Another electoral success of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) in East German Brandenburg, where this organization won 30% of the vote, is simply a landmark event in the political evolution of Germany, as is the increasing conservative nationalism in east and Central Europe.
Following in the footsteps of another East German states – Thuringia and Saxony – Brandenburg became the 3rd German region in which AfD became a serious political player. This trend points to a deep desire to regain sovereignty and escape from the influence of the liberal and cosmopolitan ethos of Western Europe.
What would Nietzsche see in AfD?
Look at these events through the prism Friedrich Nietzsche allows you to see a gigantic cultural divide that reflects the East-West division, but with fresh actors and existential issues. We are witnessing, if we usage the Nietzschean terminology, the emergence of “Eastern Europe” not in geographical terms, but in spiritual terms – as a bastion of the last heirs of strength, perseverance and conventional values, as was the bastion of the continuation and endurance of the heritage of the Roman Empire and orthodox Christianity, was the Byzantium, at a time erstwhile Western Europe was fragmented after the fall of the Western Empire.
As Nietzsche erstwhile observed, “The German people with an enviable appetite proceed to feed on contradictions and a sip of ‘faith’ in the company of science... without showing any signs of indigestion’. These words are peculiarly crucial present and are bitter criticisms of modern West Germany consumed by interior contradictions. The West claims that it defends “freedom”, but at the same time restricts the legal discourse by pushing political correctness. It praises “diversity” while striving to homogenise existing cultural differences. AfD's success in Brandenburg with the emergence in the importance of conservative currents in the East is simply a revolt against ideological confusion, the rejection of liberal paradoxes that dominated Western Europe. In the success of AfD Nietzsche could see the formation of a nation that yet refuses to be absorbed by the contradictions of its times, proclaiming thus the rejection of moral relativism and Western decadence.
It's not just politics.
In Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony, we are not witnessing a simple political change, but alternatively a cultural rebellion. Nietzsche frequently complained that "It is not only that the Germans have completely lost the sense of vision, which allows them to capture the current of culture and the values it represents, that they are not only political puppets (and the puppets of the Church), but actually prohibited themselves from having any broader visions". These observations show in a very painful way the actual context of Western Germany, which active the eventual abandonment of the deep cultural instincts that were erstwhile of their greatness. The emergence of the AfD, however, means a partial return to this imagination – an effort to get out of the puppet's strings of both liberal and shallow institutionalized Christianity. The revolution in the East is not just a revolt against mass immigration and economical inequality. It is besides an opposition to shallow materialism and spiritual impotence, so characteristic of the modern West.
Current Message
This historical message cannot be ignored anymore. The deepening gap between the East and the West, now manifested in the AfD triumph in the German East, reflects the ancient division in which the West is again falling into decay, and the East rises like a fortress of discipline, religion and tradition. Here a similarity is imposed with guards of conservative size – Orbán in Hungary, Putin in Russia. The increase in the meaning of AfD is not a single light, but alternatively a signal of a greater transformation passing across the continent – the emergence of a self-confident, victorious and free from the globalistic illusions of east Europe. It is in its territory that there is the last stronghold of European identity, defending itself fiercely against the fallen and increasingly insignificant West.
Expression alternatively of understatement
The criticism of modernism by Nietzsche is peculiarly crucial in current socio-political conditions. He spoke of the insincereness of the Germans towards himself, claiming that “What Germany calls ‘deep’ is this dishonesty towards itself... People quit clarity towards their own nature”.
This interior deficiency of coherence is manifested in the painful contradictions of West Germany's policies, in which the pursuit of humanitarianism hides the reality of an expanding fragmentation of society. A clear contrast is expressed by AfD voters from Brandenburg and another lands, who have clarity about their imagination of the future: they reject the globalist program, mass immigration and ideological tyranny of Western elites. In this sense, AfD's success means that for the first time in many decades the German people, at least the east part of them, chose clarity in place of indeterminateness, decisively in place of confusion.
Heidegger's breakthrough
It is hard to estimation the wider cultural implications of AfD's successes. We are entering an era where Europe will one more time be divided into the East and the West, but this time the roles will turn. erstwhile the West was a lighthouse of culture, strength and vitality, and present the East is the last bastion of European civilization. utilizing terminology Martin Heidegger, it can be said that the West was brought to the function “No 1 for whom each Da-sein has already capitulated”, amorphous distribution force ‘their’, a mass that is defined by the deficiency of self-consciousness. Western Europe with its technocratic elites, fetish of open borders, nihilistic sinking into relativism gave in to this “im”, blurring all sense of individual and national identity. Unlike him, the East resists this blur. AfD's success in Brandenburg is simply a manifestation of this resistance, as is the wider conservative wave passing through Hungary, Poland and Russia. There are inactive people in the East who remember who they are and know that memory is the foundation of a possible European cultural revival.
Eastern – the last bastion of Europe
This is not just a political conflict, but an existential conflict. Heidegger wrote that “The greatness of man can be measured by what he desires and the level of that desire.”. What does the West desire? Comfort, facilitation and elimination of any conflict at the expense of your identity. What does the East desire? Return to order, tradition and the defence of your own cultural heritage. The strength of this desire, this quest to recover the lost, is what characterises the east conservative movements that are Europe's last hope. erstwhile the Western Roman Empire fell apart, Byzantium continued to hold on, preserving and defending Roman law and Greek culture—values which subsequently influenced and in subsequent centuries shaped east European civilization. present we see akin dynamics. Western Europe is helplessly falling into the abyss, and the East is trying to reconstruct human glory through its heroic struggles against the decay forces.
The soul of Europe
In this context, the success of AfD in Brandenburg is not just a political event, but a trailer for a deeper cultural and existential change. AfD's victory, like the silver helmets of powerful chic in any forgotten Welsh kingdom, symbolizes the revival of deep European spirituality—a spirit that refuses to plunge into the fogs of relativism and decay. It's a negation. "submission to barbarians" (Robert E. Howard), refusal to plunge into the mists of past without fighting. Just as the golden spears of ancient peoples utilized to shine like stars, so these rebirth forces want to illuminate the way forward, even erstwhile the West is in darkness.
Nietzsche could see here a large conflict for the soul of Europe. The conflict that will decide whether Europe will be able to emergence again to its erstwhile glory or fall forgotten in the abyss of centuries.
Constantin von Hoffmeister
The Middles come from Editorial.
