{"id":171918,"date":"2025-11-05T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=171918"},"modified":"2025-11-03T12:51:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:51:19","slug":"the-long-march-of-basic-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long March of Basic Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Film stills from Die Macht der Gef\u00fchle <\/em>(The power of emotion), final sequence: “Undoing of a crime by means of cooperation,” 1983. All images courtesy of Alexander Kluge.<\/p><\/div>\n

ARRIVAL OF SUNDAY\u2019S CHILD<\/strong><\/p>\n

Things went on until three in the morning. The child, arriving in the world at 11:55 P.M.<\/small>, bathed, photographed, placed in the young mother\u2019s arms, still counts as a Sunday child.<\/p>\n

At this point the servant girls are in their rooms, too. All the drunk well-wishers have sunk down onto the sofas and across the floor of the salons and are fast asleep. The day following the excitement is a Monday. The girls clean up the remains of the feast. The head doctor is already in his office. Patients are coming up the stairs to the waiting room. The female doctor is asleep.<\/p>\n

The child in the room next to the female doctor has been \u201cforgotten\u201d for a few hours. Although all carry the \u201cnews of the happy event\u201d in their excited hearts, the basket with the child itself has been put away and it will be noon before anyone thinks to ask about the new arrival\u2019s regularities.<\/p>\n

First, the flowers in the winter garden need to be stowed away. Stocks from the pantry brought to the cleaning woman\u2019s family. They are considered to have been \u201cused yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young doctor can hardly believe that, at all of twenty-four years of age, she managed a birth. She\u2019s got earplugs in, is fast asleep. Were visitors not expected to come to congratulate the \u201cSunday child\u201d during the afternoon, you could easily forget that piece of meat in the basket, even if it screamed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

Next to my mother. Around ninety-five minutes after my birth. The clock on the nightstand shows a little after 1:30 A.M.<\/small> Wrapped up nice and warm. Friendly eyes all around. Presumably, I have not yet begun to perceive them. Everything up close. Presumably, I am not \u201cthinking\u201d about anything. My bowels are painstakingly learning to \u201cwork.\u201d My entire system is undergoing conversion. The beginning of my long march.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE LONG MARCH OF BASIC TRUST <\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a fundamental mistake to which all living creatures that have found their way to us through evolution\u2014in other words, that have survived\u2014cling: basic trust. For evolution this mistake seems to be an advantage. After birth, people immediately believe\u2014and we assume that animals do, too\u2014that the world means well. A complete mistake. Marx would say: \u201cA necessary false consciousness.\u201d The world does not mean well.<\/p>\n

And yet we live from this trust. This is a treasure, which, until the end of our lives, none of us give up too easily. Our ability to envision horizons is based on this. It is what Nietzsche means when he is doubtful about our being truth-seeking creatures and says that we are \u201cimmersed in illusions\u201d instead. And without any doubt we spin cocoons about ourselves which warm us on the inside.<\/p>\n

Thomas Combrink<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE EXPRESSION “BASIC TRUST”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The expression \u201cbasic trust\u201d goes back to the German American psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson, born 1902, died 1994; his book Childhood and Society<\/em> deals with the concept. It has to do with the first months of a person\u2019s life, when practiced habits together with a caregiver\u2019s affection create lasting confidence. For Erikson, the earliest evidence of trust in reality is the smooth sequence of bodily processes; that the feeding, digestion and sleep of the newly born human being run smoothly. The child\u2019s first feat of abstraction concerns its ability to allow its mother out of its field of vision. The child carries its closest caregiver in its heart because it can rely on ingrained habits, on the spontaneous elimination of unwillingness. Regarding trust, Niklas Luhmann speaks of \u201coverdrawn information.\u201d This is the opposite of control. \u201cTrust is based on illusion. In reality, there is not as much information as you need to be able to act with confidence. The person acting deliberately ignores the lack of information,\u201d Luhmann writes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOR <\/strong><\/p>\n

Following the air raid of February 11, 1943, the charred remains of a human being were found in a building in Blaubach. One of the occupants maintained that it was her husband. Another woman from the same building came forward to say that her husband had been in that bombed-out cellar, too; in fact, the two had probably been sitting next to each other. Which meant that they were the bodily remains of her husband then as well. She, too, would like to be able to visit a grave. The occupant who had returned to the rubble first suggested that they share the charred man\u2019s odds and ends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BACK TO BASIC TRUST <\/strong><\/p>\n

