Opposing Insincerity

Sharing the same frustration with the previous posters, I thought it was hard to focus, since it seemed like every other sentence forced countless replays of glances from the book, and to the laptop’s Google search engine, just to define terms. However, I managed to find Simpson’s thesis: “GDR rock and punk rock’s critical relationship to German history reconstruct a positive identity based on a citizenship that was erased after unification. The emergence of a national identity only after the erasure of nation goes beyond a conventional, emotional N/Ostalgie” (240) interesting and relevant to the “art/action” theme. In discussion, we talked about the “N/Ostalgie” as being the longing for Germany, but a totally false emotion. An insincere sentiment can’t produce something that is genuine. To oppose this insincerity, the rock and punk rock musicians, with the motive of countering empty apathy, were able to change the views of the German public. Their lyrics either addressed important issues or at least went against the state, by stating their dissatisfaction with the current situation. By not simply going along with that fake unity, the musicians were able to draw up a “counter-public” by simply resisting that conformity. Also, there can also be an ironic connection between the content and the context of the article. To elaborate, the former consists of the author’s confusingly overwhelming terms and the latter consists of a time where the country’s “terms” or conditions and rules became too overwhelming for the German public. Although an extended comparison, I think that when ether government or author try too hard to incorporate sometimes superfluous details and terms, the outcome is often confusion and dissatisfaction.