After all my successful years of abstinence, I got drawn in this time. Into the weird proceedings of carnival in Germany. Unfortunately, my friend Arnd exploited a weakness of mine which was asking me if I wanted to join him and some friends to the unique, unparalleled und world-famous carnival in Cologne. It took me around 10 seconds to accept. And there we were for “Altweiberfastnacht“, the brave sailors after an exhausting trip on the seven seas ready to go on land (pictures here).
The unbelievable thing is that over the last 5 days of the carnival season, the city is basically in a state of emergency. Nobody works, don’t even try to call someone up for business and everybody in the street is in one form of disguise or the other.
I don’t intend to bore the death out of you by intellectualizing the sheer fun. But I found the social dynamics of something like carnival extremely insightful. Also I realized that quite a few “cultures” (in a simplified usage of the term) have something which carries some similar properties. For instance, Oktoberfest in Munich, Holi in India or Springbreak in the U.S. Or yesterday, I went to another carnival-event, “Fasching” as it is called in Bavaria, thanks to an invitation of the “Münchner Sozietät”, slightly changed my dress and went as both Barack and Hussein ;-) – pictures here
What I mean that for some pre-defined period of time, the usual collective rules seem to collapse. Those underlying values of proper behaviour which we deem essential for the very functioning of our social fabric. Just gone, right through the chimney. People drink in a way where they make sure everyone realize, personal distance among strangers disappear and the approachability between genders raise exponentially.
It was interesting to watch in Cologne’s pub how apparently new acquaintances were polishing each other’s tonsils in a matter of minutes – thereby seemingly reinforcing the communal cohesion for the rest of the year ;-) Moreover during carnival, the very nature of being in a costume creates an alter ego which allows for acting in a parallel self which can’t be held accountable for these unintentional occurrences.
Ultimately, hey, when everyone is doing it, nobody can be blamed. Hence, the state of emergency becomes just a normality. Essential, however, is the common notion of this “pre-defined period of time” where everyone can go berserk before knowing exactly where the point is when it’s time for the reboot.
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