(Hat-tips to Andreas Popp and Tao Jonesing)
All languages
have their treasures. One of German's most topical treasures is the word Enttäuschung
(ent-toy-shoong), which roughly means disappointment. But Enttäuschung
really means to be disavowed of a deception, to wake up. Ent is a prefix
that suggests removal, Täuschung is deception. As I have come to
understand The System, it is in part a web of deceptions, a fabric of lies.
Seeing it for what it is, ‘waking up’, will be accompanied by disappointment.
But this is a good thing the English word does not imply.
Through
disappointment, through Enttäuschung, we travel through a disorienting
period of isolation. Collectively, if we share and discuss our experiences of
disorientation, we will also create the spaces and initial structures that can
tend us towards new, more humane communities and communities of communities,
and this as a process of continual renewal. To be most robust and fair,
I suggest these communities should be founded on knowingly interdependent yet
simultaneously autarkic ‘individuals’ who want, establish and sustain authentic
and transparent institutions.
If we want to
discuss The System openly in a free and non-privatised internet, if we want
people to be engaged and interested in that discussion, this will require and
be a mass Enttäuschung we travel through. Fruitful Enttäuschung
will require that we are lastingly resistant to and aware of the purpose behind all
bread-and-circus distractions, all divide-and-conquer tactics, and will
further require that we know and wield our power wisely. Hence, we will need to learn how
to discuss intelligently, patiently and honestly, with an awareness that we always
become emotionally involved in the process. Which is exactly what makes Enttäuschung
so disappointing and, potentially, so fruitful.
