Like so many, I read about Max Weber, without being well read In Max Weber himself. With your links, that is no longer the case. I will say, that in my history classes, I never lectured about New England without addressing Max Weber and The Protestant (Work) Ethic. Two thoughts:
1) Coming from an Eastern (Orthodox) perspective, where religious aestheticism is still very much a real thing, Weber's elaboration of a Protestant (largely Calvinist) aesthetic is almost incomprehensible--a different world altogether. His use of the word was certainly enlightening to me, as I had never before considered the behaviour as any type of aestheticism.
2) Weber is essential to understanding the American psyche. I have long contended that the small group of Puritan fanatics in New England had much more influence on the American character than the equally avaricious, but less dogmatic, Virginians and Carolinians. It was New England Puritanism that literally wrote the script for American exceptionalism, now running amok on every continent.
The protestant work ethic, ay? It's a humdinger, all right.
Great to see those guys teased out in context of the time when they lived.
I'm in North West Germany for the last eight years and the entire German Volkgeist is on full display every day. In its current incarnation, there are still many of the psycho-social metaphysical creatures roaming both the architecture and the language.
If the woke word virus is responsible for some of the polarized political environment today, the origins of that partially come from the period and people whose lives you briefly trace in this article.
German romanticism has a lot to answer for in terms of what ails the German psyche.
One has to be something to do with identifying false origins, and the cliche about how logic only works to produce reliable results if you start from the right place.
I was born further north in Scandinavia and whole protestant work ethic there is attributed to deep genetic programming from the environment.
"Erst Fressen, dann kommt Moralen" is probably the perfect example of how biological dependency and the cruelty of cold and suboptimal soil has forced a work discipline into the Northern European genetic memory. "Making hay while the sun shines" approximates the same dynamic, but in the north those who failed to heed the advice simply died out in winter from starvation due to insufficient stores of food. It's beyond morality, but in a Christian culture obsessed with origin according to scripture rather than biology due to the "telos first" origin hierarchy brings profound cognitive dissonance to the nervous system function and its integration with the conscious mind. Goethe and German romanticism was a high water mark of this civilization regardless of what we might also think of the haber-bosh process, or the Porsche, Mercedes, Audi etc engineering and industrial chemistry benchmarks.
The most sinister part, in my opinion, is how the tendencies of the romantic languages genderise non-human objects. A chair, and a table have a gender ascribed in the Die, Der, das denominators. This seems a bit weird to an English speaker, but after an initial balking at the concept we move along. Learning the language, however, it becomes clear that a profound gender discrimination is built into language structure itself. This, borderline evil, resides in the rule that while objects can be feminine, girls are gender neutral. Until they marry, then they become women (die Frau). Until then, they are all " das" Mädche. The girl. Direct translation is something equivalent 'she woman' and 'it girl' rendering girls as objects. Things to be traded, the epitome of the chattel slave, indoctrinated through the mother-tongue to learn, along with learning to speak, that a little girl has no gender, but is simply an object, even into her teens she remains an it, rather than a she.
I am, as might be evident in this rambling comment still outraged by this convention of language and the effect it clearly has on the psyche of certain kinds of women who carry a permanent facial expression of wrack and ruin. And they don't seem to understand why, as the damage was caused before their sense of self had formed during the early years of life.
Perhaps you can think of this linguistic angle within your anti-colonial narrative to bring some cross perspective to the mindset of the perpetrators of domination and the formative scars that seem to make monsters out of some men. And the cultural influences that feed it in along with mother's milk.
Also. To make the point, while I continue to ponder your article, that I have noticed a schism amongst historians about "geography as cultural destiny" as a fiercely contested idea and perhaps you might consider doing an article on that. It relates also to pop anthropology authors like Jared Diamond, who was widely criticised for his line of argument. But also. In context of Chinese culture which apparently adopts the idea as straightforward and indisputable in their self conception as a nation and civilization.
So. Is geography destiny? And why is that problematic for, it seems, hard enlightenment thinkers.
Also. See perhaps @Uncharted Territories by Thomas Puiyo... (Not correct spelling) here on substack. Who writes some fascinating articles from a geographers perspective. Very interesting article in particular about the slovenly nature of the "primitive" warm weather natives of the equatorial belt, (your) colonies, you have mentioned previously. His bio-functional approach around wet bulb temperature and cognitive ability seems pertinent.
"Going troppo" is after all, and also, a well known condition in northern Australia.
Perhaps you could shine your perspective on these matters...???
Perhaps one should tip one's hat to Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell," and acknowledge that religion/mysticism hijacks our biological selves. George Santayana in "The Life of Reason" is perhaps a guide on how to deal with it. That is, religions could be viewed as works of art. Religious ritual speaks to some deep biological urge. If Robin Dunbar's work ("How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures") is a guide, its probably even socially beneficial to be religious. Its disturbing, but so is witnessing any display of raw biological urges. One should deal with it, instead of ignoring/denying it. Protestantism is austere, but that tradition is likely a reaction to the excesses of the pre-reformation church. Calvinism today is a rather weak form of the original.
