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
163
education also could be rationalized into a specialized 'Fachschulung', first of jurists. The
training for clerical administration and accounting and 'the secular professional training in law,
as it developed in the medieval universities' remained literary, although it could be rationalized
into 'the mentality of specialization and to the ideal of a "vocation" that is typical of modern
bureaucracy.'
29
In his discussion of charismatic education in general Weber only sketches the contours of a
process of rationalization of charismatic education by diagnosing a fluid transition between the
antithetical elements 'rationality' and 'charisma'. When education itself is rationalized, 'only the
familiar juvenile phenomena of barrack and student life remain as residues of the ancient
ascetic means for awakening and testing charisma'.
30
In the pages of his chapter on bureaucracy which the translators summarized under the heads
'educational specialization, degree hunting and status seeking'
31
and 'excursus on the
cultivated man'
32
, Weber elaborates on this fluid transition between charismatic and rational
education.
33
The growth of expert examinations 'is greatly furthered by the social prestige of
the "patent of education" acquired through such specialized examinations, the more so since
this prestige can again be turned to economic advantage.'
34
In his time, the 'examination' was
the universal instrument for monopolization of the socially and economically advantageous
positions
35
. Weber sees an almost literal parallel with feudalism in the requirement for
participation of duelling fraternities and other student clubs:
29
ES p. 1108, WG p. 652/3: 'The only specific educational system of patriarchal patrimonialism is administrative
training, which alone provides the basis for a stratum that in its most consistent form is an educated status group
of the well-known Chinese type. However, education may also remain in the hands of the clergy as possessors of
the skills useful for patrimonial administration, which needs accounting and clerical work unknown to feudalism.
This happened in the Near East and in the Occidental Middle Ages. In this case education has a specifically
literary character. Education may also be secular professional training in law, as it developed in the medieval
universities, but even then it remains a literary education, and its increasing rationalization leads to the mentality
of specialization and to the ideal of a "vocation" that is typical of modern bureaucracy.'
30
'Within certain limits the transition between charismatic and rational specialized training is of course fluid. Every
charismatic education includes some specialized training, depending on whether the novices are trained to be
warriors, medicine men, rainmakers, exorcisers, priests or legal sages. This empirical and professional
component, which is often treated as secret know-how for the sake of prestige and monopolization, increases
quantitatively and in rational quality with professional differentiation and the accumulation of specialized
knowledge; finally, in a world of predominantly specialized training and drill only the familiar juvenile phenomena
of barrack and student life remain as residues of the ancient ascetic means for awakening and testing charisma.
However, genuine charismatic education is the radical opposite of specialized professional training as it is
espoused by bureaucracy.' ES p. 1143/4, WG p. 677.
31
ES p. 998 ff., WG p. 576 ff.
32
ES p. 1001 ff., WG p. 587 ff.
33
ES p. 999, WG p. 577.
34
ES p. 1000, WG p. 577.
35
ES p. 1000, WG p. 577: 'The bureaucratization of capitalism, with its demands for expertly trained technicians,
clerks, etc., carries such examinations all over the world. This development is, above all, greatly furthered by the
social prestige of the "patent of education" acquired through such specialized examinations, the more so since
this prestige can again be turned to economic advantage. The role played in former days by the "proof of
ancestry", as prerequisite for equality of birth, access to noble prebends and endowments and, wherever the
nobility retained social power, for the qualification to state offices, is nowadays taken by the patent of education.
The elaboration of the diplomas from universities, business and engineering colleges, and the universal clamor
for the creation of further educational certificates in all fields serve the formation of a privileged stratum in
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