Rationalization Of Religion In Singapore example essay topic

Imagine that Max Weber has been resurrected and is on a visit to Singapore. How would he interpret the various facets of Singapore society in relation to his theories and prognosis about the future of modern society? As we begin the twenty-first century, there is a growing recognition that Max Weber is our foremost social theorist of the condition of modernity. His pre-eminence stems from the scope, the depth, and the intensity, which he brought to this project. In short, Weber sought to explain the place of the modern individual in the world. Behind this deceptively simple foundation, lay a gigantic enterprise.

Precisely so then, the beginning of this essay is devoted to underlining and illustrating the principal themes of Weber's sociological investigations, especially those that would be used in interpreting the various facets of Singapore society. Next, this essay attempts to show how a resurrected Weber would interpret the various facets of Singapore society in relation to his theories and prognosis about the future of modern society. The concluding part offers criticisms, if any, and asks the importance of Weber in this modern age. Weber, it is often said, conceived of sociology as a comprehensive science of social action. As such, Weber distinguishes between four major types of social action.

In zweck rational action, or action in relation to a goal, the individual rationally assesses the means to attain a particular goal. An engineer who builds a bridge as the most efficient way to cross a river often exemplifies it in the literature. A more relevant example would be the modern goal of material sought after by many young people today. Many recognize that the most efficient way to attain that success is through higher education, and so they flock to the universities in order to get a good job.

Wert rational action, or rational action in relation to a value, is characterized by striving for a goal which in itself may not be rational, but which is pursued through rational means. The traditional example would be the brave captain who goes down with his ship. More relevant then is a person who attends the university because he or she values the life of the mind - a value that was instilled in them by parents, previous teachers, or chance encounter. Affective action is anchored in the emotional state of the individual rather than in the rational weighing of means and ends. Attending university for the community life of the fraternity, or following one's boyfriend's choice of school would be examples. Finally, traditional action is action that is dictated by customary habits of thought.

Many students attend university because it is traditional for their social class and family to attend - the expectation was always there, it was never questioned. Weber's classification of types of action provides a basis for his investigation of the social evolutionary process in which, behavior had come to be increasingly dominated by goal-oriented rationality (zweck rational), less and less by values, emotions, or traditions. In fact, a major thrust of his work deals with this "rationalization" of modern Western civilization. The rationalization process is the practical application of knowledge to achieve a desired end. It leads to efficiency, coordination, and control over both the physical and social environment.

As such, observation, experiment, and reason (zweck rational) to master the natural and social environment to achieve a desired end increasingly guide human behavior. The rationalization process has led to the unprecedented increase in both the production and distribution of goods and services. However, it is also associated with secularization, depersonalization, and oppressive routine. Weber also distinguishes between formal rationality and substantive rationality. The formal refers to the of means and procedures, whatever the end pursued, while the latter refers to the assessment of outcomes in terms of a particular value standpoint. The relationship between the spread of formal rationality and the attainment of substantive rationality is problematic.

Modern rational capitalism, measured in terms of substantive values of efficiency or productivity, is easily the most advanced economic system which man has developed. Yet, the very rationalization of social life which made this possible, contravenes some of the most distinctive values of Western civilization, such as individual creativity and autonomy of action. According to Weber, this cannot be resolved. Weber's focus on the trend of rationalization led him to concern himself with the operation and expansion of bureaucracy in both the public and private sectors of modern societies. For him, bureaucracies are goal-oriented organizations designed according to rational principles in order to attain their goals efficiently. Offices are ranked in a hierarchical order, with information flowing up the chain of command, directives flowing down.

Operations of bureaucracies are characterized by impersonal rules that explicitly state duties, responsibilities, standardized operating procedures, and conduct of office holders. Offices are highly specialized, where appointment to them are made according to specialized qualifications rather than ascribed criteria. All of these ideal characteristics have one goal, to promote the efficient attainment of the organizational goals. Weber warned that the impersonality of bureaucracy tends to undermine both human freedom and democracy in the long run.

Yet, bureaucracies are necessary to provide the coordination and control so desperately needed by our complex society and its huge populations. More importantly, bureaucracy and rationalization were rapidly replacing all other forms of organization and thought. This leads to what Weber calls Entzauberung der Welt, the disenchantment of the world: Science has accustomed us to regard external reality as so many blind forces, which we can make use of, but nothing remains of the spells, the mirages, the gods, and the fairies... in the world str i-pp ed of its charms, robbed of meaning and personality, human societies are developing towards a-n organization that is increasingly rational and bureaucratic. For Weber, further bureaucratization and rationalization may be an inescapable fate due to their superiority over all others. As such, he wrote of the evolution of an iron cage, a technically ordered, rigid, dehumanized society. The idea of status groups also necessitate some discussion here as it is very much relevant to Singapore society.

Weber felt that Marx's stress on class and economic factors had led him to underestimate the importance of status factors. Weber writes of a person's position in societies's social stratification as being determined by life chances and styles, which, in turn are determined by class, status, and power. Generally, he felt that one should not assume that class alone is a cohesive group, just so that they have or do not have property or wealth. For example, a black manual worker may have a working class income but feels that he is not a member of 'the working class'.