If I desire to be a good parent, I don\u2019t really want my child to fly down the stairs. But how else will it learn?<\/p>\n

In Halberstadt I learnt to the meter how to do harm to one\u2019s bones. In Halberstadt, where I was born, as each one of us is born somewhere. But from my first days and experiences I am now going to make a jump. I am a gauge, like all human beings, an echo chamber, making its way through the world and trying to write down and measure everything. A bat, in other words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BASIC TRUST AND BASIC FEAR <\/strong><\/p>\n

I do not trust basic fear, as it is, so to speak, a kind of inverted form of basic trust, a basic trust that has been disappointed. And as far as emancipation is concerned, fear is a very poor counsellor of self-consciousness. There is a certain politics of balance to self-consciousness. For example: Siegfried destroys everything due to excessive self-consciousness, he has no equanimity, he doesn\u2019t listen to anyone or anything beyond the birds in the forest, he upsets the whole court of Burgundy and works for its downfall; a solo effort on the part of self-confidence. I would place much more trust in quieter forms in which self-consciousness can unite with another self-consciousness in a quasmusical way, in which the two halves of our brain can correspond with each other as well. There is something paralyzing about fear. Incidentally, I do not believe that there is such thing as a basic, primal fear, it is not primal, it is always a matter of experience.<\/p>\n

If I know that I sprained my arm when I flew down the stairs as a child, I can metaphorically fly down the stairs more often in my future life. Fear is translatable. There is a hysterical fear that is necessary in any nervousness, for example. We are simply not alert without a certain amount of hysteria. There is certainly a fear of depth, something that the Romans call numen<\/em> which can also contribute the fear of god. People need a quantity of it like a vaccination. It\u2019s like a garment, like a tank. Under certain circumstances it may protect, but doesn\u2019t motivate, it isn\u2019t productive. To live we need a more powerful motive than fear.<\/p>\n

Here we come into a rather complex form of alchemy because we human beings require everything. An order in Napoleon\u2019s army was
\n“Jaccia feroce<\/em>,” ferocious face, his soldiers were to adopt faces absent of fear. No superior or partisan leader can control their soldiers if they forbid fear. It must be allowed to live. Put another way: All of the sensations we have are to be designated as the ability to discriminate<\/em>. The Enlightenment philosophers in France were known as amis d\u2019analyse<\/em>, friends of analysis, friends of the ability to discriminate. This is an original position of the Enlightenment. A mass production of this ability to discriminate is that which connects us as human beings, and this includes the entire sphere of fear, too. Hearing stories is a great source of satisfaction, as is talking confidentially and sharing our fears. Fears diminish, shared fear is less dangerous, and a relationship of trust develops. Being able to admit what you are afraid of is proof of trust. Being able to tell someone about your weakness\u2014fear is often weakness in this sense\u2014and not being penalized for it creates trust. The motive is trust, not fear. What sets things in motion is the motive, the supply, so to speak, the fuel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A SATURDAY IN OCTOBER 1929 <\/strong><\/p>\n

The BASIC IDEA was not what Dr med. Erwin Zacke would later claim to his wife: that they should enjoy a comfortable life for a few more years before having children, but SUSPICION, CAUTION. The way they were sitting together no basic idea could arise. After morning drinks, they just sat around until midday (it was a Saturday), then continued to sit together until evening drinks, waiting for a snack that the maids were preparing in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

\u2013 It would be a sin not to do it. In a quarter of an hour, we\u2019re done (Zacke said). Everything\u2019s here. Karl (Erwin\u2019s friend, surgical colleague) does it the short way.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Is it painful?<\/p>\n

The young woman would actually have liked to keep her child but didn\u2019t want things to be cumbersome. It was a matter of illusion. She could imagine being a young mother and she could imagine being \u201cfree of parental duties,\u201d \u201cwe can go traveling.\u201d And though they were still sitting around the table, dressed, she was uneasy about being touched in an intimate place by the guest who, as the more experienced doctor, was to perform the operation. She was undecided.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u00a0Not everyone can have something like this done on the weekend and in their own house to boot. This is luxury (the husband said).<\/p>\n

