sociology
So if individual and cultural development are in opposition to each other and each has its own conscience, where does that leave us? As civilization becomes more complicated and absorbs more of our life and through Freud one can see that indeed it is the society whose conscience comes first over the individual. Sociologist Max Weber used the relationship between society and the individual to explain the evolution of capitalism in terms of social development. A value system that was originated in Christian ascetic idealism, gradually found itself becoming embedded into Western society (Gramsci's HEGEMONY). This system of values, or rationalism, was based on concept of a "peculiar ethic", which Weber identified as "an economic spirit, or the ethos of an economic system." (Weber, 27.) It is this spirit that has embodied society and it is thi
Whether or not one subscribes to the complete hypotheses of Weber and Freud though, there is no doubt that both authors describe a society that exercises considerable control over the individual. ) Capitalism has been absorbed into the mainstream of society and accepted not only as a norm, but the only acceptable mode of acquisition. ) Regardless of who accepts or rejects this economic system imposed by society, those who posess the instinct to survive will have no choice but to accept it. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. ) But what this "Protestant ethic" has really done is force the individual to embrace capitalism and the morals which surround it as a way of life. s spirit, rather than the will of the individual, that wields the weapon of capitalism. So, in essence, Weber is portraying society in much the same way as Freud. The question of the exact nature of the relationship between the individual and society exists even today. "The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. Weber concludes that the Protestant Ethic that society has enveloped has succeeded today in reducing employment to strictly a means of acquisition. "Thus the capitalism of to-day, which has come to dominate economic life, educates and selects the economic subjects which it needs through a process of economic survival of the fittest. Regardless of whether we are talking about the individual's psyche or about his sociological development it appears that man may not have been all that difficult to master; that perhaps we can simplify our existence into terms of sexual urges or economic needs. "Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved" (Weber, 182.
Common topics in this essay:
Gramsci's HEGEMONY,
Protestant Ethic,
Weber Freud,
Max Weber,
,
economic system,
Freud Weber,
protestant ethic,
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