Reason

Modern age is dancing dizzily around two Golden Calves called money and reaon. Money is the ability to control the fellow beings' behaviour, reason is the capability of regulating notions beyond mere abstraction of perception, thus establishing principles. It is this kind of reason the continuous specialization, divison of tasks and functional differentiation modern societies consist of. And this is quite a remarkable procedure, for the guiding principle of reason actually suggests indivisibility. Principles are either valid or not; but they are not partly valid. So how come that the indivisible principle of Reason has generated so many different social domains with their own prcedures? The answer to that question will not least determine if a consent-based society seems possible at all.
The concept of Reason is entirely based on a two-sided form which defines a scope of decision. This two-sidedness is represented by the values true and false. Accordingly, a way of thinking will count as reasonable if its decision prefers the true value and consciously dismisses the false one. This does not only go for theory, but for practice, too; rational action is a right way of behaving which satisfies the truth criterion. So what is right will be what is true.
So much for the principle. The drab monotony of everyday life looks quite different. Whichever way we can look at it, trying to take every aspect into account, making a truth-oriented decision - a second person will show up, contradict, sometimes even vehemently and declares the thought to be unrasonable. This calls for a third person who is eager to point out his view which as expected says his previous speakers are wrong. And number four is already preparing himself. The truism that too many cooks spoil the broth is not restricted to the culinary field. Take, for instance, the reform of social security systems: Party X will suggest A, party Y will prefer B, C will be agreed upon. Party Z will brand technical shortcomings which inhibt C from turning into D. After all, party Z will side with trade association a and will prove the entire debate will only result in E. That is why it will suggest to discuss the issue rather principally with reference to aspect 1. Now social associations will seize the opportunity to deny aspect 1 energetically. Well, that is the way time passes.
Someone who takes none of these sides has two options; either one chooses the simple way and disputes the reason in each case. Or one suspects that reason as the higher principle of order can only generate several partial rationalities which are each on their own justified, but do not fit together in total. To put it differently: One has a feeling (sic!) that rationality alone is no gurantee for reason. So what might be a microeconomic blessing might be a macroeconomic jeopardy; or what might be necessary in terms of social peace might weaken the economy which in turn can also threaten the social peace. So reason is a reasonable construction, for everybody maintains to be endowed with it, until he notices he is not the only one claiming it. And now the real inquiry begins. So reason lies exclusively in the proceeding selection between the true/false alternative, but not in the decision itself. Thus, reason keeps things going but finds no end. The end can only be declared for the sake of governmental reason, allowing to lock everybody in who dares doubt if this is a reasonable procedure.
In short, modern societies do not suffer from a lack of reason; quitze the contrary, in forming different pressure groups with specific standards of reason they have succeeded in handling the problem of Reason rationally. But - it is far from being intelligent, for being intelligent means in contrast to being rational establishing a perspective within which an option between true and false can be formulated in the first place. But by membership of a political party, an association or whatever a given perspective has already been accepted. So dealing with the true-false distinction will be something ready-made, expectable, ritual. Everybody has heard about resonable arguments in favour of or against the reform of Public Health Service.
This is incidentally another reason for public annoyance. We sense the controversy is highly rational. And just for that reason we intelligently mistrust all the rational competitors.

