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I don't like Trump, and I rank his emission of word-shaped noises somewhere between picking random items from autocomplete suggestions, and my pre-ChatGPT exper

by ben_w 1y ago

I don't like Trump, and I rank his emission of word-shaped noises somewhere between picking random items from autocomplete suggestions, and my pre-ChatGPT experiments with GPT-3 models. Charisma is a different axis to all of that. A lot of people, for reasons I cannot even empathise with, demonstrably like him. One could even describe their response as "idolising" him. (Where does one draw the line between "a cult of personality" and "apotheosis" anyway?)

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isleyaardvark 1y ago
His success is built on racism. As effective as they can be, people don't generally describe the person who whips up a violent mob as charismatic.
- ben_w 1y ago
  They have called it that since the word was coined in the original ancient Greek, and the skill itself seen as a divine gift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma It's part of why the ancient Greeks thought government came in cycles, with democracy being only a transitory state.
danaris 1y ago
I work with a small university psychology department, and one of our recently-retired faculty made a several-decade study of charisma, particularly among political leaders. Her primary theory is that it is built out of a combination of formidable and approachable traits/behaviors. Naturally, there is a fair amount of personal variability in what we perceive as "formidable" and "approachable", so what seems charismatic will vary from person to person; it's not fully objective. But her theory is that this is why you can have people who are, objectively, more repugnant still read as charismatic, and people who are very pleasant read as less charismatic: the latter may be very approachable, but they don't have enough formidability to synthesize that into charisma, while the former add just enough approachability that they can.

by ben_w 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

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isleyaardvark 1y ago

His success is built on racism. As effective as they can be, people don't generally describe the person who whips up a violent mob as charismatic.

ben_w 1y ago
They have called it that since the word was coined in the original ancient Greek, and the skill itself seen as a divine gift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma It's part of why the ancient Greeks thought government came in cycles, with democracy being only a transitory state.

danaris 1y ago

I work with a small university psychology department, and one of our recently-retired faculty made a several-decade study of charisma, particularly among political leaders. Her primary theory is that it is built out of a combination of formidable and approachable traits/behaviors. Naturally, there is a fair amount of personal variability in what we perceive as "formidable" and "approachable", so what seems charismatic will vary from person to person; it's not fully objective. But her theory is that this is why you can have people who are, objectively, more repugnant still read as charismatic, and people who are very pleasant read as less charismatic: the latter may be very approachable, but they don't have enough formidability to synthesize that into charisma, while the former add just enough approachability that they can.