The First World War: Singmund Freud and the Mission of the Intellectuals

Abstract

This article examines some of the factors that explain the role of the intellectuals who faced the crisis of modernity at the beginning of the twentieth century. The autor provides a comparative analysis of the debates about the idea of history and the idea of the Intellectual in Germany at the beginning of the First World War. Specifically, the argument focuses on the substantial changes that took place regarding the intellectuals’ mission once the idea of the national glory of individual nations took the place of universal ideals. Notions of reason, science, culture, liberty and equality changed to concepts of race, blood, power, instincts and the redemption of war.