Promise

That language use is sometimes misleading is no discovery the language analysis has made; we could experience it every day if we only wondered where we have arrived because we relied on words - combined words and single ones, too. The latter often collide with other ones if we think it over.
Public language use is replete with that semantic veil; usually they serve to turn a controversial or clearly negative matter into a positive one, to charge it positive, so to speak. As upvaluing its function is its term 'euphemism'. But since this is widely known, the critical achievement is not too sensational here. These euphemistic words are at best faded, 'dead', that is detected euphemisms. Everybody knows, after all, making redundant means firing, impression management means deception, élite means a dilettante with an effective directory. Whatever can be verbally expressed is dubious.
But there are less clear, more subtle instances. An especially precarious example is the expression of a verbal action politicians apply in an election campaign: the campaign promise. On condition we practice charity, we do not make do with tritely translating it into the term 'lie' but have a closer analytical look.
An election promise denotes (when we start from the intellectual bottom) making a promise in a campaign. Let us ask ourselves if it is really about a promise simply defined in an attributive way by the utterance conditions - or if the so-called promise is predicatively characterized to such an extent that we even cannot talk about a promise at all. That is, if case 1 is correct, an election promise will be a promise; if case 2 is right, then it will not. In that case the utterance conditions inhibit the action from coming into effect.
To clarify the issue we must have a clear conception of what a promise is. Or, speaking in a critical way: What do we mean by using the word 'promise'? Intuition alone implies the following four examples do not comprise four promises:
I'm going to spank you, I can promise.
Do not worry, the tempest won't damage this house, I promise.
But we will go to the cinema tonight, I promise.
But I promise you to quit smoking.
As we can see, simply labelling a speech action a promise will not suffice to actually make it such. Rather there are different utterance types; they might have things in common, but these aspects are not sufficient to make them identical. Wittgenstein called this phenomenon the family resemblances of language games. For instance, both a threat and a promise refer content-wise to the utterer's future action which might affect the interlocutor. In that respect they resemble each other - but the threat announces a negative, the promise a positive action. Consequently even childern can very reliably tell the one thing from the other. Furthermore, as for a future beneficial state, a promise is similar to (but not identical with!) a positive forecast or a prophecy - but the latter's contents are beyond the utterer's influence. It is impossible to promise one day we will exploit the environment on the Mars instead on the Earth - even if the NASA is covering up that crucial difference out of financial motives. As difficult it is to tell a forecast from a prophecy, as easy by comparison it is to distinguish them from the promise. The difference criterion lies whether an utterer's action is at stake. Moreover we can separate promise from commitment. Both refer to the utterer's future action, but in the latter case the action is irrelevant to the interlocutor. If my neighbour informs me he is going to take care of his health, this will not really interest me; but if he is in debt with me, I can quite understand his utterance to be a promise.
Thus steeled we can now turn to the election promise. What is it about? A candidate's announcing a future action for the voters' sake? If so, we can be correct in talking about a promise. However, a broken promise is a very serious breach of trust. This is because confidence as a 'risky advance' (Luhmann) can be withdrawn very easily. One single case of misuse is often sufficient to pigeonhole the promise breaker one and for all as a liar and avoid further contact. So will be candidates liars if they do not keep their promise? The opposition which has lost the election due to the promise will always say they are; it is to scrutinize the emptiness of the victor's promise. This does not only apply to the present chancellor, as his predecessors can testify; take for instance the 1970's 'pension lie', the 1990's 'flourishing East German regions'. Still at least in Germany it happens quite rarely a chancellor will be immediately voted out of office for breach of trust and false promises.
This is because a promise does not only require the utterer's sincerity, but also his situational competence to put it into practice. Exactly here lies the politican's loophole; his utterance is meant to exert the utmost dramatic effect, so it has to be correspondingly comprising. And a comprising announcement again implies high complexity. It goes beyond a single person's intellectual capacity (and that kind of person need not be a candidate, even though it might help). The more complex the entanglement, the more irritable its sensitive machinery will be. The system of announcement walks into its own trap, so to speak. The trap is called 'tight causal coupling'. E.g. we can establish an overall network of arrangements, organize the purchase of food, spirits, sign on babysitters, professional entertainers, reservation of restaurant rooms, CD players, CDs and many more - but a puncture, a coughing child in the kindergarten, a polite superior's direction, an operating system error - these events can jeopardize, if not thwart the promise to arrange a party. Of course, great politics has set higher standards: faults of global economy, mentality problems force the candidate to redefine the given promise as a simple announcement. To put it differently: Campaigns lack a communication aspect which will be handed in later: the conditional IF.
Given that, it is hard to talk about a 'real' campaign promise. A serious candidate could only claim he will not achieve X but he will (want to?) try to do so. But nobody would like to say or hear that. In contrast, a family-resembling justification is to replace the notoriously vague X with a far more modest x'. Instead of - pardon: as full employment one Euro jobs.
But beside this interior condition there is an exterior, too which characterizes campaign promises: the immediate temporal, even causal connection between the announcement and the expected return. For every promise implies a favour which can under the appropriate conditions demand its pay off in an unconstrained way. It does not matter if one is aiming at it when promising a favour. The return demand will latently exist. And in the case of campaign promises the pay off is implied from the start: voting in favour of the utterer.
Which draws our attention to another, maybe the crucial aspect; the negotiation situation in which the campaign promise is made. It works along the quid pro quo principle. Without vote no promise. For that reason, the campaign promise is not a promise in the first place (which means it is not identical), but an argument in favour of voting for a candidate. But arguments belong to a class of speech actions wholly different from promises - the more or less sound statements.
All in all the term campaign promise refers not to the identity, but to the family resemblance utterances of that kind have with promises.

