I've been putting this off since I didn't particularly like Weber. But he is the cornerstone of social science so it's hard to avoid him. In my Russian Revolution class today, the professor decided to do a Weberian analysis and suggested we read "Politics as a Vocation". His analysis didn't include any messiahs or anything like that, instead focusing around the three types of authority: traditional, charismatic, and legal.
I liked how we set up class with the pro/con list even though we didn't/couldn't come to any conclusions. The idea of a bad messiah really interested me. Does it mean s/he is bad at being a messiah or that his/her intentions as a messiah are bad? Is a bad messiah someone who is lazy and doesn't accept his vocation. I don't think that this is the case because a messiah couldn't be bad at being a messiah, otherwise they wouldn't be called a messiah. Plus, the few "messiahs" we have in histroy haven't accepted their vocation by saying they are a messiah.
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