Charisma, Order, and Status

Author(s): Edward Shils

Source: American Sociological Review , Apr., 1965, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1965), pp. 199-
213
Published by: American Sociological Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2091564

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 CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS 199

in Gesammelte Aufsitze zur Soziologie und
Sozialpolitik, TUbingen: Mohr 1924, pp. 1-60.
(4) Zur Psychophysik der industriellen Ar-
beit," in Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Soziologie
und Sozialpolitik, TUbingen: Mohr, 1924, pp. 61-
225.
(5) "Zur Methodik Sozialpsychologischer
Enqueten und ihrer Bearbeitung," in Archiv 29
(1909), pp. 949-958.
(6) Geschiftsbericht der Deutschen Ge-
sellschaft fur Soziologie," in Schriften der
Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Soziologie 1 (1911),
pp. 39-62.
(7) "Die Grenznutzlehre und das 'psychophy-
sische Grudgesetz, " Archiv fur Sozialwissens
chat und Sozialpolitik, Bd. 27(1908).
(8) "Ueber einige Kategorien der verstehen-
den Soziologie," Logos Band 4 (1913).
(9) Die Verhiiltnisse der Lanarbeiter im
Osterlbischen Deutschland (Vol. 55 of Schrif ten
des Vereins fur Sozialpolitik), Berlin: Duncker
und Humblot, 1892.

CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS

EDWARD SHILS
University of Chicago
Kings College, Cambridge

In this paper I explore the ramifications of charismatic sensitivity, i.e., the propensity to
impute charismatic qualities to actions, persons, institutions and cultural objects. My analysis
takes its point of departure in Max Weber's analysis of charismatic authority. In trying to
analyze charismatic authority more systematically than Weber was able to do, I have con-
cluded that he was dealing with one particular variant of the charismatic propensity, which
has more far-reaching, more permeative manifestations than his analysis has hitherto led us
to believe.

CHARISMA ACCORDING TO MAX WEBER traditional and legal rules or norms, and by
the attachment of "significant" sectors of
M AX WEBER repeatedly emphasized
a society or its institutional sub-systems to
that none of the three types of legi-
the results of these norms or rules. He
timate authority he set forth was
wished to distinguish innovators and crea-
ever found in its pure form. In his analysis
tors from maintainers-in W. I. Thomas'
of the structure of religious, monarchical,
old classification, "creative persons" from
and feudal institutions, he dealt repeatedly
"philistines." It was in the pursuit of this
with the coexistence of the charismatic and
central theme that he distinguished the
the other types of authority. In his analysis
"charismatically" legitimated authority of an
of modern bureaucratic-political-and to a
individual innovator from the "tradition-
lesser extent administrative and economic
ally" and "rational-legally" legitimated
-institutions, he also dealt with the recur-
types of authority which keep a system
rent appearance of charismatic personalities
moving in a stereotyped manner. The dis-
in the midst of bureaucratic organizations,
tinction between the extraordinary, the crea-
in conflict with them or dominating them.
tive, the innovative, on the one side, and
His attention was given to the charismatic
the ordinary, the routine, the recurrently re-
personality, i.e., to the charismatic quality
produced, is not merely a distinction be-
imputed to a spectacular, extraordinary, dis-
tween infrequent and frequent actions, or
ruptive exercise of authority by an individ-
between actions generated by "great" per-
ual.
sonalities and those which are the result of
Central to Weber's interpretation of so-
anonymous adherence to roles and rules. It
ciety was the distinction between the "ex-
is underlain implicitly in Weber's scheme
traordinary," or the explosively novel, and of analysis by a distinction between an
the recurrent processes through which in- intense and immediate contact with what
stitutions reproduce themselves, by virtue the actors involved believe to be ultimate
of the effective empirical validity of the values or events and a more attenuated,

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200 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

more mediated contact with such values or
events through the functioning of estab-
lished institutions. Weber regarded the
former as the locus of the charismatic which
he seems to have believed to be intrinsically
alien to the latter. I do not think the mat-
ter is as clearcut as Weber apparently
thought. It seems to me that an attenuated,
mediated, institutionalized charismatic pro-
pensity is present in the routine functioning
of society. There is, in society, a widespread
disposition to attribute charismatic proper-
entirely free of the charismatic, except for
the occasional disruptive or transforming
intrusion of charismatic personalities. The
problem then becomes the elucidation not
only of the conditions under which the pro-
pensity to impute charismatic qualities is
concentrated on individuals but also of the
conditions under which it finds a more dis-
persed focus on institutions and strata and
on the properties of roles.
THE REDEFINITION OF CHARISMA:

ties to ordinary secular roles, institutions, AWE-AROUSING CENTRALITY

symbols, and strata or aggregates of per-

In this section I wish to render more ex-
sons. Charisma not only disrupts social or-
plicit what is already implicit in the current
der, it also maintains or conserves it.
usage of the concept of charisma and in so
Of course, Weber was not blind to par-
doing I will disclose the unity of the religious
ticular instances of this conserving, institu-
and the secular conceptions of charisma.
tionalized manifestion of the charismatic
Charisma in the narrower and original
propensity. He certainly attended to the
sense is the state or quality of being pro-
ways in which ecclesiastical institutions re-
duced by receipt of the gifts of grace.' In
tained a considerable component of the
Weber's usage, charisma is, in the first in-
charismatic authority with which they were
stance, a property of conduct and personal-
endowed by their prophetic founders. None-
ity regarded by those who respond to it as a
theless it remains true that he saw the
manifestation of endowment with, or pos-
charismatic element as essentially alien to
session by, some divine power. (Weber did
the other modes of authority by which
not insist that the person really be "pos-
churches are governed. Likewise, in his stu-
sessed" or "endowed"; only that he be
dies of bureaucratic, political, and admin-
thought to be possessed by or endowed with
istrative machines, he emphasized that
these qualities.) Weber did not restrict his
charismatic personalities emerge and estab-
usage of "charisma" to refer only to manifes-
lish an ascendancy beyond that called for by
tations of divinity. He often used the term to
a "rational-legal" definition of their roles.
refer to extraordinary individualities, i.e.,
But these are only instances of coexistence;
powerful, ascendent, persistent, effectively
they testify to the irrepressibility of the
expressive personalities who impose them-
need to attribute charismatic properties to
selves on their environment by their excep-
individuals under certain conditions, and to
tional courage, decisiveness, self-confidence,
the probability that certain kinds of per-
fluency, insight, energy, etc., and who do not
sonality-expansive and dominating, with
necessarily believe that they are working
strong and fundamental convictions-will
under divine inspiration. He used the term to
emerge, under conditions of stress, in spe-
refer to politicians, artists, scientists, soldiers,
cific decision-making, power-exercising roles.
and other occupations the incumbents of
Weber's problem was to describe the
which nowadays think of themselves as hav-
mechanisms and to state the conditions of
the emergence of charismatic leadership and 1These are the gifts of grace conferred by the
its subsidence into a routine and occasion- Spirit: "For to one is given by the Spirit the word
ally dynamic coexistence with traditional of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by
the same Spirit; to another faith by the same
and bureaucratic authority. My aim is to
Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same
see the charismatic phenomenon in a more Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to an-
comprehensive perspective. I wish to exam- other prophecy; to another discerning of spirits, to
ine the mechanisms of the charismatic phe- another divers kinds of tongues, to another the
interpretation of tongues; but all these worketh
nomenon in secularized societies, to see it
that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every
at work in the non-ecclesiastical institutions man severally as he will." Corinthians 12:8-11.
that have conventionally been considered (See also Romans 12.)

