INKOVEMA Podcast „Well through time“
#234 GddZ
Reversals into the opposite
A subversive power technique
In conversation with Prof Sylvia Sasse
Sasse teaches Slavic literary studies at the University of Zurich. Born in Magdeburg in 1968, she is a co-founder and member of the Centre for Arts and Cultural Theory (ZKK) and editor of the online magazine "Geschichte der Gegenwart". In her research, she focuses intensively on political language and political speech acts, e.g. in the Stalinist Soviet Union. Since 2022, she has headed the research project "Art and Disinformation", which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
In 2023, Matthes und Seitz published her essay "Verkehrungen ins Gegenteil. On subversion as a power technique".
Small series:
Contributions from Socio-political conflict situations - as a result of the return of war on European soil and in European politics
Contents
Chapter
0:05 Introduction to reversals to the opposite
24:54 The influence of propaganda and the media
35:07 Subversion in politics and power structures
44:35 Traffic in everyday life and conflicts
50:30 Summary and outlook for the future
Summary of content
In this episode, I look at a fascinating and complex phenomenon that occurs not only in the political arena, but also in everyday conflicts: the so-called inversions into the opposite. These powerful rhetorical techniques are far more than simple projections. You leave behind a subversive influence, appropriate the (often positively connoted) termsso that the way, how we conduct discourse has fundamentally changed. To explore this topic, I invite the expert Professor Silvia Sasse, whose research helps us to better understand these techniques in different contexts, from politics to personal disputes.
Professor Sasse brings her insights into political strategies, particularly in the context of the conflicts in Eastern Europe and the rhetoric of leaders such as Vladimir Putin. She emphasises that such reversals are often used as a defence mechanism when justifying aggression in response to real or fictitious threats. A key example used to illustrate this is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where narratives of defence and deconstruction of reality profoundly influence perceptions.
Our discussion also takes on psychological dimensions by looking at the mechanisms by which the feelings of victim and perpetrator are reversed. Professor Sasse describes how, in public perception, mistakes and aggression are often projected onto others, while one's own actions are strongly optimised and staged as positive. These techniques are not only found in geopolitical conflicts, but also in everyday life, for example in companies and social relationships. Here we explain how criticism is misinterpreted as approval and how the dynamics of power and control work on an intrapersonal level.
Finally, we reflect on the relevance of reversals in the context of mediation work. The attempt to resolve conflicts through neutrality and equivalence is considered challenging, as often not only interpretations but also the underlying power structures and motivations of the conflict parties are influenced.
In summary, this episode offers an analysis of the subversive power technique of reversal into the opposite and encourages us to explore the underlying narratives in conflicts in order to recognise and address misunderstandings and injustices.
Complete transcription
[0:00]Yes, I think you should perhaps always be aware of all the statements you make.
[0:05]
Introduction to inversions to the opposite
[0:04]also reply to the sender. So especially with statements that are addressed, i.e. insults, hates. Welcome to the podcast Gut durch die Zeit. The podcast about mediation, conflict coaching and organisational consulting. A podcast from INKOVEMA. I'm Sascha Weigel and I'd like to welcome you to a new episode. Today we're going to talk about a phenomenon that is already very old and relatively well researched. And yet it comes with a vengeance, contaminating socio-political discourse and making the necessary conflict resolution difficult or almost impossible. We are talking about so-called inversions into the opposite.
[0:45]These are not simply projections, but a subversive power technique that works quite well. And because the reversal itself is obvious, it is also highly suspect. Or at least paradoxical. Such reversals can be observed not only in politics, but also in everyday conflicts. What constitutes these reversals and what they are all about, or whether they are simply complementary, enriching or helpful perspectives that help to find the truth, which is known to lie in the centre, needs to be addressed. And in order to approach this phenomenon, I have invited an expert who has studied this phenomenon in detail and has analysed these techniques on the basis of socio-political developments in Eastern Europe, Russia, America and Europe and has recently published on the subject. Welcome, Professor Silvia Sasse. How do you do? Mrs Sasse, with this publication I am referring to your recently published book, Inversions into the Opposite, about subversion as a power technique. Before we meet.
[2:01]Dedicate yourself to this topic and see what it's all about and what it actually is. First of all, why do you deal with such topics and from what perspective did you come to this topic? Yes, I am a literary scholar and I am primarily interested in the East Slavic and South Slavic literatures. And I also look at the world as a literary scholar. In other words, I look at how the world is narrated, how everyday life is narrated, what rhetorical strategies politicians or simply people in public life use. And I've noticed, and not just in the last two or three years, I've already written a short article on this, I think it was in 2017 or 2018, in an online magazine that I co-edit called Geschichte der Gegenwart (History of the Present). Because I noticed that terms are often used in the opposite sense. I then pursued this further when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, completely, so to speak. The war of aggression, exactly. The war began in 2014, but the war of aggression in 2022.
