Christmas dispute: How family gatherings can contribute to education for democracy

A banquet table is the ideal place to practice democracy and pluralism. This requires humility, patience – and humor.

In the fall, Rowohlt published a very nice anthology called “Democracy. What is worth fighting for now? It collects contributions from storytellers and poets, essayists and novelists of all kinds, experimental and best-selling – and especially not from political professionals. The authors are sociologically, linguistically and professionally as diverse as in the bickering PEN Berlin, mostly German-speaking, often migrant, many refugees, but all at home in the political space of the Basic Law. The solutions they have found for the task of presenting a plea for democracy in its most questionable hour are as varied as the authors.