Beyond Carrot and Whip or the Raising of Contradictions [1]
Ludwig Harig [2]
Translated by xia23
The world is neither this nor that, but different.
Everywhere there is a thing and its opposite. For example, life and death, life and culture, but also life and school.
Marin Luther sets life against death and death against life. Thomas Mann sets life against culture and culture against life. But I set life against school and school against life. Matin Luther, Thomas Mann and I myself set one against the other. We create oppositions.
However, if there is opposition between life and death, between life and culture, and between life and school, it does not mean that culture must have sometimes something to do with death and that death must have something to do with school; but culture and school cannot be one without the other. One speaks against the other. The world is full of contradictions.
Life men say: “Life can exist without school, but school cannot exist without life.” The teachers, on the other hand, say: “School can well exist without life, but life cannot exist without school.” These led the teacher Seneca [3] to the proverb: “Non vitae, sed scholae discimus!” [4] which means in German: “We learn not for life, but for school!” But life men have changed this proverb, they say: “We learn not for school, but for life!” and so the contradictions remain unsolved.
We neutralize the contradictions. We connect life with school and school with life, so that there is a schooling life in our living school and a living school in our schooling life.
But now in life, the same contradictions exist as in school. In school, the same contradictions exist as in life, such as the contradiction between work and vacation, between work and leisure and between work and play. Vacation, leisure and play, however, are not the same.
Someone like a life man and factory owner likes to emphasize the contradiction between work and vacation. Someone like a teacher and labor unionist prefers to emphasize the contradiction between work and leisure. And someone like myself prefers to emphasize the contradiction between work and play. Here, too, leisure and vacation do not coincide. Just as vacation does not coincide with the play, as if they were equal to each other. But between leisure and play, there is a happy union.
But we neutralize the contradiction between work and play. We connect work with play and play with work, so in our working play there is a playful working and in our playful working there is a working play.
In the future there shall not be work here and play there, not class here and break there, not education hunger here and crisp bread there.
Only the happily working together between work and play, between class and break, between education hunger and crisp bread will create a new person, the whip will not turn into carrot, and the carrot will not turn into whip, oh no. This new person will not be from outside, but will be from himself. Then this happily working together between play and work will make the new person happy beyond carrot and whip.
But we should not explain this further, so that this new person does not suddenly evoke his contradictions and we have to stand here exactly as before.
[1]. p. 62. Jenseits von Zuckerbrot und Peitsche oder: Die Aufhebung der Widersprüche. Kontakt mit der Zeit. Dieter Stöpfgeshoff. Max Hueber Verlag. Germany, 1995.
[2]. Ludwig Harig. Freelance author. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Harig
[3]. Seneca. A philosopher of ancient Rome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger
[4]. Non vitae, sed scholae discimus. A Latin phrase.
But please check Wikipedia, which said just opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_scholae_sed_vitae
