Reflection 2/19

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.

Reflection

In all honesty I got a little bored with our Messiah discussion. It seemed to become more about semantics than anything else. This may be a personal bias of mine, I don't really like the idea of Messiahs. It bothers me when oppressed peoples come to the conclusion that only a destined person with superhuman abilities is capable of saving them when, in fact, all they have is a collective action problem. A good story would be about how the freemen recognized their own potential, stopped waiting for the Lisan and overthrew the Harkonnens themselves.

On to Weber.

I was a little hesitant to admit this in my substantive piece, but I loved Weber's lecture. While it does get a little boring in the middle I thought it was perfectly designed to break the spirit of the idealist little students he was giving it to. Oh how I wish some well known politician who AU students adore would come to campus and give a similar speech. I may be putting my own spin on this, but the end of the lecture lays out a Philosophy that I have been preaching for a while now in contrast to Chris' "practice vs. theory" I believe it is better described as, Idealism vs. Realism.

Here's a clip of the West Wing to explain. Here Leo acts with an ethic of responsibility while the President an ethic of conviction. The President is forced to either Kill a murderer or follow the law.



It's about considering the result of what any given decision will have and recognizing that the more ethical more moral decision is not the one that is "right" or "just" in the immediate sense, but in the long run.

Max Weber

I have to agree with several other posts which said there was nothing particularly new in Weber's lecture, but I did find several elements of it interesting. What stood out most to me was his discussion of the importance of journalism in politics. It often seems in studying history that the power of journalism is something which is only understood retrospectively, but it is clear here that Weber is well aware of the power of the media over politics. This may be a misperception on my part, after all the Spanish-American war clearly revealed the power of media, and it seems unlikely that people were unaware of the machinations of newspapermen, but in the era of 24 hour news networks it seems like a particularly apt observation. Also apt, and mostly ironic, in light of CNN and Fox News, is Weber's discussion of the necessary genius of good journalism. I couldn't help but wonder what he would have to say about the journalistic influence on the current election.

Also, looking at this article as it relates to Dune, it struck me that Paul's personas of Muad'Dib and Duke Atredies capture all of the types of power which Weber discusses. Muad'Dib's power is based almost entirely on "the authority of the extraordinary." He has the absolute devotion of his followers solely because they believed in him. His authority as the Duke, however, came through the "authority of eternal yesterday" and through "legality." It is interesting that he chose to claim authority when given the chance based on his authority as the Duke, cementing it with a marriage (again authority from inheritance and legality.) In his mind, that was the more legitimate source of power. However, it was Muad'Dib who inspired his followers to Jihad, and Muad'Dib who was powerful enough to regain the 'rightful' place for the Duke. I think this leads to some interesting questions about the nature and relative strength of the types of authority Weber discusses, both with regards to Dune and with regards to the state of the world today.

Weber Substantive

First off, I will say it was a bit ironic that I started reading it after doing my German homework. Seeing how there are little tidbits about the definition of politik, Beruf, and rufen. But that just might be me enjoying what little use I get out of my German language skills. My German professor had a good laugh when I showed her those translation notes.

I didn't find much that I thought was shocking/new. I felt Weber rehashed topics and ideas that are already out there. I took Modernist Explosion last Spring, in which one of the readings was by Weber's wife Marianne, and I was exposed to the thoughts/movements in Germany from 1900-1935. That is most likely the reason I was left unimpressed, and felt that I had heard this before. Granted, I can understand Weber's background, he died right after the Weimar Republic was founded and missed all the lovely movements and chaos that ensued.

Weber Substinative

I found the Weber lecture quite hard to find (I finally got it out of the library reserve desk), and especially interesting when considered either in the context of all of my Politician friends (some who live for and some who live from politics) or in the context of Dune.

By far my favorite part of the reading came at the end (at least in the context of Dune). As a political leader Paul could see the consequences of his actions, leading to an interesting dilemma within Weber's ethical paradox between ethics of responsibility and ethics of conviction. Ultimately, Paul's actions lead to a lot of death, but Paul does everything he can to avoid this. Is he, in fact, an ethically perfect Character?

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.