Charisma - What is it and have you got it?

John K said:
I think my views have got lost in the ensuing discussions. I don't see charisma as a binary attribute but along a spectrum, and I think it's made up of a combination of personal attributes and possession by zeitgeist. I should add that I judge whether someone has it in terms of how far they crystalise out as a symbol something that is welling up already in some significant part of their community locally, or in various societies at large.

As you can see, I'm not putting Greta on the same footing as Churchill, but somewhere in the middle of the charisma spectrum, and mainly because she has been possessed by an upwelling of social forces amongst the under 20s concerning climate change - she is more than inspiring them but has come to crystallise and symbolise the cause - the generational fight against climate catastrophe.
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Yeah, hard to disagree with that. 55-60 on CQ scale sounds about right for her.
 
Ren said:
Does CQ mean 'charisma quotient'?
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Yes - I was playing about with this earlier in the thread and came up with these:

John K said:
I think that's absolutely right, and pulling it back on-thread - I think that charisma isn't a 0 or 1 choice, but runs along a spectrum from (say) 0 - 100. Every leader has to have a reasonable amount, unless they are in office in name only, but only the truly greats are up towards the higher numbers, over 70 say. We could have fun assigning a Charisma Quotient to the Great and Good ....
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John K said:
It's so hard to see this clearly among contemporaries, because the story is still unfolding, and it isn't necessarily constant throughout peoples' lives. It may be that the impact of such people isn't seen until after their deaths either. I'd certainly have Augustus Caesar up in the 80s or 90s - he hit the ground running in exactly the right way, at exactly the right time. He was damn lucky as well, and he knew it and knew how to run his luck for all it was worth. Our world owes this guy big-time. He was certainly caught in the zeitgeist of his world, but he channeled it with exquisite mastery. The founders of the world's great religions are very high up there too of course, and have been acknowleged as the personification of charysma by millions of people over thousands of years.

It would be easy to run through the major political heros and anti-heros of our times but that would be a bit cliched. There are others who have had very great but less universal influence.
  • Einstein (CQ70s ?) in later life strikes me as a very charismatic figure, and not just in science - you only have to see the list of quotes from him on Pinterest.
  • Like her or not, Greta Thunberg (CQ60s) has a hell a lot of it - she's more a channel for the climate message, though, than in control of it, and it's problem- rather than solution-focused, but then she's very young. I hope the way this force is channelled through her does not harm her because it's very fierce.
  • I'd also pick revolutionary artists like Turner (CQ60s), or Monet (CQ60s), or Picasso (CQ70s) who changed not only the rather limited style of acceptable art, but the very way we all look and see.
These guys are representative of key shapers in their own fields, and the list could extend.
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John K said:
Yes - I was playing about with this earlier in the thread and came up with these:
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That's certainly an interesting proposal, John. I like the idea of defining charisma as a blend of personal traits and the ability to channel the zeitgeist.

It's also clear that charisma is a spectrum (I feel really bad saying this now!)

According to this definition we would indeed have to say that Greta is at least charismatic to a degree. A consequence of the model that I'm still not sure about, or maybe that I would just have to get used to, is that if there is someone in our environment who seems extremely charismatic, who has near hypnotic presence and is able to command attention etc., but fails to channel the zeitgeist, we would have to say that they are not especially charismatic. But maybe that's fair—because at least with your proposal we have a clear definition in mind.
 
Ren said:
According to this definition we would indeed have to say that Greta is at least charismatic to a degree. A consequence of the model that I'm still not sure about, or maybe that I would just have to get used to, is that if there is someone in our environment who seems extremely charismatic, who has near hypnotic presence and is able to command attention etc., but fails to channel the zeitgeist, we would have to say that they are not especially charismatic. But maybe that's fair—because at least with your proposal we have a clear definition in mind.
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Yes, that is indeed a problem. I would actually weigh the zeitgeist part less than the natural charisma.

So if you are "only" naturally charismatic, the highest CQ you can reach is 80, for example. If you want to get to 100, you need channel the zeitgeist .That would be Martin Luther King, for example. I would give him near perfect score on CQ.

Whereas Greta has the zeitgeist part covered to some extent, but her lack of natural charisma makes her "only" 60.
 
philostam said:
Yes, that is indeed a problem. I would actually weigh the zeitgeist part less than the natural charisma.
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Well, the thing is that the ability to channel the zeitgeist would have to be considered natural charisma as well. I think we would have to consider natural charisma to be equivalent to charisma, otherwise one of your measures of charisma would be circular (i.e. it would already refer to the concept of charisma).

But maybe this isn't such a big problem. We could just say that what you call 'natural charisma' is something like a commanding presence.
 
philostam said:
Let's say:

CQ = (natural charisma x 0.8) + (zeitgeist x 0.2).

We could chose different weighting, ofc. But I would always edge toward weighting natural charisma more.
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Man I love your Ti :grinning:

What would be your rationale for weighting commanding presence more?
 
Ren said:
Man I love your Ti :grinning:

What would be your rationale for weighting commanding presence more?
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Thanks :blush:

Well, first reason is what you already mentioned. The institutional authority. Institutions don't necessarily reward the most charismatic people. It can be a small institution (like a university) or a big one. It doesn't matter.

Also, it's too restrictive to weight zeitgest the same amount. How many people in 20th century really channeled the zeitgeist? Not too many. So normal people can't get a CQ more than 50 if the weighting is equal. That seems unfair.

What about some top sport personalities, like MJ or Kobe Bryant? I find both really charismatic, yet we cannot really say they channeled the zeitgeist in any way. Basketball existed before them.

Etc etc.
 
Also there is an additional problem, which is that "natural charisma" isn't binary, while "channeling the zeitgeist" kinda is. You either did or didn't.

