In no man’s land
Democracy is in upheaval, old certainties are dissolving, and the outlines of a new, more humane world are not yet visible.
“The secret of change lies not in fighting the past, but in directing all energy towards building the new” (Socrates).
Why is it that party politics often fails on issues that are relevant to everyone? What is needed for politics to fulfill its responsibility and to fulfill its tasks with good results for the population and their environment? The world seems to be increasingly falling apart, both on a large and small scale. What was is no longer, but it is not yet clear what will be. Change dominates – and not only in trade. The “good old days”, which never existed anyway, no longer exist. And “the more beautiful world of tomorrow” is a long time coming. We live in an in-between space, in an apparent no man’s land, where familiar certainties are dwindling and there is often no idea of how to move forward. In the context of parliamentary party democracy, political debates are characterized by patterns of conflict and war. And this is even without weapons. Will it be possible to make the transition from a politics organized according to this pattern to a peaceful democracy? And what can we do in concrete terms to create a world that is friendly to life, in which we are all connected?
by Ueli Keller
[This article posted on 3/14/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/im-niemandsland.]
After 12 years of trying to change the system from the inside as a politician, to the best of my ability but basically without success, it seems to me that it is also hopeless from the outside and can no longer be taken seriously.
I often perceive the situation in much the same way as Friedrich Nietzsche described it as early as 1882 in the third book of his cheerful science as follows:
“Offside. – Parliamentarism, that is, public permission to choose between five basic political opinions, flatters those many who would like to appear independent and individual and fight for their opinions. In the end, however, it does not matter whether the herd is commanded one opinion or allowed five opinions. — Whoever deviates from the five public opinions and steps aside always has the whole herd against him.”
The end of democracy?
Unfriendly tendencies towards the constitution of democratic states have shaken confidence in democracy as a form of government that is still considered modern. Due to the enormous power of the economy and the rise of autocratic states, the element of democracy is increasingly disappearing worldwide.
Are we heading for a post-democratic era? Or is it possible that this form of government can and should be rethought and imbued with new impulses?
Whether openly and with brutal force or hidden and with structural violence: the world is full of chaos, crises and wars. These are orchestrated by the old thinking of domination and managed by the gigantic powerful and the immensely rich. This is and makes people ill. Without regard for the consequences, attempts are made to solve problems with collapses or even wars. However, as a rule, they only become bigger as a result.
A lot of noise from the media, politics, business and science is part of the sound of fear in the minds of more and more people. Those who accept or even believe and trust domination because of it become part of it. Its god is the majority. It is always right. Even if it is not the right thing for everyone and for everything.
The majority as a sword of Damocles?
In order to keep the cult of the majority pure, unpopular opinions and unwanted information are labeled “fake news” or “conspiracy theories” with so-called fact checks.
Because and when they question the truth of the rulers or the majority, realities are not recognized as such. Cognitive dissonance is avoided because and when it would require a different course of action.
Toxic hopes are being stirred up to suppress fears. These hopes are supposed to serve many people like a drug that allows them to remain in their shell and lazy, not to deal with reality and not to have to do anything courageous. Hopium: Hope is Dope!
Parliamentary party democracy, with its “winner or loser” mode of combat, is part of the problem. With its elaborate and media-hungry “left-right power chess”, it can hardly arrive at decisions that lead to qualified and sustainable solutions that include everyone and everything.
A new politics is needed for this.
“One must always repeat the truth, because error is also preached around us again and again, and not by individuals, but by the masses. In newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error is at the top, and it is comfortable and cozy for it in the feeling of the majority that is on its side.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).
With their (un)heimlichen Helfershelfern, the power chess parties, oligarchs of the world are destroying democracy. If whoever has the most money can say what applies, that is a system that, among other things, can also generate majorities in Switzerland that are not the yellow of the egg.
Chaos as a form of rule?
Whether MAGA (Make America Great Again) or MEGA (Make Europe Great Again): it’s all just make-believe for a democracy that is no longer a democracy at all. Where toxic positivism prevails, glossing over what is actually poison and abomination.
In many respects, Europe is no longer up to date. And now this seemingly chaotic, domineering US President Donald Trump has come along and made this blatantly clear through his Vice President J.D. Vance. He managed to dominate the terrain at the so-called Security Conference in Munich with his accusation of a lack of freedom of expression in Europe.
How is Europe dealing with the growing pressure that is coming not only from outside but also from within – economically, socially, politically… for the EU as a whole, but also more or less individually for each state, including Switzerland?
This pressure arises, among other things, because Europe, individual states and also Switzerland are holding on to the status quo – while at the same time feeling that it cannot go on like this.
Will life tremble, or will the tremor live?
Seen from the outside, Germany, for example, recently played an almost perfectly bureaucratic and technical game of party power chess in the federal elections: down to at least three decimal places. Seen from the inside, these elections are likely to lead to a policy that will hardly bring about any substantially valuable decisions for everyone, because and if there is a lack of the joint commitment that is needed from left to center to right.
When rigid systems break down, fear arises, but it can also create space for creativity and new vitality. When the old comes to an end, life unfolds its irrepressible power for renewal. There are challenges to be overcome, but also opportunities to be seized!
“The secret of change lies not in fighting the past, but in directing all energy towards building the new” (Socrates).
In his book ‘Regenerative’ (1), the doctor and author Martin Grassberger describes the transition from merely maintaining the status quo to a phase of chaos as highly productive. Yes, chaos can also destroy and cause suffering. But the longer we try to rigidly preserve the old, the greater the danger that just a small shock will cause the whole system to tip over – a domino effect with an uncertain outcome – and with even more suffering.