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 CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS 201

ing, or are thought to have, nothing to do by the "spirit," are as much instances of the
with religion, in the conventional sense, in category of charismatic things as is religious
the performance of their roles. Sometimes, prophecy.2
indeed, he made the content of charisma This extended conception of a charismatic
quite psychological, using it to refer to a property (as perceived by one who is re-
particular constellation of personality quali- sponsive to it, including the "charismatic
ties. (In this latter sense charisma has come person" himself) refers to a vital, "serious,"
to be widely used in current high- and ultimately symbolic event, of which divinity
middle-brow speech, in sociological and po- is one of many forms. Presumptive contact
litical analyses, and in the superior ladies' with the divine, possession by the divine, the
magazines.) The common feature of these possession of magical powers, are only modes
different manifestations, religious and psy- of being charismatic. Contact with this class
chological, was extraordinariness-an ex- of vital, "serious" events may be attained
traordinariness constituted by the high in- through reflective wisdom or through dis-
tensity with which certain vital, crucial ciplined scientific penetration, or artistic ex-
qualities are manifested, in contrast with the pression, or forceful and confident reality-
low intensity with which they appear in the transforming action. All these are also modes
ordinary round of life. of contact with, or embodiment of, some-
The charismatic quality of an individual thing very "serious" in Durkheim's sense,
as perceived by others, or himself, lies in which is thought to be, and therewith be-
what is thought to be his connection with comes, central or fundamental to man's
(including possession by or embodiment of) existence.
some very central feature of man's existence This contact through inspiration, embodi-
and the cosmos in which he lives. The cen- ment or perception, with the vital force
trality, coupled with intensity, makes it which underlies man's existence, his coming-
extraordinary. (Infrequency is only an inci- to-be and passing-away, is manifested in
dental feature, although of course the com- demeanor, words and actions. The person
bination of intensity of presence and central- who through sensitivity, cultivated or dis-
ity of significance is infrequent.) The ciplined by practice and experience, by ra-
centrality is constituted by its formative tionally controlled observation and analysis,
power in initiating, creating, governing, by intuitive penetration, or by artistic dis-
transforming, maintaining, or destroying closure, reaches or is believed to have at-
what is vital in man's life. That central tained contact with that "vital layer" of
power has often, in the course of man's ex- reality is, by virtue of that contact, a charis-
istence, been conceived of as God, the ruling matic person.
power or creator of the universe, or some 2 The legitimacy of this extension of Weber's
divine or other transcendent power control- analysis and its affinity with his own insight are
ing or markedly influencing human life and exhibited by the following lines (Wirtschaft und
Gesellschaft, Vol. I, pp. 758-59): "Der Charisma
the cosmos within which it exists. The cen-
ruht in seiner Macht auf Offenbarungs- und Hero-
tral power might be a fundamental principle englauben, auf der emotionellen tYberzeugung von
or principles, a law or laws governing the der Wichtigkeit und dem Wert einer Manifestation
universe, the underlying and driving force religioser, ethischer, kiinstlerischer, wissenschaft-
of the universe. It might be thought to re- licher, politischer, oder welcher Art immer, auf
Heldentum, sei es der Askese, oder des Krieges, der
side in the ultimate principles of law which richtlerlichen Weisheit, der magischen Begnadung
should govern man's conduct, arising from oder welcher Art sonst"; . . . "die mathematische
or derived from the nature of the universe 'Phantasie' etwa eines Weyerstrauss ist 'Intuition'
and essential to human existence, discerned genau im gleichen Sinn wie die diejenigen irgend
eines Kiinstlers, Propheten und-Demagogen . . .
or elucidated by the exercise of man's most
Sie alle auch die Kiunstlerische ihre Ralitat zu be-
fundamental rational and expressive powers. wahren, in 'Ergreifen' oder, wenn mann will. Ergrif-
Scientific discovery, ethical promulgation, fenwerden von Forderungen des 'Werks' bedeuten,
artistic creativity, political and organiza- und night ein subjektives 'Fihlen' odor 'Erleben'
wie irgend ein anderes. Er liegt . . . uberhaupt night
tional authority (auctoritatem, actor, au-
in der Person oder in den seelischen in der Art, wie
thorship), and in fact all forms of genius, sie
in von den Beherrschten oder Gefuhrten, innerlich
the original sense of the word as permeation angeeignet von ihnen 'erlebt' werden."

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202 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

Most human beings, because their endow- risma).5 In his treatment, the institu-
ment is inferior or because they lack oppor- tionalization of charisma was confined to ec-
tunities to develop the relevant capacities, do clesiastical, monarchical, and familial institu-
not attain that intensity of contact. But most tions, where the sacred and the primordial are
of those who are unable to attain it them- massively or tangibly present. Even there, he
selves are, at least intermittently, responsive tended to think of such charismatic pat-
to its manifestations in the words, actions terns as lacking the genuinely charismatic
and products of others who have done so. element, and as greatly supported by con-
They are capable of such appreciation and siderations of "interest" in guaranteeing
occasionally feel a need for it. Through the stable succession and continuing legitimacy.
culture they acquire and through their inter- For the most part, he dealt with the "segre-
action with and perception of those more gation" of charisma in the course of institu-
"closely connected" with the cosmically and tional establishment through its concentra-
socially central, their own weaker responsive-tion into specific action, roles, or occasions,
ness is fortified and heightened. while it evaporated from the rest of the sys-
All of these charismatic "connections" tem, which was constituted by elements of
may be manifested intensely in the qualities, action wholly alien to "genuine charisma."
words, actions and products of individual He did not consider the more widely dis-
personalities. This was emphasized by Weber persed, unintense operation of the charis-
and it has entered into contemporary sociol- matic element in corporate bodies governed
ogy. But they may also become resident, in by the rational-legal type of authority.6
varying degrees of intensity, in institutions In other words, Weber had a pronounced
-in the qualities, norms, and beliefs to tendency to segregate the object of attributed
which members are expected to adhere or charisma, to see it almost exclusively in its
are expected to possess-and, in an attenu- most concentrated and intense forms, and to
ated form, in categories or strata of the mem- disregard the possibility of its dispersed and
bers of a society. attenuated existence. He tended indeed to
Weber's chapter on the transformation of deny the possibility that charisma can be-
charisma touched on institutionalized forms come an integral element in the process of
of charismatic phenomena of lesser intensity, secular institutionalization. (This might well
but he did not subject them to more elabo- be part of Weber's more general tendency to
rate consideration.8 He discussed the trans- see the modern world as entzaubert, as de-
formation of genuine, i.e., intense, indi- void of any belief in the possibility of gen-
vidually concentrated, charisma into such uine charisma.)
patterns as "kinship charisma" 4 (Gentil- Weber's intent was to characterize the
charisma), "hereditary charisma" (Erbscha- modern social and political order as one in
risma), and "charisma of office" (Amtscha- which belief in transcendent values and their
embodiment in individuals and institutions
3 He came closest to it in his discussion of the
influence of the Lutheran idea of authority on the
was being driven into a more and more re-
German attitude toward the state (Wirtschaft und stricted domain, as a result of the processes
Gesellschaft, Vol. I, pp. 775-76): "Die grundsatzlich
ganz andere Stellung [the contrast is with the Eng- 5 "Das Amtscharisma . .. der Glaube an die spe-
lish Puritanical denial of charismatic quality to the cifische Begnadung einer sozialen Institution als
state] etwas des normalen Deutschen zum Amt, zu solcher ist keineswegs eine nur den Kirchen und
der etwas tberpers6nliches gedachtem Behorde und noch wenigen eine nur primitiven VerhAltnisse
deren Nimbus ist allerdings zum Teil durch die ganz eigene Erscheinung. Es Aussert sich auch unter
konkrete Eigenart der lutherischen Reliogi6sitAt, modernen Beziehungen der Gewalte unterwfirfenen
bedingt, entspricht aber, in der Ausstattung der zur staatlichen Gewalt." Wirtschaft und Gesell-
Gewalten mit dem Amtscharisma der 'gottgewollten schaft, Vol. I, p. 775.
Obrigkeit,' einem sehr allgemeinen Typus, und die 6 His identification of the charismatic and the
rein empfindungsmassige Staatsmetaphysik, welche extraordinary in the sense of the infrequent, and
auf disem Boden wachst hat politisch weittragende the disjunction he saw between the extraordinary
Konsequenzen." and the charismatic, one on the one side, and the
4Charismatic qualities may be manifested in pri- routine and the ordinary on the other was parallel-
mordial things (in blood or in locality) and in the led by the disjunction he asserted between charis-
roles defined by primordial properties (kinship matically and rational-legally legitimated structures
roles or membership in a territorial community). of authority.

