2.2 Weber’s Framework
2.2.4 Priest and Magician: Bureaucracy and Charisma
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codifying either the victorious new doctrine or the old doctrine which had maintained itself despite the attack of the prophets.’ (Weber 1965, 67)
What is important to note here is that ‘at each primary decision point… the alternative is between a direction which makes for a source of evolutionary change in the “established”
order, and another direction which tends either to reinforce the established order or at least not to change it drastically.’ (Parsons 1965, xxix) The theology at the heart of the society is constantly systematised based upon ‘the power of prophetic charisma and the enduring habits of the masses.’ (Weber 1965, 79) We can see that the evolutionary nature of this method is not intended to be read progressively. Weber does believe in the inevitable progress of history and leaves the option open for regressive as well as progressive change. This leads us to an oppositional that runs throughout Weber’s work.
2.2.4 Priest and Magician: Bureaucracy and Charisma
The above can be seen as an exploration of the principle ideal types of social change that will be central to this thesis. Alongside it, there needs to be an exploration of the equally important structural ideal types. It is to this that we now turn.
Weber’s focus on change means that ‘already present in this underlying thesis is Weber’s evaluative distinction between what we may call progressive and regressive changes.’
(Parsons 1965, xxxi) This will help set the stage for a set of structural antinomies that run throughout Weber’s work: charisma and bureaucracy. If the previous section gives us the general process of societal change, these two concepts decide the shape and direction of that change. Priest and magician are presented in Weber’s methodology as representative of this dichotomy. Weber’s analysis looks at societal development by considering priest and magician as a ‘set of two principle alternatives of social structuring, after which his methodological problem is to clarify the differences and relations between these alternatives, as well as to clarify the conditions relevant to tipping the balance in one or the other direction.’ (Parsons 1965, xxix)
It may seem strange considering the word's prevalence in common parlance; but, before Weber, the term 'charisma' was a specialised word from Christian theology meaning 'grace' and referring to the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit bestowed on true believers. 'By lifting the Greek concept of charisma from its original theological context, Weber introduced both a new
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word and a new concept into the modern social sciences.’ (Derman 2012, 12) Weber uses the concept of charisma in terms of perceived power or knowledge over reality. That or those who have answers to the big questions and are thus able to bring meaning to people’s lives and shape reality.
The question is whether we are active in pursuing that knowledge or passive during ecstatic episodes of possession. This distinction can be seen everywhere from the faith vs works debate in Christian theology to the nature vs nurture debate concerning general talent. How the question is answered determines whether the society comes to view theology as an art or a science.
For Weber, the magician works in a state of ecstasy; gaining power through possession by, and coercion of, gods and spirits; this is the nature of magic. The priest, on the other hand, seeks to merely understand the forces that are at work in the world and thus offer guidance and predictions that help the society to harmonise itself with these universal powers. The magician's idea that divinity can be coerced is anathema to the priest and the reason why many monotheistic theological systems decry the use of magic. We see the difference through their effects on the societies that they influence. Weber finds it essential to:
set up as the crucial feature of the priesthood the specialization of a particular group of persons in the continuous operation of a cultic enterprise, permanently associated with particular norms, places and times, and related to specific social groups. There can be no priesthood without a cult… magicians may wield considerable power, and their essentially magical celebrations may play a central role in the life of their people. Yet they lack a continuously operative cult, and so the term “priest” cannot be applied to them. (Weber 1965, 29)
In other words, as is natural to his project, you see this difference in theology through the practical effects that it has on the wider society. The unifying, systematising work of the priesthood necessarily lends itself to building societies that are centrally organised and highly ritualised with a class of officials who oversee that these rituals take place and that the wider society is educated on their function and the theology they represent. The individualised, ecstatic work of the magician naturally lends itself to the development of a parochial and diffused society where the experts are leaders that are approached on an ad-hoc basis to solve specific problems as and when they arise, normally with only a vague knowledge of each
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other’s work. New magicians are found, as opposed to educated, to have this gift.
For Weber, the direction that society develops in depends upon which of these experts is listened to and approached for answers. The more a virtuoso is listened to, the more their voice shapes the theological narrative that underpins the society’s existence, and therefore necessarily gives it a precise form.
It is in this context that Weber’s differentiation between the types of domination is to be understood. The more charismatic the leadership the more the society submits to an individual leader (Charismatic Domination). One level of abstraction away and a society may submit not to a particular person but more the custom or precedent that a certain charismatic leader laid down for the society to follow (Traditional Domination). A system that is further abstracted away from charismatic leadership sees a society that submits to a legal system and certain impersonalised procedures (Legal Domination). (Mommsen 1989, 21)
Despite these categorisations, Weber has difficulty giving specifics in the differentiation between the people associated with these two opposing positions. He gives multiple options for doing so (Weber 1965, 28-29) but ends up admitting that ‘the two contrasted types flow into one another.’ (Weber 1965, 29). We can see this in the contrasting ideas about education. The priest needs to learn skills and knowledge by rote as they are a blank slate whereas the magician would undergo ‘an “awakening education” using irrational means and aiming at rebirth.’ (Weber 1965, 29) In reality, these two types are impossible to clearly delineate. This is equally true of different societies; it is a spectrum between charismatic domination and legal domination, with traditional domination somewhere in between.
