February 24, 2022 is a turning point. For the world and for a generation that thought they grew up at the end of history. For a long time, everything in the life of the 28-year-old author felt like it had “already happened”: the invention of computers, reunification, Merkel with her “We can do it” mantra. The life of one’s own parents didn’t seem bad. Family, garden, barbecues. “The grill was a promise. The desire to be left alone in the future simmered in the grill.” But instead, “multiple crises” suddenly pile up before the young eyes. A threatening future with war and enemies of liberal democracy awaits them – in the middle of Europe. What kind of world is this now? How could you overlook all this? And what kind of crazy time is it when you’re young without being envied for it? Knobloch diagnoses the feeling of a society. And wonders how young, extremely individualized people can take on responsibility in this democracy.
Marlene Knobloch: Serious Shit. Dtv Verlag, Munich 2023. 112 pages, 12 euros.