Anders Breivik, the killers of ISIL, child soldiers from Rwanda, the torturers of Abu Ghraib – all  have the “the laughter of the perpetrators” in common. This laughter reveals a passion for murder that has difficulty hiding itself behind the language of political justification. It is a passion to be found at the outer borders of those fanciful zones where the “romantic myths” of authority, patriarchy and masculinity circulate, organizing itself and looking to discharge itself. The gruesome dance that plays back and forth between being the perpetrator and being the victim is fought out on all channels. Better to intimidate than be afraid. Is the passion for murder not already visible on the faces of the school-age toughs who delight in “happy slapping”?

What viable forms of language and speech – whether stemming from art, politics, academia or everyday life – might have the potential to cause the promise of these “romantic myths” to implode, to make them “splinter into an infinite sky filled with shining crystals”? This question is put by the French author of the Antiromantisches Manifest (Anti-Romantic Manifesto), Marie Rotkopf, who writes poetry as a form of revolt, and by the German cultural theorist Klaus Theweleit, author of Male Fantasies and Das Lachen der Täter – Psychogramm der Tötungslust (The Laughter of the Perpetrators – A Psychogram of the Passion for Murder), for whom the laughter in question marks a breakthrough into a newly joyous existence: killing is fun. The discussion will be moderated by the East German-West German theatre-maker Dirk Cieslak. Cieslak works at the Berlin theatre and events space Vierte Welt on the idea of “public thought”, and believes that “speech” needs to be reinvented.