Jump to content

Theory Games


AVENguy

Recommended Posts

Ok, so the problem with being a physics major is that you think mathematically about rediculous shit (anyone who's studied special relativity or quantum physics can attest to this.) Once you have a theory you can extend it as far as you want, which simply doesn't WORK in sociology, but being me I do it anyway.

So without ruther adoo- the thoughts going through my head while discussing "The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism":

(Further adoo, in the form of a disclaimer: this is a social science geek joke, not a scary megalomoniacal ego trip on my part. I don't ACTUALLY think we're Martin Luther..):

One day a man named Martin Luther decided that we wanted a relationship with god outside of the Catholic church, so he walked up to a church in Germany and nails something to the door, saying (loosely translated from the origional German) fuck the church. This is something of a big deal, because the church at that time is how people run their lives. The church tells people how to behave, what to do in order to be safe and fulfilled in this life and (more importantly, at least then) the next. And what Martin Luther has to say catches on, because the church is at times blatantly corrupt, and people begin to doubt that it really CAN keep them safe and fulfilled. Martin Luther argues that people don't need the church, they can arrange their peace with god, their security and prosperity in this world and the next, without the church telling them what to do.

This, if you believe Weber, leads to the rise of modern capitalism. The way that people can be safe and fulfilled is by working hard, earning alot of money, and then rather then spending that money (which generally involves hedonism and sin) reinvesting it to make MORE money. Since money can be exchanged for most anything it functions as the measurable manifestation of security and fulfillment.

Problem is, of course, money can't buy you love. Because capitalism is driven by profit intimate human relationships (which provide another essential type of security and fullfilment) tend to get in the way. A CEO who cares about her employees and pays them a good wage won't make as much profit as one who doesn't and, in a capitalist system, will fail. The one place that it's really ok to care about people is in your family, a tightly knit group of people consisting of you, someone you are in a (hetero, cause what else is there?)sexual relationship with, and the bouncing offspring that your sexual relationship produces. You can't care about your workers but you CAN care about your spouse and your kids, doing so is necessary to raise a new generation of employees and not doing so, not having anyone to care about, might just make you go crazy.

Like the catholic church this system sometimes sucks. People like Marx point out that a system which demands that employers not care about their workers (beyond the extent to which it affects their profits) can get pretty harsh on workers. Feminists, gay rights activists and queer activists, meanwhile, begin to point out the problems with having intimacy limited to a rigid, cookie cutter image of family. In order to love people within the structure of a capitalist society you have to form a recognized family unit, which means that if you don’t want to form a heterosexually monogamous relationship where the man acts male, the woman acts female, and you raise your 2.5 kids to be culturally white then TOUGH. (The notion of “family” is extended somewhat to create the idea of a nation state, just enough to plant the seed of modern racism, but for now there’s no need to go there in depth..)

As capitalism marches on it becomes clear that it can provide a hitherto unknown amount of material security and fulfillment (for an example of this, eat Magic Shell.) However, these problems with human relationships become more and more of a problem. With the advent of globalization the distance between employers and laborers is measured in hemispheres, and what was once a riff between classes becomes one between the “developed” and the “developing” world. This riff, like most riffs, gets violent at times. Meanwhile the limits on human relationships that capitalism imposes (at least in the “developed” world) are making people antsy. There are only three types of close relationships allowed:

1. Sexual relationships

2. Relationships with your kids

3. Relationships which better not be there the second they get in the way of making a profit

This is a huge limitation, and it sucks.. As the nature of the workforce changes even the intimacy “safe space” of the nuclear family begins to break down, divorces run rampant and in them the drive for profit cuts a swath through the safety that the idea of “family” once offered. Kids, increasingly marketed to by corporations, grow closer to their brands than their parents, and those relationships too become dictated by fiscal concerns. People become starved for intimacy, desperate. They are attracted almost uncontrollably to anything that might bear the promise of it.

Suddenly capitalism is in one hell of a fix. There is a HUGE demand for a product that it, by it’s very nature, cannot produce and market. Things look bleak until, someone comes upon an unlikely solution: the condom. Capitalism has allowed intimacy in sexual relationships all this time because it needed them to produce new workers, so in a capitalist society sex is allowed to be intimate in a way that almost nothing else is. Capitalism can’t give people intimacy (beyond familiar brands) but it CAN give them sex: the very definition of an exclusive, intimate, emotional relationship with another person. And with condoms, the unfortunate side effect of putting sex everywhere (having unwanted pregnancies everywhere) can be for the most part avoided. Sex can be ANYWHERE, in movies, in popular culture, hell even SELLING PRODUCTS (how well does THAT work?) and an intimacy-starved society will gobble it up.

