Word: charisma
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...where religion is allied with politics and the social convention. Here, it suppresses godless ideologies. Yet another side of American nature is pragmatic and utilitarian, desiring rational justification for any act. Jones's philosophy embodied this conflict and, in a sense, mastered it. He could invest himself with religious charisma by using the traditions of American fundamentalist theology: faith healing, apocalyptic exhortations, visions of the promised land. But he could also provide his followers with a forceful rationalization: his church was an instrument of social revolution. The follower was to prove his convictions the old way--tithe and then some...
Jones was obviously a man of extraordinary charisma. He did not "program" people; he dominated and captivated them, which is something very different from brainwashing. There is no question that he used spying and blackmail to tyrannize his followers with guilt. But these methods would have been ineffective without the force and appeal of this own personality: charisma is always more powerful than coercion...
Another unhappy legacy with which Boumedienne's successor must deal is a generally flaccid population. Boumedienne had the charisma of a stone, and after 13 years of his constant calls for sacrifice, many among Algeria's 18 million have turned off and tuned...
Dowling, undaunted, then mustered his charisma and intensity to produce Yale's final touchdown with less than 11 minutes remaining in the contest. He drove his charges Hill, Marting, end Bruce Weinstein, and fullback Bob Levin, down the field in eight plays, punctuating the apparent victory with a five-yard run for the score...
...personality, arap Moi could not be more different from his flamboyant, autocratic predecessor. A teetotaling, shy and straitlaced man whose most salient characteristic is an occasional flash of quick temper, he has been described as having "about as much charisma as a dry maize cob." The son of poor farmers hi the Great Rift Valley, arap Moi had by 1946 become headmaster of a government school in Kabarnet. He was one of the first Africans in Kenya to enter politics, and one of the first to be appointed to the preindependence, British-dominated national Legislative Council...