Weber, Goethe, and the Nietzschean Allusion: Capturing the Source of the "Iron Cage" Metaphor

Abstract

Edward Tiryakian recently argued that Max Weber wassodeeply affected by John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress that he personally identified with one of its characters, a man whowas trapped in an iron cage of despair. Therein, Tiryakian claimed, lies the origins of the famous "iron cage" metaphor that appears in the final pages of Talcott Parsons' translation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Challenging hisview, thisarticle argues that Weberwaslittleaffected by hisreading of Puritan material, since he subsumed its example of inner worldly asceticism intoGerman ideational models provided by Nietzsche and Goethe. The "iron cage" metaphor is the result of a mistranslation by Parsons, and cannot beattributed to Weber. Moreover, by conceiving of the Pur itans as Ubermenschen, Weberwasunable to see the extentto whicha desire forrevenge against those in power helped to shape the economic activities of at least one Puritan group, the Quakers.

A Sociology of Culture, Taste and Value

“…But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage' (Weber, 2001, p. 123). There has been much controversy regarding the appropriateness of the 'iron cage' metaphor in Talcott Parsons's translation of ein stahlhartes Gehause (Kent, 1983). According to Sayer (1991, p. 144), a more apt analogy would be the shell on a snail's back, which is 'a burden perhaps, but something impossible to live without, in either sense of the word'.…”

Max Weber and the spirit of resentment: The Nietzsche legacy

“…He went on to observe: 'The world in which we live intellectually is largely one that bears [their] stamp' (Baumgarten, 1964: 554). The impact of Nietzsche on Weber has subsequently been much discussed in interpretations of Weber's sociology (Eden;Fleury, 2005;Flieschmann, 1964;Hennis, 1988;Kent, 1983;Mommsen, 1965;Stauth and Turner, 1988;Tiryakian, 1981). As Stephen Kent (1983: 301) has shown, both the last chapter of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and a section of 'Science as a Vocation' bear the clear mark of Nietzsche with their derisive references to die lezten Menschen as the bearers of a new spirit of deadening rationality and false happiness.…”

Elective Affinities of the Protestant Ethic: Weber and the Chemistry of Capitalism

“…As we know from Marianne Weber's biography of her husband, Weber read the entire 40 volumes of Goethe's collected works while he was still in his Tertia (1988:47–48), and in his adult life regularly read and reread Goethe for pleasure. In his scholarly work, Weber regularly quotes Goethe, and there is a growing literature on the important role of Goethe in Weber's thinking, one that is comparable with that of Nietzsche, Kant, and Marx (Kent 1983; Green 1988; Albrow 1990; Baehr 2001; Goldman 1992; Kemple 2001; Sahni 2001; Scaff 1991; Wilding 2007). As in many of his other essays, in the Protestant ethic essays, Weber quotes Goethe several times.…”