Power

In the last few years the public has been discussing the psychological effects of power; psychologically trained by TV we attest politicians a craving for it. They in turn seem to see no option but to initiate a semantic bargaining, trying to replace the word power by the word arrangement. Media tragedies with fallen politicians go out of one's way. The will for power seems to have entirely converted into the addiction to power. This might be largely due to the fact that lapses in fact and character are all too visible, but hardly lead to resignation. Thus it is deduced no politician, no leading industrialist, no head of union, no headmaster is ready to bear the consequences. For that reason power appears to have become a mere end in itself.
Above all, this is because power - after the interlude of civil public - has by now become a single term again by having banished its temporary equivalent repsonsibility far into the collective subconsciousness. The state of Absolutism has almost returned. Induced by the notion of God's mercy no public dicourse on the division of power had been possible. All that could be done - in case the ruler was particularly incompetent - was to send less pious prayers to heaven to get rid of that human kind of natural desaster - or to fill quite a surprising substance into the winetumbler.
With enlightenment prevailing power was no longer transcendentally justified, but immediately coupled with the ruler's behaviour. The bigger his power, the bigger his responsibility. So responsibility served as a kind of reservoir of unknown sanctions impending the failing ruler in case he misused his power. In other words: responsibility is an installed memento mori within the office.
This mnemonic aid, however, can only work if memory is remembered. But this is no more a matter of course. The influentials' amnesia is much too often publically supported. But even in case someone did draw a conclusion this will not necessarily mean the end of the power career. For they are so rare we are almost inclined to pay respect to a person who has testified his loss of respect by resigning. Such a person will probably be granted a certain period of time for self-knowledge and reformation until he will reappear on the list of potentially powerful people. It is only dubious how much time he will be granted. This is because the modern understanding of responsibility is ambiguous, for the present-day society sharply distinguishes between responsibility and guilt. And responsibility in its modern form cannot dispense with specialization and division of labour within increasingly complex administration units. The Minister can always affirm solemnly he did not know anything at all about the apalling affair, and what seems to be incompetent today will be tomorrow regarded a liberal way of leadership - when the successor comes under fire himself. After all - everybody will approve of liberal leadership. Therefore any resignment is accomanied by the defiant or melancholy protestation. This might not even be that false. We must not forget the social function of a leading position (along with its salary) is just creating personal address stations in that impersonal system, thus creating at least the impression of responsibility.
What makes modern power that problematic is it is no longer necessarily linked with influence. Their sources have been separated. In the past both power and influence were based on repect for certain personages. Pure unadulterated respect means attributing grandeur for the benefit of the respected person. We can here rely on Kant, whose definition of grandeur is still excellent. According to him, grandeur mingles two different moods, namely admiration and fear. Sublime persons therefore do not diffuse terror, because they are consiciously admired, that is the admirer is allowed to form a positive judgement about them. This is what makes their influence. So influence also implies direct perception. For that reason it is characterized by social groups on principle of manageable size. In case someone was influential enough, it was possible this good was officially, so to speak, made a vested right, formally attested – by status symbols, rituals, solemn ceremonies. And at that precise moment the influential had turned into a powerful person. So according to this classical view power directly results from influence. And for that reason both influence and power link admiration and fear in the form of respect. If I have to accept someone makes my decisions, he at least ought to be the approprate person. So the terms influence and responsibility correlate.
If only because the small group model cannot be applied anymore to the entire society, influence and power do not go together. Politicians are considered to be powerful, but the ordinary citizens mistrust them. The share of admiration of the respect for the powerful is decreasing – by now it has become so obvious that the German public is speaking about disaffection towards politicians, not politics. Influence (with reagrds to power) seems to be a mere back room event with snappy lobbyists pulling a fast one on the mob, securing a privileged access into the powerful’s ear (or an alternative orifice). For that reason the powerful do not seem to act for the common good’s, only for the partial interest’s sake.
Of course someone might raise the objection there have always been persons exerting influence on the powerful. Take for instance the feudal era with its court advisors, skillful schemers, Machiavellis, nimble flatterers portrayed in the German Baroque literature or in Lessings’s tragedies. But there remains an important difference, for nowadays the lobbyists do not even have to arouse the impression their future depends on the powerful’s success. It is not for nothing they are endowed with two feet they can put both into the goverment’s and the opposition’s doors.

