IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-662-64502-4_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Summary: Thoughts in a Digital World: Free, but no Longer Secret

In: Behind the Cloud

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Seele

    (Università della Svizzera italiana)

  • Lucas Zapf

    (University of Basel)

Abstract

‘Thoughts are free’ (Die Gedanken sind frei)—this lyrical manifestation of inner autonomy first spread in the eighteenth century as a poem, later as a song. The message: despite autocratic systemic constraints, state persecution and repression, there is at least the inner life, the thoughts that no one can control—‘I think what I want […] but everything in the still’ […] and ‘as is fitting!’ What clearly emerges is the need to control one’s own desires and wants, self-determined and without outside influence. But it is also clear that all this must remain within. Thoughts are free, who can guess them, they flee by like nocturnal shadows. No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them, it stays that way: thoughts are free. I think what I want, and what makes me happy, but everything in the still, …and as considered appropriate. My wish and desire no one can deny, it stays that way: thoughts are free. “Die Gedanken sind Frei”, first and second stanza. Folk song from the eighteenth/nineteenth century, quoted in Breuer 1920, p. 118.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Seele & Lucas Zapf, 2022. "Summary: Thoughts in a Digital World: Free, but no Longer Secret," Springer Books, in: Behind the Cloud, chapter 5, pages 169-174, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-662-64502-4_5
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-662-64502-4_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-662-64502-4_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.