It is therefore crucial to recognize chaos as part of the larger cycles of life. As an invitation to reflect on what is truly essential. And to develop the courage to use chaos in experimental spaces so that the unknown can be cocreatively explored and new things can grow.
Regeneration in chaos
“Mankind knows more than ever before. But at present, this is of little help in dealing with the many interrelated ecological, health, social, geopolitical or economic crises,” says Grassberger. Because knowledge is good. But wisdom would be better. And cleverness. The latter two skills are needed in our increasingly complex world in order to correctly interpret and meaningfully use the many facts and figures provided by science:
“Our brains desperately cling to numbers, and we are increasingly blind to other phenomena in ecology and society. Blinded by numbers, we can no longer see the diversity of nature, culture and their connections.”
Grassberger wants his book to be seen primarily as an invitation to let go of familiar and often little-questioned views of our existence and to open up to new, but also old and forgotten views of our existence on this planet:
“The current state of the Anthropocene requires us to go beyond our previous thinking and turn to complex systems thinking and holistic perspectives on life. This also includes accepting that solutions are not always to be found in technical progress and economic growth.”
The new paradigm is therefore: “regenerative”. Because the most natural solution could be found in nature itself. “The framework conditions set by nature are the measure of all things and thus also the standard by which we should always live,” he is convinced.
Grassberger explains how this fundamental change in values can, in his view, regenerate human health, society and the economy and enable sustainable prosperity: ”If we change the way we look at things, the things we look at will also change.” It is about nothing less than approaching a new ecological age: a gradual transition from the Anthropocene to the Ecocene.
“We grow in direct proportion to the amount of chaos we can withstand and resolve.” (Ilya Prigogine, 1917 to 2003). He saw a key role in dissident chaos, ‘… (it) is namely something between pure chance and redundant order,’ and thus the condition for the emergence of information in biological systems.
“The first step to escape doom is to stop believing in it and instead believe that we can improve, that we have a future. This also means actively working to preserve this society and its culture.” (Hauke Ritz in an interview with Transition News, 2).
Where the world is geared towards community, people work together and there should only be winners.
I am delighted to see more and more projects in which people are working together for the common good in a peaceful way.
From transition to “we”
According to Bernhard Pörksen, real listening is recognition and acceptance of diversity, the search for what connects us and the clarification of what divides us. In short, it is the collaborative invention of a world that only comes into being when we talk to and listen to each other (3).
In a world geared towards conflict, we fight. And there are winners and losers. A majority of the population and the politicians they elect are still on such a path of struggle and war. I am aware of this.
Much of what seems difficult or even horrific to me in our world is, at least in part, rooted in a situation in which people experience themselves as traumatized and insecure. In an online course called “The Language of the Nervous System – 11 Days for More Balance and Joy of Life” with Verena König, we were recently up against 5,000 participants. These were people who consciously perceive themselves as traumatized and are actively seeking to come to terms with and heal their trauma (4).
On the other hand, many individuals and/or collectives who are traumatized unconsciously enact their traumas in more or less self-destructive and/or destructive ways. We live in a world where the powerful – sometimes unconsciously driven by their traumas – drive hosts of others who are burdened by traumas into the misery of poverty, hunger, disease, wars and destruction. What might happen after the collapse of the major systems?
The dawn of a new culture
“The Dawn of a New Culture – From Resistance to Restructuring: Outlines of an Ecological and Humane Alternative”. (5) This is the title of a book by Dieter Duhm, co-founder of the peace research center ‘Tamera’ in Portugal in 1995. The aim is to combine global peace work with the development of new models of life; and to create places where people can live together with all fellow creatures in cooperation and mutual support.
Written over 30 years ago, Dieter Duhm provided the following message for the new edition of 2011:
“Violence is the eruption of blocked life energies. Pacifism is not the gentle appeasement of violence and not the resolution of conflicts through appeals for peace. Real pacifism is the radical and intelligent self-commitment of the human being for the liberation of all life energies and creative powers within him. Pacifism is the fundamental fight against any kind of suppression of human desire. Pacifism is uncompromising partisanship for the living. Pacifism is militancy, not necessarily political militancy, but militancy in the attainment of inner truthfulness and freedom, because pacifism is the reconciliation of the human being with himself.”
May we feel whole, safe and free. And where there is pain, may healing take place.
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Sources and notes:
(1) Regenerativ – Aufbruch in ein neues ökologisches Zeitalter, Martin Grassberger, 2024
(2) A plea for European sovereignty – an interview with Hauke Ritz, 2024, Link: https://transition-news.org/ein-pladoyer-fur-die-souveranitat-europas?var_mode=calcul
(3) Listening. The art of opening up to the world, Bernhard Pörksen, 2025
(4) More about Verena König and her offers for creative transformations with the following link: https://www.verenakoenig.de/
(5) Departure for a new culture, Dieter Duhm, 2011, Link: https://terra-nova.earth/verlag-meiga/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2022/05/Aufbruch_free-copy.pdf
Ueli Keller, born in 1947, studied educational science, among other subjects. He worked for 45 years, most recently for 12 years with the Swiss canton of Basel-Stadt, where he built up and headed the “School as a Place of Learning and Living” department. Since 2012, he has been working as a freelance educational and living space artist in various fields throughout Europe. He is also an “ambassador for new politics”, where he writes texts for DAS BLATT, among other things.