Summary of Merkur 1/2008
The January issue is dedicated to culture. Biologist Hubert Markl ponders its evolutionary basis. Roy F. Baumeister solves the riddle of why in all societies you'll find more men than women at the very top (and the very bottom!); the system of culture is a productive way to work through differences in gender. Gunnar Heinsohn explains why German population policy is absurd, demographically and economically.
The issue opens with an essay by sociologist Rainer Paris, who analyzes craziness and sees in it a wide-spread syndrome of not only politics and society, but also certain social sciences: see gender-mainstreaming, antidiscrimination policy, and German quotas. Realpolitik: Konrad Adam's unsentimental view of the EU and its expertocracy; Ivan Krastev on Putin's anti-European strategy; Jens Hacke on the reality in "reality science" sociology; Christoph Schwarz and Ralph Rotte call into question the amount of reality in the post-heroism thesis.
Columns on aesthetics (Christian Demand on the culture industry) and economy (Uwe Jean Heuser on the sense and nonsense of "neuro-economy"); Suri Ratnapala on the renaissance of dirigism; Larry McMurtry, the great American author of the West and Westerns, on Billy the Kid. The magazine thus presents four translations and thereby updates what "European thought" was once meant to mean: across borders and beyond.
Published 2008-01-04
Original in German
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