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Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

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Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#51

Post by dorkwood »

joncrane wrote: post #21
Timpy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between charisma and narcissism may be in the eye of the beholder. However, I can think of a few people in my life that are personable and incredibly genuine; the kind of person that seems to draw the best out in others. I wouldn't be happy to hear them described as narcissistic.

The thing is narcissism in and of itself is not necessarily negative. We're all the stars of our own shows/lives. Some people want attention and do all the right things to get it: pursue the right goals, get people together to do stuff that's good for humanity. You'd better believe that many people whom we view very positively might have been narcissists: Ghandi, Mother Teresa, etc. But the difference is they did GOO…

I used to think that a narcissist was just a person who enjoyed being in the spotlight until I encountered one at my last job. Being terrorized by a narcissist for six months because you inadvertently made them look bad is a terrifying thing to go through.

I feel like we would have heard stories about Barack Obama tormenting his subordinates by now if he was truly narcissistic.

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#52

Post by 43423434 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #3

a book on authoritarian followers, which (at least when I'd read it pre-2016[1]) had some surprising-to-me suggestions for deradicalisation: https://theauthoritarians.org (pp. 240-245, by numbering, not by pdf page) Bonus fable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frogs_Who_Desired_a_King [1] in its current incarnation, it, like much of the world, may have become obssessed with a particular authoritarian leader. I hope…

Do you think normalizing anti-white terms like "Karen," to the point that "respectable" outlets like the WaPo and NYT use them, or selectively capitalizing Black but not white when referring to race, as the AP (a supposedly unbiased outlet) recently committed to doing, or making white children like the Covington Kids targets of public hate campaigns for smiling while being harassed by minorities, or pushing to ban "hate speech" (which in practice just means white speech) help with deradicalization?

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#53

Post by watwut »

jfengel wrote: post #27
motohagiography wrote: post #18

There is a saying that, "all political careers end in failure," which references this aspect of charisma where you have it - until you don't. It is an example of what happens when you fail a test of charisma, where you never really get it back in that particular relationship to those people. I read Olivia Fox-Cabane's work on charisma (Charisma Myth) and she showed how it can be a set of attributes you can practice.…

Thank you for the pointer to Fox-Cabane. I'm going to read that. I've thought a lot about charisma in the context of actors. People are drawn to certain actors for reasons that are hard to pin down. It's most explicit in film action heroes. They're often not the most attractive men and they're rarely good actors, but people will go see a Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwartzenegger film even after a long string of fl…

Long string of clips suggest that people generally did not went to see those movies.

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#54

Post by watwut »

joncrane wrote: post #21
Timpy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between charisma and narcissism may be in the eye of the beholder. However, I can think of a few people in my life that are personable and incredibly genuine; the kind of person that seems to draw the best out in others. I wouldn't be happy to hear them described as narcissistic.

The thing is narcissism in and of itself is not necessarily negative. We're all the stars of our own shows/lives. Some people want attention and do all the right things to get it: pursue the right goals, get people together to do stuff that's good for humanity. You'd better believe that many people whom we view very positively might have been narcissists: Ghandi, Mother Teresa, etc. But the difference is they did GOO…

Narcissism as mental health thing is not positive. If you read the list of traits. It is not merely large ego or confidence. It is not just about decisions of what you build. It is also about outsized emotional reactions which makes narcissist and inability to see others as different individuals.

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#55

Post by rwnspace »

borroka wrote: post #38
bgroat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been writing about this a lot lately. Intellectuals tend to be VERY dismissive of critically looking at charisma and persuasion as tools. They're convinced that since they're ideas are SO GOOD they should will just be accepted upon stating facts. Besides, only manipulators and cult leaders try to be charismatic and persuasive. But I argue that "If only bad people study charismatic persuasion, then only bad peopl…

The harsh reality of life, for the many who tend to be too deep in their thoughts, is that if intellectuals spent more time on their looks (which, when they are good, are per se charismatic and persuasive), their "so good" ideas will have many more chances to appear "so good" to also those hearing and reading those ideas. Along the same lines, those who are leading the effort in making Science more popular and attrac…

But this comes full circle - the more privileged are more likely to be more charismatic. In the UK, the art of rhetoric doesn't appear in the standard curriculum. I am confident in my ability to predict whether a UK politician has been to private/grammar schools and Oxbridge or not - to distinguish those who have been taught elocution and rubbed shoulders with the rich and powerful from an early age.

Not only that, but confidence and certainty are very charismatic, or at least, draw attention. That works fine as a mechanism for liberating people from concerning themselves with the minutiae of every part of life in society. But we all know some variation of that quote about the certain fools and uncertain wise. I'm thinking of those especially confident scientists who have used their platform to trash reflective subjects like Philosophy (not naming any names).

I suppose a good summary of my point is that charisma can transform interest into idolatry.

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#56

Post by scottlocklin »

082349872349872 wrote: post #15
scottlocklin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the bits you listed, then had to scan back to figure out what "RWA" means. Correct me if I am wrong, but this book seems to have recycled the ridiculous Theodore Adorno/Frankfurt school nonsense pathologizing Christian Western civilization. The entire idea that people who go to church on Sundays and have world-normal psychological responses, rather than the defective WEIRD[0] emotional pattern that literally o…

Adorno sounds familiar, so you're probably right about the source influence. I recall RWA being distinct from "people who go to church on Sundays and have world-normal psychological responses", so I'll check that later and leave it here in an edit. Agreed on the middle east situation, but I've written elsewhere on HN about the catch-22 that I believe has produced a Baptists and Bootleggers dynamic in what Orwell woul…

Yeah, see, I don't think any of this has a single, solitary thing to do with "authoritarianism." It's just testing for normal human attitudes, rather than urban WEIRD attitudes.

