Rationalization culture
means to achieve given goals and the unintended, negative consequences of doing
so. He claimed that rationalization has crept into all spheres of life (see Figure 2.5). In
Weber’s view, rationalization is one of the most constraining aspects of contemporary
culture, making life akin to living inside an “iron cage.”
The constraining effects of rationalization are evident, for example, in the way we
measure and use time. People did not always let the clock determine the pace of daily
life. The first mechanical clocks were installed in public squares in Germany 700 years
ago to signal the beginning of the workday,
the timing of meals, and quitting time. Workers
were accustomed to enjoying a flexible and
vague work schedule regulated only approximately
by the seasons and the rising and setting
of the sun. The strict regime imposed by
the work clocks made their lives harder. They
staged uprisings to silence the clocks, but to
no avail. City officials sided with employers
and imposed fines for ignoring the work
clocks (Thompson,
1967).
Today, few people rebel against the
work clock. This is especially true of urban
North American couples who are employed
full-time in the paid labor force and have
young children. For them, life often seems
an endless round of waking up at 6:30 a.m.;
getting everyone washed and dressed; preparing
the kids’ lunches; getting them out
the door in time for the school bus or the car pool;
driving
to work through rush-hour traffic; facing the
speedup at work resulting from the recent downsizing;
driving back home through rush-hour traffic; preparing
dinner; taking
the kids to their soccer game; returning
home to clean up the dishes and help with homework;
getting the kids washed, their teeth brushed, and then
into bed; and (if they have not brought some office work
home) grabbing an hour of TV before collapsing, exhausted,
for 6½ hours of sleep before the story repeats
itself. Life is less hectic for residents of small towns,
unmarried people, couples without young children, retirees,
and the unemployed. But the lives of others are
typically so packed with activities that they must carefully
regulate time and parcel out each moment so they
may tick off one item after another from an ever-growing
list of tasks that need to be completed on time (Schor,
1992; U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2010b). After 700 years of conditioning, allowing
clocks to precisely regulate our activities seems the most natural thing in the world,
although there is of course nothing natural about it.
The regulation of time ensures efficiency. It maximizes how much work you get
done in a day. It enables trains to run on schedule, university classes to begin punctually,
and business meetings to start on time. However, many people complain that
life has become too hectic to enjoy. A popular restaurant in Japan has even installed
a punch clock for its customers. The restaurant offers all you can eat for 35 yen per
minute. As a result, “the diners rush in, punch the clock, load their trays from the buffet
table, and concentrate intensely on efficient chewing and swallowing, trying not to
waste time talking to their companions before rushing back to punch out” (Gleick, 2000
[1999]: 244). Some upscale restaurants in New York and Los Angeles have gotten in on
the act. An increasingly large number of business clients are so pressed for time, they
pack in two half-hour lunches with successive guests. The restaurants oblige, making
the resetting of tables “resemble the pit-stop activity at the Indianapolis
500” (Gleick,
2000 [1999]: 155). As these examples illustrate, a rational means (the use of the work
clock) has been applied to a given goal (maximizing work) but has led to an irrational
end (a too-hectic life).
Consumerism
A third constraining aspect of culture is consumerism. Consumerism is the tendency
to define ourselves in terms of the goods and services we purchase. As artist Barbara
Kruger put it: “I shop, therefore I am.”
The rationalization process, when applied to the production of goods and
services, enables us to produce more efficiently, to have more of just about
everything than previous generations did. However, consumerism ensures
that most of the goods we produce will be bought. Of course, we have lots
of choices. We can select from dozens of styles of running shoes, cars, toothpaste,
and all the rest. We can also choose to buy items that help define us
as members of a particular subculture, adherents of a set of distinctive values,
norms, and practices within a larger culture. But, individual tastes aside,
we all have one thing in common. We tend to be good consumers. We are
motivated by advertising, which is based on the accurate insight that people
will tend to be considered cultural outcasts if they fail to conform to stylish
trends. By creating those trends, advertisers push us to buy, even if doing so
requires that we work more and incur large debts (Schor, 1999). That is why
the “shop-till-you-drop” lifestyle of many North Americans prompted French
sociologist Jean Baudrillard to remark pointedly that even what is best in
America is compulsory (Baudrillard, 1988 [1986]). And it is why many sociologists
say that consumerism, like rationalization, acts as a powerful constraint
on our lives.
Post a Comment