Political Correctness

Although he does not intend to count as politically incorrect, the author has decided to reflect a little upon political corectness. Somehow he cannot avoid the impression it marks the difference between good intentions and bad practice. To begin with, PC indicates an intellectual respectively a historiographic crisis. The former applies to its home country, the USA, the latter to its typically German version.
The original motivation is not that erroneous. After all, as the history of mentality has taught concerned democrats, barbarity always starts from language use - especially if it is officially organized. Human beings apparently have less difficulty in planning the efficient extermination of rats and parasites than of their peers. And how getting gradually used to that kind of vocabulary turns out in terms of individual psychology can be learned from Klemperer's LTI. From that point of view it is not that far-fetched to call in a democratic self-control of language use in public.
But needless to say, there is a catch to it; it concerns the connection of morality and democracy. This is because control meant to avoid totalitarian traits of democracy necessarily appeals to ethical principles. And similarly necessarily these principles will stiffen to moral rigidity. And this involves it is not the language use itself, but the user who will become the object of moral estimation. And who wants to be that? Especially in a democratic system which allows even non-voters to practice Freedom of Speech and Opinion. The old problem: Who decides what is tolerable as party conventions are not held accordingly to the same rules as, say, 1936? Who dares call me a scoundrel for calling someone else a scoundrel?
Those liberal activists who fought for civil rights in the 1960s with their almost touching predilection for social politics have sowed what the subsequent generation has reaped with noticeably less intellectual capacity: being pedantic out of conviction. In a short time they off-handly found more and more social minorities, put them under ideological quarantaine and produced a catalogue of alternative terms which were meant to replace the common labels which had become suspicious to carry fascist or racist or chauvinist implications. Whoever called a black human being that way instead of Afro-American might have said just as easily negro or even nigger, for he was bound to be a member of the White Brotherhood of Imbecile Hood Bearers aka Ku-Klux-Klan. As especially this exmaple illustrates, PC is blessed with typically modern dynamics, rapidly overtaking itself by replacing constantly incriminated terms until the replacements are incriminated. In this respect it reminds us of the chaotic Exchange rate - albeit it is not enough avarice but the assiduous will to be good. The wrath at times self-complacently striving to eliminate what is incorrect, lets us speculate it is about compensation; just because mankind is unfair and will remain so, PC keeps so doggedly at the verbal form that it distracts from the ideal object to put fairness into force. And, as usual, the system will strike back. When we look at the other side, we cannot avoid the somewhat heretical impression women, aliens or diabled persons can be better oppressed than broads, wops or cripples. For in the first case the reasons seem to be purely factual. After all, referring to them in a political correct way somehow gives us a free ticket. And as unfairness necessarily continues to exist, PC can only increase its hectic language regulation.
It is just that kind of hectic, along with an astonishing naiveté, which provokes resistance. One need not be against the protected groups when using a recently politically incorrect term. To some people it is a reward in itself to watch the self attested correct ones foam. Therefore PC has had since the mid-1990s some negative implications - exactly at the time it was adapted in Germany. Small wonder, since the illhumoured way in which the incorrect ones nearly were told to wash their mouths did not chime at all with the ironized WWW generation of fun. And this is because fun implies juggling with the way lines are drawn. And this is particularly amusing when the lines are drawn especially rigidly - for instance when PC reaches all the way to the bottom of the barrel and tries to prohibit speakers from entering the negative side of the line, thus creating language taboos. As a consequence, the last few years boomed with more or less calculated albeit rarely intelligent taboo-breaking. Regardless of what to think of the heroic fighters against PC - they have managed to denigrate it. But they could not abolish it.
This is because the principle of paradox teaches us that what cannot be abolished can be at best constantly abolished. Opposition pairs are on an unmanageable, since inobservable level in an exchange relation of possibility which can only be put into an order if it is a concrete fact. This means what is politically correct is often what is politically incorrect and in turn it is a question of concrete, but in the end arbitrary decision which is which. To put it in a less complicated, but no less complex way: Today political incorrectness is politically correct. Woe be to anybody who is caught making semantic contortions to assist a potentially incriminated group. Then he or she has broken a taboo him- or herself which was created to break the taboo he or she has created before. This sanction is labelled a would-be good human. And as good (whatever that means - advantageous? profitable?) it might be to be a good human being, as bad it is to count as a wouldbe good human being. (For one can only count as something one could never call oneself.) Quite a similar thing is the case with incriminable groups' strategy to take possession of the pejorative label to alleviate its effects. The resulting white line of contempt simply will have to be refilled - and will be, as can be seen from the increasing alternative labels for homosexuality, since the term gay is not even sufficient anymore to banish one's own subconscious doubts to belong to that group, too. The principle of PC, in sum, remains intact - it is its verbal parametres which are subjected to fashion. And in order to avoid the necessity to realize that, they call themselves enlightenment and even believe that.

