Visions of the Past, Courtesy of Weber

This should probably be "Contemplating the Past, Courtesy of Weber" but again, I'm working off a theme and might as well go with it. I liked this lecture, I'm not sure I'd want to sit through it, but it's not a bad read. There's a lot in here to talk about but I'll limit to three interesting bits.
I liked how Weber used examples from other countries. He was very much aware of history, citing examples from the US, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, among others. It was as if he was looking at history up to when he was speaking and advocating a certain forward path based on the lessons he learned from the histories of other countries. As if, hey that worked there, but this didn't do so well over here so let's avoid that and stick to the good stuff. He got to the boss politics of the US but didn't live to see the Depression era movements and the effects of World War 2, much less all the effects of World War 1 on his own country. I wonder what he would have made of the rest of the 20th century.
I also found the distinction between living "for" politics or "from" politics (40-41) very interesting. There is a real danger in each, of course, but we have successfully cultivated a portion of the professional world that does both, and are often the source of the negative stereotypes about politics and politicians. It is interesting that those who live "for" politics have to be economically independent, for Weber, because this certainly applied to the Founding Fathers. Most had farms or businesses that could be left to their own devices or the care of a wife or steward. These days most politicians live "from" and "for" politics, their position's income perhaps supplemented by book sales or lecturing, more likely the latter. I wonder which makes for a better politician, those who live "from", as they have an invested personal interest, or those who live "for", as they would be less swayed by bribes or power dealing.
Lastly, I found his focus on the journalist as an important figure (begins on 55) very interesting. "He belongs to a kind of pariah caste that in the eyes of 'society' is always judged socially by its lowest representatives from the point of view of morality. Hence, the strangest ideas are prevalent about journalists and their work. Not everyone realizes that to write a really good piece of journalism is at least as demanding intellectually as the achievement of any scholar." (55) He really defends journalists and stresses the importance and power they can have. I also found it interesting that he called journalists paid professional politicians and the newspapers "a continuous form of political organization" (60) in British history when "politics came to life only at election time" (60). I hadn't really thought of journalists that way, but it does make sense. They are both seen as pariahs, and certainly some of them are-particularly the recent rise of the paparazzi, and yet do weld certain political power by how and what they report.