Lastly, it is perhaps unavoidable that The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which Weber published in 1904 and 1905, has to be mentioned. Weber believed that the rationalization of action could be realized only when traditional ways of life are abandoned. After careful study, he came to the belief that the Protestant ethic broke the hold of tradition while it encouraged men to apply themselves rationally to their work. What is more relevant today is the work ethics or the spirit of capitalism that emerged.

For example, waste of time is thus the first and in principle the deadliest of sins. Time is infinitely valuable to the Protestants because every hour lost is lost to labor for the glory of God. Also, qualities such as diligence and frugality emerged from the religious sanctions that fostered a spirit for all Protestants to gain all they can, to save all they can, and to grow rich. These are important aspects of the spirit of capitalism. The following paragraphs would show how a resurrected Weber would have interpreted the various facets of Singapore society in relation to his theories and prognosis about the future of modern society. As I have illustrated earlier, Weber had argued that "this passion for bureaucracy... is enough to drive one to despair.

It is as if in politics... we were to deliberately to become men who need "order" and nothing but order... ". Perhaps then, his first experience of Singapore would be an encounter with its array of public policies implemented by the government through its bureaucracy. These would probably range from the 'Courtesy Campaign', the 'Speak Mandarin Campaign', to laws such as 'No Littering', and the ban on chewing gum. In any case, he would have found out for himself that there is no shortage of policies in Singapore for maintaining order, which incidentally (order) is something the government protects obsessively. Still, a more prominent aspect of Weber's ideas is the development of the ideal-type bureaucracy.

While some scholars have pronounced him "wrong" because bureaucracies do not live up to his list of "ideals", Weber would be tempted to put his model to the test to prove his distract ers otherwise. The public bureaucracy in Singapore consists primarily of the Singapore Civil Service (SCS) and the statutory boards. The SCS itself consists of the President's Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the various ministries. Members of the SCS are divided into two categories: those belonging to the departmental services and those belonging to the non-departmental or general services.

To get a sense of the hierarchical and specialized nature of the organizational structure, one could simply look at the non-departmental or general services. Within them, Division I officers constitute the Administrative Service and they occupy the high-level policy-making and administrative positions. The Division II grades are occupied by executive officers of various levels of seniority, while the Division grades consists of clerical and technical officers. Those in Division IV grades are manual workers, office attendants, cooks, and drivers.

The Division I grade is then divided again into sup er-scale and time-scale. Though the statutory boards like Economic Development Board, Urban Redevelopment Authority, National University of Singapore, and so on are legally separate from the SCS, they are subject to financial control as their accounts must be audited by the Auditor-General or an approved company auditor nominated by the minister. In any case, Weber would have been quite satisfied that his model proved to be rather accurate in this case after all. According to Weber, the stress on efficiency and formal rationality of these organizations would invariably lead to a dehumanizing effect, the very notion that "rational calculation... reduces every worker to a cog in this bureaucratic machine... ". As such, the system cannot harbor incompetence.

In Singapore, this line of reasoning was with amazing consistency and consensus used to interpret the demise of some, who resigned after having served very short stints as Members of Parliament (MP) with no official reason given. Singaporeans also casually assumed that such individuals were incompetent. More importantly, a visiting Weber would probably ask if Singapore is an over-rationalized society, meaning if public institutions intervened into private individual matters. Contemporary evidences suggesting so would be courses conducted by these public institutions on marriage or the need for a Social Development Unit (SDU) to help single men and women fall in love.

Being quite the historian that he is, Weber would have probably dug out more evidences from the past. There is then an extreme case of over-rationalization that extended to that of irrationality in 1984. This was the very unpopular 'graduate mother policy' of the government. The 1980 census had showed that university graduate women were putting off marriage in favor of careers, and if married had fewer children than the less well-educated, lower income women. Believing that a person's ability is essentially inherited, the then Prime Minister Mr. Lee Kuan Yew saw these trends as a 'thinning' of the 'talent' gene pool, while the 'non-talented' genes continue their relative expansion unabated. This spelled disaster in the long run for Singapore, whose only resource is human intelligence.

In typical crisis-oriented fashion, policies were hastily formulated in 1983 to encourage marriage and increase childbirth among graduate women, with generous tax incentives. Conversely, the less educated women were encouraged to 'stop at two', preferably one, with a cash grant of S$10,000 to their social security saving fund. Assured of its own 'correctness' and the 'rationality' for continuing economic growth, the government decided to implement the policy in the face of public protest, arguing that 'nature is undemocratic'. For Weber, an important aspect of the process of rationalization is the substitution of the unthinking acceptance of ancient custom for deliberate adaptation to situations of self-interests. It is then perhaps appropriate that Weber would extend his theme of rationalization to the religious sphere in Singapore as well. Religious trends have shown a substantial increase in the number of Christians, especially among the Protestants and a subsequent decline of traditional Chinese religions.

