Posts

Posted on

Foul-smelling dictatorship

The animal world is full of interesting strategies of how to turn over a foul-smelling ruler or dictatorship. The ant queen of “lasius orientalis” infiltrates a colony of “lavius flavus” to spray the incumbent queen with a foul-smelling substance which turns the worker ants against their own queen and eventually kills the queen. This is a rather intelligent strategy to trick the defense system of rival colonies and prepare a takeover of a whole colony to install your own reign.
This may constitute a stark warning for democracies just as much as a threat to persistent dictatorships. In the age of the not so social media there is a lot of foul-smells produced. Beware of the risks to democracy as open societies are much easier to infiltrate than closed societies or dictatorships. (Link)

Posted on

EU Digital Sovereignty

If we try to search for digital solutions, we shall encounter a whole lot of American and Chinese products, but very few European companies that are able or willing to compete. Hardware mainly comes from China, software from the US, at least until AI was not working in the background. If we add Russian interference to destabilize our digital infrastructure to the scenario, we are not really fit for the challenges of the 21st century. The very definition of a country or political union is the affirmation and competence to assure its sovereignty, particularly in cases of territorial conflicts with neighboring countries. My health or mobility data are a rather private affair, however, our state governments in EU-Europe have done little to ensure our data integrity. Business is also at a loss, if they do not spend heavily on data security themselves, usually relying on external cooperation. 

The EU digital sovereignty summit took place in Berlin on the EUREF campus in 2025. It can only constitute a beginning for intensified cooperation in  this long overlooked policy area. It will be tough to catch up where production has been abandoned for decades.  

Posted on

Headless Saint Dionysius

Denis of Paris stands for the Saint Dionysius, who is reported to have walked after being decapitated as martyr for his christian beliefs by the Romans in the 3rd century, all the way from Paris to St Denis in the suburb of Paris. We do not only find such a statue at Notre Dame in Paris, but also a medieval version in the Bode museum in Berlin. The cathedral of St Denis in Paris became subsequently the place for the coronation and burial of many French kings. The last king who lost his head through the guillotines was Louis XVI. It took almost another 200 years to abolish capital punishment altogether in France. Robert Badinter devoted his career to fight for this appeacement within the nation. (Image: Statue St Denis in Bode museum Berlin).  

Posted on

Freedom of art

Some depictions or statues of the 16th century quite expressive and average expressions of their time. An angel who is playing the lute in a rather extroverted way is amongst the remarkable artifacts we can discover in the Berlin Bode Museum. The Angel playing the lute is an oeuvre by Hans Brüggemann from 1520 in Husum. The angel certainly performed holy music with interesting postures, which resemble more rock stars of the 20th century or youth performing an act of “air guitar”. Artists always tested the limits of the freedom of art and expression. (Image from Brüggemann Angel playing the lute, Bode museum Berlin, 1520) 

Posted on

Surrealism Networks

The research project on the networks of artists in the group of surrealism ranges from the male proponents Breton, Ernst, Magritte, Miró to female painters like Lenora Carrington and Dorothea Tanning. The collection of Ulla und Heiner Pietzsch, donated to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, excels not only in the depth and breadth of the collection of surrealism, but also in the way it contributes to our understanding of artistic movements and network dynamics. For those familiar with the theoretical and literary underpinnings of surrealism by André Breton, the collection allows to follow the traces of ideas into artworks. Interdependent inspiration in multiple ways becomes visible in this exceptional exhibition. The special concern and concept to honor provenance of the artworks makes the trajectories of each artwork explicit. Thereby, the geographic dimension, importance of collectors, galleries and personal relationships to gallerists become tangible. Additionally, the seizure of the 2WW heightened the need to have contacts to survive Nazi-terror. You find it all condensed into just one room at the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin thanks also go to the Zentralarchiv to facilitate and participate in the research and documentation. (Image: Miró Collage, Berlin Neue Nationalgalerie 2025)

