weber irrationality in modern culture

http://asj.sagepub.com/Acta Sociologica

http://asj.sagepub.com/content/31/4/319The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/000169938803100403

1988 31: 319Acta SociologicaJukka Gronow

CultureThe Element of Irrationality: Max Weber's Diagnosis of Modern

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Nordic Sociological Association

can be found at:Acta SociologicaAdditional services and information for

http://asj.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://asj.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://asj.sagepub.com/content/31/4/319.refs.htmlCitations:

by Bhupinder Singh on October 25, 2012asj.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://asj.sagepub.com/

http://asj.sagepub.com/content/31/4/319

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://nordicsociologicalassociation.org/pub/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=30/

http://asj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://asj.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://asj.sagepub.com/content/31/4/319.refs.html


What is This?

- Jan 1, 1988Version of Record >>


http://asj.sagepub.com/content/31/4/319.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml


319

The Element of Irrationality: MaxWeber’s Diagnosis of Modern Culture

Jukka Gronow

Department of Sociology. University of Helsinki

Max Weber’s diagnosis of modern culture as presented for example in

Science as Vocation includes the idea of differentiation between the spheresof science, art, and law and ethics But Weber also claims that all genuinevalues have gone from public life The parallel processes of rationalizationand intellectualization have resulted in a loss of individual freedom and

meaning This diagnosis does not simply follow from his over-narrow conceptof rationality, as claimed by Habermas To Weber rationalization is not

identical with the increase of instrumental rationality Rather, it is the formaland abstract, or quantifying nature of the modern type of rationality whichis totally alien to all value considerations In Weber’s opinion there is thusan unavoidable element of irrationally inherent in the very process ofrationalization Weber obviously also wanted to emphasize the paradoxicalnature of legal authority and formal bureaucracy The legitimacy of themodern type of domination does not rest on any shared norms or values,but is by nature exclusively procedural and formal An analysis of Weber’sviews about modernity thus reveals a highly conscious critique of the Projectof Enlightenment

1. The modern polytheismAt the end of his lecture on Science as VocatIOn Max Weber presented a Sumniaryview of his conception of the vptritual dötlI1~ of the times and the position of manin modern culture:

The fate of our time is charactenzed by rationalization and rntrllectualrzatrun and, aboveall, by the ’disenchantment of the world’ Precisely the ultimate and most sublime valueshave retreated from puhlrc life other into the transcendental realm ot mBst)c life or intothe brotherliness of direct and persona) human relations It m not accrdmtal that our

greatest art is intimate and not monumental, nor it is accidental that today only withinthe smallest and mtlmate circles, in personal human situations. in pnuuscrmrr, that

something is pulsatrng that corresponds to the prophetic prteumu, which in tormer timesswept through the great communities like a hrehrand. iiclding them together (Weber1970a;155 )

It would be tempting to interpet Weber’s charactcrization ot the result of the

parallel processes of rationalization and intellectualization as a Nietzscheaii vtstonof the dying out of all gods and la>ting values. At certain points Weber is almostparaphrasing Nietzsche’s On the Gl’Ilealogy of Morals. In Weber’s thinking the



320

vision of a new man creating the new values which will carry him over into infinityis missing, however, as is the irony towards a man of modern culture who, in frontof his clothes closet, puts on the costumes of various historical epochs feelingequally ill at unease in every one of them. Weber’s alternatives are neither the new’Ubermensch’ nor the dilettante who only makes himself look ridiculous, but ratherthe man of modern culture who soberly and without illusions is willing to face thechallenge of our times following his own personal values or demons, fully awarethat these values are without any transcendental grounds or intersubjective validity.Nevertheless, Weber clearly thought that once we have chosen our own values weshould stay loyal to them and feel responsibile for our actions which we havecommitted in accordance with those values.’ I

Weber’s personal solution to the challenge of our times was obviously not onlymotivated by his reading of Neitzsche, but also a result of his analysis of thedevelopment of occidental culture, which he understood in terms of a rationalization

process. Weber’s idea of a process of rationalization was twofold. First in the

process of rationalization, a rational and methodical conduct of life originallyethically motivated and imbedded in a religious and metaphysical world viewbecomes detached from the ethics of calling. The spirit of capitalism elevated bythe ethical calling and conviction of the early Puntan becomes institutionalized: inthe end a social order rules over the life of men in a compulsive manner. Impersonalforces thus come to rule over the individual actors. The development of modern

capitalism results in a loss of freedom (cf. Séguy 1987). This diagnosis was mostpointedly presented by Weber at the end of his essay on The Protestant Ethic andthe Spirit of Caprtalism:

