"Typical of the Greens again," a friend of mine whispered the other day, "now they're changing the name of Münster University too. New speech bans and regulations again." This friend is actually an open-minded person and not a fan of prejudiced snap judgments. So I was all the more surprised by this angry statement. What's more, it was wrong in terms of content. After all, the name change of Westfälische Wilhelms University to the simple University of Münster was initiated by a group of students in the Senate, not the Greens.
Years of discussion
The background to the specific case of the name change was a year-long discussion process in the course of which the pros and cons, advantages and negative characteristics of the namesake, the last German Kaiser Wilhelm II, were considered. In the end, the Senate voted in favor of the name change on the grounds that: It was true that Wilhelm had supported the university at times and had distinguished himself with a social policy based on Christian conservatism. However, his "militaristic, nationalistic, anti-Slavic and almost obsessively anti-Semitic" attitude would outweigh these achievements. As the namesake was therefore not a role model in the sense of the Enlightenment, there were no arguments against returning to the university's founding name from 1771 at the end of the voting process.
The fact that the Greens are nevertheless perceived as a "prohibition party" is partly due to an exaggerated, attention-seeking (sensationalist) press. But it is also due to politicians such as CSU leader Söder or Free Voters chairman Aiwanger, who agree that the Greens want to be patronizing. In Bavaria, Alliance 90/The Greens are thus becoming the target of populist demarcation. Points of contention that feed the narrative of the prohibition party beyond the state's borders include the combustion car, meat consumption and gendering.
"You're still allowed to say that!"
The friend's angry statement is evidence of the concern that he may no longer be able to express his own opinion without being socially ostracized or disinvited from events. We are familiar with such worries in an even more blatant form, often introduced with the provocative formula "you will still be allowed to say that". Actual bans on speech would indeed be a dangerous development for a democracy. What about this danger? Where are the limits of what can be said and how can they be justified?
Socio-philosophical salon on the topic of "just language"
The next Social Philosophy Salon of our faculty on 29.11.2023(Opens in a new tab) will deal with such questions with a focus on "just language". This is less about wokeness and cancel culture in general, but about our use of language, the N-word, gendering, racist and sexist statements. Here we discuss with the author of the book "A question of morality. Why we need politically correct language" Professor Anatol Stefanowitsch, who joins us digitally.