So Max Weber was wrong: a “Protestant ethic” isn’t an economic advantage.

I’ve been meaning to provoke a bit more discussion regarding the confrontation between police and protesters at UC Berkeley a couple of weeks ago (although I did post something on the matter before the Nov 20th occupation), but the demands of teaching and preparing for AAA’s have been forestalling my best intentions.  On top of that, to be honest, i’m not sure what I think about it.  I’m left, mostly, with a bunch of half-articulated questions.  Aaron Bady, a graduate student in English at Berkeley has some reflections along that line over at The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Some sort of administration response to the occupation was inevitable, of course. But why was it necessary to direct police violence against the students outside Wheeler Hall? (In fact, the university has called for an independent investigation of police actions and the university’s own decisions that resulted in the police being called onto the campus.) The more the riot police surrounded Wheeler, the more students came out to watch. But the police treated that assembly of peaceful spectators like a clear and present danger, pushing and shoving back students whose crime seemed to be their very presence on their own campus. I cannot overstate how pointless and stupid it was. The police had marked off a perimeter around the building with crime-scene tape, and I have yet to hear the allegation that a single student ever tried to cross it. But when the police began to set up metal barricades, they ordered students to move back as they smashed the barricades into the front row of students. Students who didn’t respond instantly were beaten with batons; students who touched the barricades had their hands pounded with force enough to break bones.

via Making Sense of Senseless Violence at Berkeley – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In response to these questions Bady makes some gestures towards both Althusser and Weber and, while I think both are important routes to traverse, I think the tone in the passage above is probably the most appropriate–simultaneously critical and perplexed.  How can we proceed and maintain its tenor?

These are books that are helpful for the Christian in better understanding their world past and present.  Some of the books are not written from an explicitly Christian perspective, but are nonetheless quite valuable.

1.  Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington  [y, l, e, p, s]

Huntington’s thesis is that the world is broken down into 9 different civilizations that each have a different main worldview/religion and that wars are most likely to occur where several civilizations come in close contact with each other – due to the friction created by mutually exclusive ideas.  Huntington’s work has proved to be a solid predictor over the last 20 years.

2.  Culture Wars by James Daveson Hunter  [y, l, e, p, s]

Hunter provides acute analysis on the American cultural landscape, describing battlelines drawn over American culture of the orthodox vs. progressive.  A must read for getting a better look at hot-button issues in contemporary America.

3.  Social and Cultural Dynamics by Pitrim Sorokin  [e, p, s]

Sorokin has a mountain of historical and cultural analysis on the history of western civilization.  He describes this history as oscillating between ideational culture and sensate culture.  Ideational culture is where the Western civilization was driven by the world of ideas (typically Christian ones).  Sensate Culture is where Western civilization has abandoned ideas and been preoccupied with pleasuring ourselves (#10 on this list does a great job in explaining the latter in our present context).

4.  Intellectuals by Paul Johnson  [e, p, s]

Johnson takes a look side-by-side at the thoughts and lives of several key intellectuals over the past two centuries (specifically:  Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, Lillian Hellman, Cyril Connolly, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Kenneth Tynan, and Noam Chomsky).  He lets the reader come to their own conclusions… but the conclusions are obvious:  these intellectuals lived lives either horribly inconsistent with their ideas OR their horrible lives drove their suspect ideas.  Paul Johnson also happens to be a very well respected historian whose other works are standard texts at Universities everywhere.

5.  Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber  [y, l, e, p, s]

Weber’s thesis for the first half of the book is pretty shocking – the Puritans started capitalism and that no one but the Puritans could have started capitalism.  Never before had capitalism been created because no one had a Calvinistic view of the world before where work was sacred and one did not spend one’s wealth because their focus was on the world-to-come.  Capitalism required an immense amount of initial capital to begin the new paradigm and the Puritans were the first people to be able to inadvertently create the system.  Weber spends the second half of the book explaining how capitalism destroyed the Puritans four generations later as the wealth accumulated became an iron cage.

6.  Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn  [y, l, e, p, s]

Kuhn levels the idea that the history of science follows the Darwinian model of slow-and-steady progress.  He coins the term “paradigm shift” to explain how the history of science is a history of completely new-and-superior paradigms leveling older paradigms (ie.  Quantum Mechanics and Newtonian Mechanics).  The thesis of the book has implications though for other fields as well.

7.  Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey  [y, l, e, p, s]

Excellent book on worldview that I have commended here numerous times.  Get it and read it.

8.  Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr  [e, p, s]

See write-up on this one here.

9.  Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark  [y, l, e, p, s]

Fascinating look on how Christianity spread from a marginalized Judean sect to the state religion of the Roman empire in under three centuries.  Stark is a well-respected historian and this book is a standard text at most Universities.  I think the implications of how Christianity was so successful in the pluralistic Mediterranean area has important lessons to teach Christendom today.

10.  Sensate Culture by Harold O.J. Brown  [y, l, e, p, s]

Brown picks up where Sorokin (#3) left off.  He takes a good hard look at Sorokin’s categories in light of modern American culture.

(c=children; y=young adult; l=lay leader; e=elder; p=pastor; s=scholar)

Founded in 1929, the French historical journal Annales d’histoire economique et sociale brought revolutionary change to the way history was written. The group of French historians who rallied behind its flag called themselves ‘the Annales School’. Their main credo was Total History – an emphasis on socio-economics (as opposed to diplomatic, military or political history), how it evolved over long periods of time (as opposed to distinct events like battles or coronations), and a deliberate attempt to include all strata of society in the analysis, rather than the fortunes of a few prominent men and women.

Fernand Braudel, who edited the journal from 1956 to 1968, is possibly the best-known exponent of the style, and The Wheels of Commerce is the second part of his epic trilogy on the origins of capitalism. While the first part had focused on “everyday life” in the period under consideration (the 15th to 18th centuries) – what people ate, drank, wore, used and lived in across the world, the second instalment is at a higher plane of analysis, the instruments of commercial exchange – village fairs and markets, the advent of shops, the story of itinerant peddlars and journeymen, money changers and financiers, the first few joint stock corporations and finally, an account of long-distance trade across continents. It is the last named, Braudel says, that provided the first glimmers of capitalism, allowing as it did for calculated risk-taking, the valuation of time, and the concentration of capital by reinvestment of extraordinary profits. The third volume promises to be at a still higher plane of analysis – a history of the world as a market economy.

Braudel’s tale takes us from Venice and Genoa to Amsterdam, London, Paris and Geneva, and further afield to Armenia, Jeddah, Surat, Malacca, Macau, the Philippines and Acapulco, as he traces the path of centuries of trade and capital flow. His research consists of sifting through tax receipts, property registrations, statutes, records of lawsuits, wills and testaments, personal letters and business correspondence, scribbled profit calculations, balance sheets and travelogues of ordinary people. The technique, while typical of the Annales school, wasn’t invented by them. I was reminded of Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, regaling his readers with a table listing the price of wheat each year between 1202 and 1733, and a seventy-page digression concerning the variations in the value of silver in the same time-frame. These were necessary for his demolition of the prevalent mercantilist love of hoarding precious metal; Braudel’s case is constructed in similar painstaking fashion.

It is only at the very end that he allows himself the luxury of addressing the big theoretical questions : was Marx right in suggesting that capitalism was the logical successor of feudal society? Was capitalism a secular trend, or the preserve of a privileged minority that effectively “ran the world”? Why was social change synchronized across Europe? Did the state facilitate or hinder the growth of capitalism? Did capitalism originate in Western Europe, and if so, why? Did double-entry accounting have any role to play in the development of capitalism? Does Max Weber’s theory linking capitalism to the Protestant ethic hold water? Does capitalism equal rational behavior? Is there a difference between a market economy and capitalism? Is Capitalism a culmination, a final stage of progress?  The discussion of each of these questions is animated and satisfactory, except, perhaps naturally, for the last one.

The problem with Annales history, of course, is that it is very, VERY, dry reading. Classical history may gloss over inconvenient details that don’t fit into the grand narrative; it may be elitist and even downright dishonest in its quest for the heroic and the poetic – but at the end of the day, it can be gripping, inspirational, and attention-grabbing in a way that socio-economic history can never be. This, of course, is a tragedy. Modern attention spans being what they are, a love for historical truth will soon be consigned to the unfashionable outposts of academia, where shabby professors and awkward students huddle together in ill-funded departments, poring conspiratorially over arcane texts like so many Kabbalists, while pop history plays loudly, incessantly and inaccurately, but to full houses, at theaters close to you.

