Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994. Chapter 2 The Weber's private, sex defined values.
42
In Weber's view the plebiscitary selection of leaders, though, should be combined with
parliamentary control, as is the case in England,
42
where the rule of that small minority which brought a quarter of mankind under its domination
was established in this way. As Weber states in PV, followers of a 'charismatic' party leader
who are motivated not only by a hope for offices or other advantages, but also by 'the
satisfaction of working with loyal personal devotion for a man, and not merely for an abstract
program of a party consisting of mediocrities', can be molded into a disciplined party
'machine'.
43
The 'Entseelung' of the members of these parties
44
through extreme
rationalization stands in cynical opposition to the irrationality of the emotional surrender of
the masses to the caesarist dictator.
45
Weber would gladly sacrifice the souls as well as the
sense of both party members and voters to acquire a strong leader who fights the power of
bureaucracy.
46
6. Masculinism and the manly virtues
It will not come as a surprise that in Weber's work 'manliness' appears as a value on a par
with values such as nationalism, racism, militarism, the instinct for power and the need for
leadership. Weber scolds with the epithets 'unmanly'
47
and 'old women'
48
, praises with
'manly'
49
. There appear to be several kinds of manliness, yet Weber suggests that there is
only one real kind: that of the 'real politician', the leader.
In PG Weber denied the manliness of German officials in an indirect way, by attacking
politicians who behave like officials; he reinforced this denial by a eulogy of their virtues,
which would have served as a perfect epitaph on the tomb of a Victorian housewife:
1451/2, GPS p. 382.
41
See below, Ch. 7,2 and Ch. 10,1.
42
There Parliament 'vis-à-vis the factually Caesarist representative of the masses' safeguards
'1. the continuity and 2. the supervision of his power position, 3. the preservation of civil rights, 4. a suitable
political proving ground of the politicians wooing the confidence of the masses, and 5. the peaceful elimination of
the caesarist dictator once he has lost the trust of the masses.' Weber thought democratic, that is equal, suffrage,
would make a two-party system impossible, 'if only because of the split of the modern economic strata into
bourgeoisie and proletariat and because of the meaning of socialism as a mass gospel', ES p. 1443, GPS p. 372.
After the second world war
43
FMW p. 103, GPS p. 520/1. See for Weber's connection between 'charisma' and 'discipline' Ch. 10,1 below.
44
'it has to be clearly realized that plebiscitarian leadership of parties entails the 'soullessness' of the following,
their intellectual proletarianization, so as to say.' FMW 113, p. GPS p. 532,
45
'"a dictatorship resting on the exploitation of mass emotionality'", FMW p. 107, GPS p. 525. See on the relation
between Weber's elitist political disdain of the 'masses' and his scientific formulation of the 'law of the small
numbers' Beetham (1974) p. 111/2 .
46
See on Nietzsche's influence on Weber W. Mommsen, (1974), p. 97 ff., in particular p. 108 ff. (see also note
41) and p. 130: 'Nur eine hauchdünne Linie trennt Max Weber in diesem Punkte von Nietzsches Auffassung, daß
der 'Wille zur Macht' das Grundgesetz und die Triebfeder aller Kultur überhaupt sei und daß die großen
Individuen sich vor den Massen eben dadurch auszeichnen, daß sie sich konsequent und illusionslos zu diesem
Gesetz bekennen und es zur Richtschnur ihres Handelns machen.' According to Mommsen the difference lies in
Weber's liberalism and in his feeling of duty to 'the broad masses'; see also his note 125.
47
ES p. 1387, 1391, GPS p. 302, 307.
48
FMW p. 118, GPS p. 537 ('alte Weiber')
49
FMW p. 118, GPS p. 537
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