For me, an American, the work ethic comes from reading Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography after being inspired by a passage found in an American Literature textbook in 10th grade. [0]
edit: Of all the different philosophies a young person can subscribe to, entering in the middle of my life, I'm lucky to have chosen one of the better ones. I remember at the time really wanted to embrace an identity of being American and here is a founding father who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and signed the Constitution who was born and raised with the institution of slavery owning slaves himself and evolving into an outspoken anti-slavery advocate working to abolish the practice. That is what it means to be an American, to grow, change, and become better, just.
> My list of virtues contain’d at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show’d itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinc’d me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word.
> I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.
(I alway laugh at this because to be truly humble a person can not boast of being virtuous therefore can't boast of being humble which creates a paradox.)
I think there are several weakneses in the Protestant work ethic as an explanation.
1. why is it directed at making money rather serving society?
2. Why does it glorify the rich rather than the "lowly workman" mentioned in the intro to your wikipedia link?
3. lots of evidence against it
The first two of these are even less convincing given that background of a religion that condemns the accumulation of wealth ("eye of a needle" etc.) and literally worships a "lowly workman".
As a former Christian coming of age in the early 2000s there was a popular IP called "Left Behind" about the Rapture. I always thought the concept of the anti-christ was ridiculously absurd. That someone could convince Christ's followers to basically believe the opposite of the Gospel. After witnessing the rise of 45/7 and the complete bamboozling of my deeply Christian extended family I no longer consider it ridiculous.
All that to say I'm not sure it really matters what exactly was written in the Bible because clearly a lot of the supposed followers of Christ never read it.
> All that to say I'm not sure it really matters what exactly was written in the Bible because clearly a lot of the supposed followers of Christ never read it.
It’d be wild if they had. It’s a harder read than lots of books that the median reader struggles to understand, let alone enjoy enough to actually make it through. Most folks lack basically all historical context for the tales in it, and the book itself, so it reads as this unmoored set of confusingly-arranged-and-selected stories that have no hope of really making sense to them without a pile of reference books open alongside (what proportion of people are comfortable with and willing to engage in that style of reading?)
On the other hand, it’s also wild that more haven’t—one would think it’d be way up their list of life priorities. I take it as a sign they’re not really, under the veneer and trappings, convinced about the eternal (!!!) ramifications of the whole deal. “Well sure my eternal soul is on the line and I ‘believe’ I’m holding the literal word of the creator of the universe… but it’s haaaard and boring.” LOL.
> It’s a harder read than lots of books that the median reader struggles to understand, let alone enjoy enough to actually make it through. [...] Most folks lack basically all historical context for the tales in it, and the book itself
This is why the Catholic Church speaks of both tradition and scripture. You need the lens of unbroken tradition to interpret scripture, as tradition is the cumulative knowledge over millennia (including period context) that allows for the possibility for grounded interpretation (never mind interpreting from bad translations). Indeed, tradition precedes canonical scripture historically: consider that the biblical canon was only established at the Council of Rome in 382, which means Christians had existed without a biblical canon for three centuries.
Compare this with sola scriptura which leads to either incoherence or the demotion of biblical scripture to the level of some stuff some guys wrote that you can read however you want [0]. The tacit doctrine at play is often that of perspicuity, which, given the endless proliferation of Protestant sects, would seems at the very least highly suspect.
It does not have to be that tradition - purely secular history and cultural context will get you a long way.
> consider that the biblical canon was only established at the Council of Rome in 382, which means Christians had existed without a biblical canon for three centuries.
Yes, but the older testament was already well established, and the documents of the new testament were available. The Council made a firm decision of which ones were canon, but they were all documents which were already widely read.
There are other Biblical canons and they do not, in themselves, greatly change the doctrine.
> Compare this with sola scriptura which leads to either incoherence or the demotion of biblical scripture to the level of some stuff some guys wrote that you can read however you want [0].
A lot of protestant churches are prima scriptura, not sola scriptura.