Patriotism

It might be characteristic for intact democracy polticians cannot simply command public opinion. The public selects its issues in accordance with its own, rational chaos principle. And usually it is not a great pity that urgently demanded debates on fundamental values bog down in hesitating editorials. But there are of course exceptions to that, too: A very long time (to be exact, more than two months ago) a certain political party called upon reflecting on patriotism. Quite a good idea which has never been seriously dealt with in Germany.
Owing to German history reflecting on national identity has been considered quite a long time to be inopportune. Thanks to impressive negative examples Germany was apparently afraid of resuming the search for living space in a reflex action. So why rouse sleeping dogs? But meanwhile several factors have caused us to face that issue: among others there is globalization, the EU extension, migration and last but not least the impression German culture is on the decay. So the question might not be that inappropriate anymore: What is the Germans' attitude towards their nation like? What to make of nation today? The answer to that question allows valuable conclusions who has been asked. Leaving those lacking interest aside, basically two categories remain, namley the nationalists and the patriots.
For a long time a left-wing progressive point of view has regarded patriotism and nationalism as synonyms. But assuming that language does not accidentally make two different words available to their speakers, then we should profit by taking different contents as a basis - regardless how thoughtlessly we might deal with these differences. And not only the Left, no, right-wing circles also have a deep mistrust in patriotism. It is not popular enough and sometimes even ready to criticize the nation - without jumping to the conslusion that national states are in the era of globalization fatally outmoded and Germans are obliged to deny they are Germans. The notion of patriotism is under fire from both sides; the one rejects it as the first step to revanchist nationalism, the other smells the rats of disguised traitors who lack any respect for God and Fatherland and sell out national interest by signing shameful dictates. As can be seen, patriots cannot please anybody. Which makes them very agreeable.
If we compare patriotism and nationalism, we can work out three different aspects:
Time
Nationalism declaredly refers to the national past. or that reason it attaches an almost mythical importance to commemoration. The more it goes back in time, the more its idea of nation is anchored - at times so firmly we cannot talk respectably about the German nation at all. Cases in point: Charles the Great or, following that line, even Hermann the Cherusker. Thus, the date of the Battle of Nations, the founding of the Kaiserreich 1871 or, depending on temper, maybe January 30, 1933 traditionally serve as prominent commemorative occasions. This implies nation is conceived as something perfect which must not be changed, that is jeopardied. This is the conservative trait of any nationalist attitude, which does not mean in turn any kind of convervatism is nationalistic.
In contrast, patriotism cherishes a more dialectic relation to nation. According to that nation can only be preserved by adjusting to changing social, cultural and political events - if it likes it or not. From that point of view, national unit is based on its dynamics, which means incorporating the future into the concept of the past. So where nationalists castigate the decline of national values and lament the sell-out of national interests, patriotism has its place. It presupposes nations can only be improved.
Fact
Both nationalists and patriots attach much importance to criticizing th enation, but the other way round. Nationalism takes criticism as occasion to present itself in confrontative top form. It seizes the opportunity to call on national awakening. In contrast, partiots are always ready to criticize their nation sharply. Nationalists will regard it as destructive, but it is originally meant to be constructive. Unlike nationalism which defines the nation strictly ethnically and enthusiastically applies biological metaphors like the national body, the patriotic definition is more complicated, less clear, more ideal, for it also takes cultural and political aspects into consideration. Its disadvantage, of course, is that endeavours to produce concepts like 'constitutional patriotism' and 'citizenship' fail to give warmth to the heart of the national body and remain too abstract. But it saves itself (and the persons concerned) the question how comes that there are coloured Germans, too, who sometimes have a better command of the language than those who content themselves with tracing their genealogical table back beyond the requirements of the Arian certificate.
Mass
A single nationalist is a very lamentable phenomenon. He squats secludedly in front of his memorabilia, the books with squiggles, the cracking military marches, the flags on the wall, the insignia in cigar boxes. A similar things goes for a patriot forced into gregariousness; for mass events under national omens will make him feel a little uneasy. Critics always like to regard themselves as individualists, because they are afraid their autonomy could suffer if several people thought along the same line. In other words: nationalists and patriots back their attitudes with reference to the masses - but just the other way round. Nationalism claims to preserve the mass interest, thus incapacitating it. Patriotism hopes by not pursuing mass goals the responsible majority will agree with it. Nationalism wants to win the mass of people in order to declare it irrelevant. Patriotism wishes to declare the mass of people irrelevant in order to win it in spite (or just becasue) of that.
National benefit
The most simple distinction criterion concerns the value of nationalists and patriots. Nationalists are the ones getting patriots in foreign politics into a nice mess, let them have to face the music and then complain about it. Patriots just live dangerously. No wonder there is a constant fear they might have died out. Perhaps that is the true reason why the commanded reflection did not come into full effect, particularly since it soon turned into a lamentation about the exodus of German companies into foreign countries.
All in all the borderline between nationalism and patriotism is more discernible than could be expected from these helpless statements. Any party which tried to win voters on that borderline and came out empty-handed in the end will confirm that; for its suggestive slogans will only produce disgust - either because nationalists have been better wooed elsewhere or because patriots do not wish to be wooed that way.

