109: Rationality and Modern Society

[안재오]

Voyages of Philosophy 109: Rationality and Modern Society

1. Introduction - The Rise of Instrumental Rationality

Modern society is a society of rationality and efficiency, of seeking the least cost and the greatest effectiveness to achieve a given end. This principle of rationality or efficiency is a common phenomenon in the economy, politics, and all levels and parts of society. Of course, it is true that there are still many irrational social elements in Korea, but we will gradually enter such a highly efficient society. However, in the pursuit of such high efficiency, we are experiencing the phenomenon of dehumanization, where we are losing our human nature and gradually becoming slaves to money and organizations. Money has great value in life, but it is never an end in itself. It is a means to an end. What we want as a goal in life is health, happiness, love, or self-actualization. Money is a means and a way to realize these values, but people fall into the delusion that they can do anything with money. This is often referred to as golden universalism. In this context, we understand the concept of instrumental rationality or instrumental reason.

Instrumental rationality also presupposes the concept of rationality. Modern society was founded on the idea of rationality or rationalization.

As we often see around us these days, people often see college entrance exams as the most important thing in life and blindly try to get into the most popular departments. However, getting into a good university is only a means to an end; it is more important to find your dreams, future vision, and self-realization.

2. Max Weber"s concept of rationalization

Max Weber (1864-1920) was a German sociologist who, through his brilliant interpretation of modernization, taught us about rationalization, bureaucracy, charismatic domination, and the influence of Protestantism on the formation of capitalism. He studied modernization in detail, among other things. Weber identified the essence of modernization as rationalization. Rationalization essentially means to make things make sense in a logical way. And humans have the ability to do so. The ability to rationalize is often referred to as rationality. In this way, rationality and reason go hand in hand. However, the concept of rationality is applied in a different context in modern society. Weber saw modern rationalization in the natural and social sciences. In the natural sciences, rationalization is the idea of seeing nature in terms of laws and representing those laws mathematically. For example, consider Ohm's law, a formula we know from physics. Current equals voltage divided by resistance. I = E ÷ R. In this way, modern science has made tremendous progress by mathematizing natural phenomena. To mathematize is to quantify a given phenomenon. This quantification is also called quantification.

This quantification, or computability, is the key to the enormous progress of modern science.

Max Weber describes rationalization as “the fact that we know, or at least believe, that all things can in principle be governed by calculation”. (Max Weber “Science as a Profession”)

If the modern natural sciences have achieved tremendous success by quantifying natural phenomena, modern civil society has pushed human society into incredible developments and changes that were previously unknown by realizing the twin principles of market economy and bureaucracy through rationalization. Rationalization is the fundamental principle that shaped modern presidents and states. Weber also writes that “the destiny of our age is characterized by rationalization, intellectualization, and desacralization.” Intellectualization does not mean that we know more. In fact, modern people are no more aware of their surroundings than the ancients were. We use computers and the Internet every day and know nothing about the technology, or we drive cars and airplanes and know nothing about engines or electricity. Nevertheless, intellectualization “refers to the belief that human beings can learn anything at any time if they want to”. Especially in the modern era, 130 years after Max Weber, access to knowledge is limitless due to the development of the Internet, YouTube, and other means of communication. The insights of Max Weber, who proclaimed rationalization and intellectualization 130 years ago, are amazing! We can see how powerful the historical development of the West has been.

And the Entzauberung der Welt means that humans no longer need to believe in mystical forces, ghosts, spirits, etc. like the savages did. In order to invoke the power of spirits, ghosts, and other mystical forces, primitive peoples relied on magical means, rituals, and sacrifices, which are now replaced by technological means and calculations.

However, modern people still do fortune-telling and often worship ghosts as seen in “ghost” movies. This means that people are not yet fully deculturized. Desacralization is about finding the nature of things, recognizing their laws, and responding rationally to phenomena.

The desacralization of the world means that there are no more supernatural forces. In other words, the world of myths and legends no longer exists. However, the modern disregard for these myths has been criticized recently.

3. Weber's concept of bureaucracy

Weber had a keen insight into bureaucracy, which he characterized as a hierarchical organization based on laws and rules. This applies to both administrative organizations, such as the state, and private organizations, such as businesses.

