»You are not your group – and your group does not represent humanity!« This is one of the core statements of the focus theme »My Mind Belongs to Me!«, with which the Giordano Bruno Foundation (gbs) aims to counter the »identity politics« of our time. The foundation is not least concerned with defending the open society, which is increasingly under pressure from identitarian forces.

The open society focuses on the individual – not on the group. Each person has an inviolable dignity and is at the center of fundamental and human rights, not the family, ethnicity, or religious community. It is no coincidence that the enemies of the open society take the exact opposite approach, placing the collective first and defining the individual from there. As much as Christian "defenders" of the Western World, nationalists, or Islamists may differ in their views – in this regard, they share a significant similarity: They all confine individuals to supposedly stable group identities and reflexively defend their traditional cultural ghetto against the purported threat of the "foreign", which repeatedly leads to acts of hostility and discrimination targeting people based on their group membership.

A particularly important form of this group thinking is so-called "familism", which conceptualizes the family – and not the individual – as the basic unit of society. Especially in strict Muslim families, this familistic limitation of individual freedom is highly pronounced, often causing suffering, particularly for girls and young women. So far, there are hardly any reasonable countermeasures against these restrictions on freedom, likely also because many politicians themselves have not yet overcome the ideology of familism themselves.

 
State-Sponsored Echo Chambers

This is precisely where the Giordano Bruno Foundation's focus theme "My Mind Belongs to Me!" begins. It emphasizes "that there are no Catholic, Protestant, Sunni, or Shia children, just as there are no Christian-social, liberal, social-democratic, or green children – in reality, there are only children whose parents have certain party or worldview preferences," explains Michael Schmidt-Salomon, the foundation's spokesperson. "While parents may raise their children according to their respective preferences, this by no means implies that the worldview-neutral state may actively support such a narrowing of perspective. On the contrary, children have a right to be introduced to the world as free from prejudice as possible. They have a right to learn about the facts of life and to be exposed to diverse perspectives, allowing them to develop their own views without being ideologically pushed in a particular direction from the outset."

As Schmidt-Salomon emphasizes, "it is perhaps the state's most noble educational task to provide all children, regardless of their family background, access to sources of knowledge that might remain closed to them in their parental home, in the name of equal opportunity." Unfortunately, however, the German education system fails tragically in this regard, as seen particularly in the case of religious education: "Denominational religious education is a 'state-sponsored echo chamber' that reinforces group identities and conflicts instead of countering them. A sharper contrast to the old maxim of general education, 'teaching everyone everything in a comprehensive way,' is hard to imagine."

As part of its focus theme, the foundation is therefore campaigning for the introduction of compulsory philosophy and ethics education for all students. The foundation's position is clear, as explained by Ulla Wessels, the foundation's deputy chair: "Students from diverse backgrounds should practice critical thinking together and reflect on the fundamental values of coexistence, on the small and large questions of humanity, and on important mechanisms for conflict resolution. In this way, the goal is to strengthen the sense of community and democratic habitus: starting in school and with an impact far beyond."

 
The Great Paradox of Our Time

However, introducing compulsory philosophy and ethics education for all students is only a necessary but not sufficient step to free individuals from the "coercions of the collective." What is needed is "a genuine educational offensive that leads to a de-provincialization of the often hopelessly limited worldviews that many people have absorbed from childhood," says Michael Schmidt-Salomon. For him, this reveals the "great paradox of our time", which urgently needs resolution:

"Never before have humans known so much about the evolution of matter, life, and consciousness – yet never before have there been so many people who do not even remotely know what we already know. With the James Webb Space Telescope, we can explore galaxies billions of light-years away – yet millions of people are still trapped in ideological bonsai worlds, whose intellectual horizons have shrunk to such a miniature level that their 'own religion', their 'own people', or their 'own nation' must seem enormously large. As long as we do not solve this educational problem, we will hardly be able to defend the open society."

Of course, the Giordano Bruno Foundation does not claim to be able to solve this educational problem. In cooperation with the (foundation-supported) Hans Albert Institute (HAI), however, it aims to at least offer suggestions on how to provide children and young people with a less limited worldview. This is to be done under the label "Philo-Kids", intended as a supplement to the already established "Evokids" project, which brings the theory of evolution to German primary schools. "Philo-Kids aims to provide students with the philosophical tools they need to distinguish facts from fakes, correct from incorrect conclusions, and inhumane from humane statements," explains HAI director Florian Chefai. "Only then will they be able to critically question the worldviews with which they have grown up."

 
Showing a »Clear Edge« Against Extremists 

As important as a broad-based education system is, it alone will hardly suffice to counter the identitarian threat to democracy. Equally crucial is that the worldview-neutral state consistently enforces the rules of the open society – especially against those who want to replace individual freedom rights with pre-modern religious dogmas. The Institute for Secular Law (ifw), also supported by the foundation, has been grappling with this issue for years. Currently, the institute is, among other things, providing legal support for the cases of three ex-Muslims who protested against the now-closed "Islamische Zentrum Hamburg" (Islamic Center Hamburg) in August 2022. Following an intervention by the Iranian clerical regime, the three critics received penalty orders of 60 to 90 daily rates under the German "blasphemy paragraph" 166 of the Criminal Code.

In this respect, the "Free Charlie!" campaign launched last year to abolish the "blasphemy paragraph" should also be seen as part of the current focus theme of the Giordano Bruno Foundation. "For far too long," says Michael Schmidt-Salomon, "the most reactionary, most identitarian groups within religious communities have been protected by means of 'blasphemy paragraphs,' while the progressive, open-minded groups have been put under additional pressure. It is time to end this unreasonable strategy and show a 'clear edge' against extremists!"

The "Free Charlie!" book, which is filled with many cartoons and will be published on January 7 for the 10th anniversary of the attack on "Charlie Hebdo," states: "We should make it unmistakably clear to the devout of any provenance that in a secular state, the veneration of the 'Virgin Mary' or the 'Prophet Mohammed' holds no higher significance than, for example, the veneration of FC Bayern Munich, Monty Python, or Dolly Buster."

 
Drei Großveranstaltungen im Herbst

The Giordano Bruno Foundation's focus theme this year includes not only the mentioned campaigns but also three major events in the fall of 2025: The event series will kick off with the (gbs-supported) Kortizes Symposium "Identity in Transition," which takes place from October 3 to 5 at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. On October 25, the conference "On the Way to a Secular Society" will follow in Berlin, organized for the 20th anniversary of the (gbs-supported) Research Group on Worldviews in Germany (fowid). This conference will address, not least, the issue of "religious identity" in a largely religion-free society.

Finally, issues of identity politics will also be addressed at the (gbs-supported) philosophy festival "Philo.live!" organized by the "Philosophie Magazin" and "phil.COLOGNE" from November 15 to 18 in Berlin. Further information on the gbs focus theme for 2025 and the related events will be published by the foundation in due course on its website and in the gbs newsletter.