Weber's "Iron Cage"

Our reading this month was first published not as a book but as a two-part scholarly article. Max Weber (1864-1920), one of the founders of modern sociology, published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1904-05 in the journal Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik (The Archive of Social Science and Social Politics).

Weber's interests lie in the parallel developments of Calvinist religious sects and the capitalist economic system in 16th-century Europe.

One of the surprise joys of exploring the classics comes when we chance upon a famous buzz line of the western tradition. Such a moment occurred for me upon revisiting The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber contends that whereas the English Puritans wanted to work in a "calling," we moderns work because we simply have no other choice. He quotes the Protestant theologian Richard Baxter, who wrote that the desire for material goods should only rest on the shoulders "like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment." Then comes Weber's zinger on the modern condition: "But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage [emphasis added]." (See p. 100, Great Books Reading and Discussion Program, Series 4, Vol. 1).

According to Wikipedia's article on Weber's "iron cage," the original German might also translate as "steel-hard housing." Either way, it doesn't sound pleasant, and the meaning seems pretty clear. Modern, materialistic, ultra-rational society makes us all cogs in a wheel.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism dazzled me upon my first encounter with it as a college freshman, but I still find it difficult to classify this text. Is it sociology? History? Philosophy? A political tract? An academic essay punctuated with occasional romantic/lyrical flights?

In the end it doesn't matter what you call it. A great scholar and writer produced The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a work that offers up a great chicken-and-egg riddle:

What comes first, how we do or how we think?

Questions re: "Medea," by Euripides, for Monday, April 27th

I. Is the major theme of this play the emotion of love vs. the emotion of hate?

A. The timelessness of Greek tragedy seems to lie in its ability to portray human emotions that do not change. Frequently one reads in today's papers about the tragedy of a parent who kills his spouse and children and then kills himself. Euripides creates in Medea a character so consumed with hate that she will murder her own children to avenge herself against her husband. Yet she provides an "escape hatch" for herself: she wants to live! Why is this so?

1. If Medea had not been a woman, would she have turned to such violent actions for her revenge? Could she have acted differently as a man?

2. Is there anything to admire in the character of Medea?


B. This play seems to conform to the classic requirements for a Greek tragedy in that it involves the fall of a character of "high estate" due to a "fatal/tragic" flaw in a drama taking place within 24 hours (what a difference a day makes!). In this case it seems to involve two characters: Jason and the King.

1. What are the tragic flaws that bring each one down?

2. Does Euripides's treatment of persons of lower estate (viz., the nurse and attendant, pp. 24-27) give a message to the audience that all things considered it's better to be born low than high?

3. What is the role of the chorus in this particular play and why do they seem to "befriend" Medea?

Some Key Passages to Reread

Medea's speeches on pp. 30-31; 46-47

Four chorus stanzas on pp. 35-36

Medea's speech and choral response, pp. 53-56

April the Cruelest Month?

In the fall of 2006, our group read and discussed Euripides's Iphigenia at Aulis. That play portrayed a key lead-in to the Trojan War, the sacrifice of the princess Iphigenia to gain favorable winds for the voyage of the Greek fleet.

This month we are reading another Euripides play, Medea. The plot of the Medea comes not from the long saga of the Trojan War but from another great Greek mythic cycle, that of Jason, the Argonauts, Medea, and the Golden Fleece.

Medea was a princess in the far-eastern land of Colchis. In her lineage there was a strong predeliction for sorcery and witchcraft. She assists Jason and the Argonauts in the quest for the Golden Fleece, then returns to Greece as Jason's wife. A string of heroics (with an atrocity or two mixed in) leads them to Corinth in the Peloponnese. There Jason aspires to wed King Kreon's daughter, but is faced with the inconvenient fact that he's already married to Medea and has two sons by her. Medea exacts her vengeance on Jason in an unspeakable fashion, which may or may not have been Euripides own elaboration of the story.

Medea was first performed in 431 B.C. in an Athenian playfest. It took last place. The winning plays, by Euphorion, are lost, as is the Sophoclean trilogy that took second place. The Medea survives both in physical form and in popularity. According to scholar Richmond Y. Hathorn, "[w]ith the enactment of the struggle in Medea's breast between her feelings as spurned wife and as loving mother, the audience was presented with the first complete revelation of inner conflict in world literature."

Some Reflections on Last Evening's Discussion

Kudos to our sixteen discussants who braved chilly March winds to attend last night's Schopenhauer discussion.

The group had a mixed verdict on "Schopy." Based on the biographical information given in the reader (for example, when he died Schopenhauer left a substantial legacy to his poodle), many felt his philosophy was too metaphysical and ignored our need for human attachments.

