Untitled Page 36

want to be identified with a party - there are two reasons given for this. (1) People remember
well the NAZI party experience - what it produced and what a shadow membership in it
could leave on one's post war record. They distrust open membership in parties, fearing later
consequences of this sort. (2) In the small towns especially it is economically unwise to
be an enthusiatic supporter of one party or the other. If a shopkeeper is a rabid supporter of
the SPD (Socialist Democratic Party), conservative peasants who favor almost always the CDU
(Christian Democratic Union - Adenauer's party) may supposedly boycott his store; sho why should
he speak out and lose business. Such "radicalism" is viewed unfavorably, and people
would rather go silently to the elections, cast their vote, and otherwise remain
cautiounaly silent.

#6 Partly because of this seeming political indifference, but probably more for other
reasons (different backgrounds in political thought - no revolution in ideas like ours of 1787)
Germany tends to accept more authority in its government. Anthropologists
trace this back to family structure, where the father is very dominant and this too
may be a factor. But one difference that I observe is that they don't have our
concept of the secular, amoral state; here the state is a legitimate moral agent,
and has a definite responsability to protect the morals of the people. Thus whole areas
of control and censorship (of T.V., movies, etc., etc.) which we often see in America as
threats to our freedoms (as given in the Bill of Rights), they find here more valid and
necessary. Currently there is less of this ("democracy" is the keyword, "authority" bad)
but it is likely that the pendulum will swing back somewhat in coming years,
and they have no body of political thought to oppose its doing so. Thus too the
name Christian Democratic Union (Union because it combined a Protestant
and a Catholic party which were in pre-war years separate) is no accident - many
people support the party specifically because it is "Christian".