/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18266214]

Why do a lot of people nowadays seem to dislike the great man theory of history? Isn't the notion that even a single person can make a difference and everything isn't just predetermined by external factors a good thing?

[Anonymous No.18266236]

>>18266214
>Why do a lot of people nowadays seem to dislike the great man theory of history?
Because its wrong and retarded. Study semi deeply about any single "great man" or period in history and you'll realize this. Its a fiction created by former aristocrat socialization efforts and post revolutionary nationalist mythology building movements.
Most "people" nowadays have zero opinion on it if they are even aware it exists. 99% of people's basic historical knowledge is shockingly bad, let alone their knowledge of historiographical methods

[Anonymous No.18266241]

>>18266214
Because it makes them feel inferior since they've been led to believe we're all equal

[Anonymous No.18266260]

>>18266236
Basic history reading list?

[Anonymous No.18266279]

>>18266214
This: >>18266241 and also because it reminds them of the moustache man. Moustache man bad!

[Anonymous No.18266320]

I think great man can certainly take advantage of his condition and leave an huge impact on the world. But they are hardly the only factor.

[Anonymous No.18266348]

>>18266214
It completely disregards the socio-political climate of its time and gives a grossly reductionist view on history, I'm honestly glad modern academia dropped it and now is just wanking middle ages peasants.

[Anonymous No.18266462]

>>18266214
Because it's rather silly, don't you think?

[Anonymous No.18266474]

>>18266236
This.
>>18266241
This (is a sub-90 IQ take).

[Anonymous No.18267787]

>>18266474
This is a 104 IQ take. The direction of history results from the tensions between (perhaps great) individuals and the broader socio-economic climate in which they live. The context in which a person lives defines the parameters of possibility but it is ultimately up to the individual to will a path through that space. History is elastic, nothing is inevitable and reduction to analysis of socio-economic factors is Bugmanism.

[Anonymous No.18267891]

>>18266214
It's just an overreaction to how dominant it used to be. Of course they've overdone it and seem to go out of their way to disregard great people, even if they had an impact. Anyone who thinks that the second rate macedonian kingdom could have toppled the persian empire without Philip II and Alexander the Great is an idiot.

[Anonymous No.18268066]

>>18267787
my dick is elastic

[Anonymous No.18268328]

"HISTORIANS who write in aristocratic centuries generally attribute everything that happens to the will and humor of certain individuals, and they are likely to impute the most important revolutions to the merest of accidents. They shrewdly elucidate the smallest of causes and often fail to notice the greatest.
Historians who live in democratic centuries exhibit quite opposite tendencies.
Most of them attribute almost no influence over the destiny of the species to the individual and no influence over the fate of the people to citizens. On the other hand, they ascribe great general causes to the most insignificant particular facts. These opposing tendencies can be explained.
When historians in aristocratic centuries contemplate the world stage, they see all the leading roles filled by a very small number of prominent actors. The august personages standing in the limelight monopolize their full attention, and while busy unveiling the hidden motives behind what the principals say and do, they neglect everything else.
Because of the importance of what these few leading actors do, the historians in question develop an exaggerated idea of the influence that a single individual can exert, and this naturally leads them to believe that the activities of the multitude must always be traced back to the specific action of an individual."

[Anonymous No.18268594]

>>18268328
I know nothing should be expected from retards on the internet, and stuff can be googled easily, but was it truly too difficult to you to mention who wrote that?

[Anonymous No.18268659]

A good beginning point would be to differentiate the hero and the great man, and also the last man and the golden-souled man. Plato already gives us much of the image for this, and Jünger in his study of history and myth. One may say that there is also a demigod figure which precedes the heroic, those who are not divided by worlds, by life and death, as the heroes are, and which we see in the Dioscuri.
The heroes only become demigods, their humanity elevated against the gods, whereas the preheroic exist almost anonymously, at great peace with the gods, the world, their own people, and the utmost violence of the law. There is no need to defend the golden-souled people, they live in abundance and without need of labour - what is a great man to them? They all surpass him, as the lesson of Diogenes and Alexander teaches us, in a world impoverished and falling to the shadows. Jünger says something similar in regards to Hercules, at his birth we already approach the falling world which is without end. He is closer to the image of the worker than the anonymous man of prehistory who lives beyond the laws of the shadows, and fear of the underworld. Celebration of death may even be beyond him, and one can imagine that he lives much as Er, the Waters of Lethe having no effect on him.

[Anonymous No.18268676]

>theory
Give me 1 argument against the great man theory

[Anonymous No.18268712]

>>18268676
Chaos theory.

