The Genesis of Modernity

Arpad Szakolczai

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415253055
• eBook ISBN: 9781135134259
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Genesis of Modernity reconstructs the ideas of three of the most important social and political theorists of the Twentieth Century, Max Weber, Michel Foucault and Eric Voegelin, on the distant roots and sources of modernity.
Drawing upon the conceptual tools of social theory and political philosophy, complimented by approaches based in the fields of anthropology, comparative mythology and the history of ancient philosophy this book will prove to be a timely and valuable contribution to this developing area, bringing together the ideas of a group of social and political theorists whose work so far has remained largely unconnected.
This book will be essential reading for academics and advanced students concerned with social theory, political theory, sociology, history and philosophy.

Part I

Max Weber

Charisma and the world of the city

1 Weber's historical method

Weber's historical method of proceeding can be reconstructed from prominent places in three of his most important writings on the sociology of religion: the first pages of the relevant chapter in Economy and Society, the Einleitung and the Zwischenbetrachtung. These texts were written in sequential order, representing a subsequent summary and reflexive elaboration of the enormous historical material that went into the twin projects of the years 1911–13, the ‘Economic Ethic’ essays and the second part of Economy and Society.

Just as Nietzsche's ‘genealogical method’ bracketed the substantive issues of religion and morality, focusing instead on the conditions out of which the main religions grew and their lasting (secular) effects, in the first paragraph of the ‘Sociology of Religious Communities' Weber also defers any definitions, adding that his concern is not the ‘essence of religion’, rather ‘to study the conditions and effects of a particular type of social action’ (ES: 399). Similarly, in the Einleitung the emphasis is on the ‘psychological and ethical contexts of religions’ (FMW: 267), while the Zwischenbetrachtung starts by clarifying the ‘motives from which religious ethics of world abnegation have originated, and the directions they have taken’, thus ‘their possible “meaning” ’ (ibid.: 323).

This simple point about conditions and effects may seem trivial in itself, but it is not quite so. It is definitely not just another way of talking about ‘causes' and ‘effects’. It is closely related to the central diagnostic concern, the identification of long-term hidden effects — in the concrete case of Weber, of religious factors on the economy. The idea is that the specific historical conditions out of which a certain phenomenon develops determine the way in which the phenomenon may possess hidden, long-term lasting effects, even when it ceases to exist in its original form. Thus, in the case of religion, it is not the elements of dogma, theology, religious beliefs — those that are usually considered the most important elements, the character, the ‘essence’ of a particular religion — that define the manner in which this religion exerts its long-term social effect; rather it would transmit to the future the conditions of its ‘birth’.

The question is to capture the exact mechanism of this transference. How do such ‘conditions of emergence’ define exactly the most persistent, lasting characteristics of a phenomenon? It is here that Weber made a series of major steps towards methodological clarity, most importantly in the Einleitung.

Conditions of emergence

Weber first of all distinguishes between two types of such conditions: the external or objective situation, and its internal, subjective aspects. Identifying them with Marx and Nietzsche, he starts by criticising the respective positions of these two thinkers and then — combining what is valuable from both perspectives — presents his own account.

External–objective factors

Weber recognises the special importance of two external factors, social stratification and settlement patterns, alluding to Marx. But clearly he is opposed to the idea that such external interests define the content of ideas (FMW: 269–70). This point is further elaborated in the famous ‘switchmen’ metaphor: ‘Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly govern men's conduct. Yet very frequently the “world images” that have been created by ‘ideas” have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest’ (ibid.: 280).'¹

Weber's resistance to Marx's position, and the exact meaning of the metaphor, can be understood by one of the most important, though strangely ignored, conceptual tools of Weber, the distinction between ‘ordinary’ and ‘out-of-ordinary’ situations, or even their degree of ordinariness.² Under ordinary ordered, routine, normal conditions, external, structural factors and interest situations indeed play a dominant role. However, when the normal business of everyday life is upset through sudden, unforeseen events, structures become suspended, thus objective factors cannot play a decisive role. There is need for a different kind of explanation.

Internal–subjective factors

It is here that Weber turns to the other side, the internal–subjective factors, to the way in which events are lived, or the side of experiences.³ In contrast to the previous, ‘Marxian’ side, this brings in the perspective of Nietzsche. However, beyond simply combining the two opposite perspectives, he immediately revises Nietzsche's position. Though referring to the Genealogy of Morals as ‘Nietzsche's brilliant essay’, he points out that the idea that Christianity is rooted in a feeling of ressentiment is untenable.

