It was only when reading the press release about a Kirchentag presentation by Joachim Gauck entitled "Macht Spiritualität Macht?" that I realised that the word macht has more than one meaning. As a noun it means power and as a verb it means make. "Does spirituality make power?"
Gauck particularly addressed this issue by looking at the experience of people in the GDR 20 years ago when the system collapsed and people had to try and take responsibility rather than complain about those at the top. His speech is not yet online but I look forward to reading it. The issue of spirituality and power is an interesting approach to analysing political and social change.
Gauck was for many years in charge of the authroity dealing with access to the papers gathered by the Stasi in former East Germany.
Thursday 21 May 2009
Word of the day "macht"
Publié par Jane à l'adresse 23:47
Libellés : 1989 and all that, Spirituality
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2 Comments:
The second meeting in 1984 of the GDR peace and human rights network Frieden konkret had the title Vernunft macht Frieden (Reason creates peace) -but if you capitalise the M you get - Reason/Power/Peace - and if it is all in capitals it's difficult to tell the difference. Not surprising the SED was strongly opposed to this title.
Thanks Zweiffler for that - we should try and get something about it onto Holy Disorder
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