Corralling Charisma & Introducing the Neuz

October 19th, 2007 Posted in Social Invention, Reductionism, Charisma, Neuz

Weber’s charismatic threatens the sociological project with reductionism. It suggests that a social fact may have its source within another level of analysis, that the plural experience may be explained by a biologically based psychology and sociology reduced to an appendage of life science. Sociology becomes like the tail of the dog.

Today we take the offensive and argue that the charismatic is a social type and therefor a social fact. We also show that Weber’s concept is a complex construct Stripped into its independent parts it yields a generalizable charisma that belongs to all people.

First, the charismatic as a social type. While each of the traditional founders of established religions was unique and strikingly different when grouped together as a set they model into Weber’s charismatic leader. They form a social type and as such are a part of a larger social order. Just as a military offices implies his troops, the charismatic implies his acolytes and believers. The social type is anchored in a social relationship. Reductionism denied.

Among the charismatics of the modern cults a detailed investigation of the situation of each suggests that he is not uniquely alone but embedded in struggle with others, some of whom are close associates, over his claim to the role. We can think of the charismatic as being in a panel of peers at about the same level of development, all learning about and striving for the same place in a charismatic social construct. The charismatic emerges from a social process involving socialization and training in cultural. His ideas are churned in this stew and shared with others on a similar path. The charismatic is pre-figured in social process. Reduction denied.

The aura of connect with the ineffable is a claim situated within the ideal realm. For the empirical sociologist this claim and the acceptance of it by the people involved is a social fact. The first step, the ideal reality itself has no empirical standing. So for the sociologist the actions involved in charisma are socio-cultural. The implied reduction only exists on faith. The claim of reduction only comes from the ideal realm not the material-empirical.

On the second issue, Weber’s charismatic character as a complex concept. It is a concept based on the union of other concepts. We suggest at least four separate ideas that Weber stitched together in its making. .

…A quality of personality that combines charm, self-direction, attractiveness, and determination. It encourages the faithful and attracts the attention of others. A psychological quality. Charm.

…An attachment or connection to a deity or to the ineffable. The person acts as a unique medium for messages from the ideal realm. He may also communicate back. This reinforces and magnifies the avuncular personality. A theological quality. Prophet.

…A power relationship with others where the other (person B) accedes to ego’s (person A) vision and directives. The wishes, directions, goals of the charismatic govern. Power.

…There is also an ability or talent for invention and discovery—an openness to ideas that are beyond the common sense. This is a capacity to resist, ignore, repudiate the current consensus. Neuz (the idea of the new way.)

I want to emphasize the fourth point, a capacity to produce the new. The charismatic as a part of the larger group of inventors, discoverors, innovators who make-up and find new, that is either extra- or anti-consensual, ways.

Weber concentrated on the person with the new way as a person of power—able to influence the understandings and actions of others. But he also mentioned the possible loss of this power through changing circumstance. There are a few separate steps here. The person in a situation, the discovery of the new way, and the consequent process of what happens to this way among the people and their overriding social order.

You do not need a power personality to get an new idea and have it move others. The power question is separate from the discover and initiate questions.

What we are suggesting is that Weber’s charismatic shorn of power, support of the ineffable, and charm (they are separate issues) folds into the neuz maker (inventor, innovator, etc.). Further this capacity appears to be a talent both universal and continuous (perhaps in different portions). This neuz does not imply acceptance and invariable transition into the cultural consensus. That is a problematic. It does suggest a continuing process of possible endemic social change It operates in all social sectors and all levels, complex to simple, even the transient, ephemeral and insubstantial. I think we will find that established social orders suppress certain expressions of this talent.

We’ll return to this topic in future blogs on the sociology of invention.

Top of the neuz to you.