The Philosopher's Attic

German Sociologist and Professor at the University of Essen Harald Welzer will be issuing a call to German all German Human and Cultural Scientists to show more temerity in assuming their role as indicators of bad social influences and development. He states that:

Without an opening of their field of research and expertise… [the Human Sciences] will not be able to assume their responsible role that is assigned to them by radically new social problems appearing such as ecological change or the threat by globalised class society.⁽¹⁾

I find that a bold thing to state for someone who is issuing this call to German academics working in the Human Sciences. Harald Welzer has been someone who has tried to address a lot of topics posed by current events and an actual need for explanation in society. Granted. I don’t see however why this call should be limited to Germany exclusively.
Galloping globalisation is a fact and although it has its downsides – especially for countries that cannot take part in this processes! – and the dangers of such a processes can only be addressed on a global scale as well. Like with any problem, you need the correct vocabulary and basic configuration to adequately describe it. Skulking protests and holding up banners “globalisation is bad” simply will not do.

It is rather obvious why Welzer’s article is coming out now. It’s WEF week in Davos. And while the Black blocks and other young anarchists start protesting around the world and especially here in Switzerland – Basel and Zürich are the official protest cities, please all tape your windows before leaving the house – and will tear the city centers apart to make a stand against globalisation, one can only wonder where Harald Welzer takes his ideas from. As someone who underlined the importance of accomplishment in public schools, rather than just pedagogical fun and pure knowledge, he seems to forget that in the real globalised world – as opposed to the secluded world of scholarly research – accomplishment is still as important as it ever was.
The opening of our field (Human Sciences) will only be accomplished trough dialogue and temerity, that much is true. When we look at the turn academic discourse has taken since a certain administration has deemed political correctness as the most important speech category or at the problems European intellectuals have with the phrase “Europe has a Christian past and culture…”, nobody can deny the need our society has for more conflictingly and more forceful dialogue. Too many things have not been addressed either by politics or academia while people are left alone with their problems and their musings. The shock of former East Germany voting a neo-nazi party back into local parliament shows how far from the needs and ideas of the polis we really are.

I share Welzer’s call. But not in the same terms. Not in the terms of a charm offensive by the Human scientists to attract more and more people to their topic or cause. The process can only be opened by accessing both ends: the polis and academia.
Like I have stated before, people need to reacquire a certain respect for the Human sciences (kind of hard when they pay for the education of the young generation and all they get is a Gender study in the Everyday Vocabulary of the ordinary working class in Moscow⁽²⁾ while academics have too take off their invisibility cloak and start writing in newspapers and feuilletons again to address what really is on everybody’s minds, rather than ignoring the hot irons of extremism, religious fundamentalism, terror of opinion etc.

Technorati Tags: wef, davos, germany, sociology, human sciences, harald welzer, die zeit

1. Die Zeit, Nr. 5 – 25. Januar 2007 [↩]
2. This is not a joke. Happened in my year and I – with my The Quarrel around the Intellect in the XIIIth century: The case of the so called (non-existent) Latin Averroism – looked really nerdy alongside such a posh topic… [↩]

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