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Great Founder Theory (2020)

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Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#31

Post by woodruffw »

keiferski wrote: post #28
woodruffw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterargument to “great man theory” is that it’s ahistorical (in that most great advancements have multiple independent discoverers), and unduly emphasizes individuals rather than circumstances. In other words: it’s hard to believe that there’s something intrinsic about Newton, Galileo, etc. that would have fundamentally prevented the arc of human history and knowledge had they not done what they did. The much…

The Great Man Theory is not primarily about scientific discoveries or inventions. It’s more about political figures: Napoleon, Muhammad, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

Could you elaborate on why you think this? Individual forms of the GMT focus on heroism, religious charisma, etc., but the theory in the context of historical analysis is widely understood to apply to any form of “greatness,” with scientific advancements being one form.

Your own link to Wikipedia points this out, with Einstein as the example.

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#32

Post by keiferski »

woodruffw wrote: post #31
keiferski wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Great Man Theory is not primarily about scientific discoveries or inventions. It’s more about political figures: Napoleon, Muhammad, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

Could you elaborate on why you think this? Individual forms of the GMT focus on heroism, religious charisma, etc., but the theory in the context of historical analysis is widely understood to apply to any form of “greatness,” with scientific advancements being one form. Your own link to Wikipedia points this out, with Einstein as the example.

From Wikipedia:

> The theory is primarily attributed to the Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who gave a series of lectures on heroism in 1840, later published as On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History.

From that series of lectures:

1. (5 May) The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology

2. (8 May) The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam

3. (12 May) The Hero as Poet. Dante; Shakspeare

4. (15 May) The Hero as Priest. Luther; Reformation: Knox; Puritanism

5. (19 May) The Hero as Man of Letters. Johnson, Rousseau, Burns

6. (22 May) The Hero as King. Cromwell. Napoleon: Modern Revolutionism

Are any of those people scientists?

Carlyle is talking about political and cultural influence, not technological development. Using scientists that made great discoveries as a counter-example to the theory is a straw man argument.

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#33

Post by woodruffw »

keiferski wrote: post #32
woodruffw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on why you think this? Individual forms of the GMT focus on heroism, religious charisma, etc., but the theory in the context of historical analysis is widely understood to apply to any form of “greatness,” with scientific advancements being one form. Your own link to Wikipedia points this out, with Einstein as the example.

From Wikipedia: > The theory is primarily attributed to the Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who gave a series of lectures on heroism in 1840, later published as On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History. From that series of lectures: 1. (5 May) The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology 2. (8 May) The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam 3. (12 May) The Hero as Poet.…

Carlyle is the progenitor of GMT; making him the ultimate authority on how GMT is applied as a historical analysis is a bit like making Newtown the ultimate authority on gravity.

And note: the fixation on science as a category isn’t coherent from Carlyle’s 18th century perspective.

(But how does any of this make the original post a straw man? You can replace the figures in it with Mohammed and Shakespeare without meaningfully altering the claim.)

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#34

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

adw wrote: post #17
ITB wrote: post #11

So far all the comments are against great person theory. But what is the counterpoint? Companies like Apple and spaceX are just inevitable and some lucky bastards will just stumble upon them? That’s nonsense. There might be more than one candidate to become Steve Jobs but not that many. Would e-commerce have evolved without JeffB or smartphones be invented without Apple? Probably, but it might have taken longer, or t…

Apple was built on a lot of peoples' ideas, some original and many borrowed (like all companies); Steve Jobs' gift was for editing. SpaceX is an entirely unoriginal company (really good execution, though). The genius of SpaceX is in the systems which enable that execution. It's not even really a particularly significant company. Founders are right person, right place, right time, and _place and time are more importan…

> SpaceX is an entirely unoriginal company (really good execution, though). The genius of SpaceX is in the systems which enable that execution. It's not even really a particularly significant company.

There's a large SpaceX office down the road from where I live (Redmond, WA) and a fair few of my ex-MSFT friends now work there, and they call say the same thing to me: "SpaceX's successes are despite Elon's involvement, not because of it".

I just still don't know if I want to work there or not. BlueOrigin gave me an offer for an avionics position years ago, but the commute down to Kent, WA was a deal-killer.