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 CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS 203

of rationalization and bureaucratization, A DIGRESSION: INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS IN

which he so rightly underscored as character- THE NEED FOR ORDER

istic of modern society. This historicist con-

The need for order is not equally great
cern to delineate the unique features of
among all men. Many, of course, whose "an-
"modern society" hindered his perception of
tennae" are short, whose intelligence and
the deeper and more permanent features of
imagination is either limited or has not been
all societies.
aroused by a cultural tradition which ex-
hibits events of central significance, do not
THE NEED FOR ORDER have the need to "know" the cosmos or so-
ciety as a whole or to be in contact with its
No one can doubt the grandeur of the
"vital" or "animating" principle. For such
historical-philosophical vision in Weber's
persons, who are many in the world, the
view of the uniqueness of modern society, or
need for affection, for self-maintenance, for
that it represented vast progress in socio-
justice, for self-transcendence, can be grati-
logical analysis. Yet it is too disjunctive in
fied largely in personal primary groups with
its conception of the uniqueness of modern
spouse and offspring and kinsmen, or in
societies, and in a way not differentiated
working collectivities with colleagues and im-
enough. It is too historicist.
mediate subordinates. Much of the order
A great fundamental identity exists in all they need, as well as the affection and re-
societies, and one of the elements of this wards they desire, perhaps even most that is
identity is the presence of the charismatic of value to them, is found in such circles of
element. Even if religious belief had died, small radius. Their minds must be prodded
which it has not, the condition of man in the by education and exhortation to seek the
universe and the exigencies of social life still wider reaches of the cosmos and society, and
remain, and the problems to which religious in most instances, these do not have much
belief has been the solution in most cultures impact. There is a constant falling away
still remain, demanding solution by those from attachment to the wider order. Only
who confront them. The solution lies in the idiots (idiots in a sense halfway between the
construction or discovery of order. The need classical Greek usage and our present-day
for order and the fascination of disorder per- psychological usage) can, however, dispense
sist, and the charismatic propensity is a func- entirely with cosmic and social order. Most
tion of the need for order.7 people, occasionally, and intermittently, feel
the need to see themselves in a deeper, wider
The generator or author of order arouses
frame of things. Birth, death, marriage,
the charismatic responsiveness. Whether it
transitions from one ordered condition to
be God's law or natural law or scientific law
another (even when they are orders of nar-
or positive law or the society as a whole, or
row radius) cause faint or dormant sensibili-
even a particular corporate body or institu-
ties to open. Their judgments of the justice
tion like an army, whatever embodies, ex-
of allocations within their narrow circles
presses or symbolizes the essence of an or-
often invoke explicitly a standard connected
dered cosmos or any significant sector thereof with a more general rule, something more
awakens the disposition of awe and rever- universal in scope and validity. Their judg-
ence, the charismatic disposition. Men need ments of worthy and unworthy tasks and
an order within which they can locate them- accomplishments are judgments referring,
selves, an order providing coherence, con- however vaguely, to a scale of distance from
tinuity and justice. or proximity to central things. Wars, na-
tional elections, large-scale disorders, bring
7I do not know why this need for order exists.
It is not simply a need for an instrumentally man- men into confrontation with events of the
ageable environment, though that is part of it. It larger world.
is more like the need for a rationally intelligible In no society can the problem of the larger
cognitive map, but it obviously is more than cogni-
tive. There is a need for moral order-for things to
order be avoided entirely. For one thing,
be fit into a pattern which is just as well as some individuals, by virtue of high intelli-
predictable. gence or moral sensitivity or preoccupation

