Thunderflash

Tonight I was at a dinner at which the Thunderer was honoured. He spoke briefly in reply, but his words, though slowed with great age, were sharp and clear.

It was interesting to see how his self-avowedly secular ethical system always came back to one idea: the state is bigger than you — and so, what you do should serve the state well. It appeared to us, listening amidst the ruins of the day, that the greatest crime was to make the state look bad, or otherwise to do it harm.

In these days, when his powerful allies Black Diamond and the Gnome are dead and gone, it is a great thing to see his frail frame unleash an echo of the ancient force that swept all before him and established a legacy in the region. Many of us, mere mortals, do not agree with him or the way he used that force; but what will replace it in this new world that even he acknowledged in his speech?

Leadership & Princess Diana

Like most people of my generation, I heard of her long before I heard of him. Unlike most of my generation, I was curious enough to find out more about the mysterious Dr Marston.

I was rather amused by the realisation that Dr William Marston was the true name of 'Charles Moulton', the creator of Princess Diana of Themyscira – the Wonder Woman of DC Comics fame. As I delved further into his past, I learned that Marston was the originator of the DISC profile as well as the inventor of the systolic blood pressure test for truth-telling. He had not only invented Wonder Woman, but he had invented her magic lasso of truth as well!

In fact, the 'modern' DISC profiling system was invented by Marston in 1924, and he had published two books on it in 1928 and 1932. DISC stands for Dominance, Influence, Submission, Compliance – and the significance of these four traits becomes truly apparent and highly entertaining when you put them together with his theory about Wonder Woman. For Marston said this about the male fans of his comic-book creation: "Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!" And this wasn't the only thing that the inventor of DISC said about bondage, young people, discipline and submission. I shall leave you to examine my sources and follow the tale wherever it leads you.

My conclusion after reading all this was that seemingly innocuous personality profiling exercises can have extremely sinister possibilities when one is well-read enough or curious enough to discover the implicit philosophy embedded in them. It is part of the terrible reifying myth of personality testing. In this day and age, when people are too lazy to discover themselves and only too willing to let online tests or simple pencil-and-paper exercises perform the task of self-revelation, personality testing has reached something like cult status.

Sadly, I have to admit that I have been DISC-tested too.

My profile claims that I am an influencer/advancer/inspirer, with high 'D' and 'I', below-average 'S' and extremely low 'C'. The profile includes this quotation from Baroness Thatcher, a leader of the Reagan era: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. I'm extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end. I don't mind how much my ministers talk, as long as they do what I say." I think that one of those sentences is true of me, and I'm not sure of the rest.

I have an alternative profile, according to the kind colleague who introduced me to this test. This profile stresses the fact that I have a slightly higher 'I' score than 'D' score. This second profile claims that I am a leader/decider/strengthener, and it invokes the late Sir Winston Churchill. I cannot say much more about this great statesman than what he says himself.

I must end by saying that no matter how flattering it is, I do not place myself anywhere near the same area of comparison as these titanic compatriots of mine. But it is something to think about; that if Marston was correct, I could harness the steely obduracy of Mrs Thatcher or the iron will and mercurial rhetoric of Sir Winston. Well, we live in hope. And if these things be gifted to me in any way, I shall be too grateful for words.