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Abstract
While contemporary communication theorists often avoid the concept of charisma due to its status as an ineffable mystical quality or a natural knack for persuasion, this essay argues that charisma is rather a technē. Using Max Weber's theory of charisma to analyze the major works of the famous community organizer Saul Alinsky, this study seeks to 1) revitalize charisma as a practicable rhetorical strategy, 2) define community organization as one variety of charismatic praxis, and 3) establish Alinsky as an overlooked figure in recent rhetorical history.
Notes
[1] For an overview of communication perspectives on charisma from this period, see George P. Boss, “Essential Attributes of the Concept of Charisma,” Southern Speech Communication Journal 41 (1976): 300–13; J. Louis Campbell, “Jimmy Carter and the Rhetoric of Charisma,” Central States Speech Journal 30 (1979): 174–86; J. Michael Hogan and Glen Williams, “Republican Charisma and the American Revolution: The Textual Persona of Thomas Paine's Common Sense,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 86 (1978): 1–18; Richard R. Fagen, “Charismatic Authority and the Leadership of Fidel Castro,” Western Political Quarterly 18 (1965): 275–84; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “On Heroic Leadership,” Encounter 15 (1960): 3–11; and Edward Shils, “Charisma, Order and Status,” The American Sociological Review 30 (1965): 199–213.
[2] For etymological accounts of the word charisma, see Larry R. Overstreet, “Understanding Charisma Through Its History,” Central States Speech Journal 29 (1978): 275–82 and Joseph A. Raelin, “The Myth of Charismatic Leaders,” T + D 57.3 (2003): 46–54.
[3] Overstreet, “Understanding Charisma Through Its History,” 276.
[4] See Overstreet, “Understanding Charisma Through Its History,”, 281. For Aquinas, it was the charisms (gifts from God) that enabled the Christian speaker to properly illuminate the truths of the gospel for the audience. Conversely, the ability to illuminate those truths was taken as evidence that one had indeed been “gifted,” and thus the speaker was seen as deserving of his pedagogical authority.
[5] Todd V. Lewis, “Charisma and Media Evangelists: An Explication and Model of Communication Influence,” Southern Communication Journal 54 (1988): 94.
[6] Hogan and Williams, “Republican Charisma and the American Revolution,” 2.
[7] LeRoy E. Bowman, “Community Organization,” American Journal of Sociology 35 (1930): 1002–1009.
[8] Robert P. Lane, “What is ‘Community Organization’?” Social Service Review 13 (1939): 704.
[9] There are certainly other ways that community organizations come into being that contrast the characterization offered in this essay and in Alinsky's works. By community organization, I mean the formalized and institutionalized political action that is embodied by cooperatives like ACORN or the Industrial Areas Foundation.
[10] Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals (New York, NY: Vintage, 1989).
[11] Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (New York, NY: Vintage, 1989).
[12] See Ryan Lizza, “The Agitator,” The New Republic. 19 March 2007. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/bobamasunlikelypoliticaledu.html. Lizza notes that during Obama's training in community organization, “his teachers were schooled in a style of organizing devised by Saul Alinsky.” Lizza describes in detail how the young Obama was thoroughly dedicated to the Alinsky method. However, presidential candidate Obama disagreed with Alinsky's occasional marginalization of rhetoric, explaining to Lizza that “Sometimes the tendency in community organizing of the sort done by Alinsky was to downplay the power of words and ideas where in fact ideas and words are pretty powerful,” in Obama's 1988 article entitled “Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City,” (Illinois Issues (Aug. 1988): 1–4. 14 Sept. 2012. http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/WHY_ORGANIZE.pdf) he described his leadership and pedagogical work for the Developing Communities Project and the Gamaliel Foundation, two organizations that are loosely affiliated with Alinsky's own Industrial Areas Foundation. See also Hank De Zutter, “What Makes Obama Run?” Chicago Reader 1995. 14 Sept. 2012 http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/what-makes-obama-run/Content?oid = 889221. De Zutter quotes a tantalizing question that Obama asked in an interview: “What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer […], as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them?” Lizza, too, corroborates the idea that candidate Obama “define[s] himself as a ‘community organizer’ above all else,” “linking himself to America's radical democratic tradition and presenting himself as an heir to a particular political style and methodology that, at least superficially, contrasts sharply with the candidate Obama has become.”
[13] Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, Ed. S.N. Eisenstadt (Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1968).
[14] Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, Ed. S.N. Eisenstadt (Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1968), 46.
[15] Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, Ed. S.N. Eisenstadt (Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P, 1968), 48.
[16] The masculine pronoun is used throughout this essay in relation to the organizer. This decision is not meant to deny the existence of many women who are organizers, but simply to grammatically parallel the quotations from Alinsky and Weber, all of which classify the organizer/charismatic as a man.
[17] The masculine pronoun is used throughout this essay in relation to the organizer. This decision is not meant to deny the existence of many women who are organizers, but simply to grammatically parallel the quotations from Alinsky and Weber, all of which classify the organizer/charismatic as a man., 49.
[18] The masculine pronoun is used throughout this essay in relation to the organizer. This decision is not meant to deny the existence of many women who are organizers, but simply to grammatically parallel the quotations from Alinsky and Weber, all of which classify the organizer/charismatic as a man., 49.
