FREEDOM, POWER AND DEMOCRATIC PLANNING

by Karl Mannheim ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A posthumous volume by the Professor of Sociology and Education, London University, author of etc. In response to the conflict of the present society -- caught between the forces of extreme right and left- Mannheim offered a Third Way. He found that both ideological and utopian thought (which he investigated in Ideology and ) fail to realize social reality. Building on his theories which included a reliance on a ""socially unattached intelligentsia"" for a rational understanding of reality, Mannheim, in exchanging a Continental detachment for a new intellectual milieu in England in 1933, suggested that the middle class -- caught between the two extremes-might strike a balance between centralized authority and local government. At the basis of his thought, however, is an insistence upon ""integration"" of the specialized spheres of life, and integration behavior as an ideal pattern of a democratic community. At last Mannheim allots to religion the task of coordinating all human activities -- a religion free in thought and position, yet cognizant of basic experiences beyond the realm of science. He defines the offices of religion as diagnosing society as in transition, focussing attention on important issues, and integrating human conduct. A scholarly blueprint with a heavy Hegelian best. Limited market.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Oxford

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1950

Categories: NONFICTION