Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How does our thinking actually shape the society we live in? Dr. Yasemin Yazan and Marc (again calling in from Florence), joined by Sabine, trace this from Rousseau and Montesquieu to why the loudest societal debates are the ones we notice, while slow, creeping change goes unseen — touching on emigration, a Russia expert’s striking take on porn magazines and political power, and why simply staying open to someone’s story beats winning the argument.
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
Good morning, everyone. Today we’re talking about thinking and society, and exploring the question, how does our thinking shape the society we live in? And, continuing on from yesterday so to speak, I’m curious to expand this further today, moving up to the level of society, and I’m looking forward to the exchange, to see together which direction the room takes today. And tomorrow we’ll have thinking and consolidation — maybe that’s the announcement already. We’ve said the last few days that we’re slowly moving toward action, the next overarching theme, so maybe a reminder here too, that today, on this societal level, is actually the last room for the overarching theme of thinking, so that tomorrow we can come together to look back at everything we’ve gathered, collected, and what insights we were able to derive. That’s why today, once more, on this societal level — how does our thinking shape the society we live in, that’s the question we’re looking at today. So you’re all very warmly invited to join again today, to step into the exchange, so we can see together which direction the room develops. And yes, we’re recording, so anyone who joins automatically agrees that the whole thing gets recorded and published accordingly. Then we have three small room rules: a profile photo where you’re recognizable, your last name, and at least one sentence in your bio, and if you don’t want that for whatever reason or can’t speak right now, feel free to use the chat instead. And I already see that Marc would like to join. Good morning, dear Marc.
Good morning, and buongiorno, and warm greetings from Florence. The very, very first thing that comes to mind for me, something I’m extremely grateful for — being able to live in a country like Germany — is democracy, regarding the topic of thinking and society. And I go a bit into the past here, where Rousseau said it requires the participation of the governed, and these were philosophers who were among the people who actually changed the path to our way of life today, toward democracy, who shaped society very strongly — or Montesquieu, who insisted on the separation of powers, and so on. And that’s the most important point for me, and I’m endlessly glad to be able to live in this century, where I didn’t have to fight for this myself, but where it was already there simply by virtue of my birth.
Dear Marc, I just had an internet interruption on my end — could you please repeat that for me from the start?
Yes, I was referring to the philosophers and to democracy, that this is a very important point for me, where society was shaped. Among others, Rousseau said, participation of the governed, and Montesquieu was for the separation of powers, and I said that I’m filled with gratitude every time, even though I disagree with many things in Germany, that I still get to live in this century, because through this thinking of Rousseau and Montesquieu, this thinking changed our society so much that we now live in the society we live in today, among other things.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. A great start to the topic, I think, especially against the backdrop of mistakes, developments, where possibly a lot has become somewhat taken for granted for us, and so with these things we take for granted, we sometimes don’t always think about or realize that in the past, quite a lot actually had to do with certain achievements, and that it hasn’t always been this way, in quotation marks. So I find it wonderful to enter the topic this way. That means a lot is actually an achievement that came about through thinking and reflecting, where people ultimately committed themselves to shaping societal change, and that surely wasn’t always so easy either. With that, I’d like to warmly welcome Sabine too. Good morning, dear Sabine.
Yes, good morning. I don’t have much time today, but I wanted to briefly join, actually building a bit on what Marc said, but then drawing a bit of a contrast too — in Germany, for example, our individual thoughts are very important. Everyone actually tries to go their own way a bit, and you can see that things are currently quite far apart out front, whether that’s from climate activists to AfD supporters, everyone’s political views, but also the ideas each person creates. And if we take the favorite topic of China now, the society gets frozen on top, so to speak, and underneath, the individuals can expand within that coat, which of course is sometimes a bit tight.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And there you can see, ultimately, that we now have this time factor as one aspect that plays a role in connection with thinking and society — looking at it historically, so to speak, and then also different cultures within the same time period, for example, that there are differences here too. How does our thinking then shape society? What are the actual effects, ultimately, if we look again at these historical developments on one hand, and on the other hand within the same time period, maybe going into a kind of country comparison or something? Marc, Sabine, would you like to add to that? Go ahead, Sabine.
I have to say again, thinking of the Chinese, because they keep popping up in Sri Lanka a lot lately. When you see Chinese people somewhere, you don’t actually get the impression that they live in some non-democracy, because they show up, they come with their stomachs full, so to speak, a bus arrives, a hotel gets populated, and the world belongs to us. So it’s not like in other autocracies, say Iran, where people don’t dare do anything. I actually imagine it’s like they’re born into a kind of straitjacket, and this straitjacket is what they’re taught, and then they know what it is and move within it, and they move within it for their world — that’s certainly great for them. And it’s certainly different for those who actually live there. There are surely some who aren’t happy or content with it, but maybe don’t have the option to necessarily fight against it either. That’s just difficult given the framework conditions they operate in. On the other hand, there are surely also many who accept it as normal, so to speak, grew up with it, and get along well with it, in quotation marks — so it’s not necessarily experienced as negative by everyone. And I think these different facets are important too, playing a role in how thinking ultimately shapes society again. If we take China as an example right now — you’re on speaker again, dear Sabine, thanks — if everyone pulled together and everyone wanted to change something somehow, the result might be different too. So we’re right at this aspect, how does our thinking shape society too. And that might have a lot to do with how, in dealing with things, ultimately, following on from thinking, we then move into action or don’t. Dear Marc, would you like to say something? Or, Sabine, I think you wanted to add something, then go ahead, Marc.
