Appendix 1: Inner-Worldly Ascetics

APPENDIX 1: INNER-WORLDLY ASCETICS This appendix, or excursus, should be read in conjunction with Chap. 3. In this chapter, I was exploring religious alternatives to neoliberalism, and, failing to find any that could carry social changes, I was hoping to bring social theory to the rescue and find a solution by delving into the works of Max Weber. This, as is admitted at the end of this appendix, has not been fruitful. On the contrary, I have found further evidence of the hegemony of neoliberalism. In his famous treatise The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905), Weber aimed to demonstrate that it was not the accumulation of profit and the exploitation of the working class that was at the core of the development of modernity but, rather, the development of a new belief system: Calvinism. Weber argued that, historically, there had always been people who desired to accumulate wealth. Previously, people used their profit to make a more comfortable life for themselves or donated it to various religious organizations in the hope of securing a place in heaven. What strongly characterized modernity for Weber was the fact that people started to make money purely for the sake of making money, rather than for the enjoyment of spending it. This mindset led to calculative rationality and the expansion of large-scale bureaucracies and organizations (as explained in Chap. 8). Weber explained his theory through the development of two belief systems—the spirit of capitalism and the Protestant ethic—which developed hand-in-hand during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These sets of beliefs did not have any mutual relationship of cause and effect; they © The Author(s) 2018 209 A. Possamai, The i-zation of Society, Religion, and Neoliberal Post-Secularism, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5942-1 210 APPENDIX 1: INNER-WORLDLY ASCETICS were simply two belief systems that emerged together, and strengthened each other’s development, in what Weber called an elective affinity. For Weber, the only people who could be disseminators of the spirit of capitalism were what he called ‘inner-worldly ascetics’. An ascetic person follows a religion dogmatically, executes the will of God as it is perceived by and/or portrayed to him or her, and understands the world in a ratio- nal way. A mystic, conversely, seeks to break with the established order, and is a very individual form of religious actor who leads a life of contemplation, rather than a life of action. Other-worldly ascetics (e.g. Christian hermits) work on controlling their worldly motivations in the interest of ‘devotional’ goals rather than worldly ones. Other-worldly mystics live in great tension with the world. They try to avoid any concerns connected with everyday life and aim to dissociate themselves from the world. The Buddhist monk, withdrawing from everyday life to lead a life of contemplation, is a case in point for Weber. However, it should be noted that his vision of the Buddhist monk is not always accurate. Recently, Ruth Fitzpatrick (2014) researched the social engagement of Buddhists and aptly contested Weber’s perceptive. Some monks do not fit perfectly into the other-worldly mystic category; however, this ideal type is nevertheless very useful. Since other-worldly mystics and ascetics have withdrawn themselves from the everyday life of society, no social change can emerge directly from them. Indeed, if everyone was to become a mystic or a hermit, con- stantly meditating or praying, there would not be a society, let alone the seeds for the beginning of modernity, as there would be no extended social communication between people. Inner-worldly mystics make no attempt to withdraw from everyday life. Although they live a life of contemplation, they are still active in the day- to- day routine of, for example, working at a job and being a member of a family. An example can be taken from my own research on alternative spiritualities (Possamai 2005), in which New Age actors were found to be part of everyday life routines and also active in social changes through various social actions, and even religious actions. Inner-worldly ascetics do not seek a union with God through contemplation as mystics do; they seek mastery of themselves according to their theology and pursue what they believe is God’s will. They see themselves as God’s instrument, and this is the type of religious actor that Weber believes steered the world toward capitalism. The early Calvinists, for Weber, were inner-worldly ascetics who spread the spirit of capitalism APPENDIX 1: INNER-WORLDLY ASCETICS 211 while regimentally following their theology and adhering closely to what they believed was the will of God. According to Weber, neither other- worldly asceticism nor either of the two manifestations of mysticism was able to bring about change. In the category of inner-worldly mystics, we can include people involved in