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No, but I bet we would still have personal computers and smart phones without Steve Jobs. That's the argument against the "great man" idea. Sure, specific even

No, but I bet we would still have personal computers and smart phones without Steve Jobs. That's the argument against the "great man" idea. Sure, specific events would not have happened without that person, but the overall state of the world would not be drastically different.

mongol 3y ago
I think it can depend a lot. Political figures can have long lasting impact. Consider Jesus. Or Napoleon, without him Europe may have looked entirely different today. But for general scientific progress I agree. Scientific breakthroughs are bound to happen if enough people work on them.
- mFixman 3y ago
  The introduction of the potato and the invention of the steam engine changed Europe several orders of magnitude more than Napoleon or any other great man.
  - mongol 3y ago
    Yes sure, but that is not a counter argument. If James Watt et al did not invent the steam engine, someone else would
    - tmtvl 3y ago
      Didn't someone invent the telephone at roughly the same time as A. G. Bell? For another example, in Japan Soddy's Hexlet was described in 1822, while in the West it was introduced in England in 1937.
- DoughnutHole 3y ago
  The French were thrashing the coalition forces for 2 years before Napoleon led a major campaign. Napoleon was a military genius, but what shifted the revolutionary wars in the favour of the French was the revolutionary goverments' innovation of total war - directing the entire economy and population of the nation towards the war with mass conscription and modern organisation. That would have happened with or without Napolean, and it was the social forces of the Revolution that made it possible for a Corsican nobody to even become a general in the first place. Honestly the biggest argument for great man theory in the French Revolution is Louis XVI - if he hadn't been quite so indecisive and incompetent maybe the revolution would have fizzled out or been crushed instead of spiralling out of control.
  - mongol 3y ago
    > That would have happened with or without Napolean I am not convinced
    - DoughnutHole 3y ago
      It’s pretty hard to dispute that it happened before Napoleon. The leveé en masse was implemented in 1793. Napoleon only rose to prominence in 1796, by which point France had already conquered the Low Countries and the Rhineland. Napoleon wasn’t running the show until 1799. Revolutionary France was smashing the armies of the monarchies of Europe for years before Napoleon seized power.
  - isk517 3y ago
    I've heard talk of the great idiot theory of history, and I think it has merit. As many have pointed out, the great men of history more often than not are channeling the historical momentum of the time period, where there are many chases of a extremely stable status quote being shattered to pieces because one idiot couldn't keep it running.
positr0n 3y ago
I agree that most technological innovations, scientific discoveries, and broad historical events associated with a "great man" would have happened anyway if that person did not exist. Even Napoleon was very much a product of the times he lived through as a young man. But one specific person that in my opinion personally changed world history in a drastic way was Lenin. The history of the Bolsheviks rise to power is pretty insane. Nobody thought they could seize power, and once they got it, which was pretty much solely because of Lenin browbeating them to commit at the moment they committed, nobody thought they could hold on to it. And for good reason. If just a few things had gone slightly differently Russia would have been governed by groups with different belief systems than the communists. Disclaimer: 100% armchair historian who's knowledge mostly comes from a handful of podcasts. Hopefully someone will correct me :)
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  Trying to "what if" Russian history without Lenin is impossible, but I doubt Russia's overall century would be drastically different without a Leninist government. Even if you view the system as completely bad, spending 70 years under it still saw them develop at a similar rate to the rest of Europe.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > would be drastically different without a Leninist government It probably would've been drastically different had the socialist-liberal coalition held on to power. It likely would've been overthrown in a couple of years politically/socially it would have still played out quite differently (bolsheviks were pretty unique amongst socialist group in their single mindedness, hatred of democracy and support of totalitarianism and mass terror). > develop at a similar rate to the rest of Europe Unless you were one of the subjugated Central/Eastern European countries. Economically the gap between Czechoslovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia etc. and Western European countries considerably wider in 1990 than it was in the 1930s.

mongol 3y ago

I think it can depend a lot. Political figures can have long lasting impact. Consider Jesus. Or Napoleon, without him Europe may have looked entirely different today. But for general scientific progress I agree. Scientific breakthroughs are bound to happen if enough people work on them.

mFixman 3y ago
The introduction of the potato and the invention of the steam engine changed Europe several orders of magnitude more than Napoleon or any other great man.
- mongol 3y ago
  Yes sure, but that is not a counter argument. If James Watt et al did not invent the steam engine, someone else would
  - tmtvl 3y ago
    Didn't someone invent the telephone at roughly the same time as A. G. Bell? For another example, in Japan Soddy's Hexlet was described in 1822, while in the West it was introduced in England in 1937.
DoughnutHole 3y ago
The French were thrashing the coalition forces for 2 years before Napoleon led a major campaign. Napoleon was a military genius, but what shifted the revolutionary wars in the favour of the French was the revolutionary goverments' innovation of total war - directing the entire economy and population of the nation towards the war with mass conscription and modern organisation. That would have happened with or without Napolean, and it was the social forces of the Revolution that made it possible for a Corsican nobody to even become a general in the first place. Honestly the biggest argument for great man theory in the French Revolution is Louis XVI - if he hadn't been quite so indecisive and incompetent maybe the revolution would have fizzled out or been crushed instead of spiralling out of control.
- mongol 3y ago
  > That would have happened with or without Napolean I am not convinced
  - DoughnutHole 3y ago
    It’s pretty hard to dispute that it happened before Napoleon. The leveé en masse was implemented in 1793. Napoleon only rose to prominence in 1796, by which point France had already conquered the Low Countries and the Rhineland. Napoleon wasn’t running the show until 1799. Revolutionary France was smashing the armies of the monarchies of Europe for years before Napoleon seized power.
- isk517 3y ago
  I've heard talk of the great idiot theory of history, and I think it has merit. As many have pointed out, the great men of history more often than not are channeling the historical momentum of the time period, where there are many chases of a extremely stable status quote being shattered to pieces because one idiot couldn't keep it running.

positr0n 3y ago

I agree that most technological innovations, scientific discoveries, and broad historical events associated with a "great man" would have happened anyway if that person did not exist. Even Napoleon was very much a product of the times he lived through as a young man. But one specific person that in my opinion personally changed world history in a drastic way was Lenin. The history of the Bolsheviks rise to power is pretty insane. Nobody thought they could seize power, and once they got it, which was pretty much solely because of Lenin browbeating them to commit at the moment they committed, nobody thought they could hold on to it. And for good reason. If just a few things had gone slightly differently Russia would have been governed by groups with different belief systems than the communists. Disclaimer: 100% armchair historian who's knowledge mostly comes from a handful of podcasts. Hopefully someone will correct me :)

boomboomsubban 3y ago
Trying to "what if" Russian history without Lenin is impossible, but I doubt Russia's overall century would be drastically different without a Leninist government. Even if you view the system as completely bad, spending 70 years under it still saw them develop at a similar rate to the rest of Europe.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > would be drastically different without a Leninist government It probably would've been drastically different had the socialist-liberal coalition held on to power. It likely would've been overthrown in a couple of years politically/socially it would have still played out quite differently (bolsheviks were pretty unique amongst socialist group in their single mindedness, hatred of democracy and support of totalitarianism and mass terror). > develop at a similar rate to the rest of Europe Unless you were one of the subjugated Central/Eastern European countries. Economically the gap between Czechoslovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia etc. and Western European countries considerably wider in 1990 than it was in the 1930s.