Yesterday, I saw him again: Georg Schramm. He was at the Lustspielhaus “Schlachthof”. Georg Schramm is my own generation, more than a year older than yours truly. Perhaps that is why I understand him so well.
He favoured us with a great and elaborate program. Very rigorous. With total dedication. A call for social resistance. With harsh comments against the financial world. In RAF times, they would have incarcerated him because of his call for murder.
And at the end of his show, he even explained to the people what a “flashmob” is. Not everybody likes that. I can understand that this is the kind of program you can no longer broadcast on TV at prime time.
There were also some interesting theories. Among other things, he talked about celibacy (Zölibat). A few people left the room …
Here is a short version of what he said:
In his cabaret, Georg Schramm assumes that the church representatives around the 12th century had a particularly strong sex drive. “And they took advantage of everything that could hot climb the trees fast enough”. Naturally, the consequence was that they had many children, who then were a threat to the prosperity of the church. And that is why the management of the Catholic Church introduced celibacy. Well, it does not sound illogical, does it?
In my opinion, however, there were probably some more (good) reasons for this management decision at the time.
In those days, the church was quite powerful and rich. They owned (I almost wrote occupied) most of the property and built impressive edifices. But in order to remain rich and become even richer, a system must take good care of its system agents.
Yet times were hard in medieval Europe. Hunger and misery were the normal state of affairs for a huge part of the population. Bishops and priests, however, probably did not belong to the majority of those who suffered.
Well, is it not human and totally normal that the “females” of our species preferred the “males” who “had enough to eat and live in luxury” – as Bert Brecht would perhaps have said it?
Is it not just as normal that the “males” –like today – were and are just weak creatures?
And will an organization not look non-credible if they preach water (chastity and monogamy) while its operative members – perhaps because such were the circumstances – live exactly the opposite? In the long run, this kind of thing will be detrimental for any organization.
If that was so, celibacy can be seen as a management order that is very easy to understand. It was necessary in order to preserve an image which was especially relevant for an enterprise that does business with values.
If you see it under this light, you must admit that the introduction of celibacy was a stroke of genius by the enterprise leaders, wasn’t it? And as a side effect, the costs were lowered, too!
As I said – this is pure speculation. But no matter in what dimension you want to see it, celibacy is certainly an anachronism.
RMD
P.S.
The right to the picture of Georg Schramm is with Hossa at de.wikipedia.
Loading ...