The Puntan wanted to work for a calling ; we are forced to do so For when ascetism wascarned out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality,it did its part m building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order This

order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine productionwhich today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism,not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force..To-day the spirit of religious ascetism - whether finally, who knows? - has escaped fromthe cage. But victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs its

support no longer. (Weber 1970b:181-182)

Second, during the occidental process of modernization the different spheres of lifeare detached from each other. Weber seems especially to think that science, butalso art, morality and law, are differentiated and become gradually detachedfrom their metaphysico-religious origins. On this point, Jurgen Habermas hassummarized Weber’s conception as follows: ’... reason splits itself up into a

plurality of value spheres and destroys its own universality’ (Habermas 1984:247).The different spheres do not only become independent, in so doing the valuesruling in them also change their quality and become mutually incompatible. As

Jurgen Habermas (1984:229) and Matti Viikari (1986:196) have pointed out, toWeber only values imbedded in religion can function as forceful principles guidingthe conduct of the life of man, and in the process of modernization it is religionwhich is destroyed. Consequently, in Weber’s modern world, ltfe is devoid of

meaning... ’

,

.

,



321

Weber is not, however, a critic of the Enlightenment only in the sense that hewould - contrary to the idea common during Enlightenment - doubt that theincrease of instrumental rationality, technical reason and man’s domination overnature would also inevitably lead to the moral perfectibility of man and the

development of just and reasonable social relations between men. Weber’s critiqueis even more serious. To Weber rationalization is not identical with the increase ofinstrumental or technical rationality - the effective choice of means to achieve anygoal. In Weber’s thinking modern forms of rationality are always connected withthe ideas of formality, abstractness and - even more importantly - wth calculation.It is primarily this idea of formal rationality which explains why rationalization inWeber’s opinion destroys all genuine cultural values m the modern world and whyit petrifies culture into a mechanical apparatus resembling that of a machine.

2. Legality and legitimacyIn his Theory of Cojnmonrcatioe Action Jurgen Habermas ( 198~) has most emphati-cally criticized Weber’s critique of the project of Enlightenment. In Habermas’

opinion, Weber did not understand - and in this respect he shares the fate of manyother scholars in Habermas’ study - that connected to the process of modernizationthere is another kind of cultural rationalization taking place, which at least poten-tially is present even in everyday culture. In its pure form it comes into appearancein the different specialist cultures, in science, in art, and in the spheres of law andethics. It is this second form of rationality which, furthermore, guarantees thatmodern culture is not irreparably split up into competitive value spheres strugglingand competing with each other as was supposed by Weber. Habermas’ com-municative rationality is to guarantee - at least on the formal level of the argu-mentative redemption of validity claims - the universality of reason in modern

times. According to Habermas, m post-traditional cultures the validity claimsconcerning the truth of factual statements, the rightness of moral norms andthe authenticity of self-expression can always be questioned and justificationsdemanded. In this context one can also speak about the increasing self-reflexivityof modern culture.

Despite the obvious disagreement Habermas’ diagnosis of modern times closelyresembles that of Weber and was certamly influenced by it. Following Weber,Habermas also thinks that the economic system and public administration havebeen differentiated into independent sub-systems following their own rules offunctioning. Within them social action is co-ordinated by the ’delinguistical’ mediaof money and power. Thus, in a sense, even according to Habermas’ conception,economic system and public administration are in a sense beyond morality, theyhave become independent from the sphere of morality. But as opposed to Weber,Habermas does not think that morality has totally escaped public life. This ’dis-agreement’ concerning modern culture and the occidental process of rationalizationbecomes most apparent m Weber’s and Habermas’ respective conceptions aboutmodern law and the legitimacy of authority in a modern state.Habermas is certainly not the first one to have wondered about Weber’s con-

ceptions of legality and legitimacy. In Weber’s classification of the types of authorityor domination there is a specific third type, which is the only one regarded as



322

rational by Weber. In his introduction to the studies on world religions Weberwrote about this type as follows:

.

Our modern ’associations’, above all the political ones, are of the type of ’legal’ authority.That is, the legitimacy of the power holder to give commands rests upon rules that arerationally established by enactment, by agreement, or by imposition The legitimationfor establishing these rules rests, m turn, upon a rationally enacted or interpreted’constitution’. Orders are given in the name of the impersonal norm, rather than m thename of a personal authority., and even the gmng of a command constitutes ohediencetowards a norm rather than an arbitrary freedom. favor. or pnvilege (Weber 1970a 294-295) >

And further:

The official duty ... is fixed by rationally established norms, by enactments, degrees,and regulations, m such a manner that the legitimacy of the authonty becomes the legalityof the general rule, which is purposely thought out, enacted and announced with formalcorrectness. (Weber 1970a:299)

