The Role of Collective Trauma in the Actual War

Cause for horror

Every war is cruel and inhuman. The war that broke out these days is, beyond the inhumanity associated with any war, a cause for horror and dismay for all those who believe in the power of peace and non-violent conflict resolution and who hoped that in the millennia of civilizational progress the primitive law of the strongest would be overcome. It is cause for disillusionment about the power that individuals, supported by compliant elites and enthroned by manipulation and dictatorial tricks, can bear violence in the 21st century. The Russian autocrat has unleashed an aggressive war of aggression against his "brother nation," driven by sheer greed for power and by a nationalist ideology with a contorted view of history. 

We feel thrown back to the 18th or 19th century, where wars were started when a neighbouring state was weak and one's own army was well equipped. Potentates put their troops on the march to expand their own power realm and increase their historical glory. These were gruesome wars, but they mostly affected the civilian population only marginally. Unlike today, almost every war of aggression in those days resulted in coalitions in which the relevant great powers pursued their interests. Another difference was that wars were fought on battlefields, not in major cities.

The Russian aggression of February 24, 2022, was possible because it was clear that the West did not want to interfere militarily. The European continent has two world wars behind it and intensive learning and reappraisal processes have taken place in many countries. The horrors of the wars have left deep scars on souls and led many people to believe that international conflicts must be resolved nonviolently, without the sacrifice of human lives. The threshold for entering into warlike actions is high in functioning democracies, because it is probably impossible in any country to mobilize majorities for a war of aggression. 

But how do democracies deal with dictatorships in which wars can be waged without regard for their own populations? The response options are limited to economic sanctions and moral ostracism. The situation is reminiscent of that before World War II, in which the dictatorship in Germany took advantage of the dithering of the English and French democracies to invade Czechoslovakia, first in the so-called Sudeten territories, including guarantees for the integrity of the rest of Czechoslovakia, only to occupy it six months later. Dictators have an advantage in action over more discussion oriented democracies. They have the disadvantage that the decisions that are made are driven by the emotions of individuals who are highly prone to error.

Sooner or later (more likely over the long haul), the model of Western democracies is so attractive that more and more people living under different conditions will aspire to it. One component of the current war lies in the dictators' fear of this attraction, which would go to their own heads. Putin wants to dictate to Ukraine what form of life and government the country "wants" to have, so that he can, in a sense, create a buffer zone against the democratic bacilli coming from the West, for which there is much fertile ground in Russia as well. 

Shameful Finding

We must experience the present state of humanity, that is, of the community of people, as shameful. How can it be possible that a long-term ruler with his military machinery starts a war of aggression in the 21st century and nobody can put a stop to this outrage? Unfortunately, we are still a long way from a world order in which states are deprived of their monopoly on the use of force. There is no world police force that can arrest individual state perpetrators of violence and take away their means of violence. Individual states function only because of the internal monopoly of power among the forces of order. How can a world function if there are no forces of order responsible for the whole world to stop such inhumane aberrations?

Collective Traumas and their Devastating Effects

Putin has named the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine as the aim of this war. Everyone knows that Ukraine is not ruled by Nazis and is no potential military threat for highly armed Russia. So these are propaganda lies. At the same time, it becomes clear what historical trauma is behind the aggression. Putin has pointed out that he avoided a mistake made by his predecessor Stalin, namely naively believing in World War II that Russia would not be attacked by Nazi Germany. Then, when German troops unexpectedly invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 and inflicted defeat after defeat on the Russian army, the shock was great and could be dealt with only slowly after the situation turned in favour of the Soviet army starting in late 1942 and finally Germany was defeated in 1945.

The collective trauma has obviously not been overcome, and Putin sees himself as the executor of a victim-perpetrator reversal. He finds the Nazi opponents in Ukraine and wants to eradicate the "Nazis" there before they can become dangerous to the Russian fatherland. Moreover, the Ukrainian "brother people" are to be saved from wickedness of their leaders. 