The various effects of this dichotomy is laid out neatly by Mommsen who characterises the effects that these have on social change as either ‘Value-rational change’, which is charismatic change, and ‘Instrumental-rational change’, which is change bureaucratic change.
This can be seen below:
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Amounting to: Challenge to given social order on the basis of various forms of otherworldly life-conduct ranging from extreme asceticism to restless innerworldly activity
Amounting to: Adaptation to given social order;
progressive forms of realization of its immanent principles via routinization and rationalization’
(Mommsen 1989, 154)
Rationalisation and the Benefits of Bureaucratisation
Weber does not hide his view that the priest represents rational progression and the magician irrational regression. At one point he goes as far as to paint the magician as merely the priests undoing, a destructive force that offers nothing. ‘On the one hand, there is an ever-broadening rational systematization of the god concept and of the thinking concerning the possible relationships of man to the divine. [The Priest, Bureaucratic domination] On the other hand, there ensues a characteristic recession of the original, practical and calculating rationalism. [The Magician, Charismatic domination]’ (Weber 1965, 27)
This fits with a general assumption we have that more rational, and therefore efficient, effective, and productive societies are preferable to less rationally organised societies. It is indeed true that Weber welcomed bureaucratic organisation as a means by which less violent, more economically productive societies come about. In fact:
Weber welcomed the techniques of bureaucratic organization for moral reasons as well. Rigorous rationalization of one’s own life-conduct in order to maximize the chances of achieving one’s personally chosen goals appeared to him an essential element of a moral code of behaviour in consonance with the ‘ethic of responsibility. (Mommsen 1989, 110-111)
As previously explored, for Weber, meaning is chosen, self-given. Rationality helps us to determine the best way of ordering our internal lives as well. At a glance, we might assume that the further we move towards bureaucratisation in terms of constitutionally bound societies where everything is governed by legal codes and not the charismatic domination of personal wills, the better.
This seems to be true only to a certain extent in Weber's thought. In fact, pushing too far in the direction of bureaucratisation, perhaps the defining characteristic of the disenchanted
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and secular modern world, had brought about a whole new set of problems that Weber was highly concerned by.
The Dangers of Disenchantment
A key feature of a bureaucratic system for Weber is the separation of the owner and operator in any system. This depersonalised system then could operate free of irrational concerns and fears, simply growing and spreading in accordance with its own internal rationality. Since it originated in Europe, the rationalised processes of industrial, modern, capitalism had spread across the world in what Weber recognised as an irreversible manner. It had brought with it rationalised systems of governments, constitutions, and codified legal systems that allowed for business to run smoothly. This single bureaucratic system had spread to all corners of the globe and had already in Weber’s time come to incorporate not just economics, but academia and politics as well. (Derman 2012, 74)
Usually, Weber noted that 'as the masses increasingly became the object of the priests' influence and the foundation of their power, the priestly labors of systematisation concerned themselves more and more with the most traditional, and hence magical, forms of religious notions and practices.' (Weber 1965, 77) The specific dangers of Disenchantment is that the Priesthood of a society, the 'religious Virtuosos' concern themselves solely with producing a more highly rationalised operation; they do not see themselves as owners of the system. The importance of preaching and pastoral care in this system is the primary means of contact, influence and control over the laity. Present in all rationalised systems. (Weber 1965, 75-76) Disenchantment means that even preaching and pastoral care become depersonalised. Thus in every profession and in all sectors of society leadership is replaced with bureaucracy.
This scared Weber. We might think that the death of God frees us to order our lives how we want. But the separation of owner and operator only solidifies the operator as a functional part of the system, making them homogenous machine-people, unable to break free.
As Gane puts it ‘The rationalization process … while seeming to contain a heterogenous or postmodern moment … in fact intensifies the underlying sameness of culture, and with this contributes to the increasing sameness of modern life itself.’ (Gane 2004, 28) In this way industrial capitalism leads to the bureaucratization that destroys individual liberty. (Mommsen 1989, 34-35) Central to Weber’s thought is the point that as the world becomes increasingly devoid of charisma, increasingly disenchanted, we may become free from relationships of domination but we become increasingly subject to rationalised systems of domination. Weber
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wrote, “The Puritan wanted to work in a vocation; we are forced to do so.” (Mommsen 1989, 37)
As may be clear, it can be difficult to make sense of Weber’s thought here. According to Mommsen:
There is a paradox here. On the one hand, Weber argued that the immanent tendencies of capitalism were working for stagnation and for the ossification of social relations. Yet, on the other hand, he viewed the principle of capitalist market competition as an instrument which above all would guarantee a maximum of dynamism in the economic as well as in the political system. (Mommsen 1989, 39)
To solve this paradox, balance is fundamental. Weber has been consistently misunderstood on this point, Mommsen thinks this is an inconsistency and weakness in Weber’s thought. (Mommsen 1989, 19) As a result, clarification will be the focus of the next sub-section.
