What Is Left?: The Ideological Legacy of GDR Social Science and Its Prospects

The situation of social scientists in the new federal states in 1991 is both fascinating and depressing at the same time. Who of them had not earlier longed to be able to write freely, without restrictions, liberated from a language in which original thought had to be concealed instead of acclaimed? How much we would have liked to be able to discuss openly the labor movement, socialism, and history. The old constraints are now gone. But not only that. The post-Cold War world, the process of transformation, and the task of catching up-innovatively and not merely by copying the old Federal Republic-constitute a new and broader challenge to the social sciences. Science and technology must also be approached more critically, since the ability to control this process overall declines rapidly as the number of particular innovations grows. All the evidence is that the social sciences may expect to boom in the coming years.