[FRA:] Lukacs & Weber

[Ralph Dumain]

I attended two lectures on Max Weber over a 24-hour period. I gained a very 
interesting picture of Weber's political framework out of this, though 
there is a glaring omission, which I wonder if is a limitation of how much 
can cover at once, or whether it is an underlying motive of bourgeois 
scholarship to delve into the mechanisms and organization of governance 
while maintaining total silence over the aims and purposes governmental 
structure is organized to further, esp. silence concerning the aims of big 
business and the conflict between capital and labor. One would never know 
from listening to any of this that there was a socialist movement in 
Germany in the time in which Weber wrote.

Anyway, one of the lecturers mentioned Lukacs' THE DESTRUCTION OF REASON, 
as well as mentioning Lukacs' later affirmation of Weber's personal 
honesty. This is an odd book in many respects, though it deserves far 
greater attention than it gets. The inexorable progression from Schelling 
to Hitler sees some odd transitions.  But the epilogue, though containing 
some interesting tidbits, is a virtually hysterical outburst of Zhdanovism 
and Cold War paranoia. The USA is seen as Hitler's heir, and its culture 
wallowing in nihilism and despair.

So I read the section on Weber and subsequent sections arguing the regress 
of German social thought in the wake of Weber.  Weber is seen as a complete 
dead end, predicated on irrationalism.  It's an interesting argument, 
certainly rather different from the Weber talk I've heard the past few 
days; still, I don't know quite what to make of it.