Rational Philosophy

More Valentine’s day ice-water; on the philosophy of charm and its opposite: Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin and British men.

In recent history, Bill Clinton, as president, stood out for many as man of great personal charm. Bill Clinton in his supporting role as Hillary’s pit-bull has been less widely admired for his charm. Vladimir Putin charmed George Bush early in Bush’s presidency, and he seems to have charmed a Russian populace eager to swoon again for strong, dynamic leadership. But, as an outsider, Putin’s charm seems about as thin as the ice on the Dead Sea.

I wonder what role charm plays in life, how it works, and when it breaks down?

Charm is a form of deception in which the deceived is complicit. The charmer uses strategems to make the charmee feel special. The strategems work to falsify or exaggerate the degree to which the charmer really believes in the charmee being special. The charmee on some level recognizes that he or she is being charmed but appreciates the effort being exerted. The apparent exchange then: “I like you; thank you for liking me,” masks a more subtle exchange “I am willing to exert myself for your benefit; thank you for exerting yourself for my benefit.”

Looked at this way, we can see that charm doesn’t really work unless the person being charmed feels on some level or in some way inferior to the person doing the charming. That’s why Vladimir Putin can charm the Russian people who have felt somewhat rudderless in the post-cold war era, or George Bush who doesn’t hold a candle to Putin in terms of ruthlessness and political savvy, but not the average westerner who reads the news and sees right through Putin’s waxy smile.

The person doing the charming also has to have something to gain from exerting the effort. This can sometimes be directly related to the process of charming — getting something out of the charmee. But it can also be indirectly related. Bill Clinton, I hazzard to propose, charmed people as president in order to develop and sustain a cult of charm. He positively glowed with charm and understood that this glow would extend to far greater reaches than the person toward whom he was directing his attention at any moment in time.

Bill Clinton the dutiful husband has nothing personally to gain from being charming. He’s not running for president. One can’t imagine that he’d be happy back in the White House playing, at best, second fiddle to Hillary. Consciously, I’m sure he believes he’s supporting Hillary, but subconsciously he’s undermining her through his charmless tactics.

The British men surveyed by a manufacturer of large screen TVs probably did so anonymously. And yet, there’s still something charmless about the statistic that 50% of them would trade in six months of sex for a 50 inch screen. (I imagine you can hear the French men laughing all the way from Dover as they purchase their ferry tickets for a quick trip to woo the not-so-merry maids of England.)

Charm or lack of charm can be a characteristic of nations as well as individuals. I can say this because I’m British, but the British (with the exception of the shrinking upper class) are charmless because they feel inferior to everyone. The charmer has to feel superior to someone. The French feel superior to everyone, which makes them the people most capable of charm, but their arrogance is their achilles heel — most of the time they can’t be bothered to be charming because they feel they have nothing to gain from it.

And since I’m generalizing offensively, I’ll say that men tend to be less charming than women unless they’re trying to seduce a woman… or get her to buy them a large screen TV. 

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Yesterday, I visited my wife’s uncle’s house to celebrate his son’s birthday. On the television, the Washington Redskins played the Philadelphia Eagles. I’m not much of a sports fan. I get caught up in World Cup soccer once every four years if the time zone works, or the occasional playoff or world series game, but, as men go, I’m pretty much on the non-sports-watcher end of the spectrum. It took me about three minutes to become interested in the game between the Redskins and the Eagles. I know neither team, neither record this season, none of the players, there was no social charge to the viewing event (the TV was on, but no one was really watching,) but there I am taking an interest, beginning to follow the commentary and how it relates to the drama of the game. Why? I was curious observing myself and amused each time I poked my head back into the den to catch up on the play.

Later in the day I was browsing philosophical blogs, checking out the competition and getting absorbed in some of the ideas. I came across a blog entry about watching sport. The blogger proposes that watching sport is perhaps not a rational activity and has no easy explanation. He tests and refutes various theories such as the watcher’s involvement in the beauty of game. With my own sport-watching experience so fresh in my mind, the post got me thinking.

Another data point: I grew up in England where “snooker” (a game somewhat similar to pool) gets a lot of TV viewers. Although I doubt he’d ever played the game, my grandfather would sit for hours in our living room watching “the snooker,” much to my annoyance, since he was monopolozing the one TV in the house. Snooker is hardly a sport (many players smoke and drink during the game — one of the players, a Canadian, I think,
had a doctor’s dispensation that permitted him to consume more than the officially allotted amount of alcohol during games to keep his hands from trembling). So, the question of why we watch sport can be generalized to one of why we watch (or listen to, or read about) games. (If you’re dubious about this generalization, consider those who watch chess or poker or bridge matches.)

Monty Python dramatized the humor in our obsession with watching games as apparently tedious as cricket (a cricket match can last five days with extended periods during which ostensibly nothing happens), with a sketch that took the form of commentary on Thomas Hardy writing a novel. (For those who’ve read Thomas Hardy’s novels, this is doubly amusing.) I urge you to follow this link and read a transcript of the sketch.

My theory is this: The dramatic element in games and sport compels us to follow them. The thrust and parry of competition, however tame in reality, becomes magnified by our psychological makeup.

Evolution tends to select those forms better able to survive. A great factor in our survival has been our capacity for abstract thought, for reasoning, strategizing, analyzing, outwitting or outmanuevering our competition. We’ve used this capacity to keep ourselves safer from dangerous predators, from enemies and rivals, from the harsh elements of nature. Without wanting to exaggerate the point, the process of living for conscious beings is like a game aimed at survival, a competition against forces that would have us not survive.

Games test our ability to prevail against challenges and odds. Sports do the same with the added demand of physical ability. Observing sports and games calls upon a deep part of our instinct; we analyze the angles, engage vicariously in the challenges the players face. This involvement can be so direct and emotional that we merge our desires and ambitions with those of the competitors. If our team loses, psychologically speaking, we lose.

I didn’t catch the end of the Redskins - Eagles game. When I stopped watching, the Eagles had just gone one point ahead in the fourth quarter, although the Redskins looked to have the edge in terms of ball play. But today I see that the Redskins lost badly, or the Eagles won handsomely, depending on which way you look at it.

My advice to sports-watchers who don’t like spending so much time in front of the TV is this — just try to avoid it; you’ll be happier for it. If that’s not possible, sit back and enjoy it; you’re engaging in an activity that, over many generations and in a more productive form, has enabled the human race to reach the point at which a man can sit back and watch football on a Sunday afternoon…