Thread:Comments:United States re-elects Barack Obama/A truly terrible day, IMO./reply (13)

If ideology causes charisma, or lack thereof, then saying that charisma decided a race becomes a distraction from the role that ideology played in the race. And this sort of distraction is something to be wary of because, honestly, the US political right is seriously into denial of the role of ideology in the election. The most insightful thing about the election, imho, comes in two parts: first, that folks on the right (many of them; I'm simplifying, obviously) were shocked Obama won; and second, that folks on the left (...) were bemused that the right were shocked. During the campaign, I think, there had been a general impression on the left that the right were deliberately making shit up that bore no relation to the truth (neither positive nor negative correlation; see On Bullshit). The reaction to the election revealed the flaw in that: the word deliberately. I remember a liberal commentator saying about Romney's performance in the first debate, at the time, that he "lied his ass off". That's a perception of intent. But the situation appears to be far more harrowing: a memetic system has formed that allows people trapped inside it to prolifically make up bullshit without being able to recognize they're doing it. Harrowing indeed, because we may be looking at the shape of things to come: first there was oral society, characterized by a certain kind of information propagation, and associated mindset, in which religions flourished; then literate society, characterized by another kind of propagation and mindset, in which sciences flourished (see Preface to Plato); and perhaps Internet society will have still other characteristics, with similarities and differences from both orality and literacy.

I seem to have wandered from the relation between charisma and ideology. I could say more on that, but I've written more than enough for now, and won't dilute what I did say with more just now on the other theme.