PAUL STOLLER | Huffington Post | Extract
DONALD Trump is nothing more - and nothing less - than what anthropologists used to call a "Big Man."
As I listened yesterday to his hour-long speech at Liberty University I began to understand him as a prototypical Melanesian Big Man.
More than a generation ago anthropologists used the Big Man model to try to understand the contentious arena of political relations among the peoples of Melanesia.
Writing in 1963 anthropologist Marshall Sahlins argued that the Big Man is…. "reminiscent of the free-enterprising rugged individual of our own heritage. He combines with an ostensible interest in the general welfare a more profound measure of self-interested cunning and economic calculation."
Through his economic accumulation and redistribution and through the bluster of his talk, the Big Man builds a name for himself, a development that enables him to gain power and achieve political leadership.
The Big Man's political status, however, is unstable. If he shows weakness or if he is outperformed in the political arena, he loses prestige and power, which means that the Big Man is continuously plotting and scheming, making sure that his big talk performances reinforce his renown. If someone challenges him, he will meet that challenge and raise the ante, daring any opponent to meet him face-to-face.
Donald Trump's economic and political behavior seems to fit the Melanesian model. For him, America is a mess, a disaster. For him, the U.S. Government is run by people who don't know what they're doing -- incompetent people who don't know how to do a deal. His Republican opponents, politicians all, are also incompetent. They are all talk, low energy and no action. They are weak.
In contrast, Donald Trump promotes himself with the big talk of the Big Man. He says he is strong. He says he knows how to negotiate a good deal. He says he knows how to find "the best people" who can solve problems and project strength. He says he knows how to bring back jobs from China so that college graduates, who are in deeply in debt, can find jobs.
He says he knows how project power to the leaders of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He says he'll show them who's the boss. What's more, Mr Trump suggests that if he is unsuccessful, we will succumb to an unimaginably fearful set of social, economic and political disasters -- fear mongering laced with a showman's attractive charm.
This entertaining rhetorical tack compels many people to respect his judgment and believe his claims.
In his Big Man discourse, Mr Trump says that no one else can do what he can do. He offers no specifics about how he will fix the world and "make America great again."
For this Big Man -- not to forget the ever-growing number of his followers -- specifics and the accuracy of his assertions, which have already made fact-checkers weary, count less than the trust one places in the great leader.
Paul Stoller is Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University in the USA and author of Yaya's Story: The Quest for Well-Being in the World. Read Prof Stoller’s full article here