I'm doing "that internet guy" again, but it's necessary here; from m-w[0] the definition of "authoritarian"

1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority had authoritarian parents

2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people

There's nothing about our forefathers, homosexuals, feminists, theism, women, sexual preferences, pornography, sinfulness or any of the other bullshit in those questions that has a single, solitary thing to do with the definition of authoritarianism. Until the 1990s, most Americans, indeed most Westerners outside of (maybe) Holland and Sweden would have been considered "authoritarian" by those lights. Do you believe Westerners were "authoritarian" for all of human history until ... say, 1997 or whatever? I was alive back then: it was very obviously less authoritarian on almost every level. And mind you, I score fairly "non authoritarian" (aka not so conservative) on this test.

Anyway, I appreciate your constructive engagement, but I am extremely allergic to bullshit which dehumanizes normal people. I mean, we decided as a society that dehumanizing gay people and feminists was bad: the reality is people who are don't think the last 10 years of modernity is an amazing success are not particularly authoritarian, but dehumanizing them absolutely is.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authoritarian

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#57

Post by kubanczyk »

o_class_star wrote: post #23

As I get older, my theory of charisma is that it's a product, more than it is an innate trait, and that anyone can "become charismatic", although 99.9 percent of people never will, and the worst thing you can do for yourself is try. People seem superhuman-- energetic, brilliant, capable-- when surrounded by people who invest themselves entirely in making them seem so. Steve Jobs had no special social acumen, above-av…

> Charisma is a pattern by which other people, for reasons that are hard to parse, and through mechanisms that are invisible, do things for the charismatic person.

Sounds like a great evolutionary advantage if your group is out to kill a mammoth.

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#58

Post by 082349872349872 »

scottlocklin wrote: post #56
082349872349872 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adorno sounds familiar, so you're probably right about the source influence. I recall RWA being distinct from "people who go to church on Sundays and have world-normal psychological responses", so I'll check that later and leave it here in an edit. Agreed on the middle east situation, but I've written elsewhere on HN about the catch-22 that I believe has produced a Baptists and Bootleggers dynamic in what Orwell woul…

Yeah, see, I don't think any of this has a single, solitary thing to do with "authoritarianism." It's just testing for normal human attitudes, rather than urban WEIRD attitudes. I'm doing "that internet guy" again, but it's necessary here; from m-w[0] the definition of "authoritarian" 1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority had authoritarian parents 2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentratio…

You're welcome. Thank you as well.

I'll write more tomorrow, it being wee hours here. In the meantime, please consider that:

> I score fairly "non authoritarian" (aka not so conservative) on this test.

means you (or for that matter any normal conservative) neither have a high RWA score nor are the subject matter of the book.

Edit: compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24795611

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#59

Post by 082349872349872 »

43423434 wrote: post #52
082349872349872 wrote: post #3

a book on authoritarian followers, which (at least when I'd read it pre-2016[1]) had some surprising-to-me suggestions for deradicalisation: https://theauthoritarians.org (pp. 240-245, by numbering, not by pdf page) Bonus fable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frogs_Who_Desired_a_King [1] in its current incarnation, it, like much of the world, may have become obssessed with a particular authoritarian leader. I hope…

Do you think normalizing anti-white terms like "Karen," to the point that "respectable" outlets like the WaPo and NYT use them, or selectively capitalizing Black but not white when referring to race, as the AP (a supposedly unbiased outlet) recently committed to doing, or making white children like the Covington Kids targets of public hate campaigns for smiling while being harassed by minorities, or pushing to ban "h…

Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24795550 (and my followup tomorrow)

I think (not being familiar with any of the above except for Karen[1]) you're mentioning US-specific culture war items which are orthogonal to the subject of the book, which are the sort of beliefs that lead "high RWA" followers to violently punish those their leaders have branded as Other.

The book has to do more with the sort of 1940's beliefs that built and staffed Treblinka, or the sort of 1950's beliefs that lynched Emmett Till, or the sort of 1970's beliefs that led to people being pushed out of helicopters, than to the sorts of beliefs to which I believe you refer.

[1] which I know of as a meme where melanin is incidental. Compare Scumbag Steve.

Re: Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

#60

Post by john4532452 »

mc32 wrote: post #20
motohagiography wrote: post #18

There is a saying that, "all political careers end in failure," which references this aspect of charisma where you have it - until you don't. It is an example of what happens when you fail a test of charisma, where you never really get it back in that particular relationship to those people. I read Olivia Fox-Cabane's work on charisma (Charisma Myth) and she showed how it can be a set of attributes you can practice.…

Let’s not forget charismatic (but ultimately unsympathetic) leaders like Castro and the Che. They were by any measure charismatic. They leveraged that to further their visions to an end. But, not all charismatic people use their charisma for the bad. Some use it to form friendships and to climb social ladders, some to be productive in their role (salespeople), etc. For some people it comes naturally. For some it’s fo…

I don't know much about Castro, but the books by Che gives me the impression he works with the hacker ethic and actually a nice guy who sees humans beyond nationality or things as such.

The book on "Guerrilla Warfare" gives insights on his hacker like thinking. In the first page he describes the preconditions required to uproot the revolution and treats it like forming a startup. He summarizes 30 people is the ideal for the initial group to create revolution and describes about different personality types required among them. There is no big words like sacrifice, noble cause and stuff which you usually see used by the authoritarians, just pure information. He also goes on to say even without Castro the revolution would have happened.

By the way I like Che not communism.

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