Category: society

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Great Petit Palais

The Petit Palais in Paris was built together with the Grand Palais for the World Exhibition in 1900. The great architecture of both buildings is complemented by great interiors. The Petit Palais has also been the home of donations to, as well as commissions by, the city of Paris since 1870. This means that a sizable collection of sculptures and paintings has accumulated since then. In spring 2025 the visit of these collections is free of charge and gives honor to the donors and artists exhibited. Over time the collections spread more than 2500 years of art history similar to the exhibition at the BNF gallery Mansard. In the 21st century the exhibition of a piece of art, which stems from the North of Syria reminds us that art is a treasure that can last even if the civilization has been lost or at interrupted for many centuries. This is an important aspect of taking a long term perspective on international politics and history. The breadth of the collection allows a stroll through art history in a splendid setting. Romanticism and impressionism receive a little bit of attention, but the architecture of the Petit Palais invites you to delve into lesser known territory. This, probably is the specific merit of the joint presentation of otherwise necessarily eclectic collections of donors across centuries.

(Image: Anse de chaudron Syrie du Nord 700 years before our time, Petit Palais Paris).

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Biography Memorial

Some biographies take the form of a memorial. Marie-Luise Conen and Zdravko Kucinar have erected a memorial for the researcher, author and Social Demokrat “Milian Schömann” from the “Moselle” region near Traben-Trarbach and Lösnich. The biography reads like a narrative of crimes, which goes without punishment, before and during the Nazi-terror and the power grip in rural areas in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Milian Schömann achieved his university entry qualification A-levels in Traben-Trarbach before he moved on to study German literature and philosophy in Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin.
His studies and political engagement were driven by a humanist approach and his letters and publications as literary critic as well as his contributions to philosophy are partly reproduced in this biographical account. This allows to follow in the footsteps of the curious and open-minded person of Jewish descent. As a contributor and speaker at meetings of SPD-members and associated political movements, he risked and eventually lost his life for his humanitarian convictions in 1942 near Belgrade.
It is the merit of Marie-Luise Conen and Zdravko Kucinar to let Milian Schömann live on in our time through the reprinting of some of his work, which is embedded in a  well-written historical account of the political and family setting at that time. The professional psychological training of Marie-Luise Conen helps to reproduce the anxious atmosphere Milian Schömann has lived through, albeit he remained a productive writer despite the economic hardship and living in exile.
This biography accomplishes in a rather unique way to enter into the mind and thinking of the author Milian following his very personal perspective on the “history of ideas” and inner call to action. Similar to the appreciation of Viktor Ullmann in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, where the music of the composer lives on after his death, the writings of Milian Schömann survived extinction, despite that he was murdered. After more than 80 years we still feel the loss of potential other contributions to philosophy and literary studies. The recognition extends to Milian’s academic and personal mentors Oskar Walzel and Arthur Liebert, important sources to understand the reasoning and motivation of Milian.
(Image: Extract from Marie-Luise Conen and Zdravko Kucinar (2024) Milian Schömann, Paulinus Verlag, Trier, p. 139)

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Berlin Mind

For a long time now, I have been asking myself the question: What is like to be in a „Berlin state of mind“. The exhibition of the 2 photographers of the Berlin Landesarchiv as part of the Berlin activities of the EMOP contributed to understanding and more precise description of the „Berlin state of mind“. As we shall celebrate in 2025 the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, Germany and Berlin from Nazi rule and terror, we have seen endless reconstruction and reshaping of the city. The ever growing need for housing and space-grabbing office buildings bring about a permanent feeling of change, of becoming, of under construction. The years of the separated city as well as the building and taking down of the Berlin wall created many new opportunities for developers of the city and its structure of quarters, arrondisements or „Bezirke“ and „Kieze“ within the districts. 

Due to the continuous urban renewal also of basic infrastructure Berliners have the impression that there is construction work all around us all the time. With the abundant construction works come the construction fences. They too have changed. Some fences show digital prints of virtual worlds of the Berlin living in some future time. However, the promises often mask the reality that fences will be replaced by concrete walls and inaccessible buildings for most people of the neighborhood as gated business space or city blocks grab the space to form and reform the metropolitan landscape. The construction fences themselves become the contested areas where different strata of society interact or intersect. The „Berlin state of mind“ is one of becoming. Longing to become something else, something aware of the overwhelming historical duties, but still rising from the ashes. The experience to see a wall come down between cold war enemies liberates a belief that we can overcome frontiers. However, this in-between state of mind has brought us multiple fences of all sorts. Construction fences are only the most visible ones that surround the many spaces under construction. In the imagery of Berliners and visitors beyond the wall, fences are continuously on our minds in the „Berlin state of mind“.

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Digital Visions

Urban planning has been digitalized for a long time. 3D modeling of places and buildings including their interiors are state of the art. As urbanization is also about investment, speculation and anticipation, digital imaging has entered the public spheres in form of cover up of building sites behind fences and in form of large digital prints for information, curiosity and advertising purposes. The inner cities are frequently an avantgarde and microcosm of societal developments. Some dream of full or total flexibility for office spaces (see image below), others experience the inner cities as the spotlight of inequality in society. The best paid executives are catered for by the worst paid delivery personnel. The photographers of the Landesarchiv Berlin, Grönboldt and Wunstorf, brought together a documentary exhibition entitled „Pixel aus Beton“, pixel made of concrete.

