No way back — but onwards

“I find myself longing for the pre-Covid era and, above all, unwilling to accept that this world is a thing of the past; but there is no way back — the only way is forward”

Guest post by Maike Gosch, originally published in NachDenkSeiten, an independent German political news and commentary website.

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I recently heard an activist say the following in an Instagram video: “We will never get our pre-Covid society back”. That sentence has stayed with me ever since, because it made me realise that I do in fact — somewhere in my heart — still harbour an unspoken hope that there is a “way back”; that we can undo, can erase from the world, the harm (inflicted on people) and the deterioration (to democratic culture) that have occurred in the Covid years and in the years since. But there is no way back. Or, as the beautiful title of a 1940 novel by Thomas Wolfe put it: You Can’t Go Home Again. But how to deal with this situation with resilience and steadfastness?

First, to clarify: this is a different question from that of a possible political and legal reckoning with the Covid era, or of apologies and social reconciliation. We are still waiting for both, even if we may no longer be hoping for them.

First and foremost, it’s about coming to terms with what has been lost. And there I find myself longing for the pre-Covid era and, above all, unwilling to accept that this world is a thing of the past; that we cannot return to it, but now find ourselves in a completely different reality. I believe that this, psychologically speaking, is known as an adjustment disorder.

And I’m experiencing this not only in relation to the negative developments during and since the Covid era — in terms of the social climate, division, the shrinking freedom of expression, the lack of respect for fundamental rights and other aspects — but also in relation to many other issues. I find myself unwilling to accept what the European Union has become, some of the decisions made by the Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal Court of Justice in Germany, what our leading politicians say and decide, what has become of once-beloved German media outlets such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung or DIE ZEIT, what has become of my image of Germany, of my idea (perhaps always mistaken) that we as a nation had learnt from our recent past.

It is hard to let go of these images, these memories. Perhaps it is down to age; perhaps to a sluggishness of the soul that is not made for the massively accelerated changes and developments of our modern world. Intellectually, all this is just about manageable (albeit with compromises). Emotionally, it sometimes seems almost impossible to cope with.

Of course, there is also something good in holding on to these memories of times, principles and rules, so that they can serve as a template and, by comparison, reveal just how much things have changed for the worse. Many younger people do not have such points of comparison at their disposal, and so they are all the more easily led astray. But this focus on the past and what has been lost — on how things “used to be” — does have something of a battle against windmills about it. It is nostalgia, a refusal to accept reality, and this often paralyses and wears one down.

On NachDenkSeiten, the independent German political news and commentary website that I work for, we write a great deal about topics, facts and arguments. But today I’d like to write about how we deal emotionally with the many changes and the massive deterioration in our political culture that we have witnessed in recent years.

My colleagues and I have lately received numerous letters from readers who write, in essence: “I really appreciate your journalism and your work, but sometimes I just can’t bring myself to read it all any more”. We, as editors and authors, sometimes feel the same way. It is depressing to document developments that seem to be heading in only one direction: everything is getting worse and worse. One is exhausted by the constant agitation, the constant annoyance, the constant outrage. And that is why nostalgia is so powerful, along with the desire for everything to simply go back to the way it used to be.

But acceptance comes before improvement. We won’t be able to go back; the only way is forward. But where do we find the strength to let go and carry on despite everything?

We must refuse to become as bitter as the times in which we live. For the political struggle takes place not only externally — through demonstrations, petitions, letters to the editor and articles — but also internally. If we become inwardly exhausted and give up, we have already lost.

A first and important step is to radically filter the news flow when we realise that the reports are driving us into a state of powerlessness and despondency. Then it is time for mental self-protection, for breaks, for nature, joy and beautiful things — for everything that restores our strength.

Another method of self-protection can be to depersonalise the “enemy”. In other words, not to hate the people who, from our point of view, are currently doing “evil” things, but rather to oppose what they are doing, the energy that takes hold of them at that moment, the propaganda to which they seem to succumb, the weakness to which they yield. If we start to hate the people on the “other side”, we have already lost the battle, because we are sinking to the same level as those we wish to fight. The way out of this is always empathy.

And we must focus our attention on the positive. After all, so much good is happening despite everything. The current times lay bare a great deal of human weakness and malice, but they also show us people who display incredible strength, resilience and integrity, who make great professional and personal sacrifices to stand up against injustice and war crimes, to rebel against their governments. Admiration for these people and support for them — even if it’s just a few words of encouragement and appreciation — can be valuable for them and for us.

One can also choose to focus on one’s private life from time to time — for a while — on one’s circle of friends, family and one’s own (hopefully pleasant) immediate surroundings. This is naturally difficult for someone who is politically engaged, but in these times it is nonetheless an effective survival strategy. Here in Germany, we find ourselves in the peculiar situation where, for politically critical and observant people, the suffering in the world and the very negative political developments in our own country coexist alongside a world that remains very secure and, in many ways, beautiful on a small scale — such as at the level of our own neighbourhoods, local authorities, villages and towns.

We live in an age in which the West’s global dominance is steadily waning, yet in its struggle against decline, all its most negative aspects are washed up to the surface and intensified once again (colonialism, exploitation, totalitarianism, wars, injustice, destruction, hypocrisy). And we are experiencing all of this from within the heart of the empire itself. And although many of us disagree with our governments and elites, we feel powerless and complicit, and are, of course, increasingly restricted and subjected to repression in our criticism and our expressions of dissent. This is a situation in which it is difficult to maintain one’s bearings. Looking out of the West’s echo chambers towards perspectives and analyses from the Global South and the BRICS states, and from resistance movements in the West can be a great help in resolving the recurring cognitive dissonance.

Another important decision is who we choose to direct our energy towards. For attention is energy. And whatever we focus our attention on gains energy and significance as a result. We live in a time when many familiar institutions are crumbling and delegitimising themselves, and elites are exposing their weakness and corruption. Amidst this destruction and self-destruction of familiar power structures, we can focus our energy more strongly on what is to come — on what we wish to strengthen and rebuild. This is uplifting, because we are engaging with things that are good in our eyes, and this strengthens the ideas, people and structures that we want to be part of a more positive future.

This is how we build resilience and steadfastness: by accepting the present without losing heart or giving up; by not allowing ourselves to become cynical — nor to lose ourselves in hatred. Instead, by showing compassion — towards ourselves and our opponents. And by preserving our softness in these hard times, allowing ourselves to mourn what has been lost, and then focussing our energy on continuing on our path amidst all the tottering and collapsing structures.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope

Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)