Today, I thought back, reminiscing about what prompted me to issue posts against extremism and hate on LinkedIn. Many influences apply.
I still recall quite vividly that, when I attended secondary school, I was lucky to come under the wings of an instructor of religious education. I had the chance to discuss with him academic concepts of morality after classes, which gave me insights and food for thought. The dialogues opened new windows of understanding regarding the links between social and religious theories. The said instructor would at some point take the position of Anti-Aggression Commissioner at the school that I attended, intervening against both physical and verbal incursions. An early inspiration.
At the same time, I took senior classes in ethics, learning not only about the foundations of deontology but also teleology, two concepts which constitute a symbiosis. The former approach was framed, at the time, with a reference to Kant, with the modern and post-modern ways of seeing things, teleologically, i.e. as to the foreseeable consequences of human action and reflecting society, as it has become, more fully. All of this made a lasting mark on me as a person.
I soon enrolled in Political Science and State Law at the University of Mainz, taking undergraduate courses and hearing lectures. My studies helped me attain a more ample theoretical perspective of equity, for instance with regard to the connection between overall justice, different kinds of legal rules, and certain limitations to justice that do exist. I read about the ‘relativeness’ of some of the aspects of legal positivism in a 20th-Century context, and, in a renewed and more profound way, about the lasting validity of the lessons learned from the horrible historical events of the Third Reich.
At the time as an undergraduate student at the turn of the millennium, I bought my first books about violence as it occurs in some foreign settings, which still to this day evokes a feeling of awkwardness when I think about it, and had my first articles on extremism published by established German national newspapers. At the same time, I addressed aspects of human rights in Northwest Africa for the German Section of Amnesty International.
The fact that I post, on a daily basis, about Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) and against hate speech is also connected with my time as IT editor. My first office seat was next door to a pro-bono consulting foundation whose goal it is to reach more equity in the spheres of the economy, in society, politics, and culture. To this day, associate experts provide guidance, for that foundation, against bullying in the workplace. While working as an IT writer and manager of two online channels for ZDNet, I continued my undergraduate studies, this time at the University of Frankfurt, fascinated by peace and conflict studies, which opened insights I had thus far been lacking. I remember reading about practitioner Galtung’s innovative and exemplary approaches for the first time.
I have always felt the need to foster equity, and I am more than sure that I can make a difference by promoting viable strategies and steps in that direction. The key events mentioned above have prompted me to share, from 2017 until early 2025, about 18,000 documents, articles, and multimedia links in the realm of P/CVE, against digital hate, and on the theory of disinformation on the LinkedIn platform. In recent years, I have also been issuing, twice a month, a list of resources which can be found on the project websites strategism.org, preventhate.org, and counter-terrorism.org.
I am more than thankful for all the support that I have been receiving.
Thorsten Koch, MA, PgDip
Policyinstitute.net
22 November 2023
Updated 14 January 2025
Like this:
Like Loading...
