In a comment to my post on the search for Osama bin Laden, blog-friend and fellow-Council member Dymphna asked:
“…when you say you don’t agree with the “great man†theory of history, does that mean you don’t think particular leaders at particular node points — the Founding Brothers of this country; Washington’s early presidency, Lincoln, etc., don’t make a crucial difference? I cannot imagine England in WWII w/o Churchill and the lack of any one of that stature in WWI may have led to WWII.â€
The great man theory of history is most closely associated with the British philosopher and historian, Thomas Carlyle. Here’s a one sentence summary in the form of a quotation: “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.†You can read his book, Heroes and Hero Worship, online.
A purist in the “great man†theory would interpret American history solely in the lives of giants like Washington and Lincoln, the history of the migration of peoples solely in the lives of figures like Attila and Temujin, and 20th century European history solely in the lives of people like Lenin, Hitler, Churchill, de Gaulle, and Adenauer.
I don’t buy it. It just ignores too much.
My own view can, perhaps, best be described in a metaphor: the road of history may be paved with the biographies of great individuals but its path was laid by diverse hands and shaped by forces like human nature, economics, geography, and climate. Lincoln and Grant did not determine whether the Union would prevail; but their lives, choices, and actions did influence how the Union would prevail. I believe that the Allies would have won in World War II without Churchill but he sure as the dickens helped.
So, is the individual important? Heck, yes! But not dispositive.
Sometimes the individual is dispositive. Sometimes not. Why make a false dichotomy and stake out a position. You can look at the historical situation and assess it. Napoleon? There was no one quite like Napoleon. Hitler? Same thing. Isaac Newton? There is no particular reason to think anyone else would have pulled things together the way he did, maybe ever, maybe for decades.
David Hackett Fischer’s books do a nice job of laying out the larger forces at work, then putting into play the contingency of luck, chance (weather!) and most importantly, individual action.
I don’t disagree with that Lexington Green. I think it’s possible for unique individuals to remold the future to their liking. But in the particular case at hand which is Osama bin Laden I simply don’t think that obtains. What’s going on has been building for a long time—since before OBL was born.
Would the WTC have been destroyed? Maybe. Maybe not. But our being attacked by Islamicist terrorists was inevitable given the circumstances which go far, far beyond one guy.
Dave, I agree re OBL. He’s not important, not even crucial. In fact, much of his “reality” exists in the attention the media pays to him.
In the rise and fall of the various utopia-driven dystopias of the last century some individuals have been crucial: Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot., and, of course, Hitler.
Perhaps it is easier to see such people as crucial when they are a force for evil…benignity is much more fragile.
Dave,
Let me offer two counterexamples: Albert Einstein and George Patton.
Let’s eliminate Einstein from history. Eventually someone else comes up with the theory of relativity, but maybe not as quickly. More importantly, without Einstein, does the Manhattan Project come into being in 1941? What if the U.S. didn’t develop the atomic bomb until 1947, and had to go forward with Operation Olympic? I’d argue that would have been a pretty big change to history as we know it.
Or Patton. Let’s say that in 1944, Eisenhower decides to cashier Patton for his actions in Italy. So instead of Patton having Third Army, it is given to Hodges, who is told to breakout from Normandy. Hodges would have succeeded in the breakout; Allied superiority was too great to prevent that. But Hodges would not have torn across France the way Patton did; Hodges would have achieved the breakout and waited for orders, time in which the Germans might have been able to rebuild their forces. Meanwhile, the Russians would continue coming. Without Patton’s mad dash across France, the Russians might well have been in possession of most (or all) of Germany when the Germans capitulated. I’d submit that the history of the Cold War would have been very different had Germany remained one, Communist, nation. And that might well have been the case without Patton.
Individuals matter. I don’t subscribe to the ‘great man’ thesis; there’s a lot more to the world than individuals. But I think you give short shrift to what individuals can accomplish.
Andrew, I guess my point is that the Allies would have won World War II without Einstein, without Patton, without Eisenhower. The numbers, economics, and productive capacity decided that.
But I don’t actually discount the contributions of individuals. They shape the details of history and its contours. The contours of the victory, as you suggest, would have been different and the implications for the aftermath different as well.
But the Soviet Union would still have collapsed. Eventually. Again, the economics dictated that. But it might have still clung on ’til now perhaps. But collapse it would.
And, getting back to the essential point, had Osama bin Laden never been born and if no Saudi leader had ever gone to Afghanistan every single force that’s moving Arab and Muslim societies would still be there. The contours would change but the tide would move the same way.
Dave,
I concur with that assessment. I noted that in a recent post in which I observed that I don’t think presidential elections are nearly as important as people think, and that I figured very little major would have changed in my lifetime if the results of the presidential elections had been different.
I thought we probably weren’t too far apart on this.
I don’t think this is a picky or trivial issue—I think it’s actually a dividing line between two differing views of the world. One view is always looking for a messiah or a devil: if only we caught Osama bin Laden, if only we had a wise/courageous/benevolent president, etc. I have my suspicions about such views—I wonder if they’re casting themselves in the role of savior.
The other view is that the micro forces of society are important, too, and we shouldn’t bother looking for a hero to save us from our problems or a villain to punish for them.
the great man of the universe is muhammad the last prophet of Allah
some of you said that if certain individuals hadn’t existed (Einstein, Eisenhower etc) history would have turned out differently. While that is true, the same could be said for anybody. Has anyone ever stopped to think how important Einstein’s greatx10 grandmother was? If she wasn’t alive, he wouldn’t have existed and history would have turned out differently. Therefore, the great man theory fails because all those ‘great men’ are influenced by all of us ‘common people’.
Also, while the aforementioned men have made a big difference, had they not existed, we could still be living the way we are today. Of course, it may not have been entirely the same, but there isn’t an exclusivity to ideas. Just take a look at physics: Hertzsprung and Russel came up with the same luminosity/colour-temperature relationship of stars even while they were continents apart. Numerous philosophers and scientists came up with the same models of the universe. All this was without them knowing about each other or their work, which proves that these men, who we consider to be great, are not so special that their ideas could not be duplicated.
There are only so many issues that we can cover before moving forward and with the number of people who exist in the world it is inevitable that somebody comes up with the idea, sooner or later. It’s like putting mice in a maze with cheese in the middle and obstacles blocking their way. Eventually one mice or the other finds a way to overcome these obstacles, similarly to how eventually we would find a way to get to where we are today.
Well, maybe with some differences, such as in wars and stuff. But nonetheless, events or changes that take place do not occur just because of a single person, but because of a combined sentiment, which creates the environment and the circumstances for such changes to take place or for such events to occur. A single person only has so much power, however great they may be, and unless there are others there to consolidate this power, to help this person and who agree with this person…well, nobody could have done all that these ‘great men’ were supposed to do on their own.
With numerous spin doctors, assistants, secretaries and advisors behind most of history’s ‘great men’, well, many of those men were more figureheads than anything, and all that they did was more the culmination of the work of numerous people.
A bit long winded…sorry