Peter Schmidt (writer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Schmidt (born August 11, 1944 in Gescher ) is a German writer. Schmidt wrote numerous novels in the genre of political thrillers, spy novels, detective novels, psychological thrillers, SF thrillers and crime comedy and also publishes under the pseudonyms "Peter Cahn" and "Mike Jaeger". He is - together with Fred Breinersdorfer - founder of the “Syndikats” , the largest German-speaking association of crime writers.

Life

Schmidt studied literature and philosophy at the Ruhr University Bochum with a focus on basic psychological theory.

In addition to crime fiction and general fiction (satire, philosophical novel), Peter Schmidt has also written non-fiction books on his own research on the understanding of the terms feeling and emotion , the theory of emotional intelligence and the philosophical theory of values .

criticism

At the time of the East-West conflict, the critics described Schmidt as "the only serious author in the agent genre" ( Stern ). With his novel Schafspelz he was "the first German author to successfully break into the Anglo-American thriller monopoly" ( Capital ). In his novels, Schmidt anticipated numerous political developments in exemplary fashion, such as the cooperation between the Ministry for State Security and the RAF ( The Rules of Violence , 1984, new edition 2008) or the GDR government’s Schalck-Golodkowski business for foreign exchange procurement ( A case from great honesty ), which temporarily earned him persecution by the Stasi while traveling in the Eastern Bloc. He summarized his credo for the thriller in the following words: “In the political thriller, this going beyond mere but desired entertainment means above all: 1. Making real structures of political crime visible. 2. Modeling further thinking of possible dangers. "

With his ambiguous and enigmatic crime comedies ( Linders Liste 1988, Roulette 1992, Schwarzer Freitag 1993), Schmidt also represents a very special genre of the literary crime novel, in which irony, philosophical reflection and satirical approaches to human weaknesses dominate. The starting point of Einstein's brain (2012) is a historical crime: After Einstein's death, the pathologist Thomas Harvey stole the brain of the creator of the theory of relativity. When it was brought back to Princeton Hospital after years of odyssey, a Swiss admirer of the genius commissioned the little crook Edwin Klein to kidnap the precious relic to Europe. This leads to a strange mix-up. Half a century later, 14-year-old Albert was researching the circumstances of his origins when he came across a mysterious nitrogen bottle in his father's cellar. During an odyssey around the globe, Albert - soon to be celebrated as a new child prodigy, indeed a universal genius - because of his outstanding intellectual abilities - got into the big talk shows on CNN and finally even on the cover of Time magazine , discussing happiness with the Dalai Lama, with President George W. Bush about the mistakes of his foreign policy and during an audience with Pope Benedict about theodicy - to finally solve the riddle of his true origin.

In his philosophical novel Montag or Die Reise nachinnen (1989), Schmidt uses the example of the talented young protagonist Marc Herzbaum to describe the stages from a meditative awareness to ever more emotional intelligence.

Schmidt further developed the EQ training with mental techniques such as "scanning", "body desensitization" and "problem desensitization" for coping with stress. a. Fears and other negative feelings should be more easily influenced. The basis of such techniques is a more precise understanding of feeling in relation to value experiences, value judgments and values. In Schmidt's view, philosophy has missed one of its main themes since antiquity because it failed to convincingly analyze what actually constitutes “being valuable” in human experiences. However, it is precisely from the insight into what exactly represents the character of being positive in life that important directives for private and political action can be derived. In contrast, a lack of clarification on this question leads to emotional disorientation with all of its known social consequences.

In his non-fiction books, which are also mental advisors in the sense of practical philosophy, Schmidt outlines the fundamentals of a new theory of value that, unlike Kant , Nietzsche , Scheler or Hartmann, is based on the self-evidence of feeling as the decisive factor that constitutes being of value, whereby Feeling goes far beyond the old pleasure-displeasure theory of hedonism. According to Schmidt, all other value justifications have failed because of the infinite regress of questioning why something is actually a value (“Attractio-Aversio-Theory”, Mythos Emotionale Intelligence 2010 , Scanning 2006).

Schmidt's phenomenological analyzes of how values ​​are perceived are philosophically and psychologically relevant. According to this, there are holistic qualities, depending on sensory perceptions, perceptions, conceptual apprehension and feeling, as well as intentions of will. Feelings as pleasant or unpleasant represent the actual moment that constitutes the concrete perception of value, but rarely in isolation, such as B. in the mood, but also as a further new quality ("holistic quality") that is more than the sum of its parts. If, however, the constitutive moment of feeling is missing as a component, then values ​​can only be perceived mentally (e.g. values ​​as "means" such as money, laws, tools) and always require the ultimate justification through the final value of feeling. Otherwise it is a matter of mere “valuing”, which is precisely why it often leads to valuation errors. The old question of aesthetic beauty can also be answered in this way. A beautiful object always needs both the quality of the content - e.g. B. Shapes and colors of a picture - as well as the pleasant feeling tone. If the latter is missing, no beauty can be perceived. According to this definition, feelings are “contingent” qualities “ sui generis ”. Beauty, like all other value qualities, is neither entirely objective nor only subjective.