• Weber, Max: La ciencia como profesión. Madrid : Biblioteca Nueva, 2009

La ciencia como profesión, originariamente una conferencia pronunciada por Max Weber en 1917 y publicada como libro en 1919, plantea la cuestión del sentido de la ciencia como trabajo profesional para el individuo. El autor se pregunta si la ciencia contemporánea ―inmersa en un inevitable proceso de especialización― da respuesta a la pregunta más importante con la que se encuentra el ser humano: cómo debe vivir, qué debe hacer. ¿Puede la ciencia fundamentar los valores últimos con los que los hombres organizan su vida? A pesar de su respuesta negativa, Weber invita a su audiencia de estudiantes a que no rehúyan mirar de frente las consecuencias paradójicas del proceso de racionalización moderno y estén a la altura de las «exigencias de cada día».

- Obras de Weber en la biblioteca

Whilst legislation is vital to achieve meaningful change in society, it is important to not get carried away with legalisation for legislation sake. This is illustrated by the inclusion in the Queen’s speech, of the bill that sets out to eradicate child poverty by 2020. Whilst it would be amazing if the government achieved this, I think it is pretty evident that it would be an almighty task to rid ALL child poverty by 2020. There are several problems that I see that would prevent such a target being fulfilled.

For one, what poverty are you talking about? Well, by this I mean, do you mean absolute poverty? Relative poverty? Lifestyle poverty? You get the point. Everyone has different definitions of poverty, to me, absolute poverty is the most pressing concern, but to working class/middle class aspiring to those above them, they may consider themselves to be in poverty when they can’t afford the same clothe lines as others. Thus, for one, it is important to emphasise the definition of poverty that is being used when discussing poverty legislation.

Even if the poverty definition is firmly stated, another problem with enshrining the commitment into law is that it could take attention away from the actual policy details that will be used to attempt to eradicate poverty. What meaningful policies were discussed in the Queen’s speech that really get to grips with child poverty? There needs to be less talk and more action, the more talk occurs around a law that seems to offer all the answer to solving poverty, the less attention is spent on considering real policy options that will help those in the deepest inequality.

Another inherent problem with the eradication of poverty being a law is that we operate within a system that is inherently unequal. How can we aspire to eradicate poverty by 2020 when the capitalist system feeds off class divisions and the power of  one group over another? I think this is where we have to recognise the importance of Karl Marx as a theorist, he provided powerful insights into the structure of capitalism and helps show how poverty is needed in order for the capitalist system to be maintained.

Another influential theorist who is important to bear in mind when discussing poverty is Max Weber. He did not talk about poverty per se, however, his theory of rationalisation can be clearly related to the legislation of eradicating poverty by 2020. Weber talks about how rationalisation will result in targets becoming ends in themselves, so the actual values, such as tackling poverty itself, are lost in the process of an increased obsession with ends.

So what happens if the government does not fulfil its commitment? Will they be liable to the courts? Of course they wont. This is just a token. It is a distraction from the mass level of poverty in society. What about the poverty all around the world? We can’t just set targets like this and expect it to be work done, there needs to be greater consideration of the wide range and level of poverty. Thus, I feel that whilst aiming to reduce child poverty is a good thing, to say you will eradicate it and then enshrine this belief in law seems to be a little absurd. I would be more than happy to eat my words in 2020 but I very much doubt I will have to, due to the reasons stated above.

Max Weber diceva che la cultura è una rete di significati che l’uomo ha intessuto ma nella quale egli stesso si trova intrappolato.
Come dargli torto?

I’ve got a post over at Anthropoliteia in reaction to some provocative commentary by Jonathan Simon on the current UC Strike.  Here’s a tidbit:

What Jonathan’s work in Governing through Crime has shown, however, is that one of the few remaining–maybe the only remaining–domain in which the violence of governance seems legitimate to American voters is in the domain of crime control and punishment. It therefore has become the trope through which all American governance is filtered.

What we’re left with is, on the one hand, a massively inflated, impractical and unjust incarceration system and–importantly–on the the other hand, no way of conceiving any other legitimate form of governance.

This is not a question of corporate greed versus educational egalitarianism, or even good guys versus bad guys (as much as I’d like to hate on Mark Yudof along with everyone else), but of finding a way–literally–of justifying the very real kinds of violence involved in supporting education; of including higher education into the political calculus of life and death.

via Jonathan Simon’s provocative thoughts on the UC Strike « Anthropoliteia: the anthropology of policing.

Over at Governing through Crime, UC Professor Jonathan Simon has some provocative words for those participating in the current 3-day UC strike:

….We ought to be united in mobilization to save higher education in California. But in choosing to make the fight a convenient and ideologically satisfying (but for the most part phony) story about privatization, down-sizing, and pernicious, corporate minded university leadership, UC’s unions and their student and faculty allies are missing a historic opportunity to engage our fellow citizens in a critical dialog about our state’s future.

That future has been mortgaged to expensive dysfunctional prisons and a bipartisan law-enforcement establishment that is committed to mass incarceration at any price. But across three decades in which that project of exiling tens of thousands of largely poor and minority Californians to a prison archipelago of mammoth proportions (which yet remains grotesquely overcrowded) has been constructed, the supporters of higher education in this state have remained silent, assuming that the incarceration of people who don’t go to college anyway is not our problem. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

via Governing through Crime: Strike Against Prisons not Education.

I think Simon is dead on here, and offers a framing that explains some of the ambivalence I’ve had about the political mobilization that’s been developing.

Most of that ambivalence, I think, revolves around my hesitation at some of the explanatory narratives that have been used as organizational and motivational tools by unions and protesters… what Simon calls the”convenient and ideologically satisfying (but for the most part phony) story about privatization, down-sizing, and pernicious, corporate minded university leadership”.

Part of what I’ve been trying to point out, both vis-a-vis the strike and in my work on French policing, is that–as both Max Weber and Walter Benjamin have shown–all politics is necessarily about violence.  This includes, especially includes, such mundane acts of governance as budgetary allocations.  As everyone from Michel Foucault to Nikolas Rose have also tried to show, these decisions are literally choices between life and death.  This is one aspect of what scholars are referring to when they talk about the biopolitical.

On the other hand, Californians are not completely comfortable with this violence and, for good reasons which I’ve also tried to explore, have tried to devise ways to limit it as much as possible.

What Jonathan’s work in Governing through Crime has shown, however, is that one of the few remaining–maybe the only remaining–domain in which the violence of governance seems legitimate to American voters is in the domain of crime control and punishment.  It therefore has become the trope through which all American governance is filtered.

What we’re left with is, on the one hand, a massively inflated, impractical and unjust incarceration system and–importantly–on the the other hand, no way of conceiving any other legitimate form of governance.

This is not a question of corporate greed versus educational egalitarianism, or even good guys versus bad guys (as much as I’d like to hate on Mark Yudof along with everyone else), but of finding a way–literally–of justifying the very real kinds of violence involved in supporting education; of including higher education into the political calculus of life and death.

Múm’s video for Rhubarbidoo (off Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy, their latest album) is one of the most re-enchanting videos that I’ve seen for a long time.  If, as Max Weber has argued, Enlightenment rationalization, especially as it manifests itself in the bureaucratized capitalism of Western society, results in a disenchanted world where we are locked in an “iron cage” of social alienation and meaningless production, surely the 20th-century fascination with fantasy, science fiction, and the imaginative worlds brought to life by animation effectively functions as a kind of antidote.  Rhubarbidoo is the work of Jason Malcolm Brown and Aya Yamasaki Brown, a pair of illustrator/animators who seem to specialize in re-enchantment.  Their Overture project is just as otherworldly and beautiful as Rhubarbidoo and also foregrounds a represented natural space inhabited by creatures that are not of this world and yet, in their alien guises, somehow end up appearing as natural as nature itself.

Early 20th-century animation is rife with the idea of bringing things to life — not only inanimate objects like household objects or urban spaces, but also nature itself in a special kind of re-animation where life is brought back to life.  Disney’s 1932 cartoon Flowers and Trees is a perfect example of this type of animation.  It seems fair to wonder whether or not the deep fascination with nature evinced in these early animations is actually symptom of a society that is rapidly becoming so urbanized and industrialized that direct contact with the natural world has become a thing of the past.  In this case the ability of animation to bring this world to life as ’second nature’ is deeply ironic since it’s an artifact of the industrial revolution — the toothed-gear — that allows for the existence of the stop-motion technique in the first place.  There are more sophisticated readings of this dynamic that are possible as well, of course.  Marx would probably say that what we see when we see cups and saucers singing in Disney animation is the voice of alienated labor expressing itself in another register; the Adorno and Horkheimer of Dialectic of Enlightenment, on the other hand, might view the re-animation of nature as a kind of mystificatory screen that serves to block the fact that the animistic stage of society is long since dead and instead there is only the fact of nature as a purely objectified resource for human exploitation (including the pleasurable exploitation of nature in its cartoon form).

MGM’s Honeyland is a fantastic case study for the idea that animation that seems to be about natural space is actually about the social unconscious that’s at work behind the scenes.  The cartoon begins as a kind of pastoral idyll; the bee society is figured as a classic rural community with an economy based on cultivation and gathering.  By the middle of the 1850s, however, the mechanization of agriculture had already started in the United States — the McCormick reaper, the threshing machine, and a practical mowing machine were all in use well before even the invention of the horse-drawn combine in the 1880s.  By 1935, when Honeyland was made, agriculture in the U.S. was, for all practical purposes, fully industrialized.  The kind of rural life envisioned in the cartoon — a life of pleasant labor and natural bounty — was already nothing but a nostalgic fantasy.  This nostalgic fantasy, however, can’t maintain itself and soon we’re introduced to a second fantasy — the hive as happy factory.  At this point the (worker) bees are still depicted as deeply content, and they obviously have a large amount of autonomy and free time for pleasure.  It’s toward the end of the cartoon, when the spider attacks, that the social unconscious reveals itself in a manner that’s a bit more sinister.  What started off as a pastoral idyll has now devolved into industrialized militarism — the bees are controlled en masse via the electronic call of the centralized public announcement system and form themselves into single living klaxon within which all individuation has completely disappeared.  This may seem like a stretch, but perhaps it’s not as much of a stretch if you consider that the rationalization of industrial production has its roots in the standardized manufacture of interchangeable rifle parts.

All of these anxieties about the role of human agency within the highly commercialized and industrialized landscape that we’ve erected around ourselves and come to inhabit are at the forefront of this brilliant montage that combines scenes from the Fleischer Studio’s 1939 animated version of Gulliver’s Travels and stock footage of the construction of what I think must be the World Trade Center buildings.  The way in which Rockwell’s video for Beholden juxtaposes the Lilliputians with scenes of the construction of the WTC raises the question of whether or not we have, in fact, created something that we can’t control.  The image at the end of the video is the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 treatise, Leviathan, which argues for the total control of (a willing) society by an absolute sovereign.  Ending the video with this image makes clear that the question being raised is one of control and sovereignty; as a society we may have the ability to construct wonders, but in the end isn’t it those wonders that control us?  Clearly there is another version of Weber’s iron cage at work here.

Of course, it would be ridiculous to subscribe to the view that somehow all attempts to re-enchant the world are, in the final analysis, nothing but an empty compensation for the fact that the disenchantment of the world we know has been made complete.  There are always gaps and fissures where enchantment can happen, despite the pessimism of theorists like Weber and Adorno.  The excess in homo ludens will always escape, at least partially, the clasp of the iron cage.  The force of play and invention, the possibility to explore and investigate new social potentialities and possibilities, is at least as much of a feature of any creative work as our inability to escape the social unconscious that must inform it in at least some way.  The playful space of vegetable fantasy in Rhubarbidoo is one form that this type of exploration may take, but another form that may be more directly useful for raising questions about the type of society that we might someday want to become can be found in lengthier works of animated fantasy and speculative fiction.  Although it’s not a particularly incisive film when it comes to unpacking the deep-seated contradictions of society as we know it, René Laloux’s 1973 film Fantastic Planet does a remarkable job of thematizing the human propensity to resist totalizing systems of control, while at the same expressing the force of the imagination at play in the form of the wild and surreal images that explode across the alien landscape presented in the film.

This video for Múm’s song “They Made Frogs Smoke ’til They Exploded” is by Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, and it embodies the idea of play in deeply interesting ways.  Firstly, the video is about child’s play and as such is as much about violently exploratory creative destruction as it is about the wonder of discovery.  Childhood feelings of powerlessness — of literally being overcome and torn apart by overwhelming emotional states — are expressed through images of disembodied limbs, bodies being opened up and bleeding, and animals that are both menacing and at the same time objects to be cut open and destroyed.  The play expressed in the first part of the video is dark and indicates thetransference and acting out of violent emotions onto a creative stage that’s filled with blood and crumpled paper.  And yet, as with all childhood imaginings, the cat that loses its head is able to be magically stitched back together and return to life.  The crux of this video, for me, is the sequence with the child holding up the drawing of a swan.  The image of the swan is filled with swathes of brilliant color at the same moment at the child’s teeth fall out, precipitating a full-scalerain of teeth.  The dream of teeth falling out is, of course, classically supposed to indicate a fear of the loss of control.  And yet, at the same time, the falling out of baby teeth is one marker of our entry into adulthood.  In this sequence the creative and wild imagination of childhood, including all of the horrors that come along with it, is represented as the necessary basis for the move to aesthetic maturity.  After this scene the types of creative images that appear are much more benign — flowers emerging from the swan’s mouth, leaves filling the soul-space of a child, and paper that turns into butterflies that fly away.  Perhaps the most delightful aspect of this video is the use of common classroom materials — those things we mostassociate with childhood and its attendant confusions and power struggles — as the medium through which the question of childhood imagination is realized.  It may be the case that as a whole our society has veered far from any real contact and understanding with nature — we may have become too good at making frogs explode — but there’s a second nature at work in all of these videos, a second nature that demands a space for play and exhibits an irrepressible desire to resist the final isolation of total alienation.

1. Was ist ein Akteurmodell?

Ein Akteurmodell ist das Modell eines Akteurs. Was ein Akteurmodell ist, kann man also in zwei Schritten erläutern: Zuerst geht es um die Frage, was ein Modell ist. Und dann um die Frage, was mit „Akteur“ gemeint ist.

1.1 Was ist ein Modell?

Eine brauchbare Antwort findet man bei Wikipedia. Sie soll im Wortlaut zitiert werden: „Nach Stachowiak ist der Begriff Modell durch drei Merkmale gekennzeichnet:

1. Abbildung. Ein Modell ist immer ein Abbild von etwas, eine Repräsentation natürlicher oder künstlicher Originale, die selbst wieder Modelle sein können.
2. Verkürzung. Ein Modell erfasst nicht alle Attribute des Originals, sondern nur diejenigen, die dem Modellschaffer bzw. Modellnutzer relevant erscheinen.
3. Pragmatismus. Pragmatismus bedeutet soviel wie Orientierung am Nützlichen. Ein Modell ist einem Original nicht von sich aus zugeordnet. Die Zuordnung wird durch die Fragen Für wen?, Warum? und Wozu? relativiert. Ein Modell wird vom Modellschaffer bzw. Modellnutzer innerhalb einer bestimmten Zeitspanne und zu einem bestimmten Zweck für ein Original eingesetzt. Das Modell wird somit interpretiert.“ (Quelle: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modell)

Erläuterung:

Zu 1. Das Wort „Abbildung“ ist nicht im wörtlichen Sinne zu verstehen. Ein Architekturmodell ist eine verkleinerte Abbildung eines Originalgebäudes. Es ist eine Miniatur. Ein Atommodell wiederum ist die vergrößerte Abbildung des Originalatoms. Neben solchen materiellen Modellen gibt es aber auch – und vor allem – immaterielle Modelle. Solche Modelle werden gedacht. Wenn sich man über solche gedachten Modelle äußern möchte, gibt man diese Äußerung durch Wort oder Schrift wieder. Ein Akteurmodell ist also keine Marionette aus Holz und Stoff, sondern ein Bündel von Aussagen darüber, wie man sich einen Akteur denkt oder vorstellt.