In discussing this legal type of ’Herrschaft’ Weber continuously emphasized that it

is impersonal by its nature and its legitimacy is based exclusively on the obediencetowards general norms which have been decreed or enacted following some specificformal -1,1-s or procedures. The legitimacy of such a type of authority is specific byits nature if compared with any other type of legitimacy: whereas charisma is basedon the dime revelation of the leader and is always personal and exemplary by itsnature, and traditional authority rests on the power of the tradition, the legitimacyof legal authority is rather peculiar. It rests on the legality of the norms and itslegitimacy is procedural by its nature. Its legitimacy rests solely on the fact thatthose who command do so m the name of impersonal rules or norms, which havebeen enacted by an organ which has the nght to do so and which have been decreedfollowing certain legal procedures. Such an authority is legitimate simply becauseit is legal and it is rational because it rests on ’a belief in the legality of enactedrules’ (Weber 1968:215).

In discussing Weber’s conception of legal authonty Johannes Wtnckelman ( 195?)has already pointed out that whereas m the classification of the legitimate validityof order (legitime Geltung einer Ordnung) in Economy and Society there is a

specific value rational type included, such a type is totally missing from Weber’scatalogue of the types of legitime authority (see Weber 1968:33). Not a single oneof the legitimate types of authority refers to legitimacy which could, m any sense,be regarded as value rational and which, thus, would be founded on the belief mthe absolute validity of an ethical norm.

Following Schluchter (1979), Habermas has, however, pointed out that evenlegal authonty must, in the last instance, draw its legitimacy from some moralvalues.2 Weber is misled in believing that legality could create legitimacy all byitself. Schluchter claims that Weber is nght m emphasizing that modern law hasbeen differentiated from morals. Weber also correctly thought that this kind of lawis first of all functional for the functioning of rational economic actors who can

predict and calculate even the legal results and consequences of their economicaction and evaluate its costs and benefits, takmg into account the functioning of an

equally rational public administration and jurisdiction. In Schluchter’s opinion,Weber was thus able to show how rational administration and modern law are



323

functional for market economies, but he is mistaken in believing that there are onlytwo principal types of legal systems: one that rests on the following of certainabsolute ethical principles and substantive ethical postulates, or a positive law. Thefirst type is incompatible whith the demands of formal rational action because itcannot apply general norms to stnctly determmed and limited individual cases. Itwould not be objective and impartial by its nature (’ohne Ansehen an Person’).The second type, on the other hand, is alien or even hostile to any ethicalconsiderations whatsoever. Positive law and ’substantive’ law are mutually exclusiveand opposite types of legal systems. As Schluchter has put it, Weber thinks thatthe implementation of substantive ethical norms would put the legal apparatus -normally functioning like a rational machine - out of order (see Schluchter

1979:161 ).In Schluchter’s opinion, Weber did not realize that even legal domination and

the validity of a positively enacted law must be complemented by morality groundedon principles. In the last instance it must be value rational, too. Legality alone cannever create legitimacy. In discussing legitimate order or domination Weber alwayscontrasted them to interest-oriented action or compulsory action. Commands areobeyed and regarded as legimate exactly because they are approved of and regardedas valid by their objects. To be accepted as legimate, authority must have anexemplary and binding character, the two characteristics without which, so Weberthought, there could be no stable and lasting order (see Schluchter 1979:126). Thuslegality could not, in fact, create legitimacy in Weber’s sense, unless it referred tosome basic values which are shared by the participants of an order.

In Schluchter’s opmion, it is rather amazing that Weber did not comprehend suchan elementary fact. Schluchter’s interpretation is especially interesting, however,because he even suggests two possible reasons for Weber’s misunderstanding. First,Weber was obviously influenced by the doctrines of legal positivism of his time(e.g. Kelsen), which he adopted in his thinking, and, second, there were someimportant limitations in Weber’s thinking concerning the possible nature of ethicalsystems in general. From Kelsen’s legal positivism Weber had adopted the ideathat legal norms are legitimate if and only if they have been enacted by a legislaturewhich has a right to decree laws (see Schluchter 1979:145). In modern intellectualhistory, the differentiation of law and ethics took place alongside the disqualificationof the natural law tradition in legal thinking. Natural law was the very predecessorof modern positive law which still had a substantive ethical foundation. In criticizingnatural law, positive legal thinking revealed jurisdiction to be a pure product of acompromise of interests and a mere technical instrument serving some goals aliento it. The only remnant from this tradition which was still regarded as valid was the’belief in the sacredness of pure legal formalism’ (see Schluchter 1979:82-83). Andthis idea of legal formalism was then uncritically adopted by Weber.The second reason for Weber’s misunderstanding taken up by Schluchter is even

more serious. In analysing the differentiation of morality and law Weber thoughtin terms of ethics of conviction (Gesinnungsethik). And one can easily agree withWeber that ethics of conviction cannot be complemented with legal thinking which,at least in principle, treats all legal subjects in a uniform, neutral, and impersonalmanner. And obviously, whenever Weber discussed the relationship of ethics tolaw, he had in mind such a system of ethics. Schluchter, on the other hand, points



