View transcript: The World is Not Bad, but Full

Running Text

In ancient Greece the gods of the dead watch over living creatures / There can only be as many places for living people as there are dead people / This leads each age to its end: / “The world is not bad, but rather full”

Kluge

. . . and then one would have to make different distinctions everywhere, if this is the case, that the distinction is that a world is full, is occupied, each person can only be active in his or her place, or a world is open . . .

Intertitle

“The world is not bad, but rather full–” Interview with Heiner Müller

Müller

Only the problem is that if one assumes that this simple text is correct, “the world is not bad, but rather full,” if one assumes that there are from three to twelve aspirants to every place in this world, and ever more aspirants to this one place: What happens then? There is the question, for example, of what happens to children who get to know the world primarily through representations, television. My daughter is fourteen months old, and she already stands there with this device . . .

Kluge

. . . the remote control . . .

Müller

. . . in front of the television, and she knows how to use it. She doesn’t know exactly how, but she always manages to do something . . .

Kluge

And thinks that that’s the best baby rattle in the world . . .

Müller

Yes, exactly, exactly. And then she pushes the button, and there’s something else on the screen, she understands that much. But she’s getting to know the world, the external world, primarily by way of the screen. What does that mean, what’s happening there, when children get to know the virtual reality before the so-called “real” one. Is there even a difference anymore? And what does it mean when these distinctions disappear?

Kluge

If you now assess the importance of - your daughter really tortured you, so to speak, because she always wanted to sleep in the same bed with you, and a child at that early age wakes up frequently in the night . . .

Müller

Not in the same bed, in a bed next to mine . . .

Kluge

. . . A bed next to yours. That means that your sleep was periodically - and this is not at all good for an author - disturbed by this little living creature. She got a lot of primary experience from this. She constantly experienced a bothered, grumpy person who is clearly larger than she is. And if our children do not determine what reality is, how can they be our messengers?

Intertitle

Children as messengers / “The virtual increase of places”

Kluge

Don’t you ever get cross with your daughter?

Müller

I don’t think that I could, even if I tried.

Kluge

Because you’ve been bribed? Because it’s your own child?

Müller

Perhaps, yes. I have no right to be cross with my child.

Kluge

. . . yes, but you have never acted in accordance with that and said: I don’t have the right.

Intertitle

“I have no right to be cross”

Müller

In that case yes, don’t ask me why, but I have absolutely no right to be cross in this situation.

Kluge

Let’s return to Agamemnon. He is, so to speak, in the process . . .

Müller

He’s in a bad mood.

Kluge

Whether he’s in a bad or good mood - he can quarrel with the gods. And now he’s supposed to leed a military expedition to Troy, and he draws his knife and wants either to deflower or kill his daughter

Intertitle

“Agamemnon’s mood when he slaughters his daughter–”

Kluge

That’s a strange thought. You could say that, at this level of concreteness, we couldn’t gather the strength to do it, or am I wrong? Where is this strength?

Müller

Well, there’s simply no principle, no idea, that would give me the right to be cross with my daughter now, that doesn’t exist for me at the moment.

Kluge

But where is your patriarchal proclivity for violence? You are . . . If there was an Agamemnon, then he can’t have been finished off by the small amount of enlightenment we’ve had in the meantime, and that means that he must be somewhere else, if he can’t be found in us. I also don’t believe that, that I could kill my daughter with a knife, for any reasons whatsoever. Not to mention that the two of us are not waging a war against Troy. So: Who is waging these wars?

Müller

Isn’t the problem rather that there is no Troy for us?

Kluge

There is no Troy, no. There is no Peloponnese and no Troy.

Müller

And the effects of that are, of course, frightful.

Kluge

. . . there’s also no direct expression of cannibalism, of violence . . . [inaudible] doesn’t exist . . .

Müller

And the effects of that are frightful. But perhaps only in the nursery. . .

Kluge

That’s your thesis now . . .