Like so many, I read about Max Weber, without being well read In Max Weber himself. With your links, that is no longer the case. I will say, that in my history classes, I never lectured about New England without addressing Max Weber and The Protestant (Work) Ethic. Two thoughts:
1) Coming from an Eastern (Orthodox) perspective, where religious aestheticism is still very much a real thing, Weber's elaboration of a Protestant (largely Calvinist) aesthetic is almost incomprehensible--a different world altogether. His use of the word was certainly enlightening to me, as I had never before considered the behaviour as any type of aestheticism.
2) Weber is essential to understanding the American psyche. I have long contended that the small group of Puritan fanatics in New England had much more influence on the American character than the equally avaricious, but less dogmatic, Virginians and Carolinians. It was New England Puritanism that literally wrote the script for American exceptionalism, now running amok on every continent.
Great article.
The protestant work ethic, ay? It's a humdinger, all right.
Great to see those guys teased out in context of the time when they lived.
I'm in North West Germany for the last eight years and the entire German Volkgeist is on full display every day. In its current incarnation, there are still many of the psycho-social metaphysical creatures roaming both the architecture and the language.
If the woke word virus is responsible for some of the polarized political environment today, the origins of that partially come from the period and people whose lives you briefly trace in this article.
German romanticism has a lot to answer for in terms of what ails the German psyche.
One has to be something to do with identifying false origins, and the cliche about how logic only works to produce reliable results if you start from the right place.
I was born further north in Scandinavia and whole protestant work ethic there is attributed to deep genetic programming from the environment.
"Erst Fressen, dann kommt Moralen" is probably the perfect example of how biological dependency and the cruelty of cold and suboptimal soil has forced a work discipline into the Northern European genetic memory. "Making hay while the sun shines" approximates the same dynamic, but in the north those who failed to heed the advice simply died out in winter from starvation due to insufficient stores of food. It's beyond morality, but in a Christian culture obsessed with origin according to scripture rather than biology due to the "telos first" origin hierarchy brings profound cognitive dissonance to the nervous system function and its integration with the conscious mind. Goethe and German romanticism was a high water mark of this civilization regardless of what we might also think of the haber-bosh process, or the Porsche, Mercedes, Audi etc engineering and industrial chemistry benchmarks.
The most sinister part, in my opinion, is how the tendencies of the romantic languages genderise non-human objects. A chair, and a table have a gender ascribed in the Die, Der, das denominators. This seems a bit weird to an English speaker, but after an initial balking at the concept we move along. Learning the language, however, it becomes clear that a profound gender discrimination is built into language structure itself. This, borderline evil, resides in the rule that while objects can be feminine, girls are gender neutral. Until they marry, then they become women (die Frau). Until then, they are all " das" Mädche. The girl. Direct translation is something equivalent 'she woman' and 'it girl' rendering girls as objects. Things to be traded, the epitome of the chattel slave, indoctrinated through the mother-tongue to learn, along with learning to speak, that a little girl has no gender, but is simply an object, even into her teens she remains an it, rather than a she.
I am, as might be evident in this rambling comment still outraged by this convention of language and the effect it clearly has on the psyche of certain kinds of women who carry a permanent facial expression of wrack and ruin. And they don't seem to understand why, as the damage was caused before their sense of self had formed during the early years of life.
Perhaps you can think of this linguistic angle within your anti-colonial narrative to bring some cross perspective to the mindset of the perpetrators of domination and the formative scars that seem to make monsters out of some men. And the cultural influences that feed it in along with mother's milk.
Also. To make the point, while I continue to ponder your article, that I have noticed a schism amongst historians about "geography as cultural destiny" as a fiercely contested idea and perhaps you might consider doing an article on that. It relates also to pop anthropology authors like Jared Diamond, who was widely criticised for his line of argument. But also. In context of Chinese culture which apparently adopts the idea as straightforward and indisputable in their self conception as a nation and civilization.
So. Is geography destiny? And why is that problematic for, it seems, hard enlightenment thinkers.
Also. See perhaps @Uncharted Territories by Thomas Puiyo... (Not correct spelling) here on substack. Who writes some fascinating articles from a geographers perspective. Very interesting article in particular about the slovenly nature of the "primitive" warm weather natives of the equatorial belt, (your) colonies, you have mentioned previously. His bio-functional approach around wet bulb temperature and cognitive ability seems pertinent.
"Going troppo" is after all, and also, a well known condition in northern Australia.
Perhaps you could shine your perspective on these matters...???
Best regards.
Perhaps one should tip one's hat to Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell," and acknowledge that religion/mysticism hijacks our biological selves. George Santayana in "The Life of Reason" is perhaps a guide on how to deal with it. That is, religions could be viewed as works of art. Religious ritual speaks to some deep biological urge. If Robin Dunbar's work ("How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures") is a guide, its probably even socially beneficial to be religious. Its disturbing, but so is witnessing any display of raw biological urges. One should deal with it, instead of ignoring/denying it. Protestantism is austere, but that tradition is likely a reaction to the excesses of the pre-reformation church. Calvinism today is a rather weak form of the original.