About a year after the WHO declared a “health emergency of international concern ended”, Markus Lanz and Richard David Precht felt that the time had come to take stock of the coronavirus. Last week, they critically discussed pandemic events on their ZDF podcast. Apparently, they did not expect such a strong reaction to their post on social media.
“When you're reading this, you're saying we're not doing a podcast anymore, we're just stopping,” says Markus Lanz in the current episode of “Lanz & Precht.” Richard David Precht says he's read “a lot of smart things” in the YouTube comments column of his podcast, but “it wasn't like that when dealing with Corona.” There, the vast majority of commenters accused him and Lanz of “pseudo-enlightenment”. The consensus is that they did not dare to deal with the real reasons and power relations – the keyword being “planemic”.
“They find some trick to keep believing the bullshit.”
Behind the coined word is the idea that the corona pandemic was a planned event to permanently enslave and control the population with established measures. “It didn't happen that way,” says Precht, stating the obvious. “It's pretty much back to pre-pandemic. There's no deep state, no Orwellian tyranny, no harassment of citizens.
So, Precht continued, proponents of such a theory should now admit, “Man, what nonsense we believed for two or three years!” But that won't happen. Quite the opposite. The TV philosopher recognizes a pattern: “The moment people realize that the crap they believed isn't happening, they find some trick to keep believing the same crap.”
By their own admission, Lanz and Precht discussed misconduct, wrongdoing and “legally questionable matters” on their Corona podcast. “But the idea that there was a big conspiracy that was orchestrated was, as you can see by the lifting of all the corona measures, complete nonsense.” Now that it's obvious, conspiracy believers are becoming “all the more aggressive.” Precht is stunned: “It's really crazy.”
'Created their own world of truth': Lanz and Precht settle scores with Corona swearers in new podcast episode
“We already live in a crazy world,” Markus Lanzil does not give real advice. He is frightened by the “unforgiveness” and “mercilessness” with which such matters of opinion are discussed today. Just because he doesn't share the idea of an evil plan “doesn't require me to be tied to the nearest tree,” says Lanz. “That's what scares me.”
Precht here recognizes the connection with the fact that society has legitimized individual feelings: “In the past, it was about finding out what the truth might be, comparing it to reality. Now I need to find something that matches my emotional state. I look for what appeals to me in reality, and that is the truth.
Even in the past, people were ready to “believe all kinds of nonsense”, admits the best-selling author. “What has changed is that we have become self-makers of faith.” We no longer follow a large mass movement like in the Third Reich. “Everyone puts together their own world of truth in the hobby cellar of their consciousness.”