[Anonymous No.18268731]

>>18266241
/thread

[Anonymous No.18268746]

>>18268659
In the same way, the idea that man is the measure of all things may be closer to our own era than the ancient world. If man is the measure than either the death of god or an automatic theomorphosis must be presumed. And even beyond immortality man sees himself as having triumphed over the utmost violence - Fate or even Kaos. That the image retreats into the last man only adds to this: what is the great man if he cannot elevate the weakest to ever exist? He mist be one with them.

The look of disdain in the eye of Michelangelo's David is a sign of absolute triumph, but also the eternal end of the fight. Both the katechon and eschaton are localised into personal matters, feelings. Thus Nietzsche's Christian pessimism, which struggles so endlessly for a final triumph of the metaphysical idea over higher laws - renouncing his own efforts as they weigh him down. He can never find the image of David as his true father.

[Anonymous No.18268762]

>>18268676
Is the Great Man not the writer who immortalizes the action rather than the supposed person who did the action?

[Anonymous No.18268930]

>>18268746
The Great Man may also be a herald of state catastrophe, or its very embodiment. Maistre's war theory makes clear the danger of such pronouncements, as he could not have been more wrong in his prediction that a great man secures the armies of all nations and worsens the defeat of those without the highest sovereign. The godless became the greatest warriors in history, those for whom war was not enough. Each great man that appeared only made himself a sacrifice to the greater laws of leveling, towarda the anonymity of all things. Napoleon crowns himself. Hitler buries himself as a memorial, not only to his nation but also Europe.

The danger of the great man is that he also increases the weight of all things, and may even conceal the relation of dominion to the law of all. State and city do not reside on their own, they must be able to endure and flourish within the changing course of the all - especially amidst its violence. Concealment is a necessity of power, but one also risks becoming it, acting against theomorphosis and instead sacrificing the all of one's people in a war against spectral armies. Here one does not increase the law through decision, but ensures its oblivion. Thus the great man tricked by demons, and his people lost to the violence of lemures. Absolute diminishment, the opposite dominion of a Cadmus, Siegfried, or Fevronia.

Creation can lead us away from the divine laws. Just as guile is the triumph of the gods over the titans our greatness separates us from the elements - we devour our sons until power becomes nothing more than waiting for a certain end to our immortality. The eschatology of the timeless; when Epimetheus finally catches a glimpse of the futurem

[Anonymous No.18268944]

>>18268594
"Never quote those who should already have been read."

[Anonymous No.18269085]

Greece
Rome (now extinct)
Scotland
Hebrews (now extinct)
France
Russia
Why have only these nations produced great great numbers of great men?

[Anonymous No.18269121]

>>18266214
Envy.

[Anonymous No.18269315]

>>18268930
The law of man as measure of all things must also be differentiated from the imperial cult. One sees in the Roman nomos that the gladiators were fighting their way out of the underworld, as slaves to the warrior's law. And each a sacrifice to the bloody soil where Achilles fell, not only their home.
Rome saw itself as a forming dominion secured from the underworld. Pan was dead from the beginning, and so it was necessary to build the vast world of passageways, of stone as certain laws where danger is at its highest. Security against the death of nature which would build heaven from the autochthonous - much as the Christian world of the Germans would preserve the memory of Pan, and build its churches to the sky. Not against the forest, but for it.

As a simple image one may look to the stone men in the archways of the Colosseum. Certainly a good Roman could name them all, yet the abundance suggests that there were many more great men who are forgotten, to us certainly and likely the Romans as well. The lines of these heroic figures speaks to an endless procession, it is of a death character but also the great war parades. One may also understand euhemerism differently, where there is a great level of theomorphosis the gods may begin to take on an anonymous character. Or in other words, where they are ever-present their work among men will be the most unseen. They may even be undifferentiated from men in appearance. This would be the ultimate proof of the gods, rather than their being diminished, even before the utmost violence - man raises himself to their level. Hence the centrality of wealth - in the gods Hermes, Janus, and Fortune, boundaries and great overcoming.

Crassus as a ritual of wealth returned to the underworld, rather than punishment or the envy of the grievous.

The Triumphal Arches are the great example of Rome's relation to the underworld. Through and beneath them the ritual of war would find its beginning and end, each battle took place as if setting out from the last bastion of law in the world. Eternally at the precipice of hell while defending the wealth of the heavens. The Roman lived in a pre-katechon state, yet none after would attain such intimate knowledge of order amidst rebirth.

[Anonymous No.18269324]

>>18268328
>>18268594
Pretty sure that's Yockey

[Anonymous No.18269364]

>>18269324
oops it's tocqueville

[Anonymous No.18269616]

>>18268676
Society > man

[Anonymous No.18269764]

Celebrity History is a fantasy. It’s how you convince children history is interesting and worth studying. It explains history as much as Veggie Tales explains theology.