[3:20]So the whole war, I realised very clearly that Putin also justified this war with a reversal of the narrative, or the narrative of this war in general. Told in reverse, turned 180 degrees, so that I simply felt the need to write a book about this reversal into the opposite, which I did very quickly. So this war plays a major role in this book, but not only. So I was also interested in whether it was new or a strategy? You already hinted at it in your introduction, which we have known for a very long time. And I tried to research this a bit and also tried to find out where it had already been analysed or which philosophers or psychologists had perhaps already dealt with this phenomenon. And that's what my book is about.
[4:11]Because you just mentioned psychological phenomena, what I immediately thought of was this classic projection, i.e. an unconscious process. And that didn't seem to me to be the case with the examples you mentioned. It really does seem to be a political move, a propaganda strategy. So yes, I'm not attacking, I'm being attacked, because that's protection. And it's really ancient that wars are always labelled as preventive wars. And so projection, so to speak, is not simply a projection in the political arena, a reversal into the opposite, but is it different from that?
[4:51]Yes, I would say that projection is one aspect. So a reversal into the opposite, as I describe it, always consists of me projecting what I do myself onto the other person. So I impute that to them. And at the same time, I appropriate what he does and characterise my own actions as such. In other words, we are dealing with two directions of movement, so to speak. Always projection and appropriation. And what happens in the process is something, a performative contradiction is achieved. In other words, what I say about myself has nothing to do with what I do. So on the one hand, I assume that the other person is doing something. Which I am also doing right now and that may be outside of my consciousness, but recognisable. That's one aspect. And then you also said that it has an appropriating aspect.
[5:42]What do you mean by that again? Then perhaps I can keep up with the performative contradiction.
[5:49]So let us perhaps illustrate this with an example. I have already spoken about the war, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. It was described from the outset as a war of defence. So the classic perpetrator-victim reversal, for example, is a reversal into the opposite. But this war of aggression was also associated with a reversal of action and reaction. So Putin has always narrated this war as something he is reacting to while being attacked by the West, which he calls the collective West.
[6:24]Yes, that was an insinuation. He is being attacked by the West and another justification, which was provided from the outset, a completely different one, was that we have to denazify Ukraine. Correct, that is also a reversal into the opposite. We can see very clearly which fascist and neo-Nazi forces are active in Russia right now. We can see very clearly that Putin is supporting right-wing populist parties all over the world. In other words, he has no interest whatsoever in opposing rapidist forces. To a certain extent, he is imputing this to Ukraine in order to have as morally good a reason as possible, because everyone can identify with this. When you say that denazifying a country is basically a good thing. But he's not doing that because he's basically supporting neo-Nazis worldwide. In other words, he is insinuating the Ukrainians.
[7:22]To be Nazis, to have a president who is fascist. Sometimes he also calls him, I don't know, a narco-man, a drug addict and so on. So he always accuses him of something negative, even though Ukraine basically wanted to free itself from these forces, from these fascist forces, wanted to free itself from the occupation, wanted to become independent, wanted to emancipate itself and also built a democracy. All of this bothers him, but he doesn't say so. Because when he talks about Russia, he talks about Russia as something democratic. In Russia, where there is a diversity of opinion, where there are still real values that you can build on, Christian values. While he describes the West, and Ukraine is part of the collective West, as a place where there is no more freedom of opinion, where critical voices are suppressed and so on. I always have to remind myself of a joint statement that he issued together with Xi Jinping. And that was just before the war started.
[8:35]He was at the Winter Olympics in China. And afterwards they both wrote a joint declaration. And this statement says, I've picked this out for you because I think it's a good quote to work with. I'll read it out, then you'll immediately understand what it means. He said that certain forces, which represent a minority on the world stage, continue to favour one-sided approaches to solving international problems and resort to a policy of violence. Interfering in the internal affairs of other states, violating their legitimate rights and interests.
[9:14]Provoke contradictions, disagreements and confrontations and hinder the development and progress of humanity, which is rejected by the international community. He was not referring to himself. But he described himself very well. But exactly, these two strands are running in his ear. He's talking about himself right now. And if you know him or know what he wants to say, you know that he's talking about others who he's now accusing of that. Exactly, so what he is actually doing himself, he is imputing to others, while he is practically appropriating what could perhaps be categorised as democratic values for his own propaganda to describe himself.
