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CHAPTER 1
RESPONDING TO CHAOS
golf because it is a good way to soften up customers or clients to make profitable deals.
In the university community, I have met both rational and nonrational students. The rational student sees college as a means to an end (for example, a high-paying job); the nonrational student
enjoys college because of what he or she learns. (Of course, many students have a mixture of motives.) Weber wanted to know what it was about modern life that tended to inspire people to choose rational over nonrational behavior. The fact that rationalism seemed to be increasing in the Western world suggested to Weber that something important
was happening and that, if we were to understand society and our place in it, we needed to understand the underlying causes
and consequences of this trend.10 1.4 Think about two things you do for what Weber would call rational reasons. In what respect are your motives rational? 1.5 Think about two things you do for what Weber would call nonrational reasons. In what respect are your motives nonrational?
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (T 8181883) is perhaps best
known as the "father" of communism.
Although many sociologists rank Karl Marx among the most important founders of sociology (along with Durkheim and Weber), it is curious that they do so. As one of his biographers wrote, "To write about Marx as a sociologist is to be hedged in with perils." Marx did not think of himself as a sociologist, and indeed, he was contemptuous of the sociologists whom he knew. As far as Marx was concerned, their focus on the social was entirely misdirected; only economics counted. Marx was born in Germany in 1818 and studied philosophy and law. His early political activities made it impossible for him to achieve an academic position and, ultimately, even to stay in Germany. When he fled to France and continued to criticize the German government, Germany prevailed upon France to expel Marx. After a short stint in Brussels, he found himself in England, where he would stay almost continuously until his death in 1883.
1()Weber's most famous investigation focused on the relationship between religion
and the growth of rationality. The result of this investigation, a book titled The Protes tant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904-1905, remains one of the most famous works in sociology.