Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
Summary
DURING ALL THE DISCUSSION in the previous chapters on the political activities of writers, the question of how to judge their efforts has remained largely unresolved. One obvious reason for this is that it is difficult to provide a simple answer. Any attempt to determine whether they were right or wrong is likely to carry a subjective element, even if some issues — the need to fight any resurgence of Nazi ideology and the obligation to oppose terrorist violence, for example — do seem clear cut. Equally, any judgment based on success seems simplistic in that it runs the risk of debasing intellectual debate by applying criteria more applicable to economic and business activities. Equally, any success is ultimately impossible to quantify; all that can be stated with confidence is the aim of any contribution to political debate.
One possible answer might seem to present itself, if the following question is answered in the affirmative. Have German writers fulfilled the social role of intellectuals? Unfortunately, this immediately raises another question of what such a role might be, a subject that has occasioned debate over centuries. Opinions have varied on this, from the view that they have no contribution, or at least no positive contribution, to make, to the claim that they have a special role. In his work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the political scientist Joseph A. Schumpeter speaks, in a manner reminiscent of Max Weber, of the lack of “direct responsibility for practical affairs,” thus suggesting they have a parasitic role in society.
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- Writers and Politics in Germany, 1945–2008 , pp. 195 - 202Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009