[Anonymous No.18269776]

>>18266214
it's just a cope

[Anonymous No.18269814]

>>18269085
>Hebrews (now extinct)
lel

[Anonymous No.18269830]

>>18268676
Fucking reality you dipshit

[Anonymous No.18269879]

>>18266214
1. Because it's wrong.
2. Because it detracts from the agency of other parts and members of society.
3. Because Foucault, who as you surely know is extremely popular, spoke of "cutting off the King's head," by which he meant abandoning all notions of state sovereignty in favor of the notion of discipline as the most salient feature of modern government.
Basically, the Great Man Theory of History goes against both theory and empirical evidence. It is quite dead, and no one could possibly benefit from its revival.

[Anonymous No.18270529]

>>18268328
"By contrast, when all citizens are independent of one another and each of them is weak, none exerts a very great, much less a very durable, power over the masses. At first sight, individuals seem to have absolutely no power over the masses, and society seems to proceed on its own owing to the free and spontaneous cooperation of all its members.
This naturally prompts the mind to look for the general reason that could have struck so many intellects at once and simultaneously reoriented them all.
I am firmly convinced that, even in democratic nations, the genius, vices, and virtues of certain individuals can delay or hasten the fulfillment of a people’s natural destiny. But these kinds of fortuitous and secondary causes are infinitely more varied, more hidden, more complicated, less powerful, and consequently more difficult to sort out and trace in ages of equality than in centuries of aristocracy, where the only problem is to analyze the particular action of one man or a small number of men within a general context.
The historian soon tires of such labor. His mind loses itself in a labyrinth, and, unable to see individual influences clearly or to elucidate them adequately, he denies their existence. He prefers to speak of the nature of races, of the country’s physical constitution, or of the spirit of civilization. This reduces his toil and gives the reader greater satisfaction with less effort on the historian’s part. "

[Anonymous No.18270555]

>>18270529
"M. de La Fayette says somewhere in his memoirs that the exaggerated system of general causes is a wonderful source of consolation for mediocre public men. I would add that it is also an admirable source of consolation for mediocre historians. It invariably provides them with a few grand explanations useful for quickly extricating themselves from any difficulties they encounter in their works, and it favors weak or lazy minds by allowing them to garner a reputation for profundity.
My own view is that in every period some of the events of this world must be ascribed to very general causes, others to very particular ones. Causes of both kinds are always encountered; the only thing that differs is their relative importance. General facts explain more things in democratic centuries than in aristocratic ones, and particular influences explain less. In ages of aristocracy, the opposite is true: particular influences are stronger, and general causes are weaker, unless inequality of conditions itself is considered a general cause, which allows certain individuals to thwart the natural proclivities of all others.
Historians who seek to describe what goes on in democratic societies are therefore right to pay a great deal of attention to general causes and to devote their primary effort to uncovering them, but they are wrong to deny the particular actions of individuals simply because it is not easy to find these out or trace their effects.
Not only are historians who live in democratic centuries inclined to ascribe a great cause to every fact, but they are also apt to connect facts to one another and derive a system from them.
In aristocratic centuries, the attention of historians is always focused on individuals, and they therefore miss the connections among events, or, rather, they do not believe that such connections exist. To them it seems that the fabric of history is constantly being rent by the passage of one individual or another.
In democratic centuries, by contrast, the historian is far more aware of acts and far less of actors, hence he can easily relate one act to another and establish a methodical order among them."

[Anonymous No.18270563]

>>18270555
"Although ancient literature has left us some very fine histories, it offers no great historical system, whereas the most miserable of modern literatures abound with such systems. Classical historians apparently made insufficient use of those general theories that our historians are prepared to abuse at the drop of a hat.
Those who write in democratic centuries have another, more dangerous tendency.
When all trace of the action of individuals on nations is lost, it is common to see change in the world without being able to discover any driving force behind that change. Since it becomes quite difficult to identify and analyze the various factors which, acting separately on the will of each citizen, cause an entire people to undergo change, it is tempting to believe that the change in question is not voluntary and that societies are unwittingly obedient to a superior force, which dominates them.
Even if one should discover on earth the general fact that controls the particular will of each individual, this would not preserve human freedom. A cause vast enough to apply to millions of people at once and strong enough to move them all in the same direction might easily seem irresistible. After surrendering to it, one is quite prepared to believe that it was impossible to resist.
Thus historians who live in democratic times not only deny certain citizens the power to act on the fate of the people but also deny peoples themselves the ability to shape their own destiny, thereby making them subject to either inflexible providence or a sort of blind fatality. According to such historians, the destiny of every nation is irrevocably fixed by its position, origin, antecedents, and nature, and nothing it does can change that. They see each generation as firmly linked to the preceding one, and in this way they proceed backward in time, from era to era and necessary event to necessary event, all the way back to the origin of the world, forging a long, closely linked chain that encompasses and binds the entire human race."