Posted on

Memory design

The progress in the field of genetic editing and design is astonishing. The research group of Johannes Graeff tested the “behavioral consequences of epigenetically editing the Arc promoter within engram cells”. Plasticity is a key feature of memory formation and the experimental evidence shows that this plasticity can also be interrupted. Moreover, the scientists were able to demonstrate a reversibility of retention or un unlearning of manifestations in memory of mice. The bidirectional reversibility of memory expression has potentially therapeutic value for traumatized humans eventually. However, if memory becomes part of a design feature of human species, the risks involved are just as important as the potentials. In totalitarian political systems techniques of “memory design” might be able to adapt such influences on memory, which used to be called brainwashing. Ethics commissions could get ready already to define safeguarding of human memory.  (Image: The fountain of Bacchus, Museum of Paris, 18th century wine merchant entry)

 

Posted on

Reason for war

In his “Propositions on Happiness”, the French philosopher Émile-Auguste Chartie, called in short Alain (1925), takes issue with the strange predilection for war. In his proposition XLII Agir, he writes on war: “Je crois assez fort que ce qui plaît dans la guerre c’est qu’on la fait”. In later paragraph   XLVII on Aristotle, he takes up his recurrent concern to explain happiness with the importance of agency in one’s own life and actions. “Faire et non pas subir, tel est le fond de l’agréable“. In taking both quotes together, we understand that for Alain the reason for war consists primarily in the desire to demonstrate agency. In order words, the position of power, of being in charge, being in control of the political situation are the prime reasons to go to war. With the first quote stemming from 1911 Alain had already a sound understanding of what would happen decades later in the 1st and 2nd World War. Even Putin‘s war in Ukraine is probably a cynic demonstration of agency in a seemingly otherwise rather paralyzed country. With this in mind, Putin‘s wars in the 21st century appear as another chapter in the endless pursuit of cynic reasoning. (Sloterdijk, 1983). (Image: Throne Room at Fontainebleau since 17th century). 

Posted on

Multilingual aging

Some myths, for example about the effects of multilingual competencies on brain health, continue to hunt people. The proponents of a monolingual world are widespread and have in some countries fatal historical heritage. The study by researchers  (Amoruso et al. 2025) use data from 86.000 persons in Europe  (SHARE Database, waves 1-9) from several countries. They show the better aging of brains for bilingual persons and even more so for persons practicing multilingual 2+ languages. The “domain-independent protective effect of multilingualism” for healthy brain aging is very robust and works after statistical accounting for other potentially intervening factors like socioeconomic or institutional factors. Some known stressors like migration, however, which operate often as psychosocial stressor, can have similar negative effects just as alcohol consumption and sleep disruption. Multilingualism and the correlate of multiculturalism keep a brain “on its toes” and contribute significantly to our healthy brains.  

Posted on

Typewriter history

The history of the typewriter and typewriter is comparatively short compared to the history of literature or other technologies as partners in the creative process. With the advent of AI (here as part of infografix, see image below) the skills of using and mastering a typewriter have become almost obsolete. The original design by Remington (timeline below) has dominated for almost 100 years the technology of typewriters. Then came the electronic IBM technique with an automated correction type, which was not only faster, but also more forgiving of “typos”, short for typing errors.
The craft of handwriting had suffered a tough blow, despite its almost intimate touch to it. Knowing the typewriter outline by heart allowed typing with closed eyes or a focus on another text or image as well as a parallel thought process. Scientists and writers (Claude Levi-Strauss) reported on their creative process as intrinsically being linked to their typewriter.
QWERTY outlines for English language typewriters still dominate the keyboard typing today. With the AI interaction on the rise, we might move away from typing as a “Kulturtechnik” a technology of our cultural era and focus more on human-machine interactions via our voice and microphones. The underlying question, however, remains the same: What is the best technology to enhance our thought process? This, in fact, tends to be a very personal human choice, where technology plays only a subsidiary role.

