The History of Bad Ideas: Charisma

Past Present Future

D&HR Media Ltd

Society & Culture, History, News, Politics, Philosophy

4.8 • 747 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2025

⏱️ ? minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For today’s episode in the history of bad ideas David talks to cultural historian Tom Wright about charisma, a term that often feels essential for understanding modern politics but which ends up obscuring far more than it explains. How did an old idea from Christian theology get used to explain the hold that political leaders have over crowds? Why is it so important not to confuse charm with charisma? What has made a word from early twentieth-century social science ubiquitous on twenty-first-century dating sites? And if Trump hasn’t got charisma, then what has he got? Out now on PPF+: A bonus bad ideas episode in which David and Dan Snow talk about all sorts of ‘decisive battles’ that weren’t what they seem: Yarmuk, Hastings, Agincourt, Trafalgar, Warsaw 1920, Stalingrad, and more. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up now to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Next time on The History of Bad Ideas: Meritocracy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.0	So what are you watching at the moment? Squid game, Dad. Let's watch it together this weekend.
0:35.0	Does that be nice? What's it on again? Netflix? You've got E.V, so you just switch it on. What season are we up to? Um, four? That's Stranger Things, Mom. And what about the kids? Don't worry, they'll watch Coca-Mellon for the hundredth time. Switch on Netflix with EETV, plus change up sports and entertainment. It's TV with the ultimate flex for the whole family.
0:55.5	EETV requires EEB broadband, separate 24-month contracts for TV and broadband content may vary terms supply.
1:09.9	Hello, my name's David Rundsenman and this is past-present future, the History of Ideas podcast.
1:16.7	Today, in our series on the history of bad ideas, I'm talking to the cultural and political historian, Tom Wright, about a word and an idea that we all use.
1:26.8	It gets used a lot.
1:27.9	It feels like it explains a lot about politics.
1:32.1	But it probably doesn't.
1:33.7	The word is charisma.
1:34.9	It has a surprising history, a much shorter history than we might think.
1:39.1	It probably doesn't mean what we think it means.
1:42.3	And yet somehow we feel we can't do without it. Why?
1:53.1	Tom, we're talking about an idea that I think most people probably think has been around forever,
1:58.3	and I sort of slightly feel like charisma, it must be a very old idea.
2:03.6	And in some ways it is a very old idea. But the way that we've come to use it is surprisingly
2:09.0	recent its origin. The story that we are going to be telling, that we'll go back before this,
2:15.5	it does start with the German sociologist
	...

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