324

out that the type of ethics which could be complementary to modern law, is the ethicsof responsibility (Verantwortungsethik) (see Schluchter 1979:156). Schluchter’s

critique could then be summarized as follows: Weber made a twofold mistakeconcerning the development of both law and ethics. He did not understand thatthe principles of positive law were inadequate by themselves, neither did he

understand that legality would always be in need of an ethical justification. Modernlaw should be complemented with a universal ethics of responsibility which wouldunite the principles of individual freedom with the freedom of consciousness, andwhich would also consist of general norms which are binding from the point of viewof an indtvtdual actor.

Habermas’ critique of Weber follows the same lines of thought as Schluchter’s:Weber was only able to show why modern law was functional for the modernrational economic order. But functionality alone does not guarantee legitimacy.Weber was obviously mistaken in identifying the need for justification with theneed of enactment of a legal system or its procedure for enactment. Consequently,Weber’s thinking ends up in a vicious circle:

The belief m legality can produce legitimacy only if we already presuppose the legitimacy’ of the legal order that lays down what is legal. There is no way out of this circle

(Habermas 1984:265)

Habermas goes even further and claims that it would be very astonishing indeed ifWeber had not noticed this fact:

It would be astonishing if Weber had not seen that the rationalization of law has to beconceived, m the first mstance, from the standpoint of a value-rational transformationof the institutional system, and only in the second instance from the standpoint of theestabUshment of purposive-rational action orientation. (Habermas 1984:253)

According to Habermas, there really is only one possible argument in favour ofWeber’s position which could save his reasoning - and this argument was explicitlyrejected by Weber himself. One could in fact think that the legitimacy of legaldomination could be based on a kind of secondary traditionalism or

pseudotraditional ism. A person acting according to rational norms usually does notreflect upon their origins and he does not usually doubt or wonder about theirvalidity. They are taken for granted like a tradition (see Habermas 1984:266-267).But Weber obviously did not have in mtnd such a form of pseudotraditionalismwhite discussing legal domination and the validity of modern law.Taken altogether, Habermas’ discussion ends up with the same argument as

Schluchter’s: for some odd reason - or perhaps rather for the reasons articulatedby Schluchter - Weber thought that the functional differentiation of law frommorals, which has taken place dunng the modernization process, necessarilydeprives law of any ethical anchoring whatsoever. The sphere of law is no longerin need of any ethical justification or moral foundation. In thinking in accordancewith the legal positivism of his time, Weber obviously believed that any law can beimposed and will be regarded as valid provided the correct procedure has beenfollowed in enacting it. Thus Weber emphasized only the pnnciple of enactment,and totally neglected the principle of justification.

In Habermas’ opinion, legality is always subjected to value rationality and evenWeber should have been able to understand it had his view not been restricted by



325

too narrow a conception of instrumental rationality (see also Habermas 1957). InHabermas’ discussion of Weber,’< concept of rationality there is. however, a reveal-ing point which shows that neither Habermas nor obviously Schluchter has under-stood the peculiarity of Weber’s concept of formal rationality which is, however,crucial in interpreting Weber’s ideas about legality and legitimacy. Habermascharacterizes Weber’s concept of formal rationality as follows:

As soon as subjects are released from the bonds of tradition or from control by affects,to the extent that they become conscious of their preferences and can choose their goalson the basis of clarified preferences, action can be evaluated from two points of mew:from the instrumental standpomt of efficacy of means and from the correctness withwhich goals are inferred in mew of gwen preferences, means, and boundarn conditions.Weber calls these two aspects of instrumental rationality and the rationality of choice,taken together, ’formal rationality’, m contradistinction to substantive evaluation of thevalue systems underlyng the preference (Hibernias 1984.171)

At this point there is a shortcoming in Habermas’ interpretation: it simply does notpay any attention to the most important characteristics of formal rationality inWeber’s thinking. In all the definitions or characterizations of the ideal types, whichin some sense are formally rational ( formal rational action, formal bureaucracy,legal domination), and which always refer to the specificity of modern occidentalculture in Weber’s analyses, formal rationality is always primarily associated withcalculation and accounting. Weber’s peculiar position concerning legal dominationwas obviously not a mistake or a )apsus: he was a highly conscious critic of theproject of Enlightenment, and, thus, a potential opponent of the views presentedby Habermas. In referring on several occasions to the unavoidable element ofirrationality in modern culture, Weber always had in mind its peculiar formal andabstract nature, which was expressed most condensely by the quantitative natureof formal rationality. Formal rationality of an economic order, while representingthe peak of efficacy and calculability, was irrational in the last instance, because it

rejected all genume substantive value considerations from the sphere of economics.The most rational type of action was at the same time the most irrational one.;

3

Similarly, in his analyses of legal domination and modern law, Weber obviouslywanted to point out that such types of authority and legitimacy were paradoxical bytheir nature. The modern type of legitimacy was, in fact, a form of pseudolegitimacy.Rational law and legal authority were both morally or substantiveiv irrational.