With a bird‘s eye view they reveal past, present and future details of how Berlin is experienced and envisioned by investors, architects and people living through the seemingly endless construction going on in the city. The keywords list as part of the exhibition creates a link to scientific literature and to the TU Center for Metropolitan Studies. Photography and even more so digital photography offers a social science perspective to the digital images exhibited. Cities are data spinning areas and a formidable place for digital visuals and visions.

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Suicide Prevention

The annual mortality statistics and special reports on suicidal tendencies are a tough reading. OECD Statistics give a at least an approximate, comparative perspective. Reporting routines and medical confirmation of a suicide or suicidal behavior still vary quite a bit between countries. Nevertheless, the usually reported incidents per 100.000 persons remain rather abstract.
Absolute numbers speak a clear language. For example in Germany there were about 10.300 recorded suicides in 2023, France had to mourn about 9200 in 2022. To put the size of the problem in perspective it is helpful to know that in Germany all other not aging related causes of death like traffic accidents, drugs or murder make up for around 7.000 deaths per year. The targeting of resources and prevention efforts on these vulnerable people seems inevitable. However, we see only limited additional efforts to curb the problem.
A more detailed analysis of the frequencies reveals the gender and age differences. More men commit suicides and older (very old) people have higher risks. The oldest age group of men is most at risk.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic young women show rising trends in many countries again of suicidal attempts and self-inflicted wounds. Despite a continuing effort of research (Links) there is no single cause to explain the occurrences.
As a working hypothesis, which awaits empirical tests, I would look into societal factors that stigmatize persons who are made to believe or feel like they are beyond the normal spectrum of society. The lack of acceptance of diversity concerning gender, age, ethnicity, body shapes or mental states like anxiety. Poverty might cause immense distress and suffering. Large shifts in wealth in both directions cause additional risks.
It seems as if our minds and society are constantly in a kind of „regression towards the mean“ posing challenges to those furthest away from the average or perceived norms. Percentile ranks or percentile scores are commonly used to express a person’s position in a frequency distribution. For example you are better/lower than 90% of persons of your age group. Such statements might cause further distress for persons. However, summarising across several (psychological) measurements, they may yield encouraging indications as well. Actual and perceived positions in such percentile ranks add another “social risk” as perceived positions may govern behavior.

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Betrayal Politics

Most economists would hold that in free market economics there is no room for moral statements. Betrayal, therefore, is left out of most standard text book economics courses. However, more advanced courses that include strategies based on so-called “game theory”, where actors may breach prior commitments, betrayal has entered economic science. A “tit-for-tat” strategy is frequently the best “game-theoretic” solution to such strategic behavior to deter also repetition of defecting on agreed rules or bargaining outcomes. For real world applications beyond the simple strategic advice, the maths involved are quite challenging. We’ll check soon, how AI is changing that game.
Another popular economic theory is one of “gift exchange”. You gift a sum of money (or weapons for self-defense to a country) with no explicit consent that the money should be repaid (through rare earths) in peace time. A betrayal occurs, if a country suddenly asks things in return for the previous gifts. For politicians that understand themselves as “market marker” and “deal maker”, there will be a tendency to claim back a gift in order to come to some kind of gift exchange rather than an altruistic donation.
William A. Galston wrote in the WSJ (2025-2-26) naming the US political action of the 2nd Trump administration a “betrayal of Ukraine and American values”.
If free markets mean making ruthless use of “tit for no possible tat” and “gifts are always a gift exchange”, we move back to mercantile and medieval practices, where settles could claim land at gun point.
What way out of this? Adam Smith, champion of classical economics, wrote before his famous book on “The Wealth of Nations” a lesser known, precursor book on “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”. Actually, he was convinced that the one would not work without the other.
Maybe, going back to classical economics is much better than a Trump administration version of neo-classical economics in a new era of political economy 3.0.

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More BRICS

The move towards a multipolar world order is in full swing. With the USA retreating from a primordial international role discarding UN institutions and the defense of major elements in the fight for individual freedom, the diplomatic order of the last 80 years has changed. The liberation of the concentration camps in Germany and the 80 years of the end of the 2nd World War on 1945-5-9 had forged an alliance in which the common enemy was defeated and the the next major confrontation in Europe or on the globe had to be warded against. 

The evolution of peace in Europe has been marked by the Cold War and a bipolar world order which confronted the USA and Russia at various places. The rollback of Russia has seen its high time with the Northern and Eastern extension of the EU and NATO. This goal of US strategic interests has been largely accomplished. 

In the shadow of this bipolar relationship the BRICS have moved towards greater economic power and therefore influence in the international arena. Economic data on the biggest economies in the world over the last years show the rise of the BRICS, bit mainly China and India. Their population sizes create enormous and largely shut off internal markets. All these developments create new challenges to the previously relatively stable world order. Technological advances have been narrowing more rapidly than before since the access to the best available knowledge spreads fast and more equally across the globe through the internet. 

