THIEVERY
“ German compound words are as strikingly direct as they are metaphysical. German poet and translator Paul Celan observes that German, “for all its inalienable complexity of expression, is concerned with precision. It does not transfigure, does not ‘poetize,’ it names and posits, it tries to measure the realm of the given and the possible.” “Schadenfreude,” after all, is comprised of “Schaden” (harm) and “Freude” (joy), while “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” links “Vergangenheit” (past) with “Bewältigung” (overcoming). Germanisms are direct and clear, yet, from the perspective of an outsider, visually and sonically convoluted; this allows us to use them with a sense of amused detachment. We borrow their sentiments with a self-consciousness that seems to say, “we don’t really own these complex dispositions, nor take responsibility for their proliferation. ”
