–Essay–
BERLIN — In the Middle Ages, people didn’t read texts about the meaning of life. Most of them couldn’t read at all, and they saw the meaning of life in the images in their churches. Academics have recently started speaking about the “iconic turn”, the return of images, and it is true that the Instagram generation prefers to communicate visually. Could pictures offer a way for our deeply divided society to come together once again?
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Both in terms of foreign and domestic policy, political views are becoming increasingly entrenched, and on both sides of the debate, opposing views are being pushed towards ever greater extremes. In the world of today, many people are cut off from any contact with those who think differently, living in echo chambers, surrounded by people who confirm their worldview. When those who disagree with their position condemn them from a moral perspective, this only serves to vitalize the group under attack.
The public pillorying that dominates social media can be a cause of great anxiety for individuals. But for those who feel they are part of a community, their fear often transforms into an aggressive form of self-defense. The topic itself isn’t as important as the sense of being attacked.
That is a possible psychological explanation for a strange phenomenon, whereby attacks on groups such as the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and some of their individual members have strengthened the sense of community within these groups and brought together a surprising mix of people, from radical free marketeers to nationalists, conspiracy theorists, pro-lifers, COVID deniers, right-wing extremists, conservative Christians and racists.
They are united by a single experience, that of being excluded. Conversations within these groups are reminiscent of chats around a pub table: the more harshly someone criticizes “those in power”, “the lefties”, “right-wingers” or even, “the others”, the more likes they get.
Battlefield of language
Language has become a battlefield. The heart of the problem is the fact that religion has been gradually replaced with morality. That proved fatal in the French Revolution, when Robespierre saw the Terror as a necessary consequence of virtue.
The idea that a person who holds an aberrant worldview still has the right to exist because of their innate value as a human being holds no water for a moralizing ideologue. That is why German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has argued that we need new “translations” of the Judaeo-Christian idea that humans are made in the image of God, in order to protect the concept of human beings having innate value.
Art is the deepest expression of humanity, figures created by humans to express meaning.
In our current situation, Judaism and Christianity are unable to offer an overarching solution to the fragmentation of society. Jews are once again being forced to defend themselves against the rise of antisemitism. The Christian churches in Germany, on the other hand, are tearing themselves apart and have lost all authority. So what can bring us together as a society?
Art as the deepest expression of humanity
When the journalist Marcel Reif spoke at the German Bundestag on Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2024, he told a story about how his father, a Holocaust survivor, always told him: “Be a human!” I received this same advice from the most impressive person I ever met, the Holocaust survivor Yehuda Bacon, when I wrote a book with him. Yehuda found a solution in art. He painted in order to overcome the terrors that he experienced in Auschwitz. His pictures offered a message of unity to humanity: “Even in suffering, you can find meaning, when you are so deeply shattered that you understand that every person is someone, like yourself, that the criminal also had a mother…”
Perhaps it could be art that offers a way for humanity to come together once more. Art is the deepest expression of humanity, figures created by humans to express meaning. Art is not an indulgent hobby for a few wealthy dilettantes, and neither is it simply a lucrative investment for financiers. Above all, art is not made for esoteric experts, but is the eternal inheritance of humanity, which is for everyone.
In the Middle Ages, people believed that certain images had the power to heal.
Otto Kernberg is probably the most famous living psychotherapist in the world. A few years ago, when I invited him to a lecture in Cologne, he was keen to see the Ludwig Museum. When I went to the museum with him, it felt like visiting an old friend. He had never been there before, but he knew about every artist without reading the wall texts, and he seemed to enter into conversation with all of them. They “spoke” to him – and he responded. I will never forget that afternoon.
For Kernberg, humans – all humans – are above all relational beings. He has done a great deal of research on this topic, and when I watched him interact with art, I was able to experience it first-hand. Art can change people’s lives. In the Middle Ages, people believed that certain images had the power to heal. One of these is the Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar. Matthias Grünewald’s deeply moving painting was originally in the hospital at the Monastery of St Anthony in Issenheim, and the patients’ beds all faced towards it. People believed that if someone looked at it from morning until night, they could be healed.
Meaning of life
Can we see the meaning of life? I think we can, but only if we stop trying to find it in an overarching philosophy, a secret formula or a piece of conventional wisdom. The philosopher Odo Marquard once said, “Meaning, and this sentence is certain, is always nonsense that we leave behind.” He argued for a “dietetics of the expectation of meaning”, saying that we should not dismiss the small, concrete instances of meaning.
As for my question about the meaning of life, the nonagenarian Otto Kernberg answered it with a short, authoritative sentence: “To have fun. And the best way to have fun is to work and love.”
When I asked him what he, as a great art lover, considered to be the most impactful painting, he said it was Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death, which is on display at the Prado in Madrid. It shows a huge, terrifying army that would strike fear into the hearts of many, but in the bottom corner is a couple clinging to each other. They will not allow their love for one another to be disturbed. Kernberg says that this kind of image gives us hope, hope that we can see.
Manfred Lütz is a best-selling author, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and theologian. His recent book The Meaning of Life is published in German by Kösel.