But the Ukrainians suffer from an even earlier trauma, the Holodomor between 1931 and 1933, which can be considered as genocide. About 3.5 million Ukrainians fell victim to the Soviet agricultural policy with the collectivization of agriculture. About 10% of the population was exposed to starvation at that time. In addition, there were extensive "purges", i.e. the execution or internment of artists, teachers, scientists and intellectuals, as well as lower and middle party cadres. Historian Gerhard Simon writes: "For Stalin, the Holodomor was not only an instrument to discipline the peasants, but also to destroy once and for all in Ukraine all dreams of autonomy or even independence." (Source here) 

These events dug a deep hole in the collective Ukrainian soul. This was also one of the reasons why many Ukrainians joined the invading German soldiers in WW2, fought for them and also assisted in mass murders of Jews, albeit instigated by the German Nazis. This turn of events in turn resulted in the hatred of many Russians for Ukrainians. 

Putin has Studied his Hitler

Here also lies a root of today's Russian propaganda, which accuses the democratically elected government of Ukraine of Nazism and uses this insinuation as a pretext for forcibly invading the country, invented and presumably fed by an unreflective and unprocessed history. The Nazis, who invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 out of greed for power, are to be punished and avenged in Ukraine - with tricks copied from the Nazis: Using fake news to feign Ukrainian attacks in order to have a justification for attacking. So Putin has learned his Hitler: Assume that the victim of your aggressiveness is under attack, if necessary staged, then you have the right to destroy the state with your superior military machinery. Of course, Putin uses a propaganda trick because there would be no signs or reasons why Ukraine should attack Russia.

Even the goal of demilitarizing Ukraine, which the Russians have taken up, is justified by an apparently deep-seated fear of external aggression - not surprising for a country that has been invaded from the West several times in history. This time, however, the tables are turned and the aggression goes from Russia to the south and west.

We don't know if Putin really believes what he is talking about, in any case his propaganda serves the dark stains of the Russian soul that characterize the thinking and feeling of many of his compatriots, who have little idea of history and its complexity and of the effect of collective traumas. In addition, Russia's own population has long been inundated with false news and manipulative propaganda. Dictators need stupid people as followers and also count on their stupidity; that is part of their impudence. 

Disillusionment

The sobering insight is: we have to change our ways and scale back our expectations of humanity's progress in reason. A world order based on the principles of non-violence, characterized by freedom and self-determination, can only exist to the extent that it is shared and respected by all concerned. It is enough for a ruler or a regime not to share these principles, but to subordinate them to its own striving for power, to undermine their validity and their effectiveness. In the long run, nonviolence will triumph over violence, but with infinite casualties. In the short term, Russia's arbitrary unilateral aggression means that the arms spiral must continue to go upward around the world and that we continue to need a balance of terror to prevent global nuclear war from breaking out.

In the combat zones in Ukraine, not only people are dying and not only material goods are being destroyed, but the order of values that mankind has painstakingly acquired and fought for over centuries is being attacked. The opportunity, however, lies in making ourselves aware of these values and in representing and defending them with commitment. We must not allow the level of humanity we have achieved to be thrown overboard by potentates flexing their muscles with the pathos of smear dictators and projecting their destroyed inner selves into brutal destruction in the outside world.

Collective processing of historical traumas is an indispensable basis for making it impossible for autocrats to play the piano of unprocessed collective emotions and to channel these energies in aggressive directions.

Collective Regression and Repetition Compulsion - Aspects of the Ukraine Invasion

The cruel events in Ukraine confront us with primitive forms of conflict resolution, namely the idea of using force and superior military strength to subjugate an opponent and impose one's own wishes on him. The law of the strongest had already largely disappeared from the civilized world, overcome by legal systems at the state level and by international treaties and supranational organizations at the global level. But not all players abide by the rules, and when one of the powerful ones breaks away and violates the rules, the entire system disintegrates and has to reorganize itself.

The logical consequence is then that the other players must regress to the more primitive level in order to restore balance there. A state currently uses its armed forces to expand its own borders and subjugate another country. This is a form of power politics that has been outlawed worldwide since World War II, because any rational person can learn from the massive destruction of that war that violence does not solve problems but increases them. It should also be clear from historical experience that wars of aggression lead to the escalation and engagement of other powers and bring no long-term gain. But when a state uses more primitive means to advance its own interests, the other states must counterattack at that level, whether they like it or not. If they do not, they themselves become victims of the attack machinery. 

