{"id":960,"date":"2019-09-30T10:20:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T14:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/?p=960"},"modified":"2019-09-30T10:20:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T14:20:52","slug":"washington-more-charismatic-than-humble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/2019\/09\/30\/washington-more-charismatic-than-humble\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington: More Charismatic Than Humble"},"content":{"rendered":"

The author\u2019s argument that Washington was showing humility during the letter incident is not accurate.\u00a0 Rather, it appears that Washington was using his charisma to win over the opinion of his troops. While humility isn\u2019t just limited to an individual\u2019s willingness to be open to new ideas, the story used by Ruscio makes it seem that Washington is trying to establish a better connection with his troops rather than listen to their needs.\u00a0 Ruscio even goes into greater detail about Washington\u2019s charismatic traits when he writes how, \u201cHistorians frequently point to this episode as indicative of Washington\u2019s innate ability to establish a bond, a trait that ultimately led him, in more significant historical moments, to acquire authority and legitimacy, not by exerting power over those he led, but by rejecting formal power.\u201d Ruscio, unknowingly to himself, creates examples throughout this story about how Washington is expressing charisma rather than humility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout the story, Washington tries to get the angry soldiers to sympathize with him or gain their respect.\u00a0 For example, Washington, \u201c…was not the general whose authority had been questioned; he was one of them, a fellow soldier, whose integrity had been questioned.\u201d\u00a0 This may be considered humility in Ruscio\u2019s definition because Washington is being considerate of the troops\u2019 perspective, but I disagree. The example strikes me more of a desperate appeal by Washington to prevent the soldiers from overthrowing him as the leader.\u00a0 Ruscio even wrote how, \u201cThe troops were restless, even angry, and headed down the road of insubordination and mutiny.\u201d Washington\u2019s passionate speech to his troops was in some sense to understand their point of view, but it was more than anything a way to save himself from a potential mutiny.\u00a0 Ruscio\u2019s definition of humility does not support his claim that Washington expressed humility in the story, but rather the traits of a charismatic leader.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author\u2019s argument that Washington was showing humility during the letter incident is not accurate.\u00a0 Rather, it appears that Washington was using his charisma to…<\/p>\n

Continue readingWashington: More Charismatic Than Humble<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4529,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4529"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/ldst1010304f2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}