Die Geistigen und die Gesellschaft. Zur Krise der Intelligenz
The Intellectuals and the Society. On the Crisis of Intelligentsia

Summary/Abstract: Sociology has sometimes been defined as the seismography of society, as the doctrine of the earth-quakes that shake society. On the whole, this would place the exceptional state in the place of normali-ty: for which, to be sure, there are many inclinations today, and not without reason. One may think, for example, of Carl Schmitt's "concept of the political", but, as well, of certain deep psychological theories, which operate as if every human being would be a neurotic. It is clear from all this that conditions which are generally called pathological are so accustomed to the present regular situation that definitions, which in themselves represent a crisis symptom, are correct. And now, as Jacob Burckhardt already saw, our continent has been in a state of social, at least subterranean, quivering and quaking since 1789. Only this critical, at least crypto-revolutionary state has raised the great questions of sociology in our consciousness. For reflection, however, is more likely to be triggered by crises than by normal states, which are perceived as self-evident.

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