Sociology

At the time of DuBois the African Americans were segregated not just by their color, but also by the caste, white America wanted to keep the African Americans poor and used segregation and discrimination to do it.  Since the 1950s and 1960s discrimination has fallen under attack and has been deemed unlawful and the color line and segregation were no longer an issue, and yet the African Americans are still in the majority at the lower echelons of the caste system. DuBois felt the discrimination of his race on a daily basis.  He was well educated, holding a PhD and spoke several languages and yet could not get a job as a professor because Universities did not hire African Americans to teach their children. The fact is that much of this type of discrimination still lives within the African American culture. DuBois overcame this type of discrimination by serving both race as was deemed appropriate, and yet he never went against his beliefs.  Others tried to be like DuBois in his balancing act, but none were as successful. Today there are more options than ever for the African American but the creation of a separate African American culture by the intellectual African Americans has turned on them and recreated a type of segregation.

The fact that DuBois did so much to give rise to the African American intellectual seems to be ignored by the newly separated African American culture within the United States.  The African American people fought so hard to win the acceptance of the government and their equality only to create a separate culture with their own media, journals and such.  They have isolated themselves after years of trying to gain equality.  The African American intellects have strived to continue on their journey to equality but many of the intellectuals have outgrown their African American culture.  This seems to show that even today the majority of the African Americans are living in their own culture, and yet those African American intellectuals they espouse live them behind and live within the colorblind reality of the rest of America.

Max Weber Summary
Max Weber was a well-known advocate of political economy, and professor at the University of Heidelberg, prior to his breakdown.  He never completely recovered from his breakdowns, but his most spectacular work came after giving up his teaching job and focusing on the religious and social influences on the economy.  In fact, The Protestant Ethics was used to explain the correlation between the Protestant religion and capitalism.  Elizabeth Kolbert, in her essay about Weber, Why Work describes the world of Weber in a way that people were not motivated to work harder if they got paid more money.  In fact it was the opposite.  The workers only worked enough to get the pay that they were accustomed to getting.  Weber knew this and used Martin Luther and John Calvin and their Protestant and Puritan views to explain the motivation of work and earning money.  These two religions believed in working hard and saving money to create their own wealth.  This was the actions that Weber was trying to teach.  He wanted people to be motivated to work and save, but the economy and society of his day was the exact opposite. Unfortunately, Weber lost favor when his ideas took a strange turn and no society could live up to his economic agenda, however, even without following his plan, the economies around the world is succeeding.

It seems that Weber made good use of his time recuperating from his breakdowns, but one must wonder just how much of the work was created during his mental break and how much was truly based on his research through his life.  There are many aspects that seem to be considered logical and rational, however, there are other aspects, such as beau racy being a good thing that leaves the reader wondering just how rational this man truly was.  He obviously was in a loveless marriage and this may have allowed him the time to create his theories, but the questioning of the logical ramifications of the theories leave much to be desired, hence the fact that Weber is no longer considered a viable expert, but a historical view of the religious and economic past.

Charisma Summary
The word charisma has been used through out the 20th and 21st centuries to explain leaders and celebrities. Through the last half of the 20th century the word has be exploited and used incorrectly to the point that the true meaning is lost to the rest of the world.  Philip Rieff began writing about charisma in the 1970s but did not complete the manuscript until just before his death in 2005, meaning that parts are somewhat out of date, but the foundation of the book is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.  Todays modern definer of charisma, Allan Bloom, follows the thought of charisma being initially a religious idea that was secularized and exploited becoming something that was no longer special, but an every day occurrence. The concept of a religious charisma was based on the obedience of the divine powers.  Max Weber, however, pulled charisma into the secular world by redefining the word to mean a person that has the ability to influence others to their own will.  Rieff used his understanding of the true meaning of charisma being religious in basis and tried to pull the concept back to religion and the people of the world back to faith.  His theory was that everything had become evil and that until all was made right again, and then the evil would win and annihilate the world.

Rieff does seem to be a bit on the apocalyptic side of life, with his threats and warnings about the evil and fallen angels taking over the world.  The fact that charisma is taken into the secular society does take away from its original meaning but it does not mean that the world will end.  Charisma, religiously, means the act of being righteous and following the higher powers rules and orders.  Secularly it means being influenced by another person.  The definition only changed in the who is influencing man rather than what is the theme of the influence.  It would seem that some religious rulers would have used their charisma to get their followers to act in ways that they, as humans, deemed expected by the higher power.  The same thing happens with charismatic leaders today.  They tell society what is needed.  Then society, at least the majority, usually does it.  Understanding this basic and very subtle difference may or may not make a difference, but either way, charisma will continue to influence people and societies.