On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, shag wrote:
> So I don't see what you describe happening at an obama rally as unique
> to an obama rally and, therefore, something that can explain that
> enthusiasm for a candidate who isn't different.
If you don't see the difference in enthusiasm level between how people regard Obama and how people regard most candidates, then I guess we've got an observational difference. Surely you're right, if there's no difference, there's nothing to explain.
> where i'd say he's charismatic is in the sense of a definition of it
> applied by a scholar in intellectual history. he was applying it to ken
> kesey. a charismatic leader tells people who they are. what he does in
> his speeches is, as you say, tell people who they are by constantly
> invoking the _we_. we can do this, we can do that,
Exactly! It's about articulating collective identity. Identity is built on defining convictions. Those convictions are ultimately emotional. And they can be recharged in a crowd.
This is what good oratory is all about. And it allows you to make certain arguments that you can't make otherwise, of the form: we have to do X because of who we are, or we must not do X because of who we are: these are things that contradict who we are as a people. To make arguments like that, you have to bring the convictions to the surface so people can feel the contradiction, or feel the connection.
And in a sense, that's a lot of a president's job. Being the interpreter in chief of the selection of small texts we call the American Creed, and the evoker in chief of the collective memory. Telling a story of how we got here, how we failed ourselves, and what we need to return to ourselves.
All candidates have to have a story like this. But charismatic candidates like Reagan and Obama are candidates whose ability to deliver this collective narrative, to "restore people's faith in themselves" is their main selling point, in part because the conjucture provides an opportunity (the collective identity is injured, feel the nation has betrayed itself or been humiliated by others), and in part because their talents at this sort of speech allows them to fill it. And it allows them not only to sell themselves, but to sell the myriad piecemeal changes their administration makes as a "revolution," a turning point. And this is what gives them a chance to change the collective identity -- the common sense -- for the foreseeable future.
***
BTW, who's the intellectual historian who wrote about Kesey? At first glance Kesey seems like a charismatic on a different level, the small group level, where there is no pre-existing shared collective memory and set of collective texts to appeal to. If there was a useful theory of charisma out there somewhere, I would imagine him to be located halfway between someone like Obama and the kind of cult leaders described in Charles Lindholm's 1990 book _Charisma_. But I'd love to read a good book analyzing Kesey as a phenomenon. It's clear from Tom Wolfe's _Electric Kool Aid Acid Trip_ (and his own _Garage Sale_) that there was something going on there. And funny you should mention him, because my niece just wrote me that she's deep into the Beats, and asking what I would recommend, and after running through my short list of recommendations I soon got to thinking about Kesey and whether his bus should be considered the next generation of the Beats, not least because they were tutored by Cassady.
Michael