Whistling in the Woods

I. A Bet without a Stake

Since 9 September, “The Pioneer”, Gabor Steingart’s media platform, has been running a podcast called “Deutschland wird gut. Wetten?” – “Germany will turn out well. Want to bet?”. In twelve episodes it sets out to show that Germany is doing better in one area or another than public debate believes. After each episode the audience votes, and the votes produce a mood curve. In the finale, the guest whose project achieved the greatest shift of opinion receives a donation of 50,000 euros. The money comes from Reinhard Wiesemann, an entrepreneur and patron from Essen. The motto: “Positive change always begins with believing in it.”

So the winner is not the one whose cause proves itself in reality, but the one who changes the audience’s mind most. What is measured is not the state of the country but the mood about it. Whoever whistles in the dark woods does exactly that: he does not change the woods, only his feeling about them.

How this works is shown by the mood curve on the project’s website. It starts with a representative survey: 33 per cent of respondents believed that Germany would turn out well. After that, only the listeners’ votes move the curve, and after barely three weeks it stands at almost 51 per cent. That looks like a change of mood in the country. But it is a change of sample: at the start the country was asked, afterwards only the people who voluntarily listen to a podcast about confidence. The curve does not measure whether Germany will turn out well, but how loudly people are whistling in the woods.

II. The Pharmacist of Nancy

Émile Coué was a pharmacist in Nancy. In the 1920s he became world-famous for a simple method: his followers were to say twenty times every morning and every evening that every day, in every way, they were getting better and better. Halls in London and New York were packed. A few years later the fashion had passed, and the illnesses were still there.

Coué did not only talk nonsense. Imagination has an effect, as every placebo trial shows, and I have experienced myself that how one feels can change a medical finding too. But it does not act on every finding. A broken leg heals only if it is set and immobilised, not through faith, prayer or betting. Where the method becomes a substitute for treatment, German has a word for it: Gesundbeten, praying oneself healthy. And Germany currently has many broken legs.

III. What Can Fairly Be Said for Confidence

The objection is obvious, and it must be taken seriously. In 1948 the sociologist Robert K. Merton described the self-fulfilling prophecy with an example from banking: a sound bank collapses because a rumour says it is collapsing and all its customers withdraw their money at once. In 1936 John Maynard Keynes spoke of “animal spirits”, without which no one invests. Mood is an economic factor. And surveys have shown for years that many Germans judge their own situation better than that of the country. Part of the pessimism really is mood and not findings.

But the prophecy works only where the thing itself consists of trust: banks, stock markets, currencies. A bridge does not stand because people believe in it. A factory that closes because of energy prices does not reopen because the audience votes differently. Where the cause lies in the structure, confidence without diagnosis is praying oneself healthy.

IV. Where No One Whistles in the Woods

The first episodes of the podcast deal with peatland protection, with care work and with social cohesion. These are important topics, and there is good news to report. What is striking is what is missing: industry, which has been shrinking for years, energy prices, the relocation of production, and mechanical engineering, once the backbone of the country. Whoever whistles in the woods prefers to do so where it is not quite so dark.

History offers a counter-example that shows how it can be done. When Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, Britain faced defeat. He promised the House of Commons nothing but “blood, toil, tears and sweat”. That was not confidence but diagnosis, and precisely that mobilised the country. People can bear the truth if they are told what to do.

V. What Betting Means in Germany

The word “Wetten?” in the title has stuck with me, because it names exactly what this country lacks. A bet means risking a stake before the outcome is known.

When I presented my polygon process at the EMO in Hanover in 1985, the response was overwhelming. Afterwards an entrepreneur told me: “Sell the first five machines, and I’ll buy the sixth.” That is the German relationship to betting: people like to bet, but only once the race has been run.

About ten years ago I visited Reinhard Wiesemann at the Unperfekthaus in Essen. He had founded the house as a springboard for people who want to turn their dreams into ventures. At the time I had started an inventors’ project with students of the Studiwerkstatt in Aachen and wanted to win him over for it, without success. He owed me nothing, and every patron decides for himself what he gives his money to. But I remembered that meeting when I read about his bet. A man who himself became wealthy through his company and his patents today stakes 50,000 euros on a shift of opinion. For young people who wanted to learn how to invent, there was nothing to stake back then.

This is not an indictment of an individual. It is the pattern of a country: there is money for the whistling, but not for the lantern.

VI. Diagnosis instead of Confidence

At the Gesamthochschule in Gummersbach in the 1970s I had a teacher, Dr. Lückert, who gave us three rules: “The sum of all evils is constant.” “We have to pay a price.” “We have to die one death.” That sounds gloomy but is the opposite. Whoever knows that problems do not disappear but are only transformed or shifted can decide which price he is willing to pay. Whoever whistles decides nothing.

Confidence is not a therapy. It is the consequence of a correct diagnosis and of a first step that succeeds. A country does not get better because someone bets on it, but because someone names the causes and removes them, and because someone risks a stake before success is certain.

VII. How This Essay Could Be Refuted

The first objection: the project does not want to replace diagnosis at all, only to set a counterweight to permanent gloom. The media live on bad news, and whoever hears nothing but decline gives up before trying. That is true, and this essay does not deny that there is good in Germany.

The second objection: a diagnosis is only an opinion too. Whoever conjures up decline is whistling as well, only in a minor key. That is not wrong either. Pessimism can be just as comfortable as optimism, because it releases one from the duty to act.

The essay would be refuted if it could be shown that countries whose mood improves go on to solve their structural problems, and not the other way round.

VIII. The Question

Whoever whistles in the woods is afraid, and that is no disgrace. The question is what he does next. He can keep whistling and hope that the woods end somewhere. Or he can light a lantern, even if the light shows how thick the undergrowth is.

Germany will not turn out well because someone bets on it. It may turn out well if someone risks a stake before he knows whether he will win.