Outsourcing

Yesterday the author made a wise decison, For a long time to him the permanent wording, polishing and rewording of texts has been a nuisance. What is the point of all that labour? Maybe he has all the qualifications for becoming a superstar. Perhaps he could become a useful member of society at last. This perspective has inspired him to put a communication agency in charge of writing this text.
Whoever doubts the importance of these lines should calm down. The author is only follow the managerial trend: He practices ousourcing. He thinks globally. At least he follows the same principle by withdrawing to his core competences, which are instructions that are vague enough to give him the chance to reject responsibility on the one hand, but precise enough to refuse paying on the other hand. So outsourcing is the apotheosis of modern divison of labour. Organization sociology calls this principle 'heterarchic'. Instead of installing Big Brother on the executive floor watching even the assembly line worker's slightest grip on the monitor, one intelligently delegates the working process to increasingly independent sections. Some idealists even suppose they have recognized here a more democratic world of employment. There is some truth to it, for meanwhile it seems to have become common consent that narcisstic satisfaction with ordering the trembling subordinate about cannot make up for the disadvantages of constant timid inquiring and making sure. After all we want to be paid for being capable of taking care of everything, not for actually having to do so, do we not? In the long run one would have to fix the assembly line oneself! No, thanks to the interlocked differentiation of the visionary top management and the operative level there is an organisational degree of autonomy which would have alarmed the traditional company founders of the 19th century, suspecting the Spectre of Communism. Not to mention that this division of tasks has spread from within the factories. External processing contributes to production. Time organization increases. Instead of simply manufacturing a product step by step, the processings are parcelled out. Production in the true sense of the word has shifted to coordinating the scattered activities.
This kind of strategy faciltates things only at first sight. As organization theory informs us, the necessity of communicating increases with each division. Reducing complexity means increasing it. Or the other way round. Where once the one and only big shot ruled, now a variety of contacts, disponents, temps disport themselves. And it lies within the logic of division each plot has its special need of information, so that the number of misunderstandings and hectic telephone calls and e-mails rapidly grows. As if that was not enough, there is no reason for an outsorcing company not to outsource itself.
The spreading 'commissionitis' is another example; governmental parties like taking resort to it when things get a little ticklish. What is left aside too often is that external observators can be consulted, but that the recommendments must be intrnally put into practice. For a lean administration, administrative offices are required. In the end the loser will be the one who is the last link of the outsourcing chain.
That is why the communication agency the author has consulted has recollected its core competences, too and will restrict itself to offering electrifying ideas. Wording in turn will be delegated to 26 more outsourcing companies, letter-wise, to be more precise. Their concrete distribution will be executed by another company. Thanks to the legal advisor (who has been outsourced, too) even the smaller participants in the market will be given an adequate opportunity, which means that more rare, quite exquisite letters will be in a psychologically satisfying way being in keeping with usual requirements will be taken into account.
Finally one more piece of advice: The reception of a text can be delegated to specialized eyes and brains, too.

