Lie of life

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A life lie is a self-deception that someone builds their life on. It is any idea, the truth of which, however unfounded or inconsistent it may be, makes life bearable for a person and from which he draws the courage to go on living.

A lie in life is therefore a falsehood that someone describes as truth during his life and treats it as such, although he knows or should know the opposite.

Conceptualization

The term was introduced by the playwright Henrik Ibsen at the end of the 19th century. He denounced hypocritical mendacity, double standards and desperate clinging to the beautiful appearance, which in his view was typical of the bourgeoisie of his time.

"Take the lie of life from an average person and you take away happiness at the same time."

- Relling : Ibsen's " The Wild Duck "

Institutions

Institutions can also be ascribed lies in life:

  • Some describe it as a "life lie of the (post-war) Federal Republic" that the old elites and institutions of the Reich (for example the Foreign Office ) remained essentially "decent" despite the usurpation of power by Hitler and even "prevented worse" .
  • Before the fall of the Berlin Wall , some authors and politicians, including Fritz René Allemann , Burghard Freudenfeld , Golo Mann , Egon Bahr and Willy Brandt , described the pursuit of reunification as a “life lie of the Federal Republic”. Their main concern was that a Germany within the borders of 1937 no longer corresponded to a German reality and that the discussion about a possible merger of the FRG and GDR could not be conducted on this basis.
Willy Brandt at the SPD party conference on December 18, 1989 in Berlin:
«We can help that what belongs together grows together. There will be no reunification of parts that have never been together before; a return to the "Reich" certainly not. That and nothing else was the “life lie” of the 50s, in which I was also once involved, but which I did not think was right to continue to cultivate. "
  • As a "delusion" of the Second Republic is victim theory refers to the widespread pattern of argument the State Austria was the first victim of Nazi aggression policy. In the collective memory, it was intended to suppress Austria's complicity in the crimes committed by Austria during the Nazi era .
  • "Rehabilitation must be described as the great lie of life in our penal system" Johannes Feest , Humanism and Penal Execution, in: Wolfgang Stelly / Jürgen Thomas (Ed.) Education and Punishment. Mönchengladbach 2011, p. 13.

theatre

The tragic toxicity of a life lie and its gradual dissolution, carried out against internal and external resistance, is the subject of " King Oedipus " by Sophocles , who lived around 430 BC. Was first performed and is counted among the most important works of world literature.

Movies

There are several films that are about debunking and processing life's lies, including:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lies of life, the , Duden website , accessed on December 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ Theodor Geiger : Ideology and Truth. A Sociological Critique of Thought . 2nd Edition. Luchterhand, Neuwied / Berlin 1968, p. 84 .
  3. ↑ Steffen Dietzsch : Small cultural history of the lie . Reclam, Leipzig 1998, p. 109 .
  4. ↑ Gustav Norgall: The end of brotherhood. In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung . August 12, 2009. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
  5. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The long way to the west - German history: From the "Third Reich" to reunification . 7th edition. tape 2 . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-66050-4 , p. 472, 536 .