Politics as a Vocation

Well, I think this was a better piece of social science to read than Manifest Destiny it didn't seem as textbooky. While reading the beginning and end of Weber's "Politics as a Vocation," my mind kept jumping back to Dune. At the very beginning, he mentions charisma being a justification for domination for a prophet -- immediately bells start ringing and Paul Muad'dib comes to mind. So I substituted Paul for the word leader wherever possible and see if it worked with the Duniverse. The middle of the text began to feel like a history course as Weber went through parliaments and boss politics and the various roles of "professional" politicians. In his examples, Weber kept putting down America even more so than England and France (or it seemed that way to me). But this could have been the context of when this lecture was given (1919). I think it would have been really interesting to hear more from Weber about the history that followed his death. What would he have thought of Stalin? Of the three justifications of domination Weber gives, Stalin doesn't seem to fit into any of them ('traditional', 'charismatic', or 'legal'). But that was just a side thought of mine. I'm sure we'll focus plenty on Paul and his leadership qualities in class.