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#35

Post by keiferski »

woodruffw wrote: post #33
keiferski wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia: > The theory is primarily attributed to the Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who gave a series of lectures on heroism in 1840, later published as On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History. From that series of lectures: 1. (5 May) The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology 2. (8 May) The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam 3. (12 May) The Hero as Poet.…

Carlyle is the progenitor of GMT; making him the ultimate authority on how GMT is applied as a historical analysis is a bit like making Newtown the ultimate authority on gravity. And note: the fixation on science as a category isn’t coherent from Carlyle’s 18th century perspective. (But how does any of this make the original post a straw man? You can replace the figures in it with Mohammed and Shakespeare without mea…

That's what Great Man Theory is. Your impressions of it are not.

It's wrong because the concepts of invention and scientific discovery are entirely different from political action. I agree with you that science/technology is not contingent on certain individuals and is better understood as a larger historical process. The discovery/invention of calculus is a good example.

I don't agree that political history works the same way, nor do I think that historical actors like Muhammad or Napoleon are simply interchangeable cogs that could have easily been replaced by anyone else. Certainly they were shaped by their circumstances, but I think you would have a very difficult time arguing that history wouldn't have been drastically different if say, Muhammad the individual hadn't made the decisions he did.

Technological development and individual political action are two different things. By using discoveries to argue against the theory as a whole, you are setting up a straw man.

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#36

Post by voz_ »

julianeon wrote: post #7

I have to respect the grift. It’s so perfectly calibrated to its audience: essentially the people who the X account “VCs congratulating themselves” makes fun of, and a much larger group of their fans or hangers on (really often the latter cosplaying as the former). For that audience this is the perfect treat. A document like this really positions him well within that ecosystem.

You wrote X and it took me a few moments to realize you meant Twitter. Just call it that, don’t humor the clown, and it’s easier to parse.

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#37

Post by seanhunter »

narrator wrote: post #9

[flagged]

That's a very nice straw man you've built there and I have to admire the way you've managed to wedge in some devisive culture war rhetoric as well.

Whatever you think about San Francisco isn't anything to do with this topic. The opposite of Great Man Theory is that rather than single individuals making the difference, most important progress is made by teams. That's it. You can agree or disagree but people opposing GMT aren't saying anything like your pastiche here.

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#38

Post by gniv »

woodruffw wrote: post #27
gniv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course. What I meant was we could have had all the stuff that lead to Galileo before the great reset that was the fall of Rome, so maybe civilization would have been ahead a few hundred years.

This doesn’t require belief in the great man theory: progress can ebb and flow under any theory of history. Besides: there is no point in history that’s identifiable as “the fall of Rome.” The Western Empire declined over the course of three centuries; the Eastern Empire arguably never fell at all. The idea of the “fall” comes from the same period of historical theorization as the “great man” framework; it’s not wide…

We’re splitting hairs now. Let me rephrase again. There was a period when Rome was ridiculously wealthy (gold from Spain etc). It was a time when science could have advanced rapidly but didn’t. My point was that a few “great men” there might have changed history.

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#39

Post by _xnmw »

In my view, Great Man Theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy with survival bias. Those who believe it are the most likely to take insane risks, and therefore most likely to end up at the head of some great movement, or die trying. All those great visionaries, those Napoleons, Jobs, Musks, Newtons and Galileos were also "natural maniacs" [1]. The ones who fail we simply call "insane" and history forgets them. Nevertheless success is from God (i.e. not the product of one's effort but outside of one's control, right place right time + luck). In other words, belief is a necessary but not sufficient condition.

[1] On Natural Maniacs: https://collabfund.com/blog/natural-maniacs/

Re: Great Founder Theory (2020)

#40

Post by nine_k »

woodruffw wrote: post #12
ITB wrote: post #11

So far all the comments are against great person theory. But what is the counterpoint? Companies like Apple and spaceX are just inevitable and some lucky bastards will just stumble upon them? That’s nonsense. There might be more than one candidate to become Steve Jobs but not that many. Would e-commerce have evolved without JeffB or smartphones be invented without Apple? Probably, but it might have taken longer, or t…

The counterargument to “great man theory” is that it’s ahistorical (in that most great advancements have multiple independent discoverers), and unduly emphasizes individuals rather than circumstances. In other words: it’s hard to believe that there’s something intrinsic about Newton, Galileo, etc. that would have fundamentally prevented the arc of human history and knowledge had they not done what they did. The much…

A particular person may be not the unique one to try and achieve something. But there should exist some number of "candidate great men", else there'd be nobody to take advantage of the circumstances. It looks like this number is not very large in any particular area. If not Einstein, maybe a handful other physicists could come up with, say, special relativity, but likely not hundreds, and maybe not even dozens.
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