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Anonymous No.17876520 >>17876539 >>17876556 >>17876569 >>17876675 >>17878207 >>17878420 >>17878612 >>17878646 >>17878764 >>17878858 >>17878906 >>17878959 >>17880296 >>17880800 >>17882003 >>17886122 >>17886144 >>17887050 >>17887982 >>17888477 >>17889418
Great man theory
Are great men actually the primary determiners of history? Why? If not them, then what entity or factors determine history?
Anonymous No.17876539
>>17876520 (OP)
Even (especially) the most influential people can't foresee or control the consequences of their actions.
Anonymous No.17876556 >>17887008
>>17876520 (OP)
History is multicausal. "Great" men have a lot of influence, but only within the limits of all the other factors that determine history.
Anonymous No.17876569 >>17877277 >>17877402 >>17878909 >>17882003 >>17886071 >>17886140
>>17876520 (OP)
LOL, 'great men' my ass. History is shaped by material conditions, dumbass. Resources, tech, class struggle. Chuds like Napoleon or Musk just ride waves they didn't create. Without coal, steam, or starving peasants, they'd be nobodies. Read a book, it's systems & luck, not 'genius' dudes LARPing as protagonists.
Anonymous No.17876615 >>17877199
"What strikes me is how rarely in history great decisions are made by large numbers of people. In fact, a very few individuals, in positions of authority, have determined the fate of millions." Kissinger
Anonymous No.17876675
>>17876520 (OP)
Great men are enabled and amplified by the people and society around them. A lone individual like Gauss can make incredibly disproportional contributions to mathematics and science, but he could only have made his contributions because he lived in a society where his genius was noticed, appreciated and encouraged to grow. Similarly great men in other fields are enabled by similar conditions relevant to their fields of notoriety.
Anonymous No.17877199 >>17877209
>>17876615

Was Kissinger a great man?
Anonymous No.17877209 >>17877266 >>17879481 >>17884347
>>17877199
The last great man in fact.
Anonymous No.17877266 >>17877306
>>17877209