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204 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
with power, need to locate themselves and
connect themselves with a larger order that
gives meaning to discrete and otherwise
meaningless events. Then, too, the desire of
men for power and for the expansion of the
small orders they have created or generated
lead to collisions that shake those who would
dwell in peace within their narrow confines.
The reverberations of the collisions of the
larger orders shake the framework of the
smaller. Even without natural catastrophes,
the catastrophes of national markets, mili-
tary vicissitudes, and the mismanagement of
human affairs, indeed, the very existence of
national economies alone would force those,
who by their spontaneous and normal sensi-
tivity, would not reach out far enough to
become aware of the events of the larger
frame or to locate themselves in relation to
them.
The major religions recommend themselves
by providing such ordering patterns. They
"explain" by reference to divine intention
how the world came into existence and why
it exists. They assess society in the light of
this order and assert what it should be.
The fundamental discoveries of modern
science in cosmology, astronomy, medicine,
neurology, geology, genetics, are significant
as disclosures of the basic order of the cos-
mos. Scientific order, like the order disclosed
by theology, has its imperatives. Being in
"regular relations" with the truths of sci-
ence, doing things the "scientific way," hav-
ing a "scientific attitude" are as much re-
sponses to the imperatives of the order
disclosed by scientific research as pious god-
fearingness is a response to the imperatives
of the theologically disclosed religious order.
Metaphysics, the philosophy of history,
political and moral philosophy, even sociol-
ogy, seek to discern an order that is coherent,
continuous, and just. More secularly, the
constitution and the legal system, effective
governmental institutions and the moral
opinion in which they are embedded, provide
such meaningful orders. It is within the con-
text of such orders that the life of the indi-
vidual and that of his society become mean-
ingful to him. Perception of and "belief" in
such orders permit events and actions to be
sorted out and discriminated by reference
to the "forces" thought to lie at their root.
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They calm the mind, or they become the
objects of criticism. They gratify by putting
the individual into the "right relationship"
to what is important, or they leave him dis-
contented by forcing him to be out of the
"right relationship."
This "perception of the central" and the
"seriousness" of mind it arouses is accom-
panied by the "attribution of sacredness" to
the powers, transcendent or earthly, which
men perceive as ruling their lives. Those in
contact with them by being possessed by
them or by being in cognitive or expressive
contact with them, or who are charged with
their earthly objectivation, become the ob-
jects of the attribution of charisma.
THE CHARISMA OF ORDERING POWER
The disposition to attribute charisma is
intimately related to the need for order. The
attribution of charismatic qualities occurs
in the presence of order-creating, order-dis-
closing, order-discovering power as such; it
is a response to great ordering power.8 The
effectiveness or successful exercise of power
on a large scale, on a macro-social scale,
evokes a legitimating attitude. Every legiti-
mation of effective large-scale power con-
tains a charismatic element.
All effective rulers possess charismatic
qualities, i.e., have charismatic qualities at-
tributed to them, unless it is known that
they are faineants, who have abdicated their
responsibilities out of moral weakness or are
otherwise incompetent. Even then, it is not
easy to divest failed incumbents of the
charismatic qualities attributed to them dur-
ing their sovereignty (e.g., kings in exile,
abdicated monarchs, ex-presidents, retired
generals, the Duke of Windsor, King Carol,
King Peter, and even the Comte de Paris,
Don Carlos, or the Archduke Otto of Habs-
burg.) What was attributed to the person
in the role adheres to him in attenuated
form after he has ceased to occupy it, or
80rder-destroying power, great capacity for
violence, attracts too, and arouses the charismatic
propensity. It does so because it promises in some
instance, to provide a new and better order, one
more harmonious with the more inclusive and
deeper order of existence. Order-destroying power
also arouses the charismatic propensity because of
a profound ambivalence in men's relations to the
central things. Order not only gives meaning; it
also constricts and derogates.
 CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS 205

even when by his own weakness he dimin-
ishes the expected effectiveness of the role
itself.
Why does great power as such arouse
man's propensity to attribute intense, con-
centrated charismatic qualities to persons
or attenuated and dispersed charisma to
collectivities, roles and classes of persons?
Great power announces itself by its power
over order; it discovers order, creates order,
maintains it, or destroys it. Power is indeed
the central, order-related event.
The highly imperative, the extremely
powerful, in nature and in society, inter-
venes in man's life or is acknowledged to be
capable of such intervention on a drastic,
life-changing scale. Earthly power, as well
as transcendent power, can protect or dam-
age, it has the power to end life or to con-
tinue it, it has the power to create new
forms of social life, to maintain and pro-
tect both the new and the old patterns.
It is involved in processes, as vital as those
at the disposal of priests and magicians.
The highest authorities of a society-
dial contact with a charismatic person
(hereditary kingship), through a cumula-
tive insight, engendered by continuous tra-
dition, into the nature of existence, into the
ethical imperatives and the prudential con-
siderations disclosed by long-enduring, con-
tinuous existence, or through the will of all
the adults who constitute the community
(popular sovereignty). Today, almost all
the rulers of state-bound societies claim
legitimation from the charismatically en-
dowed citizens who form the electorate-
although they do so with different degrees
of reluctance.
The most fundamental laws of a coun-
try, its constitution, its most unchallenge-
able traditions and the institutions embody-
ing or enunciating them, call forth awe in
the minds of those in contact with them;
they arouse the sense of tremendum mys-
teriosum which Rudolf Otto designated as
the central property of the "idea of the
holy." The ritual surrounding the highest
office, even in republics, the awe before the
place where the ruler sits (as the Presi-

presidents, kings, prime ministers, party dential Office in the White House, or the
secretaries, governors, judges, law-makers- Kremlin, or the Mlysee) testify to the ways
are the rulers of the fullest, most inclusive in which high "secular" authority draws to
order of existence here on earth. Great itself from those who exercise it and from
earthly power has a manifold, obscure af- those who are its objects, the disposition to
finity with the powers believed to inhere attribute charisma.
in the transcendent order. Those who be- Of course, a liberal, democratic, secular
lieve in divinely transcendent orders also republic is a far cry from an absolute,
believe that earthly powers, to enjoy legiti- caesaropapistic monarchy or a theocracy.
macy, must have some connection with A secular bureaucracy is different from a
transcendent powers, that rulers are neces- religious sect or church. The scope of the
sarily involved in the essential order of charismatic element in a system of author-
things. Rulers themselves have claimed that ity resting on rational-legal legitimation is
their rule and the rules issuing from it are different from its scope in a system of au-
continuous with (i.e., legitimated by) some- thority resting on preponderantly and per-
thing even more ultimate than themselves meatively charismatic legitimation. The dif-
-the will of divinity 9-through primor- ference between the former and the latter is
a difference in the locus and intensity of
charisma in the two systems. In the ra-
9 Although much has been written about the
divine right of kings, few efforts have been made tional-legal system, the charisma is not con-
to see this phenomenon as one instance of a centratedly imputed to the person occupy-
general class. Alexander Ular's Die Politik, in ing the central role or to the role itself, but
Die Gesellschaft: Sammlung sozialphychologischer
is dispersed in a diminished but unequal in-
Monographien, Frankfurt am Main, 1909, is one of
the very few attempts to do so. The recent publica- tensity throughout the hierarchy of roles
tions-La regalitg sacree, Leiden: E. J. Brill and and rules. The charisma is felt to inhere in
Heusch, Luc de, et al.: Le Pouvoir et le Sacr6, the major order-affecting system of roles.
Annales du Centre d'Etude des Religions 1, Univer-
In the democratic order, there is both a
site libre de Bruxelles, Institut de Sociologie, 1962-
do not go beyond the conventional understanding legitimacy conferred on rulers by the ac-
of this phenomenon. knowledgment of the charisma-bearing