I think this variable needs to be changed. Maybe to something like "success", although that's not perfect either. Being the best basketball player of all time has to give you some points.
 
philostam said:
I think this variable needs to be changed. Maybe to something like "success", although that's not perfect either. Being the best basketball player of all time has to give you some points.
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I think Hos had a suggestion to this effect—'moral force' in his own terms, but which would perhaps best be described as the association of an individual with an entire field, theme or topic. So for MJ it would be basketball; for Thunberg it would be the fight against climate change (which also happens to be the zeitgeist); etc.

That said, it is still very restrictive. It seems to follow that anyone not somehow famous cannot claim to CQ above 50, like you said earlier. So yes, I would agree that commanding presence/'natural charisma' should be weighted more.
 
Leave it to people on the forum to try to come up with a formula.
 
Sandie33 said:
Americans rely on competition and manipulation to gain the advantage. That's competition not charismatic collaberation...but, in hindsight, what did we get by mixing the genetics of a bunch of pirates and convicts with an aboriginal war-minded savage? Yep, an American :D
I'm being cynical of course, lol, I agree, however, if more Americans would agree to disagree and get moving jointly we'd all be much further ahead. ;)
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LOL but they're lovely too <3

Lady Jolanda said:
Greta charismatic? :tearsofjoy:

That's a good one. Thanks for the laugh first thing in the morning.
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But then you've got to laugh too at all the folks who think she is - and there are a lot of them ;)
Quite legit to laugh at teenagers imho .......

Ren said:
That said, it is still very restrictive. It seems to follow that anyone not somehow famous cannot claim to CQ above 50, like you said earlier. So yes, I would agree that commanding presence/'natural charisma' should be weighted more.
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I think this needs to be generalised because zeitgeist is maybe too big a concept to cover all aspects - it might be someone who is a shaper in their family or community and has been carried along by the local vibes.

SpecialEdition said:
Leave it to people on the forum to try to come up with a formula.
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LOL But all in the best possible taste .....

 
Ren said:
Well, Greta is very much a member of our European community, so if there are many members here (including me) who don't find her charismatic, it has to be taken into account. Sassafras, philostam and myself I think would agree that she isn't charismatic.



Let's assume this is true. Then how can you tell that this General Butt Naked is charismatic?

The fact you can tell seems to presuppose a universal commonality that transcends the cultural differences. Otherwise you should have said: "Clearly we Europeans have no idea why this guy is considered charismatic."

Your point doesn't illustrate that he isn't charismatic to us, rather than he is in a visceral sense that we can't quite put into words; i.e. it's not the charisma itself that is culturally specific, it's the expression of it. Which is not very different from philostam's understanding of charisma, it seems to me.

I just think the full implications of your argument must be laid bare: when it comes to someone from an entirely different culture, it ought to be impossible to 'us' to tell whether they are charismatic.

But both Greta (within our culture) and this Butt Naked guy (outside our culture) seem to be counter-examples rather than corroborating evidence, unless we say that we can simply derive their charisma from their following and influence. But that doesn't work because their following could be due to any number of factors other than charisma.
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The followers/following.

We know them by the effects of charisma.
 
Fucking Ti, lol. I don't think I've ever seen two people get misled by a function so much.
(Just kidding, I think this is fun)

John K said:
I think that this is a significant issue in the discussion - you and @sassafras seem to be only accepting as charismatic what you yourselves experience as such. That's a perfectly acceptable position, but it can lead you to make significant misjudgements in the behaviour of large numbers of people. That's because charisma is in the eye of the beholder and there are millions of people who find ghastly Greta very charismatic indeed - the same is true of many a politician. I have approached charisma really as an objective phenomena and tried to express what it is regardless of whether I myself find someone charismatic. It's perfectly rational to define it only in subjective terms instead, but the trouble with that is it can then lead to an inability to understand what motivates a very large number of people who take an alternative view about someone with great influence. America has polarised politically because of this and the fracture cannot heal until each side can see the world from the other side's shoes as well as their own - that doesn't mean agreeing with it but it does mean having some empathy with it.
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This.

Ren said:
but there is also a danger to approaching it objectively, i.e. assuming that because a given person has influence they must be charismatic. Sure influence can be objectively assessed, I suppose, but there is no necessary causal relation between charisma and influence.

In other words, just because a person is influential doesn't mean they're charismatic.
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We can only know it by its causal influence, like anything.

Otherwise we simply collapse into a problem of definitions. It's like gravity - we don't know what it is, but we can see it by its effects, and the label 'gravity' is a cipher for those effects - its a theoretical postulate about a cause.

The same is true of 'charisma'. We can only know it through its effects, and this label is merely a theoretical postulate for the cause of those effects, otherwise it disappears from our grasp into the realm of subjective impressions.

Ren said:
Certainly. In fact, institutional/moral authority is an example of something that can facilitate influence without charisma.

For example, not all popes are charismatic (would it be fair to say?) but to be the pope means to be highly influential on the community of Catholics.
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Your definition is too narrow.

Offices generate charisma in exactly the same manner.

And your example is an extremely poor one - all popes inhabit the enormous charisma of the office. They clothe themselves in a universe of extremely powerful, ready-made symbols that inspire reverence almost automatically.

It is exactly the same process of symbolic appropriation that occurs with 'natural charisma', except in the case of the natural the symbols they are able to appropriate depends upon the skill with which they generate affinity with them, and seem to embody them.

Take the complex of symbols denoted by the 'holy man' archetype. A Pope is gifted these automatically by the office, whereas a 'natural' must appropriate them through performative affinity with the symbols... He must adopt a certain kind of serene bearing, a certain kind of measured speech pattern, &c. &c. Whatever it is, in both cases the generation of charisma is proceeding from their affinity with the symbols.
 
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