Political Scientists

Most of the time I try not to talk about politics or religion with work colleagues, as things can get complicated fairly fast. Sometimes though, after you’ve had a few too many drinks and the social boundaries are well and truly lubricated, your true opinions do tend to start spilling out. This is all fine if you are with good friends who are likely to share your political opinions, but work colleagues are another matter entirely. Colleagues are not necessarily your friends, and it is often not a common philosophical outlook that brings you together but more mundane and material matters. Just last week while I was on a business trip in a hotel in Hamburg, this very occurrence took place and we ended up having a very heated debate on the current political situation in Germany.

The political reality in Germany had changed since the establishment of the European Union in 1993, and now with the stress of the worldwide credit crunch, people’s individual political bias had gotten a lot more, well, bent. Everybody seemed to be on edge, easily blaming the politics of others for the current economic down turn. I had always considered myself a liberal thinking person and had always voted for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the national elections. My colleague however was more of a conservative by nature and an unashamed promoter of the Christian Democratic Union. This put us on opposite sides of the fence, politically speaking. Now that we are aware of where each other stands on certain issues it seems harder to offer each other those shallow but friendly smiles that were so easily given before we really knew what each other thought.

The very name of the Christian Democratic Union made my blood boil as I saw no place for religion in the political sphere. My colleague however was a strong Christian and saw no problem with the unification of politics and religion. I am an atheist and this view is absurd to me, and more so it is dangerous. The current political problems and wars could be dealt with a lot better if people could have rational views that were not dominated by a religious under current, especially those between Christian and Muslim nations. I’m getting upset again just thinking about it, why should a person’s beliefs about God have an effect on the political nature of a country?

This was not the only problem I have with the Christian Democratic Union though, their blind faith in a free and social market economy also beggars belief. These kind of ideas are OK in theory if everyone is on an equal footing already, but it is obvious that we are not. A true free market economy is as much of a stretch as their belief in a God is.

When we found the hotel at the zleep.de - Hotels in Germany website I didn’t know what we were in store for. Although my colleague and I didn’t quite get to the fighting stage, we weren’t far off letting punches fly. I can certainly understand why some people simply refuse to talk about politics and religion, as I have seen the consequences now first hand. Hopefully we can keep up a good working relationship despite our opposing beliefs about what is best for the future of this great nation.