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206 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
populace, and the legitimacy drawn sim-
ply from the charisma of very powerful
(and effective) authority as such.'0
Rational-legal legitimation is, of course,
unique in some respects. It is manifested in
a property of a role which derives from its
position in a more or less logical cosmos or
system of rules. Legitimacy dwells in the
substance of the rule realized by the role,
in the procedure of establishing the role,
and in the procedure of appointing its in-
cumbent. The role of the civil servant is-
suing a command to a subordinate, or of a
judge rendering a judgment-leaving aside
the coercive power available to each for
enforcing the command or judgment-is
perceived as legitimate, as Weber said, be-
cause it has been created and filled in a
manner procedurally subsumable under a
valid general principle or by another higher
legitimate authority possessing, in accord-
ance with that valid principle, the right to
act authoritatively. The command or the
judgment uttered might also be perceived
as itself subsumable under or derived from
a more general rule or a particular judg-
ment with generalizable validity. In that
image of the right to create and fill the
role and promulgate the law, of which civil
servants' and judges' declarations are par-
ticular applications, and in the commands
and judgments themselves, there is an ele-
ment deriving from the ultimate charismatic
legitimation of government resting on the
"will" of the charismatic soverign or, in a
democracy, on the "will" of the charismatic
populace.
But beyond this, the authority of the
official and his rule has another charismatic
source. That is the perception of a property
derived from the "participation""1 of the
particular official role and its official in-
cumbent in the inclusive corporate body,
which is conceived of as being under a
supreme authority. The particular com-
mand or judgment is conceived-very
vaguely, perhaps ineffably-as a "part" or
10 In modern societies where belief in both the
charisma of the populace and the charisma of the
highest authority is a common phenomenon, the
tensions of populism and constitutionalism are not
uncommon.
.1 In the sense developed in the writings of
Levy-Bruhl and Przyluski.
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as an emanation of the cosmos of commands
and judgments at the center of which is a
supremely authoritative principle or a su-
premely authoritative role incorporating
that principle. The particular incumbent of
the role of civil servant, administrator, or
judge is perceived as a manifestation of a
larger center of tremendous power.
What the "subject" responds to is not
just the specific declaration or order of the
incumbent of the role-as the definition of
rational-legal authority would have it-but
the incumbent enveloped in the vague
and powerful nimbus of the authority of the
entire institution. It is a legitimacy consti-
tuted by sharing in the properties of the
"organization as a whole" epitomized or
symbolized in the powers concentrated (or
thought to be concentrated) at the peak.
This is "institutional" charisma; it is not
a charisma deduced from the creativity of
the charismatic individual. It is inherent in
the massive organization of authority. The
institutional charismatic legitimation of a
command emanating from an incumbent of
a role in a corporate body derives from
membership in the body as such, apart from
any allocated, specific powers.
The awareness of the grant of powers to
the individual incumbent of the role, the
knowledge that the rule or judgment he
enunciates derives from a higher, more com-
prehensive rule, closer to the source of all
rules-rational-legal legitimation in the nar-
row sense-fuses with the response to the
official and his command or judgment as a
participant in the powerful organization.
Institutional charisma permeates but does
not by any means completely saturate the
entire corporate structure. It is present in
every act of obedience, even though it does
not account for the whole act of obedience.
To the individual "representative" of the or-
ganization "as a whole" (representative in
the sense of being endowed with some of its
properties), some of this charisma is at-
tributed. (This is perhaps one of the rea-
sons why contacts with the police and the
courts are abhorrent to quite innocent per-
sons who might seek their aid against in-
fringements of the law-entirely apart from
the residue of fear of dealing with wicked,
arbitrary, exploitative, and immoral author-
ities.)
 CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS 207

Thus, the mixture of the charismatically trol must not only give the impression of
and the rational-legally legitimated types of being coherent and continuous; it must also
authority involves not just the appearance appear to be integrated with a transcendent
of an occasional charismatic personality in moral order. It must incorporate a standard
the higher stratum of the corporate body, of justice referring to an order beyond that
nor is it simply concentrated at the peak already realized in existing institutions.
of a bureaucratic structure, which is as The "allocative problem," the problem of
much as Weber seemed ready to acknowl- who is entitled to what, must be recurrently
edge. The charisma of an institution or of resolved. Here coercive power alone, even if
a corporate body does not depend on its it could be generated in sufficient magnitude,
foundation by a charismatic person (al- could not in and of itself provide a generally
though it might well be true that only acceptable answer in any society. Even the
charismatic persons can command the au- mighty, whose power itself engenders a be-
thority and resources to create a new and lief that those who possess it are entitled to
very powerful institution or corporate do so, must reinforce that belief by invoking
body). Corporate bodies-secular, eco- a standard that justifies their possession of
nomic, governmental, military, and political power and reward by their qualities and
-come to possess charismatic qualities sim- their performances. The demand for justice,
ply by virtue of the tremendous power con-or for the alleviation of injustice, both in
centrated in them. the system as a whole and in particular rela-
Of course, earthly authority-political or tionships within a limited sector of the dis-
governmental-has to contend with the at- tribution, derives from the demand for a
tachments of various groups to their own social order consonant with a transcendent
patterns of life, their own desired ends, andmoral standard. If the effective exercise of
their conceptions of what will affect those earthly power alone were the only locus of
ends negatively or positively ("interests"). presumptive charisma, the problem of injus-
It has to contend with disobedience im- tice in the actions of the powerful would
pelled by "interests," competing loyalties never arise. If men were willing to regard it
and sheer antinomianism. It has to contend as just that rewards should be exclusively
with the fact that its charisma might not proportionate to the exercise of a society-
reach to all sectors of the population living wide, order-creating and maintaining power,
within the boundaries over which it claims and to proximity to those who exercise it,
to be sovereign. Authority might be hated, the problem of a just order might not arise.
partly because it is injurious to the realiza- That is, however, not the case; in too many
tion of private or sectional aspirations. instances the distribution of rewards pro-
(Likewise, authority may be sustained not portionately to power arouses the criticism
only by its own charismatic legitimacy but that it diverges from a distribution enjoined
by its contribution to the realization of ends by an ultimate standard. "Accidents" of in-
desired by the members of particular sub- heritance in societies in which primordial
sectors of the society. connections have lost their once self-evident
charisma are illustrative of this divergence.
CHARISMATIC ACTIVITIES AND THE
Futhermore, there are other connections with
ALLOCATION OF DEFERENCE the charismatic or transcendent order: sci-
entific insight, theological reasoning, medical
But effective, massive power over intervention,
the af- or physical heroism which
fairs of men is not sufficient in itself to faces and overcomes danger on behalf of
satisfy the need for order, much as it con-
order. The holders of the greatest power
tributes to its satisfaction and great though
over the lives of others are not necessarily in
the charisma (i.e., the connection with vital
harmony with the elites of the spheres in
things) which is attributed to it may be.
which these other order-connected activities
Effective power, however great, does not au-
are carried on. Each elite prizes and feels
tomatically and completely legitimate itself
simply by its effective existence. The social most immediately the particular sector or
order it appears to create, maintain or con- conception of the transcendent order to

