How do we want to argue with one another?

We are living through times of upheaval. The good thing is: many people want to help shape them. To do so, in an open society we should talk to one another, and also argue with one another. An analysis by linguist Roland Kaehlbrandt.

Open society is based on the assumption that, in the competition of opinions, the more suitable concept will prevail because it promises the wiser solution. In political disputes, however, unlike in science, it is not always a matter of true and false, but rather of right and wrong, as Erhard Eppler, an experienced politician with a commitment to linguistic critique, once summed it up. Of course, disputes of opinion can and should also strive to demonstrate the verifiability of their theses, but what is politically practical and feasible remains the benchmark for the proposals put forward. Even in our science-based society, additional aspects come into play in the political sphere: interests, social milieus, political allegiances.

The foundation of public debate is the precious good of freedom of expression, which is protected and upheld by the constitution. The legislature trusts that, by and large, it will be handled reasonably. Legal boundaries are set for offenses that cross the line, such as insult, incitement to hatred, or incitement to commit criminal acts. The initially controversial first ruling by the Berlin Regional Court in the Künast case, however, showed how far the legal protection of freedom of expression can occasionally be interpreted. In everyday life in an open society, however, we ourselves are ultimately called upon to negotiate the spectrum of what can be said in dialogue among free people, because not everything can be legally relevant. In the end, the political speech community itself must set the framework within which it responds to one another in the concert of voices.

Empathetic language?

In this context, it is illuminating to listen to two examples of voices. One example is Robert Habeck’s book “Who We Could Be. Why Our Democracy Needs Open and Diverse Language” . The other example is the Rezo video “Destruction of the CDU”. First, Habeck’s book: Habeck, like Erhard Eppler, an experienced politician and philologist, reflects on the major issue of political language culture. He diagnoses worrying shifts in linguistic boundaries and reminds us that this is not merely about sound and smoke, but that language, or the use of language, defines us: “How we speak determines who we are.”

Words, especially political or politically charged terms, also create reality and often one-sidedness. Habeck recommends “a language that also allows alternatives.” Certainly, he wants things to be called by their proper names (also from his perspective), for example “climate crisis” instead of “climate change.” But he also argues that we should accept that democratic life consists of balancing interests and creating consensus. It goes without saying that, at the opposite pole to open—that is, unfinished—language, Habeck castigates terms that stigmatize and thereby “normalize violence, numb empathy, create emotional coldness.” In the end, Habeck is opposing political notions of contradiction-free homogeneity: instead, he wants “to let the other exist as it is and as it becomes, not to force it into a form, a myth, an identity—that is the difference from levelling, which turns people into objects (…)”.

Instead, Habeck calls for a “language and culture of recognition” of others. So the goal is not unity in the sense of similarity, but the creation of common ground out of irreducible diversity. Linguistically, this objective is reflected in the ideal of empathetic language use, of political correctness. A lofty claim! But Habeck also knows this: everything is politically charged, and so he asks with a touch of perplexity: “So how do we go on speaking?” And thus the task of the search is: “to find a language that is fundamentally open, that makes conversation possible, that translates, that invites, that is open to the new and the different.” A utopia, especially since Habeck himself admits that the ongoing struggle over terms continues to divide society and that, because of general acceleration, it is becoming increasingly difficult for many people to express their worldview—one of the causes of the “angry citizenry” that lacks recognition of its concerns. Yet in this language of recognition, searching, and openness, Habeck sees the “key (…) for contemporary political practice.” Acknowledging counterarguments and contradictions and being able to admit one’s own doubts—this is the idea of “understanding speech.”

The Rezo video

But how can that work amid the harshness of political confrontation? And must there not also be harshness? Must opposing positions not also be named clearly? Here another example shows us a new style of linguistic-media confrontation: the Rezo video “Destruction of the CDU.” Tens of millions of clicks right from the start testify to the fact that a new voice has indeed gained a great deal of public attention here.  A young YouTuber succeeded in setting off a political firework display that left his political opponent practically speechless. The 55-minute video was published one week before the 2019 European elections.

