Greetings from Munich

I haven't posted for a few years, wow. It did not seem that long. Anyway, I moved to Munich and work at a small E-Learning company. Job title is Content Manager, meaning, I write stuff, produce flash movies about it and add this content to our learning web portal. Apart from that, I have started to coordinate efforts to translate our current main product to english together with a colleague of mine.

Main reason, I am posting today is because among other things we teach Office 2007. I am writing about how to create blog entries using Word 2007. So I gotta try that, of course.

Hm, I may have fun blogging again. So maybe, I 'll see you soon.

The Pros and Cons of Confidence

Miguel pointed his readers to an essay by Bill Wittle about confidence and why it contributed to America's greatness.

I read most parts of Bill's essay. (It is way long) What he says about confidence really hits the spot in terms of how Americans think in my opinion.
Most things are achieved in the US because of this absolute belief that they can be achieved.
Other countries lack that spirit. My country (Germany) for example is not confident at all.
Well, we all know the reason for that... last time we were confident we killed millions of people because we thought we were the best.
Anyway, as good as confidence is... overconfidence can be dangerous. And I don't mean as grim an example as the German one here. But maybe sometimes confidence leads you to errors, wrong decisions and you might fail your purpose although you acted with great confidence and meant really well.

The Iraq war is one of the main sources fueling this kind of discussion but it is not a good example because it hasn't ended, yet. I'd say we could talk about that in like ten or even twenty years. If by then a working democracy based on the free will of the Iraqi people is in place we can all bow down to the spirit of confidence that led there. If Iraq is still in trouble with terrorists, rebels who think of themselves as freedom fighters or if a corrupt and/or oppressing system is in place we might acknowledge that overconfidence led to the situation.

A nice quote from Bill's essay is:

"...if we actually believe the US is the source of all the misery in the
world,... then something is indeed very wrong with our foundation..."

Of course it isn't. And everybody who thinks otherwise is in need of a quick reality check.
But what if I said:
The US is the source of all the greatness in the world.
Or
Nothing other than greatness has come from American soil.
Wouldn't I need a reality check as well?
Now, I don't know a single person who actually and literally would have claimed that. The confidence, however, with which the US is trying to spread its opinions, its way of life, its products and anything maybe disturbing for others.

Look, I really try to understand the American psyche. A nation founded on the principle:
We can! I lived in the US and tried to embrace that principle. But please don't take it to extremes!
If you think, we must because you can then you are at the point of overconfidence clouding your view for reasonable arguements. (And promoting the rule of the fist over the democratic culture of debate, which is ironic because you are actually trying to promote democracy)

I have observed that a plea like mine is received very defensively in the US. If I question your judgement then I am favoring "the enemy". Don't paint in black and white.

Recently, so called "Old Europe" sometimes acted as if it knew everything better while it actually didn't. Please don't do the same.

Not everyone who dares to criticize certain decisions of your politicians is either a well meaning, naive hippy or a "stinking commie".

(Those paragraphs about the stinking commies, the losers and so on... they remind me of the communist witch hunts in McCarthy's era. Please don't start seing a communist in everyone who has a stronger social conscience than the bootstraps-belief. You can only pull yourself out of a mess by your bootstraps if society gave you the opportunity to have boots.

I think, communists are the tiniest group among the people criticizing US government's decisions. But it is pretty convenient not having to deal with arguments if you can cry "commie!" instead.)

In any case,
finally I think I found the fundamental difference between the American and the Old-Europe psyche: In contrast to the confidence of "We can" in Europe there is this belief in the law. The way to the war in Iraq seems to be a good example for that. (Iraq is not a good example however to measure whether America's action was driven by confidence or overconfidence as I mentioned above)

This belief in law has flaws, arguably. Sometimes we are rigid. We didn't want to start a war in Iraq because we were not sure wether the outcome would be better than the current situation. When the US decided they wanted to wage that war (in order to install a democratic Iraqi regime) but not all by themselves, they searchedUN approval. But none would come because the UN couldn't agree on that Saddam's breaches of UN resolutions were important enough to wage war. So some guy in the US government or in an association closely related to it may have felt the obligation to forge evidence about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Either that or the people analyzing data about possible WMD were just incompetent for the job.

