Nicolas Gane Quotes

“Pre-modern forms of authority , based predominantly upon value-rationality and natural law, are here succeeded by legal-rational forms of domination and by the rule of instrumental reason. With this, religious beliefs and ultimate ideals gradually recede from (public) life as they are disenchanted by the claims of 'rational' science and are replaced increasingly by the idealized pursuit of secular, material ends. This leads to a world in which questions of meaning and value disappear from the public arena, and in which the scope for creative action and for the pursuit of ultimate values becomes increasingly restricted. And in this regard, the twin processes of cultural and social rationalization lead to the same end: to a condition of nihilism in which the highest 'ultimate' values are devalued, or devalue themselves, and hence, for the most part, are no longer able to guide social action, which itself becomes, in turn, increasingly routinized and mundane.”

“... Science... denude(s) all religious beliefs... denigrating them as irrational forms of superstition or myth regardless of their intrinsic rationality or value.”

“... Modern life is always experienced as a struggle: to impose one's individuality on the world, one has to work against the fabric of modern culture itself and uphold ultimate values in the face of purely instrumental and ever more 'rational' forces.”

“With the rationalization of culture, and the corresponding disenchantment of religious ideas and beliefs, the modern world is ordered increasingly upon instrumentally rational grounds, and hence organizes itself less and less according to value-rational principles. This leads in turn to a world in which social action is separated increasingly from the sphere of (ethical) meaning, as particular (often technical) means are employed to realize specific ends regardless of the ethical significance or meaning of such action.”

“... The individual is still obliged to confer the legitimacy of mutually antagonistic values, for even though the array of ultimate values may contract with the rationalization of the world, one is never relieved from the existential burden of choice ('taking a stand').”

“...With the failure of the imagination to present form the mind discovers that it has the capacity to conceive of the infinite, and thus has the power to transcend everything that sense can measure and thus present. The sublime feeling in this case arises from the play between the finite nature of the senses and the infinite capacity of reason.”

“[Concerning postmodernism:] The aim of this experimental history is to disturb the ontological security of modern identity and hence to provoke the possibility of otherness through exposition of the cultural difference concealed by, and within, the order of modern rationalism.”

“... Weber insists that one should not give up or lose faith in the face of this struggle. Indeed, he calls for us to engage in, rather than withdraw from, the problems of this world. He reminds us, for example, that while 'successful political action is always the "art of the possible" ... the possible is often reached only by striving to attain the impossible that lies beyond it'.”

“... The political leader must constantly appraise and reappraise the means through which 'he can hope to do justice to the responsibility that power imposes upon him' while at the same time pursuing political values with conviction.”

“... The form of leadership must be the focus of constant reappraisal. Weber states, for example: 'Each new fact may necessitate the re-adjustment of the relations between end and indispensable means, between desired goals and unavoidable subsidiary consequences.' This process of re-adjustment is ultimately without resolution, for the political and ethical value-spheres are not only in constant opposition but also in permanent flux. It is the task of the politician to negotiate this value conflict and to be decisive as to the value to be pursued and the means to be employed.”