The issue of Nietzsche's influence on Weber's cultural criticism remains controversial. While it is generally accepted that Nietzsche's criticism of Western culture provided Weber with an underlying problematic of cultural crisis and meaninglessness, I wish to argue that Nietzsche had a more extensive and important impact on Weber than is usually acknowledged. Weber's practical and theoretical treatment of the ‘empirical sciences of action’, namely, sociology and history, involves a profound reaction to Nietzsche. This becomes evident in his general conceptualizations of knowledge and science, but more specifically in his ideal-type methodology, his approach to action through tensions between life in this world and received interpretative structures, as well as in the substance of his ideal-types of rational action.

This article draws on participant observation and casematerial on significant situations and individuals, who live in a small neighbourhood of central Naples. I shall call this neighbourhood ‘the quartiere’, after local custom. The issues discussed here can reasonably be said to have wider significance, because the old centre is basically sociologically homogeneous. This large part of the city is not, however, socially undifferentiated, as many observers seem to have assumed. In agreement with this pattern, both bourgeois and, in large majority, popolino live in the quartiere, often residing in the same building. Given the graduality of socio-economic positions among local people, I have deliberately decided to use very general terms, such as ‘popolino’ and ‘bourgeois’, in describing my informants.

This study analyzes a major shift in the Israeli discourse of generalized exchange as reflected in key role models and images of social involvement, voluntarism and public good provision. It highlights the progressive decline of the image of the pioneer or ‘halutz’ and the parallel emergence of the image of the ‘freier’, a vernacular model of a sucker, as a meta-comment on the pioneer model and on Israeli existence in general (2).

It is A well-established fact that families vary quite widely in their educational practices. In the past twenty years a certain number of studies on socialization have revealed a clear relation between the socioeconomic status of the parents and their educational style. Kohn (1977), for example, has shown that the emphasis parents put on discipline and immediate conformity is more pronounced in lower-class groups, whereas middle class groups value more the internalization of instructions and the development of personal motivations. In the same vein, psychologists and social psychologists have observed that the ‘authoritarian’ style of parent-child relationship (consisting of strong control and weak support) prevails more often in lower-class groups than in middle class groups, the latter being more prone to exercise strong support combined with marked control in their child's education (Bronfenbrenner 1958). Family sociologists have produced quite exhaustive articles covering the literature in this field (Gecas 1979; Peterson and Rollins 1987).