Sociology of the Sacred by Philip A Mellor Chris Shilling

Author:Philip A Mellor, Chris Shilling [Philip A Mellor, Chris Shilling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9781473907379
Google: GNjSAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: SAGE
Published: 2014-08-12T04:38:04+00:00

Pure and routinized charisma

If Weber (1964: 361) insisted that charismatic authority is not the creation of a group, even if it becomes subject to collective elaboration through myth or ritual, his concern for the relationship between the charismatic personality and the collectivity did result in him distinguishing pure from routine charisma. The pure form of charisma possesses huge potential in terms of individually initiated and steered social creativity, while its appropriation within institutions routinizes charisma. Given that Weber (1964: 364) also sees charismatic leadership as ‘a purely transitory’ force unless routinized, but also conceptualizes routinization as antithetical to creativity, however, it is not surprising that critics have suggested that this distinction is inherently contradictory (Lindholm, 1990: 28; Adair-Toteff, 2005: 190). This apparent tension has led some to follow Parsons (1968) in assimilating charisma into a Durkheimian model of the socio-religious sacred (Shils, 1965). Collapsing its ‘pure’ into its ‘routinized’ forms, however, robs charisma of the task Weber assigned it; the role of accounting for social creativity and change initiated by specific individuals (Turner, 2003: 13).

Does Weber’s analysis of routinization end his vision of the charismatic personality? If so, perhaps his analysis possesses affinities with the historical fate of pedagogic charisma within Christian teaching communities. Having begun as a ‘pure’ gift of grace received from God directly by individuals, the Christian church institutionalized charisma, transforming it in Weber’s terms from a pure to a routinized form. Rather than accept this conclusion, however, Feuchtwang (2008) argues that both forms continue to coexist. Charismatic personalities exhibit the ‘bringing into one person, a living body, a source of expectations of the extraordinary’, while charismatic organizations make available to followers the capacities associated with this other-worldliness via such pedagogic means as prayer, meditation and altered consciousness (Dawson, 2006; Feuchtwang, 2008: 94). This does involve routinization, but constitutes an extension rather than the eradication of the extraordinary incorporated into charismatic practice; an analysis that is again consistent with Sohm’s conception of pedagogic charisma and the charismatic organization (Palmer, 2008).

Despite Feuchtwang’s (2008) attempts to view extraordinary individuals and organizations as two sides of charisma, however, Weber’s (1964: 369) primary focus is on the decline of pure forms of charismatic personality and his work is ultimately fatalistic. Charisma is brutalized and manipulated in the last stages of its ‘fateful historical course’; its waning social significance mirrored in ‘the diminishing importance of individual action’ within rational capitalism, and in its gradual capture by those seeking to legitimate their economic and social power (Weber, 1968: 1121–2, 1146–9). This manifestation of charisma remains evident in the contemporary era, although it may not be as instrumental as implied by Weber and can be explored further in the realm of business leadership. This serves as an introductory context in which to explore a third form of charisma, the secular aesthetic charisma attached to material products within contemporary consumer culture.

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