[9:57]That is the appropriating moment, the positively connoted term. So it seems new to me that anti-democrats are saying that democracy is great, but that's what I'm doing. Yes, exactly. So he doesn't often use the word democracy, but he describes Russia as if it were a democracy. We still have freedom of speech, we can still say what we want. We still protect the values of all people, we don't interfere, so to speak. We respect international law, where they always think it doesn't describe Russia, but it does. I think that's also what many people don't get on with, who say, well, but he's saying the right thing. This aspect of democracy or the understanding of democracy, which was also in your book, also reminded me of the idea of democracy in the GDR and I can address that without hesitation because you also come from the GDR and know that. The expression of 95 per cent of votes for a party is the best expression of democracy, that everyone is behind a cause. Which is a reversal of the truth, because democracy is supposed to enable and revitalise opposition. And then a majority relationship comes about. I mean, it starts with the name of the country we grew up in. It was called the German Democratic Republic.
[11:27]Or the other countries occupied by the Soviet Union were called people's democracies by the Soviet Union. So this term was used in an incredible way to say something good at the level of labelling, at the level of naming, while the opposite was done at the level of action. It is absolutely clear that these were not democracies, but dictatorships, party dictatorships, one-party dictatorships. I think it is important to understand that the propaganda in the Soviet Union and also the propaganda in the states politically dictated by it functioned precisely according to this principle of reversal into the opposite. So actually, all GDR citizens or ex-GDR citizens who lived through the GDR should be experts on this reversal into the opposite, because they experienced it very well. They experienced what was written in the newspapers every day, whereas what they actually experienced was something completely different. I agree, so to speak, with Ilko Sascha-Kowalczuk's thesis that this is by no means an expert credential, because there, as in all other societies, a large proportion of the population is simply disinterested or uninterested and also tends to wait and see in such processes. He always says wait behind the curtain to see how the revolution turns out and then simply defer to the majority. But in fact, many GDR citizens remember feeling like experts in such...
[12:54]False declarations and distortions to the contrary. Well, except that they now believe the other propaganda, labelling right-wing populist media as West German television, for example. That's where the reversal begins again. So they use it too. That's the fatal thing that we have to come back to now. On the one hand, we can state that Putin and Trump, Trump does this every day. Or, on the other hand, the entire Trump administration governs with reversals. You can remember when Vance came to Europe and said, wait a minute, you have to look after your freedom of expression, while they themselves are censoring like crazy, banning books because they're afraid. Hundreds of them, in other words, they're really putting entire libraries on hold. I just want to say, we have this reversal, we can observe it. It's there. If we do a reality check, we can see this reversal. But at the same time, regimes like Putin's or Trump's claim exactly the opposite. I always find this very nice to see in the fable for George Orwell's novel 1984.
[14:03]In this novel, George Orwell analyses or narrates a totalitarian regime. This novel was banned, for example in the GDR. We can come back to that again. So anyone who owned the novel could be arrested for anti-state propaganda, which is what happened in the late 1940s and early 1950s. There is an autobiography by Baldur Hase, for example, who writes about it. At the time, the GDR commissioned an institute - I can't remember what it was - to write an expert report on this novel. And then it came out, as was customary, so that people could be arrested afterwards, of course they had to write the right expert report, that it was an anti-Soviet, anti-socialist novel. Today, however, Russian propaganda claims, wait a minute, we've always been deceived.
[14:53]Orwell never described a political system based on the principle of the Soviet Union; this is a novel about the liberal democracies of the West, about their dictatorship. That's how it's told every day in Russia. In other words, they try to turn it around. They say that they work with this strategy of inversion, that they tell us the world upside down all the time. In other words, not only are they doing it, but they are also implying that the other person has it backwards. Yes, and then it trickles down to the concept of the system media and undermining trust in the public broadcasters. That's right. It then trickles into everyday life. There are now many points where I would like to start. And I'll come back to the reality check. I would first address this paradox again, because the subtitle also says that it is a subversive market technique, and subversive always indicates that the powerful are being attacked and undermined. Actually, the state or the administration, i.e. the authorities, are being attacked. And here we are observing a technique, at least in this political context, that the powerful use. And that's no different to Trump and Putin, for example.
[16:13]Actually, one would be inclined to say that they shouldn't be allowed to use it at all, because it actually goes against them. I think that has something to do with our understanding of subversion. To a certain extent, we categorise subversion as belonging to the powerless. They try to achieve short-term effects through subversion strategies in order to undermine or subvert power. But subversion is also an old military strategy of hiding. Yes, the partisans and guerrilla fights, but always the underdogs.
