“Minutes and notes on and how I felt and results of my session “project freedom” at the Berlin PM Camp on June, 24th, 2014″
In former times, I was in search of the meaning of life. I tried to find meaning in as many things as possible. When I founded an enterprise, this, too, of course, was to be meaningful. That was more than thirty years ago. At the time, I was totally convinced that all social systems – including the economically-oriented ones – should have meaning.
And today – with every speaker demanding that enterprises must have meaning – I think that this demand is correct and yet wrong. Today, I believe the important thing is not whether life or an enterprise makes sense. Instead, what matters is how a human being or an enterprise affects its or his environment.
When I was a child, I, like many of my friends, was surrounded by a traumatized generation. In the early 1950ies, this generation knew exactly what you do and what you do not do. They felt like they owned the truth – which was often defined through totally irrational categorizations. They had a strange understanding of freedom and peace. And we were victims of their advice.
At school, we were “educated” by traumatized persons. Seemingly purged, they now sublimely tried to pass their dogmata and hatred on to the new generation, which was: us. Mind you, it was not just the teachers. The parents and family were no different. Even strangers who passed us on the street abused us. Because we wore jeans or because our hair was too long – regardless of the parents having threatened us with the worst possible punishments.
But in other respects, too, this generation never appreciated us. They knew exactly what the world should look like and we simply did not fit. Consequently, they made us look small. Being beaten was normal. Both at home and at school. Having to stand in the corner or having to spend a few hours in the coal cellar or locked into the bathroom were the humane forms of punishment.
We suffered and never understood the reasoning behind this kind of education. Instead, we saw it as a revenge model. We had to pay for our non-conformity and undesirable behaviour. And then we opposed and reciprocated with hatred.
We felt particularly ill-treated when we were punished for activities we had felt truly courageous, noble or great about. How it hurt us when we had been doing good things and they made us pay for it! – When we were called traitors.
Even when we had enjoyed doing something too much, we were scolded. Because it definitely would not do to have too much fun and therefore the rulers of our childhood objected to it.
Do not play with the street urchins …
When I was an adolescent, I liberated myself and the question about the meaning of life was never far from my mind. I was totally devastated by the fear of death. What meaning can a life have if it ends with death? To me, eternal life did not seem to be the right answer, either.
And on top of the meaning of life, there was another hope – peace. Big, never-ending peace. Both between humans and with creation.
After all, I and my friends never understood the nonsense about war. John Lennon was one of our heroes. I never experienced war first-hand. But I experienced how US GI’s sobbed in Augsburg, because they were ordered to fly to Vietnam early on the next morning. They certainly knew what to expect and they also knew that many of them would never return.
I can imagine how cruel war always is and will be and how perverse it is when “industrialized”. For me, the concept of an idealized war where clean modern technology is used, the reduction to using weapons as some kind of high-tech game where fighters control the death-spelling drone standing behind the game board is horrifying. Not to mention all those necessities that make all these things mandatory: weapons, soldiers, mines, fighting robots, …
I know no war that changed anything for the better. Also, I doubt that there can ever be a justified war. Perhaps even the Nazi problem could have been solved in a better way. Without WW1, there would probably never have been a WW2.
However, I do not only wish to oppose the big war. The war inside and on a small scale, too, is bad for us. Is it really necessary that humans always integrate so much animosity into their daily communication? Why is it so hard to come to peaceful terms with oneself?
Why do we always tend to make other people look smaller, rather than bigger? Wouldn’t it be an obligation both for our “leaders” and everyone else to make others look bigger? Because this is the only way the social system might work in favour of humans, rather than against them. So why do we fight ourselves and prevent the flourishing of our own life in many possible dimensions?
Isn’t it a great project goal to reach your inner and outer peace? A goal everyone – not just leaders and managers – should work towards? Don’t we all “manage” something or other most of the time in our lives? And no matter what it is we manage, it will always have something to do with people.
Consequently, I wish to dedicate the years remaining in my life to working towards peace.
During the Berlin PM Camp was the first time I tried to contribute by a session on “project peace”. Ulf Brandes had inspired me with his introductory presentation. I wanted to fascinate as many persons as possible for a “project peace”. Regardless of the topic being a little beyond our usual range, quite a few people came to attend my session. What we discovered was both encouraging and discouraging:
- Working for peace is definitely worth the effort.
- There is a lot of scepticism whether the project goal can be reached.
- Peace will definitely not come through religion and dogmata.
- A project goal “peace” commanded “from the top” will not help.
- Peace will not be installed by politicians, functionaries and other system agents.
- Traditional forms of protest for peace, such as Easter Marches, etc. will not have any effect.
- The project peace needs persons whose personality has reached a certain degree of maturity.
- In order to get peace, we need a new social consensus.
- Said consensus can only be obtained through a network supporting the process of forming opinions.
- Only a grass-root movement can make the “project goal peace” a success.
Now we can start.
Many thanks to all those who attended my Berlin PM Camp session on “project goal peace” and helped me a lot. Today, all I want is to really live – both in peace and for peace.
I see myself doing this against the generation I witnessed as a child that is still present in such huge numbers.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
Let me note that, almost exactly a hundred years ago, something ultimately unbelievable happened for many people – systemic mechanisms culminated in WW1.
This war was the first media war (see documentations for instance at ARTE) to be started so cunningly. For instance, historical research was convinced for a long time that a majority of the people living in the two empires actually went to war jubilantly.
New historical research reversed this concept. Today, it is generally accepted that the entry of war in 1914 was mostly against the wishes of the people living in Germany and Austria and that, in truth, it was something the then elites and powerful wanted and instigated.
Nobody can seriously doubt the uselessness of WW2. The world was burning and there was an industrial waging of war in many places aiming at the total destruction of the enemy without any consideration for all kinds of loss.
On the scale of atrocities committed during the war that, unfortunately, is open at the top, the trench warfare on the German-French border, as well as the “mountain fights” in the Alps are perhaps the outstanding examples of cruelty and irrationality.
War is no constructive means to solve problems!
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