"Tone deaf" to religion. Max Weber and the rift in modern subjectivity.

"Tone deaf" to religion. Max Weber and the rift in modern subjectivity, - In one of his letters Max Weber, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud's, calls himself absolutely "tone deaf" to religion. This phrase has subsequently led a life of its own as a Weber citation. The author examines its context at different levels: the religious micro-world of the letter, Weber's self-analysis in that same letter, his personal and family background, and his diagnosis of the contemporary situation in terms of religious sociology. The author adopts the perspective on the history of modernity, using the Weber example to expand on the individualization, internalization, and conflictualization of religion in modern subjectivity. In Weber's intrapsychic world he identifies a rift between intellectualism and religiosity. In the external world this is mirrored by the societal and cultural rifts that Weber sought to pinpoint with his concepts of rationalization and Entzauberung (demystification/disenchantment). Today the phrase tone deaf to religion is seen as marking a standpoint "after" the critique of religion and containing an offer of peace from self-styled secular thinkers to the religious. At the same time it indicates a war hazard: if the internalization of the rifts of modernity proves abortive, this will lead to their externalization and a societal/political clash of orientations.