So in a way, the European rigidness of believing in law may have forced that forgery because America wanted to appeal to our kind of reasoning in order to convince us of what they (confidently) knew: That they were right as well as the war was right(eous) .

Maybe a departure from both sides would be a good idea. If Europeans understood that law is not always more important than human life and if Americans understood that they can be wrong even though they are confident of their decisions then we could all grow as people and help create a better world, couldn't we?

Sometimes, everything that is needed is the courage to admit to have been wrong. That goes to Europeans and Americans alike. As I said, for the Iraq situation it is too early to tell.

But, I may be wrong about that. :-)

Fahrenheit 9/11

Well, I finally got to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight. I had mentioned in an earlier post that Michael Moore might influence the election but I am not so sure about that anymore.

I have to say, the movie transports its message in a very powerful fashion. However, I am not the one Moore was trying to convince. I am an outsider, a foreigner, a German living in Germany. What good does it do that I know that there where no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and that no link could be found between Saddam and Al-Qaeda?

The American public ought to have been convinced by this movie but obviously it wasn't. President Bush may very well be re-elected. Or maybe the public even acknowledges that it was being lied to but doesn't think that Senator Kerry would be any better.

This film is meant to drive Bush out of office. It is propaganda. Is it bad because of this?
I think Fox News is as one-sided. Propaganda goes both ways.

Anyway, so many people talked about this movie, praising it, denouncing it... in the end it won't make a difference. The DVD release probably was meant to boost the Democratic Candidate Kerry. I don't know whether it does. But I guess the impact of the film on the election could have been greater if it had been released only one or two months prior to the election.

Good thing though it wasn't released on September 11th. That would have appeared tasteless.

Some more movie recommendations

I have been a lazy blogger, recently.

But I went to the movies. :-)

I really enjoyed Girl with Pearl Earring. This is the title of a painting by Dutch 17th century artist Vermeer.
The movie is a fictional version of how that painting came to be.

Also interesting but not so recent:

Open Range by Kevin Costner. Beautiful landscape shots! I especially liked the slow, slow build up to a thrilling "bullet-intensive" climax.
Not your conventional Western movie, if you ask me.

I don't know whether it will be released in the US but it's worth it:
Der Untergang.
This movie is about the last days inside the Führerbunker based on the autobiography of Hitlers secretary Traudl Junge.
Quite a shocking movie for me. I think this is as close as it gets to see Hitler's menace and yet the reason why he was so appealing to the folks at the time. (He could appear quite charming or caring in private life.)

Next movie I am planning on watching is Fahrenheit 9/11. Let's see what all the fuzz is about.

Small Animation (1,5MB)

I want to give you a small animation in Poser 5.

My M.A. (history) is about a soldier from the 30 Years War who left a diary. In my PhD I will elaborate on the subject.

Anyway, this Quick Time clip is part of the intro sequence in my DVD. Apparently the soldier had taken notes for all these years but he rewrote the whole book while he was stationed in Memmingen between 1647 and 1649. By that time he had been a soldier for at least 24 years. That's why I gave him grey hair.

The clip is originally 1024x768 but for sake of loadability (is there such a word?) I reduced the resolution to half the size. Well, this animation is not very professionally done, I only wanted to include a 3d impression into my intro.

The DVD includes about an hour of video footage, mainly created by myself, music and an interactive version of the diary (meaning one can read the pages because I scanned them). For people not familiar with the old orthography and handwriting of the 17th century in general one can click a play-button and let the text be read by me.

The main scientific achievment is that I found out the name of the author. First few and last few pages are missing so it wasn't clear who the author was. Doing some research in archives which were not destroyed by one of the numerous wars in Germany since 1648 I found what I was looking for.

I think the DVD could have the potential to be published and sold but I can't do that... because I don't own all the copyrights.

I will deal with this problem in my PhD. I want to study the possibilities of using self produced multimedia resources in education, especially in history classes in secondary school.

My intention in giving this long, long explanation was to let you know that this 3d animation is not state-of-the-art because I had to deal with so many other fields when doing a project of this magnitude all by myself.

BTW, I will start my PhD later this year.

War on terror - the big picture?

