Thank you Germany: Part 058: 1968 and emancipation created a relaxed atmosphere

Opinions differ about the political upheaval in the 1960s. However, the country definitely benefited socially. In families as well as in society. In general, it ensured that people were less authoritarian towards each other. Reason and argument count and not just pure authority. Children in particular have benefited from this. But society is also more relaxed than it was in the 1950s. Regardless of where an individual may stand politically today, everyone is more open with each other.

People exchange ideas on an equal footing and it is above all the better argument that counts. In Germany, everyone has benefited from the emancipation and social upheaval of the 1960s. Nobody wants to miss the benefits of this today. In other countries, there was not always such an awakening. Not all Western democracies were able to free themselves so successfully from the petty-bourgeois mould of the 1950s. And things look even worse in the authoritarian states of this world. Here, it is often the hierarchy or a bureaucratic apparatus that decides what happens rather than democratic discourse.

The break-up of old family concepts has also brought people many new freedoms. Even conservatives benefit from these liberal freedoms and appreciate them today. There is a social consensus that there are more than just traditional family models. Patchwork families and same-sex marriages are also possible. And everyone finds happiness within the framework of the possibilities they value.

Today, women are no longer bound by a rigid division of roles that ties women to certain tasks in the household. This ensures that the female part of the population has also been granted many new freedoms. On the whole, people are more open-minded today. It is also easy to strike up a conversation with people on the street or in a café in Germany. This open manner of the Germans creates a casual and relaxed atmosphere in everyday life. It improves the lives of the country's inhabitants as well as inviting visitors to strike up a conversation with the locals. In this way, people get to know each other without reservations and exchange information about their own lives or current problems.

This has significantly improved people's quality of life. The open atmosphere ensures that people make friends more quickly and can talk more openly about problems. This in turn ensures that people in Germany are less likely to keep problems inside. This more open interaction also contributes to a person's mental health. In psychological practice, people are certainly happy about this openness between people. Perhaps this is why the suicide rate in Germany is far lower than in many other countries. In Germany today, people are much more likely to talk to their fellow human beings about existential problems than is the case in many other countries.