ng a blunt/sharp object were easier to recognize than those not involving weapons.
Apart from the fact that child-abuse-related deaths may not be readily manifest, what makes child abuse and neglect deviant is the fact that it belies the conventional view of a civil society as a form of social organization in which the most vulnerable are protected or at any rate not exploited. That is directly antithetical to the notion of society conceived of as an exercise in rationalization and bureaucratization as analyzed by Weber. To see why this theory is relevant to the issue of child abuse as manifestation of social deviance, it will be useful to review how Weber conceptualizes social structure itself. The term most commonly associated with Weber's view of social structure is rationalization, or rationalism, that process whereby a society evolves away from a world explained by superstition and emotion toward social organization. Rationalism is not to be equated with reasonableness and justice as a moral category, but rather "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 & Mills, 1946, p. 51).
A bureaucratic apparatus is meant to administer access to social protections and benefits, but as a practical matter, it may not make access equally available to all participants in society. Nor does social organization worthy of the name mean that a mere rational attitude guarantees perfect social structure. Rationalism itself is an issue in doubt. As Weber himself notes, many different "rational conclusions" (Weber, 1946, p. 324) have been drawn by many different societies in the world. Indeed, too much rationalism may be bad for the society in which the rational attitude is victorious. When that happens, the social structure becomes more of a bureaucracy than a society. For example, rational...