Welcome to the first entry of my new blog. Well aware of the internet gods’ unquenchable thirst for new content, I offer this as my humble sacrifice. I’ll be focussing mostly on language as well as social and cultural issues. It is nearly impossible, and maybe even disingenuous, to discuss matters of language, culture, and society without getting at least somewhat political, so expect some of that, too!
For my inaugural post, I want to address the Covid-19 pandemic, and specifically the terms used to discuss it in both Germany and the USA. In addition to the obviously very different political conditions, institutional structures, and social circumstances in the two countries, the different ways of speaking about the pandemic and, specifically, the policy steps taken to address it betray fundamentally different understandings of the situation and, further, shape these understandings for both policymakers and the public. The specifically American use of the terms “closed”, “open”, and “reopening” highlight a black/white, either/or understanding of the anti-corona measures – one that leads to even more polarization and “culture war-ification” of the pandemic. In contrast, German policymakers’ and media’s use of terms like “measures”, “restrictions”, and “relaxations” (Lockerungen) reveal a more nuanced, and ultimately more accurate, way of communicating with the public. Also in the German case, after-the-fact linguistic borrowing of English terms like “lockdown” by the public and media to describe the early days of the pandemic response further highlights the very different “official” terms used by German policymakers and other experts. What I find particularly striking about these differences is how they often reference very similar policy responses, but frame them in very different ways.
As the reality of the situation began to dawn on Europe and North America in the first two weeks of March 2020, German and American politicians at all levels were (finally, and belatedly) forced to spring into action to prevent the scenes unfolding in northern Italy – because the scenes from Wuhan were somehow not alarming enough – from repeating themselves in towns and cities across the two countries. Personally speaking, my WhatsApp conversations with my family in New Jersey became something of a game of policy one-upmanship. What new, almost cinematically dystopian measures unthinkable just weeks earlier were being imposed? Borders began to close, followed by bars and restaurants, then schools and day care centers, followed by most businesses. People shifted to working from home (or, as the Germans say in a case of not-quite-right borrowing, “in homeoffice”), and restrictions were placed on how we move through public spaces. New Jersey even imposed a temporary curfew in the evenings – going far beyond the “lockdown” in Berlin, for example. In fact, there was never a hard “lockdown” here when compared with Italy, France, and Spain, where people were basically confined to their homes for weeks and months. In the end, however, the restrictions and steps taken in Berlin, where I am, didn’t look all that different from those taken in New Jersey or New York.
By late April it became clear that the “lockdown”, or in German officialdom, “measures”, that had been imposed were bearing fruit. New infections and deaths slowly began to decline. At which point, discussions on “reopening the state” and even, tellingly revealing priorities, “reopening the economy” quickly began to emerge in the US – even in parts of the country that had not yet even begun their “first wave” of infections. As an interesting aside, German federalism delivered the opposite situation: states like Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which had very few cases in March, still chose to pursue especially strict measures and only gradually relaxed them – the result is many areas with currently no viral activity at all. The discussions in Germany at that point (late-April/May) were much more cautious than in the US. We had avoided the horrifying levels of deaths seen in Bergamo, Madrid, and New York City, and the awareness of this accomplishment led politicians and the public to talk openly about not “risking gambling away” (aufs Spiel setzen) this hard-won situation.
Instead, German politicians spoke in terms of “relaxations” of the “restrictions” that had been put in place in this extraordinary situation. This made it clear that things were not going back to normal and that we would have to continue living with much more state regulation of our everyday lives than we had been used to. In contrast, the American use of “reopening” could easily be misinterpreted as a sign that things could now go back to normal. Which they basically did in many parts of the country, as the currently skyrocketing case numbers show. The relatively stable and low(er) level of Covid-19 cases in New York and New Jersey, though still much higher per capita than in Germany, are probably a result of the continued, though relaxed, measures still in place in those states as well as the public’s probable partial traumatization by the events of the last few months, leading perhaps to more voluntary compliance with public health measures and recommendations than in other parts of the country.
The either/or vocabulary of “closed” and “reopened”, however, contributes to a much more polarised and difficult public and political discussion of how best to proceed. In addition, it has moved even those Americans who support “following the science” to argue and respond in ways that strike me, from my rather German perspective, as bordering on non-scientific paranoia. With at least the federal government’s complete failure to respond appropriately, and fellow citizens’ non-compliance with mask-wearing out of spite for “liberals”, it becomes understandable that these “science followers” insist on spraying everything in bleach and viewing public spaces, especially public transportation, as inherently “not safe” – a phrasing I’ve never heard from Germans, who tend to speak in terms of levels of risk associated with certain spaces and activities. These Americans seem to me to yearn, paradoxically given their repugnance for the anti-democratic approach of the Trump administration, for a technocracy (centered very much on the person of Dr. Anthony Fauci) that bypasses their elected officials – further reinforcing a spiral of democratic decline. Meanwhile in Germany, the science guides policymakers, but ultimately it is the elected representatives who decide how to translate it into policy – a point emphasised by virology superstar Dr. Christian Drosten time and again.
The differing terms of the conversation have also limited German populists’ ability to exploit the pandemic politically. Although some politicians from the conservative CDU and the liberal (pro-business) FDP called for faster, more far-reaching “relaxations” in April and May, only the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) has showed any signs of fundamentally questioning the remaining restrictions, and their poll numbers are now lower than they've been in years. The public’s awareness of the policies falling along a spectrum of restrictiveness attuned to virus activity in given local areas makes it hard to frame the issue as a case of “the establishment” gone mad. In Trump’s America, on the other hand, the face mask (or, in German terms, the “mouth-nose-protection”) has to a certain extent become a symbol of ideological purity and tribal belonging. In Germany, where the emphasis has always been on communication and public discussion of the relative value of specific measures, it’s simply a piece of cloth.
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