RE: Does the Great Man approach to history still have use?
December 6, 2023 at 7:07 am
(This post was last modified: December 6, 2023 at 7:10 am by FrustratedFool.)
I disagree. I think it very credible.
Let's take the Newton/Leibniz argument.
How many people have the intelligence and aptitude for discovering/creating calculus? 1 in a every few million. How many of those survive to be of the appropriate age, are born into the appropriately wealthy family in the right nation and era to have the time and education required? Less than a handful most likely.
The argument runs that if it wasn't Newton it would have been Leibniz. Fair enough. But that ignores three very important points: 1) both are exceptional people - whichever one did it first history would still be being made by the exceptional individual; 2) what if neither man was alive at that time - how many years would it have taken before another such remarkable individual came along? Fifty years? A hundred years? A thousand? History would be very different even if it had taken another generation or two; 3) Newton didn't just do calculus - what about all his other truly innovative work? I think it false to say that Leibniz would have done all the same scientific stuff Newton did. And it may have been some time before someone else came along who did.
And could you apply the same argument to every great individual in history? Would there really have been another Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Napoleon, Marx, Freud, Hitler, Lenin etc? Were the works of Shakespeare always going to have been written by someone at some time? I find that very hard to believe. Sometimes you have to have just the right rare person at just the right rare time do just the right rare things. It either happens, or it doesn't.
As for Eric Clapton's quote, that misses the point. Sure, there may be a thousand people with the same natural talent. But only one had exactly the right combination of talent, creativity, discipline and led just the right sort of life at just the right time to be Eric Clapton.
And all of this assumes determinism too. If you believe in freewill how much more is James' argument strengthened!
The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes to me that history is hugely affected by the choices and deeds of peculiar people who just happen to have the right brains and the right lives and be born at the right time.
Let's take the Newton/Leibniz argument.
How many people have the intelligence and aptitude for discovering/creating calculus? 1 in a every few million. How many of those survive to be of the appropriate age, are born into the appropriately wealthy family in the right nation and era to have the time and education required? Less than a handful most likely.
The argument runs that if it wasn't Newton it would have been Leibniz. Fair enough. But that ignores three very important points: 1) both are exceptional people - whichever one did it first history would still be being made by the exceptional individual; 2) what if neither man was alive at that time - how many years would it have taken before another such remarkable individual came along? Fifty years? A hundred years? A thousand? History would be very different even if it had taken another generation or two; 3) Newton didn't just do calculus - what about all his other truly innovative work? I think it false to say that Leibniz would have done all the same scientific stuff Newton did. And it may have been some time before someone else came along who did.
And could you apply the same argument to every great individual in history? Would there really have been another Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Napoleon, Marx, Freud, Hitler, Lenin etc? Were the works of Shakespeare always going to have been written by someone at some time? I find that very hard to believe. Sometimes you have to have just the right rare person at just the right rare time do just the right rare things. It either happens, or it doesn't.
As for Eric Clapton's quote, that misses the point. Sure, there may be a thousand people with the same natural talent. But only one had exactly the right combination of talent, creativity, discipline and led just the right sort of life at just the right time to be Eric Clapton.
And all of this assumes determinism too. If you believe in freewill how much more is James' argument strengthened!
The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes to me that history is hugely affected by the choices and deeds of peculiar people who just happen to have the right brains and the right lives and be born at the right time.
