Opponents of vaccination are the collective movement of everyone who is against something – especially against progress

The author

Miriam Meckel is a German publicist and entrepreneur. She is co-founder and CEO of ada Learning GmbH. She also teaches as a professor for communication management at the University of St. Gallen.

(Photo: Klawe Rzeczy)

“And the world begins to sing, you just hit the magic word”, wrote Joseph von Eichendorff in 1835. The poem not only pays homage to the word as a magical “divining rod”, but also in general to the ideas of romanticism.

Dreamily, imaginatively, we slide into the space of the unconscious, in which the union of man and nature can succeed against all forces of reason and their concrete forms of industrialization and technology.

Today’s magic word is “vaccinate”. It sounds like a very special song through the streets. Last weekend in Düsseldorf and many other German cities roared by those who see themselves robbed of their freedom and naturalness by the progress of biotechnology.

mRNA – that is the disenchantment word of the techno-bureaucracy for the scandals. It is a threat to all ideas about the natural self-healing powers of the human body. It symbolizes the entry of industrial technical progress into the last refuge of self-determination, the human cell.

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This attitude is also anchored in the depths of German cultural history, in which Romanticism, as the epoch of turning away from this very progress, had a meaning that still shines in our present day. No other country felt or feels so drawn to the ideas of the European romantic movement as Germany.

This is particularly evident in Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical movement: kindergartens, schools, biodynamic agriculture, naturopathy, all of this goes back to Steiner. The cosmetics group Weleda was also co-founded by Steiner in 1921.

Steiner wrote in 1915 that one tries to keep in check what distinguishes the Germans through reason. They are “always in lively unity with the supernatural”. For Steiner, illnesses were also spiritual, i.e. supernatural. So how is a vaccine supposed to help?

Connection between the anthroposophical way of thinking and corona protests

A current study by the University of Basel shows a clear connection between the anthroposophical way of thinking and the corona protests.

The protest movement is also wide open to the right, but its core seems to be anti-authoritarian and inclined towards anthroposophy: According to the study, a large number of critics of the corona measures want to equate alternative medicine with conventional medicine, go back to nature and focus more on holistic and spiritual thinking. 64 percent say not to teach children to obey authorities.

In view of the 1968 movement, the political scientist Richard Löwenthal spoke of a “romantic relapse”. For him, the 68s were the revival of a cult of the ingenious individual while at the same time disregarding society.

What we are experiencing in Germany these days is a backward disruption: the unwinding of the belief that progress can make life better, even healthier, and possibly even lengthen it.

If you understand romanticism as a counter-movement to the Enlightenment, to industrialization and to early capitalism, then we really have a problem.

Because without an enlightened understanding of the consequences of a Covid disease, without the possibilities of industrial vaccine development and production and without a certain acceptance that the billions that were necessary for vaccine development bring billions to the developing companies in turn, we are pretty much into it lost position.

Against reason, industrialization and the state

You can of course try to wag the coronavirus out of your body with a dowsing rod. The majority of the more than five million corona deaths worldwide are likely to perceive this attitude as a post-traumatic cynicism disorder – if they still could.

The anti-vaccination movement is a reservoir for the many who are above all against something. Against reason, industrialization and the state. At best it is a club of living romantics who, with an absolute belief in the natural, are even ready to sacrifice their health or their life.

Goethe once said: “I call the classic the healthy and the romantic the sick.” Opponents of the vaccination see it exactly the other way round. Many of them will hardly be able to convince with reasonable arguments in the new year either.

Solidarity survival with the means of progress

But one can wish that in 2022 the resonance space can grow again for what we already know from antiquity under the term “Techne”: the craft for the planned achievement of a goal. That is: survival in solidarity in a pandemic with the means of progress.

Is there anything more romantic than human existence in all its complexity and beauty? And how romantic would it be to save this existence from an eternal pandemic situation?

In this column Miriam Meckel writes fortnightly about ideas, innovations and interpretations that make progress and a better life possible. Because what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the rest of the world calls a butterfly. ada-magazin.com

More: Old Europe – What vaccination opponents and digital refusers have in common.

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