34 Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume 1
is to claims about Day’s authoritarian streak, “her authoritarian-
ism had little influence on the movement beyond New York.” In
fact, “The one time she seriously tried to assert her authority on a
national level”—the aforementioned effort to force other Worker
communities to adopt a position of absolute pacifism or leave the
movement— “the attempt backfired,” resulting in a rash of defec-
tions by and dissolutions of Worker communities and even the
burning of the New York Catholic Worker.^56
However dictatorial some of Day’s actions during her “long
tenure as charismatic leader” may seem, Piehl is correct to argue
that ultimately “the strength of Day’s leadership was exercised as
much through her role as spiritual writer and exemplar as through
her position as head of the movement.”^57 What I would like to
suggest in evaluating that claim, however, is the utility of making
a further distinction, a distinction between the concepts—both of
which are invoked by Piehl—of “charisma” and “exemplarity.”
Piehl is far from alone in attaching the ideas of charisma and char-
ismatic leadership to Day and to the Worker more generally. Aside
from one full-length study of this connection,^58 it is frequently in-
voked in the secondary literature: Day’s “charismatic leadership”
has been described, for example, as “the glue of the movement,”
at least during her lifetime.^59 Max Weber’s pioneering theory of
charismatic leadership and authority—although it has been sub-
jected to much critique and revision—remains the standard point
of reference in this literature, and for this reason it is most useful
to distinguish the concept of exemplarity from the concept of cha-
risma as understood by Weber.^60
There are at least three important respects in which Weber’s
theory of charisma and the concept of exemplarity would seem
to be in tension. Firstly, Weber’s understanding of charisma puts
emphasis on the perception of special qualities in an exception-
al individual. He describes charisma as “the surrender to the
extraordinary...i.e., actual revelation or grace resting in such a
person as a savior, a prophet, or a hero.”^61 Charismatic leaders are
seen as “the bearers of specific gifts of body and mind” that are so
unusual they are “considered ‘supernatural’ (in the sense that not
everybody could have access to them).”^62 Charisma is thus bound
up with the specific person who bears it—it is “a highly individual