Zu 2. Verkürzung. Auch dieses Wort ist nicht wörtlich zu verstehen. Geeigneter ist das Wort „Abstraktion“. Das Modell ist eine Abstraktion. Das Wort „abstrahere“ bedeutet „etwas von etwas ab- oder wegziehen“. Das Modell ist keine Kopie des Originals, die diesem in möglichst allen Hinsichten gleich sein/scheinen möchte. Das Modell soll lediglich in einigen Hinsichten dem Original gleich sein. Ein materielles Architekturmodell soll zum Beispiel dem Original in den Proportionen gleich sein, nicht aber in der Größe. Ein immaterielles Modell, z. B. ein Akteurmodell, soll nicht alle Eigenschaften des Originals beschreiben, sondern lediglich dessen wichtigsten.Welche das sind, hängt vom Interesse des Forscher ab.

1.2 Was ist ein Akteur?

Das Wort „Akteur“ ist gleichbedeutend mit „Handelnder“, ersteres ist lediglich die lateinische Variante. Es ist nützlich, Handeln von Verhalten abzugrenzen. Max Weber definiert Handeln als „menschliches Verhalten (einerlei ob äußeres oder innerliches Tun, Unterlassen oder Dulden) …, wenn und insofern als der oder die Handelnden mit ihm einen subjektiven Sinn verbinden.“ (Soziologische Grundbegriffe, 2000, S. 19).

Was meint Verhalten? Max Weber versteht darunter ein „äußerliches oder innerliches Tun, Unterlassen oder Dulden“. Schlafen, die Verdauung, der Herzschlag, Reflexe, Routinetätigkeiten: all das ist Verhalten. Weil man damit keinen subjektiven Sinn verbindet. Auf die Frage „Warum (oder genauer:) wofür machst du das?“ wüsste man keine Antwort zu geben. Beim Verhalten entscheidet man sich nicht. Man entscheidet sich zwar für das Zu-Bett-Gehen, aber nicht für das Schlafen. Man entscheidet sich für ein Menü, aber nicht für die Verdauung.

Anders beim Handeln. Handeln ist ein menschliches Verhalten, „wenn und insofern als der oder die Handelnden mit ihm einen subjektiven Sinn verbinden.“ (S. 19). Der Handelnde kann Gründe angeben, weshalb er so und nicht anders handelt. „Warum gehst du zu Bett?“ „Weil ich müde bin.“ Oder etwas anders gefragt: „Weshalb/wofür legst du dich hin?“ „Um zu schlafen.“ Das Zu-Bett-Gehen ist Handeln. Wer handelt, hat sich entschieden. Diese Entscheidungsgründe kann er angeben. Wer angeben kann, warum er sich so und so entschieden hat, ist ein Akteur.

Das ist noch nicht alles.

Jeder von uns ist ein Akteur. Dennoch interessieren sich Sozialwissenschaftler nicht für jeden einzelnen von uns. Sie wollen nicht wissen, aus welchen Gründen sich Lieschen Müller für den Spanischkurs entscheidet und ihr Mann dagegen. Sozialwissenschaftler wollen beispielsweise wissen, warum Frauen sich eher für Sprachkurse entscheiden als Männer. Oder warum Jungwähler eher die Grünen wählen als Senioren. Nicht der einzelne, reale Akteur aus Fleisch und Blut ist das Original, von dem ein Modell gebildet werden soll. Als Original dient ein typischer Akteur: also der typische Mann, die typische Frau; der typische Jungwähler, die typischen Senioren. Diese Idealtypen existieren nur in der Vorstellung der Wissenschaftler, sie sind also bereits eine Abstraktion von den real existierenden Akteuren, z.B. von Lieschen Müller und ihrem Mann. Im Fall der üblichen Akteurmodelle ist das Original der typische Mensch.

FANTANTONIO COME WEBER, GIOIE DI VITA

IL COMMENTO
(di Nicolò Scialfa)

MAX WEBER, uno dei massimi intellettuali del primo Novecento, ci ha spiegato perchè il mondo di oggi è triste e privo di bellezza: è un mondo disincantato e senza magia, senza romanticismo e dal quale gli dei sono fuggiti. Oggi, per dirla con il filosofo Jean-François Lyotard, viviamo nel postmoderno. Immagino già i commenti di qualche intellettuale di maniera ‹‹Che irriverenza! Usare Weber e Lyotard per parlare di un calciatore! Ma come si permette questo sciagurato. Ma chi è, che vuole? Perchè mescola il sacro e il profano?››. Dall’altro lato molti tifosi che non hanno dimestichezza con la filosofia penseranno e commenteranno tra loro:‹‹Mancava solo ’sto rompipalle! Ma chi è ’sto Weber? Ma chi se ne frega?››.
Calma e gesso. Proviamo a spiegare. Intanto il calcio è uno dei fenomeni di massa più importanti del nostro tempo, piaccia o no. E non si capisce perchè importanti intellettuali che parlano di bisogni delle masse tutti i sacrosanti giorni poi arriccino il naso quando si tratta di capire come mai un mondiale di calcio cattura l’attenzione planetaria o come mai ogni domenica pomeriggio in Italia milioni di persone stiano incollate davanti al televisore o alla radio. So benissimo che esistono anche molte spiegazioni negative di questo fenomeno. Le lascio ai sociologi (che noiosi). Invito tutti, come al solito, a leggere Febbre a novanta di Nick Hornby e a vedere il relativo film con Colin Firth: storia di un professore di letteratura tifosissimo dell’Arsenal.
Cosa spinge un essere umano a diventare tifoso genoano piuttosto che sampdoriano, interista o milanista? Chi lo sa e a chi importa? A me nulla. E’ così, punto e basta. Un mistero. A me piacciono i misteri. Soprattutto quelli irrisolti (sennò che misteri sarebbero). Per tutto ciò mi piace Cassano, gli voglio bene, lo comprendo, non lo giudico. Antonio Cassano riporta il senso estetico nella nostra vita, le sue giocate sono prima di tutto estetiche, poi utili. Forse il vero motivo per cui Lippi non lo chiama in nazionale, al di là delle dietrologie, è proprio questo: Antonio è troppo bravo, troppo forte, fa sfigurare gli altri calciatori. Antonio è sincero (fin troppo), genuino, riceve colpi proibiti e non protesta. A me ricorda alcuni giovani studenti con cui ho avuto a che fare nel corso di una lunga carriera: infanzia difficile, carattere complesso, bisogno di approvazione da parte degli altri. Antonio ha bisogno del consenso della sua gente, dell’affetto dei tifosi. Di fronte a chi lo fischia (sbagliando) si comporta come un innamorato deluso e quindi protesta, si indigna, minaccia. Come dire:‹‹ma come, io vi offro la magia, l’amore, il calcio autentico e voi mi ripagate coi fischi?››. Vagli a spiegare che si tratta di pochi tifosi mugugnoni. Come si fa a spiegare qualcosa ad un innamorato deluso? Antonio ci riporta, calcisticamente, alla dimensione del sacro, a un calcio romantico che in gran parte non esiste più. A me va bene così. D’altra parte il contrario di romantico non è neoclassico ma…imbecille. Grazie Antonio e grazie Max Weber. Con voi la nostra vita è un poco migliore.

(Articolo pubblicato su “Il Secolo XIX” in data 14-11-2009, pag. 41)

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Symbole et mémoire : quand la Grande Histoire rattrape la petite.

« Le mur existera encore dans 50 et même dans 100 ans si les causes de son existence ne sont pas encore éliminées ». Erich Honecker, Secrétaire du Parti Socialiste unifié de RDA débutait de la sorte un discours de Janvier 1989. S’il est constant de penser que la Grande Histoire, concept mémoriel adopté par la postérité, s’alimente de symboles, il serait quelque peu réducteur de ne voir dans cette phrase, comme c’est trop souvent le cas, qu’un décalage complet d’un homme par rapport à sa contemporanéité. Assurément, Honecker est de ces dirigeants vieillissants issus de la Nomenklatura, cette classe de privilégiés et technocrates rompus aux pratiques des partis communistes d’Europe de l’est : Todor Jivkov en Bulgarie, Janos Jadar en Hongrie, Wiocech Jaruzelvski en Pologne. Toutefois et au risque de choquer les tenants de la trop communément admise théorie du prophétisme a posteriori, cette tendance à faire de l’incantation et de la prospective une fois les évènements survenus est tout bonnement humaine. Honecker n’avait pas vraiment vu faux en induisant que la destruction du mur ne pourrait intervenir que si les conditions de sa raison d’être étaient éradiquées. Le vieux dirigeant n’avait simplement pas perçu que ces facteurs étaient à ce jour réunis. Symbole encore une fois, d’une élite ayant appréhendé les enjeux et les problématiques géopolitiques sans savoir analyser les réalités de leur présent. Dix mois plus tard, le 9 Novembre 1989, l’Histoire pointait de son doigt intransigeant la politique obsolète d’Honecker et voyait le mur de Berlin chuter aussi rapidement qu’il fut construit.