The historical meaning of this modern bureaucracy reveals a significant gap when compared to the traditional vassal system. Under feudalism, vassalage is a personal relationship between the lord and the vassal. In this case, personal simply means personal or private. The arbitrariness of the medieval vassal system can be seen by comparing it to today's professional and vocational civil service system.

In a bureaucracy, every single activity of bureaucrats (officials) is strictly governed by laws and rules. Their powers and responsibilities are also limited by law. Even when a superior gives an order to a subordinate, he or she must not deviate from the regulations and authority given by law. In this way, a bureaucrat (civil servant) must be non-partisan and discharge his duties “without anger or partiality”. He is not responsible for anything other than the duties given to him by the politicians and the moon.

In our reality, however, this is not necessarily the attitude of officials. There is a lot of so-called cronyism, illegal or unethical behavior. The culture of bureaucracy is not yet well established.

Bureaucratization, Weber writes, has become a universal phenomenon in the military, municipalities, churches, and private businesses. According to Weber, the capitalist market economy and the bureaucracy are the two pillars of modern society. However, after Weber's death, communist countries emerged and ran their economies by denying the market economy, which is still the case in North Korea. The denial of the market economy is the denial of modern society.

“Since it is not in the speeches of parliaments, nor in the proclamations of monarchs, but in the execution of everyday administration that domination actually exerts its power in the modern state, it is inevitably in the hands of bureaucrats, (- - -) and just as the progress of capitalism since the Middle Ages is the obvious measure of the modernization of the economy, so the progress of bureaucracy is the obvious measure of the modernization of the state.” (Max Weber)

This means that the power of modern societies and states lies not in politics or parliamentary systems, but in the civil service, or bureaucracy. Weber's overemphasis on administration and bureaucracy over legislative institutions probably reflects the fact that the German parliamentary system was not functioning properly at that time. The parliamentary system works best in democracies, not dictatorships or monarchies.

4. Lukács' concept of objectification (reification)

Orthodox Marxism in the former Soviet Union considers the proletarian revolution as the central tenet of Marx's thought, that workers must struggle against capitalists to achieve workers' liberation. Western Marxism, in contrast, considers the concept of alienation, which appeared in Marx's youthful work “Economic and Philosophical Investigations,” to be a central idea of Marx's. The Frankfurt School of Adorno and Horkheimer are the most prominent representatives of this school. Western Marxism, which sees human alienation as the central contradiction of capitalism, is influenced by Georg Lukacs's “History and Class Consciousness” (1923), which refers to objectification or reification.

The meaning of objectification is that within capitalism, the human spirit loses its unique subjectivity and becomes materialized and degraded. In other words, under the capitalist market economy, human values are expressed in terms of material things. For example, if I make 50 million won a year and you make 100 million won, you are worth twice as much as me. In this society, human skills, personality, character, morality, etc. must be converted into money. This materialism and golden universalism are the phenomena of reification that Lukács refers to.

Lukács embraces Marx's concept of commodity mythology.

Marx's commodity mythology does not mean that commodities are worshiped or glorified.

It means that in the capitalist market economy, commodities are treated as if they were living creatures. Commodities, especially manufactured goods, are inherently inanimate and therefore lifeless. But in a market economy, everyone sees commodities as living beings that have a cash value. Commodities are the product of the blood and sweat of the laborers who make them. In other words, commodities express the interrelationships of producers: when farmers and fishermen exchange their products, there is a certain ratio of exchange. The social expression‎ of that ratio is value. However, in the capitalist market economy, where exchange is carried out on a large scale, the producers behind the commodities are invisible, and the commodities themselves have their own value and are exchanged and traded with other commodities. No, that is the reality. Someone once said, “The economy is circulation.” In the midst of this circulation and exchange, the producer loses his meaning of existence. Of course, he also takes profits, but in any case, in the market, the producer disappears, and only the exchange of goods and goods takes place. This is what Marx calls the commodity myth. In other words, a society where goods are more important than people.

Lukács calls this feature of capitalism, in which the relation of persons is disguised and concealed as the relation of things, objectification. “The fact that the relations between people take on the character of things, and thus a kind of ghostly objectivity (gespenstige Geganstandlichkeit) is established from them, and that this conceals the fundamental ground of objectivity, the relations between human beings, as a strict self-legality that seems to be rational, is called objectification (Verdinglichung).

