8 ms·

Yes, facts make it necessarily both. But what does that mean? What is attribution? What is ownership? How does our legal framework work? How does the media spe

by Atlas667 10mo ago

Yes, facts make it necessarily both. But what does that mean? What is attribution? What is ownership? How does our legal framework work? How does the media speak about reality? The reason for "great men" isn't that its true, it's that that's how our society is structured. These ideas come from how our property is structured. If a person can own as much wealth as millions and the media is on their side; great men exist. Like kings. Kings made sense at the time, and were great, not because they were strong, admirable, and morally good individuals, they were great because they owned all the land and could chop your head off or let you rot in jail for saying otherwise. The reality of which you speak is not compatible with the implications of the world we live in. This truth about the world cannot exist practically, materially.

paulryanrogers 10mo ago
Is that the traditional meaning of 'great' in "great men theory"? If so, why not just say "strong men" or "powerful men" instead?
- Atlas667 10mo ago
  > Is that the traditional meaning of 'great' in "great men theory"? It isn't, though I may be tangentially speaking about Great Man Theory, I wasn't focusing on it. > If so, why not just say "strong men" or "powerful men" instead? I thought using "great men" gives space for virtue and a spiritual/intellectual worth, not just a morally ambiguous "power".
anon291 10mo ago
Many kings were strong and admirable. Not sure why you are so down on individual kings even if monarchy is not a great system of governance and prone to tyranny. Good kings provided protection from the very real threat of foreign barbarians, provided a common legal framework, and eased commerce, and thus human flourishing. Good kings deserve commendation even if monarchy has issues. Ascribing only vices (chopping heads off) to monarchs is wrong. To be clear, I am a staunch republican and believe king Charles and other European monarchs need to step down. However you are engaging in revisionism
- watwut 10mo ago
  > Good kings provided protection from the very real threat of foreign barbarians, provided a common legal framework, and eased commerce, and thus human flourishing. Good kings deserve commendation even if monarchy has issues. Are you having some concrete historical personalities in mind or are you actually just making up imaginary kings who simultaneously created a common legal framework, fought against invaders while not invading others, eased commers and also enhanced "human flourishing"? And did all that while other people in kingdom and surrounding kingdoms were basically unimportant to all that and the king was the center person to all of that? Cause I am going to argue that whatever benefits and disadvantages of monarchy, your king is imaginary. Despite being powerful, kings were very much limited by what went on around them and what they could not control.
  - anon291 10mo ago
    There is no country which matches your requirements for good king. This is not a serious question. Yes there have been many just kings throughout history.
- Atlas667 10mo ago
  You know, I am not a historian. And I'm not gonna talk as if I know anything about how kings were viewed by the people. But in my mind kings can be "good" in the same way slave owners can be "good". Not that much, if any at all, contextually.
  - samdoesnothing 10mo ago
    Why not compare them to their modern equivalents? They seem mostly the same as politicians today, except some actually cared about the people the ruled.
    - Atlas667 10mo ago
      Nah, I think the rich are the kings, politicians are their court. We have a bunch of little kings with a public court that theyre all trying to use for themselves. IDK you but I think you cant get rich by being a good person. You actively have to ignore others' needs to focus on growth, to use people.
thaumasiotes 10mo ago
> Kings made sense at the time, and were great, not because they were strong, admirable, and morally good individuals, they were great because they owned all the land That depends on the society. The king in Achaemenid Persia owned all the land. His successors the Seleucid Greek kings didn't. A medieval European king didn't even come close. I read something to the effect that (in one very early Mesopotamian city) the king owned about 1/3 of the land, another ~1/3 was owned by large landholders who numbered maybe a couple dozen (this group included the queen), and the final ~1/3 was owned by a very large number of small landholders.
AnthonyMouse 10mo ago
> If a person can own as much wealth as millions and the media is on their side; great men exist. Consider the alternatives to this. The first is that great works are being accomplished without anyone being in charge of them. People invent alternating current and land on the moon in a completely decentralized manner with no one leading the effort and no one making a larger contribution than anyone else. Not the thing where everyone gets to try but only one out of a million succeeds but rather some other thing where everyone is a fungible cog and you can't identify anyone as being the lynchpin or anyone else as not pulling their weight, and yet the great works still happen. The second is that great works are not being accomplished. The first one seems implausible. The second one seems bad.
- Atlas667 10mo ago
  What are you talking about? I don't think authority is bad. What we're talking about isn't purely organizational, its economical. Of course we need leaders, and groups, and hierarchy. What we don't need is structures that take from peoples labor. Hierarchy can be an abstraction of group decision making and not a relationship to the products of labor (as it is now). Or do you think people will only do things if others own the products of their labor? Would it be impossible to exist as a society without a small group of people owning the products of millions of peoples labor? Like I said with my original comment our current notion of great men is mostly a political fabrication by the rich. The rich being the people who own the media outlets we consume, the publishing houses, the internet, the people who own the vast majority of the things we need. They have the power to influence our morality through information culling, exposure and/or volume. Thus they have birthed the modern idea of "great men". "Great men" as they exist today are not great by us, they are great by them. Do you think these forms that currently exist are the end form of human organization? These forms breed too many ills to be able to last forever, monetary corruption IS the real manifestation of these forms of human organization.
  - AnthonyMouse 10mo ago
    Hierarchy is someone being at the top. Who really freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln or all the people who elected him and then fought as solders to win the ensuing war? > Of course we need leaders, and groups, and hierarchy. What we don't need is structures that take from peoples labor. These are inherently synonyms for each other. As soon as you have anyone deciding how resources are allocated, they're taking them from whoever did the work to create them to begin with. The best you can hope for is voluntary interactions, which is to say competitive markets rather than oligopolies or government central planning. And that is going to result in large companies and big personalities -- it's only a problem when they become so large that they no longer have adequate competition, which is something that happens well after the point that they have leaders whose names people know.

paulryanrogers 10mo ago

Is that the traditional meaning of 'great' in "great men theory"? If so, why not just say "strong men" or "powerful men" instead?