Au-delà des symboles : la réalité historique du Mur.

Si nous évoquons les conditions d’existence du Mur, il devient dès lors indispensable de procéder à une analyse historique des conditions de son existence. Dans un monde bipolarisé par les deux grands qu’étaient les Etats-Unis d’Amérique et l’URSS, l’Allemagne fait figure de symbole et surtout d’enjeu des relations internationales. Les zones d’influence ayant été fondées par les accords de Potsdam de Juillet 1945, les luttes d’influence s’étant cristallisées par le blocus de Berlin de 1949, la création de la RFA et de la RDA cette même année, il faut saisir les singularités de la ville. Côté occidental, elle reste une enclave prépondérante et cernée par le monde soviétique. Côté soviétique, elle est à la fois une interface vers le monde occidental et capitaliste mais également la dépositaire de la résistance à l’impérialisme américain, le symbole de son hégémonie sur l’Europe de l’Est. Il faut comprendre que Berlin cristallise au mieux le partage et la reconnaissance mutuelle des zones d’influence. Bien davantage que le symbole d’une tension, elle est l’exemple type de relations internationales polarisées et normalisées dont le point d’orgue pourrait constituer le traité d’Helsinki en 1975.

A ce titre, on raisonnera par taxinomie et distinguera deux causes essentielles de l’élévation du mur au regard du travail historiographique de John Gaddis¹ :

• La nécessité d’endiguer la fuite vers l’ouest : Berlin était devenu depuis plus de dix ans le maillon faible du rideau de fer soviétique. Des carences géopolitiques et stratégiques permettaient non seulement aux « Ossis » mais également aux est-européens aux désirata libertaires de fuir et rejoindre l’autre camp. Dans une lutte quotidienne et psychologique dans laquelle la puissance démographique et l’adhésion des masses comptent plus que tout, un tel entrefait n’était pas acceptable.

• La nécessité de maîtriser l’information. Le glacis protecteur issu du Pacte de Varsovie

1 Gaddis (John), On moral equivalency and Cold War History, Ethic and international Affairs, Volume 10, Princeton, 1996

• n’offrait que peu d’occasions à la population autochtone de procéder dans son inconscient collectif à une analyse comparative avec le modèle adverse. Selon la maxime de Jdanov « convaincre revient avant tout à dissimuler » : il était alors crucial de procéder à cette dissimulation. Dissimulation des résultats de la planification, de la collectivisation, du modèle productif soutenu par le Parti.

Le 13 août 1961 était donc érigé le mur de Berlin séparant « définitivement » les deux Allemagnes, les deux modèles. Nous passerons volontairement sur les décennies suivantes, laissant au loisir du lecteur, sa conception de la géopolitique de l’époque. En 1976, Emmanuel Todd décrit ce qu’il conçoit comme « la chute finale »¹ du bloc socialiste en prenant pour paradigme la théorie selon laquelle une population à la conscience politique développée ne pourrait que se retourner contre un régime incapable d’assurer une gestion cohérente et rigoureuse de l’économie générale. L’appareil productif de l’est étant selon lui grippé, la moindre évolution incorporerait dans sa logique une irréversibilité fatale au bloc soviétique. La sclérose des années Brejnev témoignant des carences productives du communisme, Todd verra sa théorie vérifiée en la personne de Michaël Gorbatchev. Nous passons également sur les détails historiques des années 1980 et focaliserons notre grille de lecture sur deux évènements majeurs :

• La Perestroïka et la Glasnost : décidée en 1985 par Gorbatchev qui ne voyait le salut du modèle socialiste que par la réforme, la restructuration économique des pays de l’est et l’exacerbation de la transparence politique induisent deux logiques. D’une part, l’ouverture des pays aux capitaux étrangers, capitaux représentant un corps intermédiaire essentiel entre le pays légal et le pays réel. D’autre part, la fin de la capacité de Moscou à normaliser les situations de conflits périphériques en Europe de l’Est comme ce fut le cas à Budapest en 1956 où bien à Prague en 1968. Les opinions discordantes des Waleza et autres Havel devenaient pléthores d’éléments concourant à la fin du pouvoir réel et absolu du Parti.

• L’ouverture des frontières de la Hongrie avec l’Autriche en août 1989. Une faille béante du système d’intégrité du bloc voyait le jour laissant une possibilité exponentielle aux populations de l’est de se mouvoir vers l’ouest.

A ce titre, les conditions d’existence du Mur citées par Honecker n’existaient plus. Assurément, rien n’indiquait qu’un tel déroulement émergerait aussi vite, aussi furtivement. Mais rien n’empêchait dans les faits le Mur de ne pas être remis en cause. La suite est connue et mythifiée par la Grande Histoire, cette postérité que constitue notre présent, notre besoin de symbole.

]]> http://nuovayorkoutpost.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/almanacco-del-weekend-8-nov-2009/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:43:07 +0000 Nicola di Bowery http://nuovayorkoutpost.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/almanacco-del-weekend-8-nov-2009/ http://bigother.com/2009/11/08/what-you-read-what-i-read/ Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:47:35 +0000 Lily Hoang http://bigother.com/2009/11/08/what-you-read-what-i-read/

what have you been reading this week?

this week, i’ve read:

1. michael stewart’s a brief encyclopedia of modern magic: a beautiful, magical little thing. cutting words, drawing serious blood. the first of many appearances we’ll be seeing of michael stewart, a name to remember & cite.

2. baruch spinoza’s ethics: dense, intense logic, a necessity for readers, writers, & people. the influence his philosophy has had on my thinking writing etc is invaluable. i took 20+ pages of hand-written notes. i probably could have taken more, had i more patience.

3. kate greenstreet’s the last 4 things: i’ll write a full post about this later, but greenstreet’s poetry is brutal. for instance: “Dear friend, I can believe in the influence of Mars as fully as I can in the aorta. It’s all invisible, in a normal day–though felt, as rhythm or excitement or pressure. You have the plate you can’t drink from. And that one’s missing an arm. And making art, too, is a kind of disappearing. A bucket with holes, on purpose.” i usually don’t read like understand poetry. greenstreet’s collection defies any of that. her words go through you, pausing here and there to grab flesh and crack bone, or at least, that’s what she’s done to me.

4. marcel proust’s swann’s way: i usually read very quickly, but proust demands a patient & tender reading. i had a conversation with matt kirkpatrick about this, & i’ll post more on proust soon, but why talk about joyce etc, when there is proust? where’s the proust love? this is THE book, the book if i could have no other book but one, this one, where i would want to both hide and die and be resurrected. (to be fair, i haven’t finished this book. this does not dilute my impressions in the least though!)

5. max weber’s the protestant work ethic & the spirit of capitalism: i’ve been recently rather obsessed with the concept of guilt. that’s why i read this. good read. quick enough. i learned some shit. why not?

6. joshua cohen’s aleph-bet: an alphabet for the perplexed: cohen is one smart guy & a real fucking writer. this book, part essay part fictional exploration, showcases his encyclopedic knowledge in stunningly numbing prose. what continues to impress me about cohen is how broadly & variantly he masters different forms & styles. there is nothing predictable in him. each book he produces is equally fresh & unexpected. his books are a forceful inspiration.

7. brandon scott gorrell’s during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present: i want to take this book seriously, but i have a hard time doing it. still, i laughed, a lot. his terse sentences, which i hesitate to call verse, are caught in self-referentiality and self-effacement. when we take all those exteriorities down, what is in this text smacks is the malaise & ennui of our generation: a generation of gmail chats & facebook, internet & virtual non-existence because our existence is almost exclusively virtual. after reading this book, i wanted to go out & be surrounded by people, real people, who have real conversations. instead, i decided to post a blog on Big Other. i’m doing this at a cafe though: does that make it any better?

