Journalist as Professional Politician ----By：Ling Man Abstract: Along with the development of politics, "charisma","demagogue", "statesman" and "professional politician" appeared consequently. According to "Politics as a Vocation" by Max Weber, "the journalist as a type of professional politician harks back to a rather considerable past". Why was journalist labeled "professional politician" when they seemed impartial in surface? This paper holds a tentative view that journalist came into existence because of the delegation and specialization of dominator's authority to lower levels, based on descriptions in Max Weber's "Politics as a Vocation". Key words: politics, demagogue, professional politician, Chapter One Introduction Instead of perceiving it in a broad sense, Max Weber wished to understand politics only through leadership, or the influencing of the leadership, of an association-a state. In his famous lecture "Politics as A Vocation", he defined "politics" as "striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state." (Para.4, the last sentence "Politics as a Vocation" Max Weber, 1919) The use of violence plays an important part in the birth and maintenance of a state. "Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." (Para.4, line7, "Politics as a Vocation" Max Weber, 1919) According to the above definition, we know that a state is founded and maintained by successful manipulation of force. Karl Marx, also a famous socialist explained state as the consequence of conflicts among different classes in a society. Both theories showed that every state is founded on force and force is a main supporting block of a state. Although force is indispensable to a state, it is not the only supporting block of a state. "Politics is the art of compromise and decision making based on social benefits weighted against costs." (Para.6, line 1, "Politics as a Vocation" Max Weber, 1919) Now that politics is a kind of art to deal with relations between people, it asks for some emotional strategies to balance different social benefits in all social sectors. The dominator would be questioned since he got the state by using violence. In the attempt to gain people's trust and obedience, he needs convincible and reasonable explanations of his power. Also, building a dominator's prestige is necessary in order to implement policies fluently. For these two functions, influence of leadership is more important for maintaining and governing the state especially in peacetime. From the above, we can see that besides force, influence of leadership plays an indispensable role in keeping healthy relations between groups within or among states. Force and influence of leadership are the two main means in politics. Chapter Two Charisma in Early "Rule of Man" Societies We can see the combination of striving to share power and striving to influence the distribution of power on the charisma in early "rule of man" societies. "Charisma" is a person with high prestige among people; he won trust of people by his virtue, personal seduction, extraordinary talents or anything else. Tracing back into history, three basic legitimate of domination-"traditional" "charisma" and "legal" have been concluded by Max Weber. To most of his interest, he focused on the "charisma". "Domination by virtue of the devotion of those who obey the purely personal 'charisma' of the 'leader', for this is the root of the idea of calling in its highest expression." (Para.9, line5, "Politics as a Vocation" Max Weber, 1919) Who can be those charismas? On one hand, people like magicians and the prophets in primitive society or slave society. Take the story of Oedipus in Greek Mythology as example; we saw the power of magician, prophet and oracle of Delphi. The mythologies does reflect that there was a person who governed people's mind at that time and whatever the person did or said would have great influence among people. They used their influences to dominate the state. On the other hand, the elected war lord, the gang leader and condotierre became the following charismas. Their military power made the public obeyed them, while their order would be implemented without doubt. These magicians and prophets got leadership influence by their talent and then rule people with kind of force to some extend. Such as taboos and superstitions which forbidden or encourage people to do certain things or not in ancient time. Through this way, they influenced the distribution of power and then shared power. However, elected war lord, gang leader or condotierre shared power by force; based on that, they practiced their influence on distribution of power. Chapter Three Demagogue in City State In the soil of the city state, the original democratic systemappeared. Demagogueborn in this system shows the tendency of separation between striving to share power and striving to influence the distribution of power. I think that is why Max Weber said"Political leadership in the form of the free 'demagogue' who grew from the soil of the city state is of great concern to us." (Para.13, line 4, "Politics as a Vocation" Max Weber, 1919) Take democratic system in Athens as an example. Not oligarchy, but the ecclesia ruled the state in name. Although the archons (chief rulers) and aristocracy shared much of the power, ordinary people enjoyed more political right than before. For instance, the famous banishment by ostracism in Athens, which shows decisions could be made by all the citizens. Since archons were elected by ecclesia and the decentralized authority, he didn't need to pay as much effort in force as his ancestors did in his striving to share power on one hand; on the other, he needed to improve his influence among people in order to win their votes. "Not Coleon (a famous archon in ancient democracy of Athens-the author added) but Pericles( the archon leaded Athens to the peak of Democracy-the author added) was the first to bear the name of demagogue. In contrast to the offices of ancient democracy that were filled by lot, Pericles led the sovereign Ecclesia of the demos of Athens as a supreme strategist holding the only elective office or without holding any office at all." (Para.43, line 18,"Politics as a Vocation"-Max weber). What's more, it is recorded in A Short History of the World by H. G. Welsh. "During the long time in Pericles' administration, inspiring by the freedom in Athens political system, debating skill was attached high importance. Decisions were not made by the king or priest, but the debate between members in ecclesia and great people. " (P97, Para.2, line 1, A Short History of the World, Anhui People Press) Since his share of power depended more on his leadership influence and striving to influence the distribution of power, advocacy and agitation turned out to be indispensable abilities of the archons. For the above reason, we can firstly see abundant of public speeches with agitation were given in Athens. Secondly, in order to make the speeches more attractive and convincing, efforts