NORMAL - Eine Besichtigung des Wahns - Ein Abend gegen Irrationalismus und instrumentelle Vernunft. Mit Thomas Ebermann, Thorsten Mense und Flo Thamer

In the organizer's words:

The pandemic, climate change, wars, tax returns, traffic jams, delayed trains, growth so meagre that even the Greeks are laughing at us - and then a chancellor who has once again failed to speak out. Crisis after crisis, and no end in sight.
None of this would matter if only all Germans heeded the advice of the best-selling advice literature: "If we could manage to influence our brains in such a way that we would be satisfied with what is right now - whatever it is - then we would have no more problems." Not everyone adheres to such well-meaning advice; they go crazy in a different way to the ignorant, compulsively happy. They flee into other esotericism, conspiracy beliefs or fascism altogether. They are the end-time warriors in animal costumes, following QAnon all the way to the Capitol. They are the tin foil hat wearers demonstrating against chemtrails and vaccine fascism. They are the Reichsbürger of the Kingdom of Germany, the fighters against the "Great Reset" and the "Great Exchange". The Incels are also there, with their hatred of women, which can escalate into murder and is celebrated in manifestos. Politicized collective madness - always on the lookout for world-dominating masterminds who are guilty and are usually called Soros.
The others cling to common sense. They defend the expert against the charlatan, reason against delusion. No forecast by the economic experts can be so wrong as to damage their trust. They are diligent, consider nations and the property system to be as natural as the strong must defeat the weak. They are knowledgeable in all practical matters of life, know the prices and benefits of consumer goods and do not allow themselves to be ripped off when shopping. They are moderate, i.e. democrats, and compare the candidates and their arguments on talk shows. They are living proof of how stupid knowledge can make you, but their civic interest teaches them that in addition to values, compromises and practical constraints also play a role, i.e. that collateral damage, which is not nice but unavoidable, has to be accepted: The starving, the homeless, the freezing to death every winter, the drowned in the Mediterranean. Even if they read horoscopes, they still don't think it's entirely proven that the stars determine our fate - and they only read those that advise people to do what society demands of them anyway. They are not averse to irrational mumbo-jumbo, but only indulge in that which does not interfere with their professional functioning, but promotes it. The Dalai Lama seems like a compensatory sport.
The apolitical delusion is accepted.
Their reason is instrumental, reason in the service of unreason. It's all about the how, not the why. Everything is a means to get through and get ahead personally, to keep themselves and the business running. Effectiveness replaces any thought of a humane organization of the world. Even in thinking, only what is useful is allowed. Only those who are productive are worth living. Normal people are those who are healthy and able to work. Sports enthusiasts value "healthy toughness", and even the mind has to be healthy. The number of those who cause costs - whether as social parasites, the chronically ill, the disabled (by society) or the "insane" - must be kept manageable. If triage is discussed, they do not dread it, but realize that a ventilator should be taken away from an old person if a younger person - who is even the father of three children - needs it. After all, human material needs to be improved. The path from self-optimization to eugenics is shorter than a treadmill in the gym: instrumentally rational and murderously delusional at the same time. Quite normal.
The praise of normal people is booming. Whether the AfD or Sahra Wagenknecht, whether the Freedom Party in Austria or the Social Democratic Chancellor here, they are all doing politics with which the Bild newspaper advertises: the simple, unpretentious and selfless, hard-working person who has been betrayed by intellectuals, lifestylers, leftists and elites is celebrated. In the praise of the normal, in the expressions of respect and understanding, there is also contempt; they always have the cynical purpose of perpetuating the socially shitty position of the subaltern and their narrow-mindedness - in the name of the highest esteem, of course.
Like the normal person, normality is also highly prized. For a long time now, it has been generally accepted that the Germany that committed Auschwitz is therefore not something negatively special, but can claim normality for itself, if not even destined to take on responsibility in the world again. For some, this is not enough. They demand "Germany, but normal", a
normality that settled in the good old days and has been lost through population exchange, gender mania, early sexualization, vilification of the tried-and-tested diesel engine, renunciation of nuclear power, etc. and therefore needs to be revived. But the normality that is promised in every crisis as something that can be quickly restored is also a bleak hope. It makes sacred what is right because it is right - without critically questioning the state of the world and the suffering of its victims. The "voice of reason", the repressive parental advice "Be reasonable!", which later finds its way into adults, teaches that everything utopian, everything wanting to break free, not wanting to resign oneself to the status quo, has no chance and is doomed to painful failure. Anyone who refuses to submit to practical constraints is already considered crazy, and even more so anyone who dares to imagine a different social order. Reason, including that of the historical Enlightenment, which promised to liberate humanity from its immaturity, is itself a factor of new bondage. For it makes it impossible to recognize that the world is not set up rationally, that the normal state of affairs, "that it goes on like this", is a catastrophe.
On stage and screen we see - appropriately polemical, satirical and analytical, questioning and criticizing - the completely normal delusion and the delusion of normality, the pathogenic in the normal, and the irrational, which is not the opposite of the normal, but arises from it. It becomes as funny as Adorno's steel baths are funny.

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https://www.tixforgigs.com/Event/70830