Tag: society

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Sufficient

What do we mean by sufficient? Sufficient of what? French philosophers currently debate the topic under the French notion of sobriété (sobriety). They give as English translation sufficiency, but the notions do not match exactly in the usual understanding of the words. In breaking with the economic rationale of more is always better, the idea of having sufficient food, room to live in or social contacts to not feel lonely, the notion of sufficiency hints towards a rethinking of our customary lifestyles. How many trousers are sufficient? Well, as with shoes there might be gender differences or more generally interpersonal differences or preferences to come to the conclusion of how many is sufficient. If we bring in the notion of sobriety in additional, we allow another social and/or ecological dimension. This may redefine what is sufficient based on judgments how much our planet can handle (emissions) and distributional judgments. The western lifestyle of the last 100 years is no role model for other countries to follow. It is urgent to rethink our growth based economic model to develop new socially viable ways of production and consumption. It seems to be a necessary condition to reconsider the notion of wellbeing and wealth from a sufficiency perspective. It is a sobering thought, isn‘t it?

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Painter Sociologist

In going to a gallery and exhibition of paintings from the 17th century (Gemäldegalerie Berlin) you do not really expect to attend a class of sociology. However, this is exactly what the Flemish painter Frans Hals does with his paintings of various genres of society of his time. His sociological categories are for example unmarried young persons, married couples or pensioners living in a shared home. Other social categories of interest to him are a caregiver or, more common for the time, persons from noble or wealthy families. His painting „The Regents of the old men’s Almshouse” (ca 1660), the male pensioners home is one of his last paintings when he himself was already about 80 years old. Similar to a College of students the elderly home was run by a house father and house mother who took care of the daily living. The paintings of Frans Hals covered the entire life course with a cross-section perspective of society at his time. From few of his supporters he painted even several images moving towards a kind of longitudinal perspective on a person’s life course. Certainly, with “Oude-mannenhuis” (image below) he was interested not only in individual life courses, but of the conditions, forms or images of aging at his time. He probably was one of the first to challenge the negative stereotypes of aging.

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Stress Ageing

The relationship between stress and aging is a complex one. Stress is known to accelerate aging and aging caused different reactions to stress. In short causality does not run only in one direction. Additionally new research published in Nature Medicine 2024 demonstrates that different genetic preconditions determine different response patterns to stress and subsequent brain aging. From anecdotal experience we are well aware of different persons coping very differently with stressful situations. Mastering of various coping mechanisms may attenuate the stress experience but the impact on preserving our brain remains an open question. Various other forms of lifestyle conditions like drugs and smoking cause specific forms of brain damage as well. 2 separate forms of dementia can be identified from brain MRI-images as well. The brain is no longer the black box of missing information about what is going on in humans. Put to the right purposes this is good news. (Image: break dance shooting Paris St Denis 2024)

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Less is better

There is an interesting psychological phenomenon which is called the less-is-better effect. First research on this phenomenon dates back to marketing research more than 25 years ago. The Olympic games have even a mention on the English Wikipedia page on this less-is-better effect. The winner of a bronze medal at the Olympics might feel more happy than the winner of a silver medal. Why? Viewed as separate events winning a bronze medal makes can make you so much happier, because you are among the famous group of medallists in your discipline or with your team, whereas as a silver medallist you might be so disappointed that you did not reach the gold medal that this overrides the joy to come 2nd instead of 3rd. Several interviews of athletes during the Paris 2024 Games gave evidence of the pertinence of this less-is-better effect.
There are other forms of application of this rationale as well. A more sociological perspective highlights the potential change of category from less is more to the less-is-better rationale. One variable assessed in less and more frequency or value maybe better or worse in another category. Less pollution leads to better health. It is like a shift from a quantitative variable to a qualitative assessment of the same situation. Olympic Games are full of useful lessons from a social science point of view. Although, more can be worse.