Nu mă uit aproape niciodată la televizor. Și bine fac. Era o vreme cînd mă uitam. Acum televizorul mi se pare tembelizor și atîta tot. Însă mai devreme televizorul era aprins, din inițiativa altcuiva, și am văzut știrile. Printre altele, am auzit că au fost găsite două prostituate moarte, în casa unui client, zicea televizorul. Mă gîndesc acum, nu atunci cînd am auzit știrile, pentru că atunci nu gîndeam- în general cînd te uiți la televizor, gîndirea e suspendată, și tocmai d-aia televizorul se mai numește și tembelizor- că în momentul în care prostituatele erau omorîte de clientul lor turbat, din cine știe ce motiv, eu citeam din Weber fără să am habar. Nimic din învelișul metafizic care unește toate ființele nu m-a avertizat de comiterea unei duble crime, ca în Minority report, interesantul film cu Tom Cruise. Durerea, nebunia, delirul criminal, animalitatea însăși dezlănțuite, n-au ajuns în niciun fel la mine, nu mi-au tulburat liniștea. Și e bine că e așa, altfel cum aș mai putea trăi dacă aș fi afectat de toate dramele care se petrec fie și numai pe o rază de cîțiva kilometri în jurul meu? Îmi continui netulburat existența, indiferent la sirenele pe care le aud trecînd din cînd în cînd pe Calea 13 Septembrie,  surd la țipetele disperate ale poveștilor care le pun în mișcare.

PS : Tocmai am aflat că era vorba de o singură prostituată, nu de două și că a fost omorîtă pentru că nu s-a-nțeles la preț cu clientul. Criza asta! Mă întreb de ce prima dată am auzit că e vorba de două, nu de una. Nu vreau să dau vina pe alții, dar era ceva în vocea omului de la știri care făcea totul să sune atît de senzațional, încît prin alte mijloace decît limbajul spunea că sînt două moarte, nu una. Mai există și posibilitatea ca în promo-ul știrilor, căci acolo am auzit prima dată, să se fi spus că sînt două victime, pentru că două prostituate moarte atrag de două ori mai multă audiență decît una singură.

If pop-culture is a mirror on society, then the character of Gordon Gekko is an excellent example.  Michael Douglas won the Academy Award for his portrayal of the character in the 1987 movie Wall Street.  The character became something of a national hero.  Many Americans related to his powerful “greed is good” speech.  This is how the speech went:

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love; knowledge; has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”

The irony is that the screenwriter did not mean for the movie to praise  the concept of greed, which Gekko embodied.  In Stanley Weiser’s own words:

“…thinking back upon writing the screenplay of “Wall Street,” I never could have imagined that this persona and his battle cry would become part of the public consciousness, and that the core message of “Wall Street”..would be so misunderstood by so many.  …(What) I find strange and oddly disturbing is that Gordon Gekko has been mythologized and elevated from the role of villain to that of hero.”[1]

His problem may have been that audiences were not able to identify with the movie’s intended hero, Martin Sheen’s character, a union organizer.  I would assert that the public lost trust in big labor as the proper hedge against big business at least by the time of President Reagan’s stand-off with the air traffic controllers.  Unfortunately, we are in trouble if corporate boards are unable to step-up and moderate corporate officer’s greed.

As pop culture, the movie seemed to reflect the boomer’s move to materialism, the excess of the 80’s, Michael Milken and insider trading.  Obviously, the movie Wall Street didn’t cause insider trading, but people’s reaction to it was emblematic of the era, which is arguably still true today. 

Greed is one of the seven deadly or carnal sins.  This has been part of the Judean-Christian tradition since the Book of Proverbs, which was reaffirmed by the early Christian church in the 4^th century.  Greed is an out-of-balance extreme that begins with a healthy, as Gekko says “evolutionary” self-interest.  Therefore, as with most things, we find potential for both good and bad.

The “greed is good” speech contrasts sharply with Max Weber’s 1904 seminal work “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.”  Weber argued that Protestantism had a profound impact on the development of capitalism, because capitalism does not rely solely on materialism alone.  He saw the “Protestant work ethic,” with its emphasis on planning and self-denial as a necessary condition for the rise of capitalist countries.  We see the same kind of self-denial, sacrifice and planning in the Chinese ascendency to their new role as ”manufacturer to the world.”  I am not advocating a return to low-paying jobs; however, Weber may be right when he notes that capitalism does not rely on materialism alone.  It seems that for the U.S.,  a little self-denial, sacrifice and planning may be what will save, in Gekko’s words, ”that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”

To see Michael Douglas’ riveting performance click here.

Olá,

Semana terminando, mês de novembro começando. Último passo até o tão esperado Dezembro e, com ele, para alguns, a chegada das férias. Mas, continuando nossos trabalhos por aqui, trazemos as novidades de mais uma semana.

Para dar uma variada, deixamos no final lista dos textos mais lidos, no Ano e nos últimos 30 dias. Se você perdeu alguns deles e ficou com vontade de ler novamente, mas está com preguiça de procurar, vale a pena conferir.

Ótimo final de semana!

Daniel Pinheiro

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Tiras do Heitor e Doni

Heitor e Doni (Tira 18)

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Posts da Semana (em Ordem Alfabética)

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Textos Mais Lidos (Top 10)

Do Ano

CONSUMISMO x CONSUMERISMO: Uma reflexão

Postura Abusiva – Preço do Álcool Gel Di

Vacina H1N1 e Sua Eficácia

Dissidentes em Ação

A Marca Topper (Especial Consumo)

Tropeço Gigantesco da Agência DM9

Música Sertaneja é uma Droga???

Produção de Vacina – Influenza A (H1N1)

Uso de Agrotóxicos no Brasil: liderança

Professor Ontem e Hoje

Quem é esse novo consumidor? (se é que e

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Dos Últimos 30 Dias

Música Sertaneja é uma Droga???

Vacina H1N1 e Sua Eficácia

CONSUMISMO x CONSUMERISMO: Uma reflexão

A Boa e Velha Pelada (Esporte e Saúde)

Desespero? Médico rouba paciente.

Prós e Contras da Redução da Jornada de

Letra de Introdução ao Hino Nacional Bra

Qual é a música???

Uso de Agrotóxicos no Brasil: liderança

Conhecendo Max Weber (por Paulo Rink)

“La época burguesa se distingue de todas las épocas precedentes por la revolución constante de la producción, la alteración permanente de todas las condiciones sociales que la incertidumbre y la agitación sin fin permiten. Toda relación fija y anquilosada, con su carga de viejos prejuicios y opiniones, es barrida y las nuevas se vuelven obsoletas antes de que se puedan sedimentar. Todo lo sólido se desvanece en el aire, todo lo que es sagrado se profana”.

Marx & Engels, Manifiesto Comunista.

“Si hoy tenemos algunas dificultades para imaginarnos en qué podrán consistir las fiestas y las ceremonias del porvenir, es porque atravesamos una fase de transición y de mediocridad moral. Las grandes cosas del pasado, las que entusiasmaban a nuestros padres, no suscitan en nosotros el mismo ardor, sea porque han entrado ya en la vida cotidiana hasta el punto de que ya nos resultan indiferentes, sea porque ya no responden a nuestras aspiraciones actuales; y sin embargo, todavía no hay ninguna que pueda reemplazarlas. (…) En una palabra, los antiguos dioses envejecen o mueren, y aún no han nacido otros nuevos”.

Émile Durkheim, Las formas elementales de la vida religiosa.

“La intelectualización y racionalización crecientes no significan, pues, un creciente conocimiento general de las condiciones generales de nuestra vida. Su significado es muy distinto; significan que se sabe o se cree que en cualquier momento en que se quiera se puede llegar a saber que, por tanto, no existen en torno a nuestra vida poderes ocultos e imprevisibles, sino que, por el contrario, todo puede ser dominado mediante el cálculo y la previsión. Esto quiere decir simplemente que se ha excluido lo mágico del mundo”.

Max Weber, La ciencia como vocación.

Grupo de pensadores alemães que, no século XX, se dedicou a reflexões e críticas sobre a razão , a ciência e ao avanço do capitalismo. Eles consideravam a racionalidade tecnológica do mundo moderno uma nova forma de dominação cultural.