In ethics, a fundamental new approach can be seen in the fact that moral values ​​are not about rigid, generally applicable value qualities, but rather a "progressive system" whose value realization depends on the percentage cooperation of others ( Scanning. Pp. 107, 146 f). The more people involved, the greater the likelihood of benefiting from it themselves. Conversely, the less people participate in the progressive value system, the lower the expected benefit. Non-participation can be of benefit to the individual by selfishly realizing their values. Conversely, however, this leads to the disappearance of the value advantages of a progressive system, which also affects the egoist.

In Myth Emotional Intelligence (2010), Schmidt questions our everyday understanding of emotional intelligence, as it has developed since Daniel Goleman (1995), as being too “vague” and largely without consequences and tries to define the terms more precisely, both phenomenologically and in terms of language analysis Wants to do justice to the circumstances. Then it is about the realization of “Attractio” (positive feeling) and avoidance of “Aversio” (negative feeling) in various modalities as a comprehensive, conscious or unconscious intention that asserts itself in all expressions of life, which determines the meaning and value of life constituted. Quotation: "To increase attractio experiences and decrease aversio experiences is what is rightly called emotional intelligence or emotional cleverness" (p. 188). Understanding the “grammar of feeling” ever more comprehensively is seen by Schmidt as the completion of the stuck enlightenment and decisive for our human self-image, because it protects us from “emotional errands”.

Awards

Works

stories

Stories in numerous anthologies

Television / radio

  • Winger. Detective radio play . 1987.
  • Dispute over three. Television series . 1999 (eight episodes).

Comedies / satires

Detective novels / thrillers

Novels

  • The rules of violence (Criminal moral history of Germany. Volume 3). New edition Edition Köln, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-936791-52-5 (novel about terrorism).
  • Monday or The Journey Inside. Novel . Droemer, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-426-19459-7 (philosophical novel about emotional intelligence). Above. New edition, paperback 2014, Amazon- ISBN 978-1500511296

SF novels / utopias

Non-fiction

  • EQ training. The practice of emotional intelligence Langen-Müller, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-7844-2752-9 .
  • The power of positive feelings. Become internally free with new mental techniques . dtv, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-36256-1 . New edition 2019, hardcover: Neopubli, epubli Berlin, ISBN 978-3-746798-74-5 .
  • Stand over it. Get rid of negative feelings in seconds . MVG, Landsberg 2002, ISBN 3-478-73246-8 .
  • Scanning. New mental techniques against emotional stress . Beluga New Media, Herten 2006, ISBN 3-938152-01-X . Overar. New edition, paperback 2014, Amazon- ISBN 978-1500546083 .
  • The myth of emotional intelligence . Kollateral-Verlag, Sulzbach 2010, ISBN 978-3-942408-30-1 . Expanded new edition 2015, paperback: Myth of Emotional Intelligence: Introduction to the Psychology of Feeling and Evaluation, Amazon- ISBN 978-1507707944 .
  • Is the Holocaust a matter of opinion? Seven reasons why society is no longer getting better . eBook: Neobooks 2014, ISBN 978-3-8476-8975-1 .
  • Seven reasons why we are not as good as we could be . CreateSpace Independent Publishing / amazon 2014, ISBN 978-1-5001-8724-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ With an interview with the author.

literature

  • Peter Schmidt and the German political thriller. In: Jochen Schmidt: Gangsters, victims, detectives. A type story of the crime novel . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-548-34488-7 , pp. 634-645.
  • Dieter P. Meier-Lenz in conversation with Peter Schmidt: The agent thriller that comes from Germany. In: the hear . Journal for Literature, Art and Criticism , Volume 31 (1986) No. 144/4, ISSN  0018-4942 .
  • Rudi Kost : Afterword. In: Peter Schmidt: The Little Duke . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989, ISBN 3-499-42929-2 .
  • Herbert Knorr: Raw material from the newspaper. In: Peter K. Kirchhof (Ed.): Literary Portraits. 163 authors from North Rhine-Westphalia . Edition Schwann, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-491-34104-3 .
  • Karl-Heinz Jakobs in conversation with Peter Schmidt. In: Neues Deutschland from July 17, 1992, ISSN  0323-3375 .
  • Armin Zemann: Marlowe's grandson . Diploma thesis in psychology on the novel sheep's clothing. University of Munich 1994.
  • Peter Nusser : Peter Schmidt. In: Ders .: The crime novel. 3. Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-476-13191-2 .
  • Rudi Kost, Thomas Klingenmaier: Peter Schmidt. In: Diess .: Profiles. The crime index from A-Z . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-43181-5 .
  • Hann-Peter Karr: Peter Schmidt. In: Angelika Jockers u. a. (Ed.): Lexicon of German crime fiction authors . Verlag der Criminale, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-86520-093-1 .

Web links

About Emotional Intelligence Theory:

personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cahn, Peter (pseudonym); Jaeger, Mike (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Gescher , Coesfeld district