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Commemoration Paris

The cemetery “Père Lachaise” is a spacious area of commemoration in the 20th arrondissement in Paris. Many famous people have been buried there or moved to this cemetery eventually. Edith Piaf, Gustave Caillebotte or Frédéric Chopin are known across borders. You find also a small monument for the controversial founder of homeopathy 200 years ago “Hahnemann” there. He spent his last 8 years in Paris before he died at the age of 88 in 1843. From a social science perspective it is interesting to note that commemoration is much more decided by the descendants like in the case of Hahnemann or the popularity of the person, like for Piaf, than the person her/himself. The tradition of joint graves for families holds for the Paris born painter and collector Gustave Caillebotte despite his movements to other places. The freshly cut flowers on the grave of Piaf show that the performances of the artist have made deep and lasting impressions.

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Olympic Democracy

It is interesting to follow how the Olympic Games follow a moderate version of how to run a democracy. Paris 2024 takes pride in making this a little bit more visible. It is the people in democracies who decide whether to host Olympic games in their country and the many executive branches of governments have to coordinate their actions, budgets and planning accordingly. The National Assembly in Paris 2024 is showing its commitment to the Games in front of the building as well. Beyond the ancient discipline of archery, new disciplines like surfing is turned into a piece of art like a statue honoring the athletes. The IOC follows the division of powers with an assembly of states, an executive and the judiciary. In each discipline it is evident that without a well established and accepted independent judges the Games would become a farce and would no longer attract such huge crowds. It is a steep challenge to ensure that doping and other illegal activities do not destroy the peaceful spirit of the Olympic Games. Science has a role to play in advancing and controlling the athletes and their teams acting under cover. All in all, we find democracy in a nutshell including the necessary trust in institutions to ensure a fair running of the Games in Paris 2024.

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Olympic Equality

Of course, first of all the Olympic Games are about making a difference with respect to your opponent. However, there has been a thrive to achieve an equality of genders for more than 100 years as well. Women had to battle such a long time to achieve the right to participate in the Games in the same disciplines as men. For the first time in Paris2024 men and women are represented with the same amounts of athletes. Each gender is participating with 5.250 athletes and astonishing progress has been made to ensure that male and female athletes perform in the same or similar disciplines. Even if it took decades for women to run a marathon at the Olympics, the inclusion of a triathlon for women was already much more rapid.
This constitutes a real milestone in the progress towards equality in Olympics. Equal numbers of athletes is a quantitative form of inclusion, the qualitative level of inclusion remains to be accomplished. The qualitative dimension consists in the inclusion of women at equal footing in media reporting and sponsoring. On the organizational level of the IOC the organizing committee is still dominated by men and statistics on the accompanying teams of coaches, therapists and representatives a lot of progress still needs to be accomplished. Paris made already a huge difference and several exhibitions of the “cultural games” around the city during the Olympics 2024 make this point quite forcefully.
The sociology of the Olympic Games has a lot of topics. It is great to see the progress made in Paris on Olympic Equality, after all “égalité” figures prominently in the definition of modern France.
(Image: BNF 2024 exhibition “A History of Women in Sport” own translation)

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Olympic Village

The newly built Olympic Village in Seine Saint Denis consists of 82 buildings and offers 3000 appartements. With up-to-date cooling and heating technology from a nearby geothermal source the eco friendliness is assured as well. Inclusive accessibility allows for games for all and the needs of an aging society. The price level of renting apartments remains a difficult to solve issue as demand will exceed supply for years to come. Universal accessibility is a necessary precondition to host the Paralympic games also in 2024. Historic sites are notoriously difficult to adapt to aging societies and inclusive approaches. However, the adaptation takes a large step towards the realization of inclusiveness of extraordinary people. The care for environmental sustainability has been honored as well. The exhibition in the Museum of the city of Saint Denis at the outskirts of Paris demonstrates the significant size of the urban renewal project. The socioeconomic and environmental benefits are evident and will give a push towards this previously deprived suburb. A lot remains to be done but the new trajectory for urban development is already put on track. The oblivious factories and enterprises give way for urban renewal of housing for people with easy access to the Paris city centers as well. (Source of Image)

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Knowledge Work

In the social sciences the term knowledge work defines the group of professions that deal with and deal in knowledge. Most of them are in academia, but there are many other professions like ICT professionals or lawyers that used to shuffle paper who now work all digital. Hence the relatively new addition to the sociological vocabulary is “mobile knowledge work”. We, and yes I am part of this group, can do our job from almost any place with a stable internet connection. Breda Gray et al. (2020, Made to work: Mobilising contemporary worklives.) highlight the importance of gender considerations when we study these new forms of work. Similarly, social class and cultures of more or less trust are thriving for independence. This will play a role in who choses these new forms of work. The digital technology enterprises, media and social media workers are and will be the forerunners of this change. The education sector and academics in general have followed suit.

