Sociology

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Reading Selections From Weber

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904)

“The Spirit of Capitalism”

“Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism”

The Social Psychology of the World Religions (1915)

The Distribution of Power Within the Political Community: Class, Status, Party (1925)

The Types of Legitimate Domination (1925)

Bureaucracy” (1925)

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Biographical Sketch: Max Weber

At 4 years old, he became seriously ill with meningitis, and though he eventually recovered, throughout the rest of his life, he suffered the physical and emotional aftereffects of the disease, most apparently anxiety and nervous tension.

This influenced the rest of his life, because as a result of this he had to entertain himself through reading.

From an early age, books were central in Weber’s life. He read whatever he could get his hands on, including Kant, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Goethe, and Schopenhauer, and he wrote two historical essays before his fourteenth birthday.

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Biographical Sketch: Max Weber continued

Throughout his life, Weber was torn by the personal struggles between his mother and his father.

Weber’s feverish work ethic—he drove himself mercilessly, denying himself all leisure—can be understood as a inimitable combination of his father’s intellectual accomplishments and his mother’s moral resolve.

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Biographical Sketch: Max Weber continued

Weber experienced debilitating anxiety and insomnia throughout the rest of his life. He often resorted to taking opium in order to sleep.

Nevertheless, he had spurts of manic intellectual activity and continued to write as an independent scholar. In 1904, Weber traveled to the United States and began to formulate the argument of what would be his most celebrated work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905).

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Biographical Sketch: Max Weber continued

He helped establish the Heidelberg Academy of the Sciences in 1909 and the Sociological Society in 1910 (Marianne Weber 1926/1975:425).

In 1918, he helped draft the constitution of the Weimar Republic while giving his first university lectures in 19 years at the University of Vienna, but he suffered tremendously and turned down an offer for a permanent post (Weber 1958:23).

In 1920, at the age of 56, Max Weber died of pneumonia.

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Intellectual Influences & Core Ideas

Weber’s work encompasses a wide scope of substantive interests.

Authors divide the discussion in this section into two major parts:

(1) Weber’s view of the science of sociology

(2) his engagement with the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.

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Intellectual Influences & Core Ideas continued

Weber defined sociology as “a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.”

So what does this mean? Weber sees science and social science in particular as a way of understanding the motives and the intention as well as the context of the action to explain its effects. (we will get to some examples)

In casting “interpretive understanding” or Verstehen as the principal objective, Weber turned his attention to the subjective dimension of social life, seeking to understand the states of mind or motivations that guide individuals’ behavior. We can think of Verstehen as putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

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Intellectual Influences & Core Ideas continued

The task for the sociologist is to understand the meanings individuals assign to the contexts in which they are acting and the consequences that such meanings have for their conduct.

Weber believed that action is rational, and that it is influenced by circumstances.

To systematize interpretive analyses of meaning, Weber distinguished between four types of social action.

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Types of Social Action

instrumental-rational action. Such action is geared toward the efficient pursuit of goals through calculating the advantages and disadvantages associated with the possible means for realizing them.

This is often the kind of thought that happens in negotiations. Let’s say you are going to ask for a raise, you calculate the benefits (getting a raise) and perhaps say to your boss, I will leave if you do not give me a raise. But this is not without thought. She may fire you, so you have decided that the risks outweigh the benefits.

value-rational action involves the strategic selection of means capable of effectively achieving one’s goals. However, value-rational action is pursued as an end in itself, not because it serves as a means for achieving an ulterior goal.

This is the idea that stems from Kant- that we as humans have a moral obligation to pursue acts that adhere to moral universal truths. Cheating is a great example. People don’t abstain from cheating because they are afraid to get caught, but rather because cheating is wrong (the value of the act).

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Types of Social Action

affective action, which is marked by impulsiveness or a display of unchecked emotions. Absent from this behavior is the calculated weighing of means for a given end.

This is basically emotions. We often have emotions and display them not because we think them through or think they will get us something, we display emotions because we feel them and we do not think about them.

traditional action, where behaviors are determined by habit or long-standing custom. Here, an individual’s conduct is shaped not by a concern with maximizing efficiency or commitment to an ethical principle, but, rather, by an unreflective adherence to established routines.

These are actions that are done by tradition, that we do not give much thought to but would not think about not doing them. Religious rites, certain foods that are taboo,

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Weber’s Four Types of Social Action

It is important to point out that in everyday life, a given behavior or course of conduct is likely to exhibit characteristics of more than one type of social action.

