Trinity College 1970-1974 Charisma

Trinity College also provided me with my first encounter with charisma. Unfortunately not my own, but someone else’s. D M was a dynamic young Genetics lecturer from Cornell and was the talk of the town. He seemed to dazzle everyone with his ‘Macho’ style of lecturing. He worked ‘at the cutting edge’ in the new exciting field of DNA genetics. He was young, handsome and loquacious. For me that was it –that was the man. This seemed to be enough to impress everybody –especially the girls who drooled over him in the most irritating way.

The lectures took place at eight in the morning in a prefabricated structure which was freezing in winter. I remember listening to him and wondering to myself what all the fuss was about.

Come on girls! Yes he was handsome and had a gravelly voice –but can’t you see he was a shallow jerk? These were my thoughts as I tried to unfreeze the ink from my pen and scribble down meaningless notes. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Neither did the girls but that didn’t seem to matter. They just wanted to hear his voice I suppose.

He was not good at answering questions-as he tended to dismiss the questioner and make them feel very small. This was acceptable in the old days. I imagined him doing that to me because I never had the nerve to ask him a question.

So, that is charisma then?

I don’t want to mention Hitler and power–but I do feel I have to at this point.

What is it about power that attracts everyone then–especially women?

Is it avoiding the uncertainty of life- the sheer bliss of letting someone else make the difficult decisions?

Surely there must be more to it than that.