Charisma - What is it and have you got it?

John K said:
LOL judging by the adulation of his followers I'd say they think he has. He's the victim of the times isn't he because he seems to me to be empty of his own personality and filled with the collective mindset that voted him into power - when I say victim I don't mean someone to be pitied, but that he's not in control. He's like Zephod Beeblebrox in the Hitchhikers Guide - joke president of the universe without real power. Maybe things will change this year. His office has authority and respect despite all this - and it still has the power to awe or instill a sense of hegemonic security, but he's eroding these.

I guess on balance I'd say that he hasn't got charisma because he follows his collective support base rather than leads it - but I guess that may be hair splitting.

But what do I know ;)
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I'd say you know plenty, John :)

Hmm. Don't all politicians and people in power do this to some extent, though? You can't socially influence anything without tapping into the hearts and minds of people eager to follow a certain narrative... otherwise, you won't get elected into office. He's definitely tapped into that and he's using it to follow his own agenda. In this way, he's more of a social barometer than necessarily a leader, I agree. And further to that, there are definitely leaders with substance and leaders with none.


But that's a whole separate discussion.
 
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ruji said:
IRL I have passive charisma attributed to "otherworldliness" and things. But other (active) charisma is lacking.
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I would say you're extremely charismatic, but it proceeds from how enigmatic you are.

You generate mystery and that is a draw in itself.

John K said:
He's like Zephod Beeblebrox in the Hitchhikers Guide - joke president of the universe without real power.
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Ha.

There's a movie out there called 'Idiocracy', and though there's a lot which is problematic with its message (there are some eugenic overtones), I can't help but think that we're kind of living it; that it's prophetic. But then the US system has always been heavily videocratic anyway ever since television started to decide elections.
 
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sassafras said:
I'd say you know plenty, John :)

Hmm. Don't all politicians and people in power do this to some extent, though? You can't socially influence anything without tapping into the hearts and minds of people eager to follow a certain narrative. There are definitely leaders with substance and leaders with none, though, I agree.

But that's a whole separate discussion.
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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 ....
 
I'm resisting the urge to get very technical here, but the way John seems to be going, I think the discussion will inevitably get pulled in the direction of social epistemology:

'zeitgeist' has already been mentioned, and the concept of Hegelian heroes/'great men of history' is right there on the cusp.

Ideas and complexes of ideas which are prevalent but dormant in the culture already tend to coalesce around particular individuals often through simple chance - simple affinities of character and experience reflected in particular individuals.

Outside of politics, this has most clearly happened with Jordan Peterson recently, I think.


It's absolutely central to my own work. 'Ideas' and 'Power' are not particularly distinct when seen in the mess of historical processes (and I use 'historical' to refer to human mechanistic processes combining culture and psychology at every scale).
 
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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Would you say that this 'scale' reflects the affinity they have with the 'age', the Geist?

That they are more or less attuned to it and draw their charisma from it?
 
John K said:
I think thats 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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lol. Wasn't this the original intention of the thread?

I'd say it'd be fun. Who is close to the 100 mark for you, John?
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
Would you say that this 'scale' reflects the affinity they have with the 'age', the Geist?

That they are more or less attuned to it and draw their charisma from it?
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I think that is necessary but not sufficient because there has to be the right personality too - which we were reflecting a few posts ago of course. There are a lot more folks who are attuned than have the gift of conducting the orchestra as well. The best of these can form a power base around a great person.
 
@John K

I'll give you an example from my own work:

I'm investigating the origins of the 'religious movement of the twelfth century'; epistemic generation.

The 'firebrand' of that movement was St Bernard of Clairvaux, the big dog of the century. Except that...

He didn't really create anything.

The structures and alliances were moving long before he ever appeared on the scene. My social network analysis reveals that the unitary utopia within the Church was splitting into an antagonistic bipolar state about fifty years before he showed up, except that nobody was noticing.

New ideas and themes were being partitioned off into one pole or another and the 'new pole' was gathering force. At this point it's still 'unconscious', and then...

He explodes onto the scene and ARTICULATES everything which is already there but which people haven't quite been able to put into words; with dazzling rhetoric, with powerful imagery, with relentless force.

It's like the world incubates a new ideology/idea, and a charismatic leader brings it into the world as it's midwife.

Charismatic leaders seem to operate like 'midwives' in this way, and if you look close enough you can see the world twisting and gestating their placenta long before they ever appear.
 
John K said:
I think that is necessary but not sufficient because there has to be the right personality too - which we were reflecting a few posts ago of course. There are a lot more folks who are attuned than have the gift of conducting the orchestra as well. The best of these can form a power base around a great person.
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Then we're saying that 'charisma' is a product of two functions*:

Affinity + 'Skill' = Charisma

Right?


*Never quite sure if 'function' is the right mathematical term here.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
Then we're saying that 'charisma' is a product of two functions*:

Affinity + 'Skill' = Charisma

Right?
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*slaps "perceived charisma inhibits the frontal executive network of believers in intercessory prayer" paper on the table*
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3023088/
Let's do this

Skill
https://neurosciencenews.com/charisma-quick-thinkers-3206/

“Although we expected mental speed to predict charisma, we thought that it would be less important than IQ,” says von Hippel. “Instead, we found that how smart people were was less important than how quick they were. So knowing the right answer to a tough question appears to be less important than being able to consider a large number of social responses in a brief window of time.”

The researchers speculate that mental speed may also make it easier to quickly mask an inappropriate reaction and make humorous associations on the spot.

Contrary to the researchers’ predictions, mental speed did not predict other social skills, such as being adept at handling conflict or interpreting others’ feelings.
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The latter being Affinity?
 
sassafras said:
Who is close to the 100 mark for you, John?
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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.
 
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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Greta Thunberg:
Affinity: 8
Skill/Impact: 7.5
CHARISMA QUOTIENT = 60

I think it's time we marketed a pen and paper RPG off the back of this. Who's in?
 
John K said:
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.
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I don't think she is...she's more of a figurehead than a charismatic person.
 
@Deleted member 16771 that all sounds good to me - I think Bernard of Clairvaux is an excellent example of someone who just captures the crest of the wave as it starts to roll up the beach. Augustus Caesar was in the same sort of vein.

Deleted member 16771 said:
Affinity + 'Skill' = Charisma
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As long as 'Skill' is carefully thought through then yes, because some of it is nature rather than nurture, in the same way that not everyone who trains can undertake, still less win an Iron Man competition. For example it includes stamina and resilience, maybe charm, tenacity etc, etc.
 
dragulagu said:
I don't think she is...she's more of a figurehead than a charismatic person.
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I agree with @Deleted member 16771 - she's definitely someone that the daimon has in its grip rather than the other way round, but that really underpins what I'm saying about charisma, that it's as much to do with the reflection and channeling of great social forces welling up naturally, as well as their initiation. She's by no means a leader except as a figurehead, but changes are taking place on a significant scale through her.
 
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