The automobile's original name in German was the Kraft durch Freude Wagen ("Strength through Joy car," named after the labor movement of Nazi Germany). Adolf Hitler reportedly admired the car and, when the Russians were closing in on the eastern front in March, 1945, he took one to inspect the German troops rather than his limousine so he wouldn't be noticed. Later, the car came to America as a novelty and was identified with the coming anti-establishment mood. Volkswagen's late 1950s ads were subtle critiques of American consumer culture. One ad asked "What year car do the Jones drive?" showing a house with a Beetle in front of it. The ad copy stated that because Beetles all look the same, no one can tell what year it is, piercing the get-the-new-model consumer attitude. Later, the brand became a symbol of the hippie movement in the 1960s when Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters switched from a school bus to a more economical Volkswagen Microbus for their crosscountry jaunts.
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
