Charisma - Softcover

Lindholm, Charles

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Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557864535 ISBN 13: 9781557864536

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 1994

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Charismatic leaders are believed by their followers to have superhuman powers. The faithful are willing to sacrifice everything, including themselves, for the sake of this leader. How can we understand this seemingly irrational phenomenon? Using a number of perspectives that take into account group dynamics, individual character, and the social milieu, this book argues that charismatic involvement is a deeply embedded potential for all human beings. The theory is tested through specific cases: Hitler's Germany; Manson's Family; Jonestown; and the experience of Shamanism in non-Western societies. The book concludes with a discussion of alternatives to charisma in modern society, focusing especially on romantic love, and considers the form future charismatic movements may take.

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About the Author:

Charles Lindhilm is a University Professor at Boston University. He is currently writing The Anthropology of Islam.

From Publishers Weekly:

Suspicious of charisma, Harvard anthropologist Lindholm notes that modern charismatic movements are often entwined with cultish obedience and evil. Hitler, proclaiming himself a living god, swept along his blinded minions trained in dehumanization; the Fuhrer's racist, paranoid vision engulfed an entire nation. On a lesser scale, Charles Manson's murderous "Family" and Jim Jones's suicidal Guyana commune embodied the destructive potential of charismatic attraction. As counterweight to these three chilling case studies, a chapter on shamanism shows that the charismatic's "borderline" state of fluid identity and self-loss is, in some societies, a pathway to spiritual power or healing. This wide-ranging, provocative survey is anchored in a discussion of charisma as understood by Nietzsche, Freud, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. In closing, Lindholm looks at contemporary substitutes for charismatic involvement--drugs, movie stars, sports heroes, romance, interpersonal attachments--in a culture that increasingly frustrates the desire for self-transcendence.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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