The ugly face pf imperialism is returning front stage and attempts to change the previous versions of imperialism into a new hegemonic world oder. Updated views of economic power and influence zones let us look with a rational perspective on the new power play. Due to the containment of Russian influence, the USA has China as the major power to confront, a major shift as of the 2020s. The China-driven Silk road project with strategic landing points across the globe has „trumped“ American efforts to align BRICS to human rights values over the last decades. European diplomacy will have to recognize that we entered another phase of „Realpolitik“ due to major economic shifts over several decades. (Image: extract from Max Klinger, The walkers, ambush, 1878 in Berlin SPK).

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Antique Drama

Modern drama and performances have their roots in antique drama. This is evident in literature from the time and some rare artefacts that have survived until today. Masks and statues give an amazing impression of the high standards already attained more than 2.000 years ago.
Many performances have been linked to mystical rituals and religious ceremonies, but beyond those instances there has also been a depiction and interpretation of for example the Greek mythology. Dionysos inspired many artists and people of that time and philosophers equally found inspiration in performances and the representations in temples, arenas and market places. The treasures of the BNF in Paris, galerie Mazarin and rooms next to it like “la salle des colonnes” (Image below), allow to travel back in time into an antique setting in the room of columns.
Taking the world as horizon is the title of the rotating exhibition from the treasures of the BNF. The beginnings of philosophy and major milestones in arts and mysticism across the world figure in this exhibition. In the spacious setting it feels like travelling back in time for a while, just to build on these foundations.

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Endless Questions

The winner of the Niépce prize 2024 has been awarded to Anne-Lise Broyer and features prominently at the BNF in Paris. The exhibition of the professional photographer reflects by way of photographic “still images” on the historic fate of the mediterranean basin. Each and every image has no answers, but keeps posing questions. In the long alley of the BNF in honor of Julien Cain, we walk through history of more than 2 thousand years in photographs up until today and even beyond. Let’s keep asking the most fundamental questions again and again. The exhibition entitled “Est-ce-là que l’on habitait ?” invites us to ask ourselves about the historic origins of so-called Western culture in the mediterranean basin. Ancient philosophy and arts are the foundations even of our current ideas of democracy and freedom.
However, what has become of this in the 21st century? The original statue of freedom has suffered badly. What has become of the freedom of mobility at a time of barbed wire fences rising between countries that influences each other over thousands of years? How about nature? How about religion and freedom of expression? Where is progress? Where is regression?
For centuries we have sought answers in libraries starting from the Library of Alexandria to the treasures of art and knowledge of today across the world. Let’s make more intensive use of these treasures where we shall find answers to most of our questions of the past, to the past and of future interest.

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Nazis bipolar

Thanks to the exhibition « How Nazis photographed their crimes in Auschwitz 1944 » in the Mémorial(Link) of the Shoa in Paris, the biased photographer’s view of what happened in Auschwitz is evident. The inhuman, factory-like organization of these concentration camps were constructed and managed with the primary aim of humiliation of Jewish people and other inmates. Careful reading and interpretation of these images is necessary to spot the sometimes small signs of resistance to be taken on photo by a Nazi photographer.

The revelation of a kind of bipolar disorder of the Nazi murderers shows up in the seemingly normal family meal of officers in their nearby homes. You might be surprised that many of these family members even decades later report on normal and comfortable lives despite their pitiless exercise of mass killings by the Nazi officials and their hired staff. Bipolar disorder is maybe the result of such split personalities, although we already have ample evidence that doing drugs was quite common at the time as well.

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HTML Mindset

The hypertext markup language (HTML) allows us to navigate on the internet. No matter which Browser you use on your device, it interprets the HTML-text for you in a specific way. This means: HTML defines headings, normal text, placeholders for images, actionable buttons and referrals to more text, images, or videos. A good HTML enabled textbook for pupils, students or any lifelong learner, for example, will embed easily images, sound recordings or video demonstrations in the e-book. This additionally embedded content asks for a different mindset for content creators: the HTML mindset.
Just like in most learning environments, learners proceed with different speed and interests. HTML allows for additional options to dig deeper into a subject, return to a previous stage, lead on from where you left off before, jump to some other content or listen to a translated paragraph.
Due to the bringing together of content from different technical formats, the HTML mindset has an interdisciplinary touch to it. Blending text and image is our usual way to process information at most exhibitions. In Hypertexts we are “walking” along our own chosen track through the knowledge space or content archive. For web creators, therefore, it is common to use so-called “content management systems” to arrange structure and present content.
The learning of HTML is enhanced through many learning tools (w3schools.com). This helps you to get into the HTML mindset of content creation and a better grip on the interlinked world. (Image: extract of HTML code of this blog post on www.schoemann.org).

