Social origins of evil - Essay Example

Without showing what environments will inevitably lead to evil acts, however, the experiments retained very little external validity, outside of showing that given the right set of powers and responsibilities, “normal” human beings will commit evil acts. In trying to determine the nature and origins of evil acts, sociologists try to explain and determine the social prerequisites for evil acts, rather than trying to utilize the individual characteristics (with its environmental interaction) in its explanation.

Based on research in sociology, the most explanatorily useful theory of the origin of evil acts is tied to the theory of bureaucracy, along with concepts like “authorization” and “McDonaldization”. Together, these observations into contemporary Western life may help explain the social origins of evil for the past half-century. Ritzer (2007) introduces Max Weber’s theory of rationality as a primer to his talk on bureaucracy and the concept of McDonaldization. To Weber, rationality meant “that the search by people for the optimum means to a given end is shaped by rules, regulations, and larger social structures” (p. 23). The rise of institutions, and institutional power, represented the crux of formal rationality and, as it continues today, bureaucracy is designed to have many advantages over other mechanisms of power.

For Weber at least, bureaucracy is the most efficient structure for handling a vast number of tasks. Additionally, bureaucracy relies on the quantification of facts as much as possible to inject objectivity into issues of process and, for that reason, bureaucracies and bureaucratic policies are highly predictable due to the rigidity of the procedures they put into place. Because of all these facts, bureaucracies by definition remove as much power as possible for individuals and place that power within the hands of the organization, such that individuals are not left to make subjective decisions.

In this way, individuals are removed from the actual moral consequences of their decision-making. This fact is significant when looking at the role of bureaucracies in the origins of evil. Ritzer goes on to define a number of dimensions of McDonaldization. “McDonaldization” is Ritzer’s neologism for the formalization of structures and procedures in modern life. More specifically, a number of advantages to society define McDonaldization: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control, which coincide with the advantages that Weber defined as belonging to bureaucracy.

Efficiency, for Ritzer, is the optimum method for achieving a goal. McDonald’s cuts the number of steps in a process of food production down to an optimum point, such that its customers enjoy the convenience of its products and the price at which they are provided. McDonald’s offers calculability, or the emphasis on the quantitative aspects of products and services provided to customers (Ritzer, 2007, p. 12). Because sizes are universal between McDonald’s locations, customers who have a favorite meal at one location can travel to any other location, order the same meal, and be guaranteed that the meal will be roughly the same size.

McDonald’s offers predictability: a set of policies and procedures that all of its restaurants follow closely. Lastly, McDonald’s removes the power from individuals by transferring control to nonhuman technology. Like on the Ford assembly line, individual