[Anonymous No.18270609]

>>18270563
"Not content to show how things happened, they also like to show that they could not have happened otherwise. They contemplate a nation that has reached a certain point in its history and contend that it was obliged to follow the path that took it there. This is easier than showing how it might have chosen a better route.
Perusing the historians of aristocratic ages, and particularly those of Antiquity, one often has the impression that man can become master of his own fate and govern his fellow man if only he can bring himself to heel. A glance at the histories written nowadays would suggest that man has no power over either himself or his surroundings. The historians of Antiquity taught men how to command; today’s historians teach little but how to obey. In their texts, the author often looms large, but humanity is always small.
If this doctrine of fatality, which is so attractive to those who write history in democratic times, were to spread from writers to readers and thereby infiltrate the citizenry en masse and take hold of the public mind, it would soon paralyze the new societies and reduce Christians to Turks.
I would add, moreover, that such a doctrine is particularly dangerous at the present time. Our contemporaries are only too ready to doubt the existence of free will because as individuals they feel frustrated by their weakness no matter which way they turn, yet they are still quite prepared to recognize the strength and independence of men joined together in a social body. One should be careful not to obscure this idea, because the goal is to exalt men’s souls, not to complete the task of laying them low."

[Anonymous No.18270621]

>>18270609
That is the entire chapter.
Volume 2 Part 1 Chapter 20
ON CERTAIN TENDENCIES PECULIAR TO HISTORIANS IN DEMOCRATIC CENTURIES

[Anonymous No.18270964]

Regarding political parties

"The political parties that I call great are those that dedicate themselves more to principles than to their consequences; to generalities and not particulars; to ideas and not to men. Such parties generally have nobler features, more generous passions, more genuine convictions, and a franker, bolder manner than others. Private interest, which always plays the greatest role in political passions, is here more skillfully hidden beneath the veil of public interest. At times it even succeeds in concealing itself from those whom it animates and impels to act.
By contrast, minor parties are generally without political faith. Because they do not feel ennobled and sustained by any great purpose, their character bears the stamp of self-interest, which clearly manifests itself in every action they undertake. They always become hotly passionate for coldly calculated reasons; their language is violent, but their course is timid and uncertain. Their tactics are squalid, as is the goal they set for themselves. Hence when a period of calm succeeds a violent revolution, great men seem suddenly to vanish, and souls turn inward.
Great parties stand society on its head; minor parties agitate it. Great parties tear society apart; minor parties corrupt it. The former may at times save society at the cost of disrupting it, while the latter invariably provoke agitation without profit.
America has had great parties in the past, but today they no longer exist. This change has contributed greatly to its happiness but not to its morality.
When the War of Independence ended and the time came to lay the foundation of a new government, the nation found itself divided into two camps. The views of both camps were as old as the world, and in one form or another one finds them under various names in all free societies. One camp wished to restrain the power of the people, the other to extend it without limit."

[Anonymous No.18271013]

>>18270964
In short, one can say that the extent of change and neutralizing territory is beyond the scope of the individual in the modern era. To some degree the monarchies had already recognised this in the great formations of power, settlement, wars, and technical control measures. Only the great parties and organisations can mobilise enough people and material to function at the level of continents. Where power exceeds the nation there can be no king, perhaps not even a sovereign.

There may also be a relation to what Nietzsche says of the criminal being a type of great man under unfavourable conditions. With the formation of political parties only the most noble of men will resign himself to the anonymity of the great parties. There may be silence following the revolutions, but in time the democratic instincts will begin to corrupt the lesser nobles as well. And with them the minor parties, revolutionary groups and criminal organisations become the final home of great men.

Over time one will also see a weakening of the great parties, as the few noble men can withstand the dissolution of values and the exhaustion of their moral needs.

[Jim Profit No.18271059]

>>18268944
HI I'm Jim Profit
that's the most retarded thing I've ever heard.

[Anonymous No.18271115]

>>18269879
>Because it detracts from the agency of other parts and members of society.
This is a good thing

[Anonymous No.18271149]

>>18266214
because the theory implies the existence of singular genius that does not exist. Some regard great men as totally infallible. Everyone should be regarded with skepticism when they reach outside their area of expertise.

[Anonymous No.18271275]

>>18268676
If most of them were born a few years earlier or later they would have failed. Caesar might have taken the place of the Gracchi, or been proscribed if he was born earlier. Marius may have taken the place of Sulla if he was born later. These men were certainly great and influential, but the circumstances they were placed in defined them as much as their actions, and the great man theory can lead people to believe that Caesar would have been Caesar even if he was born in China.

