Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994 Dissertation University of Amsterdam. Chapter 1. Max Weber's universalist
sociology of bureaucracy: the contradiction between public rationalism and private masculinism
15
practical grounds: in his view marxists, who, following Marx' criticism of 'Robinsonades',
attack methodical individualism, cannot present a rational alternative.
31
The consequences of Weber's 'methodological individualism' are far-reaching. 'The
individual' is not only presupposed to exist as someone whose existence can be
conceptually separated from that of other human beings, but also as an entity that is
abstracted from its sex; this abstract individual is therefore identical with the 'individual' of
modern public life, where sex formally is not relevant.
The concept 'individual' can be used for the purpose of analyzing those realms of modern
social, public life, where individuals can be clearly differentiated as having separate rights; it
does not make much sense, however, when applied to the analysis of social relations in
which human beings are formally or informally dependent on others and identify with them,
forming collectives in which social actions cannot be described as being oriented to the
actions of 'others', since nobody can tell where the one 'individual' ends and the 'other' one
begins.
Of this kind of social relations there have been many examples. The most important of them
are those of kinship and the relations in the 'patriarchal' household in which women, children
and slaves are treated as the property of the male head of the household. The institutions of
private life in Weber's time still had a patriarchal character; married women and children did
not count as 'individuals' in any formal-legal sense, and unmarried women remained subject
to paternal domination in important respects. In Weber's time these 'individuals' can only
have been identical with men, especially men who are 'free, white and twenty-one'.
32
31
Obj. MSS p. 95, GAzW p. 196. See on Weber's criticism of Knies' view of the 'personality' as a naturalistic-
organic 'unity' GAzW p. 138 ff.
32
I would argue that Weber's concept of 'the individual' has a normative character; Henrich (1952) p. 44, points to
Weber's identification of the 'individual' with both 'freedom' and 'reason', 'Für Max Weber ist "Persönlichkeit" nun
das, was von dem im menschen Geschehenden eigentlich menschlich ist, nicht aber "der dumpfe ungeschiedene
vegetative "Untergrund" des persönlichen Lebens, d.h. die auf der Verschlingung einer Unendlichkeit psycho-
physischer Bedingungen der Temperaments- und Stimmungsentwicklung beruhende "Irrationalität", welche die
"Person" ja doch mit dem Tier durchaus teilt". Im Zusammenhang der Wissenschaftslehre kann mit Max Weber
diese Eigenschaft des Entlassenseins aus der Irrationalität des Gegebenen Freiheit nennen.' See also p. 49: The
structure of reality 'is bedingt durch die Eigenart menschlichen Seins, das sich von naturhaftem psychischen und
physischen Sein dadurch unterscheidet, daß es sich bewußt von Bedeutungen, von Werten abhängig machen
kann, die es ohnehin im Erleben immer schon bestimmen.''Vernunft und Freiheit sind in diesem Sinne identisch.'
And p. 104 nt 1: '..daß Webers Begriff der Vernunft sich am besten mit den Begriffen Hegels beschreiben läßt als
der Geist, der aus dem bloßen An-sich-sein zur für-sich-seienden Bewußtsein gelangt.' That in such a theory of
science there will be little attention for traditional housewives, slaves and other objectively unfree persons (or
non-persons) will be evident; these human beings tend to be identified with the ' dull undifferentiated vegetative
"underground" of the personal life.' The opposition between 'gender' and 'sex' can only be used if such a concept
of 'the person' is conceptualized in this way as separated from 'nature': then can sex be defined as 'the raw
material "beneath" gender', like Oakley did (1972); see Orobio de Castro (1993). See on the relation between
essentialism and 'deconstructionism' or 'post-structuralism' Fuss (1990); on the 'manliness of women' Van Baalen
(1991), p. 151 ff; and on Weber's opposition of 'individual' and 'nature' (defined as 'processes and phenomena
without subjective meaning') below no 4.
 |
 |
 |