In fact, the majority of converts (from traditional Chinese religions to Christianity) felt that the rituals and belief systems of traditional Chinese religions were illogical, unrealistic, unconvincing, and mainly just superstitious beliefs in a myriad of gods and spirits. They considered the rituals to be irrational, such as purchasing passports and money for the dead and the burning of cars, houses, and credit cards, during the funeral rites. Most young people, being exposed to the critical, scientific mode of analysis in the educational system then find it very hard to accept these traditional Chinese religions. Many converts actually claim that they accepted Christianity because it is a rational religion.

In a sense, it is this perception of Christianity, especially Protestantism, as a rational, modern religion that partly explains its attractiveness to a disenchanted younger generation in Singapore. Having illustrated the above, Buddhism appears to be experiencing a certain revival in Singapore. This may be due to the fact that Buddhists today tend to take a more systematic approach towards religion. Mainly, there is a renewed emphasis on the theological rather than the ritual aspects of the religion. This "intellectualization" of Buddhism, to large part, made it more logical, relevant, and rational. Tong suggested in "The Rationalization of Religion in Singapore" that the large number of people who claim to have no religion might, at first glance, suggest that secularization has indeed taken place in Singapore.

He added, however, that a large number of these non-religionists actually continue to practice some form of religious rituals. This involves primarily traditional Chinese rites, such as praying to all the gods at the same time, praying to their deceased loved ones, or visiting and partaking in the rituals in the Chinese temples. Clearly, there seems to be a sense of re-enchantment for this group of non-religionists. Our visiting Weber though would have probably put it down to the unresolvable tensions between formal rationality and substantive rationality. As mentioned before, Weber argued that class alone is inconclusive in determining the social stratification of a society. In view of that, he highlighted the importance of status groups as one of the main contributing factors as well.

In Singapore, Weber should find that his assertion would indeed hold a fair degree of weight. In fact, it becomes rather problematic when one tries to break down Singapore society into different class structures. The very reason being that in today's modern society, it is no longer a case of the bourgeoisie versus the proletariat. There is the emergence of the 'new rich', or the middle class. Even so, further distinction has been made between the upper-middle class and the lower-middle class. The problem of cohesiveness is still relevant here, one might not necessarily feel that he is a member of a particular class, or for that matter, identifies with it.

Status groups, on the other hand, are stratified according to their consumption patterns as represented by their special styles of life. A case in point would be the classification of Singaporeans into cosmopolitans and heartland ers. Prime Minister Goh Cook Tong, in fact took some pains to define the two broad categories of people during his National Day Rally speech in 1999: Cosmopolitans earn good incomes in jobs in information technology, banks, science and technology or engineering. They speak English and can adapt to living and working overseas. They are the economic powerhouse of the country, the ones who make sure the nation runs efficiently and quickly. The heartland ers are the ones with local jobs and local interests, who could feel lost outside their own cultural setting.

They could be the hawker, the factory worker, the sales assistant, the taxi driver. They are the core of Singapore. Basically, we then have a classification of Singapore society into two main status groups, since life chances and styles, consumption patterns, external living conditions and personal life experience, determine each group. Still, there emerges an interestingly third group from this stratification, the cos mo-ladders - not quite cosmopolitans, not quite heartland ers.

This group are the ones who are equally at home in the business class lounge of Tokyo's Narita airport and at the Tong Bahru market waiting for their fix of "ch wee k way". They can switch from standard English when speaking to business associates, to Mandarin when they climb into the taxi from the airport, greet the security guard at the condominium gate in 'Singlish' and converse in Hokkien when they get home to their mother. On hindsight, perhaps one of Weber's most relevant themes today is the rationalization process. This has been further developed in Ritzer's The McDonalization of Society. In it, Ritzer suggests that the extreme automation of production, serving, and consumption of hamburgers represents, and the word 'McDonalization' refers to the inevitable outcome of the internal logic of the rationalization of social life, which began in the nineteenth century in the West. This trajectory of rationalization, he argues has two loci; one in the bureaucratic management of society and the other in the breaking down of work into standardized routines in the mass production of industrial goods.

These resulted in efficiency, , predictability, and control. Singapore is thus no exception to the rule. The singular pursuit of continuous economic growth is the primary criteria for initiating and assessing all public policies. This formal or instrumental rationality is ideologically crystallized into a local version of 'pragmatism'.

The population is to be continuously developed by education into human resource. Meritocracy is to be the basis of allocation of social and material rewards, merit itself being measured by standardized performance criteria. No sector of social life, no matter how private, in principle is exempt from state intervention to harness it for economic growth. All these translate into a regime of social discipline under a highly centralized rational bureaucracy.

Perhaps, this is how Weber might have summed up the Singapore society after his visit. What remains at this juncture would be to ask if there should be any criticisms of Weber's theories. Was Weber too pessimistic in his interpretation of modern society? After all, not many Singaporeans would readily agree that they are "specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart".

Developments in Singapore such as an emerging and growing civil society, a more open and consultative style of government and so on, seem to suggest otherwise. In conclusion, Weber argued that formal rationality do have substantive values. Perhaps then, while there is no resolving of the tension between the two, a viable option could then be finding a suitable compromise. With all that is said, a great thrust of Weber's works remains to us as important as it was a century ago.