Müller

That’s a redistribution . . .

Kluge

. . . a redistribution. You’re saying now: If it’s not with us, it must, topographically speaking, be somewhere else on the map. And it’s still the case that the sum of the dead and the sum of the living remain constant over long periods of time. And if the contingent of the living were ever to outnumber the contingent of the dead . . .

Müller

. . . that’s the case now . . .

Kluge

. . . then I have Armageddon . . .

Müller

Then it gets dangerous.

Kluge

That would be a catastrophe.

Müller

Yes, I believe so.

Kluge

Because in a sense the council, the weight of the dead provides, so to speak, the places - fortifies, anchors the places of the living.

Müller

Yes, yes . . .

Kluge

Would you also apply this principle to the economy?

Müller

I believe so.

Kluge

Because there are also the capitalist dead and the capitalist living. People in the former GDR somehow had the idea that they would now get a place in the sun. In 1989. Because they thought there were empty places available in capitalism. That appears to have been a misconception.

Müller

That was the misconception, yes. The places were already occupied.

Kluge

Only allied with others, with other bandits, with France, for example, could one have . . .

Müller

That’s pure theology. In reality, the places that the citizens of the GDR wanted to occupy were already occupied. That’s the problem, now one person sits on top of another, or, naturally: The stronger person sits on top of the weaker.

Intertitle

“Winter in Siberia” / An observation by Richard Kapuscinski

Müller

A few days ago we had an event at the Berliner Ensemble with Kapuscinski, do you know him?

Kluge

Yes.

Müller

And he wanted . . . people expected that he would read something . . .

Kluge

A brilliant author . . . wrote a novel, a documentation about Haile Selassi.

Müller

Yes, yes. And he wanted to read just a single text in Polish and then let it be read in translation, and that’s what he did. It was a text about winter in Siberia. And at first it seems terribly naïve, but I think it’s very interesting. He arrives in a random city in Siberia during the winter, sees a girl jumping over puddles, over frozen puddles, and he has a conversation with this child.

Müller

And this child explains the winter in Siberia to him. For example: You go to school, and you see right away who has gone to school before you, a pupil, or a teacher, because everyone who walks through this frost, through this winter . . .

Kluge

. . . leaves tracks behind . . .

Müller

Not even tracks, but rather a cloud of vapor. One recognizes immediately whether it was a pupil or a teacher who preceded you.

Kluge

Is it a small cloud of vapor?

Müller

Yes, it’s a visible cloud of vapor, formed by the frost. So a shape that moves through this frost leaves a contour behind.

Kluge

For a short time . . .

Müller

Yes, and for that reason you know right away, as a child, if a child has gone to school before you, or if the teacher is already there. Then you leave the house, and it’s especially cold, and you see that there are no clouds of vapor, which means that no one has gone to school, and then you know that school has been cancelled. There are no clouds of vapor, no contours formed by the frost. I find that astounding, I don’t know what to do with it, but . . .

Kluge

That’s an extreme deceleration, the fact that vapors from the body stay there so long . . .

Müller

The frost . . .

Kluge

. . . holds them . . .

Müller

Holds them, yes, yes.

Kluge

That’s what you mean when you say “Siberia is our time reserve?”

Müller

For example, yes. I mean, that’s a metaphor for it.

Kluge

If you could describe Kapuscinski for me. . . He also wrote this book about the empire, right, journeys within a collapsed, imploded empire, by which he meant the Soviet Union. And he, as a Pole, traveled all around it. The best texts I’ve ever read about Central Asia. And what’s he like? Is he a small man, a large man?

Müller

A small man, and a very modest man. And I think the problem is: He’s not only a Pole, but also a Russian. As a child he became a Russian.

Kluge

. . . was occupied in 1939.

Müller

As a child he was in the area occupied by Russia.

Kluge

Was he already alive then?

Müller

Yes, yes. That’s where he grew up. He also writes about that in the book.