Posted on

From AI to xAI

As humans, we like the feeling to be in control of things. This applies even to immaterial things like religious beliefs. Generative AI has created problems with its hidden structures and lack of transparency of their applications of algorithms (and combinations of algorithms) to basic data bases of knowledge and information. The use of xAI, which stands for explainable artificial intelligence, can address some of the concerns about the lack of transparency and explanation of responses from AI systems. Many users want to know in advance about the consequences of the use of specific words or notions in an instruction to AI. The interpretation of each single word by xAI can inform about the precision of interpretation (cheap versus cheapest, for example) or highlight the sensitivity to gender-neutral language or not in its guidelines. Additionally, ex post the xAI could indicate alternative notions in a prompt and, briefly, how this would affect results.
Yes, there is a trade-off between brevity of answer and room for explanations. As in psychology, there some value in a “thinking aloud” procedure for respondents in order to better understand (implicit) the reasoning behind a reply. xAI takes us a step further in this direction of asking AI to think aloud or more explicitly in a human compatible way of logic and broader reasoning.
Put AI on the psychotherapist’s bench and xAI will be to the advantage of many more humans again. Humans just don’t like black box systems that lack the necessary as well as sufficient transparency. (Image on the right: Patrick Jouin, chaise solide C2, MAD digital humanism).

Posted on

Animals’ dialogue

The writing of Colette became prominent in France already after the publication of the “La chatte”, the Animals’ dialogues and the “Peace amongst the animals”. Cats and dogs were popular in literature long before “La bête est morte” and Orwell’s Animal farm appeared and became famous. “Toby-chien” and “Kiki-la-doucette” became forgotten, before they reappeared to get people to read more again rather than just watch “fail-collections” or cats and dog shorts on video platforms. Funny as well as sad or even terrible stories can be told through the metaphorical use of animals to represent humans. Maybe this old tradition,  dating back to La Fontaine and his fables, is only the precursor of the AI creations of “animal-like” chatbots or companionship. The sociology of the virtual or sociology of the animal-human relationship will bear fruit in analyzing the identification and differentiation between them and us. Tell me what kind of animals you like and a social or psychological profile is likely to be influenced by this (or vice versa). Social media platforms have tons of data already on this for better or worse.  

Posted on

Dynamic Equilibrium

The notion of a dynamic equilibrium is applied in several scientific disciplines. The search of the world wide web takes us first to the application in chemistry. The dynamic equilibrium denotes the state when reactants and products are continuously converted. Fascinating as a process, there are videos where you can watch the process evolve. Applications in economic or social theory are also common even if the time scales to observe such processes of dynamic equilibrium usually take longer to evolve than in chemistry of bubbles. In physics we ponder about dynamic equilibria in Newton’s view of gravitational forces between planets and the celestial system. With a more down to earth approach we might just admire the dynamic equilibrium of an artist on a rope, before we dive into the complex challenges of the new balance of power in international politics of the multipolar world. 

Posted on

Telework Challenge

There is a seminal trend that many employees prefer to have a choice to work on the premises of the employer or remote from home. This flexibility has become a major element of collective bargaining on work and time in larger companies in order to clarify rights and obligations.
In France it is about 1 in 5 of employees who do telework one day per month (1 in 6 in Nouvelle Aquitaine). The higher up in the hierarchy a person is, the more likely s/he is to do telework. Higher levels of educational attainment and seniority in a company also improve the access to and use of telework. There are still many employees who would like to do telework in their jobs, which technically could be done remotely, but who cannot do it (1 in 3). Most of those are denied the possibility by their employers.
Data from a survey in Germany from 2014 showed that before Covid-19 men were worked more often remotely than did women (Lott & Abendroth, 2019). The latest figures from France 2024 show that women have overtaken men as remote workers (Askenazy et al. 2025). As working from home has become more a part of the “standard employment relationship” today, the fears of loosing out on career opportunities due working from home seems to play less of a role nowadays, probably for both gender. Compared to 2014 the costs of equipment and availability and ease of installation of fast internet have become more affordable and might push the spread of telework even further.
The data from France show a strong positive correlation of remote work and commuting distance to work. Hence, long commuting distances “drive” more people into telework, which makes a lot of ecological sense, too.