So there must be armament everywhere. Money that could be used for the further development of the social and health system, for education and for the development of new technologies against climate change must be put into weapons, where they serve no other purpose than that of deterrence. Weapons are developed and built with a great deal of intelligence and raw materials, at best for then rusting away over time. This is valid until a more stable world order with effective control mechanisms is implemented and, at the same time, democratic mechanisms are installed everywhere to prevent megalomaniacs and paranoids from rising to political leadership positions.

The Repetition Compulsion 

What is happening right now has all already happened in a similar form, in the middle of Europe and elsewhere in the world. There would be no need to repeat again what we know from history including all the tragic consequences. We already know how it will end. But if the past has not been processed and understood, it sets the directions and steers action rather than the apparent rational calculations used to weigh the costs and benefits of aggression.

We know from trauma psychology that unprocessed traumas urge repetition and re-enactment, and this is true of collective traumas as well. So we are witnessing a gigantic collective compulsion to repeat, its destructive force and its compulsiveness. As the omnipresent object of comparison Adolf Hitler shows, there is no turning back on this track, there is only final victory or final defeat.

The Logic of Evolution 

Life progresses from one stage of development to the next. The later stages incorporate the achievements of the earlier ones and organize them into new structures with new qualities. This is the course of things and the inherent urge of all life to grow, or, in the language of physics, the generation of order from chaos (negentropy). Such developmental steps are most clearly visible in children and adolescents. They show up, for example, at birth or during adolescence.

It is similar with societies and mankind as a whole. They, too, move from one level to the next in order to better master new challenges. The model of the evolution of consciousness describes the development of these successive organizational models and their inner interrelationships. In the process, advances in complexity and differentiation occur. In the favorable case, these processes proceed organically. 

Regression and Instability

But there can also be disturbances when it comes to progressing to a new stage, so that the process gets stuck. The preserving elements and the elements pushing on come into conflict. When the preserving forces get the upper hand, regressions occur, that is, withdrawing to earlier levels of development. If we look at the model of the development of consciousness, it sometimes seems as if the regression happens by several levels at once. It is as if we suddenly have to set new priorities, priorities that have been long forgotten to us for a long time and that seem outdated and primitive. We realize that we are suddenly sliding back, in feelings and in thinking. We have fallen under the influence of collective traumatizations. We lose the stability of the developmental stage we have already reached.

Traumatization and excessive stress lead to regression. Let's take the example of diseases: when viruses or bacteria cause inflammation in the body, it switches to emergency mode, and we regress and become weak and helpless like small children. Regression serves to ensure survival by simpler means. All resources are expended to remove the danger and return the body to healthy self-regulation. 

Societies also react by regressing to earlier levels of stress and conflict management when massive threats occur that cannot be mastered, or seemingly cannot be mastered, by existing means. In the current case, we can see that it does not take real threats at all to activate primitive reaction patterns. Already fantasized threats are sufficient, as they are known as trauma consequences. Dictators and authoritarian leaders tend to distort reality and blur the lines between fantasy and reality, in their propaganda and in their worldview. The fears to be mobilized by such conflations come from the past, from the field of collective traumas.

Forced Regression

The regression into which the states of the West are moving is forced, but it can be reversed if it is done with awareness and not as a trauma reaction. Societies that are sufficiently grounded at the level of systemic consciousness can even suspend certain basic rights in an emergency and then return to normal once the emergency is over. Advanced systems are more flexible; regressive systems are more rigid. 

The rearmament results as a system constraint, which on the whole is useless, but has become necessary so that the aggressor will be deterred from continuing his repetition compulsion. The perfidious thing about the present situation, then, is that policymakers have no choice but to strengthen the armed forces; anything else would be irresponsible and grist to the war-mongers' mill. The appeasement policy of the 1930s motivated Germany to launch World War 2. This experience must not be repeated.