[Anonymous No.18271340]

>>18269879
By this logic, people are interchangeable, and my alcoholic retard birth-defect neighbor could have been a great inventor if only he had rich parents; there's no such thing as talent or natural intelligence, and there's no such thing as superior/inferior.

And this makes sense to you. You're a retard, Anon.

[Anonymous No.18271347]

>>18266241
this

[Anonymous No.18271357]

Say what you will, but great man history books are so much more engaging and interesting than generic 'actually it was all done by [minority]!' neo-history we get today.

I blame that kike Zinn and his stupid n*gger book.

[Anonymous No.18271361]

>>18270964
>>18271013
Who wrote this?

[Anonymous No.18271381]

>>18271149
>Everyone should be regarded with skepticism when they reach outside their area of expertise.
Bugman cope. If we never reached outside our area of expertise, we'd never have achieved any of that expertise to begin with.

[Anonymous No.18271403]

>>18271361
Tocqueville

[Anonymous No.18271406]

>>18271149
Sounds like you're way outside your area of expertise. Do you have any studies to back this claim up?

[Anonymous No.18271407]

>>18271361
Oh, the second is my notes

[Anonymous No.18271411]

>>18271403
thank you

[Anonymous No.18271464]

>>18271340
Rejecting the great man theory doesn't mean people don't have unique talents or natural intelligence, or that important leaders didn't exist at all.

[Anonymous No.18271479]

>>18269879
I don't see how any of those "arguments" prove it to be wrong. They are just arbitrary statements which don't prove or disprove anything.

[Anonymous No.18271529]

"In the autumn of 1940, as France lay defeated on the ground, I had a discussion with a Yugoslavian, the Serbian poet Ivo Andrić, whom I love very much. We had met in a shared connoisseurship and in the veneration of Léon Bloy. The Serb told me the following story from the mythology of his people: Marko Kraljević, the hero of the Serbian saga, fought for an entire day with a powerful Turk and laid him out after a hard struggle. As he killed the defeated enemy, a serpent that had been sleeping upon the heart of the dead man awoke and spoke to Marko: You were lucky that I slept through your battle. Then the hero cried out: Woe is me! I killed a man who was stronger than me!
I retold this story to some friends and acquaintances at the time and also to Ernst Jünger, who was stationed as an officer of the army of occupation in Paris. We were all deeply impressed. But it was clear to us that the victors of today do not allow themselves to be impressed by such medieval stories. This, too, belongs to your great prognosis, poor, defeated Tocqueville!"

[Anonymous No.18271636]

>>18271529
where is this from?

[Anonymous No.18271660]

>>18271529
This may come closer than anything else to answering the question. First we must consider why so few today will allow themselves to be impressed by such stories, and also why men no longer sense victory or defeat. The simple answer is that man no longer regards death or the divine, and not because they are beneath him but because he has surpassed them. One will throw his life away amidst hordes defending the weakest laws, while others will demand an infinite material be secured so that their body continues to function until the very end, even at the cost of all spirit. This is because only the end of man's immortality threatens him - and the closer he is to such a cataclysm the more he sees the necessity of all previous incarnations of the species be taken with his own. Even time itself is a species to be brought to ruin if it cannot be perfected. Modern man despises the warrior above all, yet all of his laws depend on eternal war with the armies of the dead.

Secondly, where the spirit remains in contact with these medieval stories, or at least their form, it is uncertain that anyone identifies with the spiritual wounds of the hero. The cry of "Woe is me!" in the midst of battle is a lost image. Herder regards such lamentations as one with the instincts of Scottish strength. But in Nietzsche or even Maistre we see its weakening, or even total loss. Pain is a lever to increase greatness, and loss only a sign that one may not endure in the face of an eternal sovereign, the destructive usurpation which secures its infinitely brutal territory. Here the heroic begins its fall into the technical, the same as if measured from the other side, from those who have had enough of heroes.

[Anonymous No.18271665]

>>18271636
Schmitt's essay on Tocqueville in Ex Captivitate Salus

[Anonymous No.18271670]

>>18271665
thank you

[Anonymous No.18271706]

>>18271660
"These are our masters, the slim
Grim muzzles that irk in the pit;
That chafe for the rushing of wheels,
For the teams plunging madly to bit
As the gunners wing down to unkey,
For the trails sweeping half-circle-right,
For the six breech-blocks clashing as one
To a target viewed clear on the sight--
Gray masses the shells search and tear
Into fragments that bunch as they run--
For the hour of the red battle-harvest,
The dream of the slaves of the gun!
We have bartered our souls to the guns;
Every fibre of body and brain
Have we trained to them, chained to them. Serfs?
Aye! but proud of the weight of our chain,
Of our backs that are bowed to their workings,
To hide them and guard and disguise,
Of our ears that are deafened with service,
Of hands that are scarred, and of eyes
Grown hawklike with marking their prey,
Of wings that are slashed as with swords
When we hover, the turn of a blade
From the death that is sweet to our lords."

