Are we living in the age of shamelessness?
‘Im Zeitalter der Schamlosigkeit’ is the title of the latest leading article in the German edition of “DER SPIEGEL” (DER SPIEGEL, 22 March 2025). Indeed, Trump’s demolition man Elon Musk recently said: ’The West’s greatest weakness is empathy.’
And the empathetic Donald Trump himself has called Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘brilliant’, China’s dictator Xi ‘brilliant’ and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un ‘very honourable’. But the same UW president said about the European Union: ‘I think the EU is an enemy.’
This shamelessness, reminiscent of Trump’s behaviour, can be seen in his ruthless deportation policy and in his lack of empathy for the poorest in his own country. Trump’s policy has had horrific consequences for millions of Central American refugees who have failed on their escape routes. They now end up on the raging sea or in the brutal jungle. Many have already died and many more will die. And with them, the American dream of a humane immigration country in the USA has died.
Just as bad is that more and more other politicians are taking their cue from Trump and his brute Elon Musk: Erdogan in Turkey just had his strongest political rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, thrown in jail on trumped-up terrorism charges. In doing so, he has eliminated his political opponent.
The age of shamelessness
In fact, the election of Donald Trump marked the beginning of a new era in world politics: the age of shamelessness. Autocrats like Viktor Orban in Hungary, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feel strengthened and encouraged. What is allowed to the US president as the leader of what has been the free West so far should also apply to them.
In these weeks, Democrats from around the world are looking anxiously to Europe. In Germany, the coalition negotiations that have taken place so far have shown that the political centre, consisting of the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens, is still holding. The same applies to France, Poland and England. But Germany is also susceptible to anti-immigrant agitation.
Barbarism always begins with the barbarisation of language. My doctoral supervisor Dolf Sternberger already pointed this out after the Second World War in his book ‘Aus dem Wörterbuch des Unmenschen’ (From the Dictionary of the Inhuman). The monstrous word ‘Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz’ (Influx Limitation Act), coined by Friedrich Merz and his CDU/CSU shortly before the last federal election, was intended to suggest that refugees are a flood that causes nothing but hardship, suffering, damage and disaster.
Just ten years ago, when one million refugees found a new home in Germany in 2015, Angela Merkel saw the refugees as an enrichment and said: ‘We can do it.’ And we did it. We now know that we could no longer do our work without foreigners. Above all, however, they are a cultural and spiritual enrichment.
The entire history of humanity is a refugee story. We are all refugees, because we all have ancestors who once had to flee.
If Elon Musk thinks empathy is a weakness, then democrats should point out that empathy has so far been considered the greatest STRENGTH of Western democracies. Especially in the age of shamelessness, Europe must remember its democratic and Christian values, its freedom and human rights. More than ever, the first article of the German Basic Law applies: ‘Human dignity shall be inviolable.’ It does not say in the Basic Law, ‘The dignity of the German people is inviolable.’
