We are human beings, not human doings is a phrase I have found myself using almost weekly as I work with those dying.\u00a0 When we come to the end of our life it is natural to do two things, one is life review: How did I live my life, did I do it right? Am I proud? Am I ashamed? All of it?\u00a0 Most of us spend our lives working.\u00a0 Working towards something, working at something, working out of necessity.\u00a0 What happens when we cannot produce anymore?\u00a0 When our life has become being relegated to the bed?\u00a0 It becomes hopeless, that\u2019s what.\u00a0 When we spend our life defining our worth by what we do and not who we are, our identity itself has become a commodity.<\/p>\n
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In Max Weber\u2019s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,<\/em> Weber helps us to start to understand why we have ended up here in this time and place with capitalism and how we have ownership, (or our ancestors and denominational protestant family) have some ownership.\u00a0 Everyone smart around me does the \u201coh\u2026Weber\u201d when I talk about reading this book.\u00a0 I was intimidated before I even purchased it\u2026 and actually not at all interested in reading about Protestantism or capitalism.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t interest me, and I was not making the connection to my NPO in any way.\u00a0 As Kathryn Schulz in her book Being Wrong <\/em>\u201cIf we relish being right and regard it as our natural state, you can imagine how we feel about being wrong.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Hold on to your seat, I admit, I was wrong!\u00a0 I feel this will be a book I will have to wrestle with for a while, but I liked it.\u00a0 It helped when I found out Weber is a sociologist.\u00a0 I majored in sociology in college and loved studying why we are the way we are in context to community and tribe.\u00a0 This bit of knowledge of who Weber was helped open my mind as I read him.\u00a0 I also had to utilize a YouTube video called \u201cWhy this text matters\u201d by a Theology professor at University of Chicago Divinity School named Will Shultz.\u00a0 If you struggled with this book, I would recommend his 20ish minute video.<\/p>\n \n Weber introduced a quote made popular by Benjamin Franklin \u201cTime is Money\u201d[2]<\/a>.\u00a0 I would argue that this has a twofold meaning, Time is Money and money is needed for Time!\u00a0 As I encounter those heading to the last part of their life it has become increasingly harder to pay for this time! \u00a0We are living longer and longer and have to work harder and harder to pay for the care needed.\u00a0 I don\u2019t tell this to you all in a way to bring pessimism, but to alert us all in the true cost of long lives, and all this hard work and we get to the end, and we feel hopeless? That is not good news.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0In one of my old sociology books there was, and essay called Working Longer, Living Less: Understanding Marx Through the Workplace Today, <\/em>in this essay he brings up a different side or cost of Capitalism.\u00a0 \u201cProponents of capitalism are hard-pressed to explain this pattern of growing inequality and polarization. Pundits often fall back on \u2018psychologizing\u2019 the problems (people are poor or unemployed because of some personal failing: lack of motivation, drug problem, reliance on welfare, etc.) or in \u201cnaturalizing\u201d these ills by pronouncing them intransigent facts of human existence. The writings of Karl Marx, however, offer a different interpretation. Marx argued that under capitalism, workers must, by definition, lose economic ground as productivity and profits increase.\u201d\u00a0 Whew, so to make our society go around we must work harder and lose ground for sake of profit.\u00a0 We have become cogs in the machine.\u00a0 Weber, would argue, that to say \u201cProtestants caused capitalism would be too simplistic, as it\u2019s not just about ideas, he also argues it\u2019s about the circumstances, and Luther and the reformation made commerce safe for Christianity\u201d[3]<\/a>. Weber brings us to a similar understanding that our historical capitalism spirit was \u201cworking to live\u201d has now become \u201cliving to work\u201d[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n Leadership requires experience, years, maturity, wisdom.\u00a0 Many of the best leaders, and us future Doctors have gotten here because we have been through suffering and hardship.\u00a0 It\u2019s getting through these situations that bring us the wisdom.\u00a0 Stephen Kalberg wrote a beautiful intro into the world of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism<\/em> and Max Weber.\u00a0 I was drawn into who we was as a man and cared about what he had to say because of what he had been through.\u00a0 He had \u201ca significant incident occurred during a visit by his mother to his home in Heidelberg in the summer of 1897. Unexpectedly, Weber\u2019s Father appeared and commenced a heated argument with his mother. The young Weber, who had passively witnessed his mother\u2019s mistreatment for years, then evicted his father-who died seven weeks later.\u00a0 This configuration of events seems to have served as the catalyst for the paralyzing mental illness that afflicted Weber for more than five years\u201d[5]<\/a>. Kahlberg goes on to explain how as he came out of this mental illness; this book was a large part of his recovery.\u00a0 It is often out of our most difficult moments that the most significant work comes out\u2026. You!\u00a0 Get out there and be! That is the work!<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Schulz, Kathryn. Being Wrong; Adventures in the Margin of Error.<\/em> (New York, HarperCollins, 2010). Pg 5<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011) pg 77.<\/em><\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Walsh, John P and Anne Zacharias-Walsh. \u201cWorking Longer, Living Less: Understanding Marx through the Workplace Today\u201d in Illuminating Social Life<\/em> by Peter Kvisto (California, Pine Forge Press, 1998). Pg 110<\/p>\n