Atlas667 10mo ago
> Is that the traditional meaning of 'great' in "great men theory"? It isn't, though I may be tangentially speaking about Great Man Theory, I wasn't focusing on it. > If so, why not just say "strong men" or "powerful men" instead? I thought using "great men" gives space for virtue and a spiritual/intellectual worth, not just a morally ambiguous "power".

anon291 10mo ago

Many kings were strong and admirable. Not sure why you are so down on individual kings even if monarchy is not a great system of governance and prone to tyranny. Good kings provided protection from the very real threat of foreign barbarians, provided a common legal framework, and eased commerce, and thus human flourishing. Good kings deserve commendation even if monarchy has issues. Ascribing only vices (chopping heads off) to monarchs is wrong. To be clear, I am a staunch republican and believe king Charles and other European monarchs need to step down. However you are engaging in revisionism

watwut 10mo ago
> Good kings provided protection from the very real threat of foreign barbarians, provided a common legal framework, and eased commerce, and thus human flourishing. Good kings deserve commendation even if monarchy has issues. Are you having some concrete historical personalities in mind or are you actually just making up imaginary kings who simultaneously created a common legal framework, fought against invaders while not invading others, eased commers and also enhanced "human flourishing"? And did all that while other people in kingdom and surrounding kingdoms were basically unimportant to all that and the king was the center person to all of that? Cause I am going to argue that whatever benefits and disadvantages of monarchy, your king is imaginary. Despite being powerful, kings were very much limited by what went on around them and what they could not control.
- anon291 10mo ago
  There is no country which matches your requirements for good king. This is not a serious question. Yes there have been many just kings throughout history.
Atlas667 10mo ago
You know, I am not a historian. And I'm not gonna talk as if I know anything about how kings were viewed by the people. But in my mind kings can be "good" in the same way slave owners can be "good". Not that much, if any at all, contextually.
- samdoesnothing 10mo ago
  Why not compare them to their modern equivalents? They seem mostly the same as politicians today, except some actually cared about the people the ruled.
  - Atlas667 10mo ago
    Nah, I think the rich are the kings, politicians are their court. We have a bunch of little kings with a public court that theyre all trying to use for themselves. IDK you but I think you cant get rich by being a good person. You actively have to ignore others' needs to focus on growth, to use people.

thaumasiotes 10mo ago

> Kings made sense at the time, and were great, not because they were strong, admirable, and morally good individuals, they were great because they owned all the land That depends on the society. The king in Achaemenid Persia owned all the land. His successors the Seleucid Greek kings didn't. A medieval European king didn't even come close. I read something to the effect that (in one very early Mesopotamian city) the king owned about 1/3 of the land, another ~1/3 was owned by large landholders who numbered maybe a couple dozen (this group included the queen), and the final ~1/3 was owned by a very large number of small landholders.

AnthonyMouse 10mo ago

> If a person can own as much wealth as millions and the media is on their side; great men exist. Consider the alternatives to this. The first is that great works are being accomplished without anyone being in charge of them. People invent alternating current and land on the moon in a completely decentralized manner with no one leading the effort and no one making a larger contribution than anyone else. Not the thing where everyone gets to try but only one out of a million succeeds but rather some other thing where everyone is a fungible cog and you can't identify anyone as being the lynchpin or anyone else as not pulling their weight, and yet the great works still happen. The second is that great works are not being accomplished. The first one seems implausible. The second one seems bad.

Atlas667 10mo ago
What are you talking about? I don't think authority is bad. What we're talking about isn't purely organizational, its economical. Of course we need leaders, and groups, and hierarchy. What we don't need is structures that take from peoples labor. Hierarchy can be an abstraction of group decision making and not a relationship to the products of labor (as it is now). Or do you think people will only do things if others own the products of their labor? Would it be impossible to exist as a society without a small group of people owning the products of millions of peoples labor? Like I said with my original comment our current notion of great men is mostly a political fabrication by the rich. The rich being the people who own the media outlets we consume, the publishing houses, the internet, the people who own the vast majority of the things we need. They have the power to influence our morality through information culling, exposure and/or volume. Thus they have birthed the modern idea of "great men". "Great men" as they exist today are not great by us, they are great by them. Do you think these forms that currently exist are the end form of human organization? These forms breed too many ills to be able to last forever, monetary corruption IS the real manifestation of these forms of human organization.
- AnthonyMouse 10mo ago
  Hierarchy is someone being at the top. Who really freed the slaves, Abraham Lincoln or all the people who elected him and then fought as solders to win the ensuing war? > Of course we need leaders, and groups, and hierarchy. What we don't need is structures that take from peoples labor. These are inherently synonyms for each other. As soon as you have anyone deciding how resources are allocated, they're taking them from whoever did the work to create them to begin with. The best you can hope for is voluntary interactions, which is to say competitive markets rather than oligopolies or government central planning. And that is going to result in large companies and big personalities -- it's only a problem when they become so large that they no longer have adequate competition, which is something that happens well after the point that they have leaders whose names people know.