Yes, just briefly — you’re completely right, Yasemin, we mostly only see abroad those who probably feel comfortable within the system. Those who aren’t doing well probably don’t even make it abroad, because they can’t afford it.
Dear Marc, yes, thanks. I’d like to pick up on what you just said, dear Yasemin, that it’s also an interrelationship — I see it the same way. Our thinking determines our values, and our values then determine our actions, our next topic. And this interrelationship, that society also determines our values again, and our thinking again — that’s like alternating current, that fits best for me. And what I find really important about this topic — not just important now, it’s important at all times — but the question that always interests me is the one children ask, why is that so? Why? Why are they like that? Why are other cultures different, and different thinkers different? They’re not born different — I think first that all people who come into the world are basically the same, because we have the same genetic makeup, and it’s thinking, values, society, and our environment that make us what we are. And it’s really important, with this topic, to become aware again that thinking has an influence on us and on society, so that we know that — that just gives me a good feeling. You often hear sayings, even at work, “those up there,” our bosses up there, and the government up there too. And if we think that, or internalize that — those up there, that we can’t do anything anymore, that the individual can’t do anything anymore — I find that absolutely terrible, because then we’re in a prison. And if we go back into the past — that’s why I find history so important too — to recognize that it’s difficult, but not impossible, that each individual can change society if they want to. Of course not overnight — it starts with raising your children, it starts with values, it starts with morals, it starts with talking with friends, and so on. And that always gives you the feeling that you’re not helplessly at the mercy of things. Of course I alone can’t change an entire society right now, but doing nothing at all is always the worst answer for me. That’s why I find this topic so exciting. Thank you, dear Yasemin, for paying attention to it. And that reminds me, for example — I’m looking around the room right now, we have several women here — the women’s movement, which did so incredibly much. That was different thinking too. And today I simply can’t imagine being with a partner — that’s how it was, I won’t give a date, but I believe it was like this until the 70s — where women still had to ask their partner in Germany, not somewhere else in the world, in Germany, “listen, Marc, I’d like to work as a teacher, are you okay with that?” And then I say, “yes, I’ll think about it, maybe I’ll give you an answer in a week.” That’s so bizarre. But that existed here, and that’s why thinking and society is so important, that we talk about a topic like this — that we shape the society in which as many people as possible feel comfortable. I never think it’s possible for everyone to feel 100 percent comfortable, because you always feel disadvantaged somehow or compare yourself, but we all have a big influence, with our thinking, and later with our actions, to shape society in a way that we enjoy living in.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and so many examples have come up now too. I’d like to pick up on this — things like the women’s movement, for example, or if we look at the current era, there are also many discussions around, I’ll call it the rainbow movement, and I’m bundling a lot into that, all the way to the gender-language debate happening, or gender reassignment, and so on. Then we have climate activists — so there are, let’s say, many movements that lead to certain groups feeling unequally treated or similar, or advocating for something, and accordingly this whole thing is grounded in thinking — and then we also had a room about thinking, language, and communication, meaning an exchange happens accordingly, until certain movements form, to debate these topics on a larger scale, so to speak. And these debates, these discussions, are also necessary, in quotation marks, to maybe break open certain views, open up new perspectives, and in discourse ultimately, well, cultural change, societal change is also something that takes a certain amount of time, thought through in different directions, without going into judgment now about whether one thing or another is right or wrong, in quotation marks, but that this ultimately shapes the society we live in, and that thinking is ultimately the foundation of the whole thing. What do you two think, dear Sabine or Marc?
Well, who wants to go first?
Sabine, of course, ladies first.
That’s sweet, Marc. Yes, I’m just thinking, how is that actually — I mean, that’s a bit of the problem right now, everyone goes their own direction, but society ultimately has a goal too, and needs to somehow come back together around it, and it’s currently difficult to move us forward with one goal if everyone’s running in a different direction, and at that point I don’t really get much further, and I have to say, until recently you didn’t hear this so vehemently, now you hear it everywhere, it’s discussed in every respect, well, there are also elections this weekend, it’s a difficult topic, I think. So the question is whether that, related to the individual, if really everyone thought in a different direction and went in a different direction, would that possibly — maybe that’s the moment where no new societal change occurs, meaning no change takes place because everything diverges, or is it not the case that these societal changes actually need, I’ll just call them, allies, meaning different groupings, and that’s how it starts, meaning one individual maybe has an idea and others see it similarly and join in, so to speak, and then it starts to grow
and gains a certain dynamic, so to speak. And maybe you’d like to add to that too, or you actually wanted to say something anyway.
