Delta instead of Lambda

Whoever finds themselves on a Friday evening in a rustic beer hall and seeks to replace cosy cat-themed coffee gossip with splendid pub debates about politics will, in the course of conversations, repeatedly become aware of one thing: whilst the Basic Law is recognised by the majority of the people, some do not really take a liking to it when it concretely enters their lives. Armin Mohler, New Right intellectual and luminary of a conservative-revolutionary traditionalist company, once criticised that it must have been drafted at three o'clock in the morning. When a person is torn from sleep at three o'clock in the morning, they do not feel any "psychosomatic bonds" in the first moment of wakefulness – they are "isolated" and autonomous. But this autonomous 3-a.m. being postulated in the Basic Law does not actually exist: the existence of family ties, local patriotism, involvement in social, cultural and religious circles; all of this justifies rejecting the concept of the individual entirely – and consequently also the Basic Law. For the human being, whom Mohler conceives in inescapable group existences, would constantly want to distinguish themselves from others, which would make a multicultural society impossible – or lead it into chaos. So much for Mohler.

Individualism in the Basic Law, which does not distinguish between Muslim and Christian, is not exclusively a political foundational structure, but also political content. On some matters – take the Islam question – the far-reaching AfD discussion labyrinth can only grant one exit: The state people have no permanent subscription to being ninety per cent Christian; on the contrary: they have the right to – as Peter Sloterdijk would say – "moral self-destruction". And that is fundamentally a good thing. After all, it would amount to the abolition of the democratic-pluralist principle if a Mohler were to misuse his carefully constructed Playmobil image of humanity to abolish the most fundamental document of our coexistence. At some stammtisch, things are thus put up for disposal that are completely secured constitutionally and belong to the foundations of our society. The Basic Law is not merely a scribbled piece of paper, but a substitute for the sacred that determines the 'how' of our coexistence. It is thus not only a framework, but simultaneously determines content. Since the proclamation of the Basic Law, German politics has faced the task of aligning its constitutional reality with its constitutional text. Be it the woman-beating strong beer belly (nothing beats Faxe!) or religious minorities in our society: Our constitution (here religious freedom is of particular interest) and some of the few human rights conventions provide ample information about where the journey is ultimately meant to go: towards consistent gender equality and towards the regard of the individual regardless of their religion. The one-man barracks of the AfD Bernd H., which nowadays trivialises Hitler, may discern totalitarian tendencies in the Basic Law, for instance that it does not correspond to people's lived reality and thus imposes something unnatural upon them (what a Mohler groupie… Bernd's finger would probably have been the first to shoot up had that fellow still been distributing SS runes before his death). And yet, it remains clearly derivable: mosque construction? synagogue construction? temple construction? Check the constitution, Bernd! The Basic Law relates to its one-exit labyrinth as the sea relates to the streams of the river delta. On the one hand, all democratic parties work at different speeds towards the realisation of the Basic Law in lived reality; one may take some unfortunate shortcuts in doing so, another Horst in turn turns right, but then returns with a dummy in his big mouth to mummy. One thing is clear: the direction they take is the direction of the Basic Law. On the same side stands the delta: there may be countless branches, rivulets and path forks – all lines will ultimately flow into the greater whole. In general, it holds: whoever wants to jump into the delta cannot be a lambda. "There is only one red line and that is the liberal-democratic constitutional order," squawks would-be APO grandpa Alexander Gauland. There one styles oneself forthwith as a guardian of liberal democracy and forgets in the same breath that one has long since left the delta! One thing is certain: whoever does not wish to participate in discourse, but instead pursues their end as a consensus form; whoever does not speak clearly and well, but speaks Saxon and whoever wishes for the end of the game instead of seeking a standing place in the stadium, strives for the dissolution of the form and the framework. And thus also of the content worth preserving. By the way: Mr Gauleiter should not draw red lines, rather shit-brown ones. So what is to be done before the water of the delta freezes over again? Shoulder your rucksack and pack the dusty spiked helmet! And then in with you! Somewhere there will be a sweeping current!