The issue of autonomy has also received some attention by the authors and this is likely to be a big challenge to standard work relationships as we knew them before the digital turn and the Covid-19 pandemic. The mobile knowledge workers were the first to insist on change of work practices, there will be other professions that will strive for greater autonomy of various kinds.

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Paris calm

As Paris is just 3 days before hosting the Olympic games 2024 the preparation of the spectacular opening ceremony along the river Seine is calming down the whole city. In the vicinity of the Quai Bercy the usually very busy road is already reserved for the arrival of athletes, artists and spectators. Security levels are exceptionally high at all corners to reassure people and to be able to intervene early if need be. Air pollution is rather low even near the busy roads. Buildings and public transport have been polished for the event and the excitement is building up. An expected 1 billion of television viewers of the opening ceremony will hit new records for such events. The population around Paris might have difficulties to get tickets to some of the popular events as official prices for the opening that rest cost 900€ per person. Locals are not amused and the critical voices denounce such an event as exclusion of most ordinary citizens through ticket prices. There are however places free of charge as well if you know where to catch a glance of the ceremony from the distance. Some bridges seem to be favorite places to catch a glimpse of glamour for free.

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Chapelles Sportifs

In Paris the “Chapelle Notre Dame des Sportifs” was benedicted in 2023 in view of the Olympic Games 2024 in France. The catholic church is following the popular Olympics to call for “Holy Games” with subtitle “L’évangile c’est sport”. The chapel can be visited in the splendid church “La Madeleine” in the middle of Paris. You can buy candles with inscriptions like “the last ones, will come first (Mt 20,16)” or other citations from the bible. On Friday 2024-7-19 a special ceremony was held where you could jointly pray to win in your discipline or, of course, for other noble causes. The whole service was recorded with multiple cameras from a professional television team for a worldwide dissemination. It remains an open question, whether the church sponsors athletes as well or whether the athletes sponsor the church through their followers on social media. in any case it is a bigger media event accompanying the Olympic games in Paris.

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Credit donations

“credit” stems from the original latin word “cedere”. In the 1st person you write “credo”, which means I believe. If said in a religious building or church you show with this pronunciation that you believe tbe narrative of the religious community. In the 3rd person “credit” stand for s/he/it believes. In the financial sense it is the receiver of money from your credit card who believes or trusts you that you made an honest payment. Now, banks take commissions from each of these exchanges of trust. You are credit worthy or not. In some churches you now make donations using your credit card to facilitate business. Credit card companies also charge you on your donation. Win win situation we call this. I keep asking myself, whether I still “believe in angles” or only business angles. (Image Église Notre Dame des Victoires Brussels 2024-7)

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Art or Profession

In political science it is a long tradition to discuss, whether politics is an art or a profession. The idealist tradition, going back as far as Plato in ancient Greek history of ideas, puts the exercise of politics near the exercise of a divine art to do justice. Much later in the history of ideas Max Weber rather bluntly defined politics as a profession (original in German) that requires to master a set of competences.
Recent elections in Europe (EU, France, UK, Belgium) and around the globe (India, USA) in 2024 add interesting case studies to the old question. Is politics an art or a profession?
In modern politics the life course or life cycle of a politician consists of at least 2 phases: (1) the electoral campaign before and (2) the potential of governing or opposition. Each phase requires a different set of competences. In phase 1 it is important to propose a new or different ideal from the previous government. Charismatic presentation of an ideal set of policies is asked for.  In phase 2 it is required of the politician to forge compromises, either within the own political party or beyond boundaries of political parties. Certainly, in multi-level governance systems like the European Union additional forms of coalition building across countries is required, intercultural competence or language skills are an advantage here.
The 2 phases of the life cycle of a politician require different sets of skills. Charisma as mentioned by Plato and Weber can get a politician into power and charismatic leadership can get you through a lot of coalition building. On the other hand, modern campaigning in repeated elections is a specialized competence that resembles marketing expertise as well as “reading of statistics” and in-depth analyses of shifting or stable preferences of electorates and to succinct conclusions on this basis. Running a political party or a parliamentary group is yet another leadership skill just like communication skills that, beyond many prejudices, can be learned.
In a nutshell. Politics is an art and a profession. The art consists in the variable combination of different sets of competences. Art requires competences just as professions can be turned into art.  Welcome to the hybrid world of modern politics. (Image extract from MAD Paris, Picasso, Schiaparelli)

