You don't have to be Protestant to have the Protestant Ethic, I tell my students, when we come to Weber in my survey course on Sociological Grand Theory. Look at me, I say: Jewish father, Catholic mother - and I develop an allergic rash at the mere mention of the word 'holiday', with all its connotations of reckless expenditure of time and money. Accumulate, accumulate! - that's my motto, whether it's publications, index cards, or those flimsier bits of paper that promise to pay the bearer so many pounds if he presents them to the Bank of England. Work! Strive! Excel! For the job's own sake! My students, lolling in their seats, mentally preoccupied with the problem of how to draw the dole and hitchhike to Greece this summer, grin tolerantly and unbelievingly at me through their beards and fringes. Sometimes, to try and make them understand, I tell them the story of my first job.

LRB 4 September 1980 | PDF Download