[16:46]Terror is being talked about loudly and a lot, but it is actually the powerless who are now using subversive techniques. Exactly, that's our idea. Yes, and that's a mistake, you say, it's not like that at all. No, that's a misconception, if you look at the strategies as such. So strategies can be used by anyone for anyone. So you can use such strategies, in a way, to criticise power and undermine it. But conversely, it can also be used by rulers who want to deceive the people. Because this is about a subversive technique towards the people. I tell the people that they are in a position to make decisions, but I only tell them that, whereas they are not allowed to do so, for example. So all the talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat and so on. There was no self-determination and no emancipative forces, but ultimately pure subordination. My only concern is that something is happening, is being reversed. So we basically know subversion, for example, as the Russian philosopher Michael Bakhtin described it as a typical carnival strategy. The plebs, the common people, play king for a short time. So everything is turned upside down. Carnival is only ever an exceptional situation for a short time. Nothing really happens afterwards. Everyone basically goes back to their seats. And nothing is gained, except perhaps a specific experience.
[18:09]The one in time... A short-term relief too. Yes, exactly, like a valve. In anthropology, this has also been called the valve habit. But that's where this idea comes from, that this traffic is a kind of popular strategy to get one over on the powerful. But the point here is that the powerful try to appear to be something else because they don't dare to stand up and say, sorry, I'd like to be a dictator. And so that I can stay in power, I use many mechanisms of repression and simply tell you the opposite. Nobody does that, nobody dares.
[18:50]So that's also the phenomenon. That would probably not be successful either. No, it wouldn't be successful, exactly. It wouldn't work. So even populist parties would not come to power in this way. In other words, I would even say that without reversals, the opposite, a populist or a dictator has no chance at all. So that is the prerequisite for being successful. You have to tell the world upside down.
[19:16]This is where the appropriating element becomes clear to me, which can actually also be observed in Germany, these positively connoted terms or status symbols or status ascriptions of victim, oppressed, persecuted. And we have also seen in the propaganda that right-wing nationalists and right-wing extremists are now claiming this definition for themselves. We are the persecuted, we are the victims, we are the oppressed and our opinions are being marginalised and declared forbidden. Exactly, that's why people are trying to create a danger on the other side at the same time, i.e. to create a danger that emanates from the gender star. To create a danger that emanates from things that are completely without merit, that is labelled extremist, terrorist, dangerous.
[20:07]In Russia, for example, LGBTQ organisations and feminist organisations are on the extremist list. You have to imagine that. But actual terrorists are now being removed from this list. So there is also this reversal at work. This brings me to the point that we take as a starting point in my line of work. As mediators and conflict mediators, our starting point is that we have an equidistance to the parties in conflict. And what we can observe there is simply a conflict between differences of opinion that are of an extreme, i.e. fundamental nature, but nevertheless concern political ideas, and so in principle it is something that can certainly be mediated. And all statements and opinions are initially treated equally.
[21:02]This idea of reversal into the opposite is, so to speak, already a judgement that there is a truth and the opposite of it must be false. And if you pass that off as the truth, then it's problematic. So the starting point is that the truth is in the centre. That probably doesn't get you any further in such discussions, because you can only go to the level of... That's the short version, absolutely. Or the thesis would even be that you go along with it, you reinforce it, you accept the inversion, the opposite. Which brings us to philosophical questions, certainly on the basis of constructivist ideas, which is the foundation of many consulting industries, that everyone constructs their world and that this results in a major negotiation process, but that this concerns issues that simply involve life and death.
[22:00]And then the question is, yes, what is the truth? Is it in the centre of all possible opinions? So this subversive power technique makes that its own. It's like a gateway. Yes, that's why I spoke earlier about performative contradiction, because I think it's very important that, that's also the problem, so many discussion programmes on television, for example, which are now based on this idea that we must shape all opinions to be valid, that everyone is allowed to express their opinion, consider propaganda or disinformation on the same level as a scientific analysis and then create this false balance, so to speak, as it's called information research. I believe that when it's turned into the opposite, you get taken in because you only ever hear what is said. And that's also what the trick is, what Putin and Trump use to lure people in. They take the pressure off their own people. If the population is prepared to trust what is said or believe what is said, then they are in the clear. It's like a cathasis, basically.
[23:09]Basically, the Russians should all be out on the streets at the moment. That also includes this quasi-religious moment, which can certainly be observed among supporters of Trump and Putin and at the same time the accusation of quasi-religious adherence to the mass media and the mainstream also includes projection. Yes, exactly. And then I always find it important to look at what they do and what they say. In other words, to compare them with each other.
[23:44]So many people always try to justify the war in a certain way with some statements that have been made or with the fear that Russia has no security guarantees, as if it would be attacked or whatever. But I always try to take it to another level. I would say, look, if you justify all this, that doesn't explain the repression in Russia. Why are all these people who say something critical of Putin, and this is no longer about the war, i.e. who criticise the form of government in general, why are they being killed, why are they being arrested, why are they not allowed to say this, why are they afraid? So then there must be something wrong with this self-designation as a democratic state. There is an infinite lack of interest in Russia. Only when Russian rulers say something about the West do their ears prick up. Yes, I mean the same people who take to the streets in Germany and say that we no longer have freedom of speech here, that we are no longer allowed to say anything like we used to and so on. They would never take to the streets to demonstrate for freedom of speech in Russia.