He was overdoing it, for seizing the opportunity was not his motive. He had married the young woman just about two months previously within one week of having met. But he was unsure whether she was “untouched,” hadn\u2019t checked at the right time. He didn\u2019t want to appear “medical” at that moment either. So it now seemed more “prudent” for him to get rid of the child, if with regret in the case it had indeed been conceived by him.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Let us sit here in peace for a while (the young woman said).<\/p>\n

\u2013 Karl can do everything in a quarter of an hour (Erwin answered).<\/p>\n

\u2013 Not against her will (a guest opined).<\/p>\n

\u2013 I\u2019ve got to think (said she).<\/p>\n

She wanted to win some time.<\/p>\n

Those at table together were fairly drunk. This condition benefited the defense of the womb because it made those involved sluggish.<\/p>\n

\u2013 It is now 5:45 P.M.<\/small> (the zealous one warned). If we want to be finished by 6:30, we\u2019ve got to get going.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Don\u2019t be pushy.<\/p>\n

\u2013 If we\u2019re done by 7 P.M.<\/small>, we can slice the ham and set out a cold duck. The Liesenbergs are coming at 9, and at 11 there will be hot sausages.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Now that\u2019s what I call a program (Karl, the head surgeon, said).<\/p>\n

\u2013 Let me think about it (the young woman resisted).<\/p>\n

If she\u2019s this interested in the child, Erwin thought, maybe it\u2019s because she\u2019ll see a former lover in it. There was much about his rapid success that confused the man. He pressed hard:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Well, come on.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Do let me sit here a moment longer (the young woman resisted).<\/p>\n

The doctor and his friend went up to surgery and prepared the operation.<\/p>\n

The young woman, who was staring at a row of lights downstairs, felt alone after a while, went upstairs and let the men do what they so urgently wanted. When they returned from their activities, the maids were clattering in the hatchway to the dining room. They had put on their bonnets. Evening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THEY DID NOT COME TO ANY CONCLUSION: <\/strong>A FILM PRODUCER\u2019S MISUNDERSTANDINGS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cVast amounts of discriminative ability\u201d <\/em>\u2014Niklas Luhmann<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today we introduce you to a madman who wants to introduce a new type of film to television. He doesn\u2019t want films to have a plot but to describe differences. He\u2019ll explain that to you himself in a moment, said the assistant to the producer. And it was at that moment that Markus M., a commercial artist who had decided to become a film director, walked through the door.<\/p>\n

\u2013 And what is your film about?<\/p>\n

\u2013 It\u2019s not about anything, it shows differences, or a difference, so to speak. Cold\/warm, bright\/dark, velvety soft\/rough as concrete, but: light dark-blond\/pale brunette, too, it\u2019s got to do with nuances, I tell the hairdresser: just on the edge of dark-blonde, and then I add: light brunette, that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

\u2013 But surely you have a storyline, right?<\/p>\n

\u2013 Nope, don\u2019t need one. Take your fingertip, for example, it\u2019s different from mine.<\/p>\n

\u2013 And you think that viewers want to see a fingertip? What do you call this new genre of yours?<\/p>\n

\u2013 We\u2019ve still got to come up with a name!<\/p>\n

\u2013 I see. And financing? What differences did you have in mind for the beginning?<\/p>\n

\u2013 That\u2019s something we\u2019d have to think about. You shouldn\u2019t approach filming with any preconceptions.<\/p>\n

\u2013 What kind of budget were you thinking about?<\/p>\n

\u2013 Between three and six million dollars.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Couldn\u2019t you make the project into a low-budget production?<\/p>\n

\u2013 Then it will cost a hundred and sixty thousand marks.<\/p>\n

\u2013 And if it\u2019s a real film?<\/p>\n

\u2013 Then it would be a bit cheaper.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Interesting. And you can film differences?<\/p>\n

