Why do modern historians despise 'Great Man' Theory?

Why do modern historians despise 'Great Man' Theory?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because it's dumb. Great events will happen without "great men" think WW1. Nobody who lead a nation through that was considered a great man. But it's one of histories most important moments. Now the events with great men are just better stories. Humans can connect better, as the story has a central protagonist or antagonist. This creates in our heads the idea that most important moments had a great man.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Imagine being this moronic

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        you dont have to

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It would be more accurate to say that I can't, your moronicness is awesome in its ways

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Or you know engage with the topic and state your fricking point.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >no great men fought in world war one
            What about Joffre, Petain, Churchill, Hitler, Ataturk, De Gaulle, Tukachevsky, Brusilov, von Hindenburg, Ludendorf, Kitchener, etc. in that war it was just the heads of states who were shit. Except the king of Belgium he was based.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Love how you act like your quoting me but fricking aren't. Also pertain, and ludendorf as great men. What a joke.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            How are you expected to know about people whose name you can't even spell? Right, you aren't.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            if Petain's contributions to world history had ended with world war 1 he would be looked at at the same level of Joffre, a saviour of france who won verdun. he was pretty much french gandalf and coined the phrase they shall not pass. and ludendorf won the battle of tannenburg and saved berlin, took over belgian forts single handedly armed with nothing but a sabre, and by the end of the war was pretty much the military dictator of germany. had the americans not entered the war he might have been able to pull off a victory. just because he lost in the end doesn't mean he wasn't a great man. napoleon lost too.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            No neither were great men. Comparing them to Napolean is sad. And I shit on Napolean 9/10 he is brought up

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >People who asked:0.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            i never said they were on the level of napoleon you brainlet. i just said they were great men by historical standards, as in, they won battles commanding the greatest powers of the time in the largest battles in history up til that point, and both of them legitimately saved their nations by the battles they won (tannenburg and verdun) which, had it happened in any other context, would have secured them great man status. how is winning the battle of verdun any less impressive than winning the battle of the catalonian plains? aetius is called the last great roman and that's about all he accomplished.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    because it is wrong

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    To expand, at peace from moronicness, I would say the book The Legend of Bouvines would be a perfect illustration of the nefarious aims of this reaction.
    In itself the book is a masterpiece. It actually teaches you something. From it you learn that war was not at all envisioned in the same way for example.
    But the polemic it led to (before people actually read it, going solely from the original title) is more revealing. Someone writing about a known event was enough to lead to snickering. For someone as deemed (as great you could also say) as the author it was not enough to impress, but surely the addition of such a band of mediocrities only interested in cabbages and herrings ought to have an impact on the discipline as a whole.
    I spent uncountable hours reading about the accession of rural communities to the franchise or proto-industry in Flanders. From it I can't and won't pretend that a king being able or unable to impose a tax doesn't matter infinitely more than those previous things. And in the great chain of events, the percentage of worldmaking decisions and extravangances from such characters will always matter much more than said things, short or long term. It is how it is.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because it's wrong and a literal cuckold like Napoleon might be the worst possible example anyone can raise in it's defense.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      How so? I do not agree, nor disagree. I honestly would like to hear why?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Who cares about cuckolding. That has no bearing on the guy going around beating the shit out of everyone

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The problem historians had with the Great Man Theory was that it was essentially that ALL actions in history were more or less caused by man. Most people, at least on here railing on about it essentially fall into the agreed upon way interactions between man and environment exist in history but are butthurt because they don't actually understand what historians are protesting against. The influence of individuals is inevitable, nobody denies it, or rejects it. An absolute monarch is going to impose his own will onto a region, start wars and so on based on himself not necessarily being connected to some intrinsic environmental or external force

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This. Historians aren't denying that great men existed or that certain influential figures had a significant impact on their slice of history. They just dislike the notion that history can be largely explained by the exploits of great men. It's simply garbage as a philosophy of history.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >The influence of individuals is inevitable, nobody denies it, or rejects it
      Untrue.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I made a post on this topic yesterday:

    [...]

    I think most of the arguments about the theory basically boil down to people talking past each other.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Well, where are the Great Men today?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It’s called the White House and the Kremlin, chud

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        White house? That puppet show?

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's sexist.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Science and rationalism.
    The thought that there are laws - of economics,of sociology, etc., that determine everything is just reassuring. On the other hand if everything depends on the decisions of a single person that is unpredictable, closer to chaos.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Cause its dumb

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Envy

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