The Unanticipated Individual

October 10th, 2007 Posted in Concepts, Individual, Reductionism, Levels of Analysis

Max Weber, the famous German sociologist, gave us the concept of charismatic leader–an individual who has freed himself from the bond of the established social consensus and asserted a new dispensation. His charm is considerable and those people who love and adore him accept his word and begin to act in the new way. There is often a theological element involved. A connect to the ineffable is ascribed to the charismatic person and this is part of his attractiveness. Going his way can be an absolute imperative.

With this Weberian concept the basis of social order changes radically. It comes from an original fount, sui generis, generated within the charismatic self. It is a non-plural fact flashing in the social world.

In the concrete histories the pattern varies but enough cases roughly fit the model for it to be generally accepted as a useful description of this real class of similar experiences. The major modern religions trace back to foundations within the acts and opinions of single prophets. And there are additions in recent times of cults and cult-like formations developing around single persons: The Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff cult, the Jim Jones cult, the David Koresh cult, the Father Divine cult, Elijah Muhammad and the Black Muslims, Joseph Smith, Jr. and Mormonism.

It is an anomaly–an unanticipated event that breaks the settled conceptual understanding. The new way, at least in the model form, is not the result of the give and take of interaction but comes directly from the charismatic. It is a one-way street. The other actors travel it or not. They do not assist in its designation. The social order conforms to the charismatic’s requirements and not vice versa. His bio-psychology is the source and the social pattern is the result. So with him we seem to reach the end of the need for an independent sociology. It is a direct challenge to the sociological project. Understand the originator and the social order he fathers follows. To know the charismatic personality (or his associated theology) could be enough.

The sequence has two steps. From the viewpoint of the observer who limits himself to empirical data the free charismatic issues an edict that comes from within himself. It is outside of the plural experience. With the second step the new order is accepted or not by the other. It becomes then a social fact.

As simple as it may be, this little two-step seems to place a piece of bio-psychology, an alien concept, within the plural sector. Two orders of concepts intermixed like two decks of playing cards. Confusion instead of clarity. The resolution: one concept selected over the other based on priority or parsimony or a closer approximation of the real. The result the possible subordination of the social concept. Its reduction from subject to predicate. Reductionism: one level of analysis is pushed aside or enveloped by another. Sociology might become an adjunct of biology. That is the threat.

It may seem a conceptual tempest in a teacup but if we have the patience to follow the trail to the defense of the sociological project we will be rewarded by a more precise understanding of the pure sociological field. I am confident that we can find a way through or around

Until our next post.

Bring a friend. Bring an ordinary sociologist.