There was, thus, an obvious critical element present m Weber’s thinking aboutrationality.

3. Formal rationality and the irrationality of modern culture

In Economy and SOCiety W’eher on a few occasions referred to a fundamental

incompatibility or antimony between substantive and formal rationality whilediscussing the possible future perspective of a socialist economic order (cf.Mommsen 1974:175-176). The contrast between these two types of rational actionreveals in Weber’s view most clearly the peculiarities of formal rationality - or,more specifically, the peculiarities of the most complete types of formal rationalitv,monetary and capital accountmg. Firstly, formal rationality is completely indtfferenttowards any substantive values. Secondly, as Weber somewhat astonishingly pointed



326

out, there is an ultimate limitation inherent in its structure: such rationality is

purely formal by its nature (see Weber 1968:108). Thus, Weber, clearly wanted toemphasize that formal and substantive rationality are in principle totally separateand mutually exclusive types of rational action. In Weber’s thinking, ideal typesactually always were supposed to be mutually exclusive and complementary - theyare designated as pure types of action - but for some reason Weber obviouslywanted particularly to emphasize this feature while discussing the ideal types offormal and substantive rationaltty. According to the methodological idea of idealtypes, ’real’ action could correspond to a greater or lesser degree either to one ofthese types or to any combination of both of them, but in this particular caseWeber obviously thought that action oriented according to the principle of formalrationality cannot be combined with any aspects of substantive rationality, and viceversa.

Weber did, however, admit that on certain occasions these two types of action

might coincide. Formally rational economic action might lead to a result whichwould satisfy some ethical postulates presumed by substantive rattonalttv_ , but suchis neigher generally nor regularly the case and such a result would be totallycontingent by its nature. Formal rational action never pays attention to any valuepostulates, and, on the other hand, any action oriented according to the principleof substantive rationality cannot fulfil the demands of economic effectiveness. InWeber’s opinion, the increase in one type necessarily leads to a decrease in theother type of action.Weber made this idea more concrete by claiming that the degree of formal

rationality of an economic order, in particular, never tells us anything about thedegree of the satisfaction of needs in a particular society. Thus, a completelyrational economy in the sense of formal rationality could be completelv irrationalfrom the point of view of the safisfaction of needs, or, in fact, according to anycriteria of a just distribution of goods. Weber’s conclusion to his discussion on therational types of economic action in this context is as follows:

Substantive and formal (in the sense of exact calculation) rationality are, it should bestated again, after all largely distinct problems This fundamental and. m the last analysis,unavoidable element of irrationalitv m economic systems is one of the important sourceof all ’social’ problem-,, and above all, of the problem of socialism (Weber 196x 111 )

In Economy and SOCiety there is a parallel discussion of the principal oppositionbetween monetary accounting and calculus in kind (Naturalrechnung) - Weberobviously associates the latter with socialism - and of the problems inherent in anyaction oriented according to natural accounting. The main problem with ’naturalaccounting’ is that any two goods are always qualitatively different making theirintersubjective and mutual comparison impossible. (see Weber ly6t;:lU(~11.~)Weber was obviously inclined to think that only such an economic action which

is oriented to markets and which operates with. in a sense objective, money pricescan guarantee the effectiveness of an economic system.4 And Weber’s seriousreservations concerning a socialist economy are closely related to the difficulties heassociated with ’Naturalrechnung’.

In discussing the types of legitimate authority and the modern legal type ofdomination, in particularly, Weber also referred to the principal opposition between



327

formal and substantive rationality. The functioning of a formal bureaucracy. closelyconnected with legal domination, is both effective and formal by its nature. In thisrespect it is supenor to any other form of government. In Weber’s opinion theestablishment of socialism would require an equally high - if not higher - degreeof formal bureaucracy than capitalism:

If this should prove not to be possible, it would demonstrate the existence of another ofthose lundamental elements of irrat)ona))tB - a conflict between formal and substantiveration,ilitn o1 the sort of which 5uciology so often encounters (Weber liy68 225)

