Study Group Meeting Notes (11 Dec 2009)

Detective novels

• Magazines, books, etc à part of 'popular culture' (cf. Adorno's critique of popular culture as 'mass deception')
  
• Characteristics of detectives
  
  • Rational
    
  • Former police, or not part of the police force à non-institutionalised / anti-institution(?)
    
• Features of crime
  
  • Distinct from everyday life
    
  • Violent (i.e. unlikely to be white collar crimes)
    
• Characteristics of female criminals
  
  • Motive related to money rather than love à rationalised
    
  • Hyper-masculinised
    
  • Embodies contradictions
    
• The characteristics of detectives, crimes, and criminals legitimises/normalises the occurrence of crime
  

 

Popular culture

• Erodes distinction between high culture and mass culture; appeals to both elites and the lay person (cf. Adorno's notion of popular culture as the 'lowest common denominator)
  
• Commodification
  
• Part of the 'capitalist system', but the 'system' is not a coherent totality with a logic that compels every person to act in accordance with its principles; contains internal contradictions and space for autonomy/agency/resistance
  
• Popular culture as 'mass deception' à what is the 'truth' that the system hides?
  
• Adorno does not prescribe for his readers what he considers to be the 'truth', but considers critique as a way of approaching truth
  
• For Adorno, everything must be ceaselessly critiqued; even philosophy must be subjected to criticism à the problems of philosophy are created by philosophy
  

 

Weber's Protestant Ethics

• Has been criticised on ground that it does not explain anything, but is Weber concerned with explanation? (cf. Weber's writings on methodology à The notion of Verstehen, or 'emphatic understanding', vs. explanation)
  
• Then again, one must not take this at face value; by not explaining, he explains – and this is a hallmark of Weber's writings
  
  • "But after all, what is Weber? By not answering, he answers" (Robert Bellah, The Robert Bellah Reader, 2006; p. 389).
    
• 'Direction' à analyses conditions that directs rather than determine
  
• Concept of 'elective affinity' (Wahlverwandschaften)
  and its roots in the natural sciences (i.e. chemistry)
  
  • "The exact meaning of this term, which Weber often uses, is contested. The most common interpretation is that 'elective affinity' is used by Weber to express the fact that two sets of social facts of mentalities are related to each other or gravitate to each other – even though no direct and simple causality between the two can be established… It may finally be suggested that the term 'compatibility' may also capture some of the meaning of Weber's Wahlverwandschaften (Richard Swedberg, The Max Weber Dictionary; p. 83–84).
    
• Protestant Ethics as a response to Marx's ideas
  
  • "it is not my aim to substitute for a one-sided materialistic an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of history"
    
• Rejection of simplistic causal relationships
  
  • "It would have been a simple matter to move beyond this theme to a conventional 'construction', according to which all that is 'characteristic' of modern civilisation is logically deduced out of Protestant rationalism. However, this sort of construction is better left to that type of dilettante who believes in the unity of the 'social psyche' and its reducibility to one formula…" (See no. 138 in 'Notes').
    
• Rejects the unity of 'social psyche' à autonomy/agency of actors