Posted on

Cut it short

The “Revue des sciences humaines” (Demanze and Gleizes, Nr. 355, 2024 pp. 7-16) provides an interesting reflection on the widespread practice to find (new) ways to cut long stories or insights short. Short by itself, this introduction to a longer special issue on the topic “Faire court” stresses 4 elements of the contemporary impetus to cut it short:
(1) The creative process may be subject to condensation of content, similar to the process of a “reduction” in the culinary vocabulary. The speed of creativity, inspiration, freedom of expression are exemplified by the twitterization of and aphorisms in literature. Roland Barthes, in his analysis of the “haiku”, raises awareness to the different associations of the short text forms in different societies.
(2) The observed shortening of time spans of attention and the competition and economy of attention have raised the stakes for longer formats and explain to a large extent the success of shorts in the digital age.
(3) The short format works to increase the intensity of the literary experience.
(4) In deconstructing the associations of long formats as “monumental” versus short formats as ephemeral, the “cut it short“ tendency serves to “demonumentalize” the big shots of literature, science and the humanities. Well, about time to cut it short, “hic et nunc”, here and now!

Posted on

Classic Farces

Molière’s theatre pieces were popular pieces. Born with the name Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and son of a rich “tapissier” of the rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, he made a tough choice to devote his life to touring as a ”farceur” and comedian, having studied also law in Orléans before. Only after his first successful performances, farces and theatre plays, he could afford to buy the theâtre du Palais Royal, despite a bankruptcy about 20 years earlier with his own theatre. The much later title “Troupe du Roi” (of Louis XIV) and a pension by the King assured a financial and political independence rarely found in this period of classic theatre.
Molière’s “Les fourberies de Scapin” was written towards the end of his life and as a classic farce in the 17th century. The story is full of funny scenes and witty dialogues, which make it a great “intergenerational” theatre play even today. The plot about the institution of marriage addresses a cleaving social and legal construct “marriage”, which continues to excite all generations and across centuries.
(Source: Histoire de la littérature française XVII siècle. Robert Horville  in (Georges Décote series editor)

Posted on

Sociology in Theatre

Thanks to the inspiring direction by Denis Podalydès of Molière’s “Les fourberies de Scapin” we can experience the fruitful application of sociology to classical theatre production. This combination of thoughts has been performed at the “Comédie Française” for more than 7 years in 2025-11. The accompanying booklet of the performance mentioned the ample inspiration of Denis Podalydès by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Personalities in Molière’s theatre are represented as incarnations of the “habitus” each character stands for. Such an interpretation of the roles in the theatre play, raises awareness about the subtle differences between personalities. Even two rich men may differ in their habitus, because their fortunes are of different size or kind, yet they may share even more personality traits. Molière was a particularly crafted author, director and actor to stage such subtle differences, which are embedded into societies often across generations.  

Posted on

Philosophy of Voyage

In an interview Claude Lévi-Strauss described himself as a philosopher of voyage. The excursions which lasted sometimes several months to live with indigenous people and study their languages, habits and culture became a scientific field of its own called social anthropology. He travelled with his wife and wrote down hundreds of notes and collected items. Only years later the concept of stuctural theory became evident to him. A voyage might go on after the end of traveling. It might start well before departure as well, not the least due to all the preparations. Colette, the French writer and polyartist, coined the phrase “ce qu’on sait faire, au fond, c’est de la route, ce  n‘est pas du voyage ” in the novel « La chatte ». In the pre- and immediate post 2WW years “taking to the roads” often had a gendered view of this with women being rare to hold a driver’s license. To “find meaning through voyages” or “the voyage is the meaning” fill whole libraries. For better or worse, travel books are still best selling books in a shrinking overall book market (less print books sold, but still higher value of sales).   

