Abstracts

Max Weber Studies Vol. 1 No. 2 (May 2001): 161-177

Weber, Pynchon and the American Prospect

Ralph Schroeder

Weber’s sociology and the novels of Thomas Pynchon share many themes. In this essay I will focus on Pynchon’s two recent novels, Vineland, about contemporary America, and Mason&Dixon, about its origins. Vineland is about the ‘counterculture’ of the 1960s and poses questions about how this episode of ‘re-enchantment’ in American history should be remembered. Mason&Dixon deals in large part with the conquest by the two surveyors of the American landmass, with its overtones of scientific mastery overreaching itself. These themes can be compared with Weber’s view of America; how he regarded some aspects of American social life as illustrating the furthest extensions of the rationalization process, and at the same time thought that American invidualism, shaped by the religious sects, was potentially robust enough to withstand this process. The comparison between Weber’s and Pynchon’s views of America will lead to a discussion of the ‘social construction’ of the exceptional concern with American culture and its travails at the turn of the millenium.