The Greens are rebuilding society with the energy transition just as much as with gender speech. They have long since achieved cultural domination, for example in the media. The majority of Germans think differently, but who cares about them?
By Eric Gujer, “Der Andere Blick”, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, July 28, 2023
The situation is simmering now in German politics. The success of the AFD [Alternativ für Deutschland – political party to the right of the Conservative Party] is only a symptom of this; the real reason lies elsewhere. Citizens are fed up with the mixture of restrictions and moral demands, which increasingly govern their lives.
Society is being transformed into an educational institution that determines what car the inhabitants of the institution can drive, which kind of heating they can use, and how they should speak correctly. Yet a majority of Germans reject the closure of the nuclear power plants, just as they reject the enforced ban on internal combustion engines and fossil fuel heating.
Nor do they wish to be enlightened with gender speech. This is, of course, a detail in comparison to the future of the energy supply, but because of that it is even more annoying. Even younger people, not to speak of the older generation, are in the majority rejecting the fashionable nonsense. This does not prevent the public broadcaster from devotedly “genderizing” everything, even though it is required to produce programs for its captive audiences, not against them.
A belief in instruction and paternalism is penetrating all political life in Germany. This ungeist [demon] has a name: it is the green zeitgeist. Thanks to its patient march through the institutions, it reaches far beyond what can be decided by individual political parties. It has long since become a societal problem.
Who does not vote green, makes himself guilty
Whereas formerly the CDU [the mainstream German conservative party] and the SPD [the mainstream German socialist party] controlled the political space, from the unions to the churches, the Greens have now achieved cultural hegemony.
Protestant church days can no longer be distinguished from Green Party days: the same high moral tone, the same belief in the end of the era. The only thing that is uncertain is which will come first – the final judgement or the climate catastrophe.
The zeitgeist is also swinging its scepter in the media. In public broadcasting and in the mainstream media, not to speak of the overwhelmingly left-liberal private press production; and even in the case of an intelligent journalist from a middle-class newspaper, you can read the following:
“Things have gotten really serious. July 6 was the hottest day which the earth has ever experienced since the beginning of measurements. And in a small country by the name of Germany the CDU and the CSU [the CDU’s sister party in Bavaria] have declared the Greens to be their principal opponents.”
He who does not vote Green or approve of their policies shares responsibility for the death by heat of mankind. Many journalists think this way.
They are not disturbed by the fact that the announcement of the catastrophe of the hottest day is not based on actual measurements but on computer models. Such models do not provide facts, but, in the best case are based on plausible assumptions.
One should really talk about these models in the subjunctive mood and not in the indicative, which most of the media do. But who pays attentions to such rules when one has to save the world?
Journalists creating mood of hysteria
Journalists and politicians are creating moods that without exaggeration one can call hysterical. The Mediterranean countries are not simply suffering from a heat wave, but rather “ climate change is destroying southern Europe, an era is coming to an end.” This is what the traveller to Italy, Karl Lauterbach, is writing, a journalist who already stirred up fear and horror in the population during the pandemic. His talk of “killer variants” never materialized, but the main point was to prophesize decline and fall.
It is the underlying religious aspect of this zeitgeist that turns many people off, and is reflected not just in the opinion polls about the right-wing populist parties. Opposition to the green zeritgeist is getting stronger and the choice of language more strident.
Political scientist Manfred Güllner does not shy away from describing the present situation as a “kind of dictatorship.” A small elite minority from the ranks of the better educated and higher income class is imposing its values on the large majority of people who think differently from it, is how he summed up the situation in an interview with Die Welt newspaper.
A dictatorship is not in charge in Germany, not even an authoritarian ruling class. But what increasingly annoys a growing number of voters is the paternalistic siege situation.
It is not enough for the zeitgeist to concentrate on really big individual problems like the energy transition. One can and must deal with the transition, as well as the future of the welfare state, or the creeping deindustrialisation of Germany.
These are the big challenges. Politicians who behave rationally would set priorities logically and concentrate on a single theme.
However, secular religion demands more, and creates in this way the impression of permanent struggle. They want to transform life in all its aspects. Therefore, they pay attention as well to seemingly trivial matters such as gender language.
Social policy is the battleground
Social policy is the actual battleground in which the Greens and their supporting organizations act with determination. They know that they can only achieve cultural hegemony and secure it this way. However, this leaves citizens feeling that they are test animals in an experiment to produce a new kind of human being.
The draft of the self-determination law that will permit youngsters free choice of their sex is an example. Another one is the equality law. The Greens are advancing strategically. A law by itself does not provide a reason for fundamental criticism. However, when it is all added up this means that the siege ring is closing.
Ferda Ataman (former German journalist and now Commissioner for Anti-Discrimination in the German government ), who has described [traditionally white] Germans as “potatoes” and therefore herself is the ideal representative for this issue, would like to broaden the equality law considerably. The barriers to making discrimination legally valid should be lowered, in her view. At the same time, associations should be allowed to launch legal cases without individuals being identified.
In addition, new elements should be added, for example in the categories “social status” and “nationality.” Where previously it was stated precisely “because of race”, in the future a loose formula “racist attributes” will suffice.
Where heaven exists, there is also hell
Innumerable studies already identify Germans as racist, islamophoic, transphobic and anti-foreign. The preferred term used in this questionable scholarship is “systemic.” No matter how hard an individual may try not to be racist or islamophobic, it is always all about the systemic aspect, that is, societal discrimination – a perfect trap.
When the proposals are implemented, this vicious view of Germans will be much easier to push through. Every minority now has a powerful interest group at its disposal. They will all likely make use of the right of association, and even if they lose in court, they can claim this is proof of systemic discrimination – a self-fulfilling prophesy.
An example in Berlin shows how seamlessly lobbying and justice now work together. There a Queer representative of the provincial government launched a court action against a journalist because the journalist had criticized the raising of the rainbow flag at the police headquarters. Regardless of how the matter ends, the representative has achieved his goal: rage over so much hatred for queers will be stirred up a little more.
This is how the green Zeitgeist creates its perpetuum mobile, and the siege ring tightens a little further. People fear that inflation, declining competitivity, and, above all of that, the transformation of the economy because of the climate issue, will turn them into losers: as employees, car drivers, renters or house owners. They are right to regard a policy that enthusiastically concerns itself about every minority, and ignores the concerns of the majority, as a sign of the destruction of prosperity. But which political party is addressing these fears?
That the end-of-era prophets claim the great transformation will proceed without any loss of prosperity rightly leaves citizens quite suspicious. Where no scenario is shrill enough and no warning can be frightening enough, where every German is an islamophobe, and every summer a record heat disaster, the transformation of industrial society is suddenly painted in rosy red colours.
Such contradictions stir up uncertainty. But the green zeitgeist , like every respectable religion, recognizes hell and heaven. The Greens and the media that are attracted to them decide who will be damned and who not.
This is a translation of a Swiss newspaper article. To read the original article, in German, click here.