Radio-Nice Club

Category: Gesellschaft

  • Thomas Mann on Wagner, Nietzsche and Freud

    Thomas Mann on Wagner, Nietzsche, and Freud – Germanness as reflected in modernity

    When Thomas Mann speaks, people listen – not only because of the elegance of his language, but also because of his sharp insight into German culture. In his lecture on Richard Wagner on February 10, 1933, he ventured an interpretation that removed the composer from the sphere of nationalistic veneration and placed him in the vicinity of another authority that was just beginning to take effect: Sigmund Freud’s new ideas.

    Thomas Mann portrays Richard Wagner as an artist of a broken modernity, as a figure who does not rest in sublimity but is marked by inner conflicts. The excess, the pathos, the ecstatic exaggeration of his music appear to Mann as symptoms of a psychological struggle – an expression of the unconscious that Freud had made visible for the first time.

    In this interpretation, Wagner’s “Germanness” is not understood as a proud, flawless force, but as a spiritual fabric of greatness and illness, of creative vision and corrosive self-analysis. For Mann, Wagner is not a national saint, but the first great representative of a modern, self-questioning Germany.

    But Thomas Mann did not stop at psychoanalytic interpretation. He drew further parallels – to Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who was initially ardently devoted to the “Master of Bayreuth” before turning away from him in a radical break. For Mann, this relationship was particularly revealing: Nietzsche recognized in Wagner’s intoxication, demonism, and excess the danger of exaggeration that could tip over into pathology.

    In Nice, where Mann lived for a time, he sensed the same tension between illness and creation that Nietzsche had experienced so vividly in the south. Nice, with its light and its vastness, became a contrasting image for both of them—a place of recovery and clarity, but also of painful self-observation. For Mann, Wagner embodied the abysmal German, while Nietzsche represented the critical, clarifying authority that rejected this legacy and at the same time transformed it creatively.

    But Thomas Mann himself was always reflected in this constellation. Like Wagner, he saw himself as an artist who drew inspiration from inner turmoil. The “bourgeois solidity” he embodied outwardly only partially concealed the abysses and ambivalences that nourished his work. From Nietzsche, he adopted the role of the self-analyst who recognizes weakness, critically penetrates it, and thereby overcomes it.

    In Nice, in the light of the Côte d’Azur, this self-interpretation became particularly clear to Mann. The south made him realize that Germanness was not only fate, but also a task: to reflect on it critically, to name its dangers, and to transform it from within. Wagner, Nietzsche, and Freud were not mere points of reference for him, but reflections of his own existence.

    This lecture on Wagner thus goes far beyond music. It proves to be a key text on Thomas Mann’s journey from defender of the “German essence” in Reflections of an Unpolitical Man to sharp critic who opposed National Socialism in exile. What began in Nice in reflections on Wagner and Nietzsche found its conclusion in a clear rejection of self-destructive Germanness.

    Thomas Mann’s interpretation of Wagner is a document of intellectual self-discovery: the linking of music, philosophy, and psychoanalysis into a triad of modernity—and at the same time the confession of a poet who recognized his own destiny in the mirror of Wagner and Nietzsche.

    Thomas Mann und Friedrich Nietzsche, Siegmund Freud und Richard Wagner

  • Against the worship of warmongering

    He grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where his family still lives today. But since returning from the war, he has been moving back and forth between Washington and the South. In 2011—seven years after returning from Iraq—he finally settled in Savannah because he was afraid that there were too many Arabs on the streets in Washington or Northern Virginia. He sensed them everywhere, felt constantly surrounded by them. His past as a notorious expert in body searches and interrogations in American prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq fuels his fear that he is now threatened with retaliation from every corner.

    His time as an interrogator, first at Bagram prison in Afghanistan and later, even more painfully, at Abu Ghraib—the most hellish place Damien Corsetti ever saw on earth—killed something inside him. “Abu Ghraib: If there ever was a bad place, it was that one. It was just death, fucking death. That place changed everyone who was there. Something cancerous was growing there.”

    Excerpt from “War at Any Cost” by James Risen.

    War at any cost, about greed, abuse of power, and the billion-dollar business of fighting terrorism.

  • Statutes and bureaucracy in 1851

    The Albrecht-Dürer-Verein would have risen to its zenith “if a narrow-minded adherence to bourgeois statutes, greed and envy had not always worked against free artistic development. It was recognised that these statutes were in part suitable for a local association, but by no means for a projected central art association. However, what was done to remedy the problem did not contribute to the prosperity of the whole, on the contrary, the promising bloom was destroyed; new statutes were created, some of which became even more impractical, even dangerous, and caused much confusion and annoyance. The promises made to the members could not be fulfilled, the lack of money for honorary expenses was claimed to be insufficient for such a large association, etc., without considering that the income is always in proportion to the growing number of members, and that on occasions where the honour and reputation of the association is at stake, buckling and saving can only bring harm.”