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Victims and Perpetrators

In addition to the annually proclaimed “We shall never forget the concentration camps and the murder of 6.000.000 Jews”, we should add: “We shall not be silent”. Silence about a crime can be interpreted as the “latent” continuation of hatred. Silence might just be a pretended ignorance of the genocide and the holocaust. We have to keep very alert amidst the spreading falsification and numerous falsification attempts of historical facts surrounding the ideation about the Nazi-time and Nazi-terror from the 1930s onwards culminating in the Shoa and systematic mass killings of civilians and any actual and deemed opposition.
Particularly in Germany there is a renewed need to go beyond the “Stolperstein-Initiative” and continue also sometimes own personal research of family histories in order to understand the logic and power of perpetrators. Some spectacular legal cases like “Klaus Barbie” or “Rudolf Eichmann” or the Nuremberg trials became historic events, but the crimes of many Nazis during these times remained below the radar of wider public attention.
In view of many disrespectful utterances of some politicians and even some business men the old and new perpetrators of antisemitic propaganda and acts should have to face more fierce opposition. This needs the commitment of the silent and sometimes shamefully indifferent people across the world. (Image: list of concentration camps, sign in Berlin Schöneberg, Richard von Weizäcker Platz).

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Ukraine Chanson

The Russian war in Ukraine is not limited to the military killings. From the earliest period in 2014 already Russia initiated a war on Ukraine culture and Ukrainian cultural heritage. Therefore, it is great to witness the efforts by Ukrainian musicians not only to retrieve their rich heritage for example in the field of chansons, but to develop traditional songs with new formats. Jazzy versions of children’s songs have been sung with an admirable soft voice by singer and composer Viktoria Leléka and her band.
Most people might think of children’s songs as an insignificant niche of music. The importance of singing songs for children and babies is a scientifically well documented finding. Early bonds are created and a sense of belonging and comfort, particularly during difficult times of life. Comforting music is also an intergenerational issue. Transmission of emotions and values across generations is the very fabric of societies. The recent album “Kolysanky” and the song “Ne Zhal” is a great reminder that it is the children that count not the, maybe, broken cradle.
During the war time with many absent fathers, chansons can bridge the emotional hardships. The movie “The Chorist” had demonstrated the power of children songs for children, their parents and all generations involved. Chansons have a much longer “half-time of life” than war.
From an unknown French composer the cradle song “Fais dodo Colin …” and Brahm’s Wiegenlied are classics many people in Europe will remember from their childhood and still transmit them today. Great news that Ukraine continues this tradition with new, innovative adaptations of their own lively cultural heritage.
(Image: extract of lyrics Ne Zhal’, from webpage)

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Corridorisation Connectivity

In some cities, “I love Paris” (Jazz Song), we admire the “breath-taking” large corridors, right in the centre of the city. This has been the outcome of the urban planning in the 18th century. Haussmann designed large parts of Paris with huge corridors despite the medieval narrow streets in some of the arrondisements”. Ease of traffic, fewer riots and representative housing became the new mantra of urban planning and superb boulevards.
In the 21st century it is about time to question the notion and social process of corridorisation. This has been accomplished in a paper by Fatima Tassadq et al. (2025). Modern infrastructure like fibre-optic cables, energy or water networks are easiest to deploy in urban spaces with large corridors than the complex narrow inner cities with supposition of different kinds of network layers. The grand ideas of the 18th century should be questioned from time to time and some districts that have escaped the corridorisation might well have a particular charm about them, maybe just because they seem to escape the rational approach of making and structuring space by means of large corridors. Large corridors separate city districts and they are a major driving force of gentrification.
The rationality of corridors has some roots in maths or physics of complexity. A recent paper by Shanshan Wang et al. (2024) reports the surprising finding that the transport corridors in several cities across the globe allow for a 1.3 times the distance of transport networks compared to the so-called direct linear “bird’s flight line”. Hence, corridorisation is (has been) a rather pervasively applied model of urban planning.
Alternative approaches advocate in favor of the 15-minutes walking distance city. All amenities like shops, schools, maybe work and services should be reachable within a 15 minutes walk. This does include “walking corridors” that facilitate (social) connectivity in inner cities. Cyclists also claim their corridors or fast lanes across cities, which underlines the pertinence to take corridorisation seriously and apply the concept with care.
In any case, social connectivity is key. The big social media platforms operate similar to the traffic infrastructure in the 21st century and provide huge corridors to knowledge and people. We only realize this once a service (for example tiktok) or the internet altogether gets disconnected. We have moved from (social) categorisation to (social) corridorisation as technology and rationalisation have taken the upper hand to structure our (social) lives.

