A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote addresses the shift in society towards rationality and a loss of enchantment with the world, highlighting the importance of personal connections and intimate art.
Max Weber reflects on the changes characterizing modern times, emphasizing how rational thinking and the process of intellectualization have led to a disenchantment in society. This shift has caused profound values and artistic expressions to retreat from the grand scale of public life to more intimate and personal experiences. In this context, Weber suggests that the richness of human emotions and relationships offers a deeper connection to what truly matters, overshadowing monumental art and societal constructs.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about the impact of modernization on human emotions.
More from Max Weber
All quotes →'Culture' is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance.
The modern view of criminal justice, broadly, is that public concern with morality or expediency decrees expiation for the violation of a norm; this concern finds expression in the infliction of punishment on the evil doer by agents of the state, the evil doer, however, enjoying the protection of a regular procedure.
The purely emotional form of Pietism is, as Ritschl has pointed out, a religious dilettantism for the leisure class.
Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.
Causal analysis provides absolutely no value judgment, and a value judgment is absolutely not a causal explanation.
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