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It's a big deficiency in the way history is taught, at least here in the US, it's mostly taught as Guy/Group X did Y in year ZZZZ and leaves out a lot of the co
by rtkwe 2y ago
It's a big deficiency in the way history is taught, at least here in the US, it's mostly taught as Guy/Group X did Y in year ZZZZ and leaves out a lot of the context that shows how many people were often doing similar things before or simultaneously. It leads a lot of people to buy into the Great Man of History view point when there's rarely singular figures that the the principal cause, often they're just the one who won.
- emursebrian 2y agoWe had a history teacher in high school who noted that. He always tried to cover the factors that led up to an event happening. I always appreciated that. Ultimately, there's only so much you can cover in a history class on a very broad topic like "Ancient History" or "American History".
- kccqzy 2y agoMy history teacher in middle school really liked to tell us the idea of "historical determinism" whenever an individual appeared to have changed the course of history. Of course that theory doesn't place enough emphasis on individual effort or even their free will. But I guess I appreciated the alternate viewpoint.
- ecshafer 2y agoI have this complaint about a lot of more modern history, which is that the idea of the great man theory is so abhorrent that some historians have started to treat the concept of free will as non-existent where the forces of history are so powerful things were all but inevitable. People are driven by economic, environmental, and societal factors. But sometimes there is an individual that makes things move one way or another. I usually like to take the example of WWI, it was probably going to happen regardless in Europe eventually. But King Wilhelm II was an individual that has specific psychological aspects that drove it to happen the way it did. A different king would not have created the alliance situation that made the specific powers fight on their specific side. If King Wilhelm didn't try and emulate and thus alienate England, we might have seen England and Germany against Russia and France.
- intalentive 2y agoWhy is great man theory “abhorrent”?
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoPart of it might be calling the most violent and murderous people in history "great".
- potato3732842 2y agoI really hate this take because it implicitly ignores the baseline murderous-ness of the systems and situations these leaders inherit. Nelson Mandela wasn't gonna rise to the top of the pile in 1920s Russia. Furthermore, the people who underpin various states and societies (and the cultures and movements that shape them) do ultimately choose who rules them. Leaders only have freedom of action within the window of what their political capitol affords them. The people, or even just the ones that call the shots (this should be a familiar concept if you've ever seen a TV show centered around a medieval royal family) very much do set that window. Grant and Eisenhower's "failure" to thoroughly exploit conquered territory would have made them unsuitable for further leadership in antiquity for that matter yet they were both more or less instantly elevated by the existing power structure and elected to the highest office.
- lupusreal 2y agoThis is a bad take because it comes from linguistic ignorance. The "great" here doesn't mean the person is wonderful with a kind soul and a benevolent impact. It's not "great" as an extra intense "good". It's great like a Great White Shark is great. Great like Great Britain is great. Large, impactful, encompassing. A person is said to be a "Great Person" if they are seen to have a disproportionately large impact on the course of history. It is this premise, of some individuals being able to have such disproportionate impacts (rather than everything being a product of the times) that certain philosophers and historians have objected to. It wasn't out of concern that we might be glorifying nasty people with the term; if that were it then we could simply change the terminology to "Impactful People" or something like that. Those who've lodged serious objections to the premise of great people would not be placated by this change in words.
- dwighttk 2y agoYou just lay down a foundation and keep putting layers on top of that…
- otteromkram 2y ago> at least here in the US I didn't realize that you spoke for everyone. Maybe you were taught that info by your instructor, but that doesn't mean everyone followed a similar format.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoThey never said literally everyone. It's undeniably the rule but that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions.
- derekp7 2y agoAlso is a deficiency in patents. Instead of giving a temporary monopoly on a genuine original idea and solution, it becomes a land rush to who can get to a newly obvious idea the fastest.
- preciousoo 2y agoFWIW when I was an aerospace major, one of the first lessons in “fundamentals of flight” as the class was named, was about the race to flight that was heating up around the time of the Wright brothers. But this was in an aerospace class, so I guess it’s less relevant. Never heard about the Brazilian guys though
- brabel 2y agoInteresting, given Dumont performed "the first officially observed flight in Europe that was longer than 25m was performed in Paris (FRA)" in 1906. It was also the first flight in front of a crowd, so pretty relevant to history. Sources: https://old.fai.org/news/personalities/42650-12-november-1906-the-first-flight-by-santos-dumont https://old.fai.org/news/personalities/42650-12-november-190... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/10-milestone-flights-4056259/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/10-milesto...
