Wolfram Weimer at “Maischberger”: What one is allowed to think

Did Katrin Göring-Eckardt do herself a favor when she followed the dramaturgical considerations of the "Maischberger" editorial team and let herself be pitted against Wolfram Weimer? The two were supposed to debate "cancel culture," a topic tirelessly championed by Minister of State for Culture Weimer, in other words, the question: Is it permissible to say that in Germany, one cannot say everything one means?

The topic could presumably be quickly dismissed if it hadn't been repeatedly kept alive by Green Party politician Göring-Eckardt. She said things on "Maischberger" that made it easy for Weimer to make his concerns about the diversity of opinion in Germany seem plausible. The mere fact that she, Göring-Eckardt, wanted to dictate to the Minister of State for Culture what he should say instead of what he actually said could, of course, be interpreted as evidence of Weimer's obsession with restricted freedom of expression in Germany. He should not "reinforce" the false opinion that people are increasingly less free to express their opinions in Germany by addressing this unjustified concern. Shouldn't he?

I want, said Göring-Eckardt, I want the Minister of State for Culture to stand up and say: "You can say whatever you want in Germany." People, the Minister of State for Culture should continue, just have to expect that they will be contradicted even if they say what they want. And people must learn to tolerate this spirit of contradiction, instead of assuming, when contradicted, that they are not allowed to mean everything they want to mean.

Weimer, however, had a different understanding of the discursive national problem. He would like to be allowed to believe that the spaces of discourse in Germany needed to be "expanded"; and he would like to express this from a "centre-class standpoint," which is his own when he believes he must defend freedom of speech against both left and right. In the end, it seemed to be a question of whether the Minister of State for Culture is allowed to think this or not.

In fact, over the course of the broadcast, the question increasingly took on the character of a test of the validity of Weimer's Cancel Culture theories. The more Göring-Eckardt tried to talk him out of his opinion and dictate another, the "correct," opinion, the more convincing his concern seemed that more and more people in Germany believed that one could not freely express one's opinion. Göring-Eckardt repeatedly countered that such a concern was inappropriate for a Minister of State for Culture to express. This, in turn, seemed to confirm Weimer's opinion that if "the perceived concept of freedom is narrowing" in Germany, then it would behoove a middle-class man like him to "broaden it again."

This was, in a sense, the circular argument on which the dialogue between Göring-Eckardt and Weimer was editorially determined: a Green politician who has been a proven opinion maker for years against a Minister of State for Culture who perceives stance requirements, including the requirement as to which opinion should be contradicted, as a restriction of freedom of expression, as "perceived paternalism" in any case, and who believes he must warn against this and calls for "broadening" of what can be said.

What did Katrin Göring-Eckardt mean when she said, in a concession to the Minister of State for Culture, that she too was in favor of "we" (pronounced with strong emphasis) arguing with each other (I add: in this Maischberger broadcast here), "and then others not arguing" (pronounced with strong emphasis on the "not"), in the sense, as Göring Eckardt clarified, "not taking up space and room for ourselves, that's fine." Isn't this kind of thinking, which assigns positions to the "right" people, precisely what the Minister of State for Culture considers "not" fine?

Thus, Göring-Eckardt seemed to provide him with the evidence whenever she opened her mouth. With the truly disturbing twist of not noticing this performative fatality, of blatantly not perceiving herself, her own actions, as part of the problem outlined by Weimer—the longer not, the better. So that, after the discussion, the Minister of State for Culture only needs to draw the necessary conclusions in the name of a "freedom" that is not further defined conceptually.

For Weimer's plot of freedom of expression being stifled by stance dictates to work, all it apparently needed was this "Maischberger" show as illustrative material. Weimer emerged victorious; almost without his doing anything, the brief encounter with the Green Party politician created the impression that he was liberating culture from the Göring-Eckardts of this nation, from their dictate: "You must take a stand for this or that!"

In other words, Weimer acted according to the motto: Anyone who has Göring Eckardt against them and thus on their side doesn't need to define the vocabulary of freedom any further; they can let its hermeneutic added value work for them and, at the same time, relativize themselves as part of the political establishment. A sentence as beautifully crafted as this one seemed worthwhile after all: "Culture is not the usher of our political correctness."