Posted on

Home Wind energy noninvasive

The abundance of wind energy in some regions has made the use of this source of energy more popular. During long winter nights the harvest of wind energy is a wonderful source of free energy. Regulations and oversize wind turbines have tarnished the image of wind energy in some regions. However, even in France and not only in this small village of Asterix and Obelix who resist the Roman empire, that we can find tiny wind turbines providing small amounts of energy. For all those households that have a battery they can use this power whenever they may need it. Suddenly, we are looking forward to the stormy autumn season.  

Posted on

Colette The Cat

The novel “The Cat” (La chatte) was written by Colette with a view on the emancipation of women. The main character “Camille” freshly married to her husband is terribly jealous of the cat 🐈‍⬛ of her husband Alain. In order to deal with this situation she dropped the cat from a window in a moment of anger. As her husband seemed ready to divorce her due to this incident she claimed that her husband defended higher moral standards for the cat than for her psychological wellbeing. The novel certainly raises the issue of hierarchy of rights and duties. The moral dilemma highlights the schism of animal rights and/versus human rights. This specific issue seems to be resolved in the modern context, where both animal and human rights are protected in parallel. On a more abstract level, however, our relationship with animals and nature requires us to balance the rights and relationships again and again.

Posted on

Polypharmacy issues

As we age, we become more likely to confront polypharmacy issues. Polypharmacy is defined as taking 5 or more medications per day. The study reported in The Lancet healthy longevity by Payne et al. 2025 had participants with a median of 4 health conditions and a median of 8 prescriptions. Even a comprehensive set up which involved several experts from medical doctors and pharmacists did not manage to achieve a significant improvement in polypharmacy outcomes in this experimental study with otherwise carefully matched intervention and control group. However, the mental health (measured in patients as “health-care-related quality of life”) slightly increased and the “treatment burden” experienced by patients was slightly reduced.
In combination with a previous study the probability of errors in nurses, who are the prime persons responsible for the administration of medications in institutionalized settings, the reduction of potentials for errors like they are to be found in polypharmacy should continue to be a prime target of this research in future. Together with the knowledge about the prevalence of functional illiteracy at older ages, polypharmacy remains a critical issue on the public health agenda beyond the experimental settings in this study.

Posted on

Spring in Autumn

Can we have spring in autumn? Of course not, most people would answer. The definitions of spring and autumn are clearly defined as separate seasons. Depictions of the seasons in paintings in the Romantic or Impressionist periods are hard to imagine with somewhat blurred distinctions between seasons. And yet, climate change in the 21st century show surprising spring flowers in autumn across Europe. This leads to lots of confusion in nature’s time table.
From a life course perspective, we may ask, whether it is possible to experience a 2nd spring in the season’s view of the life course. More healthy years and spring feelings in the autumn of live have propelled a whole new industry around longevity and the mantra to “stay healthy for the wealthy”. The growing health inequality over the extended life course is a silent killer. The experience of spring in autumn remains a distant dream for most people with multi-morbidity.
Our experience of sequential or linear time, where one season follows the other, gets disturbed or at least blurred. The “Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen” in English the “simultaneity of the non-simultaneous“ can be observed in the macro-world of everyday experience, albeit in a different way than Ernst Bloch defined the concept. On the other hand, it is no longer necessary to invoke Einstein’s theory of relativity or quantum physics to come up with apparently strange phenomena, but empirical facts allow us to question received wisdom, evidence based.

Posted on

Tether thy liver

There are few of us who take our liver seriously. Yet, this big organ plays a central role in our body to regulate metabolism. The obesity pandemic in western countries increases health risks, just as excessive alcohol consumption increases risks of liver dysfunction. Additionally, viruses increase the risk of failure of this organ.
Each of these risks as well as any combination of one of the risks with another one have led to rising public health risks. Several studies since 2020 have highlighted these increased risks for populations in general. The risks, however, have an unequal spread across subgroups of society. A recent comment based on the research of the INSERM U955 team in “The Lancet Regional Health” by Brustia et al. “Liver-related mortality strikes hardest where deprivation is greatest.” Health inequities consist in the lack of income available to buy healthy food or in untreated alcohol addiction, both more common in poor people.
In order to tackle the inequity, the team of medical doctors call for a shift in awareness. Structural reasons like diagnostic delay, remoteness or health literacy are just as important as individual predilections like nutrition or lifestyles. Inequality in access to health and ability to afford a healthy lifestyle have become serious drivers of social inequality in the 21st century.