I’m trying to think of my great statesmen without Google… would Talleyrand, Metternich, and Bismarck also be great men? Bismarck has to be
Anonymous No.17877277
>>17876569
Great Men are a material condition.
Anonymous No.17877306
>>17877266
I agree with your choices. It's just Kissinger was the last of such kind worth mentioning. After him only third raters like Lavrov, Pelosi... And I dunno who else. I'm on the fence about Xi, Putin, Trump and such. Maybe they are great or maybe they would fumble hard and amount to nothing.
Anonymous No.17877356 >>17877360 >>17877381
The last Great Man to define a century was Adolf Hitler. Anything else is inconsequential. I'd also argue that there are only a very few select people, probably can count them with your fingers, that can qualify as such.
Anonymous No.17877360 >>17877370
>>17877356
What about Mao/Deng/Stalin?
Anonymous No.17877370 >>17878540 >>17885469 >>17886755
>>17877360
None of them defined history, they were just regional men.
Anonymous No.17877381 >>17877383 >>17877389
>>17877356
Well I mean, we are only 25 years into this century. Hitler didn’t come around until the 1930s.
Anonymous No.17877383 >>17877424
>>17877381
XX century was full of events, XXI is a boring one where nothing happens. There will be no next Hitler. EVER.
Anonymous No.17877389 >>17877399
>>17877381
But really... who has come to define a century or even come close to? Like Napoleon, Louis XIV, Caesar, Alexander, Augustus did before Hitler? I feel like the age of great men is over. It's the dawn of mediocrity
Anonymous No.17877399
>>17877389
This is the age of TRUMP. MAGA!
Anonymous No.17877402 >>17877412
>>17876569
And who exploits those resources, develops the tech, or leads the class struggle?
Great people definitely have less impact now, but there's a reason they have shaped history despite countless others having similar ambitions.
Anonymous No.17877412
>>17877402
> there's a reason
yeah, they just got lucky
Anonymous No.17877424 >>17889197
>>17877383
Saying 21 century is boring is like being retarded marvelslop enjoyer and asking where are all the epic moments and muh wars at while watching much more subtle movie
Anonymous No.17878145
>Great Men don't exist, chud. Read Marx.
>So then Marx was a Great Man?
>NOOO NOT LIKE THAT
Anonymous No.17878207
>>17876520 (OP)
Equally shaped by "great" men and no-names doing dumb shit. You could easily argue the 20th century was shaped by Gavrilo Princip or even worse, by the retarded limo driver who allowed him to take an easy shot.
Early to say but the 21st may be actually shaped by the no name chink who fucked a bat that one time in 2019.
I call this my "retarded theory of history". Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Anonymous No.17878420
>>17876520 (OP)
It's 90% Class Struggle 10% Great Men
Anonymous No.17878540
>>17877370
>Stalin
>Just regional
ok
Anonymous No.17878612
>>17876520 (OP)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_as_Literature
Theodore Roosevelt (America's 26th President) does a great job debunking "Great Man Theory" over 100 years ago.
>The great historian must be able to paint for us the life of the plain people, the ordinary men and women, of the time of which he writes... He will make us see as living men the hard-faced archers of Agincourt, and the war-worn spearmen who followed Alexander down beyond the rim of the known world. We shall hear grate on the coast of Britain the keels of the Low-Dutch sea-thieves whose children's children were to inherit unknown continents. We shall thrill to the triumphs of Hannibal. Gorgeous in our sight will rise the splendor of dead cities, and the might of the elder empires of which the very ruins crumbled to dust ages ago. Along ancient trade-routes, across the world's waste spaces, the caravans shall move. Beyond the dim centuries we shall see the banners float above armed hosts. We shall see the dancing girls of Memphis. The scent of the flowers in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon will be heavy to our senses. We shall sit at feast with the kings of Nineveh. We shall know the valor of the two-sworded Samurai. Ours shall be the hoary wisdom and the strange, crooked folly of the immemorial civilizations which tottered to a living death in India and in China. We shall see the terrible horsemen of Timur the Lame ride over the roof of the world; we shall hear the drums beat as the armies of Gustavus and Frederick and Napoleon drive forward to victory. Ours shall be the woe of burgher and peasant. The agony of the galley-slaves shall be ours, and the rejoicing when the wicked are brought low and the men of evil days have their reward.
Anonymous No.17878646 >>17878654
>>17876520 (OP)
is there anything great about yelstin lite? he doesn't have any outstanding qualities as a statesman, strategist, etc... he's just the strongman of a big country. if anything russia is underperforming because of his mismanagement, he doesn't even have the sense to groom a successor so you know it's all gonna go to shit once he dies. put someone actually competent like lukashenko in charge and the results would be completely different.
Anonymous No.17878654 >>17878658
>>17878646
Well, he defeated Gorbachev and somehow ended up as ruler of Russia... That should count for something?
Anonymous No.17878658
>>17878654
I was referring to putin (yeltsin lite)
Anonymous No.17878764
>>17876520 (OP)
No one outside brown lefties and NAFO troons cares about Crimea or any oblast. The war is a nothing burger.
Anonymous No.17878858 >>17878882 >>17878942 >>17887988
>>17876520 (OP)
You have to think of the counter question to make sense of your question.