Yes, I’m currently traveling for work in Florence, and I really enjoy, when I’m in other countries, throwing myself into the hustle and bustle, really getting into conversation with people, and yesterday I had the great pleasure of talking with Americans, and now I come back to the heading, thinking and society — for me it’s a really big challenge, in these conversations, not to go toward, what are you for or against, because if it comes out that someone is a Democrat or a Republican, we’re immediately in the discussion, meaning my values against their values, and nobody enjoys that. And the challenge for me is this openness — when we meet, really throwing all my values overboard, not because they’re not important, but simply the question is, who are you, where do you come from — and if I hear, ah, you’re from China, ah, you’re from Japan, so, tell me, what’s special about your country, how do you perceive it? If I immediately impose my own perception on them, I won’t learn anything, so I let them talk, try, especially at the start, to keep all topics that have to do with politics or religion aside — those are always explosive topics, that only causes explosions, because it’s values against values — instead, first approaching someone with openness. And for me this openness also means thinking and society, because only if I’m open myself can I take in new open thoughts and think, ah, I’ve never thought about that point the way they just described it to me — can I understand that? Understanding doesn’t mean accepting, understanding doesn’t mean tolerating — that’s a really important topic we’ve had before too, because often when someone tells us something whose opinion we don’t share, whose values we don’t share, we think we immediately have to push back. No, I can also try to understand what they mean, why they arrived at this stance, without the conversation falling apart and without us agreeing, “yes, you’re right” or “yes, I’m right” — and for me that belongs to thinking and society too. And I always notice, when I get to travel in Europe, how beautiful that is, and how great it is to be able to meet people from other cultures without being afraid of them, but simply with eyes open, hey, where are you from, that’s exciting, I’ve never met anyone from your country, tell me about yourself — because this thinking, and then I’m done, this thinking that I take with me, or these impulses I take with me, or this perception of people that I take with me, leads for me too maybe to new thinking and a new stance, and I’ll reflect on and maybe even change certain values and convictions I’ve had so far.
Yes, thank you so much, and I find that a really exciting point, because this aspect — and we keep picking this up here too — leaving political topics aside, because it can otherwise quickly become emotional, and so on. At the same time, especially regarding society or societal change, we have our thoughts on certain topics, our thinking doesn’t stop because of that, we just don’t talk about it, in quotation marks. But we’ve said that language and communication are important too, to change or shape society in some way, and I find that really exciting. And the question also arises, is that maybe also a cultural topic, that we, so to speak, to avoid conflict situations or similar, maybe it’s also strategically really clever to say, better leave out political topics — but what does that actually do to society or societal change, when even the thoughts one has per se on certain topics never get voiced at all, and no exchange happens? Maybe we can look at that again.
Yes, dear Sabine. Yes, I think, for example, right now with Russia — many have tried to get out of Russia, via Brazil or elsewhere, because they know, in that country you can’t talk about anything, either you go with the mainstream or you’re on the wrong side. And I do think that does a lot to you, if you can’t think in the direction you’d like to. But I think we think this way because we grew up this way. If I’d grown up in another country where this was completely normal for me, I don’t know if I’d even have this way of thinking at all.
Yes, absolutely, and maybe sometimes we don’t even need to look that far. Personally, at least my perception is, it’s maybe coincidence, in quotation marks, or maybe it has to do by chance with certain circles or groupings I keep finding myself in currently, in quotation marks, or because my focus is directed there. But especially in Germany, I find, quite a lot happens too. That means we sometimes don’t need to look into other countries at all, but we can partly observe this quite strongly right now with ourselves too. I don’t have statistics on whether this has increased somehow, but I encounter a lot of people who, for example, leave Germany and go to, say, Cyprus. In recent years, we’ve actually followed this quite often on Clubhouse too, that people actually emigrate somehow. And that often isn’t just about taking a new job somewhere, but other reasons too. Sabine, Marc, would you like to add something too — I don’t know what your perception of this is.
Go ahead, Sabine, then Marc. Yes, I completely agree with you, I experience that exactly the same way. Especially in the entrepreneurial environment, in employment, not quite as much in employment, there’s more of a mindset like, well, I’ll see about retiring five years earlier and then maybe I’ll emigrate. Among entrepreneurs, since everything became more digital, that thought often comes earlier, and they say, I can do this job from abroad too, so why should I put on a bit of a straitjacket for many things. I actually just had a client leave again, who also said, what I do today, I couldn’t have done digitally before. And honestly, we talked about it, there are actually many reasons why I wouldn’t stay anymore. It started with, he has ten- and twelve-year-old children. I can’t say the school is really great right now. Taxes are already a thorn in many people’s side anyway, and for the same money I pay here, I get considerably more in that country. Those were the main topics. The question is always whether people are happy there long-term when it comes to medical care and so on. But that’s also getting a bit shaky here right now too. So, a difficult topic. Yes, thank you so much. Marc, what do you think?