The phantom object is the price of a commodity determined by the market, and the seemingly rational self-regulation is the law of the market, the law of supply and demand. This objectification is ultimately nothing other than the market price system. In other words, human beings, human labor, and artistic skill are all interpreted in terms of a single symbol: value: materialism, golden universalism. This does not mean that everything can be done with gold, but that matter, or economy, determines the meaning of all existence.

Furthermore, Lukács argues that objectification is rationalization, which, like Max Weber's rationalization, is the mechanical and mathematical domination of human relationships. In the end, both rationalization and objectification are consistent in that the impersonal dominates human beings. The only difference is that the impersonal domination is efficient and rational.

A practical example of Lukács's objectification that seems difficult to understand is the logic of “money or love?” in movies and dramas, where people abandon their loved ones in order to get money. Or the logic of American violent movies, where people sell drugs and commit violence to make money. There's a common line in movies that goes something like this: “I don't feel anything when I kill people. It's just business.”

There are many examples of how interpersonal relationships are degraded to object relationships under capitalism.

5. Horkheimer and Adorno's Critique of Instrumental Rationality

The Odyssey Myth

The ideas of Horkheimer and Adorno, the so-called Frankfurt School, appear in their co-authored book, The Dialectic of Enlightenment.

The Frankfurt School is a branch of Marxism that became active in Germany after World War II and is sometimes referred to as neo-Marxism.

They criticize traditional Enlightenment philosophy. In a nutshell, Enlightenment thought values only scientific knowledge as rational, and considers traditional values, such as religion, as irrational. Religion, they claim, is superstition. In this sense, the Christian faith, which has dominated the Western psyche for more than a millennium, was much weakened.

The Frankfurt School, however, criticizes the Enlightenment. Their famous story is the criticism of the Odyssey myth. The Odyssey, written by Homer, is a drama about the Greek general Odysseus' journey back to his homeland after his victory in the Trojan War.

In “The Dialectic of Enlightenment,” Adorno and Horkheimer ask fundamental questions about the instrumental use of reason in the 18th century modern enlightenment.

They ask why, after reason liberated man from myth and nature, mankind descended back into savagery. Why has reason gone nowhere and why does it smell like blood in its birthplace? With these questions in mind, the two philosophers sought to deconstruct the myths shared by ancient violence and fascist violence: the instrumentalization, exploitation, and othering of reason. (Hankyoreh Newspaper)

In Homer's great epic poem The Odyssey, the main character, Odysseus, meets the Sirens, a sea nymph whose body is half fish and half man, at sea. Her song is so beautiful that when people hear it, they are seduced into drowning.

In the story, Odysseus resists the temptation of the Sirens but still wants to hear their music, so he ties himself to the mast and listens to them sing.

The author likens Odysseus' behavior to the Enlightenment: he sees tying himself up as suppressing his natural desires.

Odysseus also orders the sailors to seal their ears with beeswax and row with all their might. The sailors, too, have their natural sensibilities suppressed and are forced to row.

In this way, enlightenment means domination over nature, and in the process, humans are enslaving themselves.

While this behavior of Odysseus is usually praised as great, Adorno and Horkheimer understand it in such a way that, as mentioned above, “reason has liberated man from myth and nature, but humanity has fallen back into a state of barbarism.”

Mythical Thought and Mimesis

Horkheimer and Adorno, on the other hand, focus their philosophy on critiquing materialized capitalist societies or violent totalitarian societies such as the Nazis. To do this, they criticize Weber's rationality and Lukács's materialization. The tool for this is art, so they emphasize the positive elements of mythology and animism. Whereas the Enlightenment grasped natural objects instrumentally and instrumentally, the Frankfurt School saw animism as a way of conforming to and assimilating objects. They refer to this primitive way of conforming to objects as mimesis.

Mimesis is mimicry or imitation. Mimesis imitates nature as it is, that is, it specifically imitates natural objects. They see the essence of art as imitation (mimesis). This is actually modeled after Aristotle's aesthetics. In his Poetics, Aristotle sees poetry as a form of imitation.

