Xenophobe's Guide to the Germans -- Ch.3, Beliefs and Values
It's been a while since I posted one of these! :)
Past posts:
Ch.1, Nationalism and Identity
Ch.2, Character
Beliefs and Values
The Germans prize Bildung, meaning education and culture. Showing off what you’ve read and what you know is not gauche. It is a way of participating in the nation’s cultural life and taking pride in it.
Modesty in regard to education will not be interpreted by them as hiding your light under a bushel, but as an admission of ignorance. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Germans have unequalled enthusiasm for their cultural heritage. For many English people, culture is what the advantaged do in their spare time, and the idea of reading Shakespeare or Samuel Johnson for fun is rather remote. For the average German this isn’t so.
Not to have read the whole of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason would surprise them (how could you allow yourself to miss out?), and they will have read Goethe and Schiller and Shakespeare with passionate, if uncritical, interest.
Being Green
The Germans worry about the environment. Green economics and green politics are much more developed than in England, where the Green Party has only slightly more credibility than Screaming Lord Sutch.
This particular preoccupation is founded on real concern. Industrial pollution is a major problem, much of it coming downstream in the Rhine, a river so full of chemicals that someone once managed to develop a photograph in water taken from it.
The state of many of western Germany’s rivers is something of an own goal. Before reunification they exported most of their toxic wastes to East Germany, where a great deal was dumped unceremoniously into the nearest river, only to flow back into West Germany.
But what made the Germans really sit up and take notice was Waldsterben, the dying of the forests. The discovery that the economic miracle was killing their beloved forests gave the Germans a jolt they have yet to recover from.
Forests, even if seldom visited, exert a powerful influence on the Germans. They are regarded as the natural habitat which most shaped the German soul. It was from the forests that they emerged to rampage across Europe and lay waste to Rome 2000 years ago and it is to the forest that they return (in spirit at least) when modern life overwhelms them with its horrors and demands.
Even today, around 30% of the land is covered with woodlands, and entering them gives the Germans a thrill of danger missing from their ordered urban life.
The German forests are primordial and awesome. Their crisis is a crisis for the German spirit.
The Germans are keen recyclers. There is no shortage of opportunity to sift their green bottles from their brown, their plastic from paper. At supermarkets, people can discard the packaging and leave it behind altogether. Manufacturers of white goods (fridges, ovens) nowadays make efforts to see that the parts and materials they use can be recovered and recycled.
Green concern and the commercialism that surrounds it leads to some absurd situations. The scrupulously separated waste is quite often thrown together again when it reaches the dump, and none of it recycled. And the demand for recycled paper is so great that the mills have to pulp perfectly good new paper to make it.
The Germans don’t mind these imperfections in the system. Recycling is a beautiful idea, and that’s what really counts.
Class
Germany does not have a class system any more. The old distinctive class differences have been levelled out since World War II. Nowadays nearly everybody belongs to the same class, which by English stratification could be roughly described as upper-lower-middle-middle class.
A small but significant number of German aristocrats does exist but, like their English counterparts they keep very much to themselves, hiding their wealth, land and influence with an un-German-like lack of show, many even sending their children to English boarding schools. (…does anyone else see plotbunnies on the horizon? XDDD)
Not every ‘von’ denotes aristocracy; that of the so-called ‘vegetable nobles’ only means ‘from’, as in ‘from the village of’.
German aristocratic titles correspond to the British ones in name only. Unlike the British tradition of leaving the title just to the eldest son, aristocrats in Germany pass on the parental title to all children. As Germany used to consist of of [sic] about 300 independent states, each with its own upper class, noble names have always been plentiful. Intermarriages with commoners can spread the name across all class barriers, especially since after a divorce the original commoner is entitled not only to keep the title, but to pass it on to future spouses and children as well, who will also…etc. This accounts for the astonishing abundance of titles in Germany today.
It is all part of a crafty scheme devised by the State to bring about such an inflation of nobility (at least in name) that eventually titles will become common and therefore meaningless.
