Does the Great Man approach to history still have use?

[FrustratedFool]

Of course, bel. That's the Great Man approach, as far as I understand it (from that wiki). It doesn't discount the influence of the environment/context all the impersonal forces of society and nature, but it does highlight and say that these forces are concentrated through the lens of peculiar people whose rare qualities bring about radical changes that wouldn't likely have occurred without them. That rare individuals and their lives are what makes the final most definitative difference.

I guess in one sense its the genetic approach to history - saying that individual genetics are vitally important as to how history turns out. I tend to agree. Human history seems largely driven by 1% of humans, and the rest don't so much make history as follow in its wake.

[Belacqua]

Of course, bel.  That's the Great Man approach, as far as I understand it (from that wiki).  It doesn't discount the influence of the environment/context all the impersonal forces of society and nature, but it does highlight and say that these forces are concentrated through the lens of peculiar people whose rare qualities bring about radical changes that wouldn't likely have occurred without them.  That rare individuals and their lives are what makes the final most definitative difference.

I guess in one sense its the genetic approach to history - saying that individual genetics are vitally important as to how history turns out.  I tend to agree.  Human history seems largely driven by 1% of humans, and the rest don't so much make history as follow in its wake.

The lens metaphor makes a lot of sense to me. 

I used to read a lot about William Blake, and often thought of him as a kind of focussing lens. He took in so many varied influences, including the dissenting Christianity of his day, and Neoplatonism that had long survived semi-secretly, all kinds of philosophical and literary ideas, an early awareness of the ills of the Industrial Revolution, etc., and re-focussed them into something that stayed startling and modern for 200 years. 

He may not qualify as "great" in the social sense, since his influence remains within the arts. But he sure as hell accomplished something that no one else could have. And we would be much the poorer without it.

[FrustratedFool]

Indeed. And Blake certainly met the criteria of being someone with a peculiar mind - after all, he was probably schizophrenic or epileptic (or had some other condition making him prone to visions) and also a creative and artistic genius, political and social contrarian and radical. It required just such a rare person to have led just such an odd life to live at just such a time to give us the result of his works and thoughts and there enduring influence.

And I think the same could be said of Alexander, Caesar, Saint Paul, Da Vinci, and all rest of the pantheon of extraordinary humans who drive many of our dramatic social changes.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

^Carlyle was a true polymath, but he was dead wrong about this. A rough childhood ofttimes makes wacky adults.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

I think we are conflating “whether some great men can leave an imprint on history unlike what one might expect from anyone else at a similar time and place in history” with “can history primarily be understood as a series of actions by great men”.

The latter is the theory of great men, the former is not. The former seems highly likely to be true. some great men profoundly affected history in a way that is unique. even another great men of suitable talents arising at the same time in place of this one is unlikely to affect history in the same ways.

The latter is unlikely to be true, even if great men imprinted history with their unique actions and outlooks the collective power of more ordinary men clearly still shape history to a much higher cumulative degree.

[The Grand Nudger]

There probably have been hundreds..if not millions.... of einsteins and shakespeares. The same is probably true of would be murderous dictators....which there have been a fair few just right out in the open. I assume that out of the billions of us there are more than just the ones we know about that would kill their way to some goal, and no matter how much killing it took. We just don't know their names. IDK if that's something to be thankful for or to be worried about.

[FrustratedFool]

I think we are conflating “whether some great men can leave an imprint on history unlike what one might expect from anyone else at a similar time and place in history” with “can history primarily be understood as a series of actions by great men”.

The latter is the theory of great men, the former is not. The former seems highly likely to be true. some great men profoundly affected history in a way that is unique. even another great men of suitable talents arising at the same time in place of this one is unlikely to affect history in the same ways.

The latter is unlikely to be true, even if great men imprinted history with their unique actions and outlooks the collective power of more ordinary men clearly still shape history to a much higher cumulative degree.

What would be your argument for history not being best understood as the consequences rhat arise from peculiar people be?

[Anomalocaris]

I think we are conflating “whether some great men can leave an imprint on history unlike what one might expect from anyone else at a similar time and place in history” with “can history primarily be understood as a series of actions by great men”.

The latter is the theory of great men,    the former is not.     The former seems highly likely to be true.   some great men profoundly affected history in a way that is unique.   even another great men of suitable talents arising at the same time in place of this one is unlikely to affect history in the same ways.

The latter is unlikely to be true,   even if great men imprinted history with their unique actions and outlooks the collective power of more ordinary men clearly still shape history to a much higher cumulative degree.

What would be your argument for history not being best understood as the consequences rhat arise from peculiar people be?

much of what any great men can do is rigidly circumscribed by what the pervailing economic, technological, sociological and ethnological conditions collectively wrought by the masses.

[The Grand Nudger]

Their greatness, itself, is often a misattribution. Stalin didn't actually kill millions. If that's his greatness, it was a quality that other people had. They're the ones that did the killing.

[Silver]

Greatness and accomplishment are not mutually exclusive.