POL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Kiel Mutiny, 1918 Flu Pandemic, Even Language
German thinker
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Born in Erfurt, grew up in an academic / political, upper middle class
household in Berlin
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Held professorships in Freiberg (economics), Heidelberg (politics),
Vienna, and Munich
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Weber, with the exception of a breakdown, led a charmed life with a
miserable end : he saw his beloved Germany defeated, descend into
chaos, and suffer the Versailles treaty.
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Caught the Spanish flu and died in June 1920.
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defeat, economic / political collapse
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Kiel mutiny
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radical left revolutionaries in Berlin and Munich
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the resignation and flight of the Kaiser
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Wrote a treatise about power, institutions, and the
professionalization of politics
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Wrote Politics as a Vocation at the end of his life, as Germany was in
the midst of a revolution :
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Separation of facts from values in analysis (a German patriot
who would rationally and coolly analyze German politics in
1918)
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So many factors / things happening at once, can't truly
understand, only attempt
Even language we use is an abstraction from reality
Observation that there is a tension between "the infinite
complexity of the potentially knowable and out finite capacity to
know."
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Class means different things
'Ideal types:' abstractions, and often exaggerations, of social
phenomena that have a relationship to reality, but which are not
real : class, status, party, power, charisma, feudalism, sect.
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Protestants work hard, richer.
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Secular evidence of their salvation.
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Worldly success was a sign of salvation - salvation
through work.
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Catholics work less, poorer. Everything runs through
Church, salvation through God --> not through work
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This devotion to work, sobriety, frugality, and wealth
acquisition explains the success of England, and,
more broadly, more advanced development in post-
reformation northern Europe than in Roman Catholic
Hapsburg Empire
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Has been subject to much criticism, including that
capitalism emerged in 14th century Italy, not 19th
century England
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Also attacked as stereotyping
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Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism : an explanation of
capitalist development
Role of religion in structuring social and political life
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Responsible for several intellectual contributions
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Weber
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Weber's article
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Lecture 2.5: The State
February 6, 2017
12:00 PM
LECTURES Page 53
