Good morning, dear reader,
the weeks of Coronaa-Lockdowns except that the collective mood at the end of the year has rarely been as clouded as this year. Between wars, crises and fear of loss, many people lose confidence. Lack of courage robs them of their creative power; The declining trust in politicians’ ability to solve problems reinforces the impression that we are sliding inexorably towards decline.
In this pessimistic mood, every report of failure becomes bad news. Political disputes, falling corporate sales and increased bankruptcies provide a bleak score for the chorus of doomsday prophets. The German sound in December 2023 is a requiem. Funeral disease becomes a widespread disease.
There are also fundamental concerns: If you listen to those in charge who guide many people – company managers, master craftsmen, teachers – you hear a recurring complaint: Young people in particular, but also many others, are no longer willing to perform properly or even go the extra mile required. Whether at work or at school: Too many people let themselves down, rested on the achievements of their predecessors and parents, complained about every stress or simply took sick leave. With such a state of loud-mouthed sissies, Germany will soon no longer have a chance against the drilled masterminds from China, South Korea and the other tiger states. Our prosperity is therefore at acute risk.
Anyone who looks beyond the day and leafs through history books will find this complaint familiar. The ancient Greeks already complained about the useless youth; Over the next two thousand years, many wealth-saturated societies have been doomed by their own inertia. With the exception of Croesus states such as Switzerland, Luxembourg and Norway, there is probably no other country in the world where people have been able to live as well as in Germany in recent decades. This country not only benefited from the favorable geographical location in the heart of the European Union, the military protection of the Americans and the Chinese sales market, but also from the traditional willingness to perform: the post-war generation rebuilt the country; in the 1960s and 1970s, a Bergmann, an industrial skilled worker or a vocational school teacher on both sides of the inner-German border as guarantors of the upswing – and enjoyed corresponding social recognition.
Reunification not only gave Germany territorial unity, but also an unprecedented increase in political importance. In the growing EU, nothing soon worked without the federal government, be it trade rules or the fight against crises – from the banks to national debt, from refugees to the corona pandemic. Berlin got involved, solved problems, spent billions and often set the tone.
But despite all the commitment to overcoming European crises, domestic political reforms fell by the wayside. The chaos of the traffic light government is largely rooted in the many construction sites that Merkel’s long-term chancellorship left her with. Even in normal times, dealing with the infrastructure damage, the lack of digitalization, the paralyzing administrative thicket, the run-down Bundeswehr, the lack of affordable housing and, especially, the transformation into climate-neutral production, construction and transport would be a mammoth task. In times of threat from an aggressive Kremlin dictator, the challenge is difficult to overcome – at least not at the pace at which impatient citizens demand it.
Perhaps it is less the over-saturation of wealth and more this reason that tempts many people to retreat into their private shell and prefer to give only 80 percent instead of 100: the overwhelming demands of constant crisis experiences, the suspicion that the world of tomorrow will be much more fragile than the present one. Anyone who, as a young person, sees how little willingness those today’s political and economic leaders have to take responsibility for the future can actually fall into agony. Anyone starting their careers who has to watch the older people at the controls of power accept that the pension system is imploding in the foreseeable future, that global warming, species extinction and overpopulation are turning life into a Russian roulette in many places on the planet will think twice whether it is still worth giving full effort. The older ones may complain so much about the young people’s laziness.
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But blaming each other doesn’t help anyone, neither the individual nor society as a whole. Germany needs a new beginning, and it cannot come from politics alone. Every citizen must bear responsibility for today and tomorrow, whether they run a company or live on welfare. A democracy thrives on participation, and a successful industrial and service economy even more so.
That’s why it’s so important to listen to those who perform at their best every day. We give space to your voices on t-online: Together with colleagues from the editorial team, our copy editor Heike Vowinkel has produced a series of articles in which we let very different people have their say: from police officers to bakers, from high school graduates to pensioners, From single mothers to millionaires, they tell us what achievement means in their eyes. We also speak to company bosses, an association president and a historian – and of course you, dear readers, can also contribute your opinion. In this way, we want to answer the question of what is really meant by performance today and what importance it should have.
As I pulled the Bible from the bookshelf in preparation for Christmas Eve, my eyes fell on a verse in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. “Everyone examines his own actions. Then he will only be able to boast in view of himself, but not in comparison with others,” it says there. How wonderful it is when a book that is thousands of years old can still show us the way today.
Now I wish you a Merry Christmas and a spirited start to the New Year. And I would like to thank you very much for the many nice letters. Daybreak is paused until January 7th. We will be back for you on Monday, January 8th.