The question of whether the nature of art is imitation or creation remains an open question.

Horkheimer and Adorno basically see reality in terms of the objectification mentioned above. Objectification is, in other words, the domination of reason, but in historical reality, reason is nowhere to be found, and why it smells of blood at its birth.

In other words, rationalization or objectification has led to violence. Imitation (mimesis) is to imprint and criticize this objectified reality.

Therefore, the Frankfurt School, which is critical of capitalism and scientific civilization, seeks to criticize society through art. They believe that creative art, or the autonomy of art, is actually an affirmation of reality.

Therefore, they choose mythical thought, or mimesis.

Mimesis is not a simple imitation of an object. It respects the specificity and individuality of the object. It wants to heal the rationalization and objectification of reality.

Modern scientific reason, or conceptual reason, removes the magical and mystical from nature and makes it something that can be governed by technical means and calculations. Modern scientific reason manifests itself in a mathematical understanding of nature, such as Kepler's “where there is matter, there is geometry”. This way of thinking pays no attention to the individuality of matter.

Adorno and Horkheimer call this kind of modern, scientific reason instrumental rationality. Instrumental rationality grasps objects in the abstract and quantitatively, meaning that their inherent qualities or properties are far from the focus of attention. Their concept of instrumental rationality is consistent with Max Weber's concept of intellectualization: the world is rationalized in terms of quantitative and numerical relationships, and in that sense, human beings lose their subjectivity and individuality and become quantified themselves. In other words, they become materialized and capitalized. As Lukács says, personal relationships are transformed into objective relationships.

Modern scientific, enlightened, and instrumental reason enriches human life, but on the other hand, it alienates and dehumanizes human beings and destroys nature. These are the ills of modern reason.

In this context, Adorno argues that Baudelaire's poetry, Kafka's novels, and Beckett's absurdist plays are truly modern art. In other words, Baudelaire's poetry is a mimesis of the experience of alienation in an objectified capitalist society, Kafka's literature is a mimesis of a totalitarian system of domination, and Beckett's plays are a mimesis of the “watering down of the world.” (cited)

6. Foucault's Critique of Modern Power

Foucault is an indispensable theorist on the topic of criticizing modern reason or rationality. The French modern philosopher Michel Foucault's (1929-1984) critique of civilization and critique of modern rationality is similar to Adorno's, but his analysis is specific and historical. In other words, Foucault shows the way modern reason or rationality works through the history of prisons, hospitals, schools, etc. Modern and Enlightenment thinkers such as Bacon, Locke, and Rousseau consistently proclaimed human liberation and freedom and laid the foundations of democratic societies. They also promised human progress and material enrichment through the advancement of science and technology.

Foucault, like Mead and Lacan, also critically examined the formation of individual self-identity and subjectivity. Mead explored the acquired process of self-identity through the mediation of otherness and social norms, while Lacan, through his theory of the mirror stage, revealed that children's self-formation takes place through the imaginary and symbolic systems.

Foucault also addresses the issue of the modern individual and subjectivity. Unlike the slave intellect of the Middle Ages, modern subjectivity has attributes such as freedom, equality, and self-determination. Of course, these are still valid principles of human nature and should be upheld in the future. However, the reality is that human freedom, autonomy, and dignity of personhood are hard to find. In order to survive in the jungle of competition for survival, humans are forced to give up their nature and freedom and adapt to social organization.

The rational institutions of the economy and the market govern the lives of individuals. Foucault goes a step further and sees social organizations as institutions of power. They keep individuals in line through their laws and rules. Foucault criticizes the modern rationality of power in democracy and the rule of law. Foucault sees the rule of law, or the democratic principle of human autonomy determined by law and contract, as a mere formality. In reality, he argues that the power that operates in human society is the so-called disciplinary power, which monitors and controls individuals and ultimately produces helpless and compliant humans.

In this sense, Foucault's anthropology can be easily understood by thinking of Lismann's lonely crowds or other-oriented humans. Foucault's fundamental insight is that the rational modern democratic governance and rule of law are actually replaced by an irrational power, the power of discipline.

