By Daniel Drogomirescu
From Kant to Heidegger, during several centuries, Germany gave to European
culture an important and famous contingent of philosophers and thinkers. This
tradition has not today the same importance, but Raymond Walden is one of the
Germans who is trying to continue anyway the good work of his illustrious
predecessors. He is a meanwhile retired teacher and a philosopher by vocation
and because he has deeply inside of him a determination to continue this
exercise of soul and mind. He courageously launched the philosophic Cosmonomic Manifesto and generally he writes on different subjects from a “cosmonomic”
perspective, but his writings are not compilations or pastiches.
In other words, Raymond
Walden is an atypical German writer and his opinions and personal convictions
are principally against postmodern and official tendencies in culture, society,
education, politics etc. Following the illustrious way of Blaise Pascal, which has
defined the human being by his intellectual capacity*, he assumes all
risks and he cultivates an independent and critical thinking, which is
exceeding most of the “ism(s)” of our time, from capitalism to communism and
much more. Naturally the difficult problem of human freedom finds in all
his writings a special attention. About this for the German author is no doubt
that: “Freedom is a matter / of education and knowledge, / of human
dignity, / of emancipation, / of avoiding violence, / of responsible science, /
of common welfare and health care” (Cosmonomic Freedom, in CLH
1/2010). (CLH = Contemporary Literary Horizon magazine; admin.)
Unconventionally and far from any intentions to present some
realities in a sweetened version, even if this could be received / viewed by some
pragmatic persons with a lift of the eyebrows or even with a subliminal
aversion, the German thinker doesn’t hesitate to reveal, uncomfortably but
honestly, various shortcomings (if we can say so) in the functioning of actual
European and global society. Observing that – even in a country as Germany – “at a
nearer glance the existing democratic states prove as disillusioning”, he
writes on formalism as a structural problem in postmodern society. As a person
who was involved in pedagogical activities, the author looks critically, among
other things, at the various “forms without substance” ** which have as a
result a serious diminishing of value, real destination and general status in
society of the contemporary education, because “the lower social
class is kept as dump as possible. This is easily done by an education system
of permanent reformatory efforts and by idiotic media programmes that simulate
democracy as indeed only a few media companies try to raise their profile in a
trade rivalry for market share offering an equal quality of nonsense.” (Democracy,
a Cosmonomic Reflection, in CLH 5/2011).
For someone
coming from the East, this description could seem surprising. But the author is
himself a man from the East – in this case from East Germany / DDR, as he
testifies in a singular memorialistic story entitled Good Luck and Freedom
are Interdependent (published in CLH 1/2011) . Born in Jena, a city which “actually
was taken by US troops in 1945 but came under soviet power after the division
of Germany”, he finally had to leave his natal land together with all
family, at age 13, to choose the liberty (an expression used during the Cold
War and Iron Curtain) in Western Germany, some years before the construction of
notorious Berlin Wall. Of course we have heard many stories on
exodus of the East Germans to the West, as well as on Berlin Wall or Wolf
Biermann’s political ballads***, but this story has some special as a movie of
Italian post-war neorealism, first by its authenticity. The cosmonomic
philosopher shows he is also a good author of memorialistic stories, which is
able to capture and immortalize memorable moments, to sensitive the reader by
noting significant exterior or psychological details like in this incipit in
medio res:
“Life
in the province near the flat country of Mecklenburg covered with lakes turned
out unassuming, but the charming landscape compensated many a one post-war
deficiencies. And to us as children the region offered a paradisiac field of
exploration.
Nevertheless, above the whole scene there was always a diffused threat by the
occupying forces stressing out their presence every day and everywhere. They
were accompanied by converted German creeps who praised the glorious Red Army
as heroes. (...)
Those were the times when people were jailed because they had purchased pencils
and rubbers in West-Berlin. And gradually more and more people for ever said
good-bye to the communist regime, leaving their possessions, relatives and
friends to start a new life in the west.”
Endowed with a valid narrative vocation, having a good sense of authenticity
and of psychological observation, Raymond Walden could be very well an author
of artistic literature, because it exists doubtless in such a story a nucleum
of a possible novel, which he might write well in the future, if intended by
him at all.
The German philosopher is able also to express in a synthetic form different
observations on life, man and society. In a set of Sentences on Freedom
(published in CLH 4/2010) he launches a lot of trenchant opinions on various
carences, anachronisms or centrifugal tendencies, which all may be appreciated
as a source of "mal de siècle” in our time. In this sense it may be
mentioned, as an example, the strange resurrection, despite modern rationality
of the Internet's era, of stale medieval beliefs. As a good specialist in
astronomy****, he is against a pseudo-science like astrology that in
reality “means a false witness to the universe (Astrologie ist ein falsches
Zeugnis vom Kosmos)”. To explain this paradox, the author affirms in an
allusive way that “the moon borrows its light from the sun and, believe it or
not, drives crowds mad (Der Mond borgt sein Licht von der Sonne und bringt
damit, kann man es glauben, Scharen um den Verstand)”.
Of course (last but not least) a referential point in all his philosophic work
is the book entitled Menschliches Glauben / Human Convictions (Novum
Verlag, Neckenmarkt-Wien-Munchen, 2008). This book includes over 100
essays written in majority between 1995 – 2000, which doubtless was a good
period in his cultural creation. From his cosmonomical watchtower, the German
philosopher and writer has a clear and comprehensive “Weltanschaung”. The seven
parts of Menschliches Glauben, from the first (refering on “Nature”) to
the last (refering logically on his “Kosmonomie / Cosmonomy”), constitute a
personal and penetrating radiography of contemporary society under its various,
disconcentring or contradictory aspects, like Death (“Der Umgang mit dem
Tod”, p. 11-12), Hungarian Revolution (“Ungarn vor 40 Jahren”, p. 14), Mass
media and the problem of their liberty (“Presse-Freiheit...”, p. 42, “Demagogie
Talkshow”, p. 84), Sexuality (“Fundamentalistischer Sexismus”, p. 58),
Fanaticism in sports (“Religion Fussball”, p. 85), Science and education
(“Lehrer als Therapeuten” p. 120), Policy (“Das Credo deutscher Politik”, p.
139), Religion (“Religion in Deutschland – Radio Berlin”, p. 179) and
Cosmonomic philosophy (“Zeit zur Besinnung”, p. 196).
Of
course not all is perfect in these writings and not all is comfortable for
everyone. But we could admit a different perspective. Eventually the thinking
of Raymond Walden is the thinking of a man endowed with “bonne volonté” and a
man of good sense, which cannot accept all what is offered by postmodern
society. But how many of us have the necessary force to resist and to
assume successfully a good belief (“Glaube”) and the good sense?...
NOTES
* “L'homme
n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature; mais c'est un roseau
pensant” / "Man is a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but it
is a thinking reed" (Blaise Pascal, Les pensées, 1670)
**A famous phrase launched by the
Romanian writer, philosopher, professor and literary criticist Titu Maiorescu
(1840 – 1917), Ph.D. “magna cum laude” from the University of Giessen (Germany,
1859), in his essay În contra direcţiei de astăzi în cultura română /
Against Current Trend in Romanian Culture (1868).
***Karl Wolf Biermann
(born 1936, in Hamburg), a German singer-songwriter and former East German
dissident.
****Since many
years Raymond Walden has been active in astronomy, he founded the Public
Observatory Of Paderborn which he led for 30 years, and he is now president of
a Planetarium Society.
Adopted from:
Dragomirescu, Daniel: Orizonturi Interculturale, Editura Pim, Bucharest,
2014, ISBN 978-606-13-1682-3