Wealth and Success
On the whole, the Germans are not ostentatious in displaying their wealth. On the other hand, that massive gold jewellery makes a nice display and is ever so reassuring to have around. They appreciate quality, and are happy to pay for it. They are well-dressed and well-shod, drive solid cars, live in double-glazed and centrally heated homes equipped with lots of reliable gadgetry.
In Germany money tends to act as a social leveller. Living standards are higher than in Britain, and the consensus is that anyone who has earned it and can afford it deserves the best. There is little of the snobbery that insists people should ‘know their place’. If your prosperity is the result of your labours or wit, few will dispute your right to enjoy it.
Religion
The Lutheran Church has had the greatest influence in shaping German attitudes. Luther’s translation of the Bible shaped the modern German language, and it was part of his teaching that one’s spiritual duties included obedience to worldly authority. In keeping with the Protestant work ethic, there is no very deep conflict between material well-being and one’s prospects in the afterlife.
In Germany Protestants are in a slight majority (since reunification, which brought many East German Protestants into the fold). Broadly, the north is Protestant while the south is Catholic. The Catholic area coincidentally corresponds with the area under Roman occupation 2000 years ago.
Relations between the Churches are very good, with the spirit of ecumenicalism smiling benignly on all manifestations of religious life.
Churches are extremely well funded, the vast majority of Germans gladly paying their church tax, even if most of them seldom turn up at services. This accounts for the presence of so many Mercedes in clerical garages, but also funds enormous amounts of welfare work.
At home, hospitals, kindergartens, old peoples’ homes and schools are supported by church money. Abroad, money is channelled into famine relief and Third World Aid. The Germans have the best record in Europe on this score. Their preference is for steady, organized generosity rather than compassion binges of the Band Aid sort.
[I can’t find my volume 3! ;_; If anyone could scan me a picture of Klaus in church from vol.3 to put here, I would be greatly indebted…]
book by Stefan Zeidenitz and Ben Barkow. Ravette Publishing: Horsham, 1997.
Past posts:
Ch.1, Nationalism and Identity
Ch.2, Character
Beliefs and Values
The Germans prize Bildung, meaning education and culture. Showing off what you’ve read and what you know is not gauche. It is a way of participating in the nation’s cultural life and taking pride in it.
Modesty in regard to education will not be interpreted by them as hiding your light under a bushel, but as an admission of ignorance. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Germans have unequalled enthusiasm for their cultural heritage. For many English people, culture is what the advantaged do in their spare time, and the idea of reading Shakespeare or Samuel Johnson for fun is rather remote. For the average German this isn’t so.
Not to have read the whole of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason would surprise them (how could you allow yourself to miss out?), and they will have read Goethe and Schiller and Shakespeare with passionate, if uncritical, interest.
Being Green
The Germans worry about the environment. Green economics and green politics are much more developed than in England, where the Green Party has only slightly more credibility than Screaming Lord Sutch.
This particular preoccupation is founded on real concern. Industrial pollution is a major problem, much of it coming downstream in the Rhine, a river so full of chemicals that someone once managed to develop a photograph in water taken from it.
The state of many of western Germany’s rivers is something of an own goal. Before reunification they exported most of their toxic wastes to East Germany, where a great deal was dumped unceremoniously into the nearest river, only to flow back into West Germany.
But what made the Germans really sit up and take notice was Waldsterben, the dying of the forests. The discovery that the economic miracle was killing their beloved forests gave the Germans a jolt they have yet to recover from.
Forests, even if seldom visited, exert a powerful influence on the Germans. They are regarded as the natural habitat which most shaped the German soul. It was from the forests that they emerged to rampage across Europe and lay waste to Rome 2000 years ago and it is to the forest that they return (in spirit at least) when modern life overwhelms them with its horrors and demands.
Even today, around 30% of the land is covered with woodlands, and entering them gives the Germans a thrill of danger missing from their ordered urban life.
