Lately the WSN contributors seem to be filled with nothing but
multisyllabic words and a lot of hot air.
Why don't you all do some APPLIED social science - take a look around -
remember...think way back...the capitalist
world-system...globalization...impact on regions, communities...commodity
chains...who gets the $$...Just a suggestion.
On Thu, 27 Nov 1997, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote:
> 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
>
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Judi A. Kessler
University of California, Santa Barbara
Department of Sociology
Santa Barbara, California 93106
(805) 893-3751
fax (805) 893-3324
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