Talk:Rationalization (sociology)

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2022 and 16 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Yvasy067 (article contribs).

Human Body

In the "Human Body" section of this article, the author writes "While mental disorders are a behavioral illness at the root, drugs are predominantly used for treatment in rationalized societies due to their advantage of being a quick and calculated solution." I have a number of problems with this.

First of all, not every mental disorder is characterized by a behavioral problem (an example of this is schizophrenia); moreover it is not generally said that "behavior illness" is the cause of a mental disorder. It seems that the phrase "behavioral illness" itself is faultily, because a person does not suffer from an ailment of his or her "behavior". In any case, "behavioral illness" certainly cannot be generally identified as the single "root" cause of a mental disorder since the causes of mental disorders are often multifaceted; indeed, there exists a variety of causes for mental illness and not just one. Examples include genetics, head injury, and traumatic experience. It might be said, however, that a pattern of "maladaptive behavior" may establish that a person indeed has a mental illness.

Second, the use of the word "while" seems to indicate that drugs are generally an inappropriate treatment for mental (or perhaps "behavioral"?) illnesses, when in fact, in some cases, drugs are highly effective in treating mental illness, more so than alternative treatments alone, and do not constitute a "quick and easy fix" as seems to be implied. The prototypical example of a mental illness for which drugs have been found reasonably effective is depression; in that case, drugs may form a legitimate component to an effective treatment package when taken under the supervision of a qualified professional.

An even better, although perhaps less well known example among the general public, is bipolar disorder. In many cases, the need for drug treatment is so strong that law enforcement agencies have taken it upon themselves to ensure that patients follow their regimen of lithium salts, because without them, it is feared that patients may run amok (in some cases, judicial systems have been able to prevent the, so deemed, unreasonable enforcement of such regimens, which patients are prone to break).

Finally, although I cannot substantiate this, I doubt that drugs are the "predominant" treatment for mental/behavioral/whatever problems, as the author writes. The ability to prescribe drugs to patients is simply not part of the majority of careers in mental health. This is not to say that such drugs are terribly difficult to obtain, but I find it hard to imagine that under such conditions that drugs form predominant choice of treatment of mental illnesses. Another reason that I am inclined to doubt this is that I'm not sure that there even exist a drug treatments for a large number of mental illnesses, although I cannot be sure of this.

Danielx 11:18, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

PS: I made an edit to this to add my signature, because my session expired before submiting

Thank you for your contribution. I have moved it down the page, however, as this is primarily a sociology article and therefore the fundamental discussions by the likes of Weber, Simmel, Habermas etc etc must be mentioned first. --Tomsega (talk) 16:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Fast Food

Most likely, the reference / analogy to fast food came from the work of George Ritzer and probably needs to be credited / cited. Samatva 02:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

In regards to the Fast Food reference, it seems as though this could be seen as biased in that it presents the notion that Fast food restaurants are more effecient as fact, and assumes them to be a definite example of rationalization. 74.67.115.126 02:55, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Bias toward industrialized society