We talked quite a bit about fear of death vs. the knowledge of death. The former is what animals possess as a basic instinct, the latter a realization humans attain through our mental faculty. The knowledge of death sets us apart from the animals and creates what many call "the human condition."

Our reading was an excerpt from the chapter "On Death and Its Relation to the Indestructibility of our Inner Nature," from Schopenhauer's voluminous philosophical tract The World as Will and Representation.

Schopenhauer considered the will, and specifically the "will-to-live" to be a powerful motivating factor in our lives. The capstone question of our discussion was "What, according to Schopenhauer, should be our proper attitude to the will-to-live, since we all have to die?" The group concluded that Schopenhauer's answer would be we give up the will-to-live, just as it gives us up. We thereby achieve a state of nothingness, nonbeing, extinction, nirvana.

Is there consolation in this grim scenario? One of our participants took heart from Schopenauer's lovely ode-in-prose to the cycles of nature. We are each of us like a leaf on a tree, he says, "[f]ading in the autumn and about to fall, this leaf grieves over its own extinction, and will not be consoled by looking forward to the fresh green which will clothe the tree in spring, but says as a lament: 'I am not these! These are quite different leaves' Oh foolish leaf! Whither do you want to go? And whence are the others supposed to come? Where is the nothing, the abyss of which you fear? Know your own inner being, precisely that which is so filled with the thirst for existence; recognize it once more in the inner, mysterious, sprouting force of the tree."

My next-door neighbor puts it another way. Every year he stands on his back deck and makes what I call "the announcement":

"Spring, sprang, sprung!"

Discussion Questions for "The Indestructibility of Our Inner Nature," by Schopenhauer

Interpretive Questions

Does Schopenhauer contradict himself when he says (p.1) that lower animals don't have a "knowledge of death," but then says (p. 3) they and we also have a fear of death?

What does he mean (p.2) when he says that "according to natural consciousness" man fears death more than anything? What is "natural consciousness"?

Is our "whole being-in-itself" the "will to live" (p.4)?

How does knowledge conflict with will (p.5)?

Do you agree that "to mourn for the time when we shall no longer exist is just as absurd as it would be to mourn for the time when we did not as yet exist" (p.6)?

How about with the notion that death is terrible because it represents the death of the will? (p.7)

Is the moment of dying really "similar to that of waking from a heavy nightmare" (p. 9)?

Does the life force endure after death (pp. 9-12)?

If we saw "deeply enough," would we agree with nature and "regard life or death as indifferently as does she" (p. 13)?

Does nature (p.12) really consider the life and death of the individual to be of absolutely no consequence?

Schopenhauer writes (p.17), "In spite of time, death, and decay, we are still all together." What does he mean?

What of the man (p.18) who says of the game "I no longer like it."?

Who is "the lord of the worlds" (p.19)?

What is "the grand disillusionment"?

Why is the death of every good person "peaceful and gentle"? (p.20)


Evaluative Questions

Are all "religions and philosophical systems," as Schopenhauer writes (p. 1), aimed at consoling us concerning death?

Why does he state that "one" religion will enable man to look death calmly in the face, but then speaks of two different religions, Brahmanism (Hinduism) and Buddhism.

On p. 4 he writes, "If we knocked on the graves and asked the dead whether they would like to rise again, they would shake their heads." Agree or disagree?

Schopenhauer writes (p. 1), "Death is the real inspiring genius or Musagetes of philosophy, and for this reason Socrates defined philosophy as 'preparation for death'. Indeed, without death there would hardly have been any philosophizing." Is he really saying that death inspires philosophy, or that philosophy "inspires" death.

"Arthur, Arthur!"

Our featured author this month is Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), a German philosopher known for his pessimistic view of life. The reading selection, "On the Indestructibility of our Inner Nature," comes from his magnum opus The World as Will and Representation, first published in 1819. The World as Will and Representation did not reach a wide audience at the time.

Schopenhauer did, however, attain literary fame with his 1851 book Parerga and Paralipomena (loosely translated from the Greek as "Bits and Pieces"). It contains a multi-part essay, "The Art of Literature," with subsections entitled "On Authorship," "On Style," "On Thinking for Oneself," and "On Books and Reading." In "The Art of Literature," Schopenhauer critiques the dilettantish literary culture of his day. He spares neither the producers nor the consumers of that culture. He berates readers who read so much they never have time to think, for example. Such men, he says, "read themselves stupid."

Could the author of The World as Will and Representation, which weighs in at 700+ pages, have come to believe that thoughtful reading of expository prose was not a worthy pursuit? Schopenhauer's real beef is with those who live entirely inside a book of text instead of what he calls the "book of nature." The former are mere "men of learning," whereas the latter "have enlightened the world and carried humanity further on its way."