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 208 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

which it is attached and for which it claims rational justice and the common good, trans-
responsibility. cendent principles by which individual arti-
Even though different sectors of the elite cles of the Constitution are interpreted, are
tend to be in consensus and to support each at the very center of transcendent order.
other, from the sense of affinity generated by(The recurrence of the terminology of nat-
their common centrality, their consensus can- ural law is itself expressive of this connec-
not be complete. The very differences in their tion.) The Justice of the Supreme Court is
relations to the cosmic and social orders, the the link between the transcendent order and
differences in the intensity of their contact the earthly order. Scientists and scholars,
with it, produce some degree of dissensus. seeking the general pattern of the universe,
This intra-elite dissensus spreads to other of man's nature and the objectivations of his
sectors of the society and finds particular creative powers, participate in the same or-
reception among strata and groups already der. Creative and expressive persons, to the
unwilling to acknowledge the claims of the extent that their objectivations become
powerful to supreme and exclusive embodi- known, are likewise regarded as connected
ment of principles of cosmic and social with this ultimate normative and symbolic
order. stratum. Legislators who create law, in ac-
Still dissensus notwithstanding, the center cordance with the higher law of the constitu-
of the society does impose itself. Its central- tion, likewise participate in this connection
ity is acknowledged widely. Evidence of this between the higher, charismatic order and
acknowledgment abounds. The acknowledg- the earthly order, the maintenance of which
ment takes form in spontaneous law-abiding- is in their charge; they deeply affect the
ness and in the deference system. The judg- order of life of many people by their deci-
ments constituting the deference system sions. Lawyers who interpret this law and
confirm the superiority of the center from who enter into authoritative positions in gov-
which order is discerned, sustained and con- ernment likewise receive high deference.
trolled, and represent an assent to the un- Below the peaks, the esteemed occupations
equal distribution of rewards and facilities. entail, in some measure, an attenuated con-
In the results of sample surveys regarding tact and collaboration with the central insti-
the prestige or status of various occupations tutional and value systems, or they permit
in the United States,'2 Supreme Court Jus- an attenuated measure of creativity in or-
tices, State governors, physicians, Federal dering things. School teachers, welfare work-
legislators, Cabinet members, nuclear physi- ers, the skilled manual trades, and small busi-
cists and other scientists, professors, and ness managers are instances of these.
metropolitan mayors, receive the most defer- The occupations enjoying least esteem are
ence. Somewhat further down but still very farthest from the center of society and from
high are lawyers and directors of large cor- the central value system formed around the
porations. Some of these occupations-those expressive, moral and cognitive activities
of State governors, for instance-involve the directed toward the charismatic stratum of
exercise of great authority through com- being. The unskilled, uncreative occupations
mands that affect many persons; others, like whose incumbents order very little, handle
scientists and professors, can command very brute matter as brute matter, express little
few people and in their central activity, the that is vital, and do not penetrate intellectu-
authority they exercise has no coercive power ally into the nature of anything, rank very
associated with it. The case of the Supreme low. The occupations whose incumbents han-
Court Justice, who heads the list, is especi- dle only the detritus of man's existence and
ally instructive, for he asserts the highest do so only by manipulating it directly come
law, the Constitution, in the light of its mostlowest. Functionally, these occupations per-
general principles. General conceptions of form indispensable tasks, but they rank low
because they do not approximate the cha-
12The most important of these was conducted risma-affected orders.
by the National Opinion Research Center and is
To summarize, deference is an acknowl-
reported in Albert Reiss, et al., Occupations and
Social Status, New York: Free Press of Glencoe, edgement of, a response to the presumptive
1961. charismatic connections of roles at the cen-

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 CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS 209

ter of society and at the center of life.'3 The power to protect or benefit the community or
main recipients of deference are those who life itself. The distributions of these proper-
exercise authority in the central institutional ties are distributions of primary or deriva-
system and those who occupy the main posi- tive distances from the charismatic. Those
tions in the central value system of the at the upper ends of the distributions are
society. They are occupations which perceive close to it; at the lower ends, they are remote
and enunciate the most general principles from it. Personal and organismic qualities
(laws, rules, judgments) in their most such as humor, generosity, gentleness, physi-
immediate manifestation of or connection cal strength, and beauty are significant in
with the ultimate or charismatic, or which the distribution of deference in face-to-face
maintain or protect the earthly order en- relationships, but they are not taken into ac-
joined by these principles. The most pow- count when the "objectively existent" status
erful roles, even where they do not occupy system, the "serious" status system, is con-
themselves directly with the norms deriving sidered. They are regarded as irrelevant, and
from ultimate cosmic or moral order, arouse given man's charismatic propensity, they are
by the generality and magnitude of their irrelevant because they are not closely in-
power, a sense of the charismatic. They volved in the charismatic order. They have
thereby become the recipients of deference; scarcely any connection with the ultimate
so do the roles that directly protect vitality determinants of cosmic order or the ultimate
in consequence of their immediate connection grounds of power and justice.
with such central things as great physical Some of the macrosocially relevant defer-
power and cognitive penetration into and ence or status qualifications are primary;
control over nature. they are authority, creativity, penetration
The wealthy and the highly remunerated and promulgation, as embodied in occupa-
are esteemed, not for the possession of great tional role and education. These things are
wealth or income as such, or the comfort at the center of the institutional and cultural
they afford, but because wealth arises from systems of any society. Income and style of
-or permits-the exercise of authority, or is life are derivative. Kinship connection too is
thought to be the reward for order-creating derivative in highly differentiated societies,
activities or the manifestation of creative, and so, in large measure, is ethnicity. The
penetrative powers. Style of life is esteemed primary and the derivative properties are
because it is a ritualized manifestation of intertwined in very complicated ways and
what is the necessity and obligation of those the latter often acquire a certain measure
at the charismatic center; it is part of a pat- of autonomy as primary objects of judgment,
tern appropriate to proximity to the center. striving and emulation.
Education is esteemed because it opens the
way to contact with the norms and the cul-
THE PLURALITY AND PARODOXY OF
tural objectivations which constitute the cen-
CHARISMATIC OBJECTS
tral value system and because it facilitates
entry to the central institutional roles in In the foregoing, I have given instances
which authority is exercised, or contact with of the working of an attenuated and dis-
persons in such roles. persed charisma in corporate bodies and in
The properties that appear to be relevant the stratification system. In both instances I
to the assessment of the deference-worthiness have contended that charismatic responses
of a role or an action are wealth, income, oc-are evoked by the manifestations of powerful
cupation, the power to order by command, authority as such, without regard to concen-
prohibition and control over resources, style tration in individual personalities, or posses-
of life, standard of living, education, pri- sion by divinity. I have implied that there is
mordial connections, including kinship, with a widespread but not all-inclusive consensus
persons possessing these properties, and the throughout much of the society in the assess-
ment of those affected with charismatic prop-
13 Weber refers explicitly to charismatic proximity
as a major criterion in his discussion of the status
erties. I have suggested, also, that dissensus
of various Japanese noble families. Wirtschaft und is apt to arise between persons whose occu-
Gesellschaft, pp. 772-774, esp. p. 772. pational roles are concerned with perceiving

