Short Paper: Question 5 Max Weber and Modern Asia Bryan Yenata 1001647 CC 01 Dr. Pang Yang Huei HASS - 02.003: Theorising Society, the Self, and Culture Max Weber argues that capitalism exists due to religion, more specifically Protestantism’s branch, Calvinism. This means that Protestantism is extremely important for the development of capitalism.
To back up his argument, Weber discusses his observations, which have lead him to make this claim. For example, Weber says that in his experience, richer districts converted to Protestantism. Weber goes one step farther to say that Protestants turn more towards capitalism due to their inherited wealth. Weber also claims that Catholics are more otherworldly and ascetic than Protestants, which therefore makes them indifferent to material gain. In order to discuss capitalism’s intimate ties to religion, Weber quotes Benjamin Franklin because according to Franklin, it is an ethic for an individual to have the “duty” to prosper.
In his farewell, Washington puts forth the idea that the new American government has been religiously ordained. To abandon religion in America’s nascent stage would betray a higher power and,
The Bible says, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” However, why would we desire the luxurious lifestyle of the billionaires if we perceive money as “the root of all evil” and believe that “money can’t buy happiness”? To William Hazlitt, the pursuit for money is neither the source of evil nor the corrupter of one’s soul. In his essay “On the Want of Money,” Hazlitt advocates that money is the essential ingredient of a prosperous and comfortable life through parallel structure of “it is,” “or to,” “to be,” depressive tone, and sarcasm towards the end of the passage.
These are the grand tenants of Jeffersonian religion. As for the aforementioned organization of religion, Jefferson was opposed and considered such to be coercive of the rights and freedoms of mankind. Thus, his desire to create a freedom of religious thought without enshrining a mandate or litmus test concerning religious belief in government or as far as rights are protected or acknowledged. Jefferson’s philosophy on religion, as with many other areas, were derived from his thought experiments. He reasoned his philosophy out of an educated mind, and although we can identify its underpinnings, much of his philosophy is considered unique.
Behind every act of kindness lurks a selfish motivation. The Puritans were a religious sect in 17th century New England who believed in predestination or the belief that God had prior knowledge about each person’s fate in the afterlife. A core ideal of the Puritan religion was the principle of humanity being essentially evil and only doing good for others out of fear for God’s wrath or for selfish benefit. On the other end of the spectrum, is the humanists of the 18th century, many of which were America’s founding fathers. The humanists believed in the good of humanity and the concept of a loving, non-interfering God, a concept called Deism.
Firstly, annihilating the unity of religion in Europe resulted in the division of Christendom into Catholic and Protestant. It weakened the Church and its oppressive clergy, while restoring the pure form of early Christianity. Additionally, the Reformation helped to separate the Church and state. Secondly, empowering monarchs by sacrificing church officials facilitated the movement towards the modern centralized worldly state. Although absolute monarchy was a significant factor of political liberty, Protestantism also contributed to this growth.
Priestley completely demoralizes capitalism by making the audience detest its followers (Mr. and Mrs. Birling); he achieves this by giving Mr. Birling a presumptuous and arrogant character that is made to be despised. The word “members” suggests that everyone is treated fairly and you cannot differentiate between the rich and poor which results in no inequalities in class or gender. Also, it suggests that each member depends on the rest of the community to function; if one part of the “body” does not function properly
Christianity was the main component in Europe that remained the same during 1350 to 1700. Christianity unified Europeans. New technology and intelligence combined with the Europeans steady culture that they already had trading caused Europe to become more developed. With the introduction of increased trade, the merchants crated a new social class because of their importance to the European economy. The Merchants were wealthy middle class.
Analysis of Protestant Reformation Reasons What were the religious, social, economic, political and cultural reasons of the Reformation? To explain why did the Reformation happen, historians usually start with the impact of Martin Luther’s religious ideas and his effect on the society. However Reformation is something which has to be covered from various aspects, for instance, it can be seen as an economic protest against the Church’s eager to fleece its religious folk, or as a political uprising of the German princes to confine the authority of the Church in their country, as it was regarded as a foreigner institution which was based in Rome. The Reformation was also closely related to cultural reasons such as the notion of nationalism.
In Interpretation A, Krout states that the power of the evangelical Protestantism was the greatest factor in the temperance movement. While there is validity in this statement as through congregationalism, evangelical Protestantism had a large following and therefore can get a large group of people to support prohibition. However Krout also mentions that an economical factor was often the reason why people became supporters of prohibition. Krout also mentions that the economical factors included increased taxation and reduced production. Around this time big business men like John Rockefeller put large amounts of money into the temperance movement as they felt it would benefit them as they would have more efficient workers.
These principles can be seen throughout the writings of the political thinkers of the 1890’s and illuminate how this category of thought is familiar to the American life. Ignatius Donnelly, a social reformer who helped establish the Populist party in 1892, heavily criticised the oligarchical society that took advantage of the large, impoverished working class. To this ailment he offers the solution by stating that government should not be viewed “as a divine something which has fallen down upon us out of heaven, and therefore not to be improved upon or even criticised” instead, government is a “human device to secure human happiness, and in itself has no more sacredness than a wheelbarrow or a cooking pot” (790). Donnelly stresses that the
Being married to a career often allows one to acquire a great deal of money. Most people are able to make a decent living by thriving off of their routine-esque job, yet the people who thrive off of change are the ones who seem to make the most amount of money. Whether it be out of jealousy or legitimate concern for how such mass amounts of money was acquired, money and wealth in general seems to have a negative connotation in most fables. Money often is viewed as a corrupter, with avarice being one of the seven deadly sins. Though greed is often associated with the upper class, Steinbeck points out that the greed is not exclusive to it.
The Protestant Reformation had a huge impact in all Europe in the sixteen century, but which ones were the factors that lead to it? It is very important to highlight that the European Christianity was falling into a noticeable corruption of its popes and some other high position members. Robbery, and even warriors were among of some factors that took the Cristian Church to a declining path. One of these examples was the Pope Julius II, which one won the nickname “the warrior pope” because he led armies against people. Furthermore, the church was not the only factor promoting this reformation, some other social changes were occurring with the masses in Europe; many of the peasants were being free especially in the western Europe.
The Reformation in the Renaissance At the beginning of the Renaissance, the “time” had been going backwards. The people seemed to forget the older way of life. Instead of having stone houses and castles, they went back to thatched roof huts. Even though people neglected things, they also discovered new facts like the sun was actually at the center of the universe instead of the earth.