This disciplinary power is also known as micropower, an invisible power that tames the human body. This discipline or disciplinary power subtly manipulates and monitors us. Discipline is knowledge, and discipline requires many other bodies of knowledge, such as psychology, education, or psychiatry. For example, psychology, pedagogy, or psychiatry are necessary for the micro-governance of the masses.

Not all disciplines and kinds of knowledge are created for or serve man's domination, but a considerable amount of disciplines and systems of knowledge are used for man's micro-domination.

George Orwell's novel “1984” tells the story of a dictatorial Big Brother who constantly monitors the private lives of all citizens through telescreens. However, Foucault's surveillance society is a highly efficient society that internalizes the telescreen into the human psyche through micro-power, or disciplinary power. Of course, external surveillance is necessary. But more importantly, it is tamed through knowledge and training or education.

Francis Bacon said “knowledge is power,” but Foucault says “power is knowledge” or “authority is knowledge.” The idea is that power takes the form of knowledge and norms, not unreasonable coercion such as physical force or violence.

In this sense, Foucault's anthropology can be easily understood by thinking of Lismann's lonely crowd or the other-oriented human being. Foucault's fundamental insight is that the rational modern democratic governance and rule of law are actually replaced by an irrational power, the power of discipline. This disciplinary power is also known as micropower, an invisible power that tames the human body. This discipline or disciplinary power subtly manipulates and monitors us. Discipline is knowledge, and discipline requires many other bodies of knowledge, such as psychology, education, or psychiatry. For example, psychology, pedagogy, or psychiatry are necessary for the micro-governance of the masses.

Not all disciplines and kinds of knowledge are created for or serve man's domination, but a considerable amount of disciplines and systems of knowledge are used for man's micro-domination.

6-1. Surveillance and Punishment

Foucault's classic work “Surveillance and Punishment” (1975) is a book about the history of the modern penal system, in which he empirically reveals how power rationality defines and shapes individuals through the history of prisons.

Modern power no longer takes the form of absolute monarchs. We are used to seeing dictators and tyrants oppressing and brutalizing their subjects, but modern rational power does not use such methods. Foucault shows us how power structures such as prisons, armies, hospitals, and schools dominate and shape individuals.

An important concept here is the discipline that tames the human body, called micro-pouvoir. Discipline refers to the internal rules and regulations of a place, usually a school, factory, or workplace. Discipline works on the body. In the case of a school, the rules are the discipline. For example, if you look at the school's timetable, you can see that the students are disciplined according to the time plan: self-study at 8:00 a.m., first period at 9:00 a.m., lunch at 12:00 p.m., and so on. These rules and schedules work on students' physical bodies. In the meantime, students are trained to be social organizers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that the socialization of individuals occurs through this micro-power and the autonomous time management of individuals disappears.

Concepts such as training and discipline, which we hear countless times as we grow up, are, in Foucault's view, the disciplinary devices of power. In this way, power does not suppress or prohibit individuals, but cultivates them internally through training and learning.

As such, disciplinary power uses a variety of techniques to keep individuals submissive to the pyramid of power. For example, they use micromanagement, drills, exercises, drills, time use, assessments, and test records. Through the work of these micro-powers, our bodies are efficiently domesticated. This is the modern individual and subjectivity. Foucault reveals that the ideal of freedom promised by modernity is an illusion.

Therefore, the subjectivity of modern people is actually an individual tamed by the disciplinary power. They are consumed as production machines, as raw materials for production, or as bricks that make up the modern world.

6-2. The World of the Panopticon

“In Surveillance and Punishment, Foucault illustrates how laws, institutions, and disciplines materialize and internalize domination and surveillance through the history of prisons and changes in the penal system. One of the prisons we need to recognize is the so-called

Panoptikon, a prison facility of all-seeing surveillance. The Panoptikon is a prototype prison designed by the British utilitarian philosopher J. Bentham. The principle is as follows:

“A circular building is surrounded by a tower in the center of which is a circle. The tower is pierced by a number of large windows facing inwards into the circular building. The surrounding building is divided into cells, and each cell occupies all the space inside from the front to the back of the building. The cells have two windows, one facing inward to correspond to the windows in the tower, and the other facing outward, allowing light to penetrate into every corner of the cell. A watchman is therefore kept in the tower, and in each cell one man is confined, whether insane, sick, prisoner, laborer, student, or any other person.” (O'Shengun's translation. Surveillance and Punishment p. 309)