I have a bit of a smile on my face, because yesterday the same topics kept coming up everywhere. The American from Portland I talked with said — I’d said, in Germany, under school systems, you could do a lot with digitalization — and he just smiled and thought, it’s the same for us. So many problems are similar too. And what I wanted to say about thinking in societal matters — what I always find shocking, even though I really read a lot and really engage with the topic of thinking a lot, and we’ve had this topic for a long time in the club, so I want to mention this again — what happens to me as soon as the topic of emotion comes up. For example, on the way to Italy I read that a school class traveled to Russia. In the first five minutes I got incredibly worked up about that — how can a school class travel to Russia, that just doesn’t work — and that wasn’t emotion. And then it takes me a bit, and after ten minutes the thought came to me, what complete nonsense, why shouldn’t they travel to Russia? And what personally bothers me — this is my deepest conviction, I was really never good at math, but I know that a hundred percent means everyone, and if just one, or five, or ten, or twenty people are different, then those aren’t “the people.” And why, if they’re a school class — and I should say, this was a school class that also had Russian as a language, where you could probably get your high school diploma in Russian, and they had a partner school — why shouldn’t they be allowed to visit each other as students? And that’s when I noticed, when reason kicks in, I always arrive at different decisions and different evaluations, but the emotional decision was initially, that just doesn’t work. And I have another example, because I find it so interesting, so exciting, what moves or hides behind the topic of thinking and society. I’d never thought about this. I saw an interview with a Russia expert, and she said that society, among others male society, changed because of porn magazines. I’d never have thought of that. There was a time — I can’t give you the exact year, when this happened — but there was a time when the first porn magazines appeared in Russia, lying around as openly as possible and being distributed. And that led to, among other things, Putin coming to power, who had himself photographed — you’ve probably all seen the pictures, bare torso, a weapon, on a horse, this dominant masculinity. And that changed Russian society so drastically that certain language got banned, violence against women increased. And it’s also the case — I can’t name you the exact law now, because I’m not a lawyer and don’t know Russian law that well — but I found it so exciting and interesting to see that currently in Russia, this sexualization of language has led to violence against women no longer being classified as a criminal offense. That means, I no longer go to prison for that, I just get an administrative fine, if, as a man, I’ve become violent and the woman doesn’t report it, then it’s just a minor offense. And this Russia expert traced that back to so, so many things happening in our society, where we simply don’t pay attention to language — through language and images, our thinking, our actions, and our society get shaped. And I bring that up again because observing and recognizing this — that’s the next point with education, we’re back at education — if you recognize what can happen with language, with thinking, also with sexualized violence, where it happens and what changes can occur, not in a week, not in a month, but over time in society. That’s why I find it so important to look at these topics, so that, if possible, when you notice something is shifting, when you notice something’s wrong, you can start acting, and don’t have to wait until it’s too late.
Yes, wonderful. And now we could open up so, so many more doors and build bridges again to other rooms where we’ve covered topics, like now we have the media component. Then we had rooms about technological developments. Then we have language, communication, which has already come up. Then we’ve also established that, for example, laws sometimes follow along afterward, you just mentioned that too. Then we have religion, which plays a role here too, where something like the degree of immigration or similar also matters, which is happening, which is currently a topic in Germany, as in other countries. And then we have this aspect of education. So a lot of aspects come together here, which ultimately makes the complexity of the topic clear again — it’s not just simply, something gets thought and then something forms societally over a certain time horizon in one direction or another, but there are an incredible number of influencing factors that, in interplay, ultimately have an influence on how thinking changes, how debates are conducted, what political framing the whole thing has, meaning which country you’re in. That also ultimately plays a role in this context, to then, over this time factor, bring societal changes, changes of any kind, into shape over shorter or longer periods of time. That means there’s no standstill either, but society, viewed this way, is always subject to a certain change. Maybe we don’t always notice it right away — especially if we look at this from the brain’s side again, it’s the case that slow and creeping changes are initially not even perceived by our brain at all. Only changes that happen abruptly, for example, or similar, do we consciously perceive at all. Everything else is perceived unconsciously and maybe stored, but it’s not in our focus. And there are nice examples for this — even if you look at different images, you can do various exercises where maybe a certain area of the image, over a longer period, when you look at it, very slowly disappears or something. And depending on the speed — if that happens fast, we notice it, but if it happens really, really slowly, we don’t consciously perceive it at all. And especially societal changes are also something that often happens over a longer period. That means we might not notice many changes at all, but only then, when — we’ve talked about coalitions or groupings or similar — only then, when it has actually taken on a certain size or shape, so that we encounter it more often and it leads to a discourse, and so on, so that we then also consciously engage with the topic again.
