Pratap Bhanu Mehta is Contributing Editor at the Indian Express. He has been vice-chancellor of Ashoka University and president, Centre Policy Research, New Delhi, one of India's top think tanks. Before he started engaging with contemporary affairs, he taught political theory at Harvard, and briefly at JNU. He has written extensively on intellectual history, political theory, law, India's social transformation and world affairs. He is the recipient of the Infosys Prize, the Adisheshiah Prize and the Amartya Sen Prize.
Reading 1919 in 2019
What does it mean to be in politics? Weber asked this question — its answer lies in questions that find an echo today
Exactly one hundred years ago, Max Weber published what curiously still remains one of the few ruminations that touch on the subject: ‘Politics as a Vocation’. Though published in July 1919, the lecture was delivered in January to Free Students Union at the University of Munich, against the backdrop of immense political upheaval: Germany’s defeat in World War I, the spectre of Bolshevism, political assassinations and deep scepticism about parliamentary democracy. This was a companion piece to Weber’s famous essay, ‘Science as a Vocation’. Both essays had a common thread: What does it mean to invest a vocation with meaning in an age characterised by disenchantment and rationalisation? What does it mean to take “politics” or “science” both as a profession and as something deeper, a calling? What ethical commitments and character traits do they draw upon?
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario