The other half of 'cults....'great men'

 In this space yesterday, we explored a premise of conjoined cults, around three despicable, dangerous, and deleterious tyrants: Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu, with the addendum of Kim Jung Un.

Cults by definition imply a surrender and projection of individuals and their wills, their hopes and dreams, as well as their fears onto a ‘strong man’ of some sort. And, given that strong men are the sine qua non of all cults, today we intend to explore the concept of the strong man.

The names of Thomas Carlyle and Friedrich Nietszche and Leo Tolstoy have been linked to the concept of the great man theory of history.

In a series of Lectures in 1840. Thomas Carlyle focused on various examples of  great men:

LECTURE I. THE HERO AS DIVINITY. ODIN. PAGANISM: SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY.

LECTURE II. THE HERO AS PROPHET. MAHOMET: ISLAM.

LECTURE III. THE HERO AS POET. DANTE: SHAKSPEARE.

LECTURE IV. THE HERO AS PRIEST. LUTHER; REFORMATION: KNOX; PURITANISM.

LECTURE V. THE HERO AS MAN OF LETTERS. JOHNSON, ROUSSEAU, BURNS.

LECTURE VI. THE HERO AS KING. CROMWELL, NAPOLEON: MODERN REVOLUTIONISM.

What in such a time as ours it requires a Prophet or Poet to teach us, namely, the stripping-off of those poor undevout wrappages, nomenclatures and scientific hearsays,—this, the ancient earnest soul, as yet unencumbered with these things, did for itself. The world, which is now divine only to the gifted, was then divine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. He stood bare before it face to face. "All was Godlike or God:" (From Lecture I, ON HEROES, HERO-WORSHIP,
AND THE HEROIC IN HISTORY from the Gutenberg Project By Thomas Carlyle

And from Lecture VI, May 22, 1840

We come now to the last form of Heroism; that which we call Kingship. The Commander over Men; he to whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is practically the summary for us of all the various figures of Heroism; Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or of spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do. He is called Rex, Regulator, Roi: our own name is still better; King, Konning, which means Can-ning, Able-man.

And also:

Internet Modern History Sourcebook;Thomas Carlyle:

The Great Man Theory of History (1840), excerpts from Lectures on HeroesUniversal

 History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world: the soul of the whole world's history, it may justly be considered, were the history of these.

... We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near. The light which enlightens, which has enlightened the darkness of the world; and this not as a kindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness;—in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them. On any terms whatsoever, you will not grudge to wander in such neighborhood for a while. These Six classes of Heroes, chosen out of widely distant countries and epochs, and in mere external figure differing altogether, ought, if we look faithfully at them, to illustrate several things for us. Could we see them well, we should get some glimpses into the very marrow of the world's history. How happy, could I but, in any measure, in such times as these, make manifest to you the meanings of Heroism; the divine relation (for I may well call it such) which in all times unites a Great Man to other men; and thus, as it were, not exhaust my subject, but so much as break ground on it. (https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1840Carlyle-greatman.asp#:~:text)

In a piece entitled, “What is Great Man Theory?” By Hannah Hamill, MA History, University of Edinburgh, 01.11.2023, in Perlago.com we read:

…(D)iscussions of heroism can be traced back to ancient civilizations, such as Greece. Ferrario* explains that a great man in the Greek tradition is a ‘maker of history’ and an ‘individual inscribed in permanent memory’ (2014) In ancient Greece, the responsibility for historic events rested on participants involved in the events who were highly visible to the public, like political or military men….The ‘great man’ interpreted by the Hellenistic age and beyond was neither the cultural result of an isolated, striking biography not the literary invention of a single intellectual. Rather he was the evolutionary product of complex historical and social developments during the late archaic and classical periods. His story can be told in particular detail in Athens, but it was by no means confined there. (Ferrario, Historical Agency and the Great Man in Classical Greece Cambridge University Press. https://www.perlego.com/book/3546322/historical-agency-and-the-great-man-in-classical-greece-pdf

Of course there were, and continue to be, opponents to this theory, umbrelled under the rubric, ‘the social theory of history’ which focuses on the social as opposed to the personal agents of historic events.

From the piece by Hamill:

(Herbert) Spencer believed that great men are created from their environments. A well-balanced social self-consciousness, like a well-balanced individual self-consciousness, is the accompaniment of a high evolution. (Spencer, quoted by John Offer in Herbert Spencer and Social History (2010)https://www.perlego.com/book/3546322/historical-agency-and-the-great-man-in-classical-greece-pdf

Also from Hamill:

Nietszche indicates that to be a man is to be enough. For Nietszche, a man does not have to possess divine qualities or be Christlike; a man does not have to possess superpowers to be valued. Rather he can have value by overcoming hardships and embracing the challenges that human beings must face in their day to day lives.

