Opinions differ about the political awakening in the 1960s. Socially, however, the country benefited from it in any case. In families as well as in society. In general, it has ensured that people are less authoritarian towards each other. Reason and argument count and not just pure authority. Children in particular have benefited from this. But society is also more casual in its dealings than it was in the 1950s. No matter where an individual may stand politically today, all people together encounter each other more openly today.
People exchange views on an equal footing and it is above all the better argument that counts. In Germany, everyone benefited from the emancipation and social upheaval of the 1960s. No one wants to miss the benefits of that today. In other countries, there was not always such an awakening. Not all Western democracies have been able to free themselves so successfully from the petty-bourgeois stink of the 1950s. And in the authoritarian states of this world, things look even worse. Here, it is often the hierarchy or a bureaucratic apparatus that decides what happens and not democratic discourse.
The breaking up of the old ideas of the family has also brought people many new freedoms. Even conservatives benefit from these liberal freedoms and appreciate them today. There is a social consensus that there are not only classic family images. Patchwork families or same-sex marriages are also possible. And each person finds his or her happiness within the framework of the possibilities that he or she values.
Today, women are no longer bound to a rigid distribution of roles that ties women to certain tasks in the household. This ensures that the female part of the population has also been granted many new freedoms. On the whole, people today meet each other more impartially. Even on the open street or in a café, it is easy to strike up a conversation with people in Germany. This open manner of Germans makes for a casual and relaxed atmosphere in everyday life. It both improves the lives of the country’s inhabitants and invites visitors to engage in conversation with the locals. In this way, people get to know each other without reservations and exchange information about their own lives or current problems.
The quality of life of the people has been increased considerably as a result. The open atmosphere ensures that people make friends more quickly and are able to talk more openly about problems. This in turn ensures that people in Germany are less likely to keep problems bottled up. More open interaction thus also contributes to a person’s mental health. In psychological practice, at least, people are happy about this openness between people. Perhaps this is why the suicide rate in Germany is far lower than in many other countries. In Germany, people are much more likely to talk to their fellow human beings about existential problems than is the case in many other countries.
Last updated on 6. February 2023