Conclusion

Amy E. Varela

pp. 151-156

in: Nicholas Gane, Max Weber and postmodern theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002

Abstract

The writings of Weber, Lyotard, Foucault and Baudrillard, can be seen to contain a comparable account and critique of the rise, trajectory and nature of modern culture. Weber, to recapitulate, explains the transition to modernity in terms of an ongoing process of rationalization. This process involves the disenchantment of religious forms of legitimation by the claims of "rational" science, and with this the emergence of new forms of domination that are bureaucratic rather than charismatic or traditional in nature, and which are tied to the needs of market capitalism rather than to ethical or spiritual beliefs. Weber views this transition as tragic in nature for it promises but in fact restricts individual freedom: while the rationalization process makes social life more predictable (at least in theory), it does so by placing limits on the scope for value-rational action (see Chapter 2), and while it differentiates culture into a number of competing value-spheres, these spheres themselves tend be seduced in time by the force of instrumental reason (see Chapter 3).