Vocations

This chapter highlights the parameters of modernity, because democracy today cannot rest on earlier practices created for small cities, like Athens, in the ancient world. Therefore, in 1917 and 1919, the German sociologist Max Weber described two new vocations, of “Science” and “Politics,” as characteristic of societies that grew out of the Enlightenment. “Scientists” used instruments and experiments to discover “knowledge” more reliable than “opinion.” The result is that their work overthrew many traditional beliefs and led to “disenchantment.” “Politicians” arose because, when “subjects” became “citizens” in many Western states, they needed leaders and spokespeople who would help them to organize their sentiments and express their preferences. In which case, politicians, elected on behalf of voluntary support from below, ruled on the basis of “tradition,” “legality,” or “charisma.” Weber’s terms overlooked at least two large problems. Charismatic politicians could break the “iron cage” of “bureaucracy,” but, as “demagogues,” they could also lead voters in undesirable directions. Voters, perhaps advised by scholars, would have to resist being led astray, but Weber said nothing about how they, in effect, should exercise a third new “vocation” in modern societies. Citizens were not present before the Enlightenment; they are everywhere now. What are they supposed to do? Weber did not say.