Influenciados pelas idéias de Karl Marx (1818-1883) e Max Weber (1864-1920) , esses filósofos contrapõem-se ao funcionalismo de Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), que concebe a sociedade como um organismo com funções específicas, desconsiderando o processo histórico.

Entre os expoentes da Escola de Frankfurt destacaram-se Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) e, mais tarde,  Jürgen Habermas (1929 -).

Gianfranch Miglio (Comm, 11 genar 1918 – 10 agust 2001) l’è staa un pulitegh, custitüsiunalista e scensiaa pulitegh lumbart. L’è staa anca un senadur de la Repüblega Taliana ‘me indipendent per la Lega Nord (1992-1994) e per el Partii Federalista (in talian Partito Federalista) (1994-2001).
L’ha insegnaa a l’Üniversità Catolega del Sacher Cör de Milan, indue che l’è staa anca el preside de la Facultà de Sciens Pulitegh del 1959 al 1988. L’è staa un aliev del Alessandro Passerin d’Entrèves e del Giorgio Balladore Pallieri e cun lur l’ha stüdiaa i classegh del penser giüridegh e pulitulogegh.

I primm agn:

El s’era laüreaa in Giürisprüdensa in del 1939 cun la tesi “Origini e i primi sviluppi delle dottrine giuridiche internazionali pubbliche nell’età moderna”. Dopu l’ha faa l’asistent vuluntari per la catedra de “Storia dij dutrin pulitegh”, che’l d’Entreves l’aveva tegnüü fina a la fin dij agn quaranta.
In del 1948 l’era diventaa un liber prufesur; in di agn cinquanta l’aveva stüdiaa i oper dij storegh e dij giürista, suratütt quij tudesch: per esempi i quater vulümm del Deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht che l’Otto Von Gierke l’aveva scrivüü intra el 1869 e’l 1913 e i sagg de storia aministrativa del’Otto Hintze, che seren staa anca vultà in talian del sò aliev Pierangelo Schiera (O. Hintze, Stato e società, Zanichelli 1980).
E propi in quij agn là, el Gianfranco Miglio l’ha cugnusüü la granda prudüsiun scentifega del Max Weber e l’è staa anca vün dij primm che l’ha stüdiaa ben l’”Ecunumia e Sucietà”, l’opera püsee impurtanta del suciolegh tudesch, che prima l’era stada minga cunsiderada in Italia.

El svilüpp del sò laurà scentifegh:

El Miglio storegh del’aministrasiun
A la fin dij agn cinquanta, el Miglio l’ha fundaa insema cunt el giürista Feliciano Benvenuti l’Istituto per la Scienza dell’amministrazione pubblica ISAP (Istitütt per la Scensa del aministrasiun püblega), che l’è staa anca el sò vice-diretur per un quej agn. In d’un sagg memurabil del 1957 ciamaa “Le origini della scienza dell’amministrazione” (I urigin de la scensa del aministrasiun), el prufesur cumasch l’ha descrivüü in manera ciara e eleganta i radis storegh de la disciplina. El s’era interesaa a la püblega aministrasiun perchè in quij agn là i statt aveven tacaa a duprà pulitegh pianificatris per fà cress la crescita ecunomega.

La Fundasiun taliana per la storia aministrativa (La Fondazione italiana per la storia amministrativa) F.I.S.A.
Sübet el Miglio l’ha sentüü el bisogn de stüdiaa in manera püsee sistematega la storia dij pudè püblegh eürupej e, in di agn sesanta, l’ha fundaa la Fundazione Italiana per la storia amministrativa: un institütt che’l faseva dij ricerch in manera rigurusa e scentifega, e per quest mutif l’aveva preparaa per i sò culaburadur un schema de istrüsiun che l’era pöö vegnüü anca famus perchè l’era ciar e ben urganisaa.
Cun la F.I.S.A. el Miglio el gh’aveva un ubietif propi ambisius: el vureva scrif una storia custitüsiunala che la tirava dent i aministrasiun püblegh de sitt e temp diferent per fà una tipulugia dij istitüsiun del Mediuevu al età cuntempuranea, cunt i sò tratt distintif e i element cumünn de tücc i pudè püblegh.
Un altra resun del sò laurà l’era che’l vureva stüdià i pudè püblegh in d’una manera analogeca-cumparativa, cunt un metud scentifegh che l’Hintze l’aveva duprà in manera parsiala in de la prima metà del Nöfcent: el prufesur cumasch el vureva definii l’evulüsiun storega del statt mudern.

Liber scrivù del Prufesur Miglio:

• G. Miglio, I cattolici di fronte all’unità d’Italia, 1959.
• G. Miglio, L’amministrazione nella dinamica storica, 1961 in Storia, amministrazione e costituzione, Annale ISAP 2004.
• G. Miglio, Le trasformazioni dell’attuale regime politico, 1965.
• G. Miglio, Il ruolo del partito nella trasformazione del tipo di ordinamento politico vigente: il punto di vista della scienza della politica, Milano, 1967.
• G. Miglio, Le contraddizioni dello Stato unitario in Miglio – Benvenuti, L’unificazione amministrativa e i suoi protagonisti, Publicaziun ISAP, Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 1969.
• G. Miglio, Rappresentanza e amministrazione nelle leggi del 1865 in Miglio – Benvenuti, L’unificazione amministrativa e i suoi protagonisti, Publicaziun ISAP, Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 1969.
• G. Miglio, La trasformazione delle università e l’iniziativa privata, 1969.
• G. Miglio e P. Schiera, Le categorie del politico. Saggi di teoria politica, Il Mulino, Bulugna, 1972.
• G. Miglio, La Valtellina: un modello possibile di integrazione economica e sociale, Quaderni Banca Piccolo Credito Valtellinese, n.1, Tipugrafia Bonazzi, Sundri, 1978
• G. Miglio, Ricominciare dalla montagna Milano, Giuffrè, Milan, 1978
• G. Miglio, Genesi e trasformazioni del termine-concetto Stato, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1981
• G. Miglio, Guerra, pace, diritto: una ipotesi generale sulle regolarità del ciclo politico, Giuffrè, Milan, 1982
• G. Miglio, Una repubblica migliore per gli italiani, 1983
• G. Miglio, Le contraddizioni interne del sistema parlamentare integrale, 1984
• G. Miglio, Il nerbo e le briglie del potere: scritti brevi di critica politica 1945-1988, Milan, 1988
• G. Miglio, Ricominciare dalla montagna, Giuffrè, Milan, 1978
• G. Miglio, La regolarità della politica (2 vol.), Giuffrè, Milan, 1988
• G. Miglio, Una costituzione per i prossimi trent’anni, intervista del Marcello Staglieno, Laterza, Bari, 1990
• A. Buchanan, Secessione. Quando e perché un paese ha il diritto di dividersi, introduzion del G. Miglio, Mondadori, Milan, 1991
• G. Miglio, Come cambiare. Le mie riforme, Mondadori, Milan, 1992
• U. Bossi, D. Vimercati, Vento dal Nord: La mia Lega la mia vita, prefaziun del G. Miglio, Sperling & Kupfer, Milan, 1992
• G. Oneto, Bandiere di libertà. Simboli e vessilli dei popoli dell’Italia settentrionale, introduzion del G. Miglio, Effedieffe, Milan, 1992
• U. Bossi, D. Vimercati, La Rivoluzione. La Lega: storia e idee, prefazione di G. Miglio, Sperling & Kupfer, Milan, 1993
• G. Miglio, H.D. Thoreau, Disobbedienza civile, Mondadori, Milan 1993
• G. Miglio (con Marcello Staglieno e Pierluigi Vercesi), Italia 1996: così è andata a finire, Mondadori, Milan, 1993
• G. Miglio, Io, Bossi e la Lega, Mondadori, Milan 1994
• G. Miglio, La Costituzione federale, Mondadori, culana Le Frecce, Milan, 1995
• G. Miglio, M. Veneziani, Padania, Italia. Lo Stato nazionale è soltanto in crisi o non è mai esistito?, Le Lettere, Firenze, 1997
• G. Miglio, A. Barbera, Federalismo e secessione. Un dialogo, Mondadori, Milan 1997
• G. Miglio e Aa.Vv., Federalismi falsi e degenerati, Sperling & Kupfer, Milan, 1997
• M. Gozzi, G. Miglio, G.A. Zanoletti, Le barche a remi del Lario da trasporto, da guerra, da pesca, e da diporto, Leonardo Arte, Milan, 1999
• G. Miglio, L’asino di buridano, Neri Pozza, Vicenza, 1999

