Gunnar Kaiser

Gunnar Kaiser (born 1976 in Cologne) is a German writer, literary and political blogger.

Life

Gunnar Kaiser studied philosophy, German philology and Romance studies at the University of Cologne. After completing his state examination, he worked as a teacher of German and philosophy in grammar schools in Bonn and Cologne.

In summer 2016, Kaiser started his blog "Philosophisch denken" (Thinking philosophically). In his opinion, Facebook is only a tool, his goal is to "seduce people to his books, articles and videos in order to have a somewhat freer platform for the discussion of literature and philosophy". Further, "all the aphorisms and aperçus of philosophers have been waiting for thousands of years for such a platform on which people pay so much attention to a single quotation."

Literary works

His first novel Unter der Haut (English: Beneath The Skin) was published in 2018. The paperback edition was printed by German publishing house Piper. The English edition was published a year later, translations in other languages followed. In the reception of Cornelia Wolters (Neue Ruhr Zeitung), this novel is about the aesthetical, about classical and pop music, about books and bibliophilia .

Comedy

His show "Of Wolves and Sheep" broached the issue of the modern community between loneliness and peer pressure, in which he proved how philosophical questions can be dealt with in a profound and entertaining way guiding the audience through the contradictions of the Condition Humaine also refering to the work of ancient and modern philosophers such as Diogenes, Seneca or Adorno

Positions and criticism

During the Corona pandemic, Kaiser took a critical position, his appearance at a demonstration in Munich on 26 June 2020 was commented on by Sabine Buchwald (Süddeutsche Zeitung) as building up a "scenario of threat". Kaiser is supposed to claim government measures aim at the "abolishment of man as a free and rational being". In particular, Kaiser had called on "the Intellectuals" to resist "repression" and the "imperative of technology".

Milosz Matuschek (NZZ and Schweizer Monat) attests Gunnar Kaiser has summed up the contradiction of the measures regarding funerals, schools, companies and restaurants in relation to the anti-racism demonstrations in June 2020. Matuschek sees it as a colossal triumph in favor of the vilified skeptics, who rightly wonder how dangerous the virus really is.

With regard to Cancel culture or call-out culture, Kaiser and Matuschek published the "Appell für freie Debattenräume" (appeal for free debate spaces). In his opinion, Cancel Culture is about "using threats, threats of violence, actual violence, bullying or shitstorms to put people under pressure and force them out of the public debate and the perpetrators often remain anonymous. Often third parties are put under pressure, for example organizers, publishers, employers or platforms, to make people seem unacceptable, behind their backs, without including them in the discourse. The new quality seen by Kaiser is a mix of "exuberant political correctness" towards art and culture and the lack of protest against it, with every kind of protest being politically stigmatized and marginalized.

The Friedrich Naumann Stiftung distanced itself from Gunnar Kaiser after they had originally engaged him as moderator in a public discussion By the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Gunnar Kaiser had also been critized for working with highly controversial figures of the far right ignoring the work of Kaiser also with the other edge of political spectrum and in turn raising questions on this judgement of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation

External links

• web page
• Kulturblog KaiserTV

Bibliography (selection)

Non-fictional

• With Florian Radvan: Ödön von Horváth: Stories from the Vienna Woods Part: Copy templates and modules for teaching sequences edited by Dieter Wrobel, R. Oldenbourg-Verlag 2010. ISBN 978-3-637-01061-1

Fictional

• Under the skin. Piper Publishers 2019. ISBN 978-3-492-23856-4