"The administrative staff, which externally represents the organization of political domination, is, of course, like any other organization, bound by obedience to the power-holder and not alone by the concept of legitimacy, of which we have just spoken. There are two other means, both of which appeal to personal interests: material reward and social honor. The fiefs of vassals, the prebends of patrimonial officials, the salaries of modern civil servants, the honor of knights, the privileges of estates, and the honor of the civil servant comprise their respective wages. The fear of losing them is the final and decisive basis for solidarity between the executive staff and the power-holder. There is honor and booty for the followers in war; for the demagogue's following, there are 'spoils'--that is, exploitation of the dominated through the monopolization of office--and there are politically determined profits and premiums of vanity. All of these rewards are also derived from the domination exercised by a charismatic leader." - Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (pg. 3)
Response:
The passage that I chose from Weber talks about the domination that a charismatic leader holds over their administration and everyone involved politically speaking. More specifically it discusses what it is that these worker bees have to profit from by being obedient and allowing themselves to be submissive to their leader. Weber sums it up really well when he writes "there is honor and booty for the followers in war". In this statement he explains that the reason people allow there to be a dominant power is because there is personal gain. As mentioned in the lecture, Weber basically predicted the uprising of a fascism that requires a leader to hold these qualities of charism and domination.
The reason I chose this passage was because it directly links up with Adolf Hitler and the rise of the Nazism in Germany. Before I ever really understood the factors that led to the Holocaust I always wondered as to why people allowed themselves to be persuaded by Hitler to eliminate an entire race of people. I questioned what kind of people these were and where was this hate rooting from that allowed such a tragedy to flourish and soak Europe in the blood of the innocent. I am fully aware of the fact that there has been plenty of revolutions and wars and other such tragic events in other countries (Stalin for example) but the Holocaust has always been looked at as one of the worst of the worst. So to really understand the rise of Nazism we need to analyze who the leader was and what allowed him to basically brainwash himself an army of followers. It starts at the root of the matter, and that is in the politics. We need to understand Hitler as a political figure that rose to power quickly after his assignment as Chancellor and his seize of opportunity after the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg. The opportunity laid before him, and as mentioned in the lecture, using Article 48 he legally became a dictator. Weber understood that this was something that would happen however, I don't think he could predict the future and could say who would rise to power, in which way or what would be the outcomes. Weber understood the signs and the conditions that would allow for something like this to happen. He understood that a leader needed to understand how the politics worked in order to seize control of it. He understood that through violence one gains control, because people need to both love and fear their leader to some extent. Hitler had the charismatic quality Weber describes as being an essential part of a rise in a dominant power. Hitler also had a staff of people that hung on his every word and believed what he said to not only be true, but what was best for the future of Germany. Hitler rationalized the irrational and he did this by motivating a broken nation through a unified nationalistic identity. It was time for the "great"(aryan race) to rise from the ashes and cleanse itself from the "wretched" (everyone that did not fit the perfect aryan criteria) that were holding them back. Hitler's staff must have been handsomely rewarded for their unwavering allegiance to the rise of Nazism by partaking in the "spoils" as Weber says.
I have previously taken a course that analyzes evil. What it was and how do we determine what evil is by looking not only at different written works, movie productions but also at historical events such as the Nazi Regime and the Holocaust. I was able to gain an important perspective on the way things were being interpreted by the Hitler's followers and his staff in command. Usually we look at works and accounts from survivors of the Holocaust or people who fought against it and even saved lives, but not so much as the people who truly took a part of the events as a Nazi. One of the things that I learned was from a reading titled "Blueberries, Accordions and Auschwitz: The evil of thoughtlessness by Jennifer L. Geddes" was exactly what Weber is discussing in Politics as a Vocation, the rewards of being a good "soldier" so to speak. In this reading we gain a perspective on what happens to "good" Nazi's. "Good" SS officers were sent to summer camps as rewards for their so called good work. In this reading there are photographs that show these people enjoying blueberries, playing accordions while laughing and smiling. They don't look like people that were grabbing dead infants by the ankles and throwing them into piles of other dead bodies. The don't look like people that were shooting infants for target practice, or prisoners in the back of the head and definitely not sending people by the hundreds into gas chambers. The look like happy, relatively average people. The article is actually about the way that Nazi's were doing their job and being rewarded for it creating a sense of ignorance of their wrong doings of "thoughtlessness". There was no thought process involved in their actions. They followed commands sent down from their superiors who rewarded them based of their performance. Sounds like the average job? You do good, you get rewarded. However, analyzing this in deeper level we see the way that these soldiers couldn't possibly think that what they were doing was wrong because they were being rewarded for it. It's like anything else in life, if you have a dog that rips up your couch and you give it treats despite this behavior, the dog will not be conditioned into stopping this behavior because it is not being chastised for it. If you reprimand the dog when it does do this, and not give it treats and maybe even place it in the corner for 10 minutes as a punishment then the dog will be conditioned to avoiding this behavior already familiar with the unpleasant consequence. People work the same way. If you don't tell someone what they're doing is wrong, the won't think it's wrong. These people were not only reinforced that their actions in the camps should be praised through rewarding trips but their superiors and the everyones charismatic Führer also reinforced that everyones actions was for their greater good. Germany had already suffered a terrible blow in WWI taking all the blame for everything, followed by the Great Depression they were demoralized and broken until Hitler eventually stepped in as their "ray" of hope to rebuild a broken nation into something they thought would be great. These people did not see killing their prisoners as a senseless act of violent genocide, they did not see these people as people (that is an entirely separate discussion). Weber understood that if you give rewards and if you can talk your way into the minds and emotions of people you can gain dominance over them. The passage I chose links up to Hitler's charisma and to the way he knew how to manage his people. Keep them happy also meant keeping their loyalty. Even when put on trial, SS Officers claimed no responsibility for their actions although they were CLEARLY at fault just as much as the commanding officers above them that gave them the orders(I am not sure if this was in the Night and Fog film I saw that I know we will see later in this class!). Their loyalties collapsed when Hitler collapsed and everything came crumbling down in a domino effect. As soon as they were faced with true punishment for their actions and they had no defense against the world's criticism and chastising accusations they were no longer smiling, laughing or thinking that what they were doing was wrong.
All of this ties back to Weber and Nihilism. The view of the world as being a place where through it all there really is no light at the end of the tunnel so one must learn to live by understanding the way things work (in Weber's case, the way politics works). Through all the horror seen by this First World War it is easy to understand that one can lose themselves in the disturbing reality of life. Weber wanted something he failed at obtaining but he predicted almost exactly what the outcome would be if the cards were laid out right, and they where and Hitler and Nazism rose. Even the idea of dominion over a people as a charismatic leader holds a sense of nihilism because people are willing to give up what they believe is right, separate themselves from reality to be efficient worker bees that reap the benefits later on (this was mentioned in the lecture, Weber's discussion on the disconnection that makes people good followers of dominant leaders). The lack of personal agency and allowing oneself to be driven by the desires of others and eliminating our own sense of morality seems nihilistic in the sense of what are you really but just a mere puppet? In the grand scheme of things everyone eventually dies but it seems that giving up yourself to that extreme to a charismatic leader is an early way to call it quits, especially when you are then punished for your actions by execution or life imprisonment. Weber truly was brilliant and understood the inner workings of politics well enough to know that man is mans greatest enemy.
For those interested here is the article I was talking about: Blueberries, Accordions and Auschwitz
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