[Anonymous No.18271716]

Great man? Are you implying that women and trans people can't get great. Begone, bigot!

[Anonymous No.18271719]

"By the ears and the eyes and the brain,
By the limbs and the hands and the wings,
We are slaves to our masters the guns;
But their slaves are the masters of kings!"

[Anonymous No.18272173]

Bu

[Anonymous No.18272224]

We're all just atoms controlled by greater forces ("systems", "history" etc.). An individual's will and "genius" are irrelevant, if Stalin was never born, another identical man would've taken his place and made the same choices and created the same outcomes. I'm smart.

[Anonymous No.18272257]

>>18266348
>It completely disregards the socio-political climate of its time and gives a grossly reductionist view on history,

No, it doesn't. It only claims great men are the most important factors.

[blackmagic No.18272516]

sure
whatever you think
Charles Eilish Manson
can you stop eating rotting flesh and trying to crush my chest ?
thanks
i need to go down the shops briefly
is that allowable ?
oh god, Yahweh, Allah ?

[blackmagic No.18272525]

p.s. why are you so obsessed with me ?

[Anonymous No.18272526]

Well, Mr Carlyle, it appears your Man Theory is not so great after all.

[blackmagic No.18272531]

sorry i should phrased that as
Dear Geralt,
Why are you so obsessed with me ?
And isn't it a little difficult to keep track of ALL YOUR IDENTITIES ?
Must drive you mad

[Anonymous No.18272533]

>>18266214
Because it's not something to be explicated upon, that just ruins the natural arrival of such a person through nuerotic mullings and theorizing. Usually, these are from people who have ego up their asses, wishing to be one of these people.
Dosto is completely right in this regard.

[Anonymous No.18272539]

>>18266214
Because of a prevailing hatred for humanity. Because of a crass materialism that denies free will. Because of a belief in the all-pervasive machine - "systems."

[Anonymous No.18273094]

>>18271149
>because the theory implies the existence of singular genius that does not exist.
No it doesn't faggot

[Anonymous No.18273195]

>>18271716
2016 called they want their shitty joke back

[Anonymous No.18273761]

>>18270964
>>18271013
This is really good.

[Anonymous No.18273773]

>>18266214
Read any 4th year basic textbook on historiography.

[Anonymous No.18274441]

It's a false dichotomy, the French revolution created the need for a man like Napoleon, but in filling that role he went above and beyond what anyone expected

[Anonymous No.18274677]

>>18269879
>2. Because it detracts from the agency of other parts and members of society.
So?

[Anonymous No.18274924]

>>18266214
Some commies like to point Jeff Bezos became the richest man on the Earth because he received $300k from his parents in order to help his business. If he hadn't then he wouldn't be where he is today. So are they basically implying that if I was to lend them $300k today, they would become the richest person in 20 years?
This is my favourite example to demonstrate that there's some truth to the great man theory. If you give the same resources to someone, it doesn't mean they will achieve the same as a great man because we are all different. Equality is Critic Theory spook.

[Anonymous No.18274946]

>>18274924
There's nothing great about Bozos

[Anonymous No.18274968]

>>18274924
I think the functions of Amazon would still exist without Bezos. If Bezo didn't exist, someone else would have come along and take his place with different branding, very often when a certain technology or idea is discovered someone else discovers it independently.

[Anonymous No.18275026]

>>18274968
That's like that looking at some simplistic modern artwork and say you could it but you didn't. It seems obvious after the fact.

[Anonymous No.18275113]

>>18275026
Retard

[Anonymous No.18275566]

