The consequential multiplication of zero

My own emergence from the school-induced immaturity led (too late, but still better than much later) to the realization: „The Enlightenment was a mistake“.

My argument is fundamentally practical: „Yes, it sounds good to have the courage to use one’s reason instead of listening to tradition. However, there is a practical error in this: If a person is a fool, then their reason is a poor advisor.“

I once read that no one is easier to deceive than the one who thinks they are the clever one and is just deceiving you. (The TV series Better Call Saul even presents delicious scenes about this: with a coin, for expensive tequila, or of course with a „Rolex“.)

The same applies to the so-called Enlightenment: While the Enlightenment does contribute to a certain competence and self-determination in the discussed matters in biology class, the „emergence“ of man from „immaturity“ is a mass psychological sleight of hand.

Not more than what is due to this

Tradition and common sense strengthen the people (and thus each individual within it) to stand face to face against their powers. Who fears nothing but God and regularly converses with Him does not fear the prince (at least not more than the prince deserves to be feared).

The Enlightenment tore the power of the people apart, and then plundered the ruins to reinforce the castle walls of established power.

„Be yourself,“ cry the snake oil salesmen, and: „Be an individual!“

What they really mean, what they really refer to, is: „Be weak, be alone.“

„Break the chains of tradition, flee from the prison of the collective,“ they cry, and: „Go out from self-imposed immaturity!“

It means: „Ignore the wisdom that generations before you accumulated, act dumb and deaf towards your ancestors. Jump down from the shoulders of giants and become again an infant, a dwarf, who only differs from the animal by painstakingly learned spelling and the annual tax return.“

Otherwise Schubert, Stravinsky or Saint-Saëns

The last modern consequence of the Enlightenment is a phenomenon that was called the Generation Mitmachpreis a few years ago, then Generation Z.

At the beginning of the year – it still sits as a horror in my bones – I (accidentally?) attended a „concert“ of two „musicians“ whom I associate with the Generation Mitmachpreis.

In the local chamber music hall, where Schubert, Stravinsky, or Saint-Saëns are usually interpreted most virtuously by well-trained musicians, two young gentlemen presented themselves, who apparently did not master any instrument, which, however, did not hinder them from considering themselves as new Schönbergs.

One young gentleman continuously played a single chord, sometimes fanning it out into individual notes while he randomly turned the knobs of his electric piano. The other murmured into the microphone. Based on a few years of my own piano lessons, I can say that the gentleman at the electric piano had not enjoyed such lessons. Similarly with my time in the choir and in singing lessons – and the singing attempts of the other young gentleman. Ross in Friends is a master musician in comparison.

The two naturally adorned their childish tinkling and murmuring with a lot of reverb and other electronic effects. „More is more,“ they probably thought. However, had they attended math class while skipping instrument and singing lessons, they would have known that multiplying zero by any number still results in zero.

Multiplied by ten thousand euros

My anger towards the two gentlemen, I must be honest, was possibly not only based on the fact that they tortured us with childish noise and – aside from the cringe factor – ruined the hoped-for evening entertainment. The technical equipment of these gentlemen was remarkable and enviable. The tinkling gentleman tinkled on a Nord Wave 2 piano, which is among the finest devices of its kind (currently €2,485 at Thomann). The murmuring gentleman controlled the reverb effects on an Apple MacBook Pro worth an estimated used car. But zero multiplied by ten thousand euros remains zero.

I do not know how these two gentlemen came to the honor of torturing us that evening. They probably knew someone who knew someone…

The more interesting question is: Where did the two get the self-confidence to perform their childish nonsense in front of a paying audience?

A price for their presence

At the beginning of the event, there was a three-digit number of people present. Each of us had paid an amount in euros that would not result in zero when multiplied. But even more frustrating: We all had taken the evening off to enjoy culture – what is usually played in the chamber music hall.

Where did these gentlemen get the self-confidence to waste an evening of so many people’s lives?

„Nothing is true just because you said it“, I wrote in 2018. It is my manifesto against a narcissistic theory of truth.

Where did the two gentlemen get the certainty that they were capable of conducting a concert evening? Because they felt it! It is „true“ that these gentlemen are listenable musicians because they feel that they are. (And it became possible because they probably had extraordinarily favorable connections).

I thought to myself that evening: This is a concert of the Generation Mitmachpreis. A concert of young adults who were awarded a prize just for their presence as children. To whom prosperity without effort was also granted honor without effort.

Little explosive culmination

These two gentlemen appeared to me as representatives of an intellectually neglected generation that was taught that effort and competition are „totally Nazi“ and that one only needs to feel like a musician to be one.

Yes, I interpret that insignificant „concert“ as a paradigmatic preliminary endpoint and as a little explosive culmination of a cultural total devastation that began with the so-called Enlightenment.

„Free yourself from the shackles of musical craftsmanship,“ the gentlemen probably called to each other, „ignore tradition, do not let harmonies and composition theories imprison you! Be real and be completely yourself. Just believe in yourself, then it is art!“

When the two „musicians“ took a break for drinks, as they surely thought they deserved – but long before the official break – we fled from the hall, along with dozens of other visitors.

It is not over yet

The staff at the door was quite unhappy about the crowd of visitors pushing outside to avoid the impending continuation.

They explained to us that it was not over yet, and we replied that this was exactly what we feared.

When we used to want to call someone a fool, we joked: „You must have fallen off the changing table too often!“ – Today we should say: „You have probably been told too often that you should just be yourself.“

The Enlightenment is supposed to be the emergence from self-imposed immaturity? I tell you, I see in the result of such „enlightenment“ today almost daily the self- and school-imposed inability. It is this self-aware inability that I want to emerge from.

It is not always as easy as leaving a concert. In the chamber music hall, I had neither built a house nor set up my office – how much I would sometimes like to move in there on good evenings.