Each of us is surrounded by a social bubble in which we like to lounge, because it gives us a sense of certainty, of self-confidence and of an intellectually and morally puffed-up stance, for we think that if we understand the thoughts of the people in our social bubble, we understand the world.
Not only is this approach thoroughly a matter of intellectual laziness, indeed a mistake, but above all it is cowardice, which leads only to our knowing less and less about the world. For 2017, as never in recent years, nothing will be more important for intellectual development than turning our attention away from the mainstream of thought towards the most distant peaks and lowlands of the lands of all the marginal, “the fringe” currents of thought. For it is always at the edge that truth is born, the truth that gradually, always amid loud protests, replaces the Zeitgeist of the age.
Liberal dreams evaporate quickly as soon as the higher mathematics and statistics of the newest scientific fields studying the human being come down from the peaks and show us that everything we believed in, yes, I too, was a dishonest game whose rules were mixed in the cauldron of fear by those who wanted to live in the safety of untruth rather than in dangerous truth. What used to be progressive is regressive today; what was forgotten is the avant-garde of our time.
Untruth destroys the world, however noble it may be.
So let us look for the truth and be brave, for the power of truth can bring us to our knees. But if we then get back on our feet, what else can overcome us?
I wish you lots of luck. Into the new year. On behalf of us all.
Shantih shantih shantih