Also, I think its clear that some of this predates modern American evangelical Christianity, and some lies in secular values.
> That someone could convince Christ's followers to basically believe the opposite of the Gospel.
There are a number of historical examples. Most recently prosperity gospel and Positive Christianity?
> All that to say I'm not sure it really matters what exactly was written in the Bible because clearly a lot of the supposed followers of Christ never read it.
Often the ones who place the most importance on the Bible alone, and the most likely to be literalists! I think that is the root of it, because read as a "book" rather than a collection of documents, that exists in multiple versions, subject to disputes about wording and translation, each document written within a cultural (sometimes even personal) context, you can make it mean whatever you want to.
Literalists are almost always members of churches that are Biblical literalists. Almost all those I have met are members of churches in the American evangelical tradition (mostly not American themselves, but in countries I have lived in, but in that tradition and sometimes members of American churches).
I think it is fair to say they are in conflict with the broader church (i.e. the body of all Christians) or Christian tradition, but not fair to say they are in conflict with their own church.
Intellectual property. Here referencing the body of work starting with books, falling with a TV series and movies. Referring to it as the "IP" abstracts across those forms.
> why is it directed at making money rather serving society
i think this particular phenomenon is rooted in calvinism, particularly in North America, and calvinists hated humanity. It also wouldn't surprise me if the protestants coming over here normally prone to social responsibility (eg some lutherans) were less willing to show up for their community than those in the old world.
right, a.k.a "European Miracle" . I had classes about this (racist and largely debunked) concept in undergraduate Geography. But the link above is a review of a book that presumably aims to take existing research further.
> Weber also argued that the Protestant work ethic influenced the creation of capitalism
An alternative explanation is for the first 140 years of the US, "Protestants" were the "people that did the work". Catholicism was illegal until the states re-wrote their constitutions/laws after the revolution (or ratification of the First Amendment, which ever came first).
Also, there wasn't anything to do but work. If you wanted a house, you cleared land and built it. 50% of early European settlers were indentured servants.
Oh and there wasn't any money or banks. Tobacco was the currency (in Maryland/Virginia). The only business partner was the UK, that managed the colonies as businesses. The entrepreneurial part was the Crown getting shareholders to foot the bill for provisions for the colonies. Shares in Virginia were sold on the London Stock Exchange. Maryland had a sole proprietor that funded the infrastructure build out.
Its more protestant/catholic structures create legal structures/institues that then form into a modern state and accidentally support the mechanisms that secularize society and themselves. The main component is driving sexual others into social service contract cults while severing ties to clan/family.
> The main component is driving sexual others into social service contract cults while severing ties to clan/family.
The implication being homo- and asexuals join the clergy because it obviates the expectation that they will marry? How does this lead to secularization?
Protestantism lacks a clerical tradition (reverends and ministers can still get married, and there are no monasteries to join), so how does your theory apply there?
That’s what I suspected you meant, but it doesn’t address my two other questions. What does this have to do with sexual others? How does it track with the Protestant tradition?
Protestant tradition was to declare sinful almost every expression of sexuality. Leading to a ton of supressed non normative sexuality.
Whose owners then migrated into state bureaucracy and public services . From prussia to the pentagon, the smithers clichee is very much alive and a byproduct of that culture.
And rules based and hierarchy based as such systems are, they develop a live of their own. Until a monarch as pope competitor appears, takes over or copies the machinery for the catholics, or a protestant develops rigor by internalizing the inquisition and deciding to dedicate his life to paperwork for jesuses justice and to escape temptation .
edit: Of all the different philosophies a young person can subscribe to, entering in the middle of my life, I'm lucky to have chosen one of the better ones. I remember at the time really wanted to embrace an identity of being American and here is a founding father who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and signed the Constitution who was born and raised with the institution of slavery owning slaves himself and evolving into an outspoken anti-slavery advocate working to abolish the practice. That is what it means to be an American, to grow, change, and become better, just.
[0] https://fs.blog/the-thirteen-virtues/