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Cheatflation

There are many ways to study inflation. You may start by looking through your collection of bills. Economists like to swear by the consumer price index or indices, if you are even more into inflation. In textbooks like “economics for dummies” we learn about rational behavior and price adjustment mechanisms through the “invisible hand” to find some sort of equilibrium.
Advanced economics courses will teach you about strategic behavior inspired by game theory and the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of cheating. For advanced economists it is, therefore, inevitable that “cheatflation” should be part of the economists’ vocabulary. Of course, a profit maximizing entrepreneur is likely to way the risk of being found out contributing to cheatflation against the potential gains.
How to cheatflate? Too easy. Any producer of a product can cheat by using, for example, other ingredients than those printed on the product label, usually cheaper ones. Instead of fruit juice (wine) you may just sell colored water with lots of sugar (ethanol) in it, but still label it fruit juice (wine) and get away with this, until a consumer protection group makes a fuzz about it. A more sophisticated way is to sell investments in ESG-rated funds, but then include dirty stocks without proper notification in the fund, which probably increases profits based on wrong labels.
There is a specific quality to cheatflation, which makes it different from shrinkflation or enshittification. The drive to “obtain unfair advantages” through cheating across a whole country or region makes cheatflation an economy-wide process and subverts general fairness rules as well as trust in a society.
(Image Saccharometer, DTM Berlin 2024)

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Obesity Revised

The scientific paper on a revised definition of obesity was produced by the special Commission on Obesity. It appeared in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology in 2025-1. The previously common practice by medical doctors was to classify person in the obesity category based mainly on the simple calculation of the body mass index (BMI = weight/height²). A BMI  > 30 put persons into the obese category and stigma.
Since the Covid-19 society-wide testing experience, we are all familiar what it means if you get misclassified and have to live with the consequences (exclusion from work or events etc.). The simplifying and summarizing BMI calculation and classification has also produced many wrong classifications. For example, persons with a lot of muscles (just watch this at any fitness studio) will have a high weight relative to their body height², but they are likely to be more healthy than many other light weight, but seriously stressed persons.
In empirical test theory such cases are the so-called false positive cases, i.e. classified as obese, but not a medical problem at all. Medical doctors and health insurances should not finance special treatments for these persons, which foregoes treatment of other more needy persons.
With new expensive drugs on the market to treat obesity it is even more important to test with more precision the normal, pre-clinical and clinical status of obesity. Fatty tissue or muscles, that is the relevant question. Fatty tissue in muscles is the next level testing issue.

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Indigenisation

In reading up on the « all electric society » it is useful to see what the international market has to offer in innovation of electronics, but also to understand the potential of mass production. In this little research the came across the „Electronics for you magazine“ (LINK) from India is a great source. Trends of miniaturization of electronics and power savings for consumer products as well as some high tech space and wave technologies receive systematic coverage. 

The November issue 2024 (p. 63) used the term „ Indigenisation“ to refer to the process of a country’s own technological development to ensure independence from being cut off from advanced technologies. Producing in India for Indian use seems to be an answer to economic and technological risks. India‘s space exploration program builds on own supply for civil and probably military purposes as well. Indigenisation of production, therefore, is an adequate term for own indigenous production of specific advanced components. 

Contrary to the trend of globalization, which dominated the 2nd half of the last century, „Indigenisation“ is likely to dominate numerous sectors of the economy in the coming years. Made in India is, of course, a brand. Small countries might find indigenisation more difficult to achieve. It needs to be checked, whether indigenisation or „self-reliance“ (Atmanirhbar Bharat) implies plural societies and identities to the same extent.

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Modular books

Online publishing offers much more flexible forms of publishing. Even traditional book formats can be organized in new ways. Instead of a fixed sequence of chapters, paragraphs or blog entries, the sequence becomes a matter of choice. Either in the author’s hand or in the hands of readers, the cruising through content allows very individual experiences of what still is the same content. Just as learning, which is ultimately an individualized process, the reading or scrolling through content creates singular experiences with the content. Several choices of more in depth reading should keep the reader interesting to dig further along the personal knowledge trajectory according to own prior interests.
The motivation of a person to read depends on the reader’s own interests and current situation or context. The “state of mind” constitutes the willingness to stop at certain pages or entries. The search function, keywords or tags allow to deviate from an author’s intended sequence of chapters. An online textbook has easy entry and exit points. They are not predetermined. The risk, however, is that the reader stops at a point without loose ends, somehow in expectation of a conclusion of a succinct summary. That’s probably the easiest job for any AI system, based on a series of entries.
However, the joy of the journey through knowledge gets lost through the use of AI as a short cut. Just like physical exercise rewards you with additional strength, mental exercise keeps us healthy.
Traditional predefined sequences – like books, e-books or flip-books are also available on this webpage either through the post archive or the continuously growing books, e-books or flip-books page.

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Enshittification

Don’t laugh. This is a very serious scientific term to describe the way social media function in the 21st century. The scientific reference goes back to 2025 and article in “Science” by Kai Kupferschmidt. Twitter, now eXit, like most other social media platforms uses algorithms that select posts for you from the millions of posts that are likely to induce a reaction from you, which prolongs your time on the platform. Additionally, eXit Twitter applies an algorithm that prioritizes accounts with already a huge followership, which makes these accounts even bigger. The result is an increasing inequality in attention to info, facts, fake news, but also revenue for the platform owners through more advertisements. As hate speech and fake news are commonly perceived as shit, many social media are happy to spread more shitty things on their platforms as this generates more money for the platform as well. In short, enshittification happens sooner or later to most platforms and we all suffer from this. As user of these platforms, it is hard to escape from this process, as most platforms tend to “convert” to enshittification at some later point in their life cycle, unlike babies who manage to quit this phase after a few months. A move to Bluesky might be indicated, but there is no guarantee that the same process will just happen again. Mastodon is another small twitter-like platform that like Bluesky offers a more open approach to its governing algorithms and a more controlled access in the registration process.
To avoid enshittification, we have to be ready to move away from one platform to another one, just like changing bank accounts or club memberships. Make sure to take most of your friends with you and there are already tools for this online as well. Enjoy the safe online life again on another platform or consume more of the traditional media like newspapers, radio or tv with proven quality. (Image: extract from Jan Steen, 1625-1679, The Rhetoricians – “In liefde vrij”, MRBAB)