The more desperate society gets for intimacy the more frantically it talks about sex. Ungrounded theories developed by Freud are taken and misapplied to see sex everywhere, pop stars and movies get sexier and more sex-obsessed, and people seek sexual empowerment like never before. People become convinced that the grinding need for intimacy that they are feeling is really just sex drive, if they want love they had better find a lover. Because wanting security, fulfillment and intimacy outside of sex is as unthinkable as wanting a relationship with god outside of the Catholic church.

So we're the new Martin Luther! How cool is that?

Link to post
Share on other sites

So I have a refined version of this that makes a little more sense, I got a little disoriented towards the end there..

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree except for

A CEO who cares about her employees and pays them a good wage won't make as much profit as one who doesn't and, in a capitalist system, will fail.

A company with a very bad climate will never be as succesful as a company in which people and their work are respected and approved of.

We are the new Martin Luther? *ggg* Maybe! I don't want to get burned though. But then again...which community doesn't think highly of themselves? They are all Martin Luthers according to them...Punks, Anti-Globalisation-People, Greenpeace, etc. I just know that it's terribly exciting to be part of this community, because something like that/us has never existed before. There is something new here! :idea:

Skiddaloxx

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree with most of what you're saying, but be careful not to mistake cause for effect. Historians 200 years from now will point to the Pill and the cheap, effective condom as the most radical social event of the 20th Century, but I don't think this, in and of itself, gave late-stage capitalism another few decades it might not otherwise have had. It's an awfully huge beast and amazingly adaptable; the idea of sex (and all the idealized body images and celebrity gossip and advice-to-the-lovelorn crap that came along later) is really just part of how World OmniCorp has bought or co-opted everything that used to belong to the sphere of people's beliefs and wants, private and especially public. I agree, today's corporate world had a good model in the Catholic Church, but I'm afraid it goes much much further than sex or intimacy. There used to a thing called the public space, which contained all the guidelines setting out how people should relate to each other - personally, emotionally, economically, and sexually. As a society we've let multinational corporations take the place of both the nation-state and the whole goddamn social contract, and we've got an incredible job ahead if we're going to take either of them back. But at least refusing to buy into the self-reinforcing sex feedback loop is a good place to start. Two quotes:

"People who talk about art without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and being positive in the refusal of constraint, have corpses in their mouths."

- Slogan of the Situationist Movement, 1910's

"It's as if someone told me there weren't going to be any cheeseburgers anymore."

- Record producer Felton Jarivs, on the death of Elvis Presley

Link to post
Share on other sites
VivreEstEsperer

I actually understood that.

And, omg, lol. I just wrote a paper on the protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism today! well, actually it didnt have anything to do with the P. work ethic but we are talking about that in class.

Actually, it was a paper on Marx and capitalism; what else?

But yeah. why is so much of sociology about Marx and capitalism? I guess because that makes up so much of our society.

I'm taking a social theory class this semester. So I think I might be able to understand your posts better after this, DJ, LOL.

yeah... so im going to go now... and read some more marx...lol.

Kate

Link to post
Share on other sites

hmmmm,

i realize you said it was a quasi-joke, but one should be careful not to oversimplify, things are usually more complex than that...

...and wow someone mentioned the situationists, that quote was raoul vanegeim(sp?)....and um it wasn't 1910's, vaneigem was from the 1950's mostly and the situationsts were from 1957-1969-situationist thought continued after that though

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree with sacredprofane that you shouldn't over simplify things that actually are very complex. Because of you did so you drew some inacurate or atleast unsubstantiated conclusions, which is a shame.

Though, it was a nice try your little essay isn't really going anywhere :)

Ps. i didn't intend to sound mean.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I was using it to try and develope some ideas, you have to start with oversimplifications and work your way, to more inclusive ideas (at least in my experience.) I've got no problem drawing improper conclusions if I'm not concluded with them yet :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
I was using it to try and develope some ideas, you have to start with oversimplifications and work your way, to more inclusive ideas (at least in my experience.) I've got no problem drawing improper conclusions if I'm not concluded with them yet :)

you've got a valid point there. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...

Just to play along:

Because wanting security, fulfillment and intimacy outside of sex is as unthinkable as wanting a relationship with god outside of the Catholic church.

So we're the new Martin Luther! How cool is that?

My understanding is that Martin Luther decided to stand up against the Church and decided that he believed that the Church wasn't the only way to have a relationship with god. Now as people who are celibate are choosing to go against society/common beliefs, they would be the new "Martin Luther." Now because as asexuals don't choose the way they are, they just are, they are not on the same level as Martin Luther. However, because they cannot choose to be different or persuaded to be what they aren't, they have a more powerful stand, as they are living proof that there is a way to live which society doesn't accept, and also that society can't avoid as asexuality does exist, is naturally occuring, and cannot be changed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...