The Panopticon, as designed by Bentham, provides an almost one-to-one correspondence between watcher and prisoner. It is the facility that maximizes this effect. The prisoner has the illusion that the watcher is watching him 24 hours a day. “In other words, in the circular building that surrounds him, he sees nothing, but is completely visible; in the tower at the center, he sees everything, but is never seen.” (p. 312)

What the panopticon suggests is the impersonality and automaticity of power. It doesn't matter who is in charge. These mechanical structures and mechanisms control and dominate individuals. Through this social surveillance and control, “good deeds can be effectively controlled in the sinner, stability in the madman, labor in the worker, enthusiasm in the student, and adherence to prescriptions in the sick. It is not necessary to use force or violence to make them do what society wants them to do.

Foucault characterizes the modern knowledge and information society as a panopticon society.

“Modern society is not a society of spectacle, but a society of surveillance. Our bodies are subjected to a profound attack under the illusion of multiple images. Behind the abstractions of mass exchange, there is a precise and specific discipline to acquire useful power; the pathways of information communication become the fulcrum of the accumulation and concentration of knowledge; and the workings of symbols dictate where power must be anchored.” (- - -)

Because we are cogs in the wheel, we are in a periscope, surrounded by the effects of the power that we ourselves are driving. (p. 334)

6-3. Law and Discipline

Modern civil society is a democratic society based on the freedom and equality of the people and governed by the consent of the governed. However, Foucault's discovery of the hitherto unknown world of discipline rings an alarm bell for modern politics and society. Discipline is a sub-system of law, but law only works through the power of discipline.

Law views human beings as subjects of rights and duties. Today, our fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution. But Foucault's disciplinary power scoffs at this rule of law. Discipline is subordinate to law, but it is actually the foundation of law.

While we may not agree with Foucault's argument, we can't ignore the dominance of discipline in every part of modern society. Furthermore, today's surveillance technologies - such as CCTV - further support Foucault's idea of a surveillance society.

7. Habermas - The new foundation of Reason and Rationality

We have seen above that the rationality and efficiency of modern and contemporary society is almost exclusively negative. This means that modern society does not give freedom and happiness to human beings, but on the contrary, it gives restraint and misery. The Enlightenment's project of liberation and freedom does not seem to have been very successful at this point.

Although Western societies are more materially affluent than ever before, thanks to rationality, science, and technology, many of the pathologies of modernization lie behind this affluence.

These include the proliferation of dehumanized and marginalized lives and the growing global ecological crisis. This is in contrast to the Enlightenment ideology of the mature and autonomous human quest to escape ignorance. The task of modernization based on the ideology of the Enlightenment, as we see in the Frankfurt School's critique of instrumental rationality and Foucault's critique of disciplinary power, has resulted in the imprisonment of human beings in new systems of oppression, resulting in the regression of history instead of progress and development, and the domination of impersonal economic forces and bureaucratically organized administration instead of the realization of freedom.

The achievements of the Enlightenment and modernization have been viewed by many thinkers, including Max Weber, either negatively or in a state of apathy with no alternative. As we have seen, Lukács, Adorno, and Foucault had the blind spot of having a good problem but no conclusion. Max Weber compared the modern bureaucracy he found to a “steel shell”. He criticized the modern man as a “mindless professional” and a “heartless hedonist” who lives inside a steel shell.

Against the rigid and skeptical conclusions of his predecessors, Habermas offers a new reason, a rational alternative. Because human nature is rational, to deny it is to commit self-contradiction. For example, if we recognize or exclaim that “the world is rotten” or “everyone is crazy,” there is no solution. Even if we agree with Foucault that “modern man has lost his autonomy and subjectivity by becoming a slave to disciplinary power,” we can only remain silent about the questions, “So what?”

In this context, the thought of J. Habermas (1929-) can be said to offer new hope in that it denounces the numerous side effects and contradictions of modernization while offering remedies for them. In addition, unlike modern critics who generally take an irrationalist stance in mocking and criticizing reason, Habermas shows a positive stance toward reason and enlightenment.