In discussing the bureaucratic form of administration Weber reallv made it soundthe final destiny of the modern world. Bureaucracy is a problem which bothsocialism and capitalism have to face. To Weber, from a purely technical pointof view, bureaucratic administration is the most rational and effective type ofadministration which both makes possible and guarantees the highest possibledegree of caIculablllty. Bureaucratic admrnwtration is always the most rationti andeffective one, and the needs of mass administration make it completelyindispensable. In Weber’s own words ’the choice is only that between bureaucracyand dilettantism in the field of administration’ (Weber lye:223).Now, Weber certainly did thmk that bureaucracy is indispensable onl~ under

certam condrtrons (mass administration and masts consumption) and it is effective

only according to certam criteria (technical efficiency), but under these conditionsthere is no escape from formal bureaucracy in modern society. Formal bureaucracyhas thus become an unavoidable and indispensable element of modern culturewhich, furthermore, seems to dommate it all the more. After all Weber seems tothink that even though there are in principle alternatives to modern capitalism ( likesocialism), and the further course of history is not predetermined, these alternativesdo not challenge capitalism from the standpoint of a predictable future, but rathersignalize a nostalgia for an economy consisting of autarchic households, an economicorder which - if allowed to dexelop at all - would once agam face the dual problemsof formal rationality and effects eness. (For an interpretation with a different

emphasis see Mommsen (liy86).)Even though Weber’s discussion about the opposite types of rationality is most

explicit in connection with the problem of socialism, it is by no means restricted tothe evaluation of the future develupment of capitalism alone. This opposition playsa central role in the whole of Weber’s conception of history lint, in particular, in hisdiagnosis of modern culture. To Weber the conflict between formal and substantiverationality was an expression of the unawrdahle element ot irrattonalrU in modernculture. Weber seemed to think that any action which is rational in the formal sense

would be irrational or, at least irrelevant, from the point of view of any substantivecriteria. And the main problem of the modern culture originates from the incom-patihilitv of these two kinds of rationalitv. In this respect Weber’s very definitionof formal rationality is crucial. As ha, alread_v been pointed out, Weber’s conceptof formal rationality cannot be understood as referring to instrumental or technicalrationality in any normal sense. It would namely, at least in principle, be easy tocombine action following technical or instrumental rationality with rationalityfollowng certain ethical value postulates or principle,,. In fact. pure technical



328

rationality could easily serve any values whatsoever. But Weber’s formal rationality,on the contrary, ’actively’ rejects all values and ethical orientations.

According to Weber’s definition ’formal rational action mll be used to designatethe extent of quantitative calculation or accounting which is technically possibleand which is actually used’ (Weber 1968:85). It follows from this definition that

pure formal rational action is always oriented to markets with money prices usingmoney as a medium of accounting. But it also necessarily entails that the goals ofthis kind of action are rather peculiar - they necessarliv have a quantitative and, inWeber’s understanding, abstract character. Quantification permeates both the

means and the ends of this kind of action.

This quantitative and abstract nature of rational economy is expressed mostclearly in the followtng characterization of Weber’s: ,

A rational economy !s a functional organization (sachlicher Betrieb) oriented to money-prices vhich originate m the interest-struggles of men m the market Calculation is not

possible without esUmanon m money prices and hence without market struggles Moneyis the most abstract and nmpcrsonal element that exists m human life. The more the

world of the modern capitalhst economy follows is own immanent laws, the less accessibleit is to any imaginable relationship wnh a religious ethic of brotherlmess The more

rational, and thus impersonal, capitalism becomes, the more <s this the case. (Weber1970a:331)

Thus, m Weber’s thinking formal rationality, which is typical of modern economyand administration, is first of all quantitative, abstract and impersonal by its nature.This idea was summarized bv Herbert Marcuse (1965) who claimed that Weber’sformal rationality reduces all quality to pure quantity. Substantive rationality, onthe contrary, is always oriented according to some genuine substantial and ultimatevalues, whatever they happen to be in any particular case (see Weber 1968:85).And it is this very formal and abstract nature of modern occidental rationality whichexplains Weber’s serious worry about the petrification of cultural values and theloss of genuine meaning in modern culture. Weber seemed to think that formalrational action, by quantifying even the unquantifiable, rejects all ethical values

and thus expels them from from public life leading them to their last resort, intimatepersonal relations, within which they no longer possess the same force capable oforienting and even potentially of changing culture as did the genuine cultural valuesof earlier history which were regarded as intersubjectively bmdmg and which werepart of an ethics of conviction imbedded in a metaphysico-religious world view.

