Weber Part II

Chapter 4

Calvinism: (Vanessa Ng)

Calvinism focused a lot on the doctrine of predestination, which essentially said that God had already determined whether someone would be damned or saved. Weber discusses how people gradually wished to identify the criteria that would show who was saved, or the elect. However, Calvinism states that people exist to serve God and to increase His glory, not to question what his intentions and declarations were. Calvinists believed that those who were damned could not be saved, and that good acts were not done to redeem oneself, like Christian beliefs dictate. Instead, these acts were used to remove someone’s fear that they may be damned, and believers should only rely on God in all they do.

Weber’s investigation shows that Calvinists believe in following God in an almost blind fashion, as they would never question his ideas and the future he has already planned. A social phenomenon that could be similar is that of Donald Trump and his followers in the current American election. Although not completely similar and definitely arguable, Trump’s followers support him no matter what he says, whether based on fact or made up. What ways can the theories around the doctrine of predestination and the application of Calvinism be applied to today’s society?

Pietism: (Ashti Waissi)

Pietism was a movement that was found by the Lutheran Church during the 17th C. This movement was made for the restoration of religiousness in the European Churches that later developed to North America. This movement was the starting point of the asceticism movement, where people were told that if they follow the word of God, they would be able to enjoy the blissfulness of communities with God being part of it. In order for religious people such as the Christian people to practice a life through God’s willing, they had to transform their personal beliefs through spiritual rebirth of their thoughts. The element of emotion was originally new to Calvinism, but it was related to Pietism because it “led religion in practice to strive for the enjoyment of salvation in this world rather than to engage in the ascetic struggle for certainty about the future world.” (pg.82) Since emotion was able to have such strength on the people, religion then was able to take on a positive over-emotional character. For Christians, Pietism were viewed differently but yet were connected to the original idea of Pietism, in the sense that one believed that Pietism overshadowed the emotional, while others believed that “God himself blessed his chosen ones through the success of their labours was as undeniable to him as we shall find it to have been to the Puritans.” (Pg. 84) Pietism, from Francke and Spener to Zinzendorf were all tended towards the emphasis on the emotional side of Pietism. Although there were differences in religion from different leaders, the theory of how these people viewed Pietism was connected.

Methodism: (Shawn Sun)

Methodism represented a combination and yet ascetic religion with indifference to Calvinism's doctrinal basis. Its feature is the "methodical, and systematic natural of conduct" (Pg.95) It advocates absolute certainty of the saved person as the only foundation of certitude salutes, and comes through inner process known as sanctification. Methodism has a strong emotional character - a good life is only the means and demonstration of one's state of grace and perfection; and the emotion of grace is needed for salvation. Methodism sets on the ethical foundations similar to Pietism, yet strives for "higher life" and "second blessing". Weber states that Methodism didn't bring anything new, it becomes important only when it comes to consideration of social ethics and regulation of working life. (pg.98)

Baptist Movement (Shawn Sun)

Rather, Baptist sects form an independent basis for ascetic Protestantism different from Calvinism, and it could be characterized as "Believer's Church" - a community for true believers only. It is said that individuals could gain salvation through individual revelation and the church is "a community of personal believers of the reborn, and only these" (pg. 100), and there was to be "strict avoidance of the world, in the sense of all not strictly necessary intercourse with worldly people". They are also nonresistants who avoid military activities, nor defend themselves with physical force. Besides, they advocate the freedom of individual thoughts, honesty as one ethic principle and real beliefs.

Chapter 5

(Kacey Ng) From start until: this thankfulness for one's own perfection by the grace of God penetrated the attitude toward life of the Puritan middle class, and played its part in developing that formalistic, hard, correct character which was peculiar to the men of that heroic age of capitalism

Asceticism: severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons

In this chapter, Weber draws on the ways in which religious maxims dictate everyday conduct. Weber describes ascetic Protestantism as a way of imposing how individuals may have their beliefs and values influence the way in which they perceive their realities and act within said reality. Weber reflects on the work of Richard Baxter, a puritan, who writes that relaxation and idleness inhibit the possibility for the faithful to pursue a righteous life. Baxter articulates the need for mental and physical labour to be implemented and that wasting time by any means is a sin in itself.

Weber illustrates that work is a means for Calvinists to avoid temptations and as identification for the purpose for human existence. There were two aspects that described the assigned role in life that dictated an individual’s life towards the common good. One was that the more important and significant your job was, the more likely that your life was pleasing to God. Second, was the idea that the better you were at your job, the better your life. In essence, the success that was experienced towards your work, the higher the likelihood that the ethic of God had penetrated into the everyday work of individuals. The division of labour was seen as part of the divinely prescribed program on earth and in partaking in the division of labour, you were taking part of god’s biding.

Weber describes Baxter’s thankfulness in his position regarding Old Testament norms. Even Baxter praised God for being born to an English family. They recognized that their place in society, where prescribed, was an indication of their position with God and their servitude to God via the "great renaissance"(87).

There is a contemporary phenomenon that reflects the theoretical outlook that Weber provides. In many parts of East Asia (Japan and Korea primarily) many individual are working themselves to death. These are termed Karoshi in Japanese and Gwarosa in Korean. Both of these countries have adopted, or have been forced to adopt the capitalist work ethic of the US as both of these countries have had their militaries taken over by the US. Even though the majority of Japanese and Korean society does not inertly conform to protestant religious traditions; both cultures have had these values imposed upon them in terms of how to grow their economy.

pp. 112-122 (Emma Russo)

In the last section of Chapter 5, Weber reconstructs the history of the relationship between asceticism, especially of the Puritan kind, and wealth and profit. Most importantly, he also introduces the central concept of the “calling” (116) to labour as religious and individual moral duty. Once taken away of its religious foundation and only held up rationally, the idea of the calling will become the main content shaping “the spirit of capitalism” (120).

Such spirit, Weber says, we cannot escape in today’s society, where, instead of being men of the calling by choice, as the Puritans did, we “must be” men of the calling (120). His message here, if linked with his previous arguments, becomes then of extreme fascination: starting from describing the original “antiauthoritarianism” of the Puritans when talking about Charles I’s Book of Sports historical case (113), he now shows how, with the arousal of “a specifically middle-class ethic of the calling” (118), the state has actually acquired a significant role in being the institution to centrally help this ethic become a fundamental value in the generational process of socialization and internalization of culture.

What results from it, is todays’ “mighty cosmos” (120) which has shifted away from Puritan asceticism and has instead embraced the greediest and most individualistic facet of nurturing wealth in the name of a divine, by now secular, calling. Besides his claim of only being conducting a value-free historical study (121), Weber’s analysis launches a message that looks right within our own morality and our potential agency, that we so often surrender to the comfort of mass conformity, as he asks us: will we stop? Will we actually arrive to “the day that the last ton of fossil fuel has been consumed” (121)? Will we need to encounter a material limit to our possibility of wrongdoing, or will we be able to make use of non-materialist (and not profit-driven) judgements, even religious ones, to reshape our morals? Has capitalist socialization gone too far for us to re-envision our life in a different system?

In this respect, I’d like to recommend the reading of this article about the possibility of “degrowth economy” as alternative to the current model of, in Weberian terms, calling to perpetual growth that our capitalist economy is based on. http://theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224

Is our society ready for a different mode of life?