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Greening Brussels

We tend to believe that inner cities have lost the fight against traffic jams and climate change. However, the number of projects that stem the tide is growing and some have gained visibility beyond their immediate neighborhood. This is the case of an urban planning project in Brussels that has taken back space from urban traffic to the citizens living there. Planting new trees and a gardening space reserved for flowers changed the street into a pleasant environment where people meet and greet again rather than hold their breath and disappear as quickly as possible. Parking of cars has been reduced on the street and instead bicycle parking has become a hint towards more sustainable mobility in inner cities. Walking the city, staying and shopping nearby will allow behavioral change for healthier lifestyles. It needs a lot of persuasion to accomplish this impact and years of reaching majorities for such projects and the ability to raise sufficient resources to implement them. The additional challenge is the need to take care of the green spaces that only works with the support of neighborhoods assisting in the care and protection of the urban lungs. As the awareness to act against inner city heat and pollution increases the number of persons willing to act and devote resources as well as time for such projects increases as well. It is a long way to improve inner city health again, but these signs of exemplary projects will convince many other people that urban renewal can work to the benefit of people.

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1Person Nation

One single person can stand for a whole country. At least that’s what mass media have tried to make us believe. Whole countries or even empires have been associated with single personalities. Maybe for simplicity we start with Caesar, Cleopatra and the like. These personalities reach historic status through the literature that has reported on their achievements and fame. Mass media of today copy that strategy to create fame out of images. The American journal “Cineaste” has recently exemplified the making of an idol with the popular actor “Jean Gabin”, who happened to be the representative not only of French cinema, but the image of France across countries and even continents. Identification with an actor or the projected image of a person are common goals in politics as well. The actor Ronald Reagan became elected as president of the USA. Zelensky in Ukraine has followed a similar trajectory. The examples are manifold, but the underlying mechanism remain pretty similar. Before we had the concept of influencers, not influenza, popular spreading of messages is key. Only the technology changed. New ways to prepare a 1person nation have been added over time. Followers are the new political currency. Beware of signs “Follow Me”, even if it is the police asking you to do so. (Image: Deutsche Kinemathek Exhibition 2024)

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Women Advisors

Contrary to many men and clergy advising noble governors, many of them famous as womanizers, there is a long tradition of women as advisors as well. The first woman that received high reputation as advisor is “Christine de Pizan“. She was born in Italy and migrated to France with her father who was a scientist and advisor to  “Charles V” as medical doctor and astrologist, but who died soon after the move to the French court. With the access to a unique library at the time Christine de Pizan benefited from the best of knowledge and her literary and scientific competences made her famous later on. She could even be compared to Clausewitz as a well known writer on war strategies, but has a much broader literary reach compared over centuries.
Christine de Pizan became a writer in her own right, publishing under her own name in the late 14th century already and not only in literary work, but in fields previously thought to be domains of male writers only. One of her writings “Livre des fais d’armes et de chevalerie” is a testimony of her political and strategic thinking and advice. It remains a unique piece of a woman as advisor in military affairs published in 1410. The translation into “Alemannisch” (1460) highlights the importance of her strategic advice beyond France.
Her literary excellence has been widely appreciated not the least in her praise of Jeanne d’Arc in her “Ditiè”, the poem in honor of Jeanne d’Arc. (source with translation). Christine de Pizan also wrote on peace (Le livre de la paix” 1412 and the “Livre du chemin de longue étude“, today we would translate it as a book on lifelong learning.
(Source: Zimmermann, Margarete, 2005: Minervas jüngere Schwester: Die politische Schrifstellerin Christine de Pizan, Stabi Berlin, KulturStiftung der Länder Patrimonia 265 und SPK.
(Image: Extrait Christine de Pizan im Gespräch mit Minerva. BNF, Paris, Ms. fr 603, fol.21r)

