Translation from German by the author
The whole week I had no time to think. Thinking without haste, in silence stimulates in me, as in many other people, a flow of thoughts that is worth writing down. I was already thinking I need to take a break at Medium, when an idea came to me that enchanted me because I did nothing to actively stimulate it. I don’t know if it’s due to Friday, when I was lying sick in bed and had some time in silence to recover, or a relaxing Saturday morning when I was reading, coffee in hand, a huge block — Stuart Jeffries’ book on Frankfurt School. In the book, I stumbled across the glibly listed term from German economist Max Weber — “the disenchantment of the world” — which Jeffries uses to describe the state of mind in 1930s Germany.
“It was a process of transformation of thing into man and man into thing with the result that humanity becomes superfluous,” is how Jeffries explains the term of disenchantment of the world used by Weber in a lecture.
Disenchantment of the world according to Weber consists in the “calculation of things” without consideration of the magical spiritual powers into our everyday life. He means that the conditions of life are based on a calculable everyday life, which makes the world “disenchanted”, also calculable, plannable and logical. Consequently, human thinking resembles a machine “so that it can eventually replace him,” as much later Adorno and Horkheimer wrote in “Dialectic of Enlightenment.” Thus, giving thanks is not seen as a creative process, but as a machine process, as is man himself. So the process of disenchantment persists even after Weber, into the 1950s and 1960s.
I think disenchantment still persists to this day. More — it is in the prime of its development, because it has become even stronger. It is now veiling itself under the enchanting looking motion pictures, advertisements and PR campaigns that believe they have revived the magical. After all, whether becoming slim in 14 days or completing a fast track to becoming an Insta-Influencer and making millions from your digital presence, the money and the speed have become the magical of our age. The fast track to success that is now available to everyone becomes the lure for those who are susceptible to it, and who want to believe in this kind of magic even though they live in a disenchanted world.
But it is not the enchanting that Weber meant. The notion of the magical was transformed. In the past, it consisted in the religious belief in the mystical powers of fate, which were there to catch humanity, especially in difficult situations, and to bring the community closer together. The magical expressed itself in prayers and conversations with God or universe, with belief in the fateful and that “everything will be all right”. This magic was replaced by realism, which, like the strong sunshine, blinds us so much that we have to switch back and forth between its dark shadowy sides and radiant possibilities. I mentioned the shining possibilities above — Insta-influencers, fame, fast money. To that, you could bullet point: quick and easy relationships, spontaneous travel, feeling good quickly when you buy organic products, etc.
However, this preudo magic way can’t really replace magic because it’s too fast, very black and white and yet very uneven, not close and for many realistically unattainable. I think we know this too and that’s why we can’t really be happy even though we have all these possibilities. The real magic of faith in the world has disappeared because we have seen that we have failed — in climate and in politics, we could never maintain peace both with nature and with the other countries and peoples. You can no longer hope for the good and “hand over” a few things to the god or universe, you have to act and move, think and post thoughts, always be faster — to the emotional exhaustion that lies at the core of the bitter realism of this doomed world. Why so aggressive? Because shadow sides are also there, constantly lurking: Wars, homeless people, trauma, children that no one needs, and people who have buried themselves deep in their jobs so that they can think of nothing else. Want some more realism?
Honestly, even after this paragraph I wonder which one can return to the magical world. Maybe there is no return and much are too deep inside and know too much to remain passive and believe in “the good” and magic. A vicious circle.
A friend once asked me seriously if I believed in God. I said that I believe in something in the universe because there are moments when there is no other way — pain, sadness, fear. Also, there are moments of pure inspiration, just like the ones on Saturday morning when reading Weber’s term, that bring forth understanding, curiosity, and feelings of wholeness all at the same time.
I think I would be dead inside if I hadn’t turned to God or Something-In-Universe and felt that oneness (wholeness, unison) with the world around me. Funny, during those turns and afterward, I felt better. Often I was then suddenly full of peace, but not passive. I felt like everything was going to be okay without negating the people in need. This was an acknowledgement of the complexity of the world that is simply there. Also, somewhere in that moment, there was also a recognition of my own powerlessness. Total contrast to the digital world domination by money and power, as Facebook and Co. show us. I have to say, it felt good. I even wonder what it would be like if politicians filled themselves into this unity with the world, in this state of wholeness with the world. Would there be more world peace then?
Also in science there were people who apparently thought so and tried to fight against the disenchantment of the world. Through and psychoanalysis, in which the famous psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung tried to work with the unconscious and myth to bring back the sense of being in tune with the world into the lives of modern people. Also in phenomenology — exploration of the world through philosophy, thinking with reference to the world of sensations and consciousness — the idea of wholeness was there. Not to forget the Marxists, who fought and still fight for a new world without class conflicts and consider idea of human unity as their source of inspiration.
However, the magic of the world of modern philosophy is considered rather a myth, deeply rooted in mysticism and not related to reality. Well, here again we encounter a vicious circle, because realism without mysticism has little to do with the magical nature of the world. However, there are also exceptions, like Prof. Hartmut Rosa, about whom I wrote in my text about self-optimization.
The disenchantment of the world occurs with adulthood and persists until one dies. As Weber writes, disenchantment is dissolved by technology and computation.
“This above all means intellectualisation as such,” he explains.
Enlightenment, in the other words, leads to disenchantment. And the goal of school and university education is the enlightenment of the world and consequently, the intellectualization of what is happening. The magic can then be sought in chakras, yoga and return to religion, if one is not too intellectual and “realistic” for it.
