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:
To quote the great Winston Churchill "This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes."
lol I did an irony
Black Panther, as has been recently mentioned by someone else on Hexbear, also comes to mind.
nice to see that my furious hatred and ranting about Black Panther hasn't fallen on deaf ears
Honestly, your rants have become so detailed that I feel like I already know the movie, despite having never seen it. At least, I think it's your rants.
I think it helps that I only actually make posts if I've had a small bit to drink first
Ah yes, but have you considered Great Founder Theory :very-intelligent:
I’m so sorry for posting this, but the 183 page PDF this links to is an actual thing that someone wrote seriously. The guy that wrote it charges $100 a month for his Substack, and apparently has hundreds of subscribers. Nice grift if you can get it.
from the contents page
How Elon Musk is Making Engineers Cool Again
Live vs. Dead Players
Whether you are examining past societies or living and acting within one today, it’s important to distinguish between live and dead players. A live player is a person or well-coordinated group of people that is able to do things they have not done before. A dead player is a person or group of people that is working off a script, incapable of doing new things.
it's literally just the npc meme
Intellectual Dark Matter
I can't bring myself to read any of this pseudo intellectual bullshit any more
My favorite genre in the world is STEM students recreating philosophy and then thinking that they are having original thoughts, when really it just indicates how cloistered and under educated they are.
Whether you are examining past societies or living and acting within one today, it’s important to distinguish between live and dead players. A live player is a person or well-coordinated group of people that is able to do things they have not done before. A dead player is a person or group of people that is working off a script, incapable of doing new things.
it’s literally just the npc meme
or it's capitalists vs wage slaves, but told from the ideological capitalist perspective.
The NPC meme is more like "If someone is an asshole, they're an asshole, if everyone is an asshole, you're the asshole" but explained from the asshole's point of view.
It’s a crude but highly contagious secular version of Calvinism and prosperity gospel.
Bit of a tangent, but this also describes the new Q-anon obsession with Disney/teacher "grooming". It's a fully secularized Satanic Panic. Even Bill Mar is getting in on it - one presumes the ratings must be too good to resist.
I'm sorry sir but introducing a Sabbath into The OASIS is not nothing changing!
Incremental changes from the newly crowned billionaire overlord, who will soon use mind invading and mind manipulating "empathy" powers to amass a digital waifu harem and flee into space in the sequel to SAVE HUMANITY by abandoning it! :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:
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
