CORONA COURT DECISION - elaboration about law and paradoxes.

In one of Germany's well established news magazines I read the following headline:

"Legally permissible opinion piece "Journalist fired after Corona article, now she wins in court

Her employer accused Eigenrauch of "misrepresenting the right of public assembly, playing down violations of the law and failing to take proper account of the facts". With her article she had "in no way taken into account the concerns of the overwhelming majority of the population", but had "pandered to a vocal minority".

Source

Apart from the fact that legislation and thus the law are never really clear, but always have a margin for interpretation,

the formulation "to have disregarded the concerns of the many" is a paradoxical statement, isn't it?

It must be noted that the employer seems to have a firm knowledge of what exactly the factual situation was, how the right of assembly was to be represented and how "minorities" were to behave "properly".

Namely, not "loudly", but ... yes, what? Quietly? Inconspicuous?
To "pander" to such a minority, in the eyes of the employer something frowned upon, to act as their servant, something offensive. It is not clear why it is a worse service to serve the few rather than the many. Which brings us to the paradox.

First of all, without a minority, there can be no majority.

It is impossible to speak of the many if one cannot also speak of the few.

The employer demands nothing less than that his editor, like everyone else (the majority he sees), join it. Thus, if no one else in the media house takes a dissenting stance, he has a united staff, does he not? Not only has he excluded possible minorities, he has also created (wanted to create) an environment of perfect unity. But where there is only "unanimity", there is the dictate to "have only this one stance". It can't be otherwise.

Not only is it not possible to subordinate to "one single view", it is pointless because it is not possible.

But where the "concerns of the overwhelming majority of the population" have already been taken into account, since the overwhelming majority could already be perceived in this way by the individual, one must ask

why it is important that this "overwhelming majority" must become even more over whelming?

If a majority already exists, why does it need to gather more members, because it is already "more" than the other "few"? Why, even more irritating, does it need "all" voices?

If the majority concerns are also communicated as more important, more moral and more legally secure,

why does this strong majority actually need a free space of opinion at all? What for would it need free speech?

Which, when you followed the thing all along was always held in high esteem.

There is no need for this freedom if there is already unanimity, but where there is only unanimity, there is also no freedom, because both cancel each other out. So this freedom is understood as the freedom to represent only that which is already represented, that is, to be able to express this position freely, without any consequences, but not that (other one). The freedom to express a supporting attitude on a demonstration shall then not be "free", but the attitude to criticise the gatherings?

Because obviously everything is already clear and that is why the one in the minority ought not to serve oneself within this minority, because there is already a principal, if one follows this logic.

Where you separate the minority from a majority, i.e. expel them from the space, dismiss them, quit them, send them packing, then you get what?

One thousand minus one = nine hundred and ninety-nine.

Are these 999 now still a majority? No, they are a unit.

Because it got rid of the minority. So it has become something else. The many individuals have now become a "whole", where the individual, because the opinion of all is the same, i.e. all have one opinion, no longer shows any division, so the many individuals have become something else. But what?

There is nothing we can equate to that,

because in fact something like a unit of about a thousand people with one and the same attitude seems an impossibility. So we can only use fiction and the beautiful example of the Borg to illustrate what such a fine unity would look like.

^{Picure Source: By Marcin Wichary - originally posted to Flickr as [1], CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7254146}

That an editorial office or a media house functions like a Borg cube, we know, is not so, is it?

That there are not 999 unanimous opinions, we know that too.

If we were as simple-minded as the Borg, then living together would truly be without secrets and paradoxes.

In truth, the editor-in-chief did not and does not know what the majority actually wants and thinks. They, we, you and I simply don't know.

That is the crux of the matter. One would like to know and does all kinds of surveys,

but getting the "truth" out of someone who by nature has many characters, roles, sensibilities and situational perceptions and moods is as difficult as trying to count the stars in the sky with the naked eye.

You get bogged down.

There is no safe way to get the super structured secrets out of human beings. Even if they wanted, they cannot reveal them. Why? Ask yourself.
Though there are unsafe ways and short ways and nice ones and draconian ones to get "an opinion".

A short way would be to ask you "Are you for or against this measure?" And you answer quickly, despite the fact that you just answered and decided on an un-decidable question.

But then one is supposed to justify it in depth psychological or philosophical or legal or some other way. Which takes time, deep thought, long elaborations and so on.

One should also ask oneself why a new law has been introduced so quickly, which could then be "violated to the disadvantage of a majority". But the idea that this majority came into being precisely because of the introduced law as such does not occur to those who accepted this law without any ifs and buts.

In order to make clear that you are against such law you then have no chance other than violating it!

The imposition of a law on the basis of a declared "state of emergency of national importance" has been questioned by the demonstrators and opponents of the measure, therefore these people claimed the fundamental right to defend themselves against state measures.