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 210 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

and promulgating order and those whose stable order where the earthly elites are
roles are concerned with its conduct and patently effective, these antinomian disposi-
management. This notwithstanding, a con- tions are held in check. Nonetheless, the im-
siderable degree of consensus exists among pulse exists and the critical attitude of the
the various sectors of the elite. more transcendentally oriented sector of the
An endemic dissensus, however, coexists elite strengthens it. It leads to some measure
with the society-wise consensus. (A great deal of refusing the pretensions and claims of
of "idiocy" is also fostered by isolation, the earthly elite.
ignorance, and insensitivity.) The sources of Those near the lower ends of the distribu-
this dissensus are many and I cannot deal tion are, for example, impelled by their con-
with all of them here. The most important dition toward somewhat different criteria for
arise from divergent conceptions of the locus esteeming occupational roles. They do not
and substance of charisma. I shall touch on wholeheartedly acknowledge authority and
a few of these. creativity; they value wealth somewhat more
Their immediate proximity to the sources as a criterion. Because their own occupa-
of charisma, their awareness of their majesty, tional roles derogate them, they evaluate oc-
distorts the minds of those who live in such cupation less highly than some of the more
proximity. This distortion tends in the direc- accessible primary and derivative criteria
tion of an identification of the transcendent such as education and style of life, which
with the social orders, so that considerations might be more easily acquired. And even
of state and of individual and group advan- with respect to a given deference-relevant
tage are made out to be in accord with the property, they might seek to invert the pre-
dictates of the transcendent order. vailing standard of evaluation in ways that
Then too, there is a differential sensibility would enhance their own dignity.
to the respective orders. Some persons are by There are, moreover, multiple interpreta-
temperament, just as some are by their cul- tions of transcendent orders, flowing from
ture, more sensitive than others to the trans- different cultural traditions and different
cendent order or to particular transcendent complexes of experience. There are diver-
orders, and more attached to the transcend- gent "interests," too, in the vulgar sense of
ent. For the transcendentally more sensitive, the word-the desire to possess scarce things
the claim of the managers and beneficiaries that are or might be possessed by others;
of the social order to be the exhaustive the- the very desire is evidence of the weakness
ophany of the transcendent order is not with which charisma is attributed to those
reasonable. The social order seems relatively who possess the desired things. These give
unimportant in comparison with the trans- rise to dissensus in opinion and conflicts
cendent order and unequal to it in dignity. among those who espouse the divergent
The pretensions of the custodians of the interpretations.
social order to be the sole and proper agents The contents of the transcendent order can
of the transcendent order seem so obviously never be unequivocally specified; they are
implausible that they scarcely would need bound to be ambiguous and to give rise to
refutation but for the pragmatic strength of and sustain divergent interpretations, espe-
the "earthly powers." cially among those who are very sensitive to
These two sources of dissensus recur in the transcendent things. Thus, out of considera-
internal relationships of various sectors of tions of the balance of ease and pain, from
the elite, but another pattern of dissensus the desire for dignity as well as from more
affects the modal and lower sections of the intellectual disagreements, the spread of con-
distribution. Those who suffer the burdens of sensus about the locus of the charismatic
distance from the center, who are the victims over an entire society encounters obstacles.
of the unequal distributions of dignity and But in addition to these endemic sources
more tangible rewards, are inevitably some- of dissensus about the locus and content of
what hostile toward those who dominate the the charismatic, two others merit special men-
earthly order. All charisma calls forth not tion. The oldest carriers of earthly charisma
only awe and deference but also a sacrilegi- are the primordial collectivities, kinship and
ous, "artheistic" hostility. In a firm and local territorial groups and ethnic aggregates.

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 CHARISMA, ORDER, AND STATUS 211
Primordial qualities still function powerfully
as charismatic qualities and their conflict
with the charismatic claims of ordering au-
thority is a constant feature of historical so-
cieties. The problems of the new states as
well as the Negroes' civil rights problems in
the United States testify to the tenacity of
the belief in the ultimate validity of prim-
ordial qualities.14
The other variant form of the dispersion
of charisma which restricts, and even sets
14 The case of the Southern Whites is instructive,
since it discloses the relations between primordial
charisma and national charisma, their conflicts and
their interdependence. Except for their relations
with the Negroes, the Southern whites have be-
come as integrated into the national (white)
American society as an uneducated, ignorant, im-
poverished and, relatively recently, conquered people
can be. Yet the strength of their attachment to
particularistic, primordial qualities indicate that
they have been unable to impute the charisma of
national membership to their Negro fellow-
Southerners. They do not believe that the charisma
resident in themselves is shared by all inhabitants
of the national territory, but belongs only to the
white members. They have become populists, i.e.,
they attribute charisma to the ordinary people at
the periphery of society, but they have not yet been
able to attribute it to a primordially alien, in this
instance, ethnically alien, group within their own
society.
The destruction of the effectiveness of the
Southern elite after the Civil War permanently de-
prived Southerners of a center for their society;
and their dissenting and sectarian Protestantism
made it easier for them to find the locus of charisma
in themselves. They protected their own society
when they did not have an elite to protect it for
them; they became custodians of the local or
regional charismatic order.
The South had formed a coherent regional
society at a time when the national elite was not
sufficiently ascendant in its powers and therewith
in its charismatic properties. When the Southern
elite faded, and the Northern elite was patently
hostile and therefore patently unjust, Southern
society became a centerless society in which
charisma became concentrated in the strata that
had previously formed its periphery.
A strong center, in touch with a transcendent
order, is a necessity for the growth of a civil
society. The national elite do not provide such
a center for the South, and having lost the char-
isma of authority, the South deteriorated into an
ethnically primordial community within a national
state imposing an authority which has come in the
course of decades to acquire a frail legitimacy. The
civil rights movement is an attempt to disrupt this
primordial community. In response to this threat of
disorder, the sense of primordiality which has been
almost the sole basis of whatever order has existed
in the South, has become more intense.
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up a counter-standard to the charismatic
claims of earthly authority, is the charisma
of the nation or of the populace. The two,
though somewhat different, have much in
common. The proponents and beneficiaries
of this dispersion attribute charismatic qual-
ities to the sectors of the society that are
peripheral with respect to their share in the
exercise of authority and the embodiment of
culture and in the distribution of wealth, in-
come, and education. Where charisma is
attributed to these strata, the distance be-
tween center and periphery is diminished and
their position in the hierarchy of deference
is much elevated. The spread or range of
the distribution of deference is narrowed
as the periphery is brought closer to the
peaks.
Through this dispersion of charisma into
the periphery, the society moves toward a
civil society. A widely dispersed charisma is
an indispensable condition of civility, but
it is not a sufficient ground for its existence.
Civility entails not only the imputation
of charisma to the mass of the population
by itself; it also requires that the es-
tablished and effective elite impute cha-
risma to the mass as well, that the elite
regard itself, despite all its differences as
sharing some of the charisma that resides in
it with the rest of its society. It requires,
too, that the virtues implicit in this wide-
spread and consensual dispersion of charisma
should be practised in and with respect to
the central institutional system-govern-
ment and law, above all.
THE MOTIVES AND MECHANISMS OF THE
DISPERSION OF CHARISMA
There is a strong tendency toward a con-
sensual "acknowledgement" of the charis-
matic quality of those in positions of highest
authority. So far as authority is visible-this
is part of its effectiveness-it does have a
self-legitimating consequence. It arouses the
attribution of charisma and this is why an
often uncomfortable alternation exists in ref-
erences to the "upper classes" the speaker
denying their superiority emphatically, while
acknowledging it implicitly as an "objec-
tive" fact that has nothing to do with his
explicit individual evaluation, which is nega-
tive. The denial is made because the affirma-
tion is already there, and both are genuine.
212 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

