Belief

Since the nominal topic of our discussion was whether Paul was a messiah or not, I think I’ll question our basic assumption. Does it matter whether we define Paul as a messiah? If the people who followed him believed him to be a messiah should that not be enough? The fremen believed that he was their savior, so to them he was their savior, whether he truly had come as a fulfillment to prophecies or whether he merely took advantage of the prophecies. And even if he did simply take advantage of prophecies that had been planted there, he still led the people to their freedom. Does it even matter if the prophecies were real or planted by the Bene Gesserit? If the fremen believed in the prophecies, Paul came and fulfilled the prophecies, and the fremen believed that Paul was their savior, then he was a savior to them. In this situation, I believe that the fremen’s faith in Paul proves he is their messiah. By no means would you ever get a freman to believe that Paul wasn’t a messiah.

I suppose the position I’ve outlined above leads back to the question of a messiah versus the messiah. This question, however, presupposes that in the world Herbert created, a single messiah is possible. My question would then be how would you identify a single messiah as the messiah? That again depends on how Herbert’s world works. Would The Messiah have to fulfill the prophecies of all religions, or do religions exist that claim to expect the one true Messiah? In the first case, would Paul work as The Messiah? He fulfilled prophecies from several different religions, but did he cover all of them? What about the second case? How do you know which religion to trust when they say that their Messiah is the one true savior? I ask these questions strictly from an outsider perspective like us reading Herbert’s novel, not to get into a religious debate about the competing religions we live with, but without getting into a debate, we can think about these questions abstractly in regard to today’s religions. I’ll let you others do that, however. I’m not about to start pulling out the worms now that I’ve opened that particular can.

Putting aside messiahs for a moment, I’d like to talk about Paul as a political instead of a religious leader. In “Politics as a Vocation,” Weber talks about hereditary, charismatic, and legal justifications for leadership. While Paul admittedly has some roles he occupies through charismatic justification, he also has a ninety-generation pedigree set up by the Bene Gesserit. Despite this hereditary justification already being in place, does he actually gain the positions of leadership that should be his through his family ties by his charismatic leadership, or does his justification in those roles rely mainly on his hereditary right to rule? Which justification takes precedence in Paul’s situation if both justifications are present? Wow, a lot of questions in that post, but I’m still more interested in hearing what other people have to say on the political front than trying to come up with my own answers since I’m sure you all know much more about politics than I do (you all don’t actively avoid politics).

Charisma and Corruption

I have to start off by saying that “Politics as a Vocation” has been the most difficult text yet for me to get through. I am not at all interested in politics, and so the little details that Weber continually brought up about the slight differences between this role in this country and that role in that country just drove me up the wall. Despite that, I did find interesting the idea of “the authority of the extraordinary, personal gift of grace of charisma, that is, the wholly personal devotion to, and a personal trust in, the revelations, heroism, or other leadership qualities of an individual.” I had not thought about our political system as being one that functions on trust in the leadership of a charismatic individual, in those exact terms, but it definitely makes sense the way Weber lays it out, especially when you consider how much the personal appearance of candidates matters to the public these days. Back when Weber gave this lecture, we didn’t have televised debates yet, but as soon as candidates began appearing on our screens, appearance began to play a significant role in the public’s confidence in a candidate. Though Weber does not specifically mention appearance as being a part of the charismatic justification for rule, I believe that he might have included this in his list if he was aware of just how image conscious society would become. In that regard, charisma was an apt word choice. According to WordWeb, a dictionary/thesaurus program I’ve installed on my computer, “charisma” is “a personal attractiveness or interestingness that enables you to influence others.” This definition certainly encompasses the qualities Weber laid forth of revelations, heroism and leadership qualities, but it also leaves room for appearance and rhetoric, which are such large parts of how we now tend to think of charisma.

The other thing I found interesting in Weber’s justifications for rule is that he does not attempt to address good and bad rulers. Many rulers who fit into one of the three categories of justification have turned out to be poor leaders. Hereditary rule simply cannot produce a good ruler every time. Examples of this can be found in every royal and/or imperial family throughout history. Charismatic rule is just as fallible. To go for the extreme example, Hitler was an extremely charismatic ruler who inspired “the wholly personal devotion” and “personal trust” in his followers that Weber outlines in his description of the justification for charismatic rule. His third category of a legal justification for “servants of the state” is just as prone to corruption. A person in one of these roles may follow orders and carry out their duties, but the motivation behind such service is always open to question. I realize that the point of Weber’s lecture was not necessarily to discuss what made a good politician and how to avoid corruption, but that he was trying to show the seriousness and importance of making the decision to make a career of politics, however, I just found it interesting that a justification for rule does not necessarily mean a good ruler.

Es gibt ein Weber, er ist lustig! Lauf, Weber, lauf.

I find it odd that the part of Weber's talk which has become most well-known, his formulation of the state as possessor of a monopoly on the means of violence, is hardly the focus of his attention in this piece. Last semester, I took a class that was basically founded on that definition; it's jarring to see it in its original, less critical context.

Weber's brew is heady, and it delivers a metaphysical shock to the system of Western ethics. His knowledge of "Occidental" belief systems is impressive, and he applies it with gusto to any question that might arise. While this all makes for very interesting reading, it begs the question of whether Weber really felt that change was attainable. He saw in Germany a basically stagnant system, one where officials focused on the importance of experience over ability and plotted to prevent younger men from entering the political sphere and usurping some of their power. If this is so, what was his purpose in giving this talk?

More importantly, what's this all got to do with Dune? Weber's model of the feudal system doesn't carry over well into the Imperium, since vassals to the Emperor clearly feel little in the way of loyalty. Moreover, the O.C. Bible renders Weber's comments on ethics seemingly obsolete, as it erases all those commandments which lead inexorably to equivocation and replaces them with one that is at once all-encompassing and, conveniently, completely removed from external judgment.

However, I see no problem with desert power as a metaphor for monopoly on the means of violence. In fact, much like I imagine Weber loved the sound of his own voice, I get a thrill when I say desert power. It sounds sleek and dangerous. Air power, land power, whatever! We can win Arrakis through a monopoly on the means of desert violence, and sandworms.

Sorry if this degraded in seriousness a bit. I can't help but find Weber to be a little too self-congratulatory in his rhetoric. The reference to desert power stands, though. Paul could have stayed in the desert with the Fremen planting stuff, but he felt it critical to his leadership that he challenge the Emperor and become the true master of Arrakis.

So then, a fair question: what kind of politico is Paul? Is he one of the ones who lives in politics, or just somebody who dips his hand in when he finds it convenient? What is the true form of his Weltanschauung? He grounds his Herrschaft in twin, opposing themes of destiny and ancestral right (the future versus the past!) It's a certainty that ancestral right is a strong component of Dune, as ninety generations implies a fair amount of status attached to your birth. Yet in going beyond other men, he loses the ability to care for them that makes him such an effective leader.

I'm ashamed of myself, but some weeks there are no computer programs, poems, or brilliant tie-ins to the election. There's just pages and pages of raw political theory to sift through, and not a spaceship or sentient machine in sight. I guess Weber wasn't all that visionary.