Michael Knox Beran, writing in City Journal, on changing aspects of charismatic leadership:
The charisma of American political leaders has typically rested on images of unflinching strength and masculine authority: Teddy Roosevelt in the North Dakota Badlands; Kennedy, the naval hero whose sexual prowess was acknowledged even in his Secret Service code name (“Lancer”); Reagan, the man on horseback whom the Secret Service called “Rawhide.” Obama’s charisma, by contrast, is closer to what critic Camille Paglia has identified with today’s television talk-show culture, in which admissions of weakness are offered as proof of empathetic qualities. Talk-show culture is occupied with the question of why we feel so bad, when it is our right under the liberal dispensation to feel eternally good. The man who would succeed in such a culture must appear to sympathize with these obscure hurts; he must take pains, Paglia writes in Sexual Personae, to appear an “androgyne, the nurturant male or male mother.”
2 comments:
It's probably a fair assessment that charisma is fleeting, changing from era to era and situation to situation. Has the "Dr, Feel Goods" of the 1990's and Oprah Winfrey created an environment where people feel strong when the politician, leader, celebrity, etc. are weak? Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan all demonstrated a charismatic prowess that gave Americans a means to look up to. Essentially, the message was, " We are Americans and we'll never be defeated." That was the theme and their lives served as the script. What happened?
Just as the irresponsibility and disenfranchisement of women by men created the independent "Super Woman," the independent woman emasculated the "Super Man" idea. In a grab for power, as Gore Vidal once said, "It's not enough to win, the other guy has to lose." Where women control 80% of the buying power within American households and an intractable voting block, the politician as "John Wayne" is reminiscent of a chattel past for women as well as a threat to their new found power.
The successful politician, like Barack Obama, is formless: neither demonstrating intimidating strength nor excessive pandering. What you see in this brand of politician is a reflection of one's self-image. The upside being that most people have an insatiable desire to feel good about themselves and thus aren't made to feel self-conscious about their shortcomings. The downside being, instead of aspiring to an idealized form, you resign yourself to apathy and mediocrity, where "as is" serves as the standard. Only in a culture when you no longer have to dress up for special occasions would this fly.
Perhaps, this is another case of throwing out the baby with the bath water. Yes, things needed to change between the genders. Women needed to come of age and have the same opportunities granted to men. But in dulling the edge of the macho stereotype, was it necessary to use a guillotine?
Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute
Edward,
Thank you for the thought provoking post! I fear that we've moved into a focus group-driven, bland realm in which leaders such as Churchill and DeGaulle would be scorned.
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