This diagnosis also explains why any challenge posed by ’alternative movements’to formal rationality demanding the incorporation of some substantive values orprinciples into the functioning of economy or admlI1l~tratIon, is, in Weber’s opinion,immediately faced with the ’demands of the day’, the parallel problems of inter-subjective comparability, calculability and effectiveness - at least under the modernconditions of mass administration, mass consumption and mass production, con-ditions that obviously cannot be neglected in our occidental societies.Some essential features of Weber’s analysis of modern occidental culture can be

made even more understandable by comparing them with Simmel’s respectiveanalysis. As has already been pointed out it is the very principle of calculationwhich excludes all considerations of ethical nature whatsoever from such a typeof action. Quantification and calculation destroy all qualitative distinctions and



329

differences according to which the means and ends of action could otherwise beevaluated. Both to Weber and to Simmel money is the most abstract medium ofaction or mediator of social relations which can be imagined. As Simmel says,money destroys all genuine differences; it allows only quantitative distinctions.Money paints everything with grey. (See also Lichtblau 1984:276). In his essay onThe Metropolis and Mental Life Simmel wrote:

By being the equivalent to all the manifold things m one and the same way. moneybecomes the most frightful leveler For money expresses all qualnaUve differences ofthings in germs of ’how much&dquo;’. Money, with all it< colorlessness and mdifference,becomes the common denominator of all values. irreparably it hollows out the core of

things, their individuality, their specific value, and their mcomparability. All things floatmth equal specific gravity m the constantly momng stream of money (Simmel 1950~.11.1)

In his Phrlosophy of Money Simmel charactenzed money in similar terms by writingthat ’money has the very positive quality that is designed by the negative conceptof lack of character’ (Simmel 1978 :216). Simmel’s idea of monev also comes closeto Weber’s idea of formal rationality, when Simmel characterizes money as a pureinstrument. ’Money is the purest reification of means, a concrete instrument whichis absolutely identical with its abstract concept; it is a pure instrument’ (Simmel1978:212). In being developed into a ’final purpose’ or ’absolute value’ moneygoverns the whole of our practical consciousness (see Simmel 1978:232).

Social relations based on the use of money (Simmel) and formal rational actionusing money as a means of accounting (Weber) designate social phenomena whichreject all qualitative distinctions and evaluations: money, after all, is indifferent

towards all substantive values. Money and money accounting were neither to Webernor to Simmel neutral media - as they are to Habermas. By becoming the commondenominator of all social values money tends to set its quantifying label on all thesocial relations and on all the instruments and goals of social action in modernsociety.’Weber most definitely was not a critic of instrumental reason in general but of

the quantifying and formal nature of modern reason. Weber’s formally rationalactor or bureaucrat does not obediently serve any goals whatsoever; rational actiontransforms the very goals it is intended to serve. Just as money was the startingpoint for Simmel’s analysis of modern culture in which the pecuHanty of this culturewas condensed (see Lichtblau 198.I:~76), so was the specificity and paradoxicalnature of modern culture incarnated m Weber’s concept of formal rationality.

Notes .

’

1 In 1920 Weber dedicated the first volume of his Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologieto his wife Marianne Weber with the following words ’Marianne Weber - 1893 "bis inspianissimo des hochsten Alters"’ In the Ewischenbetrachtung included in the same volumehe used the same expression in explaining what he meant by ’responsible love’ - an

explanation which might even shed some light on what he meant by responsible actionaccording to some personally binding values:

From a purely inner worldly point of view, only the linkage of marriage with thethought of ethical responsibility for one another - hence a category heterogeneous tothe purely erotic sphere - can carry the sentiment that something unique and suprememight be embodied in marriage; that it might be the transformation of the feeling of



330

a love which is conscious of responsibility throughout all the nuances of the organiclife process, ’up to the pianissimo of old age,’, and a mutual granting of oneself toanother and the becoming indebted to each other (in Goethe’s sense Rarely does lifegrant such value in pure form. He to whom it is given may speak of fate’s fortune andgrace - not of his own ’ment’. (Weber 1970a:350)

A comparison of Weber’s ethical views with those of Georg Simmel’s can also make themmore understandable As Lichtblau has interestingly pointed out, by interpreting Nietzsche’sidea of the eternal return in a personal way. Simmet developed a highly individualisticversion of the ethics of responsibility, which was obviously, at least to some extent, sharedby Weber, too (see Lichblau 1984 260-261 and note 99, p. 280). According to this view onehas to take one’s actions seriously and consider them as if every single one of them weredecisively to determine one’s future life (For a parallel interpretation of Nietzsche’s radicalreorientation of ethics see also Nehemas (1955))

2 As a matter of fact Habermas follows in his interpretation the critical ideas presented bySchluchter (1979), who in turn has received some of his main interpretative ideas fromHabermas - a process ot mutual influence which is readily admitted by them

