Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy. 1994
Chapter 9 Connections between formal rationality and charismatic domination over and through free
men: the continuing role of magic in the construction of impersonal patriarchal fraternities; from
Ständestaat to revolution
159
The fourth connection is the religious reaction to the establishment of office charisma: the
Protestant ethic. The Reformation can be interpreted as one of the revolts against the reversal
of the meaning of religion by the Church. According to Weber 'Protestants' claimed a 'real'
charisma, which was routinized by sects into an 'inner-worldly asceticism'; in my view this kind
of asceticism became the foundation for the 'proofs of manhood' of the new bourgeois.
Finally I will summarize Weber's analysis of discipline as a form of charisma which has been
routinized so utterly that the disciplined subjects never think twice about their obedience: they
act automatically and therefore can come to function like 'cogs in a machine'. Discipline makes
bureaucracy the most effective form of domination ever established.
2. Formalism: from magic to Roman conceptual juridical thought
An important connection between charisma and formal rationality Weber formulates in his
chapter on religious groups is the concept of formalism. In his view formalism is an important
element of magic procedures.
'Magically motivated *conduct' in its turn is connected to 'rational conduct' in the sense of
'following rules of experience'²: when one wants to influence circumstances by means of a
magic procedure which has proved effective 'in a naturalistic sense' - through the use of the
powers Weber has termed 'charismatic' - this procedure has to be repeated in exactly the
same way³, since nobody knows exactly why it works.
According to Weber the connection between magic and formalism is reinforced by a
paradoxical phenomenon: magic phenomena - like all other irrational phenomena - are subject
to a general process of abstraction and rationalization. From magic phenomena gradually
'spirits'
4
or 'souls' are derived, who then are imagined as 'supersensual forces', 'that may
intervene in the destiny of people in the same way that *human beings may influence the
course of the world about them.'
5
In this process 'magic is transformed from a direct manipulation of forces into a symbolic
activity':
'Before, only the things or events that actually exist or take place played a role in life; now certain experiences, of a
different order in that they only signify something, also play a role
.'
6
Weber emphasizes one particular element of the 'pattern of thought that is the basis of the fully
developed realm of symbolic concepts', namely analogy, because of its influence on juristic
thinking.
7
2
ES p. 399, WG p. 245, see above Ch. 4,2.
3
ES p. 405, WG p. 248.
4
ES p. 401, WG p. 246: 'Already crystallized is the notion that certain beings are concealed "behind" and
responsible for the activity of the charismatically endowed natural objects, artifacts, animals, or persons.'
5
ES p. 402, WG p. 247.
6
ES p. 403, WG p. 248. 'This is done through actions that address themselves to a spirit or soul, hence by
instrumentalities that "mean" something, i.e., symbols.' ES p. 404, WG p. 248.
7
'Analogy has exerted a lasting influence upon, indeed has dominated not only forms of religious expression but
also juristic thinking, even the treatment of precedents in purely empirical forms of law. The syllogistic
constructions of concepts through rational subsumption only gradually replaced analogical thinking, which
originated in symbolistically rationalized magic, whose structure is wholly analogical.' ES p. 406/7, WG p.
249/250.
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