Marc, would you like to add to this too?
Yes, this really interests me, because I want as many people as possible to be able to live in peace, and when I look at Russia, or when I look at America too, I always find the same answers, namely always the topic of emotions. What humans do with their emotions, and emotions for me are also fears, so fear and anger, and fear of change — and recognizing that is, for me, education. And if you manage, as a politician or as leadership, to address these fears, because people are afraid of change — and I also heard an America expert who said, why is there this strong division in America, unimaginable, that we had a president where, if it had come out as a movie, I’d have said, who could write something like that, that doesn’t exist, that’s real satire — but no, that’s what happened, with the president who thankfully is no longer — sorry if I express myself this way, I stand by it — who’s thankfully no longer president. And the answer to that was quite simple: if people just tell other people, watch out, things stay as they are, there’s a huge societal change coming, the automotive industry is changing, and, and, and — and I just thought of North Rhine-Westphalia and the discussion about what happens when we close the mines. North Rhine-Westphalia isn’t exactly a place of massive unemployment now, of course we have unemployed people, but not all of North Rhine-Westphalia is unemployed, and that was a societal upheaval too — what are the miners supposed to do, that doesn’t work, if mining closes, everything will collapse. And the same discussions will probably start at some point, now with the automotive industry, if we keep losing ground there, and, and, and — and if then someone stands up who has understood exactly these processes, what emotions do to us, and takes someone aside and says, Marc, you don’t need to think anymore, I know the answer, everything stays as it is, because you know the past, yes, the past was good, do you want it to stay that way? Yes? Then vote for me, I’ll make sure it stays that way. And that’s why I’m so grateful to you, dear Yasemin, for your rooms, for becoming aware of this, and noticing about ourselves, why do I act this way now, or why do I think this way now, and then always with reflection, can I also think something different, and is what Marc says really true — do I arrive at different conclusions? And I also find it good when I get criticized, when someone says, I see this completely differently, because that helps me change my thinking again and say, yes, I was going in the wrong direction there. And I’ve actually already done this several times — the next day, when I’ve come to a new realization, I’ve said, folks, what I said yesterday, I’m sorry, I got new information, I have to apologize, I was on the wrong horse there and now I have new insights, which can of course change again too.
Yes, absolutely, thank you so much, and that means our thinking is also subject to a certain development, so to speak, also influences from outside, just like with others too, so that against the backdrop of the insights we have — and we’ve talked about this in the past too — we always have certain insights at the present moment that connect to prior experiences and so on, but which can definitely change over time too, through further new information that comes in, maybe newer scientific findings we pick up, or similar, then personal perception, which plays a role here, the individual one — meaning I may have looked at it from a certain perspective and then at some point had the opportunity to discover further perspectives I hadn’t seen before. All of that ultimately plays a role here, which on one hand shapes our thinking, and thereby, sooner or later, over a certain period of time, brings about societal change, in quotation marks. So there are really so many different aspects that ultimately come together here, and also ultimately explain, in quotation marks, why something like societal change, which per se, viewed at the smallest common denominator, always takes place, but why we only perceive larger changes later, or consciously perceive them — which doesn’t mean there’s no movement, but these are, in and of themselves, societies, closed systems in a way, larger systems — we’ve talked about how basically everything is a system, family is a system too, then we have different systems at work, we have subcultures that form, for example, within a company — it’s not just the corporate culture, but there are also various subcultures within a company — all of these are closed systems in themselves, but they always interact with others outside too, and are therefore not to be viewed as completely isolated, and through these interrelationships that take place, changes keep happening too, and we don’t notice the smaller ones at first — that doesn’t mean they’re not there — and the larger ones then move into our focus, especially of course through the language or communication that happens, so that at the latest when we maybe hadn’t consciously seen or perceived one thing or another before, then, through this view, through the focus that occurs, we then also step into these debates and form our own opinion, against the backdrop of different access points, channels, and so on, and developments happen here too. Marc, would you like to add to that?
