{"id":70869,"date":"2026-02-25T23:26:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=70869"},"modified":"2026-02-25T23:37:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:37:37","slug":"preterm-birth-and-long-term-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/preterm-birth-and-long-term-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"Preterm Birth and Long-Term Effects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How can we establish universal values when power itself has become an ideology? On the Pilgrim Fathers of the Mayflower, mothers who don\u2019t want to sacrifice their children to big business, and a prime minister who spoke angelic words.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Over dinner one night, after the U.S. president landed in Davos, a friend of my son said that power itself had become an ideology. It no longer hides behind a democratic sense of mission (despite being obvious, they were also after oil in Iraq), nor behind communism, Christianity, Islam, a belief in the master race, or the acquisition of knowledge. Through the power of the strongest\u2014or rather the richest\u2014power has blatantly placed itself at the top. It no longer needs to promote values that are then perverted into ideologies. The ego has empowered itself and placed itself at the center, even though it is devoid of any real meaning or sense. Once this is accomplished, it\u2019s not difficult to convince oneself that one can simply lay claim to Greenland. It\u2019s like walking into my neighbor\u2019s yard and laying claim to their house. How absurd this seems when we consider it on a small scale!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is exactly how European powers have proceeded in their conquest of the world since 1492. Columbus planted the Spanish flag in the Caribbean soil before his scouts had even looked for islanders. We all know that the wealth of the Western world rests on the fact that our ancestors took what they wanted without asking. Is Trump now looking back at us, as if from a mirror? Is he an \u201cafterbirth,\u201d a long-term effect of our own actions, a supposedly antiquated way of exercising power that has been reduced to total absurdity? Europe and the US must reevaluate and update their values in light of this Hephaestus of capitalism, who thunders through the world\u2019s network of relationships with the force of a hurricane. I see this moment as an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same day, I\u2019d been asked what I thought about the relationship between Europe and the US. Oof\u2014well\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. The first European settlers to arrive in North America were displaced persons or refugees who were no longer tolerated because of their beliefs. Pietists, Quakers, Evangelicals\u2014people who were looking for a new beginning because they couldn\u2019t realize their visions of communal life at home. The Mayflower set sail from England on September 6, 1620, with the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers on board\u2014102 passengers and 31 crew members. One child was born during the crossing, and two people died. Not too bad, considering how many \u201cpilgrims\u201d searching for a new home in the Mediterranean today\u2014400 technological years later\u2014meet their deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philadelphia, originally a city in Lydia, modern Turkey, means \u201cbrotherly love,\u201d after the nickname of the Lydian king who was very close to his brother. So, this is what they wanted to create in North America with their departure from Europe. And now a defiant, professional teenager is running around the world, not giving a damn about the Old World\u2019s dusty cabinet of values, which has been rendered obsolete by the conditions of the global market, leaving chaotic vigilante justice in his wake. And we\u2019re simply not sure: Is he crazy? Is he serious? Will he get away with it? Do we now have to find a way to embody liberty, equality, and fraternity on a deeper stratum of the world? And who will take up this stewardship, and how?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the German Bundestag [Federal Parliament] voted two months ago to recruit 300,000 soldiers, there was a huge outcry, as well as fear, among my friends who are mothers: \u201cI will not sacrifice my sons for a war, on whatever front, that will make big capitalists and arms companies incredibly rich,\u201d or, \u201cMy children will not become cannon fodder for these Trumps, Putins, Netanyahus, Nasrallahs, Kassims, Merzes, Macrons, Kim Jong-uns and whatever else they\u2019re called, who play Risk with the world as if it were game night.\u201d I\u2019m almost tempted to say: Parents of the world, unite! Life is life. So, what do we want to say no to, and what do we want to say yes to, and how? How do we establish \u201cuniversal\u201d values that globalized people feel responsible for sowing, nurturing, and preserving? I hope Europe finds a way\u2014and extends a sisterly hand to the \u201cother\u201d America.\u2014Gilda Bartel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Angelic Words at Davos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hidden conflicts have to be brought out into the open in order for them to be resolved. Everyone comes to this realization at some point in their lives. Conflict researcher Friedrich Glasl used the metaphor of temperature: cold conflicts need to become warm conflicts. This releases emotions and enables a shared view of reality. The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, struck the same note in his highly acclaimed speech at the economic summit in Davos. He quoted from V\u00e1clav Havel\u2019s essay \u201cThe Power of the Powerless\u201d\u2014the story of a greengrocer who puts a sign in his shop window saying, \u201cWorkers of the world, unite!\u201d The shopkeeper doesn\u2019t believe in this slogan, and his customers don\u2019t take it seriously. But still, it\u2019s there, and it\u2019s in other shops, too. According to Carney and Havel, power has been established because everyone sells lies as truth\u2014until some decide to take down the sign. Carney says we\u2019ve reached that moment of decision. With Russia and now the U.S. breaking down the world order and reverting to the law of the strongest, what was previously a veiled lie is now being revealed. Whereas power games and interest politics were previously fought out under the table, now they\u2019re out in the open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, according to Glasl’s conflict theory, we are living in a good time, because conflicts can now be resolved. Carney called for us to remove the imaginary signs from our shop windows and abandon all these lies of mutual agreement. What a moment at the economic summit! Carney encouraged us to take on the major powers with two virtues: we should leave the false truths behind, and we should not offer ourselves as separate individuals to those in power, but join forces. \u201cIf we\u2019re not at the table, we\u2019re on the menu,\u201d was his appeal. There were three virtues he impressed upon the world public: \u201ctruthfulness,\u201d \u201cfellowship,\u201d and \u201creadiness to act,\u201d or in short: wisdom, love, and strength\u2014the three virtues of the Angel in the fight with the dragon.\u2014Wolfgang Held<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Image<\/strong> Speech by Mark Carney at the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, CC BY 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can we establish universal values when power itself has become an ideology? On the Pilgrim Fathers of the Mayflower, mothers who don\u2019t want to sacrifice their children to big business, and a prime minister who spoke angelic words. Over dinner one night, after the U.S. president landed in Davos, a friend of my son said that power itself had become an ideology. It no longer hides behind a democratic sense of mission (despite being obvious, they were also after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9153,"featured_media":70527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9115,8815],"tags":[11760,11761,8824],"class_list":["post-70869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-consciousness","category-world-situation","tag-ausgabe-7-2026-en","tag-english-issue-9-2026","tag-spotlights"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70887,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70869\/revisions\/70887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}