Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

motohagiography

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. Initially, I concluded charisma is a specific relationship between you and a group of others, but with time, it has become clear that charisma is an instinct or decision to relate to the external world in a particular way.

It is absolutely something that can be taught, practised, and developed. The article expressed a certain backbiting suspicion that I think characterizes the intellectual view of charismatic people, and it focused on the charisma of authoritarian leaders, but oddly doesn't mention super-charismatics like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and other progressive persuaders. Ultimately, I think this type of critical view of charisma demoralizes people away from believing anything strongly enough to follow a leader in pursuit of their interests, which seems like an altogether more insidious effect than the posturing of a leader could be.

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 people will be charismatically persuasive"

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 attract, for example, underrepresented minorities, should focus on making more visible scientists who are good looking, charismatic, and therefore persuasive. It sounds manipulative, especially to the eyes of intellectuals, but it'd work.

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.

Most of the mediocrely talented but very successful people I know get by with high charisma. Or putting in many more hours than others. I don't know which one is easier to maintain over the course of a career.

I'm close to some very-charismatic people, in music and business... and if they falter in life, the charisma habit can definitely be a trap. They keep charisma-ing hard, but the reality of their circumstances are hard to square with their immediate effect on people. But real outcomes are often the result of longer term efforts and circumstances. And later in life, the "luck" factor seems harder to capitalize on..

I was once denied an opportunity by a Hollywood finance guy because, as he said, "You're not that smooth.." He was smooth, but not exactly charismatic. Possibly another side of a related coin.

> Most of the mediocrely talented but very successful people I know get by with high charisma. Or putting in many more hours than others.

I think I do both! I'm extremely charismatic but imo not that bright so coast on personality but sometimes fall back on working lots of hours.

My charisma story is that I was very naturally attractive but then had an accident and gained a large % of bodyweight while bedridden for over six months. When I came back into the real world I sort of got forced to improve my personality because I could no longer coast on looks!

Going bald pretty much did the same for me haha. It's very interesting, and disturbing, how differently people treat traditionally attractive people and unattractive/less people.

> It's very interesting, and disturbing, how differently people treat traditionally attractive people and unattractive/less people.

Yes! I had a group at work of a core team. One guy who, in retrospect held me by the hand and led me along stupidvising as I learned a new system. He gave me endless attention and tutoring, celebrated wins and helped redirect when I messed up without ever getting upset. When I came back to work after having gained, he was weird and cold and blunt, and was way more demanding and curt in his feedback.

What really opened my eyes was when I lost again, suddenly I had my patient and thoughtful "mentor" back. It was disheartening, to be honest... just a feeling of sadness for humanity on how many opportunities the unattractive don't have offered to them on silver platters.

on the rhetorical value of appeals to reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24697600

I used to believe in raw merit/good ideas. I still believe they're good, but not that they're particularly effective in dealing with most people.

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 forced (practiced). Not sure which ones do better, though intuitively I’d say the naturals would come across better.

I think your opinion on Castro or Che depends on perspective. Cuba was relatively successful until the decline of the Soviet Union by most measures — but when the neighboring superpower embargoes you because your political system is seen as an existential threat to the ruling class, it’s hard to close the gap. To classify them as objectively “bad” would mean doing the same to most US presidents. From the outside, all of our modern presidents have done some horrific things.

A big part of why the Cuban revolution is viewed negatively in the US is that the Cubans were sick of their island being totally owned as a playground for the rich in another country — things were objectively better for most Cubans in the years after the revolution. So Americans and wealthy Cubans were largely the early losers in the revolution, and wanted to punish the country for having the nerve to seize back the land. The embargo really killed their ability to build an economy, which led to a lot of poverty and was largely outside the control of the Cuban government.

I traveled to Cuba and changed my badly shaped opinion of Castro. If you have the chance give it a shot. I think Castro was really sympathetic to the Cuban's plight and did more for the country than many others for their own countries. Cubans are calm, educated and friendly, but poor by our own standards. But guess what? They're not unhappy at all, depression there is almost nonexistent and contrasting that to how widespread it is in the western world it clearly shows an unsettling trend. And FYI Castro lived a modest live, he didn't seek to own a lot of material goods like a lot of other leaders.

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.

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 flops. They are certainly full of the "presence" and "power" part of Fox-Cabane's thesis, even if not the "warmth".

I most want to know more about the "presence" aspect. I'm certain it can be taught, but I don't entirely know how. I do think it ties in with another thing I've observed, that many of the most charismatic film actors have experience on stage, especially the UK stage. I believe it has to do with the way stage forces an actor to draw your eyes, where a film actor has a camera telling an audience where to look. I still don't entirely know what it is they're doing. Fox-Cabane may have ides.

Cabane has great insights I can't do justice to or summarize, highly recommend her books and presentations.

There aren't a lot of short answers on presence, but exceptional Presence is necessarily physical, so I've found that the ways to develop it require developing technique. In a meeting, people naturally listen to the best programmer, deal maker, explainer, or whatever else people do that is the currency of the realm. Think of a musician who has a diminutive personality, until they have an instrument in their hands and suddenly they're a huge presence. It's the effect of their physical performance and skill, which is something you can't fake, that is the effect of competence in a domain. Charisma isn't domination either, as domination is crude and simple, whereas having charisma means you're the person people want to listen to, not the one they just can't talk over.

In that sense, great actors are usually good enough at something else that they can summon the confidence from that into a role.

As interesting as the book sounded, this description is a bit disappointing. Being the best at what you do, in my mind has little to nothing to do with charisma. It does help achieve the same results as being charismatic (people listen to you, want to be in your presence, respect your opinions more, more willing to go along with what you say), but not due to charisma. It's due to the social capital of being the best at something people care about.

Charisma is more about people feeling that same way from someone the just met, from someone who just walked into the room, from someone they know nothing about.

I'm saying that one secret to developing the presence aspect of charisma is that competence is upstream of all the effects you have described, to clarify.

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

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus is the type specimen for how to avoid having a political career end in (martyrdom or) failure.

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