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Beggar thy neighbour

Modern economics has developed the concept of so-called external effects. The oldest version of it might also be referred to as “beggar thy neighbour”, as it was coined by Adam Smith the founder of classical economics. This describes an economic policy which does not care to make your neighbours worse off by enriching yourself. Applied to environmental economics or to regions, cantons or neighboring countries, this means a ruthless pursuing of investments, which are known to shuffle a large part of the costs onto other regions through damages, might be pursued nevertheless. This might be a valid hypothesis to test how the investment in skiing at high altitudes, increases the risks of flooding at the lower altitudes of rivers or valleys. There is scope for a redistribution of wealth from one region to another. The poor neighbor, however, is in a rather weak position to claim compensation as the link between the 2 events is hard to establish scientifically and mediated by an abstract form of overall climate change. The recent example from Switzerland adds to an increasing number of natural disasters, which are in fact man-made following a beggar thy neighbor rationale. (Image newspaper reading room in Stabi Berlin with NZZ from 2024-6-24).

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Food Future

What do we have for dinner today, tomorrow or in 10 years from today? Research Institutes presented some of their insights based on solid evidence in the open door event in Berlin. The 5 years of the project “food4future” are over and my glance through some of the results suggests that we shall have many more proteins, most from vegetable sources, on our plates. The arguments for improved sustainability are rather compelling. The taste of these products that currently have higher amounts of bitter taste might be solved. Similarly sea food beyond fish like halophyte will enter our diet. The salty taste can be incorporated in meals in which we add salt or other spices anyway. These elements might make it possible to feed the 8 billion people on our planet. We probably also need to include protein rich insects in the meal plans of the still growing human species. It appears like a rather long shot into the future of nutrition, but if we do not think ahead and start the change in our mindsets we shall be badly prepared for the future and more people will decide to seek food in other places of the earth rather than stay hungry. It also helps us to refocus our priorities in nutrition and aim for a better balance of the pleasures of eating and sustainability. The issue of food for future generations starts with food for thought in the abundantly nourished Northern parts of the planet. (Image: AI Copilot, Prompt: 2 couples enjoy eating a meal of halophytes and insects, 2024-6-25)

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Science Transparent

Every year there is only one special big event (Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften) to make science more transparent to the population at large. Mostly hidden behind impressive walls and buildings guarded by porters,
science is not as transparent for the large public as it would like to be. In general people are rather intimidated or feel quickly out of place if scientist start to “explain” in lengthy formats their topics, ideas, questions and intermediate solutions. Even if the distributed open science fair is running only from 5 p.m to midnight, there are lots of things to learn and look into.
The website lists 1500+ sessions, 230 are in English language. You have to be selective or spread your interest over several years. I chose to start with, maybe, the toughest choice the Weierstrass-Institute near the Naturkundemuseum. Several projects of applied mathematics and stochastic processes were exposed and explained in more or less transparent and/or understandable form to the audiences. The talk by Julian Kern “Why chance doesn’t happen by chance” had a nice interactive format with “Kahoot-quizzes” and gave a good introduction, why it is useful to understand, statistics and stochastic processes in fields from biology, physics to social phenomena. The White board replaced already the black board and chalk.
The open doors policy, at least one day per year, raises interests and awareness for topics few people would only think that they existed already. The  volume “Mathematics and Society” (Wolfgang König ed. 2016) is something I shall follow up on eventually. There are lots of applications of mathematics to social phenomena (time seen from the perspective of generations for example, image below from talk), which we have a hard time to come to grips with without the aid of mathematicians.

