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1. Otfried Engel says:

   February 3, 2024 at 6:23 am

   Ladies and Gentlemen,

   I have a short comment to the discussion after 1:58:25.

   The Question was about the european elites:
   Are they idiots?
   Is there a demonic plan etc.?

   Alex Krainer answered with very plausible explanations
   and suggestions.

   I have an other addition to his explanations,
   which seems to me very plausible, too.

   It is described by four lines from Friedrich Schillers
   drama: “Wallenstein II: Die Piccolomini”,
   5th act, 1st appearance.
   He writes in a dialogue between the two officers
   Octavio Piccolomini and his son Max.
   Octavio Piccolomini to his son:

   “In steter Notwehr gegen arge List
   Bleibt auch das redliche Gemüt nicht wahr –
   Das eben ist der Fluch der bösen Tat,
   Daß sie, fortzeugend, immer Böses muß gebären.”

   My english ist too poor in order to translate
   these verses into english accurately. Certainly
   you have better translators. (maybe David Gosselin)

   Schiller says: Even if you are a brave and smart man
   with best intentions, you may face an unseen trap
   in form of a very, very small white lie.
   But this lie may demand the next white lie,
   which is only slightly larger …
   And so on. You sink deeper and deeper and you enter
   into a vicious circle from which you can’t escape.

   To end in this trouble you need not to be a bad boy or
   an idiot either, but you only solve a problem well-meaning
   making a very small and largely underestimated mistake.

   (For further reading: This idea is expanded in Dostoyevskys novel
   “Crime and Punishment”.)

   Schiller wants us to learn: Even a white lie is a lie.
   It may bring the smartest man into trouble.
   It is the climax in a play trilogy (“Wallenstein”), about the
   most terrible war ever since (at this time) and its origin in the
   human soul.

   For my opinion, as an example the tragedy of the
   last Afghanistan war can be explained by only these four lines …

   I am always amazed, how the classics explain our crazy
   world very well. We are full on ourselves, that we are modern,
   well educated and enlighted people … We are not.

   I am looking for a kind of literature canon in order to
   teach or reflections to understand our world and to keep
   the peoples in peace and in conciliation only by education.
   (Antigone, King Lear, Fiesko, Michael Kohlhaas,
   War and Peace a.s.o.)

   I am very glad, to find contributions and workshops in your site
   with those intentions and I will continue my visits with pleasure.
   Thank you very much.

   Best regards

   Otfried Engel

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