Otherwise, there would be no need for this fundamental right, since individuals are quite capable of defending themselves against other individuals in a normal state, but not against a strong state that makes something into law and is not concerned that there has been no opposition to it.

An acute emergency situation, however, does not require a law;

the declaration of a state of emergency is sufficient in and of itself.

With the law, however, an attempt has been made to turn the state of emergency into normality, and nowhere has this state been declared to be over again. So a whole nation is supposed to agree to something like this? Actually, the whole world?

Not only should everyone agree on it for the time of the state of emergency, which makes sense if there is such a state and one does not only want to assume or forecast the necessity, but one actually and truly feels and experiences it on a daily basis. But declaring an emergency is also unnecessary, because such an emergency, being of great violence and urgency (the nature of a disaster), does not need any announcement and thus this idea would also be off the table. Disasters occur whether or not they are called "emergencies of great magnitude". Everyone would see it.

However, still following the logic of obedience,

no forms of disagreement or contradiction should become apparent, and certainly not in a "vocal" form. Preferably only "quietly" or "inconspicuously", by which one can basically say "not at all" right away.

For the vociferous form of the alleged majority, concerned about incitement of the people, could not be loud enough on its side, suppressing the voices of the minority even as they sprouted, denouncing them, mocking them and loudly (!) opposing them with murder and ruthlessness.

It's easy to become loud if the law is backing you up, right?

How easy it is to be loud, if there is no such thing in your back, you can ask yourself and get an immediate answer, don't you?

Nevertheless, these two fronts have both practised loudness, because where one comes loudly and by state-ordered force, the other is challenged to respond in just such decibels.

Deliberately exaggerated notion

Let's do a mental experiment.

Let's just assume for a moment that things would have been different. The alleged pandemic would have been accepted by everyone, all measures would have been agreed to, nowhere would contradictions and violations of individual needs have been taken as a reason to the extent that the disadvantages of the measures would have been considered harmful or even dangerous.

Then, basically, everyone would have completely agreed that the measures would have been beyond doubt.

Everything that could have arisen during this time in terms of distress, despair, anger would simply not have arisen because simply no one would have felt injustice, distress or despair, would they?

All people, really without exception, would have been quite peaceful about isolating the elderly, about not accompanying the dying when they died, about letting all children stay at home and no longer come into regular physical contact with other children, about simply celebrating Christmas and Easter without any real coming together, with not knowing when this will be over.

No one would have felt pain from separation and mistrust and distance caused by not having experienced such things as causally painful, everyone would have sighed peacefully and settled into the new rules.

Wouldn't such an attitude of peaceful and friendly acceptance of such an unfamiliar and all-encompassing set of rules require people who can basically accept anything, including death?

Under this scenario, wouldn't it have made no difference at all to have a catastrophe?

Wouldn't all people then, because they were willing to detach, to agree to distance, to simply give up cherished traditions and activities in their social environment for an entire yearly cycle, also have to be willing to accept their own death and that of their beloved fellow human beings with ease?

Would it then have made no difference at all whether someone dies because of a "deadly virus" or because they die because "operations are cancelled"?

Everyone would nod understandingly and find both one and the other acceptable. Not only that, people would accept any kind of death that was not related to a virus or its antidote. People would not fear death as such.

"Measures" would then not be necessary because no one would contradict them. Everyone would agree to everything, no matter what.

---

For me, this exaggeration makes something clear:

that there is no such thing as long-lasting unity.

Everything that unites separates again after a while. No matter what it is. The sexual act, being born, the kiss, the Christmas dinner, the project, the production, relations, stones and star constellations. Everything separates after the completion of an act.

In fact, all never have and never will adhere to measures.

Who wished to see their loved ones did so, who wished to meet a forbidden number did so. Even those who so strictly advocated the measures outwardly violated them inwardly. No one followed the rules draconically except those who did, which, when you think about it, will really have been very few.

Since these rules were basically unenforceable, not followable, many also disregarded them.

So I'll end with my current favourite quote:

In the history of Christianity, around 400 AD, there was a big argument between Augustine and a Celt called Pelagius. Pelagius was a British optimist who believed in muddling through, pitching in and pulling one's weight. He held that one could fulfil God's commandments through one's own will and effort and argued that God would not have given us commandments if we could not obey them.

Augustine, however, was of the opinion that Pelagius had thoroughly misunderstood this. If he had read Paul correctly, especially his letter to the Romans, he would have been able to conclude that God did not give us the commandments so that we might obey them, but rather to show us that we cannot. To paraphrase Paul: God gave us commandments that we cannot keep in order to lay sin upon us. In other words, the commandments were a move, an upaya. It was not really expected that a person could keep a commandment like the one in the Ten Commandments: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." No one can do that.

Source - translated into English from German.