    Carl Alexander Heideloff

    Stairs to Radio Nice

  • Media Competence

    We do not want war

    The opposing camp bears the responsibility

    The leader of the enemy is a devil

    We are fighting for a good cause

    The enemy fights with unauthorized weapons

    The enemy commits atrocities on purpose, we only do so accidentally

    Our losses are small, those of the enemy are enormous

    Artists and intellectuals support our cause

    Our mission is sacred

    Anyone who doubts our reporting is a traitor.

    Anne Morelli

    Anne Morelli wrote the book Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre in the style of Arthur Ponsonby’s classic work on propaganda research.

    It is interesting to observe how some journalists are unable to publish their research and work on any topic without judgment, but rather follow the narratives. It is then frightening to observe how people with diametrically opposed views are often very quickly insulted, downgraded and shunned as a result.

    None of this is actually new. What is new is the vehement claim and the sovereignty of interpretation and positioning of truth and lies (new German fake and hate speech) in the interests of those in power. The opposition and some citizens are quickly vilified. Since the Greeks and their invention of democracy 2500 years ago, it has been the task of the opposition to keep the rulers in check, as experience has shown that they are all too quick to pursue their own interests and bypass the actual sovereign in the clique.

    The words “populus”, ‘people’ and “sovereignty” are closely linked in the context of politics and philosophy. They refer to the source and nature of state power.

    “Populus” (Latin):

    Denotes the people as a totality of people who live in a certain area and are politically organized

    At school, know-it-alls were quickly frowned upon. Nowadays, adult know-it-alls have numerous tools to defame others, be it calling them Nazis or accusing them of hate speech.

  • Peacekeepers go to war

    Le point de vue des sensibilités allemandes.

    Les forces de maintien de la paix partent en guerre. Comment se fait-il qu’à une époque où un endettement massif, et donc une nouvelle charge fiscale énorme pour chaque citoyen, (tout cela avant même la constitution d’un nouveau Bundestag et contrairement à toutes les promesses faites auparavant), soit devenu réalité ? Le désastre n’est-il pas encore complet ? Comme si tout le monde avait perdu la raison, Macron a annoncé aujourd’hui son intention de partir en guerre avec la Grande-Bretagne.

    Et en plus, les Verts veulent encourager l’aptitude à la guerre : Les Verts proposent un « service de la liberté » obligatoire. La demande est la suivante : six mois pour tous entre 18 et 67 ans : service militaire, protection de la population ou service social.

    Boris Postorius, du SPD, veut que tout homme atteignant l’âge de 18 ans soit obligé à l’avenir de remplir un questionnaire de sélection.

    Toutes les nouvelles expressions telles que « fonds spéciaux », « forces de paix d’associations nationales », au lieu de troupes de l’ONU, me rappellent les cris de joie des gens avant la Première Guerre mondiale. Je me demande qui attise ici les énormes peurs et qui en profite : c’est le vieux dicton : cui bono.

    Tanks instead of cars

    in english language:

    Insights from the perspective of German sensitivities.

    How can it be that at a time when a massive increase in debt, i.e. a significant new tax burden for every citizen, (all this happened before the new constitution of a new Bundestag and contrary to all previous promises), how could it be that this is now a reality? Is the disaster not yet complete? As if everyone had lost their minds, Macron also announced today that he would go to war with the UK.

    And on top of that, the Greens want to promote war readiness: Greens propose mandatory “freedom service”. The demand is: six months for everyone between 18 and 67: military service, civil protection or community service.

    Boris Postorius from the SPD wants every man who turns 18 to be obliged to fill out a draft questionnaire in future.

    All the new phrases like “special assets”, “peacekeeping forces of national associations”, instead of UN troops, remind me of the hurrah cries of the people before the First World War. I ask myself who is stirring up the enormous fears here and who is profiting from them: the old saying: cui bono.

    Macron und Starmer

    in deutsch:

    Einsichten aus der Sicht deutscher Befindlichkeiten.

    Wie kann es sein, das in einer Zeit, in der eine massive Schuldenaufnahme, also gleich bedeutend einer demzufolge nun enormen neuen anziehenden Steuerlast für jeden Bürger, (all dies geschehen noch vor Neukonstitutionierung eines neuen Bundestages und entgegen aller vorherigen Versprechungen), wie konnte es sein, das dies nun Realität ist? Ist das Desaster noch nicht komplett? Als wenn alle den Verstand verloren haben, hat heute Macron noch zusätzlich verkündet, gemeinsam mit Großbritannien in den Krieg zu ziehen.

    Und on Top wollen die Grünen die Kriegstüchtigkeit fördern: Grüne schlagen verpflichtenden »Freiheitsdienst« vor. Die Forderung lautet: sechs Monate für alle zwischen 18 und 67: Wehrdienst, Bevölkerungsschutz oder Gesellschaftsdienst.

    Boris Postorius von der SPD will, das jeder Mann, der 18 wird, in Zukunft verpflichtet werden soll, einen Musterungsfragebogen auszufüllen.

    Mich erinnern all die neuen Wothülsen wie “Sondervermögen”, “Friedenstruppen nationaler Verbände”, statt UNO Truppen, an das Hurra Geschrei der Menschen vor dem 1. Weltkrieg. Ich frage mich, wer schürt hier die enormen Ängste und wer profitiert davon: also der alte Spruch: cui bono.