We claim to judge people for what they intentionally do, but accidents often influence our judgments. In our justice systems, people can be harshly and unfairly blamed for bad luck—but in our personal lives, taking on blame isn’t always a bad thing.
29 July 2018
Deutsche Welle: What Germans think of friendship and sex
And one in three in Germans were revelaed to think it is "okay" to have friends with benefits, a friendship which includes a sexual component without being a full-blown relationship.
"Friends with benefits are now apparently accepted by a large section of the general public," said sociologist Janosch Schobin from the University of Kassel.
Also, 69 percent believe that a good romantic relationship can grow out of friendship. [...]
Germans today report having an average of 3.7 close friends among an average of around 11 friends. Friends and acquaintances make up a social circle of 42.5 people per individual, the survey found.
However, only two-thirds of participants say they have a best friend. Also, compared to a similar survey five years ago, the average number of friends is slightly smaller. [...]
On an international level, 42 percent of Germans believe strongest in the friendship between their country and France, putting it way ahead of runner-up Austria with 26 percent and another neighboring country, the Netherlands, with 23. Only 9 percent favored the relationship between Berlin and Washington, although that number is likely negatively affected by the controversial American president, Donald Trump.
The Guardian: A humiliating Brexit deal risks a descent into Weimar Britain (Timothy Garton Ash)
Am I exaggerating the danger by even hinting at a comparison with Weimar Germany? Indeed I am. I don’t seriously envisage millions of newly unemployed, or a new Hitler coming to power, or a world war started by Boris Johnson. But it’s surely better to overdramatise the risk, to get everyone to wake up to it, rather than do what most of our continental partners have done for the last two years, which is consistently to underestimate the dangers for the whole of Europe that flow from Brexit – especially a mishandled Brexit. [...]
To avert the danger of a humiliated, divided, angry “Weimar Britain” will require wisdom on both sides of the Channel. On the British side, we need three things traditionally associated with the country but of late in short supply: pragmatic realism, a credible democratic process, and robust civility. With all its faults, Theresa May’s Brexit white paper is a step towards pragmatic realism. All serious people inside government know that Britain will have to compromise some more in order to get a deal with the other 27 member states of the EU. [...]
Yet our European partners could still reasonably say: dear Mrs May, give us a reasonable, detailed explanation of what you want, and we will respond in kind. Well, now she has. Brussels’ initial response has been politely cautious, particularly insisting on clarification of the “backstop” arrangements for keeping an open border on the island of Ireland. But in a notable article, a group of authors including Norbert Röttgen, the chair of the foreign affairs committee of the Bundestag, and Jean Pisani-Ferry, a leading French policy intellectual, have argued that the EU should now stop and think politically, not just bureaucratically, about its response.
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