Klas Östergren. Den intellektuelle som åskådare

The paper is an analysis of Klas Östergren's book, Gentlemen, from a sociological perspective.As a sociologist when I read Gentlemen, Östergren’s voice in the book rapidly became associated with Karl Manheim’s concept of the free-floating intelligentsia (Ideology and Utopia, 1954). Östergren uses the tension between distance and closeness, integrating different perspectives, to present himself as being able to be both a distant observer, the watchman describing events from the outside, and also the insider with access to the closeness necessary to feel empathy and understanding of particular events as lived experience. Yet the creation of a dialectic by Östergren in Gentlemen between subject and object, essence and appearance, particular and universal is done without a critical distance to just himself in the role he assigns himself as a ”free-floating intellectual.”