List,
I think an historical materialist explanation of rationality helps us get
around Blaut's simplistic explanation, which appeals to ideological
utility to explain the development of rationalism, by noting that
rationalism and racism emerged from the same historical system. They may
converge (sometimes) in the manner Blaut describes, but the one cannot be
reduced to the other. And we can also avoid the idealism of Weber, being
advanced by Schell, by noting that Weber identified and made clear a real
ideational and organizational movement in history, but that he
insufficiently rooted the emergence of these phenomena in the development
of sociomaterial base of the historical system where we find these
phenomena. Weber's is a problem of time order. If we understand
rationality as generally emerging from the sociomaterial structure,
stipulating that ideational production can also set in motion the
development of sociomaterial structure, then the problem is on the way
towards being solved.
The assumption that racial superiority can be judged the existence of
rationality among certain groups is false. For this false view to hold, we
must assume that society is a product of some racial essence, and not that
individuals, with their shared traits, are constituted by social
structure. The difference among populations, in the false view, is
reflected in the differences among sociocultural forms. The explanation
just does not work, particularly when confronted with the genetic
evidence. But for the same reason racial theories of sociocultural
idiosyncrasy don't work, neither do theories which assume, even without a
racial basis, inherent rationality in individuals and its building up into
social structure. Weber's theory started from the point of the individual
and argued that group behavior is to be understood in these terms. In this
way, his theory moves in the direction of Homans and psychological
reductionism. Again, this is an ideological distortion. Systems are
rational, systems of organization, ideational systems, but individuals
are not inherently rational. We cannot hypostatize a sociocultural
phenomenon as innate. I have presented research on this channel before
showing that, for the most part, individuals are nonrational, and that
they must learn to be rational, and even scientist generally operate
nonrationally or irrationally. We must clearly demarcate rationalism as a
mode of organization and mode of thinking, and not use it tautologically
as a euphemism for thinking and acting (the error of rational choice). And
while we may describe behavior in certain useful terms, we must be careful
not to confuse the mode of description and explanation with the object
being described and explained, or else we project into the object the
ideas we use to understand the object. Individual rationality is just such
a false reification. Individuals are not innately rational anymore than
they are innately racist.
The point is that neither one of the perspectives presented here, either
condemning Weber for alleged racism or defending Weber against racist
charges to keep Weber's system pure, take off from a sufficiently
realistic basis. I think this is the more important lesson to be learned
from this exchange.
Arguing from the outside,
Andy