were taken to polish words. Therefore, we can see "Grammar" "Rhetoric" "dialectics" in the seven subjects of Ancient Greece. Demos admired these abilities while the demagogues are good at them. These explained why "sophist" owned that much respect from demos, especially people who want to hold more political power in hand. Archons needed consultation from "sophist" or in this field. Some "sophist" turned to be demagogues in the end. At the latter part of Athens, there were skillful politicians who advocated misleading information to help himself or his promoter to win election in ecclesia. Their actions and shares of power leaded to the democracy fading in Athens. From this part of history, we can see the sharply increasing power of public pressure. At least, from the aspect of demagogue, we can see the gradually separation of striving to share power and striving to influence the distribution of power. But because some of the demagogue like Pericles held political power at the same time, instead of saying the two strivings were separated, we can only say that there was a great tendency of it. Chapter Four Statesman in developed "rule of man" Society When we have seen the tendency of separation about two strivings of rulers, I think statesman like "humanist Chinese statesmen" in the last period of the 'warring states' was the prototype of professional politician. Max Weber said, "They arose first in the service of a prince. They have been men who, unlike the charismatic leader, have not wished to be lords themselves, but who have entered the service of political lords. " (Para.18, line16, "Politics as a Vocation, Max Weber) Statesman had no share of power, but just served as consultants of governor. Usually they were higher educated, and their suggestions played an important role in decisions of the prince. Their talent was not for striving share of power since they had not directly control the state, but striving of influence the distribution of power since their profession was helping the prince to win and rule the state. They were groups of people who took politics as their only profession and they were "professional politician" who showed the fact that striving to share power and striving to influence the distribution of power was separated. In a word, when came to this time, there were politicians who just striving to influence the distribution of power. Actually they were taking over part of the work which should be done by prince, the biggest politician, originally. What's more, their talent and humanist education made them qualified in this political profession. Chapter Five Professional politician in "Rule of Law" State The actual "professional politician" has turned up and divided into "administrative officials" and "political officials" in modern state while a group of "political officials" became what we call "journalist". I think it was the delegation of ruler's authority that led to the division of professional politicians. Tasks in both striving to share power and striving to influence the distribution of power began to be accomplished by two groups of "professional politician". "Administrative officials" took the responsibility of striving to share power while "political officials" were supposed to striving to influence the distribution of power. Max Weber gave the following explanation of this phenomenon "The development of politics into an organization which demanded training in the struggle for power, and in the methods of this struggle as developed by modern party policies, determined the separation of public functionaries into two categories, which, however, are by no means rigidly but nevertheless distinctly separated. These categories are 'administrative officials' on the one hand, and 'political officials' on the other hand." (Para.31, line 1, Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation") The further development of politics into an organization which demanded training in the struggle for power, has leaded to more specific division of labor in each of the two groups of professional politician. In the group of "political officials" who were supposed to striving to influence the distribution of power, jurists and journalists appeared. As for jurists, Weber said, "Everywhere the revolution of political management in the direction of the evolving rational state has been borne by trained jurists." (Para.38, line 2, Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation") "Trained jurists are peculiar to the Occident, especially to the European continent, and have been of decisive significance for the continent's whole political structure." (Para.38, line 4, Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation") From these extracts, we can see that jurists directly join the decision of political structure. Unlike jurists who answer to the core politicians, journalists are answering to the public in order to deliver information from the core politicians. They give speeches and using printed words through broadcast, television, newspaper and Publication. The influence of journalist is anytime and anywhere. Journalist is a profession which requires at least as much "genius" as scholars when considering the necessity of producing at once and "on order" as well as the necessity of being effective. According to Max Weber, "They are modern demagoguery also makes use of oratory, even to a tremendous extent. But the use of printed word is more enduring. The political publicist, and above all the journalist, is nowadays the most important representative of the demagogic species." (Para.43, the last 4 lines, Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation") Based on Max Weber's two ways of making politics one's vocation that either one lives for politics or one lives off politics. I divided journalist into two groups. Journalists who live for politics take more responsibility of the country and society while those who live off politics have become human failures and worthless men. Chapter Six Conclusion "Charisma","demagogue", "statesman", "professional politician" came into existence gradually. From the process and the above analysis, we can figure out the birth of journalist is to help core politician accomplishing one of his core tasks in professional way. Thus, we can say that journalist is a type of professional politician who came into existence because of the delegation and specialization of leader's authority to lower levels. Bibligraphy: Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation", 1919 H. G. Welsh, A Short History of the World, Anhui People Press, ISBN: 7-212-02324-8 http://baike.baidu.com/view/200809.html Class 6, School of English Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies Title: Journalist as Professional Politician Name: Ling Man Student ID: 20070900103 Date Due: 8th, May Essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Lecture on Culture of Education about Science as a Vocation and Politics as a Vocation. Instructor: Prof. Zhou Fuqiang