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Science and Fiction

We associate with science and fiction the extrapolation of scientific trends into some futuristic settings. The most striking examples of science fiction in novels or video use some scientific findings (dinosaurs, genetic engineering) and project this knowledge into another fictional setting. The usual personal relationships follow rather predictable plots of romance, deception, violence or war.
The novel “Wellness” (Hill 2024) is also a kind of science fiction as it is based on social science evidence and builds its fictional plot firmly embedded into the social and psychological research. The attachment of references (and defending the print of those in translation) underlines the commitment to write a new type of “social science fiction”.
In this innovative style the scientific basis of psychology and sociology is then extrapolated into a fictional arrangement. Research on subjective well-being with the U-shaped form over the life course and the extrapolation of the placebo effect, which is instrumentalized for a business, derive from key topics in the social sciences. In fact, the novel and the background scientific literature in the bibliography could well figure in a social science course at university entry level. These readings constitute a 360-degree-view on personal development and social structures. Of course, social sciences move on and add new evidence on an almost daily basis, but the selection and arrangement of the characters create an innovative social science fiction, without some unrealistic technological extrapolation.
It strangely feels like we are already part of this social science fiction (compare “Klara and the sun” by Ishiguro) as politicians advocate and campaign with placebo topics in elections and project us into some more happy past or future.
The social science fiction of Nathan Hill resembles for me the great utopian novel by George Orwell “1984” published in 1948. A title “2032” instead of “Wellness” could have worked quite well, as the first edition of Nathan Hill’s social science fiction was published already in 2023. (Image: Extract of: Lo Spagnolo, 1665-1747, Hecuba makes Polymnestor blind, MRBAB).

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EU Georgia

It is a moving image to see a hundred demonstrators at „Unter den Linden“ in Berlin just next to the Russian Embassy. The Georgian flag and Georgian people actively seek the association with the European Union and the values it stands for. Irrespective of a large majority of the people of Georgia‘s wish to become part of the EU they have to fight hard to be heard. Next to the Ukranian protests in Berlin it becomes very evident that these two nations fight for living standards and values which are so „self-evident“ for us European citizens that it is all to easy to forget about our neighbors who have to endure hardships with uncertain outcomes. The experience of having lived together under one roof with people from other countries allows to realize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. Our house and home of the EU has much to offer, more than we tend to believe in our daily routine.

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Zerreissprobe

The term „Zerreissprobe“ has been chosen by the curator team of the Neue Nationalgalerie In Berlin for the Retrospective of „Art between politics and society“ in the years 1945-2000. In this time period after the 2nd World War until the other „fin du siècle“ the politics of creating a new world order, the cold war and the liberalization of societies had profound impacts on art as well. The positioning of art in the dynamic context and conflicts of these decades is quite well reflected in the title of the exhibition. The English title „extreme tension“ suggests somehow that these years were rather extreme compared to ?, probably today? Although on the territory of Ukraine we witness a hot war rather than a cold war initiated by Putin‘s Russian imperial illusions. The cited work of Günter Brus „Zerreissprobe“ is translated as „stress test“. And maybe, this translation characterizes the post war period even better as these years are a forerunner of what happened after 2000. We continue to be put to tests in politics and societal developments. Accomplishments from the last century are put to crude tests again. Solidarity of people and nations are under pressure to demonstrate their reliability under extreme tension or stress. Art throughout the 5 decades of the last century was a precursor of stress tests for politicians and challenged society in its basic understandings. The comments on the notice board next to the exhibition show the themes of tension in the 2020s. Tensions in families and partnerships, often more extreme around christmas trees, have taken center stage for younger visitors of the exhibition. Sociological research has observed such trends and coined this societal phenomenon „individualization“.  Art embedded in society seems to be part of that evolution as well. Art movements are less visible as collective movements. Artists appear more individualistic or ideosyncratic nowadays, just less inclined to be part of a defining larger group. If artists are no longer avantgarde but rather followers of societal trends, the whole „raison d‘être“ of art changes as well. We are likely to witness yet another „ Zerreissprobe“. Cuts to art and culture budgets constitute an additional „ Zerreissprobe“ in the original sense of the word and of art between politics and society in 2024/2025.

