Substance Use and Max Weber's Social Theory

The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of controlled-substance use and abuse with reference to the social theory of Max Weber. The plan of the research will be to set forth in general terms Weber's approach to social analysis, and then to see whether and to what extent it is useful in explaining the various phenomena associated with controlled-substance use and abuse, relating not only to users of such substances but also to society more generally.

No examination of Weberian theory would be complete without reference to rationalization (also rationality or rationalism), which refers to a process whereby a society evolves away from a world explained by superstition and emotion toward social organization. It is important to recognize that rationalism is not to be equated with reasonableness and justice as a moral category, but rather is to be "measured negatively in terms of the degree to which magical elements of thought are displaced, or positively by the extent to which ideas gain in systematic coherence and naturalistic consistency" (Gerth and Mills, 1946, p. 51). This situation of systematic order has to do with the shape of social organization and not necessarily with more informal social comity. Inevitably, therefore, issues of authority and enforcement of order also arise. In that regard, Shaw characterizes Weber as a theorist of social control (Shaw, 2002, p. 125), and the breadth of Weber's writings on religion, society, and law reinforces that characte

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atus of the individual or group involved is underprivileged (Weber, "Bureaucracy," 1946, p. 224). Opposition to rationally evolved bureaucratic structures is, for Weber, an exercise in irrationality, even though (or exactly because) a legal system is "fused with the canonization of the abstract and 'objective' idea of 'reasons of state'" (p. 220). The irrational label sticks, however democratic or socially beneficial challenges to the bureaucratic structures may be. T He says that "under the conditions of mass democracy, public opinion is communal conduct born of irrational 'sentiments'" (1946, p. 221). It is important to note that "irrational" social dynamics do not automatically make that everything about a rationalized social structure desirable or just. Weber acknowledges that underprivileged social actors do not stand equally before the law; instead, the socially privileged are in a better position to exploit the benefits that bureaucratic social organization may confer (Weber, 1946, p. 224). He also notes the connection between oppressive economic conditions and the tendency toward what appears to be an idea of sociopolitical democratic activity on the part of the oppressed. And he makes reference to the "leveling of the

Category: Psychology - S