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
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announces that he will suppose some phenomena, such as 'differences in hereditary
biological constitution, as of "races"', to be meaningful and therefore social ones, until other
sciences have proved them to be biological in character.
59
He treats the subject of what
biologists called 'race' by formulating the sociological concept of 'caste'; nevertheless he
again leaves room in his treatment for phenomena of a biological character.
60
At other points in his argument, though, Weber does not even try to analyze supposed
natural human characteristics sociologically. In his view 'traditional' action in particular is
defined by 'mechanical and instinctive factors' even in later stages of human development.
61
We will see later that his treatment of the concept of 'sex' is ambivalent: in his construction of
traditional or patriarchal domination he introduces the concept 'masculine superiority' in an
aprioristic manner, as if it were a 'datum' which lies outside of sociological investigation; in
his treatment of charismatic domination, however, he constructs a difference between
biological and social manhood; he then constructs an ideal type of 'patriarchy in a technical
sense' established by members of groups who have monopolized this social manhood.
sociological analysis of mass phenomena could use neither the methods of the "exact" laboratory experiments
nor the uncertain results of the theory of heredity.' (Biography p. 331, Lebensbild p. 377). See: Methodische
Einleitung für die Erhebungen des Vereins für Sozialpolitik über Auslese und Anpassung (Berufswahlen und
Berufsschicksal) der Arbeiterschaft der geschlossenen Großindustrie (1908) and Zur Psychophysik der
Industriellen Arbeit (1908-09), in GAzSS, p. 1 ff. and 61 ff.
59
'It is possible that future research may be able to discover non-interpretable uniformities underlying what has
appeared to be specifically meaningful action, though little has been accomplished in this direction so far'. 'Thus,
for example, differences in hereditary biological constitution, as of "races", would have to be treated by sociology
as given data in the same way as the physiological facts of the need of nutrition or the effect of senescence on
action. This would be the case if, and insofar as, we had statistically conclusive proof of their influence on
sociologically relevant behavior.''(Thus it may come to be known that there are typical relations between the
frequency of certain types of teleological orientation of action or of the degree of certain kinds of rationality and
the cephalic index or skin color or any other biologically inherited characteristic)', ES p. 7/8, WG p. 3.
60
See below, Ch. 4, 9. In his earlier works he attacked race biologists far more fiercely, see for instance Obj.
MSS p. 69, GAzW p. 167. See for an elaborate treatment of the marxist view on 'nature' as a factor in human life
Schmidt (1978); for a herstorical materialist view Van Baalen en Ekelschot (1985).
61
See ES p. 17, WG p. 8: 'The most that can be hoped for, then, is that these biological analogies' (from the field
of the psychology of social animals) 'may some day be useful in suggesting significant problems. For instance
they may throw light on the question of the relative role in the early stages of human social differentiation of
mechanical and instinctive factors, as compared with that of the factors which are accessible to subjective
interpretation generally, and more particularly to the role of consciously rational action. It is necessary for the
sociologist to be thoroughly aware of the fact that in the early stages even of human development, the first set of
factors is completely predominant. Even in the later stages he must take account of their continual interaction
with the others in a role which is often of decisive importance. This is particularly true of all "traditional" action and
of many aspects of charisma, which contain the seeds of certain types of psychic "contagion" and thus give rise
to new social developments. These types of action are very closely related to phenomena which are
understandable either only in biological terms or can be interpreted in terms of subjective motives only in
fragments. But all these facts do not discharge sociology from the obligation, in full awareness of the narrow
limits to which it is confined, to accomplish what it alone can do.'
Weber furthermore has no objections to making pronouncements about general human characteristics; see for
instance ES p. 953, WG 549: 'the generally observable need of any power, or even of any advantage of life, to
justify itself'; ES p. 603, WG p. 362: 'sexually conditioned physiological needs'; 'ES p. 855 and 884 on 'intrinsic
intellectual needs'.
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