The Gray Area with Sean Illing

The spiritual roots of our strange relationship to work

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The pandemic caused many to rethink our relationship to work. But how did that relationship develop in the first place? Sean Illing talks with George Blaustein, professor of American Studies, about the legacy and influence of Max Weber, the German theorist whose best-known work is The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) — which, Blaustein says, is often misunderstood. In the summer of 2020, George wrote an essay interpreting Weber's ideas on the psychology of work, the origins of capitalism, and the isolation of modernity — just as it looked like everything might change.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: George Blaustein (@blauwsteen), senior lecturer of American Studies and History, University of Amsterdam; editor, European Review of Books

References: 

  • "Searching for Consolation in Max Weber's Work Ethic" by George Blaustein (The New Republic; July 2, 2020)
  • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber (1905; tr. by Talcott Parsons, 1930)
  • The Vocation Lectures, by Max Weber: "Science as a Vocation" (1917) & "Politics as a Vocation" (1919). Published together as Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures (NYRB, 2020; translated by Damion Searls)
  • Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin (1536)
  • Der Amerikamüde by Nikolaus Lenau (1855)
  • The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)
  • Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber (Simon & Schuster; 2018)
  • "Bullshit jobs: why they exist and why you might have one" by Sean Illing (Vox; Nov. 9, 2019)


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    This episode was made by: 

    • Producer: Erikk Geannikis
    • Engineer: Patrick Boyd
    • Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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