Ordered Passions: Commitment and Hierarchy in the Organizational Ideas of the Jesuit Founders

Abstract

This article explores hierarchy, commitment, order and cognate ideas in the context of one of the most successful religious enterprises of all, the Society of Jesus. It concentrates on its management style and its distinctive understanding of the religious life, in which obedience occupies a pre-eminent place. Hierarchy and obedience were however by no means intended as a substitute for commitment, prudence or operational autonomy on the part of those subject to it. These unfamiliar ways of understanding motivation and organization suggest insights into the way in which contemporary organizations have sought to institute quasi-virtues such as ethics, care and compassion, in order to regulate and control behaviour and performance.