Gestaute Wut
('Pent-up anger')
Germany between
democracy preservation
and subversive fantasies
Neuhardenberg Speech
with Stephan Grünewald
The agglomeration of international and national crises has led to a new self-reference and a retreat into the private shell. However, harking back to the solid, conventional Biedermeier times of the mid-19th-century and a lack of confidence in the future are leading to pent-up energy and no impetus. The symptoms of this snarl-up are growing unrest, discontent, anger, escapism and displacement activities. The population is increasingly split into two camps. One camp desperately tries to maintain a feel-good normality and to retain the achievements of democracy. The other camp believes that the country's downfall is already in progress and demands radical countermeasures. How can reconciliation and a productive culture of fair debate be successfully achieved in the current situation? How can the population's pent-up energy and impetus be channelled in a sensible way?
The FAZ newspaper called Stephan Grünewald 'the nation's psychologist'. Every year, the Rheingold Institute, of which he is a founder member, conducts more than 5,000 in-depth interviews on current market, media and society topics. Grünewald addresses the phenomenon of new masculinity, 'trad wives' and other trends that are currently increasing as a reaction to a zeitgeist that is perceived as 'menacing'. After Stephan Grünewald's lecture, Theo Koll will talk to the speaker as well as the French journalist Pascale Hugues and the author Thea Dorn about communication ruptures in an anxious society.