Weber's references to ressentiment are central for understanding the entire thrust of the work, as they indicate most clearly the profound impact the ongoing dialogue with Nietzsche had on it. Though critical of Nietzsche's position, his argument is based positively on this criticism of Nietzsche. This can be seen in three main areas: the specification of the basic underlying psychological motivation of salvation religions in suffering, not ressentiment; the treatment of Buddhism; and the differentiation between Judaism and Christianity.

Weber is not denying completely the insight, and acknowledges that feelings of ressentiment and vengefulness indeed played an important role in religion. But he argues that ressentiment is only one particular aspect of a much broader and more important complex of problem: that of suffering. According to Weber, the experience of suffering is the decisive factor underlying the most important religious developments. Thus Weber follows Nietzsche by identifying the roots of nihilism, or the questioning of the world, in an overwhelming negative life experience, but changes the central concept from ressentiment to suffering.

Weber introduces here another crucial dichotomy, the contrast between the theodicy of suffering and the theodicy of the fortunate (ibid.: 271–2). The argument again closely follows the Genealogy of Morals, agreeing with Nietzsche even regarding the claim that it is only the religious ideas of the ‘less fortunate’ that are more complicated.⁴ Though this conceptualisation is not elaborated fully, by evoking a war-conflict model, it traces the rise of religion to another case of ‘out-of-ordinary’ situation.

The second point concerns Nietzsche's claim that Buddhism as a religion is also based on ressentiment, central for Nietzsche's general theoretical case. For Weber, Buddhism as a religion has nothing to do with ressentiment (ES: 494–9, 935). It did not even grow out of socially deprived groups. It is rather a religion par excellence that abnegates the world. Following Nietzsche by locating the source of comparative theoretical generalisation in the case of Buddhism, Weber changes the central concept from ressentiment to world rejection.

Finally, with his theory of ressentiment Nietzsche argues for a profound continuity rather than a break between Judaism and Christianity This makes it evident that his main adversaries are not at all the Jews but rather the Christians, in particular his contemporary anti-Semites who vehemently denied this continuity. Weber, however, has a different problem, the problem of rationalisation and universalism, so he returns to put the differences between Christianity and Judaism at the centre. These differences can be situated exactly with respect to the other departures from Nietzsche's theoretisation of ressentiment. On the one hand Weber acknowledges that, under special conditions in the history of Judaism, the religion of suffering did turn into ressentiment. The quest for vengeance is present in various places in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms (ibid.: 495), and a ‘hope for revenge…suffused practically all the exilic and postexilic sacred scriptures' (ibid.: 96). Though ‘[t]o interpret ressentiment as the decisive element in Judaism would be an incredible aberration…Nevertheless, we must not underestimate the influence of ressentiment upon even the basic characteristics of the Jewish religion’ (ibid.).

These characteristics would be analysed in detail at the end of Ancient Judaism, where — through the prophecies of Deutero Isaiah and the figure of the ‘suffering servant’ — Weber elaborates on the continuities between this aspect of Judaism and Christianity. Still, for Weber, such continuities are by no means central to Christianity. Quite on the contrary, he argues that the central message of Jesus is not ressentiment, not even release from suffering or an active abnegation of the world, but rather ‘an absolute indifference to the world and its concerns’ (ibid.: 633).⁵

Responses

The out-of-ordinary conditions identified above, lived and experienced (literally ‘suffered through’), both individually and collectively, call for a response. Weber's ideas in this respect will be reconstructed along a continuum, related to the time elapsed (from immediate to more delayed), and the amount of reflexive thought involved.

Immediate response: natural charisma

The suspension of the ordinary course of life, whether in the form of drought, illness, or armed conflict, is experienced as a traumatic event, requiring an immediate solution. There are only a few individuals who manage to rise up to the challenge, manifesting extraordinary powers. It is in this context that Weber introduces one of the central concepts of his sociology, ‘charisma’ (ES: 400). While here Weber emphasises religious charisma, in his other works he also acknowledged the importance of military charisma. Indeed, the warrior hero and the religious saviour are the two main archetypes of the charismatic person.