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Betting vice

Betting is considered a vice. The industry has moved from the local bookmakers to the internet and is spread across countries and continents. Some legal advisers have classified betting as the fastest growing vice industry and it is about time to launch a wake up call for more oversight of what is going on in the sector. As betting like gambling seems to be working in conjunction with other addictions the potential of cumulative risks is quite high. Our brains tend to wire things together which frequently occur jointly. It is difficult to disentangle these co-occurrences later again. The major angle of attack is prevention.
Health journals start warnings of the detrimental effects persons and observe that the industry follows similar strategies as the tobacco industry to address as many people as possible. And this is very successful and profitable for them. Hence, prevention strategies should also follow what has been applied to smoking like the ban from restaurants and bars as well as the restrictions on advertising. We will have to accept that betting and gambling should not be as easily accessible as it is currently. Age restrictions have to be applied stringently. I bet this will take quite a long time until Europe and elsewhere the regulations will change. Some of the young get interested in even more stimulating activities like exploring arts (image below class at Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin 2024-6) rather than betting on who is going to win the Euro 2024 football matches.

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LED light

For decades now, we have the LED light technology around us. In many instances we do no longer realize the presence of light emission devices (LEDs) for example in our television screens or in road lighting. However, this still is an exciting field of electrical engineering and the replacement of gas lighting as well as other electrical devices with higher energy consumption are high on the agenda for sustainable lighting. There are important health and security aspects related to lighting (sleep and road traffic).
In Berlin the demonstration and test area for innovative LED lighting is also an open-air museum which can be experienced throughout the year. The party-goers and club visitors might best know the demonstration street as part of the “Deutsches Technik Museum” The energy saving potential of LEDs use in street lighting is substantial and should interest most rural and city councils. The demonstration of the differential effects of targeted lighting and broad illumination based on the same technology is impressive. Of course, the design aspect of LED-technology with the colourful potentials are of interest beyond the technical aspects to replace for example gas lighting. There is much more to lighting than just opening your eyes in the morning. (Image FG Lichttechnik TU Berlin)

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Gas light

Even if it sounds crazy from today‘s perspective gas lights once were the symbol of progress. In the middle of the 19th century gas lights started to lighten and brighten the boulevards of major cities in Europe. The historic evolution of the various designs can still be followed in Berlin in the open space museum of gas light in the Tiergarten area near Zoologischer Garten. These gas lights were brighter than candles or petroleum lights and needed less maintenance. The CO2 footprint was no concern at that time and also safety concerns have been tolerated. Mechanical maintenance was relatively easy and sufficiently qualified personnel still abundant. All this has changed and the lamp posts powered by gas are mostly a part of industrial history now. The image below shows a fine example from Amsterdam. The solid construction shows nice ornaments on steel. The rounded shape remained quite unique.
Unfortunately, the accessibility of the museum has contributed to the loss of many nice examples of gas light designs. Many were destroyed during the football world cup in Berlin in 2006. Let’s hope the Tiergarten survives the Euro2024 better than the previous huge football events and Love parades. Serious precautions have been taken with quite solid fences to protect the inner city wild life.

Berlin Gas Light Museum
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Aussensicht Innensicht

Die Sicht vom Skulpturengarten der Neuen Nationalgalerie auf die laufende Ausstellung „Zerreissprobe…“ erlaubt einen tiefen historischen Einblick in die 1980er Jahre. Die Sammlung von Postern des Künstlers Klaus Staeck zeigen die bewegenden Themen der achtziger Jahre. Frauenrechte, Umweltschutz, Sicherheit sowie Medienwirtschaft. 40 Jahre später beschäftigen uns weiterhin, Lösungen für die plakatierten Themen zu finden. Images können Themen so zuspitzen, dass Anklagen daraus werden. Texte sind im Vergleich zu der Eindrücklichkeit der Bilder ein vergleichsweise stumpfes Schwert. Es ist aber gerade die Verbindung von Bild und Text, die Eindrücke verstärkt. „Meme“ Creators sind ein standard tool das die Kommerzialisierung und die Promotion weiter befördert haben. Kunstformen hatten diesen Trend bereits vorweggenommen.

