Left, Right or Wrong? Rammstein Playing with Symbols of Sex, Violence and Dictatorship as a Test of Democracy

At the end of the Second World War, Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper predicted one of democratic society's biggest challenges ahead: the paradox of tolerance.The main problem was how to deal with those who peddle intolerant opinions in otherwise tolerant democracies.As Popper saw it, such a situation was unsustainable in the long run (Popper 2012: 581).Indeed, in an increasingly digitalized and polarized world, his warning, although very much a product of discussions in the 1940s, have become more and more tangible.Although far-right parties are not an immediate threat to democracies, intractable divergences between continuous demands for a farreaching freedom of speech and calls for control over contents or banning criticism of religion, characterizes the present.A dilemma is that is it not enough with consensus among the like-minded to protect democracies.As political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt emphasize, a functioning society requires coalitions that bridge differences between adversaries (Levitsky & Ziblatt 2018: 218-219).Such considerations are by no means relevant only for party politics and ways of governing.While politics increasingly tends to be professional and the parties smaller, many discussions of what the characteristic of democracy is in the 21 st century are pursued in different cultural contexts, not least in popular culture and popular music.In many ways the questions are similar, but some are more specific such as: What to do if sound and vision seem to go in different directions or when symbols create reversed meanings?And what if the meaning is, or seems to be, a tribute to intolerant rulers or ideologies?In this article, these questions will be addressed by an analysis of Rammstein, an industrial metal band formed in Berlin in 1994 that first became known as a part of Neue Deutsche Härte (New German Hardness), and their song and accompanying video "Deutschland" from 2019.From early on, Rammstein's spectacular stage performances, characterized above all by all kinds of pyrotechnic elements, paved the way for a broad success, not least in Germany.To this day, explosions and stunning effects on stage is the band's main trademark, characterized as a "hellish version of Cirque du Soleil soundtracked by an industrial stomp" (Young 2015).This "industrial stomp" or "Shock'n'Roll" is a mixture of the dark-voiced Till Lindemann, "heavy motors" guitar-playing from Richard