(Tokyo Bay and the Artificial Island and the attached Half Bridge
- about 100km on the side;
Click to Enlarge.
Source: NASA
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10786 )
The Prophecy of Max Weber
One ordinary American, European, or Japanese must be surrounded in his or her home by "hundreds of thousands" of items produced in factories and plants through industrial processes.
Even a TV set includes "hundreds" of components each of which includes "tens" of technological elements and methods to realize it, including hardware and software.
In this environment full of artificial materials, it would be very difficult to associate oneself with the whole social systems in a meaningful and humane manner.
The more you are given useful industrial products, the more you are required to exercise your love to the society and other members of the society that provide goods and products for your convenience.
But, a weird fact is that consumers have become more alienated and separated from one another and the core of the social system.
The Internet and TV may be regarded as narrowly functioning to connect essentially isolated citizens to the social system and the national system with whatever human senses.
That is why I am concerned with the words of Max Weber concerning true key players in this high-tech global society and that half-naked commercialism:
“Specialists without Spirit, Sensualists without Hearts” ( Weber, 1958: 182 )
Let’s check contents of a non-nonsense discussion:
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The Secular Mirage:
Modernity, The Postmodern Turn, and Religious Revivalism
Manochehr Dorraj
Texas Christian University
…
Therefore, the vengeful return of religion as a major social force in the last four decades and its forceful intervention in this secular age poses major political and philosophical questions.
Some of the statistics in regard to global scope of religious revivalism is startling indeed. In 1970, Barrett and Johnson estimate, there were 1.2 billion Christians, today, they count 2 billion; and Barrett believes there will be 2.6 billion by 2025. The World of Islam is going to grow even faster. In 1970 there were 553 Million Muslims, in mid 2001 there were about 1.2 billion, and Barrett's projection is that by 2025 there will be 1.8 billion Muslims. In 1970 there were 463 million Hindus, by 2003 this number reached 824 million, by 2025 there will be about 1 billion Hindus. The number of Buddhists has increased from 233 million in 1970, to 363 million in 2003, and it is projected to reach 418 million in 2025.However, the rate of the people who identify themselves as non-religious and secular have expanded from 532 million in 1970 to 774 in 2003and it is projected to reach 875 million in 2025. Meanwhile, the number of professed atheists declined from 165 million in 1970 to 150 million today ( Martin, 2003: 44 ).
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The reduction of individuals to passive consumers, caught in a march of fungible commodities that constantly transform and mediate their lives imbues them with a feeling of powerlessness. Moreover, the logic of the market- place is one of pleasure and plurality, of the ephemeral and discontinuous, of a great decentered network of desires of which individual consumers are the passing functions ( Eagleton, 1996 ). By providing permanently valid values and continuity with the past, religious faith enables individuals to connect themselves to their past in a world of constant change and turmoil. In a society where individuals are rendered as passive consumers, by allowing the faithful to actively participate in their faith either through the practice of religious rituals or social and political activities, religion imbues the believer with a sense of control and empowerment.
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The unprecedented decline of community and civic engagement and civility ( Putnam, 2000 ), has intensified a longing for community and connection. As Hannah Arendt has observed, “the collective loneliness” which has become explosive in modern society leads the uprooted to total, unrestricted, unconditional and unalterable loyalty to the “organization” that would lend him/her a sense of mission and belonging ( Arendt, 1960 ). Arendt’s perceptive analysis partially explains the appeal of political religions in the modern and the postmodern era.
Observing the universalization of instrumental rationality and its social impact, the premier sociologist of modernity, Max Weber, characterized institutionalized bureaucratic domination as an “iron cage”. Pondering a possible path for the future, he asserted:
“No one knows who would live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals” ( Weber, 1958: 182 ).
The Weberian prophecy has materialized in the postmodern era. The last two centuries have had more than their share of charismatic leaders purporting to be new saviors. While some prophets of revolution became the source of inspiration for new sacred initiations, and their ideas created new political faith, thus molding national identities, others left behind profound disillusion and permanent disenchantment.
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In other words, the scientific revolution has spurred tumultuous social transformations that we have not yet been able to fully understand their meanings and ramifications, let alone to be able to control their unintended consequences. Hence, the technological revolution appears as unconscious and out of control, and its prodigy, the postmodern society, stands as something alien dominating human life. As Weber puts it, the result is the creation of “specialists without spirit, sensualists without hearts” ( Weber, 1958: 182 )…
As Marxism is stripped from its messianic mantle and is relegated to the level of other secular ideologies, new opportunities have opened up for religious organizations to assume an even more overt and assertive political roles. This is particularly true in the Third World where economic, social and cultural polarizations are more pronounced and distinct. Due to the fragile nature of their socio-economic systems, the global South responds to the social and cultural dislocations of postmodernity more intensely and vibrantly. It may well be that the volcanic eruption of the religio-politics in the Third World, may tell us something about the genealogy of the crisis that plagues the global North; but also as to what might emerge to resolve it.
http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/jgcg/2007/sp07/jgcg-sp07-dorraj.htm
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Last Sunday, as the God told me to check the field He loves, I went to the field of seawater, namely Bay of Tokyo.
Yet, there may be another holy field to check before the August of 2008 has gone.
Joh 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Joh 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
Joh 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.