It seems as though this article has a considerable bias toward industrial society being "better" than pre-industrial societies, or at least more rational, effective, logical, etc. The use of the term 'efficiency' to describe bureauocratization of medical treatment, fast food chains, supermarkets, capitalism, commercialization, and standardized testing, seems rather vague; where more output is provided for a larger number of consumers, in a pre-industrial society goods would be produced in smaller amounts, were they not also provided on a smaller scale? Regardless, I am not trying to advocate a view that 'life would be better if we all lived in an agrarian community', rather I am just trying to point out that the tone of this article could arguably be seen as biased, and raise the question of whether or not this article is in need of improvement. 74.67.115.126 05:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I find it ironic that anyone would find this article slanted towards industrialized society, since I wrote most of it and I'm a green anarchist of a primitivist flavor. Rationalization as a theory was intended to be critical of the process it was describing. Max Weber found it a highly disturbing process and was hardly lauding it. "Rational" in the sense used by social scientists does not mean "logical", but rather means that a system based around numerical efficiency and calculation. That is to say it's about objective betterment (is more money being generated?) rather than subjective betterment (are things actually improvement?) Which is to say that it's a dehumanizing model whereby numbers are considered more reliable than people themselves. Some of your changes should probably be rolled back, as you seemed to think of this as an ideology rather than a theory critical of a certain process. Owen 03:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, although I did attempt to make it clear that the supposed bias may have only been personal interpretation, and even stated in one of my edit summaries that if my changes seemed unjustified, that they ought to be reverted. Regardless, it would seem, and this may just be my opinion, that there should be some elaboration on the meaning of rational in this context, perhaps through a brief mention of Weber's different types of rationality. For instance, if an article on, say, Stoicism did not make any mention on the ancient meaning of passion, a layperson could walk away with a somewhat inaccurate understanding of said school of philosophy. 74.67.115.126 05:27, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It certainly could use additional clarification, as lay and academic meanings can vary significantly, and mislead the reader. "Rational" means one thing in common parlance, and quite another in academic jargon. Some of your edits could probably be maintained, but I figured it better to make some clarifications here first and then let you decide what changes you feel are worth retaining. Owen 06:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is sociology not the study of social (interpersonal human) values? Human values do shift from time to time. If all we know is that they shifted, all we can do is theorize on why they shifted. We might know that it was 'that', but now it's 'this' without knowing why it changed. Human social relationships are based on human values. If the article emphasizes industrial, or modern society as somehow more meaningful or vibrant than non-industrial society, what is being used to determine value? Industry presumes a monetary (value) system based on material goods. Certain things can and do get accomplished with industry, but if there is no material incentive, nothing gets done. What does that say in terms of social values like mutual concern? I fail to see how any system based on numerical efficiency and calculation could be considered sociological. Rationalization, when defined this way, only amounts to an industry. I don't see how sociologists can see themselves as doing anything constructive if they aren't finding ways to improve societies. I also don't see anything in the article that could be construed as being a pathway to social (human civilizational) advancement. Is that because sociologists are on the right track, or are they distracted? This article should offer something substantive in terms of improving what we do as a human society. Is there a way to modify the content to that end? Human civilization has provided enough facts and figures. Rationalization should provide a means of putting it all together so that it makes sense (is rational?). Encyclopedic content should be crafted to bring about a better state for everyone who encounters it. If rationalization is redefined to mean something other than "making sense", then it might be nonsense. BRealAlways (talk) 10:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Extreme POV

I feel the term "unsightly furniture" is extraordinarily biased. I demand it be changed at once. -Roofus (talk) 23:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Areas for improvement

1. This article is making a positive contribution to understanding of the concept of rationalization, and I am glad to see it in development. There are several areas that should likely be considered for improvement.
2. Rationalization as a process refers both to the very macro level (large scale social change) which is referred to in the first sentence. It also has a more mezo level meaning (on which Weber's studies typically focused) that can be characterized as the application of reason and formal rules to the operation of organizations. Thus rationalization refers both to the application for formal rationality principles in particular institutions or organizations and to the tendency for rationalization to spread to more and more domains and contexts, including those that perhaps ought not be rationalized. (will return in a bit, to flesh out this list)
3. need cites to Economy and society, mcdonaldization etc
4. flesh out discussion of religion and rationalization
5. others. . . .--Htw3 (talk) 15:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I've reorganised the page so that the fundamental sociological discussions, by Weber and Habermas etc, come first. I have also moved segments of the previously huge opening paragraph into the main body of text, added a good Habermas quote, and spliced some information from the Ritzer McDonaldization article (as it was bizarre the page mentioned fast food restaurants without also mentioning this famous contribution to sociology). --Tomsega (talk) 16:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

How about some critiques of the concept?

The article could use some critiques of this concept. I've tried to distance it a bit from the viewpoints of those it writes about. Allens (talk) 07:53, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

NPOV

This smells very biased. "Corporate totem" is one example of a weasely wording in this article. — Melab±1 ☎ 23:10, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I vote yea on that. In the opening, the chummy words "witch doctor" are used to describe what most educated individuals call "a shaman". It makes one reminisce on the witch hunts of Europe and New England. These activities would be deemed unreasonable, yet they occurred in what one might call "the (social) rationalization of the time". Now, to associate a shaman to witches is slightly biased - colloquially speaking. It makes one wonder exactly who is being "targeted" by the article, and what objective reasoning would be stirred up in their minds. The witch doctor statement is, of course, unsourced. From what I have seen so far, I can only assume an edit war (here, or in the article) will ensue, but this article does need some work to get it to the acceptable state. I will devote whatever time I may have to improving it. BRealAlways (talk) 01:38, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

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Something is seriously wrong here

The article says, "In sociology, rationalization (or rationalisation) is the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behavior in society with concepts based on rationality and reason." Then it locates the rationalization of society in the industrial era.

