It goes too long, but early it was excellent.
An old show I will include, Rockford Files. James Garner was brilliant is anything.
Movies, books, tv
- Thread starter zeke4ahs
- Start date
An old show I will include, Rockford Files. James Garner was brilliant is anything.
When I was in 7th grade, my social studies teacher gave a talk about the Constitutional Convention and the early years of our republic, and he remarked on how lucky we were that George Washington was around. He said that our nation might not have survived if we had not been fortunate enough to have the second-greatest president in history as our very first.
Of course, when he said "second-greatest" he was talking about Lincoln.
I finally watched the third episode of the History Channel's Lincoln documentary tonight. I missed it during the original airing due to a last minute work emergency. It was very good, but it definitely upped the ante of mythologizing Lincoln to the Nth degree. He's practically a god in this episode.
But as I thought about, I wondered if that was really wrong. Maybe Lincoln was a god. Maybe our nation was extraordinarily lucky that he existed when he did, because no other individual could have saved the Union as he did. I found myself anticipating the scenes that would recreate the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, and I realized that there was already something worshipful in my mind about this man. I already held him on a pedestal before the History Channel told me to do just that.
So now I wonder, were we really just that lucky? Did we really just happen to produce the only man who could have saved our Union just when we happened to need him? Is history genuinely that dramatic?
BTW, despite the melodrama of the final episode, it was still very good, especially the scenes with Frederick Douglass.
Of course, when he said "second-greatest" he was talking about Lincoln.
I finally watched the third episode of the History Channel's Lincoln documentary tonight. I missed it during the original airing due to a last minute work emergency. It was very good, but it definitely upped the ante of mythologizing Lincoln to the Nth degree. He's practically a god in this episode.
But as I thought about, I wondered if that was really wrong. Maybe Lincoln was a god. Maybe our nation was extraordinarily lucky that he existed when he did, because no other individual could have saved the Union as he did. I found myself anticipating the scenes that would recreate the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, and I realized that there was already something worshipful in my mind about this man. I already held him on a pedestal before the History Channel told me to do just that.
So now I wonder, were we really just that lucky? Did we really just happen to produce the only man who could have saved our Union just when we happened to need him? Is history genuinely that dramatic?
BTW, despite the melodrama of the final episode, it was still very good, especially the scenes with Frederick Douglass.
Perhaps another way of framing your question is to compare events where greatness overcame difficulties with events where a lack of greatness failed to overcome difficulties. Nations, empires, civilizations rise and fall.
Rockford Files is in my top 5 all time. Although the Rockford shows he did maybe 15-20 years later were not as good.
I think it can be very difficult to assess, especially in hindsight, whether a failure was due to a lack of greatness. Sure, there are obvious examples; but most are not so cut and dried.
Even those instances where greatness appears to have overcome extreme difficulties may have been, in reality, just as much attributable to blind luck, unappreciated contributions by others, and/or a lack of greatness on the part of those on the opposite side of the events.
I am a