Diagnosis of our time : wartime essays of a sociologist / by Karl Mannheim.

  • Mannheim, Karl, 1893-1947.
Date:
1943
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diagnosis of our time : wartime essays of a sociologist / by Karl Mannheim. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    f With the exception of one (Chapter V), these essays were written in war-time. They originated as lectures or as memoranda for j groups who wanted to know what the sociologist had to say about certain aspects of the present situation. For a while I hesitated to publish them in their original shape, j and in normal times perhaps I should have preferred to knit them together more closely. But it was felt that the direct approach and the personal appeal should not be sacrificed to a more systematic and academic treatment. The independent : essay, which can be read for itself and can become the basis of c group discussion, conveys more directly the essential ideas than I a comprehensive treatise. The book, as it stands, attempts to i apply the method and the accumulated knowledge of scientific sociology to our reality. By shelving the work for later elabora¬ tion the time might be missed for whatever small contribution it might make to the discussion of the burning issues of the | moment. There are constellations in history in which certain possi- :: bilities have their chance, and if these are missed the opportunity r may well be gone for ever. Just as the revolutionary waits for [ his hour, the reformer whose concern it is to remould society by peaceful means must seize his passing chance. For years it has been my conviction, which I have tried to bring home in my lectures and other activities, that Britain has the chance and the mission to develop a new pattern of society, and that it is necessary that we should become aware of it and act on it. In various ramifications this idea is applied in the present book to some i concrete problems of the day.