Just after introducing the concept, a methodologically central distinction is made by Weber between ‘primary’ and ‘artificially produced’ charisma in the very first pages of the relevant chapter (ibid.). ‘Primary’ charisma is a ‘gift’, a natural endowment or a personal quality, fully outside thought (ibid.: 241).⁶ Artificial charisma' refers to the production, through stimulations or techniques, of the state in which ‘out-of-ordinary’ actions become possible. With this distinction we move from the immediate level to the next three steps of the process, each characterised, to varying degree, by the work of reflexive thought.

In his entire work Weber had a fundamental interest in the effective role played by ideas in reality⁷ In this respect, he again followed Nietzsche, and exactly in the way Foucault would later thematise Nietzsche's concerns with the genealogical method.⁸ He did not attribute an exclusive role to the force of ideas, claiming only that far from simply ‘reflecting’ real processes and structures ideas did have an effective impact in history. But a successful diagnosis of modernity depends on the identification of the exact chain in which ideas played a central role in launching the dynamics of the kind of development that today looks inexorable.

After the level of immediate response, dominated by the sudden irruption of charisma, the role of thought can be followed through at three levels: the transformation of temporary charisma into a permanent holy state, through the application of ascetic techniques; the more-or-less parallel but more extensive and lasting process of ‘permanentisation’ or ‘routinisation’ (Veralltäglichung) of religion in the form of sacrificial priesthood;⁹ and the work of reflexive thought proper that incorporates an interpretation of these responses, and the overall situation created by them.

These three steps are all present in Weber's work, though they are not explicitly systematised. In the Einleitung, Weber continues with the analysis of permanent holy states (ascetics, saviours etc.), and of the highest concepts corresponding to such holy states, ‘rebirth’ and ‘redemption’, characteristic of the various salvation religions (FMW: 279). In the Zwischenbetrachtung, the discussion moves to the level of the establishment of religious community, but only in the sense of focusing on the new kind of religious communities and their ‘tension with the world’, as a prelude to the discussion of the modalities of this tension in the various autonomous ‘spheres', the central concern of the essay. More important for our purposes, however, are the relevant sections of Economy and Society, where Weber discusses the rise of religion out of magic (ES: 422–39). In between magic and the salvation religions, the magician with his tribal cult and the prophet with his community of the saved, there are the priests and the religions of sacrifice. The point is important not simply for concerns of exhaustivity or sequential order, but for reasons fundamental to the central thrust of Weber's sociology. Between the occasional tricks performed by the magician and the renewal preached by the prophet, there lies the long-term process of religious routinisation or institutionalisation, of which priests are the main agents, and cults of sacrifice the main tools. As the essays of the ‘Economic Ethic’ make it clear, prophets always arose in the context of heterodox sects, formulated against institutionalised forms of religions.

Though these ideas seem to be well entrenched in standard sociological wisdom, this is not quite the case. The context of the argument is the interlocking of dual conceptual pairs, between ordinary vs ‘out-of-ordinary’, and temporary vs permanent. ‘Institutionalisation’ or routinisation in this context does not simply mean the gradual transformation of customary, informal, personal relations into something more stable and formal, but the transformation of fleeting, temporary phenomena into permanent ones.

At this point it should be recalled that ‘religion’ belongs to one of the two main categories of ‘out-of-ordinary’ events and charismatic actions, the other being warfare. A proper systematic treatment of the ‘permanentisation of the temporary’, in the sense of routinisation, should therefore cover these two spheres together.

This has important implications for the relationship between the various ‘spheres', central to the discussion of the Zwischenbetrachtung. There is a difference between the formal institutionalisation of regular everyday relations and activities, and the routinisation of the responses to such temporary situations. While the logic of conventional social theory corresponds to the former, the thrust of Weber's discussion privileges the latter. According to this, the two major driving forces of institutionalisation are in the spheres of religion and warfare. The field of magic develops into the ritualised forms of cultic and religious practice, performed by the priests; while the temporary dispositions of war are turned into the permanent arrangements of the court and its politics.

The historical record shows that power in the early civilisations was based on the institutionalisation not of everyday relations and conduct, but of these two ‘out-of-ordinary’ spheres, with the central question...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• PART I Max Weber: charisma and the world of the city
• PART II Eric Voegelin: metaxy and the order of the soul
• PART III Michel Foucault: parrhesia and the care of the self
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index