Still and all, Schopenhauer gives us license to indulge the reading habit, but with a caveat.

In "On Books and Reading," Schopenhauer enjoins "[B]e careful to limit your time for reading and devote it exclusively to the works of those great minds of all times and countries, who o'ertop the rest of humanity, those whom the voice of fame points to as such. These alone educate and instruct. You can never read bad literature too little, nor good literature too much. Bad books are intellectual poison ; they destroy the mind. Because people always read what is new instead of the best of all ages, writers remain within the narrow circle of the ideas which happen to prevail in their time; and so the period sinks deeper and deeper into its own mire."

Was Schopenhauer a pessimist with a capital "P" or just a curmudgeon? Read "On the Indestructibility of Our Inner Nature," which examines the theme of death we found last month in Tolstoy's "The Death of Iván Illých," and decide for yourself.

Discussion Questions for "The Death of Ivan Ilych"

The Shared Inquiry discussion technique employs two kinds of questions to spur thoughtful analysis. Interpretive questions address problems having to do with the text itself. Often they concern the relation of characters, the reader, or the author vis à vis that text. Evaluative questions treat larger philosophical themes. In either case, a good question is one for which there is no one right answer!

Interpretive Questions

After viewing Iván Ilých's body, why does Schwartz say to Peter Ivánovich, "Iván Ilých has made a mess of things, not like you and me"? (p. 241)

As Peter Ivánovich views the body, it appears to him that Iván's face wears a "reproach and a warning to the living." What is the reproach and the warning? (p. 243)

After the incident of the creaky pouffe (p. 244), why does Praskóvya Fedorovna take out a clean cambric handkerchief and start to weep?

P. 248: Why does Chapter 2 begin "Iván Ilých's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible."?

P. 250: Why does Tolstoy throw in the detail about Iván Ilých having done things at school he knew was wrong, but forgiving himself because they were also done "by people of good position."?

On p. 253 Tolstoy writes: "To say that Iván Ilých married because he fell in love with Praskóvya Fedorovna and found that she sympathized with his views of life would be as incorrect as to say that he married because his social circle approved of the match." What is he saying about Iván's reason for marrying.?

P. 254: He writes, "from the first months of his wife's pregnancy, something new, unpleasant, depressing, and unseemly, and from which there was no way of escape, unexpectedly showed itself." What was that "something"?

Why do you think Iván's son was a "subject of dissension." (p. 257)

Why does he care so much about the home furnishings of his new abode?

As he advances in his career it seems he is able to separate his private and public lives. Why, however, does Tolstoy say that he could "in the manner of a virtuoso ... even allow himself to let the human and official relations mingle." (p. 263?)

Why in the early stages of his disease does he start to find fault with things (a chipped plate, his daughter's hair not to his liking, etc.): p. 266

Why does his daughter find the details of his medical diagnosis "tedious." (p.268)

Why (p. 274) does Iván go to the doctor with Peter Ivánovich?

Why, when his wife suggests he see the famous specialist Leschetítsky (p. 277) does he demur and feel hatred towards her?

P. 279: What is the meaning of the"It" that would stand and look at him. Can it mean anything other that death?

What is the significance of the picture album, described on p. 280, which seems to disturb the perfect beauty of the room he had decorated?

When he asks Gerásim if he's busy, and Gerásim replies "not at all, sir," what does Tolstoy mean when he says that he was "one who had learnt from the townsfolk how to speak to gentlefolk?" (p.283).

Is it realistic for a dying person to want to be "petted and cried over" (p. 285)?

Why does his wife think he's "not doing something for himself that he ought to do and was himself to blame "? Why at this point in his illness does he "hate her with his whole soul" (p. 289)?

Why (p. 299) does he wonder , "What if my whole life really has been wrong"?

Why (p. 300), after his confession, does he start to think about correcting his vermiform appendix and tell his wife he feels better? Why at that point does his screaming begin?

P. 302: "He felt that his agony was due to his being thrust into that black hole and still more to his not being able to get right into it. He was hindered from getting into it by his conviction that his life had been a good one. That very justification of his life held him fast and prevented his moving forward, and it caused him most torment of all." Can you unpack this?

Evaluative Questions

Was the life that Iván Ilých led a good or a bad one? If bad, how could it have been lived more rigteously? What were obstacles to its being lived righteously?

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross describes the process of death as consisting of five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Does Tolstoy portray some or all of these stages accurately?

>Did Iván Ilých die at peace? If so, why?

>Tolstoy in several places describes Ilých's life in terms of backward and forward or up and down. What did he mean?