The events of these last months have made us necessarily face some matters that can not be put off. Which dialectic-cultural possibilities does the State grant the intellectuals? How has the historical function of this part of society, of judges and stimulators, of interlocutors and accusers of the social structure, of the State, of the Institution changed? Which area does the Establishment grant and which do the intellectuals want? The armed struggle in the western capitalist society has developped above all in two countries, different and similar: Germany and Italy. Germany is the richest country in Europe with the steadiests in the balance of payments, with the least rate of inflation of Western Europe; Italy instead is the economical "Cindirella" of Europe, with the highest inflation rate, with its charitable economy of industrial "brontosauri" to maintain, as someone has called them. These are the differences. The comparisons may be seen in certain social and historical aspects which must not be undervalued. For instance, they are the countries that have given life to the biggest right-wing movements of the century: fascism and nazism. An expert in politics, examining the situation of terrorism in Germany sustained the hypothesis that the armed resistance derived from a sort of bad conscience which has its origin in the second world war.A determinant and meaningful datum is that economical and social symbologies are departing definitely. Seemingly armed resistance is a State problem and is not due to economical reasons. The States are too important from the social point of view, too encumbering because the multinationals, the international finance, that is the holders of one of the greatest powers, trouble themselves to defend them. They are not defendable, they are too involved. We have come to the point that the greatest order corresponds to the greatest disorder. In the period of the breathless chase after Moro's kidnappers, the Italian Stock Exchange did not suffer in the least from the psychological atmosphere, revealing more interested in internal events, in economics than in external ones. Must we think that the maximum of terrorism is a fall of the dollar? But at this point, we wonder that, if social matters belong to a political view, what possibilities have intellectuals between State and armed resistance? The end of politics, of the social affairs, of the Establishment: these are theoretical hypothesis which have excited sociologist of nearly all Europe in the last months. We have asked some of them this question: is there still any space? We have asked some Italians because they are mostly involved in the emotional and speculative circuit and in the recent polemics on "courage and cowardice" and the case Moro. We have also interviewed some French and this is quite obvious: there are no doubt preferential links between Italian and French intellectuals, although they live in different social contexts. Many French have adopted definite positions against repression in Italy. Also the frequent contacts between the two countries have favoured a unique intellectual dialectics. The State has existed in France for at least 400 years, in Italy we are still wondering whether the theory of Baudrillard's "death of Establishments" has really taken place. A strong State would not have been afraid to deal with Moro's kidnappers, but a non-State? Simulation is part of the game of economics which attributes politics some powers. But now also the theorists on the side of the Establishment, like Brian Jenkins, belonging to the Rand Corporation, expert on terrorism for the "Defense Advanced Research Project Agency" who states that "terrorists choreography their violence. Terrorism is their theatre and the world is by now their stage".
