Talk:Charismatic authority

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Contents

1 Early talk 2 Charismatic authority in religion 3 Charasmatic leaders are only charismatic because of their context 4 Edits by Zappaz 5 This article needs serious NPOV work 6 Cleanup

Early talk

Is this confined to politics only? Why not to e.g. religion? Andries 19:47, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Good point. The origin of this idea in sociology is largely via Max Weber, who generalised the idea of charismatic authority in religion to other domains such as politics. I should put in a brief statement to this effect. BrendanH 09:09, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

I have removed Stalin who came to power via tricks in the Communist party, not because he was so popular, and was more a bureaucrat and reigned by fear and was obeyed. Later he created a personality cult but that doesn't make him a charismatic leader. Lenin would be a better example. Andries 18:39, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I guess it can be argued this way. I will leave it to others to decide if this is so, I am concerned more with Weber then Stalin. I can expand the entry on Weber's def of charismatic authority - and please not that ATM there are no entries at all on the traditional authority nor legal authority.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:48, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Charismatic authority in religion

If we have Charismatic authority in politics section, why not have religious? Lots of prophets fit into charismatic authority type (if not all), right? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:22, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Nice job with religious leader selection Andries. I have now started Traditional authority and Rational-legal authority to expand on Max Weber theme. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Charasmatic leaders are only charismatic because of their context

I read somewhere that charismatic leasers only happen to be charismatic because of special social and historical circumstances. Not always in the first place because of their personal traits. I do not have an English referenced source for this but if somebody can find a reference then I would appreciate it if this included in the article because I believe it to be true. E.g. Hitler was charismatic only because of very special circumstances i.e. humiliating, unexpected defeat in WWI, period of hyperinflation that ruined people's savings, Versailles treaty etc. Not only because he was eloquent. Andries 22:35, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Edits by Zappaz

Including such persons such as Jim Jones and the saint Sai Baba nicely illustrates the diversity of the charismatic leaders. Andries 10:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Jim Jones is notable, at least notorious. I mean how can you seriously deny that? Andries 10:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Sai Baba is notable too. Ask user:Lordsuryaofhrophire. I find 51,000 google hits for this guy. See also Sai_Baba#An_overview Andries 10:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• I think you are right that what I originally wrote about Barker may have been too strong worded but now you make it too weak, I think. She was strong worded about it, if I remember it well. Do you have the original quote? Thanks Andries 10:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You can add these, but not under the same category with of Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad. I mean, that is obvious isnt' it? And for your information, charisma is not a vituperative. --Zappaz 14:59, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, why obvious? I am far from experts on them, but they are all charismatic religous leaders, right? Sure, some are world famous and some are not, but that does not disqualify them from our section, I think. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This article needs serious NPOV work

1. The charismatic religious leaders section is not pretty. What is the criteria used to judge those in that list?

• Random Wiki editing chaos I'd say. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 14:38, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

1. The political charismatic leaders section, includes text such as "the beautiful wife of" and "revolutionary turned dictator" and "enigmatic philosopher". etc. Hardy encyclopedic.

• Hmm. Maybe. Feel free to fix it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 14:38, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

1. Including Sai Baba and Jim Jones as "less famous leaders" is indeed strange. I have removed it.

Basically, I object to this arbitrary taxonomy. These lists need to either go away or be seriously cleaned up. --Zappaz 05:00, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• I object to removing them, I think they are fairly good. Of course, feel free to clean them up as you see this should be done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 14:38, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We could rename it as examples. I think it is important to show the diversity of the phenomenon so that is why I think it is important that people like Jim Jones are included. I oppose the inclusion of Vivekananda because his authority was partially based on his lineage with Ramakrishna i.e. not a pure form of charismatic authority. I do not see a good reason for your removals of Sai Baba and Jesus Jim Jones who had both pure forms of charismatic authority. Andries 06:06, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As I don't feel I am competent in those examples, I'd abstain from voicing any opinion on who should be and who shouldn't be here. I did create the 'less famous' list to solve similar problem earlier, hopefully you can tweak it so it works for you. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 14:38, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This taxonomy, as I said, is totaly arbitray. As I said, tis article needs serious work. I am pretty busy now with other articles, but I will visit this one soon to NPOV it and clean up if nobody else does ist. I will add the cleanup tag in the meantime, --Zappaz 15:25, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can not say that I often agree with Zappaz but when giving examples one should state to what extent they have the other two authorities e.g. Hitler first had only charismatic auth. but became chancellor and then also had rational-legal auth. This should be stated. There are some pure charismatic types such as Sai Baba, Jim Jones, and Sathya Sai Baba. Andries 17:41, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Weber noted in his research that it is nearly impossible to find a historical example on any pure dominance/authority, as they always exist in some mixed combinations. The charismatic type is just a theoretical ideal type. A theory - as are the traditional and rational-legal types. So any examples we give are obviously given under assumption that they are only partialy charismatic and partialy sth else. I guess we can imagine lists like 'mostly charismatic/minor charismatic' here or create a separate article with examples, linked from all three authority articles? I think we have to ask ourselves if we want just a simple list with few non-controversial charismatic examples, or a complicated list dicussing how charismatic, traditional and r-l any of our examples are? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:41, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Piotr, personally I would prefer a complicated list. Please note that the founders of religions and NRMs are often the ideal type. With regards to the religious figuresm, Vivekananda, Jim Jones, and Hendrik the eighth, Martin Luther and Calvin were not ideal types. The rest is, I think, please correct me if I am wrong. I know all of them quite well except for Hendrik the eigth. Andries 19:11, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

May be a short, complicated list in this article would be the best idea. Not a separate article for example. Andries 19:15, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd be happy to see the results of your work then. Just a word of advice: my wiki experience shows that when a list gets long (half of the article or more) it is generally a good idea to move it to an entirely new article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:31, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Cleanup

This was referred to my Desk, and so I've started to edit it. I felt that the text was sufficiently disorganized enough to warrant a major re-write, but I would love opinions. I just finished the first version, and I'm going to go over the examples list and tune that up as well, next. Cheers! Khamsin 01:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

(Note: I read the earlier discussion on the example lists, and I've opted to remove extraneous text from the list; my feeling is that the article provides a way to evaluate how the cited example leader is charismatic, and if we have to spend so much time explaining why they're charismatic in the list, then something is wrong in the article itself.) Khamsin 01:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I think I'm pretty much done now; it's not perfect, but I think it's good enough. Cheers! Khamsin 05:48, 3 May 2005 (UTC)