"Wenn einer in den Spiegel siehet, ein Mann, und siehet darinn sein Bild, wie abgemahlt; es gleicht dem Manne. Augen hat des Menschen Bild, hingegen Licht der Mond. Der König Ödipus hat ein Auge zuviel vielleicht. Diese Leiden dieses Mannes, sie scheinen unbeschreiblich, unaussprechlich, unausdrücklich. Wenn das Schauspiel ein solches darstellt, kommt’s daher. Wie ist mir’s aber, gedenk’ ich deiner jetzt? Wie Bäche reißt des Ende von Etwas mich dahin, welches sich wie Asien ausdehnet. Natürlich dieses Leiden, das hat Ödipus. Natürlich ist’s darum Hat auch Herkules gelitten? Wohl. Die Dioskuren in ihrer Freundschaft haben die nicht Leiden auch getragen? Nämlich wie Herkules mit Gott zu streiten, das ist Leiden. Und die Unsterblichkeit im Neide dieses Lebens, diese zu theilen, ist ein Leiden auch. Doch das ist auch ein Leiden, wenn mit Sommerflecken ist bedeckt ein Mensch, mit manchen Flecken ganz überdeckt zu seyn! Das thut dieschöne Sonne: nämlich die ziehet alles auf. Die Jünglinge führt die Bahn sie mit Reizen ihrer Strahlen wie mit Rosen. Die Leiden scheinen so, die Ödipus getragen, als wie ein armer Mann klagt, daß ihm etwas fehle. Sohn Laios, armer Fremdling in Griechenland! Leben ist Tod, und Tod ist auch ein Leben."

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"When someone looks into the mirror, a man, and in it sees his image, as though it were a painted likeness; it resembles the man. The image of man has eyes, whereas the moon has light. King Oedipus has an eye too many perhaps. The sufferings of this man, they seem indescribable, unspeakable, inexpressible. If the drama represents something like this, that is why. But what comes over me if I think of you now? Like brooks the end of something sweeps me away, which expands like Asia. Of course, this affliction, Oedipus has it too. Of course, that is why. Did Hercules suffer too? Indeed. The Dioscuri in their friendship, did not they bear afflictions too? For to fight with God like Hercules, that is an affliction. And immortality amidst the envy of this life to share in that, is an affliction too. But this also is an affliction, when a man is covered with freckles, to be wholly covered with many a spot! The beautiful sun does that: for it rears up all things. It leads young men along their course with the allurements of its beams as though with roses. The afflictions that Oedipus bore seem like this, as when a poor man complains that that there is something he lacks. Son of Laios, poor stranger in Greece! Life is death, and death is a kind of life."

[Anonymous No.18275582]

"Wenn einer in den Spiegel siehet, ein Mann, und siehet darinn sein Bild, wie abgemahlt; es gleicht dem Manne. Augen hat des Menschen Bild, hingegen Licht der Mond. Der König Ödipus hat ein Auge zuviel vielleicht. Diese Leiden dieses Mannes, sie scheinen unbeschreiblich, unaussprechlich, unausdrücklich. Wenn das Schauspiel ein solches darstellt, kommt’s daher. Wie ist mir’s aber, gedenk’ ich deiner jetzt? Wie Bäche reißt des Ende von Etwas mich dahin, welches sich wie Asien ausdehnet. Natürlich dieses Leiden, das hat Ödipus. Natürlich ist’s darum Hat auch Herkules gelitten? Wohl. Die Dioskuren in ihrer Freundschaft haben die nicht Leiden auch getragen? Nämlich wie Herkules mit Gott zu streiten, das ist Leiden. Und die Unsterblichkeit im Neide dieses Lebens, diese zu theilen, ist ein Leiden auch. Doch das ist auch ein Leiden, wenn mit Sommerflecken ist bedeckt ein Mensch, mit manchen Flecken ganz überdeckt zu seyn! Das thut dieschöne Sonne: nämlich die ziehet alles auf. Die Jünglinge führt die Bahn sie mit Reizen ihrer Strahlen wie mit Rosen. Die Leiden scheinen so, die Ödipus getragen, als wie ein armer Mann klagt, daß ihm etwas fehle. Sohn Laios, armer Fremdling in Griechenland! Leben ist Tod, und Tod ist auch ein Leben."

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"When someone looks into the mirror, a man, and in it sees his image, as though it were a painted likeness; it resembles the man. The image of man has eyes, whereas the moon has light. King Oedipus has an eye too many perhaps. The sufferings of this man, they seem indescribable, unspeakable, inexpressible. If the drama represents something like this, that is why. But what comes over me if I think of you now? Like brooks the end of something sweeps me away, which expands like Asia. Of course, this affliction, Oedipus has it too. Of course, that is why. Did Hercules suffer too? Indeed. The Dioscuri in their friendship, did not they bear afflictions too? For to fight with God like Hercules, that is an affliction. And immortality amidst the envy of this life to share in that, is an affliction too. But this also is an affliction, when a man is covered with freckles, to be wholly covered with many a spot! The beautiful sun does that: for it rears up all things. It leads young men along their course with the allurements of its beams as though with roses. The afflictions that Oedipus bore seem like this, as when a poor man complains that that there is something he lacks. Son of Laios, poor stranger in Greece! Life is death, and death is a kind of life."

