Worshippers Of The Unseen Butterfingers (WOTUB), Critical Reflection ⇒ Making The Invisible Hand Visible Options Rating

[Jon Awbrey]

I have to go dig out my Adam Smith and my Max Weber … it may take the weekend, but I didn't want to lose this number …

J☼N

Dynamic List Of Resources �

Adam Smith

• Adam Smith (1759), The Theory of the Moral Sentiments.
• Adam Smith (1776), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

Max Weber

• Max Weber (1904/1930), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Talcott Parsons & Anthony Giddens (trans.), Unwin Hyman, London & Boston.

If you never read any other Social Theory, read Max Weber first. It was one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century that he died when he did, not only because the program of works he had begun would remain unfinished but also because the moderating influence he was exerting on his country's national and international affairs was suddenly dissipated.

Here is an excellent online resource on Weber �

• Elwell, Frank (1996), The Sociology of Max Weber.

[Jon Awbrey]

Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart …

Ideas formulated by Nietzsche were major sources of Weber's inspiration for the last, pessimistic section of The Protestant Ethic (Mommsen, 1974:106, see 79). Those of us who know Weber's work primarily through Parsons' translation fail to realize this because, once again, of deficiencies in Parsons' rendering of a crucial and revealing phrase. Both Tiryakian (1981:27) and Turner (1982:87) quote part of the paragraph in which the telling phrase occurs; I will quote the entire paragraph, and cite the German at the appropriate points.

No one knows who will live in this cage (Gehäuse) in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of the old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. For of the last stage (die ‘letzten Menschen’) of this cultural development it might well be truly said: ‘Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved’ (Weber, 1920b:182; 1920a:204).

The translation problem is clear: in the original German Weber referred to Nietzsche's “last men� (Nietzsche 1883:128–131, 325) as those who would be “ ‘specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart.’ � He even put letzten Menschen in quotation marks, so that his readers would be certain to pick up the Nietzschean allusion to Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Parsons' translation of the German phrase as “the last stage,� not to mention his omission of the quotations around it, inarguably misrepresents what Weber tried to convey (Fleischmann, 1964:233; Mommsen, 1965:600–602).

� Stephen A. Kent, “Weber, Goethe, and the Nietzschean Allusion : Capturing the Source of the “Iron Cage� Metaphor�, Sociological Analysis, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter, 1983), pp. 297–319, Oxford University Press. Stable URL : http://www.jstor.org/stable/3711612.

[Jon Awbrey]

Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart …

The “specialists without spirit� quotation that Weber offered was not taken verbatim from Nietzsche. Rather, Weber himself constructed it with the tenor of Zarathustra in mind (Mommsen, 1965:602). That he would construct such a passage should not be surprising since (in contrast to Weber's limited use of Bunyan) consideration of Nietzsche's philosophy is evident throughout his life's work (see Fleischmann, 1964). An excellent example of his indebtedness to Nietzsche occurs in Weber's 1918 speech entitled “Science as a Vocation� (which was published in the following year). In this speech, Weber's scorn for the overextension of both scientific promises and scientific technique parallels his famous lament about “ ‘specialists without spirit’ � in the final section of The Protestant Ethic:

After Nietzsche's devastating criticism of those ‘last men’ who ‘invented happiness,’ I may leave aside altogether the naive optimism in which science � that is, the technique of mastering life which rests upon science � has been celebrated as the way to happiness. Who believes in this? � aside from a few big children in university chairs or editorial offices (Weber, 1946:143; 1947:13).

� Stephen A. Kent, “Weber, Goethe, and the Nietzschean Allusion : Capturing the Source of the “Iron Cage� Metaphor�, Sociological Analysis, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter, 1983), pp. 297–319, Oxford University Press. Stable URL : http://www.jstor.org/stable/3711612.