What, specifically, is wrong with a "great man"

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>>1682991
>F*CKING

>WHITE

>MALES

It oversimplifies. It funnels entire periods of history through the lives of singular individuals. This leaves a lot of others by the wayside, and while they may not have contributed equally their contributions are still worthwhile and give a more complete view of the time period.

I don't consider genocidal shitcunts to be great.

It's similar to "can't see the forest for the trees," in that if you focus too much on one aspect of the period you lose perspective and start bending events to fit your narrative.

That's not to say some individuals didn't have tremendous impact on history, but because people by their nature look for patterns in everything there's a tendency to look for the "great man of the age" in every era even if there wasn't one. So you have instances of people trying to prop up a Napoleon or an Alexander the Great in a time period where no such destiny-altering figure existed and end up distorting what really happened.

>>1682991
Because it ignores context. For instance, Napoleon would have amounted to little had he been born earlier and thus been unable to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Revolution.

It's not that individuals have no impact on history; clearly they do. It's just that they do so either by positioning themselves in line with larger trends, or because there are many different factors pushing events in different directions, such that it's close enough that one determined individual can tip the balance towards one outcome over another.

>>1682991


>Napoleon

yes what a great general and politician, Europe has been doing amazing since thanks to him

>What, specifically, is wrong with a "great man" reading of history?

greatness lasts, and the lasting greatness of actually great things like medicine has been on the backs of millions of men and women rather than a few dozen

>>1682999
>>1683007
>>1683009
>>1683015

So what I'm understanding is that it's myopic to consider an age forged by the work of one man.

What about looking at the conditions that create these men and the men who follow them to create greatness? Or is that an unhappy union of historical materialism and great man-ism?

>>1682991
Why it's commonly disregarded in historical circles is not because they deny the impact of individual people or are trying to disempower remembered people. The opposite, Great men theory is disregarded because it removes agency from everyone around the great person, it's often argued great men are products of their circumstance rather than creators of it. If you read Napoleon's life for example, you will realise how many mundane decisions made by others in his life lead to where he is. No denies that he was one of the greatest generals if not the greatest, people deny that he and he alone allowed him to be that and the Emperor of France.

Isaac Newton was a genius, but he didn't discover anything that others would not have a short time later. Alexander the Great was a gifted general, but he cloths not have done anything if he hasn't been handed a great army and the perfect geopolitical conditions to use it. And so on and so forth. History is a vast web, and no one person matters that much. Great man theory only appeals to us because we humans like simple stories with relatable characters.

It is the direct cause of feminism.

>>1683072
>What about looking at the conditions that create these men and the men who follow them to create greatness? Or is that an unhappy union of historical materialism and great man-ism?

That reads like more or less how I expect a history class to go. Explore the situation, the little guys, then the big guy from whom you may follow waves of change until you find another figure stood tall in the distance and begin looking 'round for what constituted him.

>>1683080
>No denies that he was one of the greatest generals if not the greatest

Just how many books on him have you read?

>>1683015
>yes what a great general and politician, Europe has been doing amazing since thanks to him
As opposed to before him when Europe had no wars?

>>1683117
Not the garbage from post-war era that says he is literally Hitler.

In that case also I wasn't arguing from individual perspective rather the principle behind the argument against Great Man theory.

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>>1683132
>Not the garbage from post-war era that says he is literally Hitler.

So none at all?

>>1683125
>>1683132

escaping any requirement for analysis, Napoleon's greatest achievment thus far has been his memes and hero worship by great men theorists

>>1682995
This is actually the correct answer for universities.

>>1683153
Why would Anglos go as far to deny Napoleon any achievement when contemporary English often praised him even if begrudgingly so? Hell, he was the image of a person who gave into the dark side of talents in England, not a tyrant devoid of one, which is a perspective that came to be after WW2.

>>1683173
>achievement

did his achievements last? and how is France now? if they did not last then what are they worth? If his achivements were lasting and simply did not live up to future handling by others, were they really secure?

>>1683203
>did his achievements last
Is Napoleonic code an achievement?

>>1683203
>did his achievements last?

Yes, they did. I cannot believe you are ignoring this basic historical fact.

>If they did not last then what are they worth?

It was not Napoleon who declared wars, as you probably are asserting that he was the reason for the bloodshed. He was only a cause in that he didn't go down easily.

> If his achivements were lasting and simply did not live up to future handling by others, were they really secure?

He kickstarted the unification of Italy, which happened after his death. The Napoleonic code is used in most of the world today, as well as several institutions that were modelled after his. The achievements didn't merely outlast him, they were copied by others willingly.

Maybe you should read a book on Napoleon that was made in last 20 years and not the ones that were written between 40 and 70s that represent him as literally Hitler that brought destruction to Europe even though the only one of the wars he started could be argued was unreasonable.

>>1682991
It needs to be balanced with an understanding of context.
Old fashioned mono-focus on great men leaves out a lot of important things, however marxist readings that state that history is simply the result of enormous, impersonal, and inevitable economic factors is equally wrong.

>>1683245
So a good reading of history would involve examination of what factors, beyond those we mentioned? Is anything really fair game? I mean, anything real. Trying to read history through the leans of Astrology is wrong, obviously.

>>1682991
It paints an incomplete picture and generalizes the options of everyone inside.
Many people in Germany in 1940 were not Nazis.
Not everyone in France gave up either.