Yes, we see what we want to see. I’ll come back to the topic of emotions, because it really comes up currently in every newspaper, every TV show. We see what we want to see, and that’s why I find this questioning so important. As soon as something gets taken away from us, as soon as a country or a society finds itself in recession, meaning we still have inflation, we’re not doing so well anymore, suddenly the middle class notices too, oh, we have to see how this works, oh, we don’t know if we have enough money to heat, to have electricity — and if that gets exploited by saying, watch out, I have the answer for you, they’re taking something away from you — as soon as people feel there are other groups in society taking something away from them, social unrest arises, and it’s important to always look exactly at who’s actually taking something away, what’s the actual cause, and doesn’t the problem go back much further? I’m not going into politics now, but this energy problem we had — I’m not advertising for anyone here either, I’ll express myself politically, and I say this about every party — but if the Greens get described as being responsible for energy being so expensive, that’s simply not true, because we had long peace in Europe, we didn’t take care of the military, and we trusted the Russians and bet on the wrong horse — but in politics someone’s always sought out as guilty, and that’s the mechanism we can understand, as soon as there are processes of change — this has been true throughout all of history, it was that way with the Jews, it was that way with the Christians — you always look for someone to blame, because then you think, if I have someone to blame, I can solve the problem, and we want the problem to be solved. But if we question, is what we’re currently evaluating and judging in the situation really facts, do we need to go further back into the past — many people don’t do that, because our brain feels most comfortable when it uses as little energy as possible, at rest, and if someone already has a fitting answer for me, then I don’t need to think about it either. And your rooms, dear Yasemin, have given me an incredible amount, because so much happens in the subconscious, so I often have an opinion and arrive at a judgment without ever questioning why I arrived at it, and then simply, exactly what you said, taking this prior experience, this prior upbringing, the cultural and societal one, and the environment I grew up in, as a given, and of course then having incredible difficulties when I encounter people from a different societal environment, who grew up differently, with different values. And you always put it so nicely — it’s not about right or wrong, better or worse, but first recognizing that maybe someone standing across from you simply comes from a completely different culture. I’ll stop soon, but I find this topic so important, because it’s so important for our society, and if I talk to someone from a cultural background where there was no democracy, where you couldn’t trust politics and the police, what’s the solution then? Family. Then you can only trust family, and that person will argue differently than if I say, but with us it’s like this, we trust the police, we trust politics, and we trust our laws — and as I said, if someone comes from a country where, for 24 years, you couldn’t trust the laws, politics, and the police, then they’ll have developed different strategies for their own survival, and if I now tell them, your strategies are bad and mine are better, they’ll think, my dear Marc, if you came from where I come from, you wouldn’t have made it to ten years old. And that’s why your rooms are so important, dear Yasemin — always keeping our eyes, so to speak, always staying open, and being open means never assuming you have to share the other person’s opinion, because we simply can’t easily step out of our own value system — that’s not so simple — but recognizing and saying, ah, okay, I understand the other person, and if we understand each other and listen to each other, that’s always the first step for me toward society being able to develop positively further, so together instead of against each other.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and here of course the question arises — and I think this is one of the biggest challenges at this point, because emotions always play into it too when changes happen — to look at our thinking again, and to see, we often have impulsive reactions in this context, and then to look, is this actually resistance against the backdrop that I don’t like these changes, because I somehow have to get out of my comfort zone, because structures are changing, because something is happening outside that does something to me, meaning it creates a kind of resistance because I have to leave these familiar, orientation-giving structures — or does it maybe need, in one place or another, a certain form of adaptation, quite independent of which topic we’re looking at in this context. And this differentiation isn’t necessarily easy for us, but here of course thinking, ultimately reflection and thinking, also plays a really essential role, to create awareness here and also go into, say, self-observation, to consider against this backdrop what’s actually happening here. And here we’re back at the topic of education, that of course the foundation of education is needed here too, as a base, so to speak, to on one hand even become aware, be conscious of which components play a role here, then maybe even go into self-observation and consider, what does that actually mean? Is it resistance, or does it maybe need a certain agility, in quotation marks, here? And against this backdrop of considerations and insights, decisions I make, then in the next step possibly move into action again, and, based on that, look at how my communication changes, how language changes, how I go into exchange, where do I personally stand on certain topics or changes? And all of this is ultimately, of course, the smallest components, so to speak, when we look again from the societal perspective, the big perspective, which happen individually everywhere and, in sum, so to speak, shape society again in one direction or another. Marc, would you like to add to this too?
Yes, especially when I’m traveling, I keep becoming aware again — and that was the topic yesterday too — you said at the beginning earlier that so many things are taken for granted for us. Just the fact that I can discuss with you today in this space, express my opinion, and even be allowed to say, Chancellor Meier, I find him silly, or Chancellor Hans, I find him much, much better — that’s such a gift. If I were in China right now, if I took the same trip in China, that has nothing to do with paranoia, but we all know, with phones, I’m not a tech specialist, but if there’s a battery in it, I wouldn’t say certain things. I don’t know what you can do with a phone microphone nowadays, even with TV discussions. This open discussion we can have here together wouldn’t even take place in some countries, and through such structures, of course, thinking, or society and also societal change, gets made even harder. And that’s one of the biggest gifts for me, being allowed to live and move around here in Europe, that I can ask you, dear Yasemin, listen, what do you think of Chancellor Meier? Whether you answer that is your business, but you could answer, you could tell me your opinion, and that’s already really, really great, because then I can go into discourse with you, and I don’t have to strike out 80 percent of topics just to maybe arrive at new thinking, which then influences our society again — instead, in another country, I could only ask you, listen, Yasemin, nice jacket, I like the pink one, or I like the blue one, and you say, yes, I like the white one, that’s nice too, and then we’d look at each other and
smile at each other, and know we’d maybe rather talk about something else, but that wouldn’t be possible there. So thinking and society, for me, requires this political foundation too — democracy, so that a society can also keep developing further and isn’t dictated by a few. Though I also have to say — and then I’m done with this train of thought — that over 47 percent or 50 percent of countries, don’t pin me down on the exact percentage, don’t actually live in democracies. So if you imagine that in half the world it’s different, that such conversations don’t take place there — that’s a gift for me every single morning, that I belong to the 50 percent where this is possible.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and I’d like to pick up on this aspect of a gift again here. On one hand you brought up the topic of traveling again, you said earlier that you’re in Florence. I have to satisfy my curiosity here, by the way — I heard yesterday you were in Florence and thought you were traveling more broadly around Tuscany overall. Are you actually in Florence and staying nearby, so to speak, Florence in Tuscany, exclusively in Florence, or are you actually traveling more widely?