spirituality. These religious actors are growing in number as non- institutionalized forms of religions are on the rise. While it can be argued that their social and cultural activities can help their societies, they would not have the capacity, according to Weber, to change structures. It is only the inner-worldly ascetics who are devoted enough to apply themselves in their everyday lives to a specific ideology and who are thus able to instigate the type of social change which has led to modernity—and now to another type of society. Weber saw that there have been other inner-worldly ascetics in world history, and he wondered why they were not as successful in disseminating the spirit of capitalism as the Calvinists were. He undertook a sociological exploration of other types of social actors, concerning the possibility that the capitalist ideology developed somewhere else, such as in China, India, or Islamic territories before the eighteenth century. In any case, since capitalism became routinized in the West in the eighteenth century, it has expanded in both Western and many non-Western countries without the need for inner-worldly ascetics. Coming back to Weber’s examples of ‘other’ pre-eighteenth-century inner-worldly ascetics, we find the Chinese Mandarins, who followed and spread the teachings of Confucius. Both the Calvinists and the Mandarins were self-disciplined and both were committed to the accumulation of wealth. However, the Mandarins were more interested in cultivating themselves as a people who were educated, cultured, and of highly refined sensibilities. They were devoted to furthering their self-cultivation and did not reinvest their fiscal profit for profit’s sake. The Hindu Brahmans were also historically inner-worldly ascetics, but Weber thought that, because of the caste system in India, Hinduism could not transform social life in the way that Calvinism did in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The caste system was too strong a structure, and so incompatible with capitalism that it prevented its development. Weber realized that in Islam, the close link between religion and the state was also not conducive to the creation of a capitalist society. The early Calvinists were inner-worldly ascetics who brought about social changes that led to the era of modernity and capitalism. Perhaps 212 APPENDIX 1: INNER-WORLDLY ASCETICS what is needed today is an alternative to neoliberalism, purveyed also by a group of inner-worldly ascetics? However, as stated in Chap. 5, and as debated by Dubet (2014), bringing religion back to the fore could also revitalize traditionalist and conservative ways of thinking, with all their pros and cons. In his study on the global Pentecostal reformation, Matthew Sharpe (2013) analyzes its prosperity gospel and compares it with earlier forms of Protestantism, especially the Calvinism studied by Weber. But these Pentecostals preaching prosperity are quite different from the inner- worldly ascetics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They do not agonize about trying to find out if they have been chosen by God to reach Heaven; on the contrary, they count on God’s blessing for economic accumulation. Indeed, the early Calvinists wanted to live a frugal life. Their success in business was a source of emulation for all groups in the world, and through a constellation of affinity, the spirit of capitalism was able to emerge and spread globally. But their Protestant ethic became routinized in the spirit of capitalism, and moved away from the more modest Calvinist outlook on economic needs. Today’s inner-worldly ascetics, moreover, tend to be fully engaged with neoliberalism, and therefore, tend not to provide long-term solu- tions to its shortcomings in this life. Neo-Pentecostal preachers could perhaps be regarded as inner-worldly ascetics, but they maintain, and even reinforce, the status quo. Where are the new ascetics who could lead these changes? My personal (and certainly very naïve) dream is to see a trailblazer who will change people’s mindset with regard to seeking profit for profit’s sake and promote, instead, the seeking of profit for need’s sake. Here we can make a link with the Catholic Social Teaching that I discussed in Chap. 4, which promotes the idea of working for a just wage and charging a just price, or in accordance with the ethics that Pope Francis (2013) proposes, that sees money as a servicing tool rather than a ruler of our society. The innovators who could kick- start a swing from neoliberalism would need to show people an alternative ideology: one with potential to make them successful in life (and this does not have to be material success—perhaps being able to live a long life without physical and mental pain (Turner 2016)) and which would inspire the rest of the population to emulate them, as the Protestant ethic inspired the spirit of capitalism—a new ethic to lead a new spirit.

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