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EURO 2024

Before the EURO 2024, (European soccer championship) has even started, the host country Germany and the DFB- foundation for culture joined forces for a remarkable exhibition. In the “National Gallery of Contemporary Art” and next to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof a provocative video installation is mounted that uses the imagery of soccer (football) to portray the life and atmosphere associated with soccer. Injuries on the playing field, but even more so injuries caused by violent groups among the spectators create an emotionally charged representation before, during and after the match. The role of the umpire is central in the match and in the cultural project. Shattered dreams are part of the game for players as well as spectators. Visual impressions have contributed enormously to spectacular success of football on television. The masses of viewers has created a big business of television rights and merchandising products as well. The DFB Kulturstiftung undertakes great efforts to open up the discussion about soccer in a critical way through art projects. The entry into the installation resembles the entry of players through a tunnel into the huge stadium. The world of soccer has multiple links to physical and psychic violence. The installation “Winner” signed by Marianna Simnett challenges the media’s largely beautiful videos about the world of football. In the ocean of enthusiasm this exhibition is just a tiny grain of salt, adding spice to life.

Winner by Marianna Simnett 2024 Berlin
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Marketing bicycles

The marketing of bicycles has changed considerably over the course of history. Today’s narrative is more about the eco friendly impact of it. Historically the freedom aspect of free movement and emancipation of women was at the forefront. The collection of images in poster formats presented at the DTM in Berlin is impressive. The focus on women on bicycles is quite surprising for this early time around 1900. Few of the companies from the early days have survived until today. Bicycles are still fascinating children and adults today. The experience of a fragile equilibrium, your own strength and weakness in muscle power, cardiac or pulmonary strength is always challenging. It is you who is in control of speed and direction. This should be easy to sell to the masses, and it was and still is. “Bikenomics” is here to stay. Artists had the same impression and created a whole universe of promises for riders of bicycles. The long run health benefits were not even known at the time, but it was unthinkable that humans would spend most hours sitting in offices, cars and on their couches. The biking story needs to be retold to encourage people to take up the emancipating storyline again. Get on your bike again!

DTM Berlin 2024-6
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Mangel Armut

Herta Müller hat bereits 2012 in „Das Chinesische Glasauge“ sehr treffend die Funktion von Mangel und Armut in Diktaturen beschrieben. Sowohl der ständige Mangel als auch die Armut dienen als Instrumente der Macht. Sie sind quasi die Fortsetzung von Ideologie zur Beherrschung der Massen. Zusammen bilden sie die Umgebung, den Kontext in dem dort gelebt wird. Die Herrschenden jedoch haben Privilegien, die sie von der Allgemeinheit absetzen. Diese knappe Beschreibung und Einleitung zur Kurzgeschichte haben eine große Portion Allgemeingültigkeit. In Mangel und Armut können kleine Vergünstigungen eine viel größere Wirkung entfachen. Sehnsüchte nach mehr werden nahezu zwingend hervorgebracht. Allein die Aussicht auf ein teilweises Stillen der Erwartungen oder nach mehr entfachen weiteres „höriges“ Verlangen. In Diktaturen werden die Personen, die unaufhörlich auf die Armut und den Mangel hinweisen meist geächtet oder sogar ins Exil gezwungen. Solche Störenfriede sind nicht gern gesehen. Das Russland unter Putin braucht Leute der herrschenden politischen Klasse zujubeln und bereitwillig in den Krieg ziehen oder an der Kriegsmaschinerie mitwirken. Wir sind mehr als eine Dekade weiter, aber diese Zusammenhänge bestehen ebenfalls weiter. Schmuck in der Mangelwirtschaft ist bereits eine Provokation. Das offene Tragen der Provokation kann im schlimmsten Fall das Leben kosten.
(Image: Herta Müller, 2023, Eine Fliege kommt durch einen halbern Wald, Carl Hanser Verlag, “Das Chinesische Glasauge”, S.50-61)

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Image History

The archives of the history of movies and/or television show to us the multiple ways how images capture our attention and memories. Visual narratives are an own category of our personal and collective memory. The wide range of visual experiences are a powerful way to influence. Not only the movies and stories matter, but the whole range of images associated with the cinema world. Poster collections, newspapers and today the so-called social media multiply the original images. The Deutsche Kinemathek allows a special, critical understanding of image history as Germany has been using and abusing images and movies in a very manipulating manner historically. The message is: do not take images for face value. The ways and techniques to manipulate images have been widely used and are all around us today. Whereas the mass media in previous decades have dominated the collective memories we have entered into an era with many more subcultures that evolve within their own bubble of images. An original attempt to cut 65 movies of German film history into less than 4 minutes is presented in the exhibition (Milkowski and Simbeni). It focuses on gestures and “les regards”, “Blicke”, how the actresses and actors seem to look at us. Eyes capture attention, and this as soon as we open our eyes as children. Our brain works as image recorder and our memory algorithms tend to favor image recognition while processing images continuously. We do not know much about our own image sorting algorithm or algorithms yet. Research on aging of the brain gives some hints. With declining short term memory the images stored in long term memory take the upper hand. This makes an understanding of the history of images even more important.

