UE 2
Alexander Thompson
Longwood University
SOCL -401-01-Sociological Theory
Dr. Grether
October 4th, 2023
Summary:
For UE 2 I have revised the comments provided in my feedback box. I fixed my issues beginning with breaking down my paragraphs into six to eight sentences to not overwhelm the reader. I also corrected calling the theorist by their first name and fixed it to their last name to be more professional. I also ended up explaining more on my thoughts and dug deeper so the reader can understand better without as many complications and questions.
This paragraph is going to be about the major concerns of Max Weber that motivated their theoretical interests including questions issues about bureaucracy rationalization, authority/power, and how bureaucracy and authority/power fit together with one another. Weber was motivated by bureaucracy because he was concerned with how it had an impact on modern society, how they function including the characteristics of a bureaucracy, and how bureaucracy shapes authority. Max believed that this was a replica of more modern trends of rationalization. Weber wanted to know more about organized modern societies and was able to do this by shaping relations in terms of socialization meaning he did this by studying how people interacted with one another. Max was intrigued with the concept of rationalization. His social issue with rationalization was that he wanted to know how rationalization has an impact on more traditional types of values. This means he wanted to observe how people’s values were affected by rationalizing modern society. Due to Weber’s curiosity and interest in authority, he developed three different types of authority. Those included traditional, charismatic, and rational/legal. Weber wanted to know how different kinds of authority affect social groups and can have an effect on power. Weber wanted to be able to explain how society functioned, and how it has changed due to different social factors such as social institutions and structures. Weber was also highly motivated by the rejection of Marxism. Weber also rejected the positivist perspective this was because Weber believed that you could not stereotype human behavior. His overall focus was on social action meaning interactions between different human beings being motivated by different social forces within society and the desires of human beings. There are four different social actions that Weber used which are purposeful/rational, value-oriented, emotional/affective, and traditional.
Weber’s key contributions included bureaucracy, social action, rationalization, types of authority, and subjective meanings. Bureaucracy as imagined by Weber is an organization with legal power, however, they have to have rational power to make smart decisions according to Poling (2021). Weber believed that bureaucracy had to have a clear level of authority with different ranks otherwise known as hierarchical authority. These organizations must have a clear difference in the division of labor and rules to follow. He believed that bureaucracy was the most efficient, however, it was Weber’s idea of bureaucracy that allowed a framework to be built to better understand more modern institutions in society. Weber’s social action contribution studied the different and unique interactions between humans. Weber focused on the interaction itself rather than looking at what motivated the interaction. Social action is being able to comprehend the desires of humans and social forces in the world this then allows for an understanding of how people create meaning. According to Coser (2003), Weber had four different types of social action which included purpose/rational, value-oriented, emotional/affective, and traditional. Weber focused heavily on rationalization and contributed against it because Weber believed that rationalization is a major issue when it comes to more modern Western societies (Allen & Daynes, 2017, p.144). Weber believed that it led to a few negative outcomes such as oppressive routines, depersonalization, and destructing individual freedom. Weber contributed to the idea of subjective meaning. Subjective meaning is the particular way people/individuals will justify their actions in society. Subjective meaning looks at the meaning along with the action as one instead of two different reasons. Lastly, Weber discusses verstehen. According to Raskoff (2011) verstehen tries to comprehend social action through a lens of empathy from the individual themselves. This allows us to understand what they may be going through their perspective.
Weber’s theoretical contributions are still relevant in today’s society because his contributions are still in use today. For example, bureaucracy can easily still be relevant in today’s society because if you look at most businesses there is a chain of hierarchy when you have normal employees, supervisors, managers, and so on. Another prime example is the fire service. Within the fire service, there are clearly stated ranks you must report to and follow orders from without question. These examples are traits that Weber includes in the explanation of bureaucracy. Social action is still relevant, for example, social scientists still use these actions to study and analyze human behavior to this day. Social action is also used by social scientists to understand human decision-making as well. All of these theoretical concepts and contributions are still relevant because they are used in modern times just as they were in past times. We can use the more modern understandings of these contributions to help us understand the past and vis versa. We use these past understandings to study and see how they develop and if anything changes when applied to modern society. Weber’s contributions to rationalization are made to improve efficiency, productivity, and predictability within organizations, the economy, and different social systems within society. However, Weber did mention the negative downfalls of rationalization which included depersonalization, oppressive routine, rising secularism, and destructing individual freedom. He also noted that another negative outcome is that it would make it harder for people to pursue certain values in life.
Reference:
Allan, K. & Daynes, S. (2017). Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory : Seeing the Social World: Vol. Fourth edition. SAGE Publications, Inc.
Coser, L. A. (2003). Masters of sociological thought: Ideas in historical and Social Context. Waveland Press, Inc.
Poling, J. (2021b, March 22). Everyday sociology blog: March 2021. Everyday Sociology Blog. https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2021/03/index.html
Raskoff, S. (2011, July 14). Everyday sociology blog: Marriage, Max Weber, and Verstehen. Everyday Sociology Blog. https://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2011/07/marriage-max-weber-and-verstehen.html