Are there really no great men of history? (excluding artists,

I disagree.
Read my noel to find out why.

I find it statistically unlikely that a single individual could influence a complex system in a significant way.

>>9616870
>excluding artists, saints, philosophers, scientists
Why?

>>9616914
joyeux noel anon

>>9617073
because they are significant people, but not in the same utilitarian sense as the great politicians, conquerers, etc. of history were

>>9617125
Why should it matter if it was utilitarian or not? The same kind of logic can be applied.

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>>9616870
my own uneducated thoughts lead me to believe, like tolstoy, that history is a general conflux of events, circumstance, and ordinary people. however, these opportunities cast men (sometimes of privilege, sometimes not) into trying circumstances—if they succeed, then they may be canonized as a "great man" of history.

the idea behind the figure will inevitably become greater than the reality of the person themselves; we have a desire for a romantic order in history, and nothing both sates this longing and provides us with a meritocratic hope than "great men." still, the influence of the man himself while living can not be cynically cast aside, as tolstoy does. i too am irritated with shameless idol worship, and i don't think we should (ever?) base our ethos on the successes of history. we can leave moralizing to philosophers and reflection of philosophy to artists. scientists, of course, open new worlds in which we can adjust or create our moral system. (would there be a trolley problem if we never invented the wheel? not in quite the same way.)

tolstoy was right in a broad sense, but there is ultimately merit in great men.

>>9617134
not if you actually read Tolstoy's theory of great men

>>9617164
I have read War and Peace at some point but I don't remember his arguments in detail. I'm not sure what Tolstoy's definition of a great man was (other than that there's no such animal) but Plutarch's argument pretty much boiled down to "they don't do much anyway" as far as I recall.
Still I don't remember him mentioning anything about thinkers and artists though now that I think about it there is a distinct possibility that he might have been going on about ideas and such and by that logic that the ideas of their time bring forth great people rather than the other way round. Still the source of these ideas are not individual poets and thinkers but the collective wisdom of "muh people".

>>9616870
>inventors
>architects & engineers
>soldiers, warriors, sailors
>anthropologists and other scholars
>polyglots and fucking polymaths
>political leaders
As if Caligula doesn't count as a great man of history just because he was a fan of wincest and offed a few pedants.

>>9616870
What does "great" mean?