Max Weber

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Max Weber

• Father of German Sociology
• 1864-1920

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Books

• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
  (classic)
• Sociology of Religion
• Economy and Society
• Charisma and Institution Building (edited volume)

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How are new ideas/religions born? (overview)

• Role of charismatic prophet
• Differed with Marx who put emphasis on material
  factors
• Importance of contextual factors
• Elective affinity (between message and audience)
• Inevitability of the routinization of charisma
• I.e., the institutionalization of religion

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Charisma

• The term charisma will be applied to a certain
  quality of an individual personality by virtue of
  which he is set apart from ordinary men and
  treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman,
  or at least specifically exceptional powers or
  qualities. These are such as are not accessible
  to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of
  divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis
  of them the individual concerned is treated as a
  leader.

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Characteristics of the charismatic prophet

• Extraordinary in terms of either life or
  teachings
• He/she has penetrated to the deepest reality and
  is in touch with ultimate values
• Their revelation or expression does not seem to
  be born of themselvesbut of God
• Hence, their authority is not their own, but is a
  gift of God

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Social context for charismatic expression

• Society is in social turmoil (political,
  economic, spiritual)
• Appeal of prophet/leader is to the alienated
  and/or disinherited (I.e., those for whom the
  system is not working)
• Established classes are not attracted (except,
  possibly, some alienated youth)

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Two types of charismatic prophets/leaders

• Exemplary prophet (vessel of the divine embodies
  message in actions
• E.g., Buddha
• Emissary prophet (instrument of divine through
  words/teachings)
• E.g., Hebrew prophets

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Characteristics of charismatic prophets

• Tend not to come from intelligentsia or upper
  classes
• Often have no formal training for task (e.g.,
  seminary, higher education)
• Represent a break with tradition
• E.g., It is written, but I say unto you.
• Critical of priestly class (which represents
  corruption/traditional authority
• Direct message (which cuts through formalism,
  bureaucracy, ritualization)

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Typical responses to charismatic leader/prophet

• In an effort to discredit, labeled as
• Crazy
• Immoral
• Subversive (foreigner)
• Advocate of practices that corrupt youth or are
  contrary to national values
• I.e., charismatic prophet/leader threatens those
  in power (they are social change agents)

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What does a charismatic leader/prophet offer
people?

• A new vision of lifes possibilities
• New sense of meaning new social structure
• Break with oppressive ways of the present
• By recovering past golden age or creating a new
  utopia
• Exhilaration of creating something new
• Something to believe/commit oneself to
• Thus solving the identity crisis (esp. of youth)

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Earliest social organization

• Band of disciples
• Who are called rather than appointed
• No hierarchy (the charismatic leader is boss)
• Not salaried (typically live out of a common
  purse)
• Live communally
• No system of formal rules (beyond the authority
  of charismatic leader)

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Inevitable crisis in social movement

• Death of charismatic leader
• Followed by dissolution of group
• Which may not be instantaneous, but nevertheless
  is inevitable (if a new leader is not appointed)
• Transfer of authority to new charismatic leaders
• Someone with same qualities (sometimes designated
  by leader on deathbed)
• A blood relative (esp. son, the heir apparent)
• Oracle or revelation points to new leader

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If a new charismatic leader is not found, and
movement survives

• Process of routinization/bureaucratization
  emerges
• Priestly classes emerges
• Sacred texts are identified (canonization)
• Rituals emerge (to contain/safeguard charisma)
• Organizational hierarchy develops
• Dogma, creeds, intellectual defenses emerge

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What is inevitable process?

• As charismatically founded movement becomes
  increasingly routinized
• Sectarian movements (often headed by charismatic
  reformers) emerge
• Splitting off from main movement
• Claiming to resurrect the true message
• Returning to the simplicity of earliest
  expression of religious truth

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But, of course..

• Sectarian reformist movements also go through
  routinization process
• Which is the inevitable cycle of all social
  movements that survive (namely, periods of great
  vitality, followed by deadening bureaucracy,
  followed by renewal movements)

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The big picture according to Max Weber

• There is an historical process at work that is
  leading to the routinization of all spheres of
  life
• What Weber refers to as the disenchantment of
  the world
• Which means less magic, loss of prophetic
  inspiration, and a hardening, more materialistic
  approach to life

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Julien Freund (commentator on Webers view of
routinization)

• With the process of science and technology, man
  has stopped believing in magical powers, in
  spirits and demons he has lost his sense of
  prophecy and, above all, his sense of the sacred.
  Reality has become dreary, flat and utilitarian,
  leaving a great void in the souls of men which
  they seek to fill by furious activity and through
  various devices and substitutes.

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Webers comments about the future

• Not summers bloom lies ahead of us, but rather
  a polar night of icy darkness and hardness.
• For of the last stage of this cultural
  development, it might well be truly said,
  Specialists without spirit, sensualists without
  heart this nullity images that it has attained a
  level of civilization never before achieved.
• Iron cage

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Definition of routinization

• Process by which explicit, abstract,
  intellectually calculable rules and procedures
  are increasingly substituted for sentiment,
  tradition, rule of thumb in all spheres of
  activity

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Characteristics of routinization

• The displacement of religion by science
• The substitution of the trained expert for the
  cultivated person of letters
• The ousting of the skilled handworker by machine
  technology
• The replacement of traditional judicial wisdom by
  abstract, systematic statutory codes

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Summary

• Weber Rationalization means that principally
  there are no mysterious incalculable forces that
  come into play but rather than one can, in
  principle, master all things by calculation.
  This means that the world is disenchanted. One
  need no longer have recourse to magical means in
  order to master or implore the spirits, as did
  the savage, for whom such mysterious powers
  existed. Technical means and calculation perform
  the service.