Great observation about human agency. I think this kind of thing also explains the fixation that certain :jordan-eboy-peterson: people have on "postmodernism" as well, and why they see it as basically the same thing as Marxism. The idea is that both ideologies see individuals as merely being a confluence of social categories and forces, with actual agentive action existing only around the margins. This is a sort of failure of imagination, I think--they can't see how there might be room for individual agency while also rejecting Great Man Theory. They think that our denial of the claim that history is driven by a small number of Atlases shrugging at key moments also amounts to a denial that anyone can ever do anything.
Great observation about human agency. I think this kind of thing also explains the fixation that certain :jordan-eboy-peterson: people have on "postmodernism" as well, and why they see it as basically the same thing as Marxism. The idea is that both ideologies see individuals as merely being a confluence of social categories and forces, with actual agentive action existing only around the margins. This is a sort of failure of imagination, I think--they can't see how there might be room for individual agency while also rejecting Great Man Theory. They think that our denial of the claim that history is driven by a small number of Atlases shrugging at key moments also amounts to a denial that anyone can ever do anything.