If great men were not primary determiners of history, how come great men are always brought up? Whether its world leaders or business leaders or engineers or scientists.
Anonymous No.17878882
>>17878858
Because of human vanity? I mean, can't credit great plague even if it was a pivotal influence on the europeans. Human will never accept a bunch of rats being important, right?
Anonymous No.17878906
>>17876520 (OP)
There are many factors that determine history, great men are one of such factors but they are incredibly rare. For the last millennium I count 4 such man (Hitler, Napoleon, Genghis Khan and Frederick II of Sicily) but one of them had the worse circumstances and was very limited in his achievements.
Anonymous No.17878909 >>17878969
>>17876569
Lower man cope. Greats like Napoleon created such waves that are rode by others.
Anonymous No.17878942 >>17878995 >>17880783
>>17878858
Maybe because the majority of histories were written not because someone wanted to objectively document their past but was either on the payroll on someone or sought the patronage of someone and so wrote their history with that in mind.
Anonymous No.17878959
>>17876520 (OP)
>great men
dig into any of those stories and you'll find details that don't make sense. do it now. maybe the fag with the gold hat stole it, or someone else stole it and put it on him for the show. history is a narrative for molding you into subservient serfs.
Anonymous No.17878969 >>17878972 >>17879048 >>17881855
>>17878909
Napoleon in no way created the great wave that is the french revolution, he rode the tidal wave and was influential, but by no means did he create the wave.
Anonymous No.17878972 >>17878979
>>17878969
> Napoleon in no way created the great wave that is the french revolution
How so? He was a prominent french figure. You just hate him because you are probably anglophile.
Anonymous No.17878979
>>17878972
Where was Napoleon in the leadup to the convening of the Estates General, why wasn't Napoleon part of the tennis court oath, what part did Napoleon play in the war revolutionary France declaration of war on Austria. Where was Napoleon's hand in purge of the Girondins that led to the commtie of public safety?
Anonymous No.17878995 >>17879030
>>17878942
I'll accept this if you accept the inverse. If positives are done by positive shills, then negatives must be done by negative shills. This way, all men return to equal. Hitler didnt do anything. Genghis Khan wasnt a killer. Mao was a normal guy. Alexander the Great was just a useless prince.
Anonymous No.17879030
>>17878995
>Hitler didnt do anything
Hitler did very many things, it's just when people say Hitler bad, it's usually just shorthand for Nazi's bad, Hitler himself was an unapologetic nazi and there isn't much reason to believe a Himmler or Goebbels led Nazi party would have acted different from what the Nazis historically did
>Genghis Khan wasnt a killer
Probably not any more so than any other steppe nomad tribal conqueror he was just uniquely positioned to do more than any of the other ones.
>Mao was a normal guy
Mao was an autocratic far left dictator, not much different from how Stalin led his great purge, so in that respect Mao was just following the mold of similar dictatorial autocrats who went unchallenged in their rule, only Mao happened to be in charge of one the most populous countries in the world so the casualties reflected this
>Alexander the Great was just a useless prince.
I'm pretty light on the details on Alexander, but he was like most other people of his kind skillful in a lucky position one victory snowballed into a mass stampede not unlike someone like Simon Bolivar until he got done in by intrigue, Alexander was lucky in a post mortal evaluation in that his defeat was outside the battlefield so his legacy was uniquely positioned as to be outside of criticism and all his successor states wanted to position themselves as his rightful heir hence his flattery.
Anonymous No.17879048 >>17879057
>>17878969
Napoleon stabilized the Revolution and brought prosperity to France, his victories also spread the revolutionary values to the rest of Europe. Napoleon himself was a great wave and his work cannot be ignored.
Anonymous No.17879057 >>17892543
>>17879048
>Napoleon stabilized the Revolution
By provoking war and starting a european wide conflict so great that it quite literally defined global relations for the century following it
>brought prosperity to France
By looting every occupied country to the point that they all allied themselves against Napoleon, even his own brother put in charge of the Netherlands by Napoleon defected against him.
>his victories also spread the revolutionary values to the rest of Europe
All of which got reset at the Vienna congress, the The victorious powers pretty successfully suppressed most of the revolutionary ideals up till 1848
>Napoleon himself was a great wave and his work cannot be ignored
Maybe so, but lets at least try to mediate what actual effects he had and measure them against what consequences he inflicted.
Anonymous No.17879481 >>17879493 >>17880271
>>17877209
>Kissinger turns peaceful situations into wars
Name 1(one) time this actually happened
Anonymous No.17879493
>>17879481
Pakistan during the 1971
Anonymous No.17880271
>>17879481
His sabotage of the Vietnam peace talk negotiations.
Anonymous No.17880296
>>17876520 (OP)
technology determines history
Anonymous No.17880783 >>17880797
>>17878942