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Films of Stills

The exhibition of multimedia artist Nan Goldin at the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in Berlin presents a retrospective of her work using slideshows of stills including soundtracks (Image below). The topics and narratives range from autobiographical work on own traumatic experiences to works entitled „memory lost“. The sequences of stills are a form to deal with trauma through art like overcoming the suicide of a family member. Drug or sexual dependency enter the stills and it becomes clear that stillness is part of the coping mechanism she employs. It is hard to watch, sit still and endure the films of stills. However, there is a kind of therapeutic experience to be gained in coping with trauma through art. The installation in several tents increases the reclusive atmosphere and entering the still rooms invites is, somehow including a warning of what kind of chilling experience we are up to throughout the exhibition. The almost therapeutic experience needs to be handled with care and a visit with friends or family is highly recommended in my view. Community and communication are key to coping with these experiences and even still images contribute to building resilience.

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Cumulative Mandates

Since 2010 and with 18 volumes the documentation of perpetrators assistants free riders during the Nazi rule in Germany has been valuable and reliable source of information (Kugelberg Verlag). The book series defines the perpetrators as the persons excuting crimes themselves or were in command of those who committed the crimes or gave orders to do so. It is not surprising to find evidence of many crimes, but rather that it took such a long time until the documents were published and the descendants were confronted with the facts and the difficult heritage. There are still many who undertake all efforts to deny the facts or try to minimize the guilt of perpetrators. With the real dangers of new right-wing extremism on the rise across Europe and even beyond, it becomes more important to uncover the strategies and biographies of the perpetrators. Certainly the members of the SS were executives and in command of atrocities, so-called NSDAP party officials were also mostly convinced followers of Nazi doctrines and instrumental in the implementation of crimes. Additionally, several professions (line soldiers or medical doctors) were key in the process to ensure the power of the totalitarian regime until the final days. Some persons were cumulating roles and became thereby inescapable spiders in a web of control and crimes. The lessons for today consist in hindering excessive cumulation of mandates, political, professional, military and in other work or civil society related functions. Distribution of power is one form to safeguard the survival of democratic structures.

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Sociology in Art

Sociologists study and teach a lot about social capital. James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu each have coined social capital as a major foundation of societies. Therefore, the exhibition of the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija “happiness is not always fun” in the Martin Gropius Bau (Image below) is interesting beyond a justification art for art’s sake.
What does Tiravanija tell us about happiness and social capital we did not know before?  The artist went to a Chicago based art school, hence, it is likely that he has been confronted with the concept of “social capital” by Chicago sociologist James Coleman. The Berlin exhibition of Tiravanija can be walked along and experienced through the lens of the creation of social capital as a form of art. Art raises awareness to the importance of social capital for the ways we live together and form communities. The Berlin exhibition, meeting place or play ground is worth multiple visits as the participatory experience changes each time.  In each of the rooms we reflect on our cultural practices like sports, music, printing or cooking as forms to create community. Each time we take home a little bit of social capital as well. “Happiness is not always fun”, but for sure You’ll have many happy moments throughout the visit of the exhibition. The guided tour by curator Yasmil Raymond (2024-12-19) added yet another little bit of spice to the exhibits. For a few moments we felt like a strong link between Chicago and Berlin, just like those sociologists in Berlin who studied and continue to study James Colemen’s foundations of social theory.

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Korea relieved

On Saturday 14th of December 2024 the Parliament of Korea voted with 204 out of 300 votes, the required 2/3 majority of the parliament to dismiss the president. The declaration of martial law has been the most serious attack on democracy in Korea since its founding in 1987. It is the 3rd impeachment of a Korean president in this short time of democratic life cycle. After impeachment the constitutional court has to confirm the impeachment also with 6 out of 9 judges in favor of impeachment. In 2017 the judges confirmed the impeachment of a president due to corruption charges, but in 2004 another president was reinstated after illegal campaigning charges were retracted. Democratic procedures hinge on checks and balances in the constitutional set up of a state. Nominations, votes of confirmation of judges are important safeguards against illegal martial laws to restrict or even abandon democracy. Pressure from the street, the people at large, is another safety net of democracy. It should not be the last resort for democracy’s survival as it is likely to come at high costs of human lives.

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Health Tech

Health technology assessment (HTA) is an interesting scientific field. The new digital opportunities allow people to participate in medical and medication trials in their homes or even in bed. Their health data and the administration of medication is also encouraged and sometimes supported through digital devices. The pharma and health industries have many devices ready to go. The differences to the traditional forms of medical trials, however, is an issue as we want to compare the results from both kinds of trials. Participants of trials, might prefer or struggle with these novel kinds of study designs. In any case the results will be impacted in several forms (Study Link). In the best of all worlds for the researcher the effects will cancel out each other, but is rather unlikely. Some participants will reach more positive effects with the use of digital tools, whereas others are challenged and might even abandon during the trial. Monitoring during the study (for example through digital inhalors) is another advantage of such distributed trials. Rather than taking adherence to a trial medication for granted, digital tools allow a more precise monitoring of subgroups as well. Data and effort invested in the trial is preserved through the easier access to person’s information, assuming continuous readiness to stay on in the trial.
Our own smartphones are still underexploited in terms of health monitoring and use in research designs. The possibilities to link data to other external data sources shall further advance the research potentials in many interesting ways. Data protection and data security become even more important with the ever smarter phones and connected devices.