Liber che parlenn del Prufesur Miglio

• L. Ornaghi, A. Vitale, Multiformità e unità della politica. Docùmenti del Cunvegn per el 70° cumpleann del Gianfranco Miglio, 24-26 utuber del 1988, Giuffrè, Milan, 1992
• G. Ferrari, Gianfranco Miglio: un giacobino nordista, Liber, Ruma, 1993
• A. Campi, Schmitt, Freund, Miglio: figure e temi del realismo politico europeo, Akropolis/La Roccia di Erec, Firenze, 1996
• Aa.Vv., Gianfranco Miglio: un uomo libero, Quaderni Padani n. 37-38 dela Libera Compagnia Padana, Nuara, 2002
• Aa.Vv., Un Miglio alla libertà, Audioliber, Leonardo Facco Editur (culana Laissez Parler), Treej (Bg), 2005
• D. Palano, Il cristallo dell’obbligazione politica in ID., Geometrie del potere, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 2005.
• G. Di Capua, Gianfranco Miglio, scienziato impolitico, Rubbettino, Catanzaro, 2006.
• Aa.Vv., Gianfranco Miglio: gli articoli, Quaderni Padani n. 64-65 dela Libera Compagnia Padana, Nuara, 2006.
• Aa.Vv., Gianfranco Miglio: le interviste, Quaderni Padani n. 69-70 dela Libera Compagnia Padana, Nuara, 2007.

Interviste

• Intervista sùla Secession dela Padania, 1996
• Intervista del Giorgio Bardaglio – Corriere di Como del 12 Apriil del 1998
• Articul del Lorenzo Busi (Libera Compagnia Padana) intitulà Gianfranco Miglio, un figlio dell’Insubria. Dalla clandestinità de “Il Cisalpino”, all’insegnamento in Cattolica del 24 Macc del 2007
• Comemuraziun del Prufesur Miglio in tel Prim aniversari dela mort scrivù de l’Alessandro Campi

Atività parlamentara

• Sitee del Senato

Articui per aprufundì

• Indagine sùl Prufesur Miglio scrivù del Carlo Lottieri

Max Weber

- Recusa, em sua teoria, trabalhar de forma polarizada a relação entre indivíduo e sociedade;

- O indivíduo tem, para ele, o lugar de criador de seu mundo, já que, compartilhando sentidos e significados, move a construção da sociedade. A influência social sobre o indivíduo é admitida, mas considerada uma fase posterior à criação do mundo por ele;

- Nega a polarização indivíduo X sociedade, mas sua interdependência;

- Sociologia como a ciência que, na contemporaneidade, estudará o homem em relação de interdependência com o outro, a natureza e seu meio social;

- A determinação social é admitida em Weber, mas não é central, como em Marx e Durkheim;

- Objeto de investigação da sociologia weberiana: a ação social, entendida como a ação realizada pelo indivíduo tendo como orientação a ação do outro indivíduo;

- Ação: para Weber, é toda conduta humana dotada de significado subjetivo dado por seu executor; Quando esta ação visa a ação de uma pluralidade de indivíduos totalmente desconhecidos, a ação passa a ser social;

- Sociologia para Weber: a ciência que busca entender a ação social, interpretando-a para explicá-la em seu desenvolvimento e efeitos;

- Ações reativas não interessam à sociologia, já que não têm um sentido pensado, mas caráter de reflexo;

- Não existe acaso, já que todos agem de acordo com o significado atribuídos às ações, não havendo como existir uma imersão passiva do indivíduo em uma sociedade que o põe a mercê dos acasos;

- Portanto, o sentido é o definidor da ação social;

- A explicação sociológica busca compreender e interpretar o sentido, o desenvolvimento e os efeitos da conduta de um ou mais indivíduos em relação a outros (ação social), compreensão da qual consiste em captar e interpretar sua conexão de sentido, que poderá ser mais ou menos evidente par ao sociólogo;

- Aspecto fundamental da sociologia de Weber: busca pela conexão de sentidos presentes no contexto das ações praticadas por indivíduos e grupos no processo de interação social;
- Relação social: diz respeito a uma ação de reciprocidade orientada, ou seja, que cause a conduta dos indivíduos, sendo necessário, para tanto, que haja conteúdo de sentido em si. Por exemplo, tem-se o aperto de mãos: seu conteúdo de sentido é de amizade e cortesia, que pode ser entendido como compartilhado pela maioria dos membros de uma sociedade;

- Metodologia de Weber: Método Compreensivo;

- Método Compreensivo: resgate interpretativo do passado para a compreensão do presente, pelo qual busca o nexo causal dos sentidos compartilhados entre indivíduos e grupos em seu existir socialmente;

- O referido método utiliza-se de um recurso teórico chamado tipo ideal, que consistem em conceitos selecionados que permitem a tradução adequada de aspectos da realidade, que é infinita, segundo Weber, ao contrário da capacidade humana de compreensão; Assim, fica clara a impossibilidade de análise humana de toda a realidade;

- Segundo Quintaneiro, Barbosa e Oliveira, o alvo da sociologia de Weber é “a especificidade dos fenômenos e seus significados” (…) “Por isso, o cientista pode isolar, da imensidade absoluta, um fragmento ínfimo que considera relevante” (…) Pode-se dizer, então, que o particular ou específico não é aquilo que vem dado pela experiência, nem muito menos pelo ponto de partida do conhecimento, mas o resultado de um esforço cognitivo que discrimina, organiza e, enfim, abstrai certos aspectos da realidade na tentativa de explicar as causas associadas à produção de determinados fenômenos”; O método utilizado baseia-se no estágio de desenvolvimento dos conhecimentos, nas estruturas conceituais disponíveis e nas normas de pensamento vigentes, obtendo-se resultados válidos não apenas para si;

- Os tipos ideais permitem a relação entre objetividade do conceito puro e a própria compreensão histórica, ou seja, contextualizada à realidade social vivenciada por indivíduos e grupos; Os tipos ideais permitem essa relação, já que, através destes fatores, se busca compreender a natureza particular das conexões que se estabelecem empiricamente;

- A objetividade weberiana, que busca trabalhar com elementos da realidade, tem um forte componente subjetivo, uma vez que o tipo ideal é construídos por critérios que dizem respeito à cada pesquisador;

- Tipologias da sociologia weberiana: a da ação social e da tipologia da dominação.

- Tipologia da ação social é subdividida em: 1) ação social tradicional; 2)afetiva; 3)racional conforme valores e; 4) conforme fins, consideradas forças motrizes do agir social dos indivíduos e de suas interações, já que Weber concentra sua análise nos atores sociais e suas ações;

- Tipologia da dominação: o homem não busca o poder apenas para enriquecer economicamente, mas aspira às honras sociais derivados dele;

- A legitimação da dominação é a crença de que determinado indivíduo é capaz de governá-lo;

- A tipologia da dominação é subdividida em: 1) Dominação racional-legal, na qual se encontra vinculação com elementos da lei no contexto das sociedades completas; 2) Dominação tradicional, na qual a tradição determina de indivíduos e grupos, e; 3) Dominação de caráter carismático, onde a ação social é determinada por elementos fortes das personalidades individuais que propiciam a alguns ascenderem sobre os demais;

- Weber descreve o desenvolvimento da ciência, tecnologia e burocracia como racionalização, que consiste na organização da vida sócio-econômica de acordo com os princípios de eficiência e baseada no conhecimento técnico;

- Ao contrário de Marx, Weber não vê o capitalismo como dominado pelo conflito de classes, mas pela ascensão da ciência e da burocracia, tipicamente ocidentais e marcos distintivos deste lado do planeta. A burocracia, vista como a única maneira de organizar um grande número de pessoas efetivamente, expande-se com o crescimento econômico e político;

- Weber, entretanto, temia a excessiva regulamentação da sociedade moderna, que poderia esmagar o espírito humano justamente por tentar regular todas as esferas da vida social.