Review and Critique of George Ritzer's McDonaldization of Society - Book Report/Review Example

According to the book The McDonalization of society, George Ritzer embarked on Max Weber’s central concept, rationalization, and employed the facades of economics, management, and sociology to provide people with a better understanding of the modern society. Q1 Irrationality is the opposite of rationality but with reference to Ritzer, irrationality refers to those negative effects that have come along with bureaucracy or McDonalization. In olden days, tutors and students used to have close interaction and shared a mutual relationship.

However, as the Mcdonalization ways of life entered the society in the twenty first century, things changed. Today, classes are so big that the closeness is minimal, presence of online courses has also McDonalized the education system, and people are rushing for cheap, efficient, and faster things even though they have negative effects (Ritzer, 2010). Even though the dilemmas created by irrationality are sometimes big and severe, I believe they cannot outweigh the advantages brought about rationality.

Irrationality has long term effects on the society’s environment, people’s health, and friendships but rationality caters for every need ranging from education to intimate relationships. I agree with Ritzer’s assessment because McDonalization is indeed what is happening in our society today. Parents do no longer have to sit and read for their kids as there are online books. People do not have to cook in their homes because there are restaurants offering cheap fast foods. Q2 In the modern society, people rarely depend on the expected optimum means of choosing a given end.

In this McDonalized society, Ritzer maintains that people are living through amplification of Weber’s bureaucracy theory. Accrodign to Weber, a German sociologist, rationality marks the modern West. Consequently, people in the West are dominated by efficiency, calculability, predictability, and non-human technologies, which control people. Similarly, Ritzer highlights that people are currently living in a world where they are just amplifying Weber’s theory (Ritzer, 2010). Presence of formal rationalization in the current society entails that rules, larger social structures, and regulations shapes people’s quest for the optimum means to an end.

Ultimately, this bureaucracy results to fewer options mainly because everybody can virtually make similar optimum choices. Even though the described bureaucracy presents people with fewer choices, it has a bit of advantages within the other dimensions of rationalization. Bureaucracy is structurally and efficiently capable of handling large of amounts of chores, which involve huge amounts of paperwork. Additionally, with bureaucracy, quantification of many things is possible and valuable. With this respect, I agree with Riter’s assessment because the modern society values bureaucracy and rationality since they work together to assist people in their quest for realizing optimum means.

Q3 According to Ritzer, quantity has become a surrogate for quality due to calculability. Currently, Americans seem to value the factor of quantity to an extent that their effect is endangering the vitality of quality. Due to McDonalization, the society has changed and it now considers the amount of food offered against the speed and cost. This has had some severe impacts on the aspect of quality. Clearly, this connotation of quantity and its effect on quality tends to link calculability to irrationality.

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