The good column: German column tradition

I’m not sure that, in a better future, writing and publishing newspaper columns should be completely abandoned. Because columns only have disadvantages: As a rule, the authors only talk about everyday banalities (the other day on the subway, the other day in the supermarket, the time I accidentally returned a library book too late, my first sexual intercourse, etc.), often on top of that written clumsily enough, in roughly constructed four-word sentences or with the help of tiring garlands of sentences, so that you quickly get the impression that a reasonably mentally agile five-year-old would have phrased it more elegantly.

The good column

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Thomas Blum fundamentally disagrees with the prevailing so-called reality. He won’t be able to change her for the time being, but he can reprimand her, admonish her or, if necessary, give her a beating. So that the bad begins to retreat. We stand in solidarity with his fight against reality. Therefore, from now on, “The Good Column” will appear here on Mondays. Only the best quality for the best readers! The collected texts can be found at: dasnd.de/diegute

Or – if it is an explicitly daily or weekly political column – there will be banal chatter from politicians (“a big hurdle has been overcome”, “we stand together on the side of freedom”, “today is a day of confidence”). journalistically reprocessed and commented on in a way that is intended to give the banal chatter a higher meaning and refine it into a collection of profound wisdom (“Angela Merkel has cut the Gordian knot and trimmed the Bavarian lion’s claws”, “he has lost the wind in his opponent.” the sails – and at the same time red lines were drawn”, “the experienced warhorse Friedrich Merz has succeeded in pulling the stalled cart of his candidacy out of the polls’ slump”).

Columns often not only spread boredom or affirm – often peppered with phrases from which the chalk of two centuries trickles down – the current miserable political conditions (or do both). They also have another crucial drawback (while we’re talking about carts and warhorses): you have to read them, which means that valuable life time is lost that could also be used sensibly (working, shopping, driving).

In addition, columns are usually written by bitter old white men (Martenstein, Fleischhauer, FJ Wagner, etc.) whose hearts are still bleeding because Konrad Adenauer is no longer Chancellor and these days women are allowed to take part in elections and even wear pants . Sometimes serious, but mostly “cheerful and tongue-in-cheek” they report in columns with titles like “In a Word”, “Under the Magnifying Glass” or “Mail from Grandpa” about the scandalous conditions in our country, which is becoming more and more crazy every day (left-wing climate-saving madness , gender star fascism, women wearing pants), about the outshining beauty of the German highway or their erection problems.

That doesn’t have to be the case. Other columns are possible: columns that are not perfectly tailored to the Prussian subject brain. Columns in which “the dullness is not warmed up” (Thomas Bernhard). Columns in which the phrase “We Germans” is guaranteed never to appear.

This new column that you are currently reading is firmly in the time-honored, even unshakable German column tradition in three points: 1. It consists of a limited number of letters. 2. It has a fixed publication day (Monday) and place. 3. It is written by a bitter old white man. However, it also differs from the tradition mentioned in one essential point: it sees itself as fundamentally not in agreement with the currently prevailing so-called reality. Well. And that’s not a small amount.

It is not yet clear whether this column is needed or whether it should be dispensed with in the future. In any case, one thing is certain: if the sky doesn’t fall on our heads by then, it will appear here again next Monday.