Breaking the Power of Collective Traumas

We escape the pull of the repetition compulsion only if we perceive the power of collective traumas and face them consciously. All the feelings that are stored in these fields must be accepted and experienced. On the rational level, it is important that there are no cognitive distortions and other sprinklings of trauma energy. In this process, the view of history moves away from blame and moral judgments and toward a deeper understanding of the connections between actors, systems, and patterns of mentality. The findings of the historical sciences form the standard for a rational and balanced evaluation of historical processes. For example, research commissions staffed by historians from the countries between which a conflict has existed or exists, or museums in which different views of history are presented, serve this purpose.

As long as the past rules the present, no free relationship to the current reality is possible. This also makes it difficult or impossible to resolve actual conflicts. Any form of sustainable peacebuilding is based on coming to terms with collective traumas. Peace with one's own past is the indispensable prerequisite for peace in and with the present (this is true on the individual as well as on the collective level). Peace in the now is the basis for the ability to act in a constructive and creative way to shape the future in a humane way.

 

Getting Out of Brainwashing

For a few weeks now, a topic has entered our consciousness and has almost completely taken it over. In the traditional media there are corona reports with interruptions, in the social media the most different contributions to the one topic flourish. It seems as if we are not allowed to discuss or consider anything else. 

Clearly, this virus has turned all our lives upside down in a way that has not been seen as long as anyone can remember. Every person in our society must adapt their habits and daily routines to the demands of the situation. It requires a lot of thinking and speaking to be able to process these changes. 

A collective consciousness has spread and has entered our heads uninhibited. Its main drive is the pure fear of survival, its additional drive the social fear of not wanting to infect others. This consciousness acts like an undertow that wants to pull everything into itself, from which nothing should remain untouched. It has encircled our possibilities for action and we have sent ourselves into our lot, knowing that all others will join in. At the same time, it has bound and occupied our thinking, which then staggers from one wall to the other and then back again, as in a prison cell.

In addition, there is the uncertainty about the duration of the measures, which puts question marks over all the plans and future expectations that we have built up and prepared within ourselves. We do not know how long we will have to sit at home, how long the restrictions on freedom of movement will be maintained and in what form they will continue to exist. We have to live more in the moment, even if the imagination always wants to travel into a desirable future.  Our thinking can only circle around here too: What have I planned and how little do I know if it can happen.

We are confronted to a much greater extent with the fundamental unpredictability and unaccountability of reality. Already 2600 years ago, the teachings of the Buddha pointed at impermanence, at the constant changeability of life and at the human mind, which obstinately refuses to accept it, and which builds up all its fears around this impermanence. According to Buddha, suffering results from fighting this impermanence by holding on to old habits, relationships, expectations, objects, including health. As soon as and only when we acknowledge that nothing is permanent and that therefore nothing is under our absolute control, we will find inner peace.

But how are we supposed to come to peace when everything around us is uncertain? How are we supposed to find peace when everyone is constantly talking about the one subject that contains nothing positive, but only worries and fears? The virus with all its incalculable threat is everywhere, or at least it could be everywhere, on every door-buckle and in every drop of air. 

Plea for Corona-Free Spaces

Not even this plea can do without alluding to the almighty theme. This is what happens when the collective consciousness is narrowed and restricted. But we can only get out of this bewitchment by occupying ourselves with other issues. Immediately someone stands up saying that this is just a distraction. But what should we distract ourselves from? By now we know in overflow and tedium what there is to know. We do what we have to do. 

So there is plenty of time for other things, other activities, other ideas that have nothing to do with the omnipresent virus. For this we have to clear our heads, instead of constantly cluttering them up with this topic. The virus has settled down in our heads and wants to multiply and multiply further, as it were its nature. It wants to make us addicted to itself, like a lover who wants to fill the object of his admiration with his own self, so that she will not be able not forget him for a second. 

How do we fight an addiction? We stop nurturing and feeding it. We restrict its space by opening up other spaces and occupying them with our activities until the addiction has died down in its chamber. We focus our attention on everything that is free of viruses: the animals and plants around us, the sunshine, the raindrops. We use the time to dig up old hobbies or to realize ideas that have been left behind. We enjoy the beauties and miracles that surround us. We live with the magic of simplicity that this time grants us. 