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Socioeconomic Circularity

Some sectors of the economy receive a lot of attention, for example sectors selling fancy cars. Other sectors, like the ones regrouped under the name of circular economy, receive much less attention and show up little in headlines. In fact, the circular economy is a great example of this. There are thousands of waste and rubbish collection, sorting and recycling centers, several hundreds of waste-to-energy plants, composting sites across the European Union. Of course, there is also a European Federation of the sector (FEAD). On the last FEAD conference in Brussels 2024 it became clear that Europe is finally waking up to the challenge of recycling costly raw materials.
The narrative concerning the sector needs to change further: what used to be subsumed as costly nuisance is in fact a potential profit center for companies and society at large. We do no longer want to import lots of raw materials from countries with dubious social and environmental records as part of our supply chains for raw materials. Time to act. This, however, is a rather complex socioeconomic challenge of circularity. The price mechanisms are not fully functional in most Member States, let alone across the EU. Additionally, the social practice to recycle varies greatly between countries. Distributional issues matter as well. It is rather obvious that dumping waste from one region/country in another one has huge implications (nuclear waste), but if one country values waste more than another one, due to innovative recycling techniques, the matter takes a marketable turn. Regulation should carefully distinguish categories of materials as we do for hazardous materials in production, consumption and for health and safety purposes of employees.
Metal, battery, cement, plastic and wood recycling pose challenges, but also opportunities to improve the European material import/export balance sheets. However, first in the circle of circularity is the use of materials. There we are clear that “less is better”. Less input of raw materials, most of which we import in the EU, reduces our dependence on other countries. This is the tricky social question of circularity. Mainstreaming of more conscious use and reuse of resources is a huge social issue, which we tend to relegate to a task for the education system. The awareness that supposed waste is also a valuable resource is spreading and the growth of the sector a business and employment opportunity for many. Circularity is the new sexy sector of the 21st century.
What have you recycled today? and myself? Well, scientific online publications. Now think of ChatGPT and the AI gold mines of 2024. There is lots of value in recycling.
(Image FEAD conference Brussels, 2024)

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Degré zéro

As all of us use GPS systems to navigate across the world or just in your city, “degré zéro” might nowadays be associated first of all with the prime meridian 0° longitude, which runs through Greenwich near London and around the globe.
In « Le degré zéro de l’écriture », Roland Barthes (1953) challenges the bourgeois kind of writing of literature. He introduced the pertinent distinction of the verticality of writing styles in the sense of social classes as well as the horizontal form of spoken language He further distinguished écriture as a person’s style which is embedded into the historical and social context of her/his time. As a radical change, Barthes proposed to use scriptor instead of writer as the latter expression is too much loaded with the historical package of the person. Barthes inserts the scriptor as écrivain into her/his time and insists on the intellectual and social context of writing or the author.
As the scriptor (p. 26) does not escape to become a writer « écrivain «, the degree zero de l’écriture postulates a homogeneous society, which obviously is an ill-conceived vision of reality. Language and texts, therefore, are not universal in kind, but bound to situations, which are defined in historical time and space (p. 67). Semiotics was a major field of his analyses of literature and language.
Whereas in a talk you might focus on the person you are talking to, in a written text the other person is « the many » readers, wherever they are and maybe at a much later time as well. There is a qualitative difference and yet modern “voice to text” transcription makes all spoken words immediately available as written document or “compte rendu”. (Source: Roland Barthes: De la parole à l’écriture. in Le grain de la voix, Entretien 1962-1980. p. 12).
Let’s watch our language as we follow the longitude or latitude around the globe and even small deviations from degree zero matter a lot.

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Spectacularization

Guy Debord (1967) has outlined in “In the society of spectacle” the importance to analyze societies from the perspective of “le temps spectaculaire”. Today we might frame this as “eventism” or the running of society through events. The regular spectacle of religious festivities, new year’s celebrations, Olympic games or even elections and election campaigns have been transformed into ceremonies of enthronization, where the reach to ever larger crowds is the prime goal. The critique of mass media of the 1960s can be deployed to the criticism of the facebook, Instagram and tiktok media campaigns of today. If you are not present on these platforms, you do not seem to exist in the view of the many. Debord highlights under his concept of separation the increasing isolation of persons and thereby a domination of people through technology (Debord para 24,27). Put in today’s terminology form of psycholinguistics we speak of loneliness of the old and young who, through the use of social media technologies, are prosumers even or especially in their free time. They serve the accumulation of massive benefits to the platforms of the spectacle more than their own fulfilment or socializing experiences. The consequence is the isolation of persons, with the paradox to be potentially the winner in the lottery of the algorithms to suddenly reach millions of people. The ephemeral popularity is a curse more than a blessing for most persons. The result is the “singularization” of crowds and within society.
Spectacularization is a process that is accompanied by singularization. Both terms have the merit to stress the process of evolution of societies. Comparing societies turns into an empirical exercise to measure amounts of spectacular events, degrees of spectacularization of individuals and the singularization of individuals within society. The antidote of solidarity and sharing is on the rise as well, which is reason to believe that not all is lost.
(Image: Debord’s annotation on extract of image by Gozzoli, BNF Manuscrit, Paris)