unknowable—a gift bestowed upon the was not causal. Rather, it illustrated this mighty cosmos determines, After his resignation from Heidel- elect. The effect was to elevate God’s an “elective affinity,” a term Weber with overwhelming coercion, the berg, Weber gradually regained his sovereignty beyond all possible appeal, borrowed from Goethe’s 1809 novel style of life not only of those di- ability to work, and by 1903 he had but for the believer this could be psy- of romantic liaisons. Capitalism and rectly involved in business but of commenced a new phase in writing. chologically devastating, since human Protestantism were two historically every individual who is born into Alongside The Protestant Ethic he also agency itself seemed stripped of mean- independent formations that joined to this mechanism, and may well con- produced the major essay “‘Objectivity’ ing. The official teaching proved so create a uniquely powerful bond, and tinue to do so until the day when in Social Science and Social Policy.” In intolerable that Calvinist preachers in- in concert they revolutionized the mod- the last ton of fossil fuel has been 1904 he traveled to the United States, troduced a subtle modification that al- ern world. consumed. accompanied by Marianne and the his- lowed worldly success to serve as a sign In the United States today one often torian of religion Ernst Troeltsch. Man- of divine election. From Luther and encounters the boastful claim that its Those final lines were prescient. hattan left an impression of modernity from Catholicism they adopted the idea citizens are beneficiaries of a “Protes- Although Weber could not have an- in chaos. Their twenty-story hotel rose of a vocatio or “calling,” namely, that tant work ethic,” as if this explained ticipated the unfolding catastrophe of above streets that buzzed with traffic one is summoned by God to the priest- the power of American capitalism. But climate change or the environmental and smelled of horse manure. To get to hood. (The German word for “calling” Weber offered a more tragic view. In ravages that have attended the process their rooms they rode an “elevator,” a is Beruf, which derives from the verb his estimation the religiously inspired of industrialization, he understood that word that struck Marianne as exotic. rufen, to call.) In Calvinism, however, ethic of a calling had died out long capitalism’s unrestrained expansion They traveled as far as St. Louis and the idea of a calling was now applied to ago, a casualty of the rationalization across the planet could hardly be taken New Orleans, and on their return they worldly pursuits that had process it helped to set in motion. Cap- as a sign of social betterment or histori- stopped at Mount Vernon to see Wash- once condemned. Election, of course, italism, Weber argued, now runs on its cal progress. In documenting the rise of ington’s birthplace, but also attended remained uncertain, since there could own, with machine-like indifference the modern world, he sustained an at- an African-American religious service. be no salvation through works. But a to all spiritual values, while the idea titude of cool skepticism. The purpose They were nearly stranded in Philadel- bond was reestablished between God of a calling “haunts our lives like the of sociology was not to discover general phia due to the crowds that swarmed and the world: if one conducted one- ghost of once-held religious beliefs.” laws but to understand human action in the train station to cheer the Univer- self in the proper spirit of piety and re- Meanwhile, those who are caught in all its complexity. This emphasis on the sity of Pennsylvania football team on straint, one’s good fortune in this world its mechanism are left with little more unique rather than the universal made its departure for a game against Har- might serve as a sign of one’s ultimate than a sense of mindless compulsion. his work difficult to categorize. Not a vard. They spent their final evening in fortune in the world to come. “The Puritans wanted to be men of few of his colleagues were tripped up Brooklyn, where they attended a per- For Weber this seemingly minor shift the calling,” Weber wrote; “we, on the by his arguments—errors he attacked formance at a Yiddish theater. in Calvinist doctrine had dramatic con- other hand, must be.” In the US in in print with lacerating criticism. Es- The last fifteen years of Weber’s life sequences. Protestantism could now li- particular, the pursuit of wealth had pecially common was the mistaken were ones of tremendous productivity. cense a plunge into this-worldly action, been “divested of its metaphysical sig- view that he had written The Protes- Starting in 1913 he worked on a com- while capitalist entrepreneurs could nificance” and was now linked with tant Ethic as an idealistic corrective prehensive treatise in sociology that he see in their conduct a spiritual signifi- “purely elemental passions.” to Marxism, as if he had meant to sug- did not live to finish; it was published cance it would otherwise have lacked. In the closing lines of The Protestant gest that religious ideas rather than the after his death as Economy and Soci- As Weber noted, there had been some- Ethic, Weber described the typical cap- forces of production were the primary ety.1 He also grew especially absorbed thing irrational about this conduct: it italists of his own time as mediocrities engines of historical change. Weber in comparative studies in the sociology required a readiness to defer gratifica- much like the stunted creatures that dismissed this as rubbish. Replacing a of religion: between 1915 and 1919 he tion, to save and reinvest for the sake of Nietzsche had called “the last men.” “one-sided” and “materialist” expla- vaulted himself into the monumental an uncertain future. It was the religious A world populated by such soulless nation of historical causality with a ethic of the ambient Protestant culture beings ran not on individual initiative “one-sided” and “spiritual” explana- 1A superb new English translation by that infused commercial activity with a but on the imperatives of the system: tion would only exchange one fallacy Keith Tribe has just been published by higher meaning. Clearly, this argument “Today,” Weber wrote, for another. Harvard University Press.

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