Reflection #4

This week we reflected on religion as a creative force in society.

Reflection #4

As I read for this week, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the hubris of the introductory remarks to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism.  Comments that make exceptional Western science, systematic theology, law, architecture and economics predominate the text.  I know the analysis is dated from 1905, and reflective of the mindset, and perhaps the practices, of that time.  I recognize the justified sentiments of pride in the West’s accomplishment of participatory democracy and economic success.  Yet, I am aware that delusive exceptional inflations continue to clog discourse and propel America and other Western nations toward the tyranny of unnecessary and unwinnable wars.

I have no quarrel with Weber’s thesis that a Puritan (Calvinistic) spiritual outlook that stressed the necessity of continuous disciplined work was a formative influence of the work ethic of modern capitalism.  The Puritans sought to build an ordered world worthy of God.  Puritans were admonished to shun idleness which bred temptation.  Diligence in worldly business was a virtue, though Puritans were to enjoy the fruits of their labor with moderation. This translation of Puritan sensibilities into capitalist ethos marks religion as more than merely private or irrational.

Still, what drew my attention in this week’s readings is the way women’s work is backgrounded and inferiorized in social theory and economics.   Max Weber traces notions of authority through charismatic historical figures—always male.  According to Weber, a charismatic leader creates community by inspiring others to accept his word and authority.  This original charism is institutionalized in rites and symbols, and thus transformed into traditional authority.  Traditional authority changes to legal authority when challenges are made, and (male-coded) reason applied. (167-169). New charismatic leaders, sensitive to people’s pain, emerge with new imaginings again and again.  Weber’s theory foregrounds the single, individual male heroic figure—the superman—as the progenitor of authority and change.  The multiplicity of myriad transforming powers are merged in a hyperbolized autonomy of one, and the manifold ways women’s bodies incarnate love and justice are lost.       

Another way the contributions of women are marginalized is in the purported separation of public and private spheres.  Weber writes that the “modern rational organization of capitalistic enterprise” would not have been possible without the separation of business from the household (21). The modern economy is mapped onto the narrative of supreme reason.  Women’s reproductive and caring work is relegated to the non-productive, irrational private sector.   The emotional attachments, relations, empathy and altruism of family are likewise separated from business.  No wonder modern corporations are disembedded from social responsibility, and modern women occupy the world with discontent, unable to live out a just relationality.