\u2013 That\u2019s what I said.<\/p>\n

\u2013 That\u2019s interesting. Commercial?<\/p>\n

\u2013 You mean commercial differences?<\/p>\n

\u2013 Can one employ the films commercially?<\/p>\n

\u2013 As a producer, you should know.<\/p>\n

\u2013 I do. I\u2019m just asking.<\/p>\n

\u2013 On a practical level, what does a film producer actually do \u2026 ?<\/p>\n

\u2013 That\u2019s a wide field.<\/p>\n

\u2013 As opposed to what?<\/p>\n

They did not come to any conclusion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From <\/em>The Long March of Basic Trust<\/a>,<\/em> translated from German by Alexander Booth, <\/em>to<\/em> be published by Seagull Books this month.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Alexander Kluge\u00a0is one of the major German fiction writers of the late twentieth century and an important social critic. As a filmmaker, he is credited with the launch of the New German Cinema movement.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Alexander Booth\u00a0is a writer and translator. He lives in Berlin.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEvening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2588,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7554],"tags":[16207,67827,14990],"class_list":["post-171918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-2","tag-alexander-kluge","tag-featured","tag-second-world-war"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Long March of Basic Trust by Alexander Kluge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 5, 2025 \u2013 \u201cEvening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Long March of Basic Trust by Alexander Kluge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 5, 2025 \u2013 \u201cEvening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-05T15:00:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1854\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alexander Kluge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alexander Kluge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Alexander Kluge\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d18c42d41b25c35ea6ffb6db7abd79\"},\"headline\":\"The Long March of Basic Trust\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-05T15:00:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/\"},\"wordCount\":2412,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-742x1024.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Alexander Kluge\",\"Featured\",\"Second World War\"],\"articleSection\":[\"History\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/\",\"name\":\"The Long March of Basic Trust by Alexander Kluge\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-742x1024.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-05T15:00:32+00:00\",\"description\":\"November 5, 2025 \u2013 \u201cEvening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.\u201d\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":1854,\"height\":2560,\"caption\":\"Film stills from Die Macht der Gef\u00fchle (The Power of Emotion), final sequence: Undoing of a crime by means of cooperation, 1983.\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Long March of Basic Trust\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d18c42d41b25c35ea6ffb6db7abd79\",\"name\":\"Alexander Kluge\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/91d890473d8031eb119fea11536d50a880a260688ac83b2b86a7dce6e9086584?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/91d890473d8031eb119fea11536d50a880a260688ac83b2b86a7dce6e9086584?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Alexander Kluge\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/akluge\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Long March of Basic Trust by Alexander Kluge","description":"November 5, 2025 \u2013 \u201cEvening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.\u201d","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Long March of Basic Trust by Alexander Kluge","og_description":"November 5, 2025 \u2013 \u201cEvening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.\u201d","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2025-11-05T15:00:32+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1854,"height":2560,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Alexander Kluge","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Alexander Kluge","Est. reading time":"11 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/"},"author":{"name":"Alexander Kluge","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d18c42d41b25c35ea6ffb6db7abd79"},"headline":"The Long March of Basic Trust","datePublished":"2025-11-05T15:00:32+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/"},"wordCount":2412,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-742x1024.jpg","keywords":["Alexander Kluge","Featured","Second World War"],"articleSection":["History"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/","name":"The Long March of Basic Trust by Alexander Kluge","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-742x1024.jpg","datePublished":"2025-11-05T15:00:32+00:00","description":"November 5, 2025 \u2013 \u201cEvening fell. This could be seen easily through the glass greenhouse windows. Now certainty had been established.\u201d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/08-kontaktbogen-abbau-eines-verbrechens-durch-kooperation-2-scaled.jpg","width":1854,"height":2560,"caption":"Film stills from Die Macht der Gef\u00fchle (The Power of Emotion), final sequence: Undoing of a crime by means of cooperation, 1983."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/05\/the-long-march-of-basic-trust\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Long March of Basic Trust"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d18c42d41b25c35ea6ffb6db7abd79","name":"Alexander Kluge","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/91d890473d8031eb119fea11536d50a880a260688ac83b2b86a7dce6e9086584?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/91d890473d8031eb119fea11536d50a880a260688ac83b2b86a7dce6e9086584?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Alexander Kluge"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/akluge\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171918"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172118,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171918\/revisions\/172118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}