Spießer

We're all familiar with the line from Sly & the Family Stone's recording of Dance to the Music, in which, Cynthia Robinson shouts out, "All the squares, go home!" If the Family had been performing auf Deutsch, then it's likely she would have said, "Alle Spießer, geh na' Hause!" Luckily for German partygoers, Spießers are almost always eager to do just that. I mentioned The Spießer, in a previous blog posting and promised to reveal more about this very German concept. The Spießer archetype may be the key to understanding the German mind at it's deepest level. It's a practical skill if you're in the checkout line at Kaiser and want to pass through unscathed.

It's a gross over-simplification to say a Spießer is a square, but it gives us a starting point. If you grew up watching Dobbie Gillis on television, or James Dean on the big screen, you need no definition of "square," but a recent survey revealed Forschungsjahr readers under 35 are dissatisfied with references to the pop culture of the 60's. So think of it this way: to be a square is to be uncool. The opposite of square is hip, and its apex is reached in the person of Miles Davis. On the other end of the spectrum would be Captain Kangaroo. That's another 60's TV reference, but I think we have to live with it.

But a Spießer is more than just square. He or she is one who has narrow and limited scope to their thinking and behavior. They are controlled by society's expectations for them and its definition of what is right and proper. Nonspießers are comfortable defining their own rules. The Spießer is always looking over her shoulder to see what someone else thinks. So, while a square is defined mostly by style: clothing, music, dance moves or a lack thereof, Spießers are defined more by substance: what they do, how they act in a given situation. Clothing can be spießig, but clever Spießers are potentially everywhere, disguised by a Bundeswehr backpack or an Ärzte tattoo. It's best not to rely too much on personal style to detect them.


And there's another essential difference between the American square and the German Spießer. Between the square and the hip there is a wall that is seldom crossed. If you're hip, you remain hip, because you're, well... hip. But in the German cultural universe the phrase most often used is "Spießer werden." Type this phrase into a reliable search engine and you'll see what I mean. My hits included a story about a hard core, leather clad Berlin rapper, pierced within an inch of his life, who told an alternative magazine writer, he hoped someday to live in a house on the water. "Ganz schön spießig... " was the writer's comment. I also found book titles: Spießer werden, leicht gemacht, Wie spießig sollen wir noch werden? and Die neue Spießer. After many years I have come to the conclusion that many Germans see the qualities of Spießertum as essentially German characteristics. If that is true, then to be a German is to become, inexorably, a Spießer.

I don't believe that the Spießer archetype is the inevitable Endstation for all German character development. I know many Germans who are thoroughly non-spießig in their thinking and behavior. The fact that in the process of growing older they buy a car, shave more than once a week or tolerate the odd Gartenzwerg doesn't make them Spießers in my mind. But the quality that defines the culture isn't the actual Spießerwerden, it's the deeply rooted fear, an Urangst, of that destiny. Unfortunately, when Sly calls upon us all to get up and dance to the funky music, many Germans worry they'll be too busy ironing their bow tie collection to hear his organ, playing Ride, Sally, Ride. I don't pity the real Spießers. But for those Germans who's only problem is the fear of Spießerwerden, it's a real tragedy.