Editorial - Ritual speeches and tempting boredom

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In Luxembourg, as in most countries, the State of the Nation address is almost completely ritualised. Procedure, content, reactions – everything is actually already known beforehand. Nobody had a different opinion after the speech than before. Most journalists could probably have written a decent analysis the day before, into which they would only have to briefly insert a few figures. Being surprised would itself have been surprising.

Speaking without really saying anything is called "phatic communication" in linguistics. Most of us encounter it in everyday life during greetings:

"Hello, how are you?"

"Fine, yourself?"

"Fine."

How good someone actually feels – or whether they feel good at all – is irrelevant. Nothing has really been exchanged except the mutual confirmation that both people are adhering to a familiar, ritualized formula of greeting. That is precisely the purpose of phatic communication: maintaining and affirming social relationships. It is an acknowledgment of the status quo, signaling: 2We know our roles, and we are playing them." The actual content is fundamentally irrelevant as long as expectations are fulfilled. Anyone who deviates from the ritual ("Not good") is likely to receive puzzled looks.

It would therefore be accurate to describe the speech as boring, and tempting to condemn phatic language as meaningless. But let us imagine the opposite for a moment – or better yet, take a quick look beyond the borders, where the opposite happens almost daily. More specifically, to Germany and the United Kingdom. Not to mention the absolute chaos that follows almost every time Donald Trump opens his mouth.

In Germany, Friedrich Merz generates headlines almost daily that leave even longtime CDU/CSU voters shaking their heads: "paschas", "cityscape", "lazy", "no one before me has ever had to endure something like this". These are expressions that are decidedly not "phatic". The reaction is therefore not the ritualized criticism prescribed by society’s unwritten rules, but genuine outrage. By now, this has earned Merz the title of the world’s most unpopular head of government.

While his party still performs acceptably in polls, it is largely his colorful rhetoric that is increasingly pushing the German government into acute crisis. It has not even been a year since the "traffic-light coalition" found itself in similar difficulties – except that back then nobody held their breath when Olaf Scholz spoke (quite the opposite), but rather when his finance minister Christian Lindner stepped up to the podium. No one could have written those analyses the day before either. And who benefits from this constant "exciting" communication? The party that always profits from political chaos: Alternative for Germany (AfD). The very party whose growth increasingly seems to tempt Merz into adopting similar rhetoric himself. Right now, Merz would probably wish for nothing more than a little ritualized boredom. That it remains unavailable to him may be one of the greatest differences between him and Luc Frieden.

In the UK, it is above all Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK party that is benefiting from Keir Starmer's predicament. Unlike Merz, Starmer himself may be "boring", but it is the political environment around him that is not calming down. After disastrous results for the Labour Party in the local elections, his government is crumbling. As much as he tries to exude composure, he is unable to ward off the doubts that he could be the fifth Prime Minister in a row not to complete his term of office. When he steps up to the lectern, the tension is palpable: Will this be the speech in which he resigns? And if so, what then? Who has what it takes to be invisible enough to survive at least one parliamentary term? When will things get boring again? Or at least not so chaotic?

Against this backdrop, Frieden's "boring" speech is downright reassuring. Nobody wondered in advance whether Frieden would call all Luxembourgers "pashas" or announce his resignation. No, the country expected the phatic "preservation and confirmation of social relations" – and got it. Because phatic language, as boring and empty as it may be, is at least an indication that the familiar roles still exist in people's eyes, with all the good and bad that they entail. This stability can no longer be taken for granted in a world in which right-wing populism is increasingly threatening to disintegrate democracies.

Boring speeches do not solve problems, of which there are undoubtedly more than enough in Luxembourg. But they are only possible in an environment in which moderate-conservative boredom is still perceived as a politically viable option. Nobody says "How are you? – Good, yourself? – Good" – when they believe the house is on fire.