In 1917, Weber gave a speech in Munich, the theme of which was "Learning as a Career". There is a famous speech-
Weber thinks that science can't answer such questions as "happiness" and "meaning" at all. In other words, the question of the meaning of life is beyond the boundaries of science, and science can never give us an optimal answer.
the first proposition in Weber's modernity thought is called "disenchantment", which simply means "getting rid of charm", which means that people's understanding of the world has changed, and the mystery of the past understanding of the natural world has been eliminated.
Nowadays, when people see this mysterious unknowability, they always have a sense of disdain and ignorance. However, in the past, it was a sign that people could establish some connection with the world. These unspeakable mysteries constitute an extremely important part of the ancient spirit, which closely connects human beings with the whole universe and forms the so-called cosmos, from which the ancient people established the meaning of existence.
However, "the power of reason dispels mysterious charm" objectifies the natural world by rationalizing religion and then turning to eliminating religion itself. The world no longer has divinity and spirituality, but has become a cold world in the circle of causality.
Weber's disenchantment or secularization of the world does not mean that religion has died out, but that it is no longer a default belief with the same meaning. And how can people who lose their default options after waking up rebuild their ultimate value and meaning of life?
Weber's second proposition is called "The Battle of the Gods". It refers to the conflict between different values of people. It goes beyond the boundary of scientific rationality, and it is to discuss the ultimate value.
There are two kinds of judgments in life, one is "fact judgment" and the other is "value judgment". Fact judgment is to describe a fact, while value judgment is to express how food should be. In the context of value judgment, there is a subjective orientation of good or bad, right or wrong, high or low.
in the field of facts, scientific rationality can make us grasp a high degree of certainty, so it is easier to reach an agreement on fact judgment. In ancient times, people believed that the world had a unified order. However, after the world was disenchanted, people realized that there was no mysterious ultimate answer in the material world. Therefore, value judgment became a more individualized standard, which also caused the reality of "value diversification" in modern society.
Weber has a famous saying-
Although value diversification gives people more freedom of choice, it also causes confusion of modern people. We can choose different value orientations, but no one can tell us whether this choice is good or not, which leads to modern people's hearts full of doubts and uncertainties and creates a "value vacuum".
the third proposition comes from two kinds of rationality, "instrumental rationality" and "value rationality". Simply put, the former refers to the optimal rational calculation means to achieve the goal; The latter is concerned about whether the purpose itself should be or not.
in modern society, these two kinds of rationality are manifested as follows: we have many differences on the issue of values; But in terms of specific methods, we all agree with the scheme calculated by instrumental rationality. As a result, the logic of instrumental rationality becomes more and more powerful and becomes a general logic, and the whole society pays more and more attention to calculation and efficiency, which also leads to the bureaucracy of social system, which pursues high efficiency: < P > and "impersonal" is its most important feature. Therefore, complex individuals have become computable variables and indicators under a powerful institutional system.
In modern society, the unbalanced development of instrumental rationality makes it too powerful to overwhelm value rationality. Modern people even give up the pursuit of value rationality and regard instrumental rationality as the standard. Means became an end.
Weber's fourth proposition is called "modern iron cage". Weber's basic judgment on modern society is that rationalization has cast modernity into an iron cage. Rationalization gave birth to bureaucracy, and the impersonal principle of bureaucracy brought about the improvement of system efficiency and the simplification of rational calculation. With the spread of this system, the whole society finally seemed to be a huge machine with high operating efficiency. Society presents the attribute of machine, and people are regarded as parts of machine. This tendency has become the basic feature of modern social system, which is the origin of "iron cage".
iron cages bring a series of problems. First of all, it has created a one-sided social culture of "stressing facts, attaching importance to calculation and pursuing efficiency". For example, a social norm that uses rational and utilitarian calculation to solve moral problems, such as paying a fine for counterfeiting, is extremely effective, but it can never solve the root of the problem. The second problem is to create a one-sided social relationship that "people and people and organizations become a commercial supply and demand relationship." Under the great competitive pressure of supply and demand, people become a commodity, and need to respond to the demands from organizations and others to make themselves "useful". Therefore, it seems that freedom of choice in a pluralistic society is far from having the opportunity to develop and enrich themselves, but it becomes a high-quality part in an "iron cage" in a race against time.
However, the solution is by no means to break the iron cage, because although the iron cage fetters modern people, it also brings them a huge material foundation and spiritual civilization based on it.
where is the feasible method? Perhaps no one has an answer yet. But to face all this honestly is what modern people can and should do.
because Weber said-