Front Sight, Press

“charisma” Etymology: Greek, favor, gift, from charizesthai to favor, from charis grace; akin to Greek chairein to rejoice —

1 : a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure (as a political leader)
2 : a special magnetic charm or appeal Webster

I have been thinking about the idea of “charismatic” political leaders since the spectacle at Mile High Stadium, the final night of the Democratic national convention. The edge that I’m working on is the question of whether there exists a difference between immensely popular leaders that we have taken to calling “rock stars” and charismatic leaders whose power and appeal comes more from psychological forces that they evoke than from simple popularity. In other words, I’m thinking that “really popular" and "charismatic" are very different political dynamics.

I really do not consider Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to be charismatics. I classify them as "rock stars." Both men were endowed with a unique capacity to make a personal connection through an impersonal medium. I had problems with both of them politically (yes, even Reagan… I’m cantankerous.), but I liked them both on a personal level. They were charming men and master communicators. They worked their way up. Each had been in the public eye for many years and came to embody the hopes of large demographics. "Government isn’t the solution to a problem; government is the problem." etc.

Obama is a different order of critter. Obama is a charismatic.* My list of the historical charismatics include Jesus, Mohammed, Napoleon, Hitler, Lenin, Gandhi, Lincoln, Castro, perhaps Attila, Nelson Mandela, perhaps Mao, and others who escape me right now. Kennedy and Martin Luther King are borderline – they could be charismatics, but they had the winning personalities and skills of rock stars. The difference is that with the rock stars, the reason for their appeal is clearly obvious. They have winning personalities, tremendous oratorical skills, and a personal touch. With the charismatics, the source of their popularity and power is not so readily apparent, and further, they have the capability of evoking deep unconscious contents from mass culture. No one made allusions of deity about Reagan or Clinton. What really was the personal appeal of Hitler, Napoleon, Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela? It isn’t easy to see. Gandhi was an odd little man with terrible taste in clothes and an unimpressive speaking voice. Mandela spent 25 years in prison, but he became a symbol, and the hopes of a people somehow condensed on him. That’s a charismatic. Lincoln was a strange and ugly man who united the country but plunged us into the most costly war we ever fought. However, was Jesus a rock star or charismatic? If Jesus had the capability of story telling and personal connection with large groups of people through his personality as portrayed in the Bible, he may have been more a rock star than a charismatic, properly speaking. (I’m doing psychology here, not theology.) By contrast, John the Baptist would be the real charismatic of the era.

Charismatics tend to interpret their role in history as one of transformation on a cosmic scale. Ronald Reagan never claimed to be bringing in the Age of Aquarius, nor did Bill Clinton attempt to establish a New Jerusalem. The rock stars do not think in these terms. Instead, they tend to deal with the here and now. Charismatics tend to see themselves as agents of change. They point to a future time in which society will different and hopefully better, and they see themselves and the movements that they lead as instruments of that structural transformation.

Obama is a charismatic. Objectively speaking, like Lincoln, he hasn’t accomplished very much in the political sphere besides winning a presidential primary. He isn’t very good one on one. He is actually kind of distant and aloof. He is a competent orator, but I haven’t heard a Gettysburg Address, a "The torch has been passed to a new generation…" or "I have a Dream" escape from his lips. He is a tabula rasa (blank slate). The charismatic evokes the monsters and angels of the collective unconscious, and it seems that we can never know for sure which it will be until it is over.

The proper food of charismatics is human blood, and usually it is spilled in titanic proportions when the masses surrender their will to charismatic leaders.

*Please note that I am using the word “charismatic” in the political sense, and not in the theological sense of “spirit filled.” This article is about politics and psychology, not religion.