Fortunately, in this case, the external limitations have nothing to do with violence and destruction as in a war (this difference should not be blurred, even if some politicians want to present themselves as martial saviours by using this metaphor for disease control). We can identify these restrictions with inner restrictions and then suffer from our immobility, or we can expand our inner freedom all the more as we are restricted by the outer regulations.

Discipline and Grace

These two pieces of equipment for the spiritual journey have an intimate and paradoxical relationship with each other. We both need them and they both need each other. With a balanced interplay of these two forces, we can continue on the path of liberation at exactly the right pace and in exactly the right form.

About the Necessity of Spiritual Discipline

We only make progress on the inner path if we consistently deal with our issues, especially with our habitual patterns and resistances. Otherwise, we get easily thrown off track by disturbing influences from outside or inside and have to go back three steps while advancing two. The most important lesson for exercise is to use unpleasant life events as opportunities for more awareness. When we have understood this and have been able to develop it into a sustainable way of consistent practice, we have already set up an outstanding milestone, which we can always look back on for orientation, to recognize that we are on a good path of inner development. 

The necessary tool for building up this orientation is discipline. It brings us back from our habits and oblivion. It reminds us of our true destiny and our inner call. It helps us to find and maintain a regular form of practice that enables us to weaken and invalidate ingrained patterns of behaviour and thinking by working persistently and consistently on mindfulness. Working on mindfulness means bringing attention to the moment instead of getting lost in thought and fantasy. In the present moment, reality is to be found nowhere else.

Only with discipline can we manage to stop the temptations and encrustations that are stored in our mind on demand and take away their power over our consciousness. Only with discipline do we become the leading rulers within ourselves, only with it can we become independent of the other voices that try to distract us and continually activate the fear-driven survival programs.

The Grace of Discipline

But how do we achieve discipline when so much is working against it? Do we need a meta-discipline to motivate us to discipline? So do we have to discipline ourselves to be disciplined? Before we lose ourselves in an endless hierarchy of meta-levels and despair, we need to pause. We cannot create discipline like vegetable lasagne or the yoga headstand. Discipline is grace, it has been given to us for use. We can forget about it or recover from it if it is too much for us. But it is always available as an option. It arises from the power of growth, which has its own consequence and has made us what we are now, with our strengths and weaknesses, peculiarities and geniality. If we did not have discipline, we would not be adults, but helpless babies in giant bodies.

Access to the power of discipline also depends on factors of our history: Can we motivate ourselves easily because we were always supported in our curiosity and initiative as children, or have we lacked a stimulating and appreciative environment so that we had a harder time building up inner structures? Were our parents moderately demanding in terms of our consistency and determination, or did they tend to overstrain or spoil us? Unfavourable emotional and social growth conditions in childhood affect the extent to which the discipline to lead an adult life is available and can be activated.

Ultimately, it also has to do with grace, the conditions and resources with which we have been endowed. However, whether we find discipline easier or harder should not prevent us from using the power of our self-responsibility to use our sense of duty and responsibility for structuring our lives. Discipline as a freely chosen commitment to our own goals is an important source for the success of life management.

Compulsive Discipline

Discipline, on the other hand, as an imposed and compulsive attitude leads to self-exploitation and lack of freedom. People with this attitude believe that discipline has the task of suppressing all pleasurable drives so that they can move forward in life. They are determined by external norms which they have to fulfil, by external expectations which they have to meet. This form of discipline, as a contrast to the pleasure principle, has no place for grace. For people with this imprint think that they can only rely on their own fulfilment of duty and performance. They are stuck between hard work and a guilty conscience, as a result of which they can never be satisfied with themselves, but always think they are doing too little and too badly. Any state of relaxation is risky, because the fear prevails that the reins must always be tightened firmly so that a perishable sloppiness does not break in. So it is the constant fear of the inner sluggard or good-for-nothing that drives one to pull oneself together in a disciplined manner.

This behaviour pattern is self-torture and can lead to burnout and psychosomatic symptoms because it is accompanied by chronic stress. It is hostile to the body and our desire for joy and is therefore inhuman. The real effort should be to see through this pattern and replace it with a new form of discipline that includes periods of relaxation and enjoyment of life. If we succeed in overcoming the compulsive imprints, grace can be invited to participate in creating a happy life.