The German forests are primordial and awesome. Their crisis is a crisis for the German spirit.
The Germans are keen recyclers. There is no shortage of opportunity to sift their green bottles from their brown, their plastic from paper. At supermarkets, people can discard the packaging and leave it behind altogether. Manufacturers of white goods (fridges, ovens) nowadays make efforts to see that the parts and materials they use can be recovered and recycled.
Green concern and the commercialism that surrounds it leads to some absurd situations. The scrupulously separated waste is quite often thrown together again when it reaches the dump, and none of it recycled. And the demand for recycled paper is so great that the mills have to pulp perfectly good new paper to make it.
The Germans don’t mind these imperfections in the system. Recycling is a beautiful idea, and that’s what really counts.
Class
Germany does not have a class system any more. The old distinctive class differences have been levelled out since World War II. Nowadays nearly everybody belongs to the same class, which by English stratification could be roughly described as upper-lower-middle-middle class.
A small but significant number of German aristocrats does exist but, like their English counterparts they keep very much to themselves, hiding their wealth, land and influence with an un-German-like lack of show, many even sending their children to English boarding schools. (…does anyone else see plotbunnies on the horizon? XDDD)
Not every ‘von’ denotes aristocracy; that of the so-called ‘vegetable nobles’ only means ‘from’, as in ‘from the village of’.
German aristocratic titles correspond to the British ones in name only. Unlike the British tradition of leaving the title just to the eldest son, aristocrats in Germany pass on the parental title to all children. As Germany used to consist of of [sic] about 300 independent states, each with its own upper class, noble names have always been plentiful. Intermarriages with commoners can spread the name across all class barriers, especially since after a divorce the original commoner is entitled not only to keep the title, but to pass it on to future spouses and children as well, who will also…etc. This accounts for the astonishing abundance of titles in Germany today.
It is all part of a crafty scheme devised by the State to bring about such an inflation of nobility (at least in name) that eventually titles will become common and therefore meaningless.
Wealth and Success
On the whole, the Germans are not ostentatious in displaying their wealth. On the other hand, that massive gold jewellery makes a nice display and is ever so reassuring to have around. They appreciate quality, and are happy to pay for it. They are well-dressed and well-shod, drive solid cars, live in double-glazed and centrally heated homes equipped with lots of reliable gadgetry.
In Germany money tends to act as a social leveller. Living standards are higher than in Britain, and the consensus is that anyone who has earned it and can afford it deserves the best. There is little of the snobbery that insists people should ‘know their place’. If your prosperity is the result of your labours or wit, few will dispute your right to enjoy it.
Religion
The Lutheran Church has had the greatest influence in shaping German attitudes. Luther’s translation of the Bible shaped the modern German language, and it was part of his teaching that one’s spiritual duties included obedience to worldly authority. In keeping with the Protestant work ethic, there is no very deep conflict between material well-being and one’s prospects in the afterlife.
In Germany Protestants are in a slight majority (since reunification, which brought many East German Protestants into the fold). Broadly, the north is Protestant while the south is Catholic. The Catholic area coincidentally corresponds with the area under Roman occupation 2000 years ago.
Relations between the Churches are very good, with the spirit of ecumenicalism smiling benignly on all manifestations of religious life.
Churches are extremely well funded, the vast majority of Germans gladly paying their church tax, even if most of them seldom turn up at services. This accounts for the presence of so many Mercedes in clerical garages, but also funds enormous amounts of welfare work.
At home, hospitals, kindergartens, old peoples’ homes and schools are supported by church money. Abroad, money is channelled into famine relief and Third World Aid. The Germans have the best record in Europe on this score. Their preference is for steady, organized generosity rather than compassion binges of the Band Aid sort.
[I can’t find my volume 3! ;_; If anyone could scan me a picture of Klaus in church from vol.3 to put here, I would be greatly indebted…]
book by Stefan Zeidenitz and Ben Barkow. Ravette Publishing: Horsham, 1997.