The mechanism of simultaneous affirma- other individualities contributes to the proc-

tion and denial comes into play where the ess of attributing charisma to them.
distance from the charisma-generating center Another positive factor implicit in what I
is so great that its effectiveness is enfeebled, have said, which has led in modern times to
but not so enfeebled as to be without conse- the widening dispersion of charisma over
quence. The consequence of distance from the whole society and hence to the belief in
the charismatic center is a sense of inferior- the charisma of the people, is the growth of
ity. Those who are far from the locus of the national state, entailing a visible, tan-
charisma experience that distance painfully. gible, coherent and effective central author-
The sense of being inferior is most painful ity. The sharing of this charisma which flows
for those who cannot divert their attention from the central authority, however small
to their orders of narrow radius. The condi- that share might be, with a multitude of
tion of inferiority is itself a strong impetus others who live within a territory ruled by
to deny the validity of the distribution in the central authority, has gradually and in
which they fare so badly. This usually en- conjunction with the factors already men-
tails a denial of the connection between the tioned led to the direct attribution of cha-
transcendent order and the moral standards risma to all citizens of the national state.
it implies or asserts, and the social order in Free, universal education works in the
which they are relegated to a position so dis- same direction. It brings the oncoming
tant from the center. One of the major re- generation directly into contact with the cen-
sponses of the sensitive who are placed at tral value system. It gives those who receive
the periphery is to invoke the charisma of it a sense of sharing in what is central in the
the transcendent order and to insist on its cosmos and in their own society. The mere
disjunction from the prevailing social order acquisition of literacy has a similar impact.
and its authority-which, however, still com- It changes a person's image of himself; he
pels a reluctant attribution of charisma, de- too gains, by virtue of education, contact
spite the intense and genuine efforts to deny with the transcendent and earthly orders,
it. This is the motive for disassociating the and with their central symbols.
allegedly theophanous rulers from the trans-
cendent order.
THE PERMANENT TENSION REGARDING THE
This account does not exhaust the subject.
LOCUS OF CHARISMATIC QUALITIES
There are deeper causes. One is the capacity
and impulsion of every human being toward The dispersion of charisma can never go
individuality. Everyone has in some degree far as to engender a completely equalitari
this capacity and impulse. It dies early in society. Quite apart from the differences
most human beings, partly because it is not the creative powers of individuals, and th
strong itself and partly because it is crushed unequal distribution of rewards and motiv
by primordial ties, and by primordial, corpo- which impel men unequally to contact with
rate, cultural and political authority. It needs charismatic things, there remains the basic
cultivation if it is to flower in any but the and irrefragible fact of authority. In a large-
most forceful. (Weber's observations about scale society which has many demands and
charismatic education, the nurturing of the which therefore generates many tasks, au-
thority is bound to be unequally distributed.
charismatic capacity, apply as well to this
Indeed the very dispersion of charisma, by
property of man's spirit and are capable of
enhancing the individual's conception of his
a broader application than he himself made.)
own rights and value, increases his demands
Where individuality, the perception of the
for performance on the part of elites. These
self and the appreciation of its value, comes
performances cannot be carried out without
into substantial existence, it is accompanied
a very considerable allocation of authority.
by an increased sympathy, a greater readi-
Authority, when it is massive and con-
ness to perceive the minds of others and to
tinuous, calls forth, by its mere existence,
appreciate them emphatically as entities withthe attribution of charisma. It calls it forth
inherent qualities (not just as instances of a from those who are not in authoritative roles
category). The consequent perception of and who attribute it to themselves, and

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 POLITICAL CRITIQUES OF MAX WEBER 213

even in the elites who also impute charisma
to the rest of their society. It cannot do
otherwise. It is too important, too serious
a matter to do otherwise, even in secular
societies. Authority is too crucial to the
creation and maintenance of order to be
able to avoid the sentiments that need and
are evoked by order.
The consequence is that large modern so-
cieties, even more than the large societies of
the past, are enmeshed in a perpetual strain
of competing conceptions about the ultimate
locus of charisma. The discerners and inter-
preters of the transcendent order, the agents
of earthly order, and the populace which
wishes to share in these higher orders and
already regards itself as sharing in them
sufficiently, are bound to be engaged in a
contest with each other. The earthly elite is
under pressure from the charisma of the
transcendent order and from charisma em-
bodied in the populace. It can never avoid
its attribution of charisma to its own central
position but neither can it avoid contention,
pressure, and criticism from the other bearers
of charismatic qualities. And any improve-
ment in the position of any one of the three
contestants is bound to arouse and strengthen
the affirmation of their own charisma in the
other two, while at the same time laying it
open to criticism and refusal.
With these concluding but not definitive
observations, we come again to Weber's
famous proposition about the revolutionary
character of charisma. As in so much else
that he said, much truth resides. But the
truth of the matter is more complicated, the
phenomenon is more protean, and the dis-
tance to be traversed for its understanding
is still very great.

POLITICAL CRITIQUES OF MAX WEBER:

SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY *
GUENTHER ROTH
State University of New York, Stony Brook

Recent critiques of Weber have come particularly from younger German writers concerned
with a reassessment of their country's history. These critiques, however, fit into a general
pattern of attacks that either use a sociological approach for political purposes or deny
altogether the present rationale of political sociology. The major critiques have been under-
taken by Marxists, Nazis and spokesmen of natural law. The Marxist and Nazi views have
been remarkably similar, and both single out Weber and Thomas Mann as the last great
representatives of the bourgeois era. The natural law critique tends to consider Weber's work,
if not all of sociology, as a step toward relativism or nihilism. These attacks raise general
questions as to the ideological and institutional presuppositions of political sociology.

COMMEMORATIONS are frequently polite
and somewhat stately affairs, but the
centenary of Weber's birth has attested
both to his great influence and to the still
controversial character of his work. Weber
was a passionate advocate of political ration-
ality and, literally, a "radical" sociologist
with a world-historical vision: two features
which-in the world as it is-are bound
to engender political and scholarly contro-
versy.' His case also shows, duly magnified,
* Revised version of a paper read at the annual
meeting of the American Sociological Association,
Montreal, 1964.
1 To some extent scholarly debate on Weber's
work, particularly in regard to bureaucracy and
charisma, has been affected by the incompleteness,
some of the typical tensions between political
ideology and political sociology.2 Weber has
and the sequence, of the extant translations. Weber's
major comparative treatment of forms of domina-
tion, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, has suffered most
on this score. This situation will hopefully be
ameliorated by my forthcoming complete edition of
Economy and Society, 2 vols., Totowa: Bed-
minster Press, 1966. This edition will also contain
some of Weber's political writings, which are still
almost unknown to most English readers, with the
exception of the widely read "Politics as a Voca-
tion"--a speech addressed to students. On the
differential impact of Weber's work on American
sociology, see Guenther Roth and Reinhard Bendix,
"Weber's Einfluss auf die amerikanische Soziologie,"
K6lner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie, 11 (1959), pp.
38-53.
2 Some of these tensions could also be illustrated

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