>>1683250
Yeah sure. Good historical analysis would have to consider structural forces, institutions, the impact of ideas, individual agency, etc... Easy monocausal answers are for History Channel docs

>>1682991

It's obsolete and meme-tier.

Centuries ago History used to be written by the equivalent of the 14 yrs old 4channers of today. Wars, battles, big guys, monuments, epic shit and so on. Eventually some people came round and thought that memes were fun and so on, but let's be serious and educated fie once ok.

So instead of fapping to the great glory of Pharaoh Ramses III and etc they instead started looking at the fundamentals, the structures of society, the economy, the culture, religion and so on. The categories that constitute the living tissue of a society throughout time, the framework under which they operate and evolve and that both cause and are consequence of an specific situation marked by an entire set of factors in time and space.

>>1683341
>big guys
Big guys? For me? Or for you?

>>1683003
You must be one of those nu-male pussies I hear about.

It reduces momental events to monumental individuals. An event, like the crash of 1929, wasn't just one individual, and even if an individual did do something big (like the Serb who started WWI), it doesn't mean they were "great" in any other respect. Also "great" as an unnecessarily positive connotation.

>>1682991
It makes ungreat half-men (such as the type that become academicians) jealous and resentful.

>>1682991

it isnt wrong and it isnt right.

Great men exist, a Historian who thinks it was inevitable for Greece to conquer the Persian empire, and that if Alexander had not been born, another Greek/Macedonian would have done the same thing, is a deterministic fool.

But Great men dont explain most things.

>>1683428

I think 'great' is more in the sense of powerful people/those who were in position to make a significant impact. Not 'great' from a moral point of view.

Napo was a great man in this sense, in every other he was a scoundrel.

>>1682991

Think of it this way.

If you talk about the Industrial revolution from the perspective of "Great Men" (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Ford) you'll get a much different picture then what you'd find looking at from the perspective of an ordinary factory worker.

A proper reading of history should include works from both viewpoints.

>>1682991
its wrong

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>>1683173
>Why would Anglos go as far to deny Napoleon any achievement when contemporary English often praised him even if begrudgingly so? Hell, he was the image of a person who gave into the dark side of talents in England, not a tyrant devoid of one, which is a perspective that came to be after WW2.

>which is a perspective that came to be after WW2.

>WW2

England became a lot more insecure about its place in the world after its empire died.

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>>1683566

I saw one of those yesterday at an air show. Those birds are loud.

>>1682991
If it's specifically exclusive to gender (rather than just reflecting the trend of it being men) you're going to miss part of history.

Really though, focusing on just the most famous individuals seems to be more jeopardizing to our understanding since you don't learn about factions in politics or institutions, etc.

>>1683515

That's not how it works.

No version of structuralims or historical marxism states that given an specific context of socio-economical, cultural etc structures an specific outcome is to be expected in a deterministic way. Rather, it allows for a variety of possibilities.

Say Hitler because this is 4chan. This Great Man happened because of the context and structures of the times. It might not have happened but it was a possible scenario. Nationalism, Modern Nation-State, Liberalism (or rather a reaction agains the classic rational, progressive, western liberal thinking emanated from the French Revolution, both in its capitalist-parliamentarist and socialist branches). Those, among many other categories and specific context were a prerequisite for Hitler to happen, and in any case it wasn't deterministic. But the structures, categories and context set the playground.

Napoleon was a by-product of the Revolution, and the French Revolution couldn't have happened in a time without the impact of the enlightment, the (although dissatisfied) political and economical presence of the Burgeoisie and so on. Yet it doesn't imply it was meant to inevitably happen right there right then. It simply allowed for it as a potential possibility.

Again, we're talking structures and categories.

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>>1682991
That man there in your picture OP did a lot of "great man" reading but mixed with regular history of course. He was fascinated with the great men before him. Worked out pretty well for him I'd have to say.

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>>1682991
>What, specifically, is wrong with a "great man" reading of history?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

>>1683523
Napoleon's achievements were the product of numerous unforeseen (and many likely still obscure) occurrences. Napoleon's coming to power in the context of all those is just the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. And it's like looking at this straw and going, "Whoa, now THAT is a heavy straw!" Also, Napoleon's coming to power itself was a back breaking under countless unseen straws, with Napoleon's own existence being necessary for it (obviously), but with countless other straws being equally necessary.

>>1684211
This whole thread can be summed up as 30 people saying "butterfly effect" over and over. Not that I don't agree with the line of thinking, obviously everything we have is built on what has come before.

>>1683015
>greatness lasts, and the lasting greatness of actually great things like medicine has been on the backs of millions of men and women rather than a few dozen

Some scientists are better than others. Far better. That's true for every field from martial arts to medicine. Every field has its geniuses.

Because to be a great man is to be unlike your contemporaries. Studying history only through the accomplishments of great men doesn't give an accurate representation of the people the great man represents.

>>1683003
>i use great to mean cool or nice
>i use awesome to mean cool or nice
>i use epic to mean cool or nice
fuck off you are ruining the language

>>1683203
Napoleonic code, the council of state, the massive bureaucrats that were all over France, so good that not even the Bourbons wanted to do away with this. The complete change of the military tactics that Europe would use for the next 100 years including WWI. To deny Napoleon his credit is stupid.

>>1685869
But that doesn't mean all waves are generated by said geniuses.