I wonder who bankrolled Herodotus, do you think someone did?
Anonymous No.17880797
>>17880783
>I wonder who bankrolled Herodotus, do you think someone did?
The Athenian noble family of the Philaids. That's why Herodotus sucked the Athenians off so hard, even though he wasn't even a citizen.
Anonymous No.17880800 >>17880996
>>17876520 (OP)
No. Leaders only represent, they are actualy equally likely to be utter idiots and fool, as proven by greek democractic thought, sending only the most incompetent to represent the polis.
History is determined by the sum of decisions of the common man, basically, to historians, the invisible farmer in his everyday struggle, that did not leave any records of his biggest successes.

Which makes total sense, rich people don't want you to know that they are rich, and powerful men would have tried to not have that publicy known.
Anonymous No.17880996 >>17881006
>>17880800

> they are actualy equally likely to be utter idiots and fool, as proven by greek democractic thought, sending only the most incompetent to represent the polis

Plato said as much in Alcibiades 1, when he told him to aspire to the real education taught to the kings of Sparta and Persia over the popularity of the people of Athens
Anonymous No.17881006
>>17880996

*When Socrates told Alcibiades
Anonymous No.17881855
>>17878969

I mean, what were the direct lasting effects of the French Revolution, exactly?
Anonymous No.17881975 >>17883275
Herbert Spencer has pretty much debunked this theory
Anonymous No.17882003
>>17876520 (OP)
There were surely many men with the ability of Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon but through strokes of fate or just randomly dying of typhus they never changed history.

>>17876569
Why are you so obsessed? Individual merit is surely a factor, not 100%, but neither 0% responsible for shaping historiae.
Anonymous No.17883275 >>17885111
>>17881975

How exactly lol
Anonymous No.17884341
shameless bump
Anonymous No.17884347
>>17877209
Unironically based
Anonymous No.17885111
>>17883275
Read the study of sociology and you will see
Anonymous No.17885469
>>17877370
Yo is this a joke? Won't even touch Stalin that's just too retarded. But Deng Xiao Ping has to be the greatest leader post WW2 of any state. You don't even know what the world would look like today without his Communism with Chinese characteristics. Pooo bear would still be presiding over an agrarian shithole without him.
Anonymous No.17886071
>>17876569
>History is shaped by material conditions.
That doesn’t make sense, you could live on a pile of gold, but without the knowledge, will, or ability to use it it’s no different from living on a pile of dirt. Material conditions alone don’t shape history human action and understanding do
Anonymous No.17886122
>>17876520 (OP)
>Loses thousands of his men for strips of land for 3+ years
>Lost Syria
>Lost Armenia
>Losing in Africa
>Keeps bombing the Donbass, the place he wanted to save
Pootin ain't that great
Anonymous No.17886140
>>17876569
material conditions my ass. A perfect world devoid of an experiencing agent is functionally the same as nothing. The utilization and expenditures of said material conditions are conditional on the decisions of rational free-thinking individuals.
Anonymous No.17886144
>>17876520 (OP)
The further back in history, the more low hanging the fruit of being defined as “great”. Much like scientific discoveries. If mankind still exists in a thousand years, the idea of a single person being responsible for anything will be unimaginable.
Anonymous No.17886755 >>17886958
>>17877370
>None of them defined history
kek, the delusion.
Anonymous No.17886958 >>17887937
>>17886755
Ya, I can't imagine the stupidity to call Stalin, who at worst is the second most powerful man to ever live, regional.
Anonymous No.17887008
>>17876556
spbp
Anonymous No.17887050
>>17876520 (OP)
Your mom determines history