[Anonymous No.18275760]

>>18271464
Maybe the guy you replied to IS the retarded birth defect neighbor lol

[Anonymous No.18276087]

GALAXY BRAIN: THE IDEA OF GRASSROOTS, WHETHER INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE, IS THE MOST ASTROTURFED IDEA THERE IS, IT IS THE VERY THING PREVENTING MEN FROM REALIZING THE FUNDAMENTAL AND ALL-PERVADING ASTROTURF: IT PREVENTS PEOPLE FROM RIGHTLY JUDGING THE WORLD AS EVIL BY SOCIALIZING THE GUILT, IT IMPRISONS PEOPLE INTO THE ABSURD CONTEXT OF MANDATORY VOLITION WHEREIN YOU MUST WANT, IT DEMONICALLY TRANSMUTES THE IMPOSSIBLE INTO THE INSUFFICIENTLY WANTED WHICH TURNS THE MOST INNOCUOUS THINGS AND EVEN LITERAL NOTHINGS INTO INSTRUMENTS OF POTENTIALLY INFINITE SUFFERING.

[Anonymous No.18276148]

Tolstoy destroyed near the end of War and Peace. He absolutely and utterly btfo Napoleon

[Anonymous No.18276209]

>>18266214
>>18266241
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>>18276148

[Anonymous No.18276283]

>>18269879
>it's wrong because I say it's wrong, said three different ways
Perhaps you would also like to add some logic to your replies?

[Anonymous No.18277383]

>>18266214
Bump

[Anonymous No.18277595]

>>18276283
Is this real

[Anonymous No.18278599]

>>18275582
If heroism is an affliction then the question is what affliction the heroic man faces in democratic centuries, and in the age of leveling.
Most likely is that the heroic in our time is bears his affliction, suffers outside of time and historical power. To appear would threaten an attack from two fronts - against his sovereign character and revealing of hidden laws. Thus his life and acts are like the anonymous hero of Marathon.

[Anonymous No.18278618]

>>18278599
One should also consider Jünger's remarks on The Unknown Soldier. Heroism takes on a spectral appearance, as with the Vimy Memorial painting, or Rifleman Brown in Valhalla. We exist outside of the nomos, hence the abandonment of Triumphal Arches - to go through them demands its own memorial and defense structure. The changing of the guard where entry into the underworld or primevalnterritories threatens.

[Anonymous No.18278653]

>>18278618
And Plato's hierarchy of values. Technical considerations act like a lever or fulcrum against the strength of values. The reverence for nothing but the coming simple life, or Land of Cockaigne, demands industrial and commercial great men. This speaks to the place of the Fool as the last hero.
Much like the end of values creating a law of blind wealth our era defends its territory of blind heroism. This is not as Nietzsche diagnosed it: with the decline of the church and its desecration in eternal war one saw that the holy fool and the 'holy fuckrament' were one. Vice acts against virtue like a fulcrum, increasing pantheistic qualities and speculative morality.
Heine saw this deepest form of warfare at the earliest possible moment.

[Anonymous No.18278737]

>>18276209
sneed

[Anonymous No.18278744]

>>18268762
Kierkegaard discusses this in Fear and Trembling! The Hero and the Poet

[Anonymous No.18279649]

>>18277595
Let's hope

[Anonymous No.18280464]

>>18278599
>>18278618
Based

[Anonymous No.18280584]

[Anonymous No.18281839]

[Anonymous No.18281919]

>>18266214
i dont believe in free will so the maximum extent of a man's power is irrelevant to me.

[Anonymous No.18283125]

>>18281919

[Anonymous No.18284464]

Great men can only be great thanks to the effort of others. Take race car drivers for example. They are often given most of the credit for their victories if they are successful. They are indeed very skilled and diligent. However, for each minute that he drives his car on the race track, many mechanics spent hours making set up adjustments, many data analysis specialist spent hours combing through test and historical data to inform the set up, and some one or thing payed for the whole damn thing. The driver is indeed a great man, and few can do their job, but he can't do it alone. To the ignore or underappreciate the contributions of his team and his sponsors would be foolish.

[Anonymous No.18284471]

>>18266214
Dunno it’s kinda ridiculous though because historians have gone from great man theory to “bro humans don’t even matter” like Braudel.

[Anonymous No.18285911]

>>18269879
>Because Foucault
did that french pedo actually studied history or just talked shit out of his fucked ass?

[Anonymous No.18285922]

>>18285911
>theories of sovereignty and discipline
fuck off back to sociology cunt.

[Anonymous No.18285929]

>>18266241
it's a very masculine notion, one of personal responsibility, courage and strength. You can't blame your problems on some socioeconomic phenomena or divine intervention if you believe individuals shape the world.

[Anonymous No.18285971]

>>18274968
And the person who would fill Bezos' niche, would also be great in of himself.