Yes, widely — Florence is just my base point. I studied here 33 years ago, and I had the great gift and luck of having parents who supported me financially. So back then, since I work in fashion, I studied Italian, was here for three months, and had only the problem — I apologize, I had very, very little understanding for art at the time. It just didn’t interest me, I was at an age where it didn’t interest me, and today I can only shake my head at how you could have been in a city like Florence without having seen or done certain things. But that was also due to the fact that as a student you have little money, and I didn’t want to burden my parents further to pay entrance fees for things. And I find it really important, especially in this context of thinking, society, and creativity — Italy is so steeped in history, with Machiavelli, where I try to educate myself further of course, and I didn’t know that Machiavelli was tortured and continued writing his masterpiece, Il Principe, with a broken hand afterward, and I find that so exciting, I feel like a child again, going on a discovery journey with wide eyes, and many things flow into my work, but I never know in advance what might flow into my work, because I’m not searching for anything specific — I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I really walk openly through the city, and through other cities too, and let myself drift, and then discover many things where I think, hey, that’s great. I’ll also make a link in the post about a really banal topic, ice cream. As an entrepreneur I look at that again — if you look at how Italian ice cream vendors present their ice cream, and then look at a German ice cream vendor, if you put both photos side by side, 99.9 percent of people know which ice cream comes from Italy. It’s the same ice cream, the same ingredients, the same production, and I find it so wonderful when you’re in the same business but present things appealingly — there are such great things there, and we’re back at entrepreneurship. Sometimes it’s really, really small things that make a big splash with the masses, and it’s not the big things, not the big inventions, it’s simply doing your job with love and considering how you can do things others already have, but make them look different at your place — and that’s the main draw of traveling for me. I don’t travel because I need sun, or to post my food, or whatever, but for me traveling really means further development, thinking and enjoying and meeting people and talking with people, in grammatically incorrect language — my English teacher would tear their hair out — and there too I can only tell everyone, thinking and society. When we approach people, and in every language I at least try, the most important word is thank you, and the second most important word is good morning — being able to greet a person and say thank you are, for me, the two most important words I know in almost every language, once I’ve been in that country.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and in this context I find it really important to keep becoming aware that we have so many gifts in our lives that we get to gratefully accept, and you always love to emphasize the role traveling plays for you too, and I’d just like to point out again that traveling itself, or being able to travel, isn’t just about financial reasons, but also because of other restrictions that exist in some countries, in many countries by the way, so this isn’t an exception or anything — that many people maybe don’t even have the opportunity to travel the way we can, and with the ease with which we can do it, provided the financial means are there, and all of that are gifts, so to speak, that of course also shape a society, and offer possibilities that not everyone uses. You just said that regarding art, for example, yes, of course I can travel and maybe not take in much of the country at all, I could do a club vacation or whatever, but I could also set myself up for a different kind of traveling, to maybe discover new cultures here too — but I don’t necessarily have to leave the country to recognize certain things here too, or have encounters, especially since we just briefly touched on the topic of immigration — meaning we have many opportunities where we can get to know other cultures too, the question is whether we use them. I recently told a story about how I realized at the hairdresser a few weeks ago that I had my first longer conversation with someone from Syria, and that I hadn’t had the opportunity before — though I also hadn’t confidently sought it out, to really go into deeper exchange with someone. That means we have many opportunities, but sometimes we also have to take them into our own hands quite deliberately and steer them ourselves, to actually get into this exchange. And at the same time, precisely because I brought up the term immigration, many challenges we maybe observe in our own country, in quotation marks, also happen in other countries. This summer, for example, I was sometimes quite shocked by views or statements, even in Turkey, for example, where the topic of immigration is also a big issue right now, because, against the political backdrop that they’ve also received a lot of large financial support and such, some doors have opened here too, and experiencing how that influences people, what statements sometimes exist, and similar — even though, for example, in the past, thinking in terms of typification and such, I would have said, per se, Turkey in general is really a relatively hospitable country, but how certain things, against the backdrop of political decisions and so on, and what happens then — statements suddenly appear quite differently than you’d encounter, where you’re sometimes really quite shocked, in quotation marks, that certain ways of thinking, so to speak, come to expression in language afterward that you might not have expected at all. So we have so, so many developments in so many different directions, and on one hand it’s a gift that we get to consciously perceive the gifts that are there. On the other hand, looking against the backdrop of how our brain reacts to that — am I actually currently in a kind of trap, so to speak, being emotionally led, or what’s happening — how can I evaluate the whole thing on the rational level of thinking, against the backdrop of corresponding reflection, analysis, generating insights, and then, since we’re just talking about gifts, maybe again, well, our focus shifts too, and our perception shifts too, again and again, within our small bubble, our small individual world respectively, to move away from society again for a moment and look at the individual, depending on what’s happening around us right now — and while we’re talking here, I just received the news that my niece had her baby, and suddenly a completely different tune plays now, of course, and perceiving that too — meaning, depending on what’s happening in our environment right now, what’s happening, which circles we move in, what’s on the agenda, our focus shifts too, and I find that really exciting in this context, because that was of course also an impulsive reaction, when the message just reached me via WhatsApp, what that does to you, especially right now in this situation.