She is so fat, she affects the history of entire nations kek
Anonymous No.17887118
I think great men definitely defined the 20th century, but the growth of capitalism and global markets has eclipsed them. These days presidents and prime ministers are at the whims and wishes of the market, rather than their own personal dictates. Putin a bit of an exception, but he is a create of the cold war, and Russia embraced to global economy half heartedly, they never really joined the global order in earnest.
Anonymous No.17887937
>>17886958

But he was Georgian though!
Anonymous No.17887982
>>17876520 (OP)
AJP Taylor insisted it was created by bumbling idiots but I think only German historicism or Annales School got it right.
Anonymous No.17887988 >>17888715
>>17878858
>if great men were not the primary determiners of history why are they always brought up?
Because the other shit gets lost to history. Trump is a great example, the left and notably the far left bullied and terrorized America for a good decade, people were sick of their shit and they were going to elect someone to bitch smack them. It was inevitable. It’s that dynamic, and sentiment, that got him elected and allows him to operate. He’s still important, the ways in which he acts as president will have unique consequences, but he’s an instrument of public will. If he came along 20 years earlier or 20 years later he wouldn’t have been elected, or if he was elected would be stifled into inaction by congress/the courts/public opinion. If it wasn’t him it would be someone else, doing something similar. Because that’s what people wanted at the time, and the circumstances allowed it. I think the truth is more that history channels itself through individuals from time to time. If everyone in Germany loved Jews and wanted peace above all, Hitler would have gotten nowhere.
Anonymous No.17888477
>>17876520 (OP)
Yes but they're not front figures but groups of people conspiring in the shadows.
Anonymous No.17888715 >>17890267
>>17887988
>If he came along 20 years earlier or 20 years later he wouldn’t have been elected

That's a lie.
Anonymous No.17889197
>>17877424

This
Anonymous No.17889418 >>17892536
>>17876520 (OP)
>entity or factors determine history
Authors.
Anonymous No.17890267
>>17888715

Trump definitely needed the circumstances he was in to win the presidency
Anonymous No.17890927 >>17891933 >>17891939
Great men are overrated. Repeat history 100 times and 99% of times Napoleon/Hitler/Genghis wouldn't even emerge. I learned it from pdx games.
Anonymous No.17891933 >>17891939
>>17890927

But wouldn’t that make those men great by definition, if those figures had the unique willpower to make great empires happen 1 out of 100 times?
Anonymous No.17891939
>>17890927
>>17891933

And also, if the great man didn’t emerge to create his empire in your scenario, what the history look like without them exactly?
Anonymous No.17892536
>>17889418

> authors
Paid by said entities
Anonymous No.17892543
>>17879057
>By provoking war and starting a european wide conflict so great that it quite literally defined global relations for the century following it
No, he did not provoke the conflict. It was the other powers who did it because they were scared of the superior Napoleonic and Revolutionary values.
Yes, the conflict centered around Napoleon was that influential.
>By looting every occupied country to the point that they all allied themselves against Napoleon,
War results in looting, yes. They allied against Napoleon in the end because of his most powerful enemies and especially because of the British economic power that bought such allies.
>even his own brother put in charge of the Netherlands by Napoleon defected against him.
Yes that was a mistake from his part, but there wasn't much he could do in such a situation.
>All of which got reset at the Vienna congress, the The victorious powers pretty successfully suppressed most of the revolutionary ideals up till 1848
Correct, the powers that defeated Napoleon who were most of Europe plus colonies and the Ottoman empire defeated Napoleon, and many of such powers suppressed such ideas but only until 1848.
>Maybe so, but lets at least try to mediate what actual effects he had and measure them against what consequences he inflicted.
I do, and so does everyone who understands the greatness of Napoleon who was the Revolution.