Dreary, dismal, drab, forlorn. In a problem of Wespennest entitled ‘No future’ (a homage to the Intercourse Pistols, as the duvet makes clear), Jens Balzer writes on ‘Softies, punks and smoked sausage: The pop-cultural marketization of apocalyptic feelings in the Eighties.’
With Nineteen Eighties West Germany apparently threatened by nuclear apocalypse, the ‘softie’ band Die Bots offered the anthem for the large anti-war demonstrations of the last decade, with their track ‘Das Weiche Wasser’ (‘Soft Water): ‘Europe had two wars, the third will be the last … Just don’t hand over: delicate water breaks the stone.’ Nicole received the 1982 Eurovision Tune Contest with ‘Ein bisschen Frieden’ (‘A little peace’) and Purple Schulz sung about ‘longing’ – his a number of fears and tears ‘unquestionably’ avant-garde, in response to Balzer.
Punks usually agreed with environmentalists and peaceniks. However the Intercourse Pistols’ slogan ‘No Future’ permitted ‘free rein to their energies … especially the negative ones’ – or, as Blixa Bargeld of the West Berlin band, Einstürzende Neubauten, sung: ‘Say no, no, no, negative no, double no, three times no, just no’.
Punks had extra enjoyable than the equally nihilistic Final Era of in the present day, Balzer concludes, and in contrast to local weather activists, made music and artwork. However they had been ‘neither clearly “left” or “progressive”, as people romanticizing this youth movement suggest’.
Activist generations
Analyses of generational variations concerning ‘No future’ come from theatre director Elfe Brandenburger (b. 1958) and her daughters, Esther (b. 1998) and Merle (b. 1996). Their interview is entitled ‘Macht heil, was Ihr kaputt macht’ (‘Repair what you break’, a play on the 1968 slogan: Macht Kaputt, was Euch Kaputt macht – ‘Break what breaks you’).
Elfe Brandenburger protested NATO and atomic vitality, and remembers the primary organic-food and macrobiotic shops (as a result of all grocery store meals was supposedly be poisoned): ‘We really felt like our world was coming to an end … “No Future” wasn’t only a slogan.’ For Elfe’s youth, they aimed to ‘live fast and die young’ whereas additionally believing that indigenous peoples had the solutions; now, she says, considerations are international. Daughter Esther says she hadn’t identified the local weather motion was so outdated, whereas Merle is dissatisfied to study that ‘indigenous knowledge’ isn’t any new promise.
Elfe remembers destroying issues simply to attract consideration and gluing yuppies to home windows. At this time’s activists glue themselves to the streets. Her daughters volunteer for homeless girls, searching for to steadiness not destroy the system, and really feel empowered by ‘reformative reproductive actions’. They’re fearful and anxious, delicate to the opposite facet – together with the police. ‘Binary thinking, viewing things as black and white is over,’ Elfe says. ‘Nothing’s that straightforward any longer.’ She and Merle agree that conflict, local weather catastrophes and meals shortages are the worst situations. Adaptation is the long run.
Downhill any more?
Tipping factors are sometimes evoked – with respect to the local weather, migration and looming authoritarianism – and each technology thinks they’re there. However younger folks, too, are at a tipping level, writes psychoanalyst Wolf-Detlef Rost, noting younger sufferers’ excessive fears. Doomsday visions may make us act in time, however would that unleash a state of emergency and enhance social polarization?
In response to psychoanalyst Delarum Habibi-Kohlen, simply 25 per cent of the inhabitants can introduce basic modifications and create a social tipping level. When alienated folks bear in mind to behave by ‘separating the garbage, riding bicycles or not flying’, they will reconnect. ‘Without [such actions], there’s no long-term change. As a result of those that don’t act individually lose the endurance wanted to exert political strain.’
When eternity begins
In ‘No future, forever and a day’, Stephan Steiner writes on how German composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) deserted his Baroque model to create ‘The Day of Judgement’ oratorio, that includes an atheist who mocks pious souls awaiting the Apocalypse in ‘probably the most gripping, moving and unforgettable aria of the whole piece. From then on, Christian inwardness is knee-deep in the Enlightenment… [T]he Day of Judgement is denied and dismissed.’
Steiner discusses the Christian ‘final future’ when time stands nonetheless and eternity begins. Early Church thinkers conceived of hell as extinction slightly than torment, or noticed common reconciliation as the ultimate state. ‘At one time, religious people could have conceived of a future perfect a last time. Then: nothing. Eternity. In any case, no future.’
Assessment by Nancy du Plessis
