Ascetic protestantism as fatal strategy: religious-economic conflict and the implosion of cultural value

ABSTRACT

This article engages Jean Baudrillard’s principles of hyperreality and fatal strategy, and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in comparative analysis. First, it defines hyperreality as the saturation of quality to the degree of antithesis and defines fatal strategy as the self-destructive hyperreality of a system of thought, behavior, or exchange. Then, it assesses Weber’s work on ascetic Protestantism and the secularizing influence of capital. Proceeding from the definition of relevant concepts, this analysis finds that ascetic Protestantism is itself a fatal strategy, as it establishes the framework for an economic system that inevitably subverts its own religious foundations. This determination is crucial to the comparative interpretation of Baudrillard and Weber’s thought; the identification of fatal strategy within the genesis of global network of capital broadens the principle’s scope and clarifies hyperconsumption’s proliferation within traditionally ascetic cultures.

KEYWORDS:

• Baudrillard
• Weber
• fatal strategy
• hyperreality
• ascetic protestantism

Acknowledgements

This article is dedicated to Dr. Samuel Goff for his editorial assistance, and those unfortunate physics students who patiently watched and listened as I scrawled this paper’s outline on their whiteboard.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This is, of course, not to say that the poor spend more than the wealthy. Indeed, the opposite is true. However, there is a substantial amount of research indicating that the poor are disproportionately affected by economic factors like the prevalence of planned obsolescence in inexpensive consumer goods. For example, Consumer Legislation and the Poor identifies factors that contribute to the poverty tax (Consumer Legislation 1967, 755–760).

1. “Neighborhood Price Levels”: According to the article, stores in low-income areas charge higher rates than stores in higher income areas, despite the comparability of the products sold. Furthermore, limited transportation options may preclude the possibility of seeking affordable alternatives. Although Consumer Legislation and the Poor is decades-old and its data are no longer precisely accurate, they describe a trend that has continued since the article’s publication. Contemporary research on food deserts and the relative costliness of food in poor neighborhoods, which proves the general validity of Consumer Legislation and the Poor’s main argument, can be found in the bibliography.

2. “Quality”: The article states that “the low value which the poor receive for their money results not only from these above average prices, but also from the below average quality of the goods which are sold in low income areas”. This aligns with the preceding assertion that “excessive and redundant acquisition of substandard serially produced objects necessitates disproportionately higher rates of consumption paradoxically denoting poverty”.

2 This is, a brief synopsis of Weber’s already truncated, historical narrative. Furthermore, the aforementioned summary only addresses those aspects of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that are most conducive to comparative analysis, although it does not omit any relevant argumentation for the sake of convenience or conceptual congruency. While this summary serves to render Weber’s argumentation accessible to those readers who are unfamiliar with his greater work, it is highly recommended that readers familiarize themselves with Weber’s thought before assessing this article’s claims. Relevant critiques of Weber’s argumentation, as formulated by Jost (1971), Razzell (1977), and Sparhawk (1976), can be found in this article’s bibliography.

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Graham C. Goff

Graham C. Goff researches sociology, epistemology and the philosophy of religion at Howard Payne University's Guy D. Newman Honors Academy. His most recent publication, “Transforming Leviathan: Job, Hobbes, Zvyagintsev and Philosophical Progression” was published in the Journal of Religion and Film.