Unlike other philosophers, Habermas views concepts like reason, enlightenment, and rationality positively. In other words, Habermas takes a position of partial negation: “Reason is not all corrupt”. And rationality and enlightenment are not all bad either, meaning that some parts of reason are corrupted, and some parts of rationality are dehumanizing and alienating.

He sees humanity (reason) as not completely corrupted, but partially corrupted. In other words, instrumental reason can be wrong. But there is another reason to correct it, which Habermas calls “communicative reason.” The tragedy of modernity is that instrumental reason, or instrumental rationality, has become the whole. The problem is that it is important to situate and relativize this instrumental reason. Habermas argues for the separation and complementarity of instrumental and communicative rationality. The fault of Weber, Adorno, and Foucault is that they originally saw the comprehensive concept of rationality only as instrumental rationality; that is, they did not see the more important dimension of communicative rationality that Habermas saw.

7-1. System and Lifeworld

According to Habermas, the Lebenswelt (life-world) is the common world in which human historical, social, and cultural life is lived. In this world, communication through language is free. The language that connects me and you is a means of communicative rationality. Communicative rationality depends on the interpersonal relationship between me and you. Of course, in real life, human relationships are sometimes bent depending on the surrounding conditions, but humans are equal to each other and solve problems through dialog.

System refers to various systems for human survival. In the past, the living world was not separated from the system. However, since the modern era, the survival system and the cultural world have become increasingly separated, and the former has completely overtaken the latter. Habermas calls this the “colonization of the world of life by the system”: the material, economic, and industrial factors completely dominate and control human individuality, personality, and sociality. (Materialism)

According to Habermas, the modern (survival) system consists of an economy in charge of material production and an administration organized for its smooth execution. The laws that govern this system are what Max Weber called “rationalization” and “bureaucracy”. This part of the system is executed through calculations and orders rather than communication. Take, for example, a market economy. In the realm of the system, there is no need for real or personal conversation. Instead, calculations, predictions, and decisions are important. Performance is again expressed by numbers. The system is therefore a world of cold rationality and a jungle of survival. It does not ask about the value or meaning of life; the purpose of life is assumed to be obvious. Money, honor, and other capitalist values are the main ones.

7-2. Instrumental Rationality and Communicative Rationality

The two spheres of human life that Habermas distinguished, the system and the living world, are two distinct but interacting spheres. Habermas defines the rationality that governs the system as instrumental rationality or objective rationality. This is the rationality that refers to the material aspects of human life. This is the rationality that uses science and technology to dominate nature, as mentioned earlier, and to organize markets and economic life. This rationality, in other words, is instrumental rationality. Objective rationality is understood in the same way: rationality that aims to achieve a given goal as efficiently as possible.

Communicative rationality, on the other hand, is a rationality that reorients the purpose and meaning of life through dialog. According to Habermas, in the modern era, the masses have been marginalized from politics. This is because technical, economic, and administrative life has become so specialized that the public has lost the ability to judge things for themselves and often leaves all decisions to leaders and experts. In this sense, public participation in politics gradually diminishes.

And human life gradually leaves the world of living and becomes a tool of the system, the material and productive system. For example, even the most cherished human value, love, is heavily influenced by material conditions.

For the sake of human values, dignity, and interpersonal exchange, we must restore the living world. This living world also has reason and rationality. Habermas calls this life-world and interpersonal rationality communicative rationality. Of course, emotions and feelings play an important role in the world of life. Therefore, life-world reason is human rationality, including emotions and feelings. In this case, emotions and feelings should not be unreasonable, i.e., I should not be angry with others or withhold from them because of my feelings. Also, an important function of communicative rationality is to establish social norms through dialogues. Participants in a conversation can use their own rationality to argue for the validity of their claims about a topic, which can then be verified and determined through mutual language.

Thus, through lifeworld rationality or communicative rationality, communal decisions that have been left to experts can be revived to the autonomy of the people.

8. Ritzer's McDonaldization

In “The McDonaldization of Society,” George Ritzer uses Max Weber's theory of rationalization and its irrationality to analyze the consumer culture of American society. Richer points out and analyzes the phenomenon of rationalization and its irrationality not only in fast food, but also in healthcare, education, leisure, sports, movies, corporations, labor, sex, shopping, marketing, birth, death, and after death.