Its structure? Classical: an exordium announcing the topics (social justice, education, climate, military), then the systematic working through of the argumentation with a concluding conclusion. In between, however, there is little of the usual: a philippic, delivered in staccato, with short cuts; in the background a rather private interior design with keyboards and acoustic guitars; musical interjections as accompaniment, sometimes harmonious, sometimes dramatic; constantly displayed information on evidence and sources, similar to a visual bachelor’s thesis. Quite different, however, from a bachelor’s thesis or a classic political speech: the language. It breaks out of the usual mold of political speech. 

Statements, criticism, and verbal attacks are intensified by emotional commentary. A popular device is the intensifying particle fucking in the sense of particularly, but with the youth-language stylistic addition of vulgarity and norm-breaking: fucking boring, fucking lots of evidence, not a single fucking one. Fucking is also used as an adjective: fucking Bundestag, fucking foreign minister. From the realm of animal life comes the youth-language intensifying prefix sau-: tons of associations, tons of people. Expressiveness in speech also draws on scatological language, here predominantly of German provenance: Things won’t go completely to shit; we’re fucking this up badly right now; not a minor screw-up, young people think your politics are shit. Youth-language exclamations of head-shaking and outrage rhythmically punctuate the speech in many places: Fuck, that’s intense!, but ey!; really; crazy; funny, really weird; nice (ironically); bullshit; incompetent shit. Politicians who act are idiots, dudes or even mommy.

Colloquial expressions also serve as commentary: nope, we’re not up for that; sounds pretty awesome though; that was quite a downer, supplemented by a drastic otherwise we’re practically fucked. New German questions such as huh? or ironic exclamations like yippee! or whoops! expand the expressive tableau, which is completed by invectives in the guise of rhetorical questions: Do they have the balls? Has she lost her mind?

All of this sounds quite coarse and vulgar, but it does not fail in its purpose: to convey itself as the real and honest voice of youthful outrage. In the combination of concrete political criticism, numerous references to sources, staccato speaking speed, and youth language with its characteristic disrespectfulness, a novel force emerges that seems justified not least because of the subject matter: precisely as unvarnished, as an authentic voice that shakes up the conventional language of politics. What does Rezo call it? Real talk.

Like Fridays for Future, Rezo appeals in many places to the findings and evidence of science. These, according to the fundamental topic of the speech, are being ignored for reasons of incompetence or irresponsibility on the part of CDU/CSU politicians—though the SPD is not spared either. This, he says, has to be stated before the video ends in hippie-like fashion with: “Peace, I’m out.” What is original is the combination of scientific sources with linguistic vulgarity. For the language of the sciences stands in diametrical opposition to vulgar-expressive language use. There are differing reactions to the validity of the sources in the Rezo video. In its response paper the CDU does acknowledge the correctness of a range of figures, data, and sources, but also disputes the presentation and interpretation of a number of others. So far, so disputed.

What seems central to me, however, is the question of the linguistic form of the Rezo video. Its force is nourished by youth language. That lends it authenticity and thereby the credibility of genuine outrage. The question, however, is: can authenticity and emotion replace complex political negotiation? Are they even superior to it?  Is not the illusion created here that “real talk” alone can get to the real problems and their immediate solution? And is that not an illusion of short-circuiting? By way of explanation: “Short-circuit illusions,” as Christian Bermes writes in a lucid article, “exist when immediacy is suggested (..) even though only mediation leads to the goal.” Political language, says Bermes, loses the self-evidence of mediation “because directness, authenticity, or immediacy are elevated to a principle.”

Christian-humanist values as a bridge?

Is there a bridge between Habeck’s utopia of an open, questioning political language and Rezo’s philippic? Habeck’s ideas of an empathetic, mediating language culture seem generations away. But should the coarseness of the Rezo video be subsumed under the concept of general brutalization? “Our youth is undoubtedly intolerable, linguistically inconsiderate, and precocious,” Hesiod already complained—and that was 700 years before Christ. Should we lament that young voices are once again intervening in the central questions of the age? “A generation speaks out” is the title of the 2019 Shell Youth Study.  Perhaps, as Habeck recommends, older people first need to listen very carefully—much as they did in 1968.

For lo and behold: at the end of his video, and after drawing a distinction between “the young” and “the pensioners,” Rezo ultimately does appeal—underscored by beautiful music—to older people: to parents and grandparents in their responsibility for grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and even in the sense of “Christian and humanist values.”

Might there not, after all, be the faint outline of a bridge here?