The Importance and Possibility of Balance
What becomes clear from reading various works by Weber is that he views the charisma-bureaucracy dichotomy as running through all societies, and a balance between them is necessary to preserve the health of any particular society. The resolution to this supposed paradox is a creative balance between a bureaucratic system, which manages the rules of engagement, so to speak, and the charismatic leaders of different competing groups. Politics and economics become sport, with redistribution written into the rules to ensure fair competition. The aim is the promotion of competition. Weber, writing in the context of the Weimar republic saw excessive bureaucratisation as a threat to freedom. This feeds into his criticism of Marx who would remove competition by systematizing everything so that the workers always win. Weber argued that even if this were possible it would destroy the freedom of the individual in the same way that unfettered capitalism does.
For Weber, the way to redress this imbalance was for system to allow for the rise of charismatic leadership. For Weber, this is the proper role of the politician, somebody who would not merely operate within the system but also take a degree of ownership over it.
(Mommsen 1989, 15) 'Weber saw in bureaucracy both a potential danger to individual liberty and an effective instrument in the hands of great personal leaders' (Mommsen 1989, ix) For
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Weber this was the only way to ‘counter the secular trend towards the petrification of free society in routine, mediocrity and general misery.’ (Mommsen 1989, 43)
This has drawn plenty of attention especially because of Weber's avowed German nationalism and the fact that he was writing in the immediate prelude to the rise of Adolf Hitler.
This is compounded by the fact that a frequent correspondent of Weber, Robert Michels, became a famous supporter of Mussolini and consistently tried to convince Weber to join the new fascist movement. 'The perpetuation of an element of 'recognition by the ruled' in the form of democratic elections, already formalized to an excessive degree in Weber, was declared by Michels, as it was by Carl Schmitt, to be dispensible.' (Mommsen 1989, 102) Weber died before the Nazi's rose to power, but he was viewed by some in the regime favourably because of his opposition to the objectivity claimed by liberal values. Some Nazi's argued that
The anarchy of political values under liberalism was itself a thing of ill repute, they argued, and Weber had been right to prevent it from contaminating German scholarship. [they mean remove scholarship from the intellectual foundations of liberalism, keeping it open to competition from different foundations] Now that a prophet and savior had arrived in the form of Adolf Hitler, bearing “objective”
values that were binding on all Germans, the war of the gods had ceased. Under these conditions… scholarship could be oriented toward the German Volk and its historical destiny. (Derman 2012, 76)
It is important to stress how much of a misinterpretation of Weber's thought that this is.
Weber argued that the only way of preserving individual freedom was for the 'war of the gods' to never cease. He fought against the liberalist claim of objective foundations just as he argued against claims to objective foundations that are scientifically demonstrable. Once you argue to know the 'right' answer then the conversation is brought to an end and with it the freedom of the people to continue disagreeing. For Weber, science ‘was not in the position to formulate definitive truths, but only a number of alternative models of thinking or alternative models of conduct which ultimately cancelled each other out.’ (Mommsen 1989, 43) The lack of concrete foundations ensured liberalism for Weber.
‘Unlike political utopians from the left and right of the political spectrum, Weber abjured all claims to represent totality. His personal commitments were always directed at concrete goals instead of dogmas or universal systems.’ (Derman 2012, 134) Contrary to liberal
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constitutionalism, liberty cannot be ensured by bureaucracy. Contrary to fascism, it cannot be ensured by a charismatic leader. Both of these positions destroy freedom by removing the creative tension between charisma and bureaucracy. If secularism means anything it means ensuring that no single group or institution is allowed to dominate society.3
With Weber, therefore, we end up with a version of 'heroic pessimism' with noticeable similarities to Nietzsche. (Mommsen 1989, 26) The only thing that can be expected of a person is to pick a place to stand, an altar to worship at; and fight for that without ever gaining total victory or suffering total defeat. For Weber open competition between these different theological positions is the basis of liberty.
Weber was a German nationalist. He was also a liberal, but his understanding of liberalism meant ensuring the health and freedom of the German people by ensuring that no one group came to dominate German political or intellectual life. He did not see an endpoint of the competition, a utopia, or final victory, as at all desirable, because an end to the conversation was the loss of freedom. The disenchantment that defined modernity for Weber is therefore not a good thing, nor a bad thing, it is merely the realisation that we remain in an endless struggle for meaning, and that it can be no other way.