This is how Weber did much of his theorizing, he made these pure categories (ideal types he calls them) and uses them as a way to analyze human behavior. He recognized that most action is a result of more than one type of social action.

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Of Nietzsche

This is a good video on Nietzche. Kind of dry but good

http://oyc.yale.edu/sociology/socy-151/lecture-14#ch0

Evidencing his connection to Nietzsche, a major theme running throughout the whole of Weber’s work is rationalization.

Rationalization - an ongoing process in which social interaction and institutions become increasingly governed by methodical procedures and calculable rules.

This means that as things become more rational they become less affective (remember instrumental and value rational action a few slides back?)

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Of Nietzsche

The loss of ultimate meaning that accompanied the growing dominance of an instrumental and scientific orientation to life. For while science can provide technological advances that enable us to address more efficiently how to do things, it cannot provide us with a set of meanings and values that answer the more fundamental question/

In many ways Nietzsche (as well as Weber) was grappling with the same sort of questions that Durkheim and Marx were. This is the age of science and of reason, the rise of technology. We can do things faster, make things faster, buy more things, but why we do them is up for debate. There is a loss of meaning as we go from traditional to modern life.

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Of Nietzsche cont.

Weber’s reluctance to champion the “progress” brought by science and technological advances was influenced by Nietzsche’s own nihilistic view of modernity expressed most boldly in his assertion that “God is dead.” So let’s think about this– of God is dead– we mean that there is a loss of spirituality, a loss of meaning. When we have religion we know why we are living, It helps answer the meaning of life question.

The search for meaning—which Weber saw as the essence of the human condition—carried out in a meaningless world sparked the rise of charismatic leaders who were capable of offering their followers purpose and direction in the lives.

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Of Nietzsche cont.

We will get to a better definition of charismatic leaders, but for now think of politicians, religious leaders who have so much charisma that people believe in them ( a good example is a cult leader– people that join cults are often at a loss for meaning in their lives– so they start to follow the teachings of the charismatic cult leader. The cult (and the leader) gives meaning to their life.

Weber’s depiction of the power of charismatic leaders, with their ability to transcend the conventions and expectations imposed by the social order, bears important similarities to Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch or “superman.” This means

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Of Marx

Much of Weber’s writing reflects a critical engagement with, and extension of, Marx’s theory of historical materialism. Remember what was historical materialism?

See here if you don’t remember

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Historical_materialism.html

Weber nevertheless did not embrace it in its entirety. In constructing his own theoretical framework, Weber departed from Marx in 3 ways.

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Of Marx cont.

(1) Weber maintained that social life did not evolve according to some immanent or necessary law.

(2) Weber contended that the development of societies could not be adequately explained on the basis of a single or primary causal mechanism. For Weber there are a number of factors that influence how society develops (unlike Marx who believed how we produce goods and services is the primary factor that explains how society develops and is structured).

(3) For Weber, it was not capitalism but the process of rationalization and the increasing dominance of bureaucracies that threatened to destroy creativity and individuality.

Remember Marx placed everything on capitalism, Weber says it is not the system but what happens at the same time – humans become more rational and bureaucracies dominate that are the driving forces of disenchantment.

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Introduction to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The Protestant Ethic, masterfully captures the two subjects that preoccupied Weber’s intellectual activities:

(1) the rationalizing tendencies so prevalent in Western society

(2) the role of ideas in shaping them.

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Introduction to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism cont.

Weber argues that a religious belief system, intended to explain the path to a transcendent eternal salvation, paradoxically fueled the creation of a secular world in which “material goods have gained an increasing and finally an inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history” (1904/1958:181).

This is an important quote and will lead us to understand how Weber placed a lot of importance on a religious belief system. From this quote we see that he is saying that a religious belief system that set people on path to salvation (in the afterlife) caused people to act in a way that paved the path towards capitalism. But this was an unintended consequence of the belief system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUnAMqfEIWw

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Introduction to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism cont.

Counter to Marx’s emphasis on property relations and the process of production, Weber maintained that the extraordinarily methodical attitude that characterized Protestant asceticism was integral to the rise and eventual dominance of Western capitalism.

Asceticism means “severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons”. Basically he was saying that this practice of self-discipline and not indulging in material goods was what led to the rise of the Capitalist system.

Weber showed that not only “material” factors, but also “ideal” factors can be instrumental in producing social change. In doing so, he sparked one of the most important and enduring debates in the history of sociology. Remember Marx is “material” so how we produce goods and services, whereas Weber is “ideal” - that a set of ideas and values (religious asceticism) was the catalyst for the rise of Capitalism.

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