While similar to and clearly influenced by Marx, from the start Max Weber recognized that religious practices could condition economic foundation of society and vice versa. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ([1905] 1958), Weber argued that the emergence of Protestantism in the sixteenth century was a necessary precondition for the rise of modern rational capitalism in the seventeenth century, but that modern rational capitalism was only one of many possible economic systems that could have arisen. Rather than Protestantism causing modern rational capitalism, Weber argued that there was an “elective affinity” between Protestantism and modern rational capitalism. Thus, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism illustrates two of the most characteristic elements of Weber’s research. First, rather than make general proclamations about religion, Weber was more concerned with the origin and function of specific religions in specific historical contexts. Second, Weber’s approach is less determinative than Marx’s, instead emphasizing the vagaries of historical processes. As such, Weber’s approaches are not as easily gener-alizable as Marx’s. Weber’s approaches inspire rather than strictly codify research on religion. Where Marxist and neo-Marxist scholars argue that religion does this or that, Weber argues that religion may do this or that, depending on the specific historical context in which it is practiced.
Perhaps the most emblematic and, in some sense, simple element of Weber’s approach is his recognition that attempts at legitimacy may or may not succeed (Weber 1978:31-38, 212-215). Following Weber, it is important to distinguish legitimations (attempts at legitimacy) from domination or legitimacy (the state in which a broader population accepts one group’s legitimations as valid). In contrast to Weber, Marxists and neo-Marxists often assume, prima facie, that religion successfully legitimizes domination, promotes false consciousness, and reinforces hegemony. Today, we know that this simple understanding of domination is false. In numerous cases—liberation theology in South America, for example, or the civil rights movement in the United States—religion legitimized resistance. When examining other cases—roadside shrines memorializing traffic fatalities, for instance—it does not seem that legitimization of elite authority plays any significant role at all. As such, Weber’s concepts of legitimations and legitimacy are more dynamic and useful than false consciousness, domination, and hegemony—if only because legitimations are actions that people do, actions that can fail. The difference in perspective between Weber and Marx can best be illustrated through an examination of how Weber explained the establishment of new religions and political movements.
For Weber, the routinization of charisma is a process by which a charismatic leader of a new social movement, such as the Buddha, is transformed into a legitimizing figure of domination. Initially, charismatic leaders challenge the existing social norms and power structures of the society by creating relationships with his or her followers that are “strictly personal” (Weber 1978:246). These relationships, however, are unstable in the long run. With the death of the charismatic leader, the relationships inevitably deteriorate. In order for the community to persist, something must be done to reintegrate the radical social movement into broader social traditions. This, of course, necessitates changes in the community of people who follow the original leader, as well as modifications to the social order from which it originally diverged.
As conceived by Weber (1978), the routinization of charisma is a process by which a subversive ideology and leader are transformed into a legitimizing ideology of authority. The followers of the charismatic leader can establish new rules of legitimate succession (e. g., hereditary). They can codify the teachings and appoint certain individuals to legitimately adjudicate disputes over these teachings. They can identify locations associated with the charismatic leader and control access to these locations. In this sense, all of the techniques that people employ to routinize charisma are legitimations—attempts by certain groups of followers to attain legitimacy through association with the original charismatic leader. The act of transferring the authority of a charismatic leader, however, cannot be assumed to be either simple or uncontested. Groups who oppose the rou-tinization of a charismatic leader and divergent groups within the leader’s followers compete and contest different attempts at routinization. As with any legitimation, attempts to routinize charisma can fail.
Weber’s understanding of routinization concords well with what is known of the history of Indian Buddhism.4 In Indian Buddhism, kings, commoners, and divergent Buddhist sects all competed to be the rightful heirs to the charisma of the Buddha. At different times and in different places, different groups of Buddhists gained or lost legitimacy, gained or lost the authority that association with the Buddha could confer. For this reason, I find Weber’s approach to legitimization more valuable than
Marxist or neo-Marxist approaches. Throughout the following analysis, I use legitimations to refer to the attempts by some to legitimize their position vis-a-vis the Buddha. I use legitimacy to describe those times when specific legitimations were successful.
If archaeologists decide to study legitimization, what sorts of methods and material evidence should they employ? What sorts of evidence can they use to determine how or if legitimization was employed in the past? First, following Weber, I argue that the archaeologists should initially seek to identify legitimations—attempts at legitimacy, rather than legitimacy itself. The construction of a temple is a legitimation by whoever builds it. Whether that legitimation succeeds is another question, requiring further evidence and interpretation. But what sorts of evidence can archaeologists use to initially identify whether a specific material trace is a legitimation in archaeological contexts?
In an extended study of ancient ceremonial architecture in coastal Peru, Jerry Moore (1996:2) argued that “public buildings are physical testimonies of the use of power.” Following a practice perspective, Moore suggests that ceremonial architecture did not simply reflect authority; it was instrumental in creating authority. Though Moore does not use the term himself, archaeologists can productively view public buildings as legitimations. Moore employed five material criteria to evaluate how, and if, ceremonial structures legitimized elite authority (Moore 1996:139-141):
PERMANENCE: Is the structure made of durable (e. g., stone) or less durable (e. g., wood) materials?
CENTRALITY (pROXiMiTY): In order for legitimization to occur, people should locate a religious structure in a position associated with the people being legitimized—adjacent to a palace or in the capital city, for example. Moore refers to this as centrality, though I prefer proximity (see discussion in text).
UBIQUITY: The construction of buildings in multiple locations throughout a territory can also serve to legitimize domination (e. g., parish churches in every village).
SCALE: The larger the structure, the more it will legitimize the person or people who constructed it.
VISIBILITY: A religious structure should be visible to those people from whom acquiescence to authority is desired.
Each of Moore’s criteria could be analyzed and unpacked. For example, visibility does not mean that everyone must be able to enter and view the entire structure. The elite can reinforce authority by restricting access to sacred places—but only if everyone knows it and can see it. It might even be the case, paradoxically, that as rituals of legitimization become more exclusive and secret, religious structures would require larger, more prominent facades (Fogelin 2008c). Centrality, to my mind, is somewhat of a misnomer. While building a temple next to a king’s palace in the capital would associate the king with the divine, a king might also build prominent structures adjacent to an isolated cult center. Here a king attempts to legitimate himself through association with a pre-existing center of religious importance. For this reason, I prefer to substitute the term “proximity” for “centrality” in Moore’s criteria. That is, legitimations should serve to associate an authority with the divine.
Moore never intended his criteria to be exhaustive, nor were all criteria necessary for a past structure to be considered a legitimation. In Japan, for example, the royalty often constructed important imperial temples of wood. Similarly, other criteria could easily be added. Exclusivity, for example, seems to be a critical element of Buddhist monastic 1 egitimations. The point here is that legitimations leave material traces in the archaeological record—material traces that archaeologists can employ to study legitimations in the past.
World History