But if we take that definition seriously, rationalization began circa 300 AD, when the Roman Empire (which was certainly traditional, and used values and emotions as motivators) began becoming Christian.

Christianity, especially 4th-century Christianity, overturned tradition, discouraged emotions, and replaced social values (things in this world considered valuable) with a philosophical system based on Plato's perfect God (augmented with the Neoplatonist concept of the Trinity) in which the wise man turned around ("converted", a word whose Greek equivalent appears nowhere in the New Testament, but is taken from Plato's allegory of the cave) and began a process of progressively becoming less attached to the physical world and the desires of the body, and thus closer to God, until his immortal soul would become one with God. The spiritual practices of the early Church were based in Greek philosophy, not tradition or emotions.

This remained so through the Middle Ages, during which the rational approach of using logical deduction based on divine revelation was supposed to guide action. The European Middle Ages were more rational than our present age, which is based on empiricism (prioritizing observations of reality over logic) rather than on rationality (trusting your logic more than your senses).

"Rationality" doesn't mean "thinking well". It means using logical deduction from foundational assumptions. Medieval theologians reached absurd conclusions not because they were irrational, but because they were rational--and rationality, uncorrected by empirical experiment and observation, always leads quickly into error, especially when your foundational assumptions are wrong.

I think this confusion comes from a residual rationalism which makes people take the word "reason"--which refers to working things out in your head instead of by testing them in the world--as synonymous with "intelligent behavior". But to practice medicine by observing what treatments or herbs cured patients (as the ancient "empirical" doctors did, and which the medievals called "witchcraft") is more intelligent than to deduce that a patient with diarrhea should be forced to vomit to purge herself of black bile (as the "rational" doctors did). Shamanism is also usually rational, based on wrong assumptions such as the sympathetic theory of magic. Modern science is not rational; it trusts measurement and observation more than reason and foundational assumptions, uses statistical tests rather than logical proofs, and never claims absolute certainty.

So this entire discussion is based on flipping the meaning of "rational" back and forth, using it at one moment to mean "forming beliefs in the best way" (and hence characterizing modern science as "rational"), and at the next, to mean "seeking absolute and eternal certainties, based on chains of abstract, logical deductions from unproven assumptions" (and hence characterizing the rational as dysfunctional). The result has been philosophers like Derrida showing that proofs by Aristotle and Aquinas lead to contradictions or absurdities, then claiming they've somehow discredited modern science.

The article sometimes uses proof-by-assertion to support its contention that modernity is more rational than the Middle Ages. "For example, democratic systems attempt to remedy qualitative concerns (such as racial discrimination) with rationalized, quantitative means (for example, civil rights legislation)."--Actually, civil rights concerns and legislation are both qualitative, not quantitative, and are neither more nor less rational than feudal legislative reforms such as the Magna Carta. Philgoetz (talk) 06:13, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Contributions

Yvasy067/Rationalization (sociology)

Added missing citations and information that was lacking for contextual purposes. Reformatted poorly worded portions. Added to the enlightenment creating 2 sentences in regards to its relation to rationalization. Same was done in the education portion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yvasy067 (talk • contribs) 07:13, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Something wrong with a sentence

In the main article we find: "An example of rationalization can be seen in the implementation of bureaucracies in government is a kind of rationalization, ..." The sentence must be corrected.

I guess the authors meant something like: "For example, the implementation of bureaucracies in government can be seen as a kind of rationalization, ..." I would replace one with the other but I lack the rights for editing. Sm06ssh (talk) 10:15, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

"Rationalization (sociology" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Rationalization (sociology has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 10 § Rationalization (sociology until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:03, 10 February 2024 (UTC)