När idéhistoria är som bäst utmanar den oss till att se på och förstå världen och oss själva på nya sätt. I denna bok har åtta texter av idéhistorikern Crister Skoglund samlats som fungerar på det sättet. Samtliga är sedan tidigare publicerade i olika sammanhang – från 1980-talet och framåt – men de är väl värda att upptäckas av nya läsare. Boken inleds med två idéhistoriska översiktsessäer om fantasi och kreativitet, som följs av texter som kretsar kring frågor om bildning, demokrati och kulturradikalism. Avslutningsvis görs en djupdykning i studentrevolten 1968.

Crister Skoglund är idéhistoriker och var fram till sin pensionering 2014 verksam som lärare och forskare vid Södertörns högskola.

The witness seminar “Föreställningar om informationssamhället under 1980-talets första hälft” [Ideas about the Information Society during the first half of the 1980s] was held at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm on May 27 2008 and was led by Crister Skoglund and Bernt Skovdahl. The panel consisted of representatives both of those who around 1980 were enthusiastic for, and those who were sceptically against, the belief that we were entering the Information Society. Two projects were discussed regarding new ways to use computers; TERESE and KOM. The first one mentioned was an attempt to facilitate cooperation between entrepreneurs and the second one was a computer forum for open discussions. In many ways they foreboded what later became everyday practice on the Internet, but at this time they were questioned. Not at least the idea to use big and expensive mainframe computers for such a “simple” task as to let ordinary people communicate with each other. During the seminar those who had been sceptical to the term “Information Society” stated however, that they were not against using computers for communication between ordinary people, but opposed the grand claims made by those who equalised an “Information Society” with a “Knowledge Society”. The sceptics found their theories of knowledge naïve and challengeable. In Sweden we thus got an epistemological debate outside the academic philosophical circles that has implications to this day. A third theme in the seminar was the attitude to computers in the Swedish labour movement. A shift from a positive view, over a more doubtful period around 1980, back to a new positive attitude could be noted. From 1985 the main doctrine was that the workers should conquer the new technology instead of opposing it.