Kluge

When was he born, then?

Müller

I think he’s approximately as old as we are, so perhaps . . .

Kluge

1932, ‘31, ‘30, ‘28?

Müller

Yes. ‘30, around ‘30. And he grew up in that time. And he writes that these journeys were only possible because he spoke Russian and knew Russian. And the journeys were very inexpensive. And an important factor was that at that time there were, for example, no telephone books in the entire Soviet Union, there were no street maps, no real maps of the country, they weren’t correct, they were imprecise. There were always cities that were missing, they weren’t on the map, or places that weren’t there were on the maps. There were incorrect names and incorrect maps.

Kluge

In order to confuse the enemy, disguise strategic objects or installations . . .

Müller

Yes, exactly. And there were no telephone books even in Moscow, for example. That means that one was dependent on contacts. And he was only able to have these contacts because he spoke Russian, and this allowed him to make contacts quickly. If he wanted to travel to Tiflis or to Irkutsk, then contacts were established with Irkutsk or with Tiflis. That was a kind of bush radio, completely African.

Kluge

Beating drums in the bush to communicate . . .

Müller

Beating drums in the bush, yes, and there was absolutely no modern communication. But by this means he was able to collect much more information than if he had traveled there, for example, with a television crew, because then so much information would have been blocked and unobtainable from the very beginning, but by this means he was able to travel around more or less within the network.

Kluge

And by this means he, as an author, wrote a topography, really a description of the landscape that can be read in lieu of a map. That’s a different kind of writing.

Intertitle

Kapuscinski, a land surveyor / His book about the empire

Kluge

How did it come about that the Berliner Ensemble invited Kapuscinski? You’re a theater house, after all, so really suited or designed for dramas.

Müller

You know, that was my idea, but of course it’s a good question nonetheless.

Kluge

He’s a completely undramatic author, a chronicler, describer,

Müller

Yes, it’s completely undramatic.

Kluge

land surveyor . . .

Müller

The problem is also that drama in the European tradition requires orders and the breakdown of orders, but this breakdown must also still be comprehensible and transparent and representable and . . .

Kluge

And if too much breaks down, then one can no longer write any dramas.

Müller

Exactly, exactly, and now something is breaking down into micro-units, and there’s no drama, there’s no plot.

Kluge

The consumption of conflicts in which people can really die is changing so rapidly that what counted as a matter of life and death in 1988 no longer counts as such in 1991. Is that how you mean this? The power of the planet - the power of heaven.

Intertitle

“The end of the dramatic” / “The soil became holy because of the dead that are buried in it—”

Müller

Yes. Russia as a land power. Hence the holy war: The defensive war in Russia becomes holy. And Russia is holy when it’s attacked. And the soil becomes holy because of the dead that are buried in it. That, I believe, would be unthinkable in France, according to what you are saying, that the soil becomes holy because of the dead that are lying in it. At the moment it’s rather the case in Europe that the soil is poisoned by the fact that dead people are lying in it.

Kluge

If you now take what you were saying earlier, that there’s a stability of evil, there’s a certain quantity of bestiality, a certain quantity of violence, that’s simply redistributed. If, for example, a crusade to a certain extent directs the forces of violence outward, and the crusade of 1204 does not reach Jerusalem, and also does not reach Cairo, but instead occupies Byzantium, and all of the Franks and the Germanic tribes spread out over the Peloponnese, found counties, baronies. Really in the same way that England was conquered by the Normans, Constantinople is now destroyed for a hundred years. What happens in the case of such an export of violence? Does the country become more peaceful?

Müller

Not necessarily. When violence is exported, it becomes weaker, and it runs out, it disperses itself. And when it disperses itself, it becomes weaker, and then . . .

Kluge

. . . and the space becomes emptied of violence, and others can fill it.

Müller

. . . and the space becomes emptier, and then it must be filled again. And then it’s filled from below. Violence in the sense of aggression or invasion or conquest is only a movement on the surface. One hides something, one covers something with violence, occupies it.