Ritzer cites efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control as the characteristics of McDonaldization.

Efficiency: It refers to the principle of satisfying customer needs with the fastest service for modern people who are busy and short of time.

Calculability: making customers believe that the products sold and services provided are calculable and beneficial to them.

Predictability: Providing customers with the assurance that their products and services will be the same anytime, anywhere.

Control: Customers are served in a highly controlled environment with a standardized menu, a limited selection of sauces, long lines at the order counter, rigid and uncomfortable wills, a rush to get in and out, and designated exits and trash cans.

In contrast, Ritzer points out the negative side of McDonaldization: the irrationality of rationality. In other words, irrationality of rationality is the fifth characteristic of McDonaldization. McDonald's rational system is irrational in different ways. It shows the limits of instrumental rationality. The irrationality of McDonald's, according to Ritzer, is as follows

The dehumanization of customers and employees, the breakdown of families, and the decline of diversity.

The dehumanization of customers and employees, the breakdown of the family, and the loss of diversity.

Reacher talks about the homogenization of consumption, as well as of consumers and consumer culture, and proposes rational alternatives to stop it.

(1) Sometimes you have to break the rules of the dehumanizing McDonaldized system.

(2) We need to stop routinely and systematically using the McDonaldized system. As recent studies have shown, fast food contributes to obesity and various adult diseases.

8-1. Anti-Fast Food Movement

McDonald's and other fast foods have shaped modern food culture. The proliferation of fast food has hindered the development of various unique food cultures and risks homogenizing the world's cultures. In addition, studies have shown that the fast food culture, which pursues excessive convenience and efficiency, is harmful to health because it uses a lot of chemical and artificial sweeteners to stimulate customers' taste buds, and adds a lot of fat and sugar to the food, which can lead to obesity and various diseases, especially when children eat McDonald's frequently and become habituated to it. McDonald"s has also been accused of exploiting its employees with low wages. In this context, the anti-fast food movement or the anti-McDonald"s movement emerged.

Voyages in Philosophy 108: Rationality and Modern Society (Summary)

Modern society is a rational and efficient society that seeks to achieve a given end at the least cost and with the greatest possible effectiveness. This principle of rationality or efficiency is a common phenomenon in economics, politics, and all levels and sectors of society. However, in the pursuit of such high efficiency, we are experiencing a dehumanization phenomenon in which we are losing our human nature and gradually becoming slaves to money and organizations. In this context, we understand the concept of instrumental rationality or instrumental reason.

Lukács called objectification (reification) a characteristic of capitalism in which the relation of persons is disguised and concealed as the relation of things. “The fact that the relations between people take on the character of things, that a kind of ghostly objectivity is established from this, and that this conceals the fundamental ground of objectivity, the relations between human beings, as a strict self-existence of seemingly rationality, is called “objectification”.

“In The Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno and Horkheimer ask fundamental questions about the instrumental use of reason in the 18th century Enlightenment. Why, after reason had liberated man from myth and nature, had humanity descended back into barbarism? Why has reason gone nowhere and why does it smell like blood in its birthplace? With this question in mind, both philosophers sought to deconstruct the myths shared by ancient violence and fascist violence: the instrumentalization, exploitation, and othering of reason.

Foucault's fundamental insight is that the rational modern democratic rule and rule of law are actually replaced by an irrational power, the power of discipline. This “disciplinary power” is another word for “micropower,” an invisible power that tames the human body. This discipline or disciplinary power subtly manipulates and monitors us. The word “discipline” is used in this context because it literally means to educate, to cultivate.

Habermas divides human life into two spheres: the system and the world of life. The rationality that governs the system is what Habermas calls instrumental rationality, or objective rationality. This is the rationality that refers to the material aspects of human life. This is the rationality that uses science and technology to dominate nature, as mentioned earlier, and to organize markets and economic life. This rationality, in other words, is instrumental rationality. Objective rationality is understood in the same way: rationality that aims to achieve a given goal as efficiently as possible.

Communicative rationality, on the other hand, is a rationality that reorients the purpose and meaning of life through dialog.

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