Mr Rowntree's Survey of Belgium

txadidon to this day.*The same general view is implied by the philosophical sociology of Max Weber, who tried to formtilate the broadest and most general trends of modem industrial society in terms of increasing scale of political and economic operation, increasing rationalisation, increasing secularisation, increasing bureaucracy.'This trend, Weber held, would have profound reverberations in personal life and in relipon.He bleed to quote Schiller's phrase, die 'disenchantment of the world.'Mr. C. S. Lewis, when he speaks of the 'unchristening of tie West' is saying much the same thing.'The same general imjilication is to be fotuid in the works of Ferdinand Tonnies.' Tonnies' great distinction is to isolate very clearly a second pervasive principle of social organisation that runs counter to the trend towiirds greater uniformity and anonymity, the principle of community or Gemeinschaft, exemplified in the smallscale face-to-face groups where human relationships are nonpurposive, non-reflective, non-economic, personal and spontaneously co-operadve.But Tonnies' general conclusions are like Weber's-that in the general development of modern society the large-scale bureaucratic impersonal type of social reladonship (Gesellschaft) is superseding the small-scale and intimate types of reladonship which he identifies with pre-industdal society.Karl Mannheim' gave the findings of Weber an optimisdc twist, as Mr. Arnold points out.He sees in the trend of society radonalisad(Mi without depersonalisadon, planning without bureaucracy.Socialism is identified with collectivism and both are disguised by the term democracy; de:niocracy is idendfied with planning" and there are several agonising and unintelligible essays on the quesdon posed and left unsolved by Plato-^who will plan the planners?But the general drift is that a spedal corps or 61ite of sociologists will mainrain Uaison with dedicated 61ites in every branch of die planned organisadon to keep the planning as free as possible.Mannheim is the last considerable exponent of the view diat the sociologist is the grey eminence of die planner.And Mannheim is no longer die influence iliat he was.On the one hand the more general type of sociologii»l thinker, those who think in terms of trends, inevitable or otherwise, have reverted to the pessimism of Weber."They see planning coming inevitably and deplore it, or they see it as a distinct prob:ibility and warn against it.On the other hand, the more specific type of sociological observer, described by

Sociology · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Financial Crisis of the 21st Century

• Human Relations in a Changing World

  Paul Butler, Alexander H Leighton•Pacific Affairs•1949

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