[24:54]
The influence of propaganda and the media
[24:55]It's like a blind spot. I encounter that too.
[25:05]Discussions about this quickly end up in deadly arguments. That's why I think it's so important to compare them with what's actually happening. So even with Vance, for example, when he says that we have to be careful what happens here in Europe, that opinions are no longer free, then we shouldn't follow him to a certain extent, but instead we should open the website of the PEN Association America-USA and show that 16,000 books are being banned from school libraries and public libraries. And then you should ask yourself, what's wrong with that? And it's not the copies, it's the titles. Hey, if you're listening to this podcast, grab your smartphone and leave some feedback, a star rating, so that others can listen to this podcast too. And now the podcast can continue.
[26:05]Yes, these are the titles. Then you have to ask back, what's wrong? So why doesn't he talk about his own censorship? Why does he only use the word cancel culture when it's about that, or vocism as a danger when it's about people saying they want to show respect for the other? Why is this constructed as something dangerous, while one's own censorship is not labelled as cancel culture, for example? Or as vocism, you could basically do the same. In other words, you try to manipulate with words, because these words only apply to one thing. You don't even try to find terms for your own, because you don't even talk about it, because it doesn't appear in the discourse. And that is the great danger. On the one hand, things get blown out of proportion.
[26:54]I don't know if you can remember when the publisher, I don't even know which publisher it was, Ravensburger Verlag, I think, decided not to print a copy of Winnetou the way they had been doing it for years. There was an outcry in the press. This outcry in the press is missing at the moment when it comes to looking at these bookbands in the USA, when it comes to looking at how so-called corrosive ideology or corrosive art is now being censored. That's missing because their own mechanism basically doesn't work. You are, so to speak, a cultural scientist as a literary scholar. So I'm referring to this concept of culture because what is labelled as vocism or vocokeness and cancel culture.
[27:43]These are often not government regulations, but cultural developments that are initiated by a large part of the population or a certain section of the population. Many people take note of this, but say it has nothing to do with me or is not my field of work. But then there are those who say that something is being imposed on me. But it's not a regulation in the strict sense, which is somehow punishable by a fine and imprisonment, it's a development. And what we are now seeing in America is actually about bans. There are bans on teaching, there are bans on professions and writings are being declared banned to a truly unbelievable extent. Why is this, I would now say, a double standard, but the effect is equally outrageous for both sides.
[28:40]Is this simply a move in the sense of a reversal and is it about organising political majorities, which works? This is of course a media strategy and perhaps we should remember something that is typical of dictatorships. We know this from research in the former secret service archives, which can be done wonderfully with the BSTU files. The Soviet regime was concerned with destroying internal and external enemies. One measure of this decomposition, which is also a Russian term, Rassla-Genie, was also practically exported to the other Stasi organisations in other countries. It was also imposed on them. One method of this decomposition was to force opponents to deal with themselves. I would say that this is something that is very well mastered nowadays, by trying to disintegrate democracies and to persuade as many forces as possible to perceive this democracy as no longer democratic. And thus provoke a self-reflection. Yes, exactly. And to focus critical interest on democracy itself, but not on dictatorships that actually exist.
[29:56]So that you cause unrest in these democracies and also insert these terms, because then the critical forces actually jump on it by saying, yes, we have to be careful. Freedom of expression may be in danger here, but compared to the dictatorship in Russia, that's always a joke. And this tearing oneself apart, in other words having to constantly deal with oneself, I would say that this is something that actually happens and in which Russian foreign propaganda, as we investigated last year, is also incredibly specialised. Because there are these stations that have been brought into the world as radio stations, as websites or also as television stations abroad since 2005 and then increasingly since 2014, RT and Sputnik, which present themselves as dissidents, as a place of opposition to the mainstream public.
[30:51]We are the dissenters and so on. So a state propaganda broadcaster sees itself as the dissenters. So it's also about this, you appropriate the terms from the spectrum of your own dissidence, from the 1960s basically or even from Rosa Luxemburg and now use them as dictatorship, vocabulary so to speak. In other words, critical tools against democracies. Yes, exactly, but they come from a democratic desire, i.e. the terms. And they are deliberately trying to create foreign propaganda in such a way that they always find forces in their own country that are carrying out subversion work in their own country, so to speak. In Germany, the Greens are blasphemed a lot on RT. You can't call up RT in Germany, but I can in Switzerland. Yes, you still can. There are no restrictions in Switzerland. There's now also a Swiss website. In Switzerland, the main target is neutrality. In Germany, especially against the Greens, against Ukrainian refugees and so on and so forth.