3 Weber’s idea of the legitimacy of legal domination has found adherents as different as CarlSchmitt ( 1932) and Niklas Luhmann (1981 ; see also Habermas 1984:265) Whereas Luhmannhas incorporated Weher’s idea of legal domination into his analysis of modern law, CarlSchmitt - in the context of analysing the Weimar constitution - used it to criticize par-hamentary democracy. It was however Georg Lukacs (1970) who more faithfully, than anyother took over Weber’s ideas both in analysing modern law in particular (see Lukacs1970:205-206) and reification in general Neither Schmitt nor Luhmann paid any attentionto the wider context of Weber’s analysis (the process of rationalization) By combiningWeber’s thesis of rationalization with Marx’s analysis of reification Lukacs maintained thecritical nuances of Weber’s studies. It was ’the principle of calculation’ which in Lukacs’opinion was central to the process of mechanization and rationalization not only in theworld of work but in other social spheres of capitalism, too Even though one can by nomeans accuse Weber of ’taking over the hawe concepts of Hegelian logic’ (the concept ofa totality and the teleology of history; see Habermas 1984:362) as Lukacs did, one canreasonably claim that Lukacs was only following Weber in emphasizing the element ofirrationality inherent in the very process of occidental rationalization

4 For a discussion of Weber’s conception of price formation see Clarke 1953 209-210.

5 For an interesting discussion of Simmel’s analysis of money and its rotation to Nietzsche’sideas about the Pathos of Distance and ’Vornehmheit’, which would obviously be of greatrelevance to the understanding of Weber’s thinking, too, see Lichtblau (1984), see alsoLepenies (1985).

I

References

Clarke, Simon 1983. Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology From Adam Smith to Max

Weber. London. The Macmillan Press

Habermas Jurgen 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action Vol 1 Boston. Beacon Press.

Habermas, Jurgen 1987 Legitimitat durch Legalitat? Kritische Justiz, Jhg 20, 1987 1, 1-16.

Lepenies, Wolf 1985 Die drei Kulturen Soziologie zwischen Literatur und WissenschaftMunchen Hanser

Lichthlau, Klaus 1984. Das ’Pathos der Distanz’. Praliminarien zur Nietzsche-Rezeption beiGeorg Simmel In Dahme. H-J & Rammstedt, O. (Hg ): Georg Simmel und der Moderne:Neue Interpretationen und Materialen Frankturt am Main. Suhrkamp, pp 231-281.

Luhmann, Niklas 1981 Positivitat des Rechts als Voraussetzung einer modernen GesellschaftIn Luhmann, N.: Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts Beitrage zür Rechtssoziologie, undRechtstheore. Frankfurt am Main. Suhrkamp. pp 113-153

Lukacs, Gcorg 1970 Die Verdinglichung und das Bewuztsein des Proletariats. In Lukacs,G.: Geschichte und Klassenbewuztsein. Darmstadt & Neuwied: Luchterhand



331

Marcuse, Hcrbert 1965. Industrialisierung und Kapitalismus In Stammer, O. (Hg.): MaxWeber und die Soziologie heute. Tubingen: J. C B Mohr (Paul Siebeck), pp. 161-180.

Mommsen. Wolfgang 1974. Max Weber. Gesellschaft, Politik und Geschichte. Frankfurt amMain Suhrkamp

Mommsen, Wolfgan 1986 Max Webers Begriff der Universalgeschichte In Kocka, J (Hg.):Max Weber, der Historiker. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 51-72.

Nehemas, Alexander 1985. Nietzsche Life as Literature Cambridge & London: Harvard

University PressSéguy, Jean 1987 Moderne, Rartionalisierung ’Entzauherung der Welt’ bei Max Weber In

LeRider, J & Raulet, G (Hg.). Verabschiedung der (Post-) Moderne’’ Tubingen: GunterNarr, pp 23-38.

Schluchter, Wolfgang 1979 Die Entwicklung des okzidentalen Rationalismus Eine Analysevon Max Webers Gesellschahftsgeschicte Tubingen J. C B Mohr (Paul Siebeck).

Schmitt, Carl 1932. Legalitat und Legitimatt Muchen & Leipzig Duncker & Humblot.Simmel, Georg 1950. The Metropolis and Mental Life In Wolff, Kurt H The Sociology ofGeorg Simmel. Glencoe: The Free Press, pp 409-424

Simmel, Georg 1982. The Philosophy of Money. Boston & Londow Routledge & KeganPaul

Weber, Max 1968. Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretative Sociology New York:Bedminster Press

Weber. Max 1970a: From Max Weber Essays in Sociology. (Ed by H H Gerth & WrightMills.) London Routledge & Kegan Paul

Weber, Max 1970b. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism London Unwin.

Winckelmann, Johannes 1952 Legitimitat und Legalitat in Max Webers HerrschafissoziologieTubingen J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck)

Vukari, Matti 1986 Max Weber, der okzidentale Rationalismus, der Feudalismus unddas europeische Mittelalter In Kocka, J (Hg Max Weber, der Historiker GottingenVandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 158-172.



weber irrationality in modern culture

Documents