- lupusreal 2y agoIn 1906, Santos-Dumont flew 220 meters for less than half a minute. In 1905, Wilbur Wright flew 38.9 km for more than 39 minutes. This isn't one of those cases, like light bulbs, where it can be reasonably debated who was first. The Wrights were in front of the competition by literal miles.
- brabel 2y agoNot sure why you feel the need to point that out when I just listed some relevant facts about why Dumont was relevant to aviation history.
- myrmidon 2y agoAbsolutely. This applies to "negative" inventions, too: Eugenics was a pretty favorably and openly discussed concept in the early 1900s (e.g. Winston Churchill was a pretty vocal proponent), but Hitler basically gets all the credit for the whole idea.
- tomxor 2y ago:D thanks, you made me laugh. https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour-extras/churchill-and-eugenics-1/ https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour-extras...
- toast0 2y agoI mean, I'm pretty sure Eugenics was invented by Eugene, thus the name. Or it was a way to avoid needing to know people's names, because everyone would be named Eugene. :P
- pnut 2y agoThank goodness it's not "Eugene Torvalds" who made a kernel just for fun!
- rtkwe 2y agoA lot of the world was hot for eugenics at the time the US in particular, a lot of the pre-Final Solution laws were systematizing things that were happening in the US on an basis ranging from ad-hoc to legal; sterilization of people with mental issues, miscegenation laws, etc.
- 1980phipsi 2y agoI agree that simultaneous invention is an important concept, but I view it separately from Great Man Theory of History. GMTH is invariably trying to capture the idea that when you have a person who has a lot power, then their successes or failures can have a large impact on the rest of society. I don't dispute that they can be part of the zeitgeist of forces that are driving society, but sometimes what one person in power says matters a lot. I think it probably matters less for scientific pursuits where a lot of people are thinking about something and one person happens to be the person who got there first (not that this doesn't deserve praise either).
- ghaff 2y agoI'd be very surprised if it were unique to the US although there's probably some cultural element. There is a tendency to ascribe invention to an individual even if the real answer is an individual's lab/team or really a more complex story. E.g. James Watt didn't invent the steam engine although he came up with an innovation that made it significantly more efficient. Look at almost any significant invention and its history is... complicated. But ask who invented something and "complicated" isn't a very satisfactory answer.
- KoolKat23 2y agoFits the whole pull yourself up by the bootstraps mindset. I can imagine income inequality would be less disparate if people realized how much society actually contributes.
- boringg 2y agoTo discount individual achievement is such a disservice to humanity. There is absolutely an environmental benefit but i take issue with the totally BS if they didn't do it someone else would on all things is such a knee cap to individual merit and ability. Merit and ability sit atop of the works of all humanity but without it nothing would be accomplished.
- rtkwe 2y agoIt's not about wiping out individual achievements it's just about recognizing that no one does it alone and that some ideas were just ready to explode. Radio, Calculus, the Steam Engine, etc all had simultaneous inventions in many areas or get commonly attributed to one particular person are actually just built up to a point they can be successful through the work of dozens of people. I'm also not saying it's 100% structural or economic just the education tends to highlight individuals instead of fully covering all the others that were just behind the person who's getting the lion's share of the credit historically.
- boringg 2y agoIt is fundamentally about taking away individual achievement. Of course other people are involved - stating the obvious isn't enlightening. Individual merit, insight and achievement should absolutely be celebrated. This whole effort to say we'd be where we are as humans scientifically regardless of individual effort and intellect is shades of cultural revolution and 100% rewriting history. It's the equivalent of saying individuality isn't needed and it's 100% wrong. Recognize other contributors of course, but don't discount individuals.
- rtkwe 2y agoYou're arguing against an imaginary position, no one is really arguing that people don't and didn't have to work for the things they managed to do just that there are structural and historical forces that made what they do possible and in many cases others were right on their heels (or actually succeeded first but didn't commercialize or document their successes).
- evilduck 2y agoI think there's a wide variety of ways this gets taught (in the US at least). But if you go to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum where the Wright Flyer is currently on display, maybe a third of the room's displays document the achievements of the wide array of pioneers of flight besides the Wright Brothers, followed by maybe another third of the room documenting the fast followers who competed with the Wright Brothers (and many of their tragic deaths).
- rtkwe 2y agoIt's not impossible to find of course, it's not like it's being suppressed, but if you just go through high school, and a lot of colleges depending on their general education requirements, your main history education will be very Great Person oriented.
- neuroelectron 2y agoThat's not how I remember learning it in grade school. There was a whole chapter on people trying and failing to achieve flight and many close calls. Then there was yet more history about other groups who achieved it after the Wright Bros.