Sewell And Weber Essay, Research Paper

Agency is freedom in the sense that you can be your own person with the capacity to feel, as well as think, about the world and the people in it in a way that makes sense to you. As I sit here trying to comprehend how to start this paper, I feel I have a sense of freedom to use all of Sewell?s and Weber?s thoughts and insights. By taking these ideas into my own hands I have come up with an interpretation of their views of the world that I can apply to everyday life. In this paper I am going to convince you of what I think Sewell and Weber intend for me to understand about agency and the Protestant ethic. In order to argue this, I want to lead you in my direction of how I came to an understanding of how society has developed into what it is today.

I believe that we all have freedom in our minds to do whatever we want in life. I am free to make up my own opinions, which directly influence my daily life. I take into account all outside influences however; I feel I still have say in what I want to do (Sewell pg. 20). Agency gives me the sense to be an individual in this world but there are still times when I require guidance from others. We as a society come together as individuals to work towards understanding one another in many social situations (Sewell pg. 21). Basically, to have any sort of agency we all need structure which in turn gives us a backbone within the walls of being part of society. I believe that structure gives us direction in our daily lives within the set of rules and regulations provided by society. We have a freedom to follow or to not follow these guidelines (Sewell pg. 6).

Just like the Protestant ethic these people felt they had a calling to serve God and had a purpose for life as well. The Protestants lived their lives with complete structure by means of working very hard and in return they felt they were going to be one of the elite chosen by God (PE pg. 110). By working so hard they found that mass wealth had developed causing feelings of shame to grow as a result of these unanticipated consequences (PE pg. 157). The shame came from the sense that through this wealth they were more apt to give in to sin such as flesh and luxury (PE pg. 157). Yet the Protestants were able to mask this shame by saving their wealth for accumulation. This deferred gratification provided calming feelings because they were still working in their calling for God. The result of wealth was justified because their calling was directed to please God since it was his intention to have the Protestants make this wealth (PE pg. 163).

I believe the Protestants felt that they had agency to serve God in a way that made them feel useful to society, which also helped them justify their wealth. Through the whole structure of work and profit they were able to express their talents to the world as well as God (Sewell pg. 20). I feel that these tie into the structure for capitalism which I believe sprang from the thought process that if you work hard you will receive wealth and in turn will allow you to gain material resources. Today, we work hard for a living to provide for our loved ones and ourselves. I feel in comparison to the Protestants, we have lost our sense of direction towards working in the glorification of God to working for money and prestige (PE pg. 72). I see society as a vast majority of people going on with their daily lives working in a structure based on time and money. We all want to live our lives to the fullest through agency and happiness. Through mass media we are bombarded with material things that pressure us to work harder and harder to gain wealth and toys.

In my opinion, society has totally lost touch with the Protestant ethic. We work hard to please ourselves and not for God (PE pg. 53). I see society as a bunch of sheep being herded around by the media who tell us what is in and what is good for us. Nothing is ever good enough for us, there is always going to be something better than what we already have. I have noticed people who have incredible wealth are still not completely satisfied. Where does it end? This is when I think of the iron cage. We the sheep of society are trapped in the never satisfied vicious cycle of the iron cage (PE pg. 181). Weber states that through the development of capitalism he is unsure of where society will end up. His question is, will we continue on living in an iron cage or somehow break away from the cycle of wealth equals happiness (PE pg. 182)?

I feel that Weber has some incredible insights, which have helped me understand though we have this agency to do what we want we still need a direction. Personally, I think structure is our daily life. We have a normal routine that we go through everyday to make money. We are free to quit this routine weather it?s a job or school at any given time (agency), yet we would fall in the trap of no structure for our lives. I think that Weber would constitute my life style as agency with structure. My parents have helped guide me in the direction of going to school, getting good grades, and then going for that deserving job which will support my future. I have the agency to take many different avenues with this structure. I am certain that my life will go accordingly towards the direction of my happiness. This thought gives me feelings of freedom to have a choice in where I am going and what I believe. Iron cage or not, I think that the big picture here is whether we are happy with our lives.