#great man theory

[dougielombax]

“hiSTORy iS WRitteN bY THe vicTORs¡”

Oh do fuck off with that Churchillian, pompous, small-minded, imperialist, triumphalist Great Man Theory bullshit!

That stopped being true after 1945 and you know it!

Get in the bin with that shite!

Besides I’m pretty sure that quote was actually about biased narratives.

Mind you, I’m not using it to justify revisionism or “lost cause” narratives! That shit can also get in the fucking bin! Starting yesterday.

[mrcowboyreturns]

Ah yes, the prime examples of The Great Man Theory of History.

Greek narcissistic military dictator

Roman narcissistic military dictator

French narcissistic military dictator

And lastly

German Austrians narcissistic military dictator

Truly, the principal of human achievement.

[wack-ashimself]

I fucking KNEW there HAD to be a term/concept for this:

The term for when people in power are evil, kill and harm millions but history glorifies them for the little good they did is called the Great Man Theory. This theory holds that history is mainly shaped by a select group of individual "great men" who are seen as superior to the average person. This has often led to the perpetuation of myths and the glorification of people who were responsible for great atrocities, while ignoring the suffering of their victims.

The Great Man Theory has been widely criticized for its shallow and ahistorical approach to history. It also ignores the fact that most major events in history have been the product of collective action, rather than the work of a single individual. As such, it is important to recognize the role of marginalized individuals, communities, and social movements in creating change, rather than only celebrating those with the most power and privilege.

[evilmidnightlurker]

I often wonder how much of this shit is something any Republican candidate of the time might have pushed, and how much was unique or nearly so to Reagan.

Similarly, how much of Nazi Germany would have been the same if some other fascists had gotten into power instead of Hitler and his cronies - much the same? Worse somehow? Just differently bad?

I can't help but think that even if the overall course of things stays the same, the personal quirks of a charismatic leader can have an outsize effect on their political movement. I call it the Horrible Asshole Theory.

the funny thing is that i don't think younger people - and i mean those under the age of 40 - really have a grasp on how many of today's issues can be tied back to a disastrous reagan policy:

war on drugs: reagan's aggressive escalation of the war on drugs was a catastrophic policy, primarily targeting minority communities and fueling mass incarceration. the crusade against drugs was more about controlling the Black, Latino and Native communities than addressing the actual problems of drug abuse, leading to a legacy of broken families and systemic racism within the criminal justice system.

deregulation and economic policies: reaganomics was an absolute disaster for the working class. reagan's policies of aggressive tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and slashing social programs were nothing less than class warfare, deepening income inequality and entrenching corporate greed. these types of policies were a clear message that reagan's america was only for the wealthy elite and a loud "fuck you" to working americans.

environmental policies: despite his reputation being whitewashed thanks to the recovery of the ozone layer, reagan's environmental record was an unmitigated disaster. his administration gutted critical environmental protections and institutions like the EPA, turning a blind eye to pollution and corporate exploitation of natural resources. this blatant disregard for the planet was a clear sign of prioritizing short-term corporate profits over the future of the environment.

AIDS crisis: reagan's gross neglect of the aids crisis was nothing short of criminal and this doesn't even begin to touch on his wife's involvement. his administration's indifference to the plight of the lgbtq+ community during this devastating epidemic revealed a deep-seated bigotry and a complete failure of moral leadership.

mental health: reagan's dismantling of mental health institutions under the guise of 'reform' led directly to a surge in homelessness and a lack of support for those with mental health issues. his policies were cruel and inhumane and showed a personality-defining callous disregard for the most vulnerable in society.

labor and unions: reagan's attack on labor unions, exemplified by his handling of the patco strike, was a blatant assault on workers' rights. his actions emboldened corporations to suppress union activities, leading to a significant erosion of workers' power and rights in the workplace. he was colloquially known as "Ronnie the Union Buster Reagan"

foreign policy and military interventions: reagan's foreign policy, particularly in latin america, was imperialist and ruthless. his administration's support for dictatorships and right-wing death squads under the guise of fighting "communism" showed a complete disregard for human rights and self-determination of other nations.

