George Ritzers McDonaldization of Society - Book Report/Review Example

George Ritzer’s McDonaldization of Society This paper will provide a review and critique of The McDonalization of society by George Ritzer. The society in which they we live is constantly changing and adopting new ways of living. Ideally, people happened to be the causal element of this change but as much as they try to administer changes into the society, it still appears hard to break from the old societal habits (Ritzer, 2010). 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. Upon looking at this linkage, it is deducible that Ritzer makes a powerful indict against a fundamental feature of rationalization. His assessment is questionable but surprisingly but I agree with it since people of this modern society described in the book find the amount of food that they receive at a relatively considerable or cheaper amount more valuable. Particularly, I could say that, the reason as to why the McDonald’s refer to their menu selection as the Big Mac instead of the Good Mac is because they value what their customers want which is the quantity as opposed to quality (Ritzer, 2010). This is such a bad thing since people are no longer considering the implication of quantity of fats and flavors they are consuming. They may result to chronic health issues. Q4 In the third dimension of McDonalization, Ritzer states, for a rationalized society to achieve predictability, it emphasizes on consistency, routine, order, formalization, systemization, and methodological operation. As the book continues, Ritzer concedes that predictability can lead people to greater safety. In his concede, he warns people that today’s McDonlized society has left the responsibility of providing safe environments to commercial interests as our city streets are no longer safe and nowadays do shopping in malls. As today’s playgrounds become more unsafe and limited, children are turning to commercial fun centers thus; people spend too much of their time in commercial surroundings leading them to a consumption life (Ritzer, 2010). Personally, I think that this assessment is true with regard to the modern society. Kids do no longer play in the playground but spend either insurmountable time playing video games online or offline. People are without a doubt spending much of their time doing their stuff online instead of doing them manually. Instead of walking to the shop, people buy things online at the comfort of their homes. They also do online banking thus reducing their movements. This indictment against the process of rationalization is fair as Ritzer describes what is exactly happening in the modern society. Q5 Firstly, I agree that a designed rationalized system is for controlling people because; people are the greatest source of inefficiency, uncertainty, and unpredictability within a rationalized system. With rationalized society, people work and think with regard to the set rules, regulations, and order of society. As such, uncertainty, inefficiency, and unpredictability results from people who work within a rationalized system. In addition, these features also come along with people served by a rationalized system. Generally, the current society acts and functions following rules and regulations set by the system of McDonalization. Second, people circumvent or dodge the controlling nature of a rationalized system in a number of ways (Ritzer, 2010). On the one end, people tend to ignore the controlling nature of a rationalized system. Simply, people just pay no attention to the nature of control brought about by a rationalized system. People are aware that, despite the ease at which these foods retail, McDonalized foods have many negative health effects but they still consider it as cost effective and faster hence takes no notice of its negativities. Q6 The concept of glocalization, accredited to sociologist Roland Robertson for his role in popularizing it, describes the jargon for business in which a product or service tries to internalize or specifically adapt into every culture or locality where it is sold. It is simply the process of internalizing a product or service and discusses the tempering impacts of local situations on worldly pressures. On the other hand, George Ritzer’s concept of globalization describes the relationship shared between and among globalization and consumption. Ritzer declines from the postmodern turn away in grand narratives opined to social science and goes ahead to offer his personal grand narrative. In his narrative, Ritzer contemplates that the contemporary era of globalization is all about crossing the greatest divide between something and nothing. Both glocalization and globalization describe the system in which the modern society has changed from the indigenous way of living to a post-modernized system where everything is different. I think these concepts are more consistent with the modern theoretical perspective because they discuss the current happenings of people with reference to their way of living, eating, and behavior (Ritzer, 2010). This is so because, the realm of consumption as ascertained by Robertson agrees with Ritzer’s perspective in which culture has no ground in this modern society. Q7 When Ritzer talks of Starbuckization, he talks about people characteristic of conceiving the modern system of living wherein, people value fast and cheap foods. People are no longer interested in making dinner at home but consider a sit down at either Starbucks restaurant or any other eatery and consume a fast and cheap meal. Starbuckization could seem more consistent with a postmodern theoretical perspective than a modern theoretical perspective because, with Starbuckization, the future of food habits seems more of the current practices where people find speed and cost being of more importance than their long-term effects on health. Starbuckization is in actuality another form of McDonaldization because what happens at McDonalds has extended to include other fast food eateries such as Starbucks. Ritzer claims that the Starbuckization is simply an extension of the rationalization process of the modern society because other restaurants like Starbucks have the capability to copy what McDonalds do and offer that as their services or products (Ritzer, 2010). Hence, they become tied to the rationalization system of the modern society where people change with the ways in which others change. Spreading the process of modern society with reference to McDonaldization is easier since globalization takes world living ways to the local or community level. Q8 In conclusion, Ritzer’s McDonalization of the modern society provides an immense outlook into the society’s happenings in addition to people’s behaviors towards the changes brought about by the modern adaptation. Ritzer shows that people are living in a velvet cage and they all fall under three dimensions, which describes their ways of life. Cost and urgency controls, rules, and regulates people’s choices of food and drinks. In a number of specific ways, Ritzer offers a compelling framework for understanding how contemporary society functions. In one way, he describes the way in which the modern society revolves around its eating habits and in another; he describes the long-term effects that may come along with their eating behaviors (Ritzer, 2010). He offers a systemic way of understanding the contemporary society by discussing a rationalized system where people live by rules, regulations, and controls. However, in other ways, Ritzer overstates his case and engages in rhetorical exercises rather than substantiated arguments by claiming that people live under three cages where their lives have to rotate along rules and regulation or controls (Ritzer, 2010). Some of his other arguments appear overstated as he claims the modern society survives by eating in fast food joints yet there are those that are health conscious and try to regulate their eating habits by making healthy dishes. Reference Ritzer, G. (2010). The McDonaldization of Society (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Read More