How much dissent must we tolerate? How can literature help us see things from a different perspective? And what holds a diverse society together? Writer and philosopher Thea Dorn on freedom of expression and the difficult search for a democratic ‘we’.
Doesn’t democracy require not only freedom of expression, but also the courage to actually exercise it?
‘Courage’ is a big word that I don’t particularly like when it comes to expressing opinions in democracies. In authoritarian societies, it takes courage to say or write things that the authorities don’t like. In democracies, one simply has to be able to cope with being strongly contradicted when one expresses an opinion that meets with opposition.
However, it certainly poses a threat to democracy when the backlash regularly reaches the intensity of a ‘shitstorm’ and, moreover, is directed not only at the opinion itself but also at the person expressing it.
People were cautious because they didn’t want to look like fools.
In the world’s first democracy, ancient Athens, two fundamental principles governed political discourse: isegoria and parrhesia. Every citizen had the right to exercise their freedom of expression on an equal footing, without having to fear being disparaged for it. We should continue to take our cue from this today. Another principle we should bear in mind is that in Athens, it was accepted that even ‘bullshit’ could be an opinion. Nevertheless, citizens and politicians alike were careful not to spread bullshit – not because it was considered morally reprehensible or because it was forbidden. They were careful because they did not want to be seen as fools.
Someone who thinks only ‘me, me, me’ probably doesn’t enjoy reading – take Donald Trump, for example. On the other hand, most readers will have experienced at some point looking for a character in a literary work with whom they can identify, or for sentences that speak straight from the heart. Bad literature satisfies this need without any ifs or buts.
There is more darkness in every heroine than we would like
Good literature, on the other hand, consists almost entirely of ifs and buts. Its sentences take surprising turns; it presents characters to us in such a way that we realise: there is more darkness in every heroine than we would care for, and every villainess has a story that makes her more than just evil.
I would like to say: only democrats are good readers, because they can tolerate voices that go against the grain. But Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, was a reader who was as passionate as he was discerning – and certainly no democrat.
How much of a shared sense of ‘we’ does a democracy need in order to accommodate differing voices?
Well, that is the million-dollar question of democracy. Some advocates of the liberal constitutional state hope that it could be achieved even with a population of egoists and narcissists – I’m sceptical about that. Anyone who is only aware of their own interests and worldviews, anyone who believes that the common good is an antiquated concept for fools, only ever listens to themselves – even if they team up with supposedly like-minded people in a bubble for a while.
The crux of the matter is simply this: how heterogeneous can, may or must a democratic ‘we’ be in order to embody the spirit of tolerance, without which any democracy suffocates? And how homogeneous can/may/must this ‘we’ be to ensure it does not become a completely arbitrary conglomerate that falls apart in the face of tensions and conflicts?
The democratic ‘we’ of the 21st century cannot be the culturally – or indeed ethnically – homogeneous ‘we’ that right-wing populists preach.
Unfortunately, I can only say which answers are definitely wrong: the democratic ‘we’ of the 21st century cannot be the culturally or even ethnically homogeneous ‘we’ that right-wing populists preach. On the other hand, the all-encompassing human ‘we’ envisaged by the advocates of universally understood equality and justice exceeds the realistic possibilities of any specific, democratically organised society. The million-dollar answer will lie somewhere between these two extremes.
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About the person
Thea Dorn is a writer, television presenter and philosopher. She has been presenting the ‘Literarische Quartett’ on ZDF since 2020, and has been spokesperson for PEN Berlin since 2024. Her best-known books include *Die deutsche Seele* (The German Soul), *Die Unglückseligen* (The Unfortunate Ones), *deutsch, nicht dumpf* (German, Not Dull) and *Trost. Briefe an Max* (Consolation: Letters to Max). In her books and public debates, she repeatedly addresses issues of freedom of expression, social cohesion and a democratic culture of debate.