That's just the way it is?

I am thankful to Wolfram Eilenberger, who reminded me in a conversation with Jürgen Wiebicke about Theodor W. Adorno last week that things are not just the way they are.

For Adorno, the phrase "that's just the way it is" was unbearable. So often we accept distortions of facts without protest. In the podcast episode of the Philosophical Radio, Wolfgang Eilenberger uses a simple example. Confronted with an advertisement promising us a 10 percent saving, we do not question what might be wrong. Implicitly, we know there is more to it. We spend money when we accept the discounted offer. Therefore, it cannot be called saving. What sounds like a trivial matter is an expression of a blindly accepted consumerism. Adorno would call it delusion. We think we are free and yet accept this form of address or call of the commodity fetish.

Needs are no longer satisfied but created. Adorno would say that this is a form of delusion, leading us to believe that the emergence of desires is real. Everyone in our settlement owns a lawnmower. "That's just the way it is". Whenever this sentence is spoken, we should be alert.

Let us turn to service communication. How truthful is it today?

Truthfulness as an ‘ethical imperative’ refers to the congruence between what a person expresses and what they actually think or believe to be true. It is the conscious commitment to authenticity and sincerity in communication, rejecting manipulative distortions and even everyday deceptions.

This can also be transferred to healthcare institutions. How truthfully, prudently, and modestly do hospitals communicate? What do doctors promise in their standard brochures, modeled after a pizza menu?

I will be a guest at the Healthcare Management Congress 2025 in September and a participant in a panel discussion following the awarding of the Journalism Prize of the Health Foundation.

The Journalism Prize of the Health Foundation honors journalists and publicists who contribute to clarification and information in the healthcare sector through their work. It particularly awards contributions that make complex medical and health policy topics understandable, critically illuminate them, and thus make a valuable contribution to public health communication. The award therefore emphasizes the importance of truthful, differentiated reporting at a time when simplistic presentations and marketing-driven messages often shape the discourse. Ranga Yogeshwar says the following on the award's website:

The Journalism Prize of the Health Foundation is particularly significant in times of fake news because it is about drawing a clarifying line between facts and dangerous half-truths. The prize sends an important signal, even within the circle of media creators.

It is all the more astonishing that the headline of the panel discussion is titled: "Patients also become consumers: Communication creates knowledge and transparency".

I still have a few days to reflect on this. An ambivalent feeling arises when the prize is interested in truthful and differentiated reporting, yet the panel's headline aligns with a consumerist worldview instead of confronting a progression of health literacy.

I see this as an opportunity not to accept that it should be the way it is and will arrive well-prepared to help resolve this. To speak with Adorno, I imply a certain naivety regarding the maturity that should emerge from reporting. What is missing there? What is wrong there?

Using the metaphor "philosophizing with one's back to the future," used by Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, we must ask: On what foundation, on what upheavals (or ruins) of the past do we want to communicate in the future when we talk about health care? New service communication provides assistance here, and I will use the weeks leading up to the Health Management Congress to present this ethical framework.

The image announced here, accompanying the text, is not even so. It was generated with ChatGPT. Anyone curious enough is invited to grab a +TIMEGIFT from my calendar and discuss it with me.