Posted on

Codes of Emperors

Even in the 21st century we spot the ancient codes of emperors. In Brussels the statue of King Albert, who ruled until 1933 and celebrated the first centenary of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1930, shows the Emperor riding a horse without saddle. This iconic position was started as a symbol of a powerful leadership by Marc Aurel and continued by Napoleon’s reign as well as several other ones.
The position on the elevated podium of the emperor on the horse, which further raises him beyond the level of the people, all contribute to the idealized perception of the king above the people. Such a vertical or hierarchical perspective on society or even mankind, including the colonial approaches of the emperors, are the lasting attributes of those times.  According to Els Witte et al. who wrote on the political history of Belgium, King Albert I was also named King Knight by some.
The portrayal and self-portrayal played an important role already centuries ago. No surprise that democracy has brought about an avalanche of idealized self-portraits or “selfies”.

Posted on

All electric again

The “all electric society” has been identified by Dan Wang and Arthur Kroeber (2025 p.48) as one of the underlying driving forces of “The real China Model”. Despite the heavy reliance and pollution caused by China’s use of coal, the large share of electricity  (30%) of energy use is unmatched by the rest of the world except Japan. Investment in electricity grids and innovative ways of mobility around electricity will allow China to buzz rather than steam ahead. Solar cells, batteries for electricity storage and innovative ways of distribution of electricity through AI enhanced “learning” devices will widen the gap between China and other countries that suffer from inefficient path dependency.
Taking the advent of the “All electric society” seriously will free resources through the focus on future-proof technologies. We should not be afraid of the sparks of a short-circuited “All electric society”, the environmental challenges ahead for all of us, particularly China, ask to shift to high voltage solutions urgently. 

Posted on

Weaponized Interdependence

The shift in the international political system is clearly expressed in the contribution by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman in “Foreign Affairs” (2025 (Nr. 5) p.25). “… governments must navigate a terrain with many more players, figuring out how to redirect private-sector supply chains in directions that do not hurt themselves while anticipating the responses of a multitude of governmental and nongovernmental actors.”
As the number of bigger global players increases, the complexity to identify best strategies increases as well. Going it alone is only second best to coordinated actions. New matches of interests may result in the medium term. This could entail enormous long term realignments.
Russia attempted to play the China, and subsequently the India, card to achieve new strategic partnerships in this multipolar world. Other international players test new forms of alliances and strategies (like hybrid wars) in this period of weaponized interdependence as well.
The weaponization of such interdependencies puts critical limits to the basic economic rationale and a world building on comparative advantages together with trade, rather than going it all alone or try the coercive way of exploiting dependencies of mineral resources, supply chains, computing power and AI.
(Image: Chess figures attributed to Charlemagne, dating from 1080-1100 ” BNF Galerie Mazarin 2025-10)

Posted on

Racine Andromaque

The representation of Jean Racine’s “Andromaque” in Brussels at the Theâtre des Martyrs in 2025 has been an interesting choice, because the revival of a 17th century tragedy dealing with the intricacies of the Greek and Trojan war (mostly remembered for the Trojan horse). Jean Racine turned French theatre back to tragedies with his Andromaque (Résumé and analysis in French!), rather than the comedies or tragi-comedies of previous great authors like Molière.
The literary analysis of Andromaque by Roland Barthes (“Sur Racine”, 1963) identified 3 separate locations: chamber, anti-chamber and exteriors. The real power seems to live in the chamber as the place of respect, but also terror. (Compare also Mithridate). The anti-chamber is the place of diplomacy and the place of exchange of ideas, information and strategies. The exterior world is mostly closed off through walls or balconies as views from above. For Barthes this “symbolizes” even the prison inside or the pure heroic life inside the walls.
Besides this 21th century interpretation of 17th century theatre, Racine is remembered for his tragic love stories where A loves B, but B loves C and, maybe C falls in love with A. (Compare Robert Horville, 1991) The Condorcet paradox (Science of it) described only formally in the 18th century enlightenment, many decades later, had proven mathematically that such combinations of personal preferences are impossible to resolve. Hence, these confusions are great stuff for tragedies to evolve live on stage.  