Optimism

The author thinks it is appropriate to give an insight into his inner feelings. This is quite peculiar when it comes to a critical reflection on social issues, but in this case he simply makes an exception to the rule: he is very optimistic. Optimistic that this text will produce an avalanche of confidence, will trigger off the starting shot of imperturbable belief in the future, that half-empty glasses will turn into half-full ones to the strains of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Well, at least his limited talent will get him unlimited fame, success and wealth. After all, this is what optimism as a social phenomenon is really all about. An individual mood concerning a positive anticipation is to expand and generate a general air. A chain reaction, a feel-good infection, we might say.
If there is one thing this country requires, it is optimism. This is what the economy says which is suffering from the so-called soft factors like moods, mentality, atmospehre particularly because it has confused the imponderable with the irrelevant much too long and now finally realizes it might have been luxorious to dismiss cultural and social issues easily as mere luxury problems. Rethinking is just about to begin - optimistically speaking.
From a gloabl point of viwe, economic optimism is pure carelessness. This is because the general mood is just relevant insofar as as many members of society as possible are meant to be driven to the markets and to be induced to spend money. Systemically, optimism is just an epiphenomenon; the economic principle makes no difference whether money is squandered or hoarded. After all, there is the Invisible Hand which emerges from mutual actions and regulates them at the same time. Mark you: The stock exchange does not care either if the prices are high or low. The bank always wins. One more time: The system needs no optimism.
However, it is the people acting within the system who are dependent on optimism. Unlike the economy as a principle they set themselves goals which are linked up with profit expectations. And therefore demanding other persons' optimism means just the hope to make some money of one's own. Financially speaking, an optimistic homeless person counts for nothing at all.
Nowhere the concept of autopoietical systems is as obvious as in the present entreaty of optimism. It cannot be ordered, quite the conrary, the more urgent it is needed the longer it will be in coming. The Invisible Hand will not be guided by decalarations of volition. And meanwhile it has becom eobvious that a general consent optimism is needed does not involve its creation. It is because optimism requires someone who makes a start and who would be so careless as to lead the way given the experience of the last four years?
The recent process of disillusionment has had its effects, for the pendulum of ambiguous optimism has changed from the mania of prophety to the mania of forecast. Quite a cyclical, even a causal moment. Just because one has lived in castles in the air before, one now wants solid ground beneath one's feet. So one has a very narrow look at who is preaching optimism - and why?
As we can see, the traditional strategy to write optimism as a PR campaign on the wall has not been successful yet. All what remains to be done is wait and see until the current winners, the pessimists, will have converted enough success into capital to invest the surplus. It is not till then that optimism might emerge, because the way the Invisible Hand works resembles a Stone Age man who keeps knocking the flintstone until the sparks begin to fly, blows heavily, thus letting the fire as an autopoetical system of its own crackle. Spark results from spark. We only have to make sure not to run out of breath.