The Disenchantment of Charisma

The problem of charisma in the works of Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract

This paper tries to reconstruct how Pierre Bourdieu interpreted, criticized, reformulated and integrated the notion of Weberian charisma into his sociological analyses. The French sociologist had already in his early works put charisma at the service of understanding symbolic efficacy, interpreting it as symbolic capital, the possession of which is a condition for the exercise of symbolic domination. Bourdieu also attributed a role to charisma as symbolic capital in the reproduction of social inequalities in modern times, for example in the sociology of schooling and cultural sociology, where a naturalised understanding of ability is of great importance. In addition, Bourdieu was inspired by the Weberian type of official charisma: it is in the linguistic, symbolic elements of the public representation of power that he shows the symbolic effectiveness of the institutional charisma of those in power, and at the same time the political alienation of those represented. Bourdieu invokes the Weberian ideal of prophetic charisma to explain social change and symbolic revolutions: regarding Manet, he shows the subversive habitus - understood as charismatic by the professional and lay public - which can be symbolically effective under the right social conditions, especially the expectation of change. Here (also) Bourdieu criticises and ‚corrects’ Weber’s theory of charisma: in the Manet lectures, he links charisma with his own sociological terms (field, habitus, capital, etc.) and charisma thus ‚disenchanted’ is now compatible with Bourdieu’s sociological vision.