 

Posted on

Popular Sociology

Sociology, like other social science disciplines, has often difficulties in reaching bigger audiences. However, in combination with a museum which specializes in the history of a big city like Paris, the insights can suddenly become very popular. The “Musée Carnavalet of the history of Paris” has mounted an exhibition, which builds on the population censuses of 1926,1931 and 1936. The access to the complete original records of 3x about 2 millions of people has become a national treasure for social scientists and the public at large.
People flock to the exhibition. Some do it to learn about the past of their districts or streets. Others to learn about historical facts, which are sometimes linked to the family anecdotes and broader historical narratives. Out of this interest grows an understanding of macro- and micro-level social processes, which makes use of basic statistics.
People ask themselves: Is your (family) story unique or is it part of a more general pattern or social process like urbanization or social mobility.
(Image: original census recording sheet – Paris)

Posted on

Opera design

France celebrates 150 years of the National Opera Garnier in Paris. The exhibition in the splendid building traces the history of the building from the competition for the design to the legendary performances and celebrities attending. The stairs outside and even more so inside are built to enhance the glamour around operas and dance. The drawings by Garnier are a highlight as much as the videos about celebrities walking up the stairs of an Opera building.
Charles de Gaulle, as many French Presidents before, dressed and took the famous stairs to impress the official invitees. The image of de Gaulle together with Konrad Adenauer is another interesting example of opera politics showing the authentic friendship after the fierce fighting of the 2 WW, the Nazi-terror and Shoa.
The design of the Paris Opera 150 years ago made for an impressive ritual performance of state diplomacy enhancing international reputation.
(Images: 150 years of Opera Garnier Paris – 3 designs, winning design by Garnier on the right).

 

Posted on

Balance and justice

Justice is often represented with the symbol of a balance. This dates back at least to the Roman times when the Roman law reached an unprecedented spread across Europe. The philosophy of law dating even further back to the Greek philosophers, notably Aristotle, founded comparative law with his comparison of constitutional principles in various Greek city states of his time. Striking the right balance, therefore, is encrypted into law, legislation and the American constitutional principle of checks and balances. In Paris the sculpture in the “Parc du Palais Royal” of heavy metal balance at the opposite end of the park is moving as well. Facing the ”Conseil d’état” and the “Le conseil constitutionnel”, this is a forceful reminder of the basic principles of a republic and democracy.
In the 21st century, particularly, since the weights attached at each end of the balance pull more forcefully at the moment in several countries.
Institution building and safeguarding the existing ones have become “the challenge for democracies in 2025 in many “centuries-old” democracies.
(Image: Sculpture by Raul Mourao in Parc Palais Royal, Paris 2025-10)

Posted on

Fighting the Beast

The earliest post 2nd WW cartoon stems from Calvo in France, published in its first edition in 1945. After the first part entitled “When the beast became unchained”, the second part could report on the happy ending “When the beast was overturned”. Amongst the admirable comprehensiveness to talk about the preparation of war, the battles and atrocities committed by the wolves, the allied forces of animals gained the upper hand. The role of women in the fight against the beast takes almost a whole page in the historically precise narrative of the 2 WW. With a fine sense of necessary historical detail, the reporting of British women (the female dogs in the cartoon) as essential part in the war effort to win the war against the beast(s). Women exercised professions were not previously allowed to enter. Gender awareness as early as the mid 1940s was rather advanced at the time.
Great topics to talk about with your children or grand-children.