[31:53]And to a certain extent, trigger points have been developed in each country in order to carry out decomposition work there. In Africa, for example, shots are being fired against the West in the name of decolonisation and anti-imperialism. Russia in particular, as a super-imperial and colonising country, is trying to use the voices of resistance fighters to create anti-imperialist and decolonial propaganda there. It's really disgusting when you look at it. And that's simply how it works, always finding the trigger points to disintegrate society itself. Yes, it's also about tightening the outrage loops, so to speak. And one explanation for me is that we have the impression that if you only look at German politics, these classic party lines of conservative, liberal.
[32:45]On the left, that they no longer apply or can be established, because every issue brings new majorities, but on the whole there seems to be confusion and chaos and what you said, so to speak, is being thrown into turmoil. Yes, although I think you can still see differences. But I think the essential difference that we should all remember is democracy and the separation of powers. We are currently seeing how this is going down the drain in the USA. Yes, but it's precisely this longing for the type, for a firm hand, that is then very quickly awakened in such confusing or escalating times, i.e. very quickly brought to hand.
[33:30]And I mean, of course, you can see that these Republicans at the moment, they are no longer a democratically led party, there is no democratic concern. And there's something else, many people are trying to describe the situation as being like the Cold War again. But in the Cold War we had completely different, how should I put it, classic elements in the sense of democracy, dictatorship, capitalism, communism, although communism didn't exist anywhere. We had a combination of dictatorship and capitalism. And that is of course much more powerful and worrying. And I think that's something that should be described much more precisely, and some sociologists are doing that now. But we are no longer in a cold war situation. So I think we should make an effort not to go back and see if we can get there again, but that this is a new situation that needs to be described in a new way. Perhaps one more point on this and then I would look a little at what this means for the personal use of conflict and for everyday conflicts? Can we learn something from it? Learning or experiencing something that perhaps doesn't touch on the big political picture, but rather the personal confrontation.
[34:40]But this point again, because we were talking about democracy and politics, but it is also a fact that it works so well that majorities are created that follow it. In America, at least, I wouldn't argue that these majorities are all lies, but that it's a majority movement,
[35:07]
Subversion in politics and power structures
[35:03]who follows Trump there, the revocal party. Yes, absolutely. People are being conned, but they are being conned. They're already being told the upside-down world. So if you're watching Fox News, you already think you're in this upside-down world. If you're in Russia, you're already in this upside-down world. The Russian people are hugely supportive of Putin because the traffic narrative is an exoneration narrative. I briefly touched on this earlier. You're always on the right side of the discourse. You can sort of support Trump by saying, yes, but he's in favour of freedom of speech if you block out what he's actually doing.
[35:40]Yes, and for the middle class and for Americans. For de-bureaucratisation, it's simply about dismissing people you don't like politically. Stalin did that too, all dictators do it to a certain extent, first of all to dismiss everyone who is on the wrong political side. And I think that's something that our media also fall for here. Especially those who want to stand up for democratic values and diversity of opinion. They are put under so much pressure or are so afraid because this idea of decomposition, of having to deal with themselves.
[36:23]It is directed at critical forces. In other words, where you are also critical, where it is not necessary. Where you even say, okay, then we'll just invite propagandists so that we have all opinions represented. No, journalism does not mean accepting propaganda. And you almost don't dare to do that any more, because then you're accused of, well, you're going out, you're not going in. So the curating element that the media used to have as a gatekeeper is now discredited, it's already seen as censorship. Yes, exactly, because it is then discussed as censorship and we should simply be more self-confident and say, wait a minute, there are simply very clear journalistic standards and values and there is absolutely no reason to invite people here who perhaps speak about Russia, but who actually have no idea about Russia at all. So this entertainment is really also a problem.
[37:20]Ms Sasse, if we can take a few more minutes, we already have a really good amount, but if we take this time to look at such reversals, into the opposite, can also be observed in conflicts that we all experience, whether at home or at work in organisations, that such reversals are made. What can you learn from your research, which may have been based more on these large-scale political lines of development, for such conflict situations, for example in an organisation where satirical texts, for example, or where people have made fun of the boss or the latest change agreement, are interpreted as approval? So that criticism, for example, which is often experienced, is actually reinterpreted as approval. Where victims are declared to be perpetrators, it's their own fault. Absolutely, we actually have that in many private situations. I would actually like to see people who practise their profession or psychologists speak up or advise people on how to react to such reversals. Because this has also been a field of psychology since Freud.
