SOCI 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: George Ritzer, Verstehen, Rationality
Document Summary
Religion and the rise of western rational capitalism. Increasing focus on efficiency -> direct means to ends. Dating apps - more likely to find someone with characteristics you know you want to date. Online course - maximizes amount of students per course, lowers costs. There are negative outcomes on focusing on the quickest means to our ends. We are not reflecting on the impacts of the means being used. Farming: lose quality of meat, over use of farms, lack of creativity of people but higher efficiency. It is not just individual people making their own rules. There are clear set out rules to make sure we can predict the kinds of decisions that are going to be made by organizations. Each person specializes, learn tasks really well, and all have one specific role. Clear hierarchy of who is in charge, where the levels are, clear cut, someone makes decisions. Not a lot of negotiating, things move forward.