[19] Janice M. Beyer, “Taming and Promoting Charisma to Change Institutions,” Leadership Quarterly 10 (1999): 310.
[20] Marta B. Calás, “Deconstructing Charismatic Leadership: Re-Reading Weber from the Darker Side,” Leadership Quarterly 4 (1993): 312.
[21] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 52.
[22] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 50.
[23] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 52.
[24] H.M. Trice and J.M. Beyer, “Charisma and its Routinization in Two Social Movement Organizations,” Research in Organizational Behavior 8 (1986): 119.
[25] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 49.
[26] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 20.
[27] Stephen Turner, “Charisma Reconsidered,” Journal of Classical Sociology 3, issue 5 (2003): 20.
[28] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 54.
[29] Patricia L. Wasielewski, “The Emotional Basis of Charisma,” Symbolic Interaction 8 (1985): 211.
[30] Calás, “Deconstructing Charismatic Leadership,” 317.
[31] Beyer, “Taming and Promoting Charisma,” 315.
[32] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, xviii–xix.
[33] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 72–80.
[34] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 54.
[35] Kenneth L.M. Pray, “When is Community Organization Social Work Practice?” Journal of Community Practice 11, issue 3 (2004): 98
[36] Robert Fisher and Eric Shragge, “Challenging Community Organizing,” Journal of Community Practice 8, issue 3 (2000): 4.
[37] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 91.
[38] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 61.
[39] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 48.
[40] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 10.
[41] The ideological leanings of the organization are indicated by the fact that Alinsky does not even acknowledge the possibility of the conservative organization. Organizations seek radical change, conservatives are opposed to radical change, and therefore any conservative organization is deemed an inauthentic one—a product of a false consciousness that misinterprets social reality (recall, some progressive criticisms of the Tea Party). For example, in 2009, Rep. Pelosi of California claimed that the Tea Party is “not really a grassroots movement, we call it Astroturf—it's Astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = P44q7Jt68DA For a detailed challenge to the general assumption that charisma necessarily exists in radical opposition to the status quo, See Charlotta Levay's “Charismatic Leadership in Resistance to Change,” Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010): 127–43. She offers numerous examples that show charisma is also a common phenomenon in conservative politics.
[42] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 132–33.
[43] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 120.
[44] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 161.
[45] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 90.
[46] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 21.
[47] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 89.
[48] See Wasielewski's “The Emotional Basis of Charisma” for a discussion of the tension between the theory of individual charisma and interactional charisma.
[49] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 63.
[50] Lewis, “Charisma and Media Evangelists,” 102.
[51] J. Louis Campbell, “Jimmy Carter and the Rhetoric of Charisma,” Central States Speech Journal 30 (1979): 178.
[52] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 187.
[53] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 103.
[54] Donald C. Reitzes and Dietrich C. Reitzes, “Alinsky Reconsidered: A Reluctant Community Theorist,” Social Science Quarterly 63 (1982): 272.
[55] Donald C. Reitzes and Dietrich C. Reitzes, “Alinsky Reconsidered: A Reluctant Community Theorist,” Social Science Quarterly 63 (1982): 272.
[56] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, xix.
[57] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, xxi–xxii.
[58] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 89.
[59] This emphasis on the productivity of the crisis is echoed by former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanual's now famous quotation that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
[60] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 116.
[61] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 15.
[62] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 118.
[63] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 118.
[64] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 16.
[65] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 78.
[66] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 78.
[67] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 130.
[68] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 76.
[69] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 77.
[70] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 70.
[71] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 93.
[72] Plato, “Phaedrus,” Plato: Complete Works, eds. John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (New York, Hackett, 1997), 548.
[73] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 111.
[74] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 115.
[75] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 45.
[76] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 106.
[77] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 106.
[78] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 106.
[79] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 161.
[80] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 49.
[81] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 49.
[82] Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, 22–23.
[83] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 99.
[84] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 74.
[85] Beyers’ study makes the important observation that in most work from organizational psychologists, charisma is often characterized as too wild for organizational and corporate life. Although it is recognized as useful in these contexts, there is significant hand-wringing over how charisma can be “tamed” to ensure the stability of the institution.
[86] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 194–95.
[87] Craig R. Smith, The Quest for Charisma: Christianity and Persuasion (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000), 186.
[88] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 155–59.
[89] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 155.
[90] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, NY: Continuum, 2002), 67.
[91] See Samantha Wehbi and Brynn Enros, “Teaching Community Organizing,” Journal of Community Practice 13 (2005): 93–106. The authors explain the utility of critical pedagogy in teaching future organizers.
[92] Caleb Corkery, “Rhetoric of Race: Critical Pedagogy Without Resistance,” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 36 (2009): 244–56.
[93] Caleb Corkery, “Rhetoric of Race: Critical Pedagogy Without Resistance,” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 36 (2009): 251.
[94] Caleb Corkery, “Rhetoric of Race: Critical Pedagogy Without Resistance,” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 36 (2009): 251.
[95] “Interview with Saul Alinsky.” Originally published in Playboy magazine, 1972. Available on The Progress Report. 2003. http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky2.htm
[96] Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 122.
[97] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 84.
[98] Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 134.
[99] See Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 25–47.
[100] See Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 25.
[101] See Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 25.