Marc, would you like to briefly say something about that too, and then also the closing word for today?
Yes, I’d share one more experience with you all — of course Florence is a city where you also get bombarded with luxury brands, and I think if someone works, if someone has earned something for themselves, then they should buy what they want, whether they need it or not, that doesn’t matter. But what goes through my mind when I see young people — and I really mean young, like 17, 18 — buying shoes for a few hundred euros, or really extremely nice things, and I look at them and think, you’re not an entrepreneur, you probably haven’t found anything yet — that’s something that troubles me too, as I said, how does thinking influence society, when people don’t even know that maybe you have no money at all, no money for anything. And I walk through Florence now with different feelings than the last time I was here, 33 years ago. Back then I stayed at the Case del Popolo — these houses still exist, from the Communist Party, so everyone can afford a coffee too — and thinking and society in Florence, there are still really many cafés where a coffee costs one euro, not the cappuccino, the regular coffee, and these are cities of encounter, where people meet, where they can exchange, where they talk with each other in the evening, and I find that incredibly wonderful. But as I said, I observe that when you walk through such a city, you simply can’t ignore that you get bombarded by really luxury shops, and of course you think exactly what you just brought up, dear Yasemin — we have the luck of being allowed to travel, we’re elsewhere, finally elsewhere, a thousand kilometers from Germany war rages, where people care about each other in a superior way, and it’s all so surreal, and seeing that, and also seeing how carefree people are — of course they’re all enjoying their vacation, and they should, when people are traveling, but the world is really quite black and white, shadow and light, and everything is so close together, and being able to see that — I at least feel this way, that I always come back and think, what a wonderful country I live in, grateful that I have an apartment, many problems aren’t problems anymore, because you’re just — for myself I can only say, I’m simply grateful that I can wake up safely every morning, and those are feelings that get reinforced through such trips, because awareness for such things gets sharpened again, at least for me.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and you just used the term gratitude too — peace is also not a state that’s taken for granted, so we can be grateful for that too, since I just talked about focus shift, perception, our own bubble, and things like that — health, illness plays a role here too, meaning how am I doing right now, what’s my mood against the backdrop of certain developments that might be happening in a certain phase of life right now, age might play a role there too — there are so many components coming together, and then this small-scale effect that plays out in the bigger picture too, because of course it radiates outward again, and these systems I talked about earlier aren’t simply closed systems, but exist in interrelationships too, and so everything is moving, so to speak, everything is in a certain flow at this point. And this aspect of gratitude in particular, I find really lovely to pick up again here as we close the room too, that we can maybe, especially regarding thinking and society, quite consciously direct our focus today toward what we’re actually grateful for, and what all is a gift around us. So, yes, thank you so much, I think this was a really, really multifaceted room we had together today, and let’s just let it sink in.
I’m already looking forward to tomorrow — thinking and consolidation is our room topic, since we’ve now dealt with the overarching theme of thinking over several weeks, to come together tomorrow and summarize, what has actually stuck, what interim insights do we want to hold onto, so to speak. And I’d like to point this out again at this point — I’ll surely do this several more times in the coming days — to make sure as many of you as possible, especially at the latest by Wednesday if time allows, join us again in the room, because we’ll be celebrating our 1000th show, and I’m really looking forward to that too, and there will again be the opportunity in exchange to look at one thing or another, reflect together, and maybe make one decision or another. So this room, the 1000th show on Wednesday, is a really, really important one for me, a really, really important one for Deep Talk, and you’re already warmly invited to make it possible to really join us at 8 o’clock on Wednesday too, when we come together in exchange accordingly.
So, with that I wish you well, I’ll go take care of the joyful news about my niece and the baby and the family addition, so to speak, and have lots of fun with whatever you have planned for today, lots of success with it, and I’m looking forward to hopefully welcoming you back here tomorrow morning at 8. With that, until then, ciao, ciao.
