The sociopolitical damage that Great Man Theory has done to western civilization is incalculable.
The ideological basis of "The American Dream" is the "rags to riches" story, which is itself Great Man Theory applied. It's never about the poor as a class (or even as a microcosm, such as an impoverished neighborhood) escaping poverty, but individuals in the fantasy. This has been done for centuries, but modern versions (such as Ready Player One) rather blatantly demonstrate how nothing meaningfully changes when the Great Man "wins" except now that the Great Man is on top. Black Panther, as has been recently mentioned by someone else on Hexbear, also comes to mind.
The most insidious part of Great Man Theory is the rarely-mentioned but very obvious implication of applying it society wide: most won't make it, but that's fine, fuck 'em, they weren't great enough. Building society's expectations around Great Men is also saying that most everyone else should remain in crushing poverty until they die in a ditch.
It's a crude but highly contagious secular version of Calvinism and prosperity gospel.
Some bazinga brains will even LARP as the Great Men they worship in a cargo cult kind of way. I've heard this a lot: "Bill Gates didn't finish college! I'm not going to finish college either! I'm putting everything into crypto, and once I'm rich, I'm going to be an entrepreneur!" :cryptocurrency: :dumpster-fire:
Are YOU great enough to get ahead with Great Man Theory? If not, worship someone who is and hope for table scraps! :so-true:
gotta say though that mao was a fluke of a military genius and probably saved millions of lives through decisive action. like yeah great man history is dumb but sometimes you gotta sit back and admire the girth of someone's brain every now and again. also find it amusing that he was part of the communist party when it had like 80 members so its like some random dsa dude that gets drunk at every meeting turning out to be a guy that all modern militaries teach you about in an officer academy 50 years from now
Some people are remarkable and do remarkable things. I won't pretend that doesn't happen.
The idea that these remarkable people do remarkable things entirely by themselves, or that they are somehow superior specimens of humanity that belong on a higher hierarchical tier than the rest of us (and that the same applies to their failsons too) is pure ideology, though. :zizek:
true :tfyourlookinat:
nooooo that's great man theory!!!
(yes i have seen this shit)
Que
some people seem to think it's great man theory if you think individuals can ever do anything at all
Ooh yeah. Obviously he had an army to back him up but it was truly a tactical marvel that they won with 10-50k troops vs an army of millions