolution.

What societies are always in danger of is a potential of lack of consumers who do not perform to well in their jobs and hence accept business compatible income, taxes and fees or large quantity compatible welfare payments and still stay prepared to spend the large part of those modest sums of money. This large group is what is necessary to keep consumer demand and economic confidence at the beneficial levels.

When studies like PISA show that the related policies have succeeded, quite some people get irritated and nervous because these old fashioned prejudiced elite members feel an uneasiness if the optimization in the balance of a few highly paid hysterical experts and many well-behaved relaxed and confident comsumers is becoming visible enough to be able to supercede the images of the 200 years old ideology of permanent progress in productivity based on human work and mass edcucation .

The level of demand many industries now have in middle to low end consumers is so high that these half educated people now hat to constitute a large majority in developed countries. They prefer to elect people who seem to be not to literate and cultivated, because they identify with them. They have learned hard how important it is to keep quiet and hide all smartness behind a friendly and childly expression and be aggressive only to the real foreign stuff. From simulating friendly simplicity not a few of them have already forgotten that in truth they were born smart. But that is all too human, isn't it?

In the end it should be clear, that a strong division of labor does not only characterize today's economy but the last public playing fields like national politics too. That sphere has been owned for a couple of 100 years by a long growing but long since ever dwindling group of dabbling amateurs in everything but law or theology, who by chance or tradition imagine themselves as the heirs to the specific subgroup of humanity that was reinvented in Italy and France after bookprinting had come to Europe from China. The same image was refined in the age of enlightenment when, after 200 years of book printing, large scale writing and reading had been half digested by the European culture.

The resulting world view is swiftly weakening but still strong in our older generation who was the last to be helped in erecting and stabilizing it by being beaten and yelled at. When both the catholic and the protestant churches were seized by television and the resulting postwar reforms that age began to slide downhill down fast and for good.

That ever smaller group of people imagined itself as having a highly developed brain, being capable of abstract reasoning, introspection and problem solving, properties it has passed on through schools and media but has lost now to marketeers and technocrats. The old elite's days are over now for good or bad. The writing or rather the sounding of it is on the wall. They cannot keep up with the diversity of developments in technology, science, research, production, knowledge proliferation and global social integration that have been going on for many years. So the old elite tends to become more and more desperate and ridiculous.

Many people might regret the demise of that self styled class of universalist men and their corresponding ideals. Many of the same people also regret the painful death of the nation state as we know it. Now we do not know yet if the nation state and universalist civic man will go away in a puff or a bang but go away they will and nobody will be able to stop them from doing so, neither H.C. Strache nor Barack Hussein Obama.

Do not mourn them over much. As one of my favourite paragons in strategic writing, Mr. Martin van Creveld said in in a comment he did for the Carnegie Endowment for international "peace magazine" Foreign Policy: "the end of history is not yet at hand. To be sure, the future holds many dangers. Still, compared with the recent horrors of Hiroshima and Auschwitz, it is not an unpleasant prospect. After all, isn’t the best thing one can say about any European city that its core remains completely medieval?"

So, when the wailings, the money claims and the holiness speeches of the defenders of "Bildungskultur", of correct written language, of expensive professional travel documentation a.s.o., to the expenses of which its producers have acquired an eternally guaranteed right get on your nerves, stay calm. When highly paid so called quality media people defend their positions and demand the expansion of state protection and a guarantee that the principle of "everybody pays - the chosen few enjoy" stay upheld, do not get upset. Wait for the next debate and remind them of the fact that the 2 events mentioned remain the proven climaxes of their allegedly superior European Bildungskultur.

Hat Herbert Grönemeyer recht behalten?

Am Sonntag surft unser Redaktionsteam nicht wie sonst in der technischen, politischen und ökonomischen Fach- und Forschungsliteratur herum, wie es sonst seine Pflicht ist. Nein am Sonntag dürfen sich auch unsere Recheresklaven ein bisschen was gönnen und in der Populärkultur baden. Und was stellen wir fest, während wir so die immer noch nieder aufgelösten Fotos unserer heutigen Heiligen, unserer Identifikationsfiguren und Idole durschstöbern und die Spannung zwischen Neid und Adoration genießen?