public health: yes, reagan's agricultural policies actually facilitated the rise of high fructose corn syrup, once again prioritizing corporate profits over public health. this shift in the food industry has had lasting negative impacts on health, contributing to the obesity epidemic and other health issues.

privatization: reagan's push for privatization was a systematic dismantling of public services, transferring wealth and power to private corporations and further eroding the public's access to essential services.

education policies: his approach to education was more of an attack on public education than anything else, gutting funding and promoting policies that undermined equal access to quality education. this was, again, part of a broader agenda to maintain a status quo where the privileged remain in power.

this is just what i could come up with in a relatively short time and i did not even live under this man's presidency. the level at which ronald reagan has broken the united states truly can't be overstated.

[thefandomentals]

This week on #HouseOfFIreAndBlood @gnjoneswriter and Caroline are joined by Nick to discuss Great Man Theory in history and #ASOIAF.

[egophiliac]

LEON

LEON YOUR EYEBALLS

[overdressedcarp]

One thing I think about sometimes is that there's a dialogue chain in one of Ratio's text messages where he sends us the blueprints for what he explicitly describes as "an anti-planetary weapon design that [he] once devised," which apparently comes with the potential to turn into a full-on gundam???? He says that the necessary materials haven't been developed yet, but that the Guild is working on it and should have results within the next five Amber Eras.

For those who've read his third character story, the phrasing of "anti-planetary weapon" should register as both familiar and odd, especially considering how blasé he is in describing it to the Trailblazer.

My read on the character story is that the creation of the anti-planetary weapon was (whether consciously or not) a compromise to his principles in pursuit of Nous's gaze, and that the IPC's interest in said weapon was his reality check that he didn't want to become the sort of person who pursued knowledge without regard for human life. Even if you don't take that reading, Ratio is more than smart enough to recognize that the IPC can and has used threats like the Antimatter Legion and the Swarm as excuses to develop and unleash weapons with galaxy-scale collateral damage. (See: the Imaginary pulse weapon in this side quest on Penacony.)

When we ask for a weapon for the Express, Ratio tells us that high-caliber armaments are a necessity for traversing the cosmos, which isn't exactly wrong in light of how we deal with Sunday in Penacony, but turning the train into a battering ram is a far cry from turning it into something that could destroy a planet. The fact that the projected timeline is on a scale of Amber Eras suggests to me that he's being at least somewhat facetious about the idea of a collaboration, especially since the whole reason we're having the conversation is that he wanted us to lob thought experiments at him to distract him from work stress. But he does send us a blueprint file, and the terminology of an "anti-planetary weapon" (specifically one he designed in the past, rather than at our request) feels way too specific to be a coincidence.

I have a pet theory that the gundam design is a form of malicious compliance toward the IPC, and the reason the Guild can't even figure out the materials is because he deliberately handed them a nightmare monstrosity of a blueprint and then refused to elaborate.

(The bill of materials casually demands components that break the laws of physics. There are whole pages of math so complicated no one can parse enough of it to conclusively prove that it's bullshit and not just the revolutionary innovations of a man five Amber Eras ahead of his time. The research team sends a terrified intern to ask if the orbital laser cannon really needs to turn into a humanoid assault mech. He shakes his head and tells them that if they truly understood his work then they wouldn't ask such pointless questions.)

[infestedguest]

Marie Tharp is an amazing oceanographer who has contributed an insane amount to not only geological oceanography, but to geology in general as well, and as a woman in the marine sciences myself she’s very inspiring to me. That being said, I can’t stand the way this post oversimplifies the advent of plate tectonics theory. Like this borders on misinformation.

We actually covered the history of plate tectonics theory in my oceanography class last semester, and it involved so many people over so many years that it was spread out over several hour long lectures.

It, like many scientific theories and innovations, was a collaborative effort of many individuals over the course of decades. Ascribing all of that to just one of the people involved is directly playing into Great Man Theory.

On a lighter note: the original post actually made me think of Alfred Wegener, who layed the groundwork for plate tectonics theory via his theory of continental drift in 1915. His theory, which while not 100% on the money still ended up being surprisingly accurate, seemed pretty off the wall by the scientific standards of the time. A significant part of his theory actually was how the continents looked like they should fit together plus the corroborating geological and fossil evidence.