Still occupied by Miguel's wish list for the US presidency.
In his blog the long term strategy for the war on terror is discussed.

I was never convinced that the US had the right strategy in this struggle. But believe me, I don't flatter myself in trying to give an easy solution.

Concerning the war on terror strategy persued by the US some points remain unclear for me. I can't quite get them. I'd like to share them with you here.

Well, what is the long term plan for the war on terror? Can you basically sum it up to bringing democracy by the sword and scare the hell out of any potential opponent with the threat of invasion? Will potential terrorists be hunted down and killed all over the world?

Will other countries have to be invaded? If so, which will be likely? Iran? Syria? What about Saudi Arabia? North Korea? Will the people in these countries hail the incoming troops as liberators or side with their fellow countrymen?

Is the war on terror a Last-Man-Standing battle of good vs. evil? Is it likely to win it? Is there a possibility to lose it?

When will the Bush administration begin to feel safe and ready to stop fighting? After all terrorists are gone? Will they ever?
Will a decade (Miguel mentions that time frame) of terrorist attacks and retaliation/preemptive strikes lead to peace, liberty, tolerance and democracy?

Why does this sound like Utopia?



Edit: I watched parts of an interview with G. W. Bush today. It was from his campaign bus.
He said that the war on terror could not be won but that we could make it harder for the terrorists. I agree here.

Social security: An issue for the state or the individual?

Inspired by Miguel's wish list for what kind of candidate he would vote in the upcoming US election I want to say something about one of the issues he mentioned: social security.

I am not a fan of the German social security system (anymore). It is just too expensive. We are in the middle of a painful reform process.

Some people think we should abandon a federal system of social security altogether. Maybe we should leave it to the individual citizen to take care of building up his retirement funds, choosing med insurance, doctors, hospitals, schools,... whatever. I think, however that this is not as fair as it sounds.

Of course, I don't like the idea that a hard working tax payer finances a 24/7 vacation of others.
But being able to choose in the social security sector is a good thing only if you have equally good options to choose from.
I don't think that is the case in any country in the world. Therefore I think that some sort of government spending is required to ensure the constitutional rights, especially equal opportunities. The old German system was too expensive, had some loopholes, needed reform. I doubt that the new German system will be perfect, I hope it will be better than the old one but I am not sure.

But I am sure that a social security system that is not based on solidarity in the broadest sense violates the principles of democracy and can eventually lead to its downfall. It doesn't even need a revolution for that. Social peace is important to make sure that the state is supported by its people. Government systems that don't have the support of its people become powerless and will eventually vanish.

I am convinced that a solidarity-based social security system is a prerequisite for social peace. And social peace is a prerequisite for a democracy.

A few movies to watch

After recommending some books I would like to draw your attention to some movies that I consider worth watching.

Let's start with a classic: Billy Wilder's One Two Three. Set in Berlin July 1961 (one month before the Berlin Wall was erected) it tells the story of a CocaCola representative being troubled by the daughter of his boss, who ...

***Spoiler*** (mark the text to read the spoiler)
runs off to East Berlin and marries an East German Communist.
*** End of Spoiler***

It is a very fast paced comedy. You 'll have to watch the movie like 10 times to get all jokes.
Back in the 60s it flopped, probably due to bad timing of the release. With the wall up noone seemed to like a comedy about East and West Berlin.

Another movie set in Berlin is Good Bye Lenin. I mentioned it at the bottom of an earlier post. It is a serious comedy that brings us back to the next most significant point of Berlin history: The fall of the wall in 1989.

***Spoiler***
a young man is at a forbidden rally in East Berlin when his socialist mother sees him being arrested. She falls into a coma and awakes miraculously months later. But everything had changed. The wall was gone. Western products in the shelves...
Doctors say that the sudden shock of this could kill her. So her son sets up a show for her pretending that the GDR (East Germany) still existed in order to save her life.
***End of Spoiler***

This movie is about a loving son-mother relationship, about hanging on to things that are bound to change, about loss of things you know and about new beginnings.
It won several international awards, really worth watching... Not many good movies come from Germany these days, but this is one of them.


For now this must be enough. I will continue some other time with movies not connected to Berlin.