Die beiden deutschen Propheten Herbert G. und Bettina W. sind mit der Arbeit an ihrer gemeinsamen Weltrettungsvision schon einigermaßen weit gekommen. Wir, damals noch mitten im Übergang von der Adoleszenz ins Jungprofitum beschäftigt, konnten seinerzeit die Wahrheit nicht erkennen. Zudem dachten wir damals, was soll das, das weiß doch jeder, was für ungehobelte, brutale, tyrannische und unsympathische Zeitgenossen die Mitglieder des bodennahen Gesocks namens Kinder zumindest öfter mal sind. Gerade hatten wir die Greisenherrschaft weggeräumt und jetzt kamen diese Idioten damit. Vergiss es! Wie geil soll das denn sein?

Aber jetzt, viel später, jetzt sind wir aufgewacht und erkennen endlich, wo der Zug hingefahren ist und immer noch hinfährt. Irgendwie blöd, weil jetzt ist es zu spät. Die Haare ergrauen schon und fallen aus, die ersten Fältchen zeigen sich und lassen sich auch mit der besten Naturquark-Crème nicht mehr so gut cachieren. Und, was das schlimmste ist, nach der Krise bleibt viel zu wenig sicheres Wertpotential im Aktiendepot und bei der freien Liquidität schauen wir ganz alt aus. Keine Kredite von den misstrauischen Geldinstituten. Teure Frischzellenkuren und alle noch so kleinen Ops bei Nip oder Tuck vergessen wir besser. Sei's drum. Damit ihr teil haben könnt, an den Wonnen der Ambivalence, hier eine kleine sonntägliche Diashow (Bildstrecke sagen sie in Pifkinesien dazu).

Die Verkindlichung der Welt oder in den Worten Herbert G.s Kinder an die Macht

Das eklige Beispiel

Die noch vor Britney S. und Christina A. liegende Hauptprotagonistin der legalen Kinder- und Katzenpornographie hat es schon perfekt hinbekommen. Spitzengeburt, Spitzenausbildung, Wunderkind, nachhaltig im Geschäft: Paris H.

Das peinliche Beispiel

Irgendwie ist ja fast jedem mit der Zeit aufgefallen, dass Mikee J. vorgeblich nicht farbig sein wollte. Als das süße, mega-talentierte und vom Singen und Tanzen her auch mega-attraktive Negerkind in die Pubertät kam, fing wohl in seiner Kontrollgruppe das große Rechnen an. Halbstark, dunkler Teint, ausgepägter Bartwuchs? Ging alles ganz gut in den 50ies. 60ies, 70ies, 80ies: zunehmend andere Trends. Die Rap-Zielgruppe zu klein. Die Jimi-Hendrix-Nachfolge von TAFKAP okkupiert. Nein, nein, sowohl dem Visionär (L.R.) als auch den Erbsenzählern war alles klar. Metro-Childstyle! Filterkaffee oder Espresso niemals die Zukunft. Das operative Ziel konnte nur ein langer, glatter Latte mit viel Schaum und ohne ungesunde Streusel sein.

Dass aber Mikee dann noch viel lieber und eigenlich ein süßes kleines Mädchen sein wollte und damals schon wusste, dass Barbie cooler war als Ken, das hat dann die meisten docht ein wenig verwirrt. Leider hat er es nicht gescheit hinbekommen und deshalb bleibt uns, trotz seines jüngsten Ablebens das Urteil nicht erspart: Peinlich.

Das schlimme Beispiel

Das schlimmste Resultat, das Herbie und Bettie mit ihren Forderungen und Strategien gezeitigt haben, ist aber beim kleinen Tommy eingetreten. Nicht nur, dass er schon früh als Kind Anzüge und Krawatten tragen musste, von Professor Backhaus und Tante Fini überall hin mitgenommen und zum Aufsagen von Gedichten genötigt wurde, nein schlimmer, er bekam auch diese rumänischen Hormonpillen in einem gewaltigen Ausmaß, damit nur ja jede Art von chirurgischem Eingriff unnötig bliebe.

Nachdem er als nächstes beim DKT die kleinen Bertelsmänner fast ruiniert und ihn Onkel Reini auf das ständige Drängen von Tante Liz hin endlich aus dem Team geschmissen hatte, meldeten ihn Oma und Opa als angeblich nachdenkliches Wunderkind und ohne Fragen in St. Moritz zum WEF an. In der Folge zwangen ihn verschiedene Onkel und Tanten aus der Warenhaus-, -versand- und Tourismusgruppe wieder zum DKT-Spielen und das war's bald mit Karstadt, Quelle, Cook und der halben Millionärsallée. Sogar Onkel Sal muss ein bisschen reinzahlen. Aber der wird's aushalten. Trotzdem gemein und jammerschade.