What's good, what's evil?

by Karin Sawetz, publisher Fashionoffice

Nowadays, it's better to use negative definitions to elaborate what's 'good'. Defining the 'evil' is much easier than finding signs of the good as its counterpart delivers in our days the best performance in the meaning of the biggest impact on society. So I try to work out one of the best and most perfidious signs of what makes evil so well performing: it's the strategy of letting others run through a maze as long as possible and change the design of the labyrinth in the moment the first have unveiled its structure. The best of the best directors of a good vs. evil dramaturgy involve the victim of the 1st chapter as offender in the second chapter which runs like a synchronized layer over the rabbit-warren-like knitted thread. When the first victim is branded as the origin of all evil - yes, then the master work is done perfectly and everybody is confused.

The Austrians are witnessing currently this strategy very well with some prominent players and it seems as if they won't unknot the authors' interlacing: the scenery plays on Facebook and the two most powerful political parties are the victims / offenders. The digital environment is an ideal place for maze constructions as the actual example proves once again. For the viewers it seems to be jinxed!

Austrians haven't only adopted Halloween from US; Austria's communication specialists acquired also dirty campaigning skills from America!

fig.: The image shows me at the booth of a witches' outfitter recently at a Middle Ages Festival in Vienna. 

US Americans have collected already more experiences with such confusion-constructions for putting a sort of spell on the rival. Accusations concerning last year's manipulations of public opinion through fake news and investigations inclusively Facebook ads which could have influenced people's opinion by spreading wrong information in the favor of one party or candidate are the latest examples of political campaigning in US. 

In the case of the Austrians' election campaign affair it's similar - nothing is definitely verified who did what. I think that nobody really believes that justice can work fast enough to make clear before the election day on 15 October what really happened on digital media against or for the candidates. Therefore, the court and the attorneys would even need data by Facebook. According to the statements of speakers of the respective political parties, it could last months until the court can begin to work. This means, the political parties or one political party - who knows? - have or has sent us all together into a maze of uncertainty. Facebook is only one piece of the dirty campaigning puzzle.

The politicians and the men and women who work for them belong to the elite of the country. We are trusting them so much that we give them our money (taxes), that we are outfitting them with the power to take care of our cultural treasures like artworks at museums or social and infrastructural achievements such as the health system or digital highways; we send our children to schools which are planned by politicians of parties who got the most votes! And now these elites show us their real faces; the faces of jokers, gamblers who calculate with the people's weakness caused by the loss of the believe in truth. It's a devilishly effect of an uncertain environment! But do the people haven't any other chance? What could they do? First, they can remain willingly players in the maze-power-play of political elites, their funding partners from the private business sector and public associations which depend on the one and/or other party. Or, people can become self-determined, trust again others who aren't playing a maze-game. And they can express this position with their votes!

Perhaps people will decide less fact-based on 15 October and intuition will become a driving force for making a cross? Who knows? I'm not a fortune-teller.