ALICE HASTERS | »Antiopfer - Warum wir Verletzlichkeit verachten« | HAMBURG

In the organizer's words:

Against the new contempt for vulnerability

In talk shows, in parliamentary debates, at the dinner table - people talk about "victims" everywhere. But increasingly, this does not mean people who have been wronged. Rather, it refers to those who disrupt harmony, are considered effeminate, pull others down or want to put themselves above them.

"Victim" - this has long since become an accusation. If people didn't complain so much, they say, we wouldn't have so many problems. What happens in our society when sensitivity is seen as elitist, while the "right of the strongest" is seen as egalitarian and authentic?

In her new book, Alice Hasters describes a cultural change that has been intensified by the media, which is not coincidentally accompanied by an upswing in authoritarianism and fascism. But these systems also need "victims": supposedly fragile, vulnerable figures who need to be protected in order to justify the politics of harshness - women and children, "European culture" or "prosperity".

With intellectual restlessness and unflinching clarity, Hasters names the devastating consequences of this policy and contrasts them with the political power of solidarity.

Alice Hasters was born in Cologne in 1989. She lives and works as an author and journalist in Berlin. Among other things, she has worked for the Tagesschau news program and presented on Deutschlandfunk Nova and RBB. She talks about feminism and pop culture with Maxi Häcke on the podcast Feuer & Brot. Her first book, Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, aber wissen sollten (What white people don't want to hear about racism but should know), reached number 5 on the 2020 annual non-fiction bestseller list in paperback. In the same year, she was voted cultural journalist of the year. Her most recent book was Identity Crisis.

Photo credits: Joanna C. Schroeder