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Europe, when Protestantism
emerged as a reaction to the
perceived corruption and failings
of the Roman Catholic Church.
Nascent Protestantism offered a
very different vision of the relations
between God and his subjects
and the ethics overseeing them.
The Protestant “calling”
Weber identified in particular the
importance of “the calling” to the
new Protestant system of ethics, by
which was meant the position that
God has called people to occupy
in this world. Whereas the Roman
Catholic Church urged monastic
retreat from the world of mundane
affairs (such as daily life and work),
Protestantism demanded that its
followers fulfilled their worldly
duties and responsibilities.
In drawing attention to this
difference in religious ideals, Weber
identified the German theologian
Martin Luther (1483–1546) as the
man whose thinking was essential
to the development of Protestant
theology. Luther was the first
person to suggest that fulfilling
the duties of secular life also
demonstrated reverence to God.
He claimed that at the heart of the
concept of “the calling” is the belief
that earning a living and religious
duty are one and the same thing.
Luther’s ideas were taken up
within two decades and developed
in important ways by arguably the
most influential of all the reformers,
John Calvin (1509–1564). However,
contained within the otherwise
coherent ethical system Calvin
formulated was a significant
inconsistency or contradiction: if
God is all-seeing and all-knowing,
then our destiny as individuals is
predetermined because God made
the world and everyone in it.
Calvin’s notion is referred to as
the concept of the “elect.” Because
God already knows how we are
fated to live our lives, he also knows
whose souls he has elected to save
and whose souls will be damned.
The problem for Protestants,
however, is that there is no way of
knowing in advance the category—
the saved or the damned—to which
they belong. According to Weber,
this unknown gave rise to
“salvation anxiety” and led to
psychological terror among the
followers of Protestantism. To
resolve their unease, Protestants
convinced themselves and oneMAX WEBER
Calvinist church aesthetics stress
simplicity: Protestantism focused on
austerity and thrift in contrast to the
grandeur and ostentation that was
often associated with Catholicism.another that there were certain
distinct signs that revealed who
was predestined to be saved.Social usefulness
Protestants felt that the most
obvious way in which they could
tell whether or not they were saved
was by succeeding in the world,
especially in economic affairs.
Essential to this outcome was,
they believed, a specific work
ethic—historically novel and
uniquely Protestant—that
emphasized the absolute need for
austerity, self-monitoring, and self-
control in the conduct of economic
affairs. Weber referred to this as the
“spirit of capitalism.”
A further aspect of this spirit
was the drive toward increasing
rationalization, control, and
calculability within the sphere
of economic action. To prosper
economically is to demonstrate to
one’s self and others adherence to
the notion of “the calling”: the moreModernity and the Holocaust
For Weber, the spread of
the values of calculability,
rationality, and self-restraint
that defined the Protestant work
ethic were also central to the
development of modernity.
German-Polish sociologist
Zygmunt Bauman argues that
the value-basis of that ethic also
explains how the Nazi Holocaust
was able to occur. Instead of the
traditional view of the Holocaust
as the triumph of irrationality
and a regression to primitive,
pre-modern ways of thinkingand acting, Bauman sees it as
a highly rationalized event. Not
only did modernity’s rationality
make the Holocaust possible, it
was a necessary condition for it
because the extermination was
run on bureaucratic, organized
lines. Bauman argues that the
high levels of rationality and
self-discipline exhibited by the
Holocaust’s perpetrators are
inextricably bound up with
the religious culture and values
that were found throughout
Protestant Europe.