[38:43]Or perhaps even earlier, as you are probably more familiar with. Freud described hate projections, where people often project something that they are socially afraid of and don't dare to identify with onto others, so to speak, and then begin to hate it in the other person. There is a long tradition of thinking about these inversions into the opposite. This appropriating moment is not part of it. It's actually always more about the hate projects. I would also be interested in that. I think that's a very important skill that we need to deal with in everyday life. So I can well imagine, even when talking to people who perhaps don't want to see reality, because it's easy for me to say, yes, let's do a reality check. But there are many ways of getting to reality, which is usually mediated by the media and others. You can't check a lot of things. You have to rely on believing whoever tells you or whoever reports it. In other words, it's not that easy to reverse these misconceptions. Sometimes you trust people who tell you something and you don't want to disavow them, for example, or make them out to be liars. In other words, it's a very difficult field, I think.
[40:08]Perhaps I'll finish with an example, because I recently experienced this. And perhaps we also need to differentiate ourselves from the situation in our industry where we say that interpretations are simply put forward, different interpretations. In principle, they are of equal value and then you can see how to clear up misunderstandings. Maybe it has something to do with traffic and the opposite. There was a colleague who, I think, was ill or had to stay at home and was then removed from the e-mail distribution list and no longer invited to a meeting on a certain topic. And was not informed. That was her perspective, so to speak. I was excluded from it. And I was then told, as she then reported for herself or in this mediation, that they wanted to go easy on me. We didn't inform you because you were ill. Or we didn't know, but in any case you didn't make a good impression. We took you out in order to restore your will, in other words for the sake of your health and your edification. And of course it's clear to them that I've been cut off. It's simply a case of saying that these are different perspectives and intentions are obviously not as you assumed or believed them to be. And that can now be somehow fixed and ironed out. These are just perspectives that need to be discussed. Or is it something of a reversal into the opposite? And now I'm sticking with these elements of projection and appropriation. Can you recognise that in an example like this? Well, I mean, we simply can't know.
[41:31]So I think that if the employer actually describes the exclusion as protection, it is a reversal, the opposite. But it could also be that the employee just perceives it as such. So it could well be that they actually wanted to go easy on her. I think you can probably get away with this one.
[41:48]example, but you would have to see whether this is a permanent strategy, i.e. whether it is permanently excluded. But basically, both are possible. Okay, so to determine whether we are dealing with this, we have to go to the source and ask the intention. But we're not going to do that.
[42:07]Exactly, it won't be that easy now, but you can't read it off the interpretation of the addressee, so to speak, but you have to look, I think that's an important point about reversal. On the contrary, you actually have to take a close look at the sender. That was also what we said before us. You have to look at Russia in order to understand what the inversion means when they speak critically of democracy or when they speak critically of Western democracies, you can only recognise the inversion when you look at Russia. Yes, I think you should perhaps always look at the sender of all statements. So especially with statements that are addressed, both with insults and with hates, this is also about a hate. So Russia portrays the West as a terrible hell, as a dictatorship. Yes, a perfect Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, exactly. As those who hate us. That's what it's always about. They hate us. They hate us. But is that just rubbish? Of course there was such hatred and there are individual people who hate. But there is no organised hatred. Yes, no Russophobia. They're all Russophobic. Exactly, that's the lining. And here too you have to say, yes, there is Russophobia, but not at this moment, when criticism is practically being labelled as Russophobia. And I think you really have to look at every situation and always see what the gesture is, what the sender is addressing, so to speak. But the problem we often have is that we can't do that.
[43:30]That we also, you said the word intention, that we have these intentions, because intentions are often hidden. So sometimes you can't figure it out. I imagine your job is very difficult. I can only describe it from the outside, but then they are between these individual statements. I don't think it's so easy to see what they want to achieve and what they intend, sometimes perhaps even what they intend subliminally. I imagine that's very difficult. Yes, but you're addressing exactly the issue that made me want to have you on the podcast, which is that we tend to be trained or have chosen or believe we can choose a starting point as mediators, where we position ourselves equidistant from the conflict parties and say that I'm only responsible for the process of the dispute and not what happens in terms of content. And that's in a limited framework for conflicts where it's about disputes.
[44:35]
Traffic in everyday life and conflicts
[44:29]in a certain atmosphere or certain subject areas, that is also feasible. And what you describe is no longer possible. Mediation is not only simply not a suitable means, it would no longer be able to act neutrally, but is also a statement.
[44:52]That's why I see it as rather problematic to call for mediation in certain conflict situations or to listen to the call, because we are also setting something in stone. For example, I'll take an example from an organisation.
[45:06]The issue, the accusation may be discrimination, sexual discrimination or even racial discrimination. And the idea is then, if your manager has treated you like this, why don't you go to mediation?
