Max Weber and Postmodern Theory: Rationalization versus Re-enchantment

by Nicholas Gane

This book explores the contemporary nature of Max Weber's work by looking in detail at his key concepts of rationalization and disenchantment. Thematic parallels are drawn between Weber's rationalization thesis and the critiques of contemporary culture developed by Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard. It is suggested that these three 'postmoden' thinkers develop and respond to Weber's analysis of modernity by pursuing radical strategies of affirmation and re-enchantment. Examining the work of these three key thinkers in this way casts new light both on postmodern theory and on Weber's sociology of rationalization.

203 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main critique I had of this volume is how circumlocutious and repetitive the author can be. Many different things were discussed in this book about the problems occurring in our "modern" world which were insightful due to the level of truth behind them, but often the solutions for such issues seemed to be widespread radical shift in social thought, and for this to occur immediately, something which both doesn't have a lot of hope for realization and often the ideas expressed are too extreme to address more than just one issue. Weber seems to take this to heart and discusses a workable solution-melding, as there isn't particularly one main solution he sees to the issues and instead he encourages action as the main decision that will change the world. It seems the best solution would be to take a moderate approach to Foucault's call to madness with instead a call to fun, zaniness, and spontaneity to relieve the droll trudge of life which leads to an impartial cruel world. A moderate approach to Lyotard would help to relieve ignorance in it's idea for free access to knowledge, but as we've seen with the most popular use of the internet, free access to knowledge alone is not going to engender intelligent thought or the wisdom needed to free us from rationalization and modernism. Baudrillard's re-enchantment in a moderate sense would help to revitalize the human spirit in the reestablishment of mystery and the unknown, just as in the art of seduction, a little left to the imagination goes a long way. Along with Weber's action-based "this-worldly" effort and a separation of ethical belief from rational science with neither being attacked, a real shift in thought could take place with a combination of these all of these aspects. It may not be perfect, or the exact imagined Utopia of these sociologists, but it would be a step in the right direction away from modernism.

[Lukas Szrot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disenchantment is of particular interest to me. I actually picked this up for a conceptual sociology paper that is likely to become my Master's Thesis. I am admittedly something of a skeptic and realist and thus resistant to the postmodern turn toward epistemological relativism. But I did find this reading of Weber's "Science as a Vocation" particularly illuminating, and prophetic, in anticipating the need for, and offering, a containment hypothesis given the at times overzealous reductionist tendencies found in modern scientific endeavor.

Weber was a visionary. I plan to read far more of his work, that I might decide for myself the extent to which a postmodern reading of his work is warranted.