The Secret of Grace

From here on,  the considerations lead us back to the spiritual path. At this level, everything we do or refrain from doing in our lives, all disciplined efforts and undisciplined slackness, are considered a contribution to inner growth towards more freedom and ego-transcendence. Grace is a spiritual category that points out that much, if not everything, that happens, is not in our power and disposal, but has been granted to us by a deeper source. The successes in our lives are not the fruit of our efforts, but the outflow of a complex web of events whose logic defies our insight. Even our efforts and the energies necessary for them are due to this source and not an achievement that we could attribute to our ego.

In this perspective, every disciplined action comes from the background of the source, and even every bit of our capacity for self-discipline has been donated to us from there. Grace commits us to nothing but gratitude. Trust in grace is part of the basic trust in life that has allowed us to grow and develop to this moment. Grace, however, seems unpredictable and mysterious, sometimes it pours out its cornucopia abundantly and sometimes too meagrely. There is no place where we can ask for more or anything else; rather, it forces us to practice accepting whatever is happening.

The Everyday Practice 

The old saying: trust is good, control is better, can be applied here in a modified form: Grace is good and discipline is necessary. Because trust in grace should not be blind - I do not need to do anything, I am already being taken care of. Blind means not to see through the intrigues of one's own selfishness. The ego always finds loopholes to get its plans through and can easily rely on grace and cultivate its own laziness instead of concentrated effort. With a properly understood discipline, we can put our self-responsibility above our habitual evasions and become active for what we want to achieve in life from within ourselves.

In the "worldly" world, worldly virtues and skills are also needed to make a creative way of living sustainable. All these necessary tools such as discipline come off the easier the more we combine them with spiritual insights. The interaction of discipline and grace helps us, for example, to maintain a daily practice of meditation or mindfulness that opens us more and more to the blessings of grace and gratitude. It also helps us not to become tired in our other efforts without being fixated on a certain success. It reconciles us with setbacks and mistakes. It forms the basis for all creative work: Because we do not make up the ideas we need for creative work, but rather they fall to us, sometimes more abundantly, sometimes more modestly. 

To do what is in one's own power and to submit to what is unavailable - a formula for the interaction of grace and discipline for our own good. Or, as the prophet says: Trust in God and tie up your camel.

Depth as a dimension of man

There are people who impress us with a special quality that has nothing to do with intelligence, communication skills, craftsmanship or spirituality, but with a peculiar quality of being human in the sense of wisdom and mature understanding of the human soul. According to Hanzi Freinacht, this dimension can be described as "depth".

"States" and "Depth“

The scale of differing states makes a distinction between lower and higher states in which humans find themselves: Sometimes you're in a good mood, sometimes less. Some people grumble day by day on their emotional minimum, others are always in a good mood, and some are more or less permanently in the higher spheres of bliss. This is the scale of inner states between hell and heaven, with many gradations in between. These states are volatile and can change quickly, but most people live within a certain range of moods. Through meditation and other inner practices more permanent higher states can be reached and maintained.

This scale of states, which is described in other models as well, e.g. by Ken Wilber, is not the dimension of depth, which is explained in more detail below.

"Depth" in the sense of Freinacht is a relationship of the individual to reality as a whole, an inner quality that is often associated with wisdom. It is the ability to embrace the manifold aspects of life. The more inner states, emotions and moods someone has experienced, pleasant and unpleasant, high and low, the more depth there is.

Getting to know means not only being shaken by violent emotions or life crises, but also the conscious experience of going through such processes, in certain forms of processing. "Deep" people are therefore not those, who are always in a good mood and who can think of a joke for every situation, but people who have experienced highs and lows in the course of their lives, who have gone through and grown through crises, who have met challenges they could master.

Such experiences give rise to a profound relationship to fundamental aspects of reality in subjective experience. "Depth is the number of states that have become inseparable parts of us; integrated into our memories and personalities" (p. 282). The range of this dimension includes agony, the state of despair and hopelessness and ecstasy, the emergence from all limiting habits, and the celebration of the fullness of life, and all facets between these extremes of human existence. "Depth is a person’s innermost recognition of the greatness and/or seriousness of reality.“ (p. 283) The development of depth changes the relationship to the world and existence as a whole in the form of an "implicit knowledge", a form of wisdom that speaks from the recognition of the moment rather than from knowledge acquired from books.