[45:18]And then two people in a room are given a confidentiality framework and then they just have to talk to each other. Then people are isolated and issues are isolated and you no longer recognise the organisational or systemic aspects. Mediation as an instrument is then simply problematic because it has already been taken for a ride. Yes, it's also an artificial situation that assumes that people can't disguise themselves in specific situations. So it doesn't mean that you can recreate the initial problem in order to be able to observe it, but that a shift could also take place in such a mediation situation. What you are saying, I believe, is that it is possible that in mediations that have such reversals as a starting point, for example, one can fall prey to these reversals. If you could agree with what I said. You could affirmatively withdraw from it, so to speak. It is accepted. Yes, it would be accepted. In a way, you would be falling for the process. That is indeed a danger.
[46:23]We can also see that right now in this major war situation. Yes, absolutely. Going to the negotiating table, whether with a mediator or not, is binding. And you have to think carefully about when, where and how you sit down at a negotiating table. And at the same time, this question also takes place on stage and is then discussed: is the person willing to negotiate or not? And that's where we experience the reversal. Who is willing to negotiate and what is actually being done? I thought that was an important point. I would emphasise that again, that you say you have to look at what is being done. And not what is said. And Putin says that he is consistently ready to negotiate. But he won't sit down at the table. He says he wants peace and he makes war, even during the negotiations. There are also various reversals.
[47:11]Victimisation is a Classics. So so has Stalin to a certain extent be whole Regime of terror constructed. Back then By the way already his Opponent as Fascists labelled. And them itself itself also as Fascists designate leave, that them the then itself believed have and in the Show trials also named have. That I so was and so was. So the was Yes really already so one perverse, confusing Situation. One Acceptance this Reversal to the Part. Whereby Bukharin to the Example has the not made, but until to one certain Dimensions. Then gives it the Reversal Action, Reaction. The had we with the War earlier also already called. Then gives it the Reversal fictitious, factual. The comes also in the War, the Russia against the Ukraine leads, permanent before, that in Russia tells becomes, that this War actually only Theatre be. because the are Actresses in crisis, the happens actually even not really. So where everything, what takes place, as Fiction labelled becomes or that, what actually takes place, as Fake News. The makes Trump always. When one Trump criticised, then says he in principle, it is a Fake. So he tried, the always to reverse. And then gives it the large Reversal, Cause and Effect. And there are Trump and Putin absolute Specialists, so both.
[48:22]Permanent. Reasons invent, the it even not gives, at Things, the them do would like, to justify. And by them it then do, to a certain extent becomes this Reason Yes the whole Time always named and consolidated. When Trump his Peace negotiations, the he there is striving for, not succeed, then is Zelensky blame, also on War blame.
[48:41]Yes, so it becomes to a certain extent always, or Biden is on this War blame. Would be I in the Government been, would have it this War at all not given. For Putin is, I white not, also Biden Guilt and Europe Guilt and the Ukraine Guilt and so continue. So those, the actually Guilt are, the become now Guilty parties called. But it become always other Reasons invented and so continue. But actually, when one itself the looks at, becomes this War led, mine Opinion to, so that the Ukraine and also the entire democratic West in the Condition the Blackmailability held becomes. The is one the important Reasons ultimately, because then all something do want, so that the stops to a certain extent and so always on the short Leash held become can. And with the Alaska Summit, I have in addition now straight today one Text written, therefore have I the still so good in Reminder, has Putin also thereof spoken, we must the real Reasons this War uncover. And then has also Trump agreed. Yes, he would like also deeper get in and the Reasons, there gives it none Reasons, when it not invented Reasons are. The Reason is Repression, the one would like and one War of aggression, the one lead would like to. Yes, there is otherwise nothing behind it. So when it good Reasons for one War of aggression would exist. Mrs Sasse, many Thanks to for the detailed, very informative Conversation.
[50:00]Many Thanks to, has me very pleased. I wish You one good Time and that we the also good get through, what still there before us lies and that we the Findings utilise can for the own, but even also for the big politics Weather situation and their Assessment. Yes, the wish I me also and that the People or that many the Reversals not on the Glue go. Ciao and on Reunion. Silvia Sasse, Professor from Zurich.
[50:30]
Summary and outlook for the future
[50:30] Born in Magdeburg, Literary scholar and Author of the Book Reversals ins The opposite.
We have detailed these subversive Power technology discussed and the individual Components worked out, the Component the Projection likewise like the Appropriation and what the subversive Element thereby is. And we have the on the basis of the Research topics from Mrs Sasse discussed, but also to the Conclusion again Effects or Forms of appearance in the everyday Conflicts in Labour and Life contexts transferred. Many Thanks to, that you and her here again with thereby maintained at the Podcast Good through the Time, the Podcast round at Mediation, Conflict coaching and Organisational consulting. I am Sascha Weigel, Host from INKOVEMA, the Institute for Conflict and Negotiation management in Leipzig and Partner for professional Mediation and Coaching training.
Leave A Comment