Thank you - appreciate the nice comment.

Your initial negative response to Adorno's essay is familiar to me -- I'm glad you saw the value in the essay. I still think it is one of the best introductions to Adorno and Horkheimer's larger project.

Thank you for suggesting this and it is nice that there might be demand for an illustrated book like this.

The closest thing there was to a script, old fashioned lecture notes, are on screen. You might try CC to see an AI approximation to proper nouns.

Weber sets Lutheranism, medieval Catholicism, and emotional evangelical sects outside the category of "this-worldly asceticism." The reason is pretty straightforward: mysticism remains as a high-religious experience and a pathway to and assurance of salvation. Calvinism-Puritanism was a historical instance of purely-this-worldly asceticism. All others, even Methodism, Pietism, and Anabaptism -- all of which he place in the category of proto-capitalist worldly-asceticism -- hold on to a remnant of mysticism. In Luther's case, mysticism remains the core of the religious life (it is a heart religion of worldly grace after all) to soften/disrupt pure profit-making. Calvinism actually creates a psychological incentive to pursue profit: profit remains a primary sign of (potential) salvation that quiets existential anxiety of damnation.

Harry Dahms @ University of Tennessee Knoxville

Very welcome

Yes, I'm sure the AI bot has it right.

Thanks Bruh!!!! @@socialtheory

You are welcome

I'll be adding more over time. I hope they are helpful.

Thanks

You are welcome

Thank you!

I hope this lives up to expectations

I'm pleased that they are being viewed.

Glad you like them! Keep studying sociology, as this ink might turn out to be toxic, meaning we'll need a new generation of social theorists pronto!

Thank you!

I was wondering the same thing!

I read and teach in English translation, a real weakness, and am glad that someone is honing language skills.

Belayed acknowledgement of your comments. We share an age and a background. Am glad you found this helpful. Good luck!

I appreciate the comment. I wish I could prevent ads from being pushed at you when viewing this...

Honestly, I think it enhanced the video. @@socialtheory

I teach this book, which is imperfect but groundbreaking, because it helps us comprehend power dynamics in the historical emergence of the capitalist order. Stalinism is a separate and later phenomena yet readily approached from Foucault's standpoint. For my money, Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism is the most powerful critique of Stalinism as an archipelago of gulags, camps, and prisons as memorialized in Solzhenitsyn's writings. See also Agamben's Homo Sacer project, which draws heavily upon both Arendt and Foucault.

@@socialtheory I must confess I am not a student of Foucault, I sort of regard him as a latter-day Machiavelli. Machiavelli having no moral pretensions, Foucault on the other hand interjects his moral viewpoint, supporting his position as on the fringes of society. I find the relish with which he dwells on confinement, not surprisingly sadomasochistic, he seems to regard himself as both jailed and jailor. He is both appalled and obsessed by his own position. Much of what he writes is an internal dialogue, which we are witness too. Marxism gave him a framework to rail against the current order, I am unaware of any solution he offered to deal with deeply disturbed people besides denying that they exist.

@@NickEdgington your brief responses expresses the internal contradictions in Foucault and the need to transcend him as we think our way to a better world. Foucault is worthwhile to work through, a waypoint rather than a destination.

​@@socialtheory I do not wish to invalidate his observation; much is to be learned from his struggle. But even Foucault cannot be viewed devoid of context. Regarding any author as a destination is dangerous enough, particularly so with Foucault.

You're very welcome!

Glad to hear it!