Kluge

All matter is appearance, and all energy is appearance. What exists are topographies, places: That’s actually the theory of the strong interaction nowadays.

Müller

That’s true, but it can only be true within a certain frame of reference. And who determines the frame of reference?

Kluge

That’s nature, nature, so to speak, made our cosmos such that there are these places.

Müller

No, the frame of reference is not really definable. There’s always an arbitrary decision as to what frame one draws, which borders one declares to be valid. And if this one frame, that’s now filled with violence, and with a mixture of violence and tolerance . . . this mixture of violence and tolerance is, after all, also explosive and not static. It can never be brought to rest.

Kluge

Never static.

Müller

It’s always in motion, and at some point the frame will no longer be able to contain this motion, it will be impossible to hold it within the frame, and then one needs a new frame.

Kluge

The most modern physicists say that one can explode the frame, it can be destroyed, that happens very often. And the forces that explode the frame can also melt away, convulse, implode, explode. They can disappear, they can form a void again. But what doesn’t change are the places on which all that occurred.

Intertitle

“Everyone has his place, but who is everyone?”

Müller

Yes, but that’s exactly the point, that . . . everyone has his place, and then the question is always, who is everyone? That’s what changes. The place probably doesn’t change at all. Or changes only within periods of time that we can’t even comprehend.

Kluge

That’s a property of the place, so to speak. They are time-places.

Müller

But what occupies this place can change constantly. It doesn’t have to be a human being, it can be a computer, it can be a vegetable substance, whatever. You told me the story of Idomeneo, that is to say of a man who is destined to die, that is to say for a place . . .

Kluge

It’s been ten years since he left Troy . . . and he has been threatened by death at least twenty times, he has been traveling longer than Odysseus, and now his death has been definitively determined.

Müller

. . . and he gets rescued. He can’t occupy this place, he can’t take it. So he owes the world or the ecological balance a human sacrifice, that is to say that someone has to die in his place, and hence we get this strange story. That reminded me of a text, it’s a preface, I believe by Jean Paulhan, I’m not entirely certain, to this high-brow porno, The Story of O., there’s also a film of it, which is rather well-known. And the thesis of this preface is that there is obviously a conservation of violence in the world, in the history of mankind. And every revolution or every form of progress is really only a redistribution of violence. An example in this text was that in the Middle Ages children were not beaten, but instead there were pogroms, all sorts of things.

Kluge

Crusades.

Müller

The crusades, exactly. And when there were no more crusades, and pogroms only on a limited scale, children had to be beaten. Apparently, there has always been an almost biological compulsion to maintain a certain quantity of violence, so that the operation can function.

Intertitle

A true story from Haiti / At the time of the French Revolution

Müller

Or I’ll give you another example: In Haiti there was the first black republic, following the French Revolution or as a kind of response to the French Revolution, and slavery was abolished or forbidden . . .

Kluge

By a decree of the Convention.

Müller

By a decree of the Convention, yes, and of the government of Haiti and the freed slaves came to the French owner of a plantation and begged him on bended knee to be allowed to become slaves again, because they couldn’t get used to freedom, they didn’t know how they were supposed to live without being slaves. And he tried desperately to tell them: I’m not allowed to do that, it’s forbidden, I’m not allowed to have any more slaves, and I can’t help you. And then they killed him, because he didn’t want to have them as slaves any more.

Kluge

If you had to answer the question of whether the profession you practice is more that of a land and time surveyor or that of a prophet, what would you say?

Müller

Naturally, I would immediately say “a prophet,” out of vanity, but that would be completely wrong. If I were being honest, I would say: I am a land surveyor.

Intertitle

Mars Loops, 1926-1941

Running Text

In ancient Greece the gods of the dead watch over living creatures / There can only be as many places for living people as there are dead people / This leads each age to its end: / “The world is not bad, but rather full–”