My friend Dr. Marcus Raitner (in fact, I probably should write our friend, because there are already quite many of us) is, among other things, also the author of a very special blog on topics along leadership and society: Experiencing Leadership (Führung erfahren) with the sub-title Shaping Cooperation at Eye-Level. This is a blog I warmly recommend.
The current article in Marcus’ blog: (No) A Real Life Surrounded by Wrongness? Is important for me, which is why I wrote a comment on it.
Dear Marcus, the Adorno citation “There is no real life surrounded by wrongness” made a huge impression on me, too, when I read it a few years ago. And, just like you also wrote, all comparison between our current situation in society and the echo of terror at the time by which Adorno was motivated to write this sentence is absolutely out of the question.
Incidentally, I saw the film “WORK HARD PLAY HARD” by Carmen Losmann a few days ago. I also had the opportunity to talk with her at quite some length. The film is truly worth watching and I already wrote an IF Blog article about my experience.
If you make a mental connection between the impressions of the film and the current world-wide and German news (strange social developments in the USA, as well as other countries and Germany, global supervision by NSA and others, wars between maniacs – with weapons provided by us, tax manipulations at a huge range, behaviour of the financial industry, massive influence of lobbies on legislation, control of governments by business, numerous violations of law in huge dimensions, the power of the secret services outside all parliamentary control even in developed “democratic” countries, the general dominance of the powerful, the way the “world society” treats global threats such as climate change, but also singular ones such as Ebola), you might well start thinking:
“nip things in the bud”. And if you then continue by mentally combining this with your own life’s experience, it might actually give you pause from time to time.
This is how I see you as a caller in the wilderness; yet thankfully, you are not a lonely caller, because you are far from the only one. And since we multiply quite quickly, I can easily imagine that those who are powerful today will soon again hear the call currently so often in our ears because of our jubilee: “we are the people”.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
Adorno’s sentence inspired me to write a new definition of freedom.
A person is free if he can live a true life even if surrounded by wrongness.
As you all know, I collect definitions of freedom!
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