%0 Journal Article
%T A modern calamity ¨C Robert Musil on stupidity
%A Bo Isenberg
%J Journal of Classical Sociology
%@ 1741-2897
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/1468795X17715786
%X The writings of the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Musil provide sociology with vital problems and reflections. Indeed, Musil introduces discussions that extend conventional understanding of modernity ¨C sociology¡¯s general object of analysis. The article focuses on two major sets of questions in Musil¡¯s work: the shapelessness of man and the relation between reason and sentiments. Both problems are essential in that genuine twentieth-century experience which Musil calls functional stupidity: the functionalisation of the mind to collective demands of the party, the race and the nation. The article discusses Musil¡¯s arguments by relating them to central propositions in classical sociology (Simmel, Weber, Kracauer, T£¿nnies, Park). Classical sociology, in turn, is defined as a sub-discourse of classical modern reflection
%K Classical sociology
%K contingency
%K human shapelessness
%K modernity
%K Musil
%K stupidity
%K totalitarianism
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1468795X17715786