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Deutsche Kinemathek

Just in the vicinity of the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin you’ll find the Deutsche Kinemathek, the museum movies, actors, actresses, directors and the history of cinema in Germany. There is a small specialized library in the Kinemathek that allows to dive not only into journals and books, but also video material, scenarios and accessories. Of course, you will find a lot of material on all sorts of movie stars (heroines) over more than a hundred years. The “Divas” of the industry take up a large part of the exhibition. “Marlene Dietrich” much more than “Hildegard Knef“, the former born and the latter lived for a long time in Berlin-Schöneberg (Berlin-Pretty-Hill as some locals call it nowadays). The 2 Divas probably caused the funny translation. Anyway, the hall in the Kinemathek which is exclusively devoted to Marlene Dietrich impresses with a lot of glamour and mirrors around.
For those with not only a biographical, but also life course interest in cinema cherish the public access to the library. The most impressive table there is the desk with access to the Ukrainian movies and about cinema in Ukraine. A list with QR-codes allows you to readily approach the recent developments before and during the Russian aggression on Ukraine (See image below). After all Potsdamer Platz in Berlin was a hot-spot of the cold war period in the divided Berlin. A little bit of a “Metropolis-atmosphere” can still be felt. The Kinemathek explains well what this is all about.

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Killing me softly

The problem with pollution is, it is killing you softly from inside. It is almost impossible to escape air pollution as it is pervasive in cities, but also in the countryside where you do not expect it that much. This is the result of the study by Kuzma et al. (2024) published in “The Lancet Regional Health Europe”. Based on a data set of 8 million persons from Eastern Poland the effects of air pollution on myocardial infarction incidence was analysed. The use of the “European Union’s Earth Observation Programme” contributed data on air pollutants like PMs, BaP (benzo(a)pyrene), SO2 and NO2 concentrations. The multi-level data of 5 voivodeships, 101 counties, and 709 communities in Poland allows to differentiate the effects of damage to the heart tissue on cardiovascular disease. The other well-known factors are arterial hypertension, diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, hyperlipidaemia, and smoking as most of us know already. The effects of  BaP (benzo(a)pyrene) is shown for rural areas despite the lower observed traffic density in these areas. The killing occurs softly from within our bodies by just breathing in and out, and in and out continuously. The disease burden in these regions is observed with “recorded 63,154 hospitalizations and 5921 in-hospital deaths (9.4%) due to STEMI; and 76,543 hospitalizations and 4079 (5%) in-hospital deaths due to NSTEMI”. In short, the need to reduce air pollution further is an urgent demand that saves lives eventually.
(Image from public domain wikipedia or “do-it-yourself” here).

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Silent Pandemic

There is a pandemic that is silently spreading across countries and continents. It only indirectly related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The medical journal “The Lancet Respiratory Health” (2024) has an editorial about the inequities of asthma as they develop over the life course. The development of asthma has pre-natal, genetic, environmental, life-style and socio-economic co-determinants. The study of respiratory disease, therefore, is a multi-factorial issue, which needs to disentangle the specific influences. Smoking as well as obesity have an impact on asthma, instantaneously or with delayed time effects of sometimes many years. Hence, it is important to take the whole life course into account, if we want to address the rising disease burden of asthma. Air pollution and heating-up of the planet are important drivers of the silent asthma pandemic across the globe. The social distribution of people working in “asthma- prone” work environments and/or living in highly polluted urban, suburban or rural areas near high frequency traffic is another latent factor causing huge costs to persons and society as a whole. Health inequity is growing over the life course. This is not easy to tackle as policy target as the onset of the disease has no single trigger, but rather a combination of influences that contribute in varying amounts to the evolution of respiratory diseases. (Image air pollution https://aqicn.org/map/germany/de/)