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In an unheroic age, Putin, Trump and Netanyahu are sick parodies of great men
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/31/putin-trump-netanyahu-stalin-hitler-mao-successorsThoughtful essay from The Guardian.
The 19th-century idea that great men – exceptionally talented, courageous, charismatic individuals – direct and change the course of history by the sheer force of their genius and personality is hard to shake. It has persisted despite the rise of egalitarian and Marxist social theory and the advent in the 1960s of EP Thompson’s levelling up school of “history from below”.
The Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle viewed figures such as Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Martin Luther and the prophet Muhammad as standout heroes of their time who fundamentally, permanently changed the world around them. The mass of mankind, he believed, could merely watch, marvel, admire and tamely follow these top-down makers and shakers of “universal history”.
It’s a daft idea, really, but seductive and long-lived. There are still men – and it’s mostly men – who truly believe they have been fashioned in a heroic mould, that they have a special mission, a calling, or sacred duty to lead and act as saviours of peoples and nations. They think they know best, enjoy unique insight. They are ruthless and arrogant enough to impose their views on all.
Except, in the modern era, such “great” men are typically not heroes at all, as the word is commonly understood, but anti-heroes or, more precisely, villains. Like Carlyle’s select few, they wield significant power. But unlike them, they use it unwisely, selfishly and destructively, appealing to people’s worst instincts, prejudices and fears. The greatest anti-heroic villains of the 20th century were mass murderers: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
The Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle viewed figures such as Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Martin Luther and the prophet Muhammad as standout heroes of their time who fundamentally, permanently changed the world around them. The mass of mankind, he believed, could merely watch, marvel, admire and tamely follow these top-down makers and shakers of “universal history”.
It’s a daft idea, really, but seductive and long-lived. There are still men – and it’s mostly men – who truly believe they have been fashioned in a heroic mould, that they have a special mission, a calling, or sacred duty to lead and act as saviours of peoples and nations. They think they know best, enjoy unique insight. They are ruthless and arrogant enough to impose their views on all.
Except, in the modern era, such “great” men are typically not heroes at all, as the word is commonly understood, but anti-heroes or, more precisely, villains. Like Carlyle’s select few, they wield significant power. But unlike them, they use it unwisely, selfishly and destructively, appealing to people’s worst instincts, prejudices and fears. The greatest anti-heroic villains of the 20th century were mass murderers: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
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how much total damage they've done 
