Schütz on self-alienation and homecoming in a warring world

Abstract

Alfred Schütz, who joined the Austrian army at 17 years old as a lieutenant in 1917, faced traumatic experiences during the First World War that deeply influenced his later intellectual pursuits. This article examines how Schütz’s wartime and postwar experiences shaped his intellectual and political contribution to sociology. The trauma Schütz faced during and after the war profoundly influenced his views on the ethical competence and integrative capacities of common sense, particularly in his applied theory essays of the 1940s. Highlighting the modern crisis of alienation, Schütz’s works such as “The Stranger” and “The Homecomer” reflect his commitment to understanding and overcoming the estrangement and confusion that arise from social and spatial displacement and the ideology of irreconcilable alienness. Rather than treat what is missing from the biographical archive as an irretrievable loss or absence, the article reads parts of Schütz’s later writings for traces they bear of his unrepresented wartime and postwar experiences, and argues that his applied theory essays partly serve as a delayed response to his youthful traumas. Ultimately, Schütz’s insights into foreignness offer profound reflections on the interplay between historical events, personal experiences, and social theory.