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Bisky, Jens
4 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
The Love Parade: West Berlin's gift to global culture
The left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung comments on the enormous success of the Love Parade, the techno demonstration that took place in Berlin from 1989 to 2006: "The Parade's victory march began - not by accident - on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm, right where the former West was at its 'Westest'. Far from wanting to anticipate anything, techno culture was fundamentally against anticipation. But putting it like that also fails to hit the mark because it implies a direction, whereas the whole movement was about the timelessness of ecstasy, the joy of repetition, about interiority, concentrating on the moment and your own body. ... [With rave culture] everything merged together in the present, an endless moment with neither past nor present, without extension, an eternal loop. All that suits the atmosphere of the divided metropolis of West Berlin to a 'T', like the calm in the eye of the hurricane. The culture of the Love Parade blends technological advancement with a disinterested attitude to progress, the joys of the mass with absolute indifference to the power it could have. It was all about living the ready-made urban idyll, a cultural technology for which the old West Berlin offered the perfect preconditions."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Music, » Public Culture, » Germany
Jens Bisky on the blossoming European public sphere
The European public sphere is blooming regardless of what anyone says, writes commentator Jens Bisky in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: "European topics - issues regarding cohabitation and news from the other member states - are more present in the national media than ever before. German Europeans can click onto perlentaucher.de or eurotopics.net and read about discussions in countries whose language they don't understand. Such portals whet your appetite for more. The web presences of EU institutions, however, could do with a good facelift. They need more sparkle, more forums and less dry instruction. Nevertheless there's so much information available that even with the best intentions you'll never be able to take it all in. The complaint about the lack of a European public sphere and the supposed disinterest in Europe above all bespeaks the weakness and diddling of Europe's politicians. Far too infrequently do they really address European issues: for example the restricitions on freedom of movement for many Eastern Europeans, the bureaucratic hassles you have to go through to get a residency permit or even a work permit, or the rights of labour migrants."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Elections, » Europe
Jens Bisky on the truth behind the traditional image of the family
Ursula von der Leyen, the German Minister for Family Affairs, announced plans to increase the number of day-care places available for pre-school children with a view to enabling women to return to work sooner. Conservative politicians complained that their party was giving up the "traditional family image". For the German journalist, Jens Bisky, this image is an ideal that has never really existed - at least in European literature: "The traditional family, along with the Trojan War, is one of the most prolific literary battlefields. From Samuel Richardson's sensitive novels to August Strindberg's dramas, the intimate web of emotions between parents and children produces an excess of deaths, madness and desperation and claims an unprecedented amount of human victims. Nor is the phenomenon we refer to as the 'patchwork family' as new as people would have us believe: both Rousseau's 'The New Heloise" and Goethe's 'Stella' feature triangle relationships in which three partners live together. ... Nowadays, those who talk of the 'traditional family' invoke images of happiness and disaster, failed sons, difficult daughters, hysterical mothers and tyrannical fathers. They make reference to a field of conflict, one of the most productive social institutions there is."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Literature, » Social movements, » Germany
Jens Bisky on the scandal stories about the past
Jens Bisky uses the German debate on dealing with the Nazi past – including the discussion about Günter Grass – as an opportunity to write about scandals that have no consequences. For Bisky, "agitated discussions about the right way of dealing with the past no longer lead to any new insights… Anyway, scandal is a dominant form of discourse that is not really conducive to learning anything. Its logic feeds the suspicion that behind what we can see, something monstrous is being hidden or planned. The function of scandal is to confirm norms, give public opinion the upper hand and suppress opinions that are different. This explains the tone of the debate, which is often hostile toward freedom, as well as the almost knee-jerk demands for resignation, expulsion and contemptuousness that have little to do with an open society. In the case of contemporary history, the recent past, people are often too ready to forget that we cannot have truth without the freedom to make mistakes, without a variety of different perspectives and without the arguments of opposing sides.”
» to the homepage (external link, Süddeutsche Zeitung)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » History, » Germany
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