True and false charisma

     The previous post on celebrity naturally leads to a discussion of true and false charisma.  True charisma is internal, it is intrinsic to the person and based on personality, while false charisma is external and based on persona.  

    Personality is natural: an individual's personality is expressed in almost anything he does, while a persona is an artificial construction.

    Here is an example from Tom Simon, quoting a passage from G.K. Chesterton's Autobiography: 

    "I can still remember old Yeats, [the father of the famous poet] that graceful greybeard, saying in an offhand way about the South African War, 'Mr. Joseph Chamberlain has the character, as he has the face, of the shrewish woman who ruins her husband by her extravagance; and Lord Salisbury has the character, as he has the face, of the man who is so ruined.'  That style, or swift construction of a complicated sentence, was the sign of a lucidity now largely lost.  You will find it in the most spontaneous explosions of Dr. Johnson.  Since then some muddled notion has arisen that talking in that complete style is artificial; merely because the man knows what he means and means to say it.  I know not from what nonesense world the notion first came; that there is some connection between being sincere and being semi-articulate.  But it seems to be a notion that a man must mean what he says, because he breaks down even in trying to say it; or that he must be a marvel of power and decision, because he discovers in the middle of a sentence that he does not know what he was going to say.  Hence the conversation of current comedy; and the pathetic belief that talk may be endless, so long as no statement is allowed to come to an end."

    The idea here is that Yeats pere and Johnson's eloquence was an expression of their own personality and understanding; they were speaking for themselves.  It is one thing if someone is naturally articulate, but what Chesterton is writing about here is inarticulateness as a persona, pretending to be overcome by emotion or pretending to be less fluent than one naturally is. 

    Another example would be Pythagoras.  There is a story of Pythagoras that he had traveled to Phonecia, near Mount Carmel.  A ship came by and Pythagoras asked if the sailors were going to Egypt.  They replied that they were and so he went aboard the ship.  The sailors then had the idea to sell Pythagoras into slavery when they got to Egypt.  But Pythagoras simply sat silently meditating without drinking or eating.  The sailors then worried they might have picked up a god and so decided not to sell Pythagoras into slavery.  When they got to Egypt, they fed him fruit and he simply walked away.  This story is taken from Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras.  Other stories about Pythagoras also indicate that he was an impressive person, in his bearing and demeanor. 

    Bruce Charlton has discussed Charles Williams and Ralph Waldo Emerson, stating that their personal impact, the influence of meeting them personally was more influential than their writings.  Another Transcendentalist of whom this could be said is Bronson Alcott, who was, incidentally, a vegetarian because he wanted to emulate Pythagoras.  Here is what Thoreau had to say about Alcott in Walden: 

    "I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One of the last of the philosophers,—Connecticut gave him to the world,—he peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of families and rulers will come to him for advice.—

'How blind that cannot see serenity!'

A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An Old Mortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience and faith making plain the image engraven in men’s bodies, the God of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the thought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I think that he should keep a caravansary on the world’s highway, where philosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed, “Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.” He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him."

    Contrast this to the modern idea of charisma, which is almost entirely persona.  Alcott, Emerson, Williams, Pythagoras, Johnson all interacted with other people and the world organically based on their own personal qualities and capabilities.  In contrast, many in the modern world who are called charismatic interact with the world through the media.  Their entire interaction is mediated and situations are carefully constructed to portary a certain image.  Furthermore, in the modern world, charisma is often viewed as inherently concerned with manipulating people's instincts.  It's within the modern social context, which unfortunately is viewed as a Machiavellian free for all.  

    In contrast, real charisma can inspire and movtivate others.  Furthermore, in the modern world it will not be found primarily in the media or public discourse and will be primarily local and personal.  Also, varieties of true charisma are as varied as individual personalities.