This dimension of depth can be divided into three aspects, according to the classical trinity of truth (the mystery), justice (the tragedy) and beauty.

Beauty

The experience of beauty is about depth in complete subjectivity: beauty is always bound to the eye of the beholder. It is a first-person relationship to reality. The gaze that focuses on beauty is in a very deep, unique way in contact with reality, ready to appreciate all its richness. It exposes the individual which, in all its variations and forms, deserves admiration as soon as the gaze on beauty brings it out of the uniformity of appearances. This gaze is the highest form of appreciation possible.

The perspective of beauty reveals insights into reality that add an invaluable quality to the experience of being human. It always sees more than the surface, even if there are apparently only surfaces to see; this special view goes into depth and recognizes the whole in detail. An image of Van Gogh or Picasso that we see in a museum can be an overwhelming experience if we engage with the profound dimension of beauty.

Not only art, but also the realm of nature and of human experience - in interpersonal and self-encounter relationships - offer access to the quality of beauty and thus to the depth of experience. Without beauty, life would be an error, to paraphrase a sentence by Nietzsche.

Truth

The search for the truth leads to mystery. There is a special sublimity in the encounter with reality created by the drive to gaining knowledge - the will to decipher the fundamental mystery of reality. The mystery is only "unveiled" in its greatness if it is a search for truth for the sake of truth.

Here the ego refers to reality as an impersonal "it" - as a third person, as an object, whose essence, however, is respected in a special way: It should not primarily serve a human purpose, but should be recognized as it works inwardly for its own sake.

Truth seekers do not necessarily need a degree or a scientific qualification. For the determination to acquire knowledge is first and foremost an existential and spiritual undertaking in which every human being can take part. Scientists and researchers are only professionals and specialists in this broad field of human mysticism.

Justice

The question of what is good inevitably confronts us with the tragedy of human existence. Human life never proceeds according to plan, in a premeditated order, but takes unpredictable and surprising, sometimes overwhelming turns every day. At times, we have the impression that we have everything under control and everything resides inside the green zone, and then it throws us around again so heavily that we hardly can find support.

This brings us to the fact of universal suffering: "There is a fundamental and logically necessary brokenness of reality itself. And before you know it, you start falling apart as you get assigned to a crash course for death. All that blooms, including childhood, love relationships and friendships (especially those), must either rot or wither away to be lost and forever forgotten." (p. 292)

Life is not a gimmick, it contains an essential dimension of seriousness that we cannot eliminate by discussion or meditation. This is the aspect of tragedy, and according to Hanzi it is precisely from this point that the impulse to take action for solidarity and shared humanity arises. From the clear realization of the tragedy of existence he concludes that there is a need for “surrender to the primacy of the ‘thou’, the you-ness of reality; the ‘youniverse’”. “Being you“ shows itself as a genuine reality in the second person: "I am nothing without you. I am born through you, and I must live, ultimately, in service of you".

Facing tragedy, then, we should enter into active charity and solidary orientation , which can never come to an end with its work, but which in every act is worthwhile and profitable for the giving and receiving part. Where there is tragedy, happiness is to grow through actions of love thus multiplying the good qualities in the world.
I would add, that acting for the higher good can also flow from states of inner freedom, as a special form of self-expression, not only from the experience of tragedy. If we are free of fear, we are not only not mean to our fellow human beings, but we help them gladly and with joy.

Freinacht closes this chapter of his book with the following sentences: "Only a sense of tragedy can drive us to work for the wretched of the earth: Loving until it hurts. ... that only broken hearts can save the world. Only broken hearts can save the world." (p. 293) Certainly it is not the one-dimensional administrators of power who, with their polished egos, can steer human destiny towards a constructive direction, but people with depth and maturity. But it will probably take some time before this insight has seeped into the depths of the souls of a sufficiently large number of citizens and voters.
Hanzi Freinacht: The Listening Society. Metamodern Guide to Politics. Book One. Metamoderna 2017