The funny part is that Wegener wasn’t even a geologist, he was a meteorologist. Like imagine you’re an Edwardian era geologist and this fuckin weather boy barges in like “hey guys what if the ground was actually moving all the time” And one of the main problems with his version of the theory is that he had zero clue what actually caused the plates to move, so they’d ask him how the hell it would even do that and he’d be like “idk it just happens.” Needless to say they did not like him and thus the theory took several more decades to catch on.

God could you imagine how mad geologists must have been to slowly watch the "hey all the continents kinda fit like puzzle pieces :)" guy get proven right

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[dougielombax]

The study of history cannot and MUST NOT be reduced to a self-congratulatory collection of revisionists, liars, despots and other corrupt, wealthy old men furiously yanking eachother off in a boardroom over the achievements of their antecedents or wherever.

…

Okay that sounds more like the prelude to a porno.

But still.

My point stands!

I’m condemning self-congratulatory crap like revisionism and the Great Man Theory (which I refuted as part of a thesis I did for my masters degree). And other such stupid shit like that.

[shannonsketches]

Do y’all ever think about how Vegeta’s only ever mad at Freeza for what happened to his planet and he’s never mad at Freeza for what happened to him because I think about that a lot

[generouslyandrogynousdragon]

To be fair, canonically the minions are either all male or genderless masc-presenting, (with a few exceptions where they appear fem-presenting like at the supermarket) can't remember which. So either way, that minion is a trans woman. Good for her.

(That said, canonically the minions can't reproduce, so I guess we're at an impasse...)

> looking for a new fictional world

> ask the world author if their worldbuilding is historical materialist or great man theory

> they don’t understand

> pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is historical materialist and what is great man theory

> they laugh and say “it’s a good world ma’am”

> read media

> it’s great man theory

[slymanner]

The tumblr homies gotta hear the news.

Bentley jones the creator of silver the hedgehog's dreams of an absolution, so much more from sonic & sega all stars racing, and other piece's from the franchise returns to the series for new projects!!! and returning with him a remix of diamond in the sky from sonic R as well!!!

could be for games, movies, remixing songs for the sonic youtube channel, ethier way welcome back bentley jones!!!

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Friendly reminder that Putin is one of the least insane/evil people in the RF with any amount of political power and if you didn't want that to be the case you shouldn't have cheered on the USSR collapsing and being replaced by a deliberately buffed-to-shit executive office handcrafted by the US State Dept. to own the commies

[empirearchives]

I’ve read it, and there are definitely similarities between Ahab and Napoleon. Napoleon is actually mentioned several times throughout the book, and it’s actually believed that the similarities between him and Ahab are intentional (as well as to Charlemagne).

Ahab is described as being a “grand, ungodly, god-like man.”

Ahab is supposed to represent the morally-ambiguous “great man” who is monomaniacal, domineering and fatalistic.

I highly recommend reading it! It also makes references to the Napoleonic wars in general.

Misc.

I was looking for the name of a Moby Dick harpooner that I couldn’t remember (Tashtego) and it was bothering me. I saw this description of Captain Ahab and thought it was like Napoleon!  

The egomaniacal captain of the Pequod. Ahab lost his leg to Moby Dick. He is single-minded in his pursuit of the whale, using a mixture of charisma and terror to persuade his crew to join him. As a captain, he is dictatorial but not unfair. At moments he shows a compassionate side, caring for the insane Pip and musing on his wife and child back in Nantucket.

[dnalt-d2]

Alright so Tallulah is apparently planning a party for Phil on his birthday, which is this coming Friday

Does anyone else feel like there's gonna be some Enderking shenanigans afoot that day, just for the added angst potential?

Like this whole week, we're gonna see Phil get more and more corrupted by this super not-at-all suspicious purple diamond backpack, to the point that other people are probably gonna notice it, and then it'll just all come to a head on that day

That sometime during or after the party, the shoe's just gonna drop and we're gonna be smacked in the face with either some sort of angst or the full-on possession

Either way I'm absolutely looking forward to it