Against a dominant sociopolitical momentum of increasing and unmitigated instrumental rationality that Weber foresaw pervading all spheres of life in modern industrial society are new social and cultural signs of contestation and counterpoint. Modern critical social analysts have argued variously for delimitations to technocratic and economic rationalities and these modern contestations to instrumentality and alienation remain apparent in contemporary social and political life. Yet there is evidence of diverse contemporary social efforts that endeavor not only to delimit but to refute or transcend the assumed path of progressive rationalization and secularization. The author proposes that both modern acute rationalization and technicization and postmodern dissociation and dissolution, and their respective conditions of alienation, generate countervailing tendencies.
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