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On Wednesday, a week before Christmas, the parliamentary group on culture will meet in Bern. In fact, this would be good news. Although the federal constitution gives the cantons cultural sovereignty, parliamentary groups play only a minor role in legislation. But the commitment of the members of the Federal Council remains important and necessary. And this is because of the passage of time. Because we are in the middle of an existential culture war.
Next year the United States will elect a new president. Whoever runs against Donald Trump will not have to face any political conflict. It’s not about how much taxes will be levied or where the money will be spent. This is not about environmental protection, military spending, pensions or health care. First, there is a systemic conflict in the United States. The question is whether Enlightenment values will prevail. Does democracy have a future? Or will an authoritarian state in the spirit of Francis Hobbes prevail? How open will society be in the future?
These are the same questions that Germany will face in the next elections. In France the same thing will happen in 2027, but this does not only apply to the West. This debate is happening all over the world.
In India, the stakes are particularly high. Who has the advantage? Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his fascist Hindu nationalism or supporters of a multi-ethnic state based on law, freedom and democracy?
This cultural war is being waged bloodily in Ukraine. An authoritarian ruler tries to enforce the law of the strongest. Putin knows he has Hamas, the Chinese Communist Party and the mullahs in Tehran on his side.
This is a conflict over the fundamental rules by which we will live together in the 21st century, a war of values, a war for culture.
Since this is not a political dispute, the usual positions become meaningless. Universalism can be argued conservatively or progressively, and the same applies to identitarian ideologies. The camps are regrouping and orientation is needed.
This culture war has long reached civil society. Since the October 7 pogrom carried out by Hamas terrorists against Israel, it has been carried out more brutally and mercilessly than at any time since the end of the Cold War. As then, compromises are impossible. As then, coexistence is possible only in conditions of a balance of terror.
There can be no balance between the issues that arise. It’s either/or. Are all people equal before the law? Does everyone have the same, inalienable rights? What is the greatest good? Is it your own interest, the benefit of the group to which you belong? Is violence legitimate as a political tool? Should the law of the strongest apply? Can you lie to get your point?
Or do we as a society want to be committed to universalism in the Enlightenment sense and therefore to truth, law and freedom?
This is a systemic confrontation that our generation faces. Until it is solved, no other problem can be solved.
The Club of Rome made this clear in its 2021 report: “The most important challenge of our day is not climate change, biodiversity loss or pandemics. The most serious problem is our collective inability to separate fact from fiction.”
The ability to read the world and its signs, to distinguish truth from lies and propaganda, is fundamental to democracy. We are not born with this ability. We have to painstakingly learn to read the world and its signs. This is a process that continues throughout each person’s life. And this is the task of society as a whole. Provided that she is committed to the truth – and the freedom to tell that truth, to be able to say it.
Unfortunately, we have long neglected the development and maintenance of this ability. The Pisa study found a deficit: a quarter of Swiss youth aged 15 surveyed had not achieved minimum reading skills.
But before you shoot at the students: they are as smart as anyone else before them. What they lack are adults who can teach them.
Formulating letters, forming words from them, constructing a correct sentence from words: this is difficult. It takes years to learn this. And yet this is just the beginning. Reading a text and relating it to the world and other texts requires attention, care, care, and time.
And this is expensive, difficult to measure and difficult to benefit from in the labor market, ineffective from an economic point of view and therefore unnecessary. We thought we could do without it. Although almost everything that our society has achieved, which defines our culture, we owe to reading.
Reading on screens can, no doubt, have benefits in terms of access, but what you really learn to read is through the spatial experience, through the three-dimensionality of the book. In just a few years, the thousand-year-old cultural technique of reading books has been sacrificed to technological progress and competency-based educational policies. Now the historical mistake is becoming obvious.
We are abandoning our children to the incessant propaganda of authoritarian, undemocratic fascist murderers. Lies have constant access to their imagination through social media. By not providing them with the proper equipment, we are sending our youth and citizens into a merciless existential culture war. The widespread indifference to this development is as frightening as the lack of education.
So the parliamentary cultural group meets in Bern. What did Anita Fetz and Hans Fuhrer have in mind so aptly and full of ideals when they revived this group almost 20 years ago? “The relationship between politics and culture should be understood as more than just location marketing or a simple representational task: it serves the state’s self-image and national identity.”
Unfortunately, it is unknown whether the three dozen members of the group realized the signs of the times. And, unfortunately, there is no doubt that the position of this parliamentary group clearly shows the ill health, ignorance and indifference in society.
Neither the study of Pisa is on the agenda, nor the politics of education, nor, of course, the catastrophic economic situation of cultural workers, nor identity politics, nor universalism, nor any of the pressing issues. Not only do they not care about all this, no, they are proud of their “fly-baby” mentality and admit it publicly and openly on a flesh-colored invitation card: “Culture for us is sausage, and sausage is culture for us! Now also with vegetarian sausages.”
It is not clear what is lacking here: education, shame or intelligence, but what is certain is that this invitation would not be understood even if it could be read.
Source: Blick
I am David Miller, a highly experienced news reporter and author for 24 Instant News. I specialize in opinion pieces and have written extensively on current events, politics, social issues, and more. My writing has been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC News. I strive to be fair-minded while also producing thought-provoking content that encourages readers to engage with the topics I discuss.
