Krise, kritik og samtidsdiagnostik
Authors: Kristensen Jens Erik 
Published: January 2018

Det er i dag blevet populært blandt sociologer at omtale det, de laver, som “samtidsdiagnoser“. En diagnostisk selvbevidsthed har tilsyneladende afløst tidligere tiders kritiske bevidsthed, og parallelt hermed taler man i dag hellere om “sociale patologier“ end om “kriser“. Sociologer tager dog sjældent de teoretiske, analytiske og retoriske implikationer af diagnoseperspektivet alvorligt. Af samme grund bemærker man heller ikke farerne ved en ureflekteret og metaforisk omgang med diagnose-termen, f.eks. den at man uforvarende kommer til at forskrive sig til den medicinske diskurs’ dualismer (sund-syg, normal-patologisk). I takt hermed ignorerer man imidlertid som oftest diagnosekategoriens ikke-medicinske og specifikt tidsdiagnostiske og samtidskritiske potentialer. Artiklen belyser i et etymologisk og idéhistorisk perspektiv forholdet mellem krise, kritik og diagnostik. Tesen er, at det etymologiske og idehistoriske forhold mellem krise, kritik og diagnostik kan bruges til at skandere forskelle og ligheder mellem aktuelle typer af kritik og samtidsdiagnostik. I dette øjemed præsenteres og kontrasteres tre nyere former for samtidsdiagnostik, nemlig fornyelsen af den Kritiske Teori fra Habermas til Honneth, Foucaults historisk-genealogiske form for kritik og samtidsdiagnostik, samt den form for socialanalytisk samtidsdiagnostik, der herhjemme er udviklet af filosoffen Lars-Henrik Schmidt i kølvandet på Marx, Nietzsche, Freud og Foucault.

ENGELSK ABSTRACT:
Jens Erik Kristensen: Crisis, Critic and Social Diagnosis

In certain currents of contemporary sociology today, the expression “critical“ has been dropped in favour of the expression “diagnostics“ – and the concept of “crisis“ has almost disappeared. It has become popular and more or less self-evident for sociologists to characterize what they are doing as “a diagnosis of the contemporary time“, particularly when they examine social trends and tendencies. However, most sociologists fail to appreciate the interpretive, evaluative, judgmental and, hence, “critical“ moments and potential of the category of diagnosis. They don’t take the theoretical, analytical and rhetorical implications of the diagnostic perspective seriously and, therefore, don’t notice the dangers of an unreflective metaphorical use of the term diagnosis. Therefore they inadvertently subscribe to the dualisms of medical discourse (normal-pathological) and to the associated concepts of medical diagnosis (diagnosis-prognosis-therapy). As a result, they describe social phenomena and tendencies as “pathological“, and inadvertently contribute to a promotion and idealization of medicinal discourse.
In order to clarify these questions and categorical shifts, the first part of the article develops the etymological and historical relationship between crisis, critique and diagnostics. The etymological and historical relationship between these three words are used in the second part of the article to scan differences and similarities between three current forms of criticism and types of diagnoses of the times, each with their divergent view and emphasis on “crisis“, “critique“ and “diagnosis“ and the relationship between them: the rejuvenation of Critical Theory in the direction of social philosophy and a diagnosis of the times from Habermas to Honneth; the historical-genealogical forms of critique and diagnoses of the times in Foucault, and finally, the form of social analytic diagnosis of contemporary times which has been developed in Denmark by the philosopher Lars-Henrik Schmidt in the wake of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Foucault.

Key words: Diagnosis of contemporary times, critic, crisis, history of philosophy, tendency, social analytic.