Whether we consider it a flaw in their character that these tyrants (Putin, Trump, Netanyahu) consider themselves to be great men, or whether they are attempting to re-enact history from ancient times, it is obvious that their self-definition is both beyond reproach and beyond the grasp and comprehension of the rest of us ‘unknowns’ or ‘dummies’ in their eyes. They clearly hold their vision of their own role in the history of humanity to be sacrosanct, prophetic, visionary, and. from the perspective of application, despotic.

Beyond psychology, too, there are some potential archetypal roots for this ‘identity’ which may in the final analysis be merely a mask (Jung’s persona)…Jewish people, from time immemorial, have considered themselves ‘chosen by God’….and their Torah is replete with this phrase. The very phrase itself evokes perceptions and attitudes of difference, (if not superiority) in comparison to others.

From myjewishlearning.com, in a piece entitled, Are Jews the Chosen People?, we read:

The covenant between God and the freed Israelite slaves at Mount Sinai is central to the idea of being chosen. The covenant concretized Jewish closeness by establishing that the Israelites would abide by the Torah in return for special divine protection. Though God chose the Jews for this purpose, an amazing rabbinic course claims that the Jews were, in fact, God’s last choice.

After two thousand years, many escapes from exile, ostracism, alienation, and the holocaust, it is little wonder that, fearing a repeat of the extermination of some six million Jews in the gas chambers at the hands of Hitler’s assassins, they might want a place to call their own free from outside incursions and interference. As a relatively small population number (14 million?), their influence has been astounding in every field of human endeavour. Jewish pride is both highly valued and also highly warranted, given the degree to which each Jew strives to be the best at whatever his/her chosen field might be. Jealousy, envy, revenge, exclusion, and antisemitism hangs like a cloud over much of western world history. And Neyanyahu’s hold on power, the longest of any Prime Minister in Israel’s history, along with his determination to avoid criminal conviction, might include a personal psychic image of the great man.

Putin, too, although a nominal adherent to the  Russian Orthodox Church, (enjoying the support of his church for his war in Ukraine….who would have even considered such a reality?), nevertheless views himself as a modern version of the ‘great men’ of history. Power held, (even if abused) by previous lauded and infamous Russian Czar’s and other leaders, of both military and political stature, often the former leading to and sustaining the latter, offers a national historic legacy of ‘powerful great men’ at the head of the Russian state. Donning that mantel, while removing his shirt while riding his horse, Putin strides the range of Russian public consciousness like a colossus….seeking to portray himself as invincible, invulnerable, and essentially untouchable.

And then there is Trump, the Messiah sent by God to an essentially protestant, fundamentalist cult of religious nationalists, who are intent (according to their own public utterances) to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth within their time in power in the United States. As a former real-estate-mogul, in New York who has demonstrably defrauded many clients, suppliers, and anyone who attempted to restrain his ambition and ego, not to mention his self-inflated personally defined identity, as ‘great man’….I alone can fix it! I am your retribution! I will end this war on the first day I take office!.....and the list of bravado-megaphoned pronouncements of his own ‘accomplishments’ are really a testament to the vacuity of his authenticity.

In all three cases, however, there are still people, who from fear of reprisals including death or imprisonment, from perhaps even some misplaced adulation given the boldness and the bravado of the claims and the ambitions of these men, continue to ‘stand aside,’ or ‘hold their nose and vote’ or agree to serve under them, or who write cheques to fund them, or who, upon the promise of loyalty, seek and are rewarded with political sinecure posts, ambassadorships, ‘secretary-ships’ in the cabinet or whatever.

It may not be that history is the result of the achievements of great men, who, let’s not forget, throughout history have either written, or had written the laudable and honorific accounts of their accomplishments, for posterity. It may be that some whose risk-taking ‘gene’ impelled them to take great risks, (think John F. Kennedy Jr.) and who lept into the deep end of whatever “pool” those chose to dive into, and who found themselves sitting on a ‘peak’ of power, whether warranted or not, whether honestly sought and achieved or not, and whether compatible with their talents or not….and the rode off tilting at windmills of their own mind, irrespective of the implications of their nefariousness, their hubris or their own emptiness, and their insatiable appetite for power and control.

There is a pendulum, both in academic circles, as well as in the public discourse, between the individual and the society, as influences, similar to the continuum between nature and nurture….and history tends to slide, glide, fight for, or surrender various places on that timeline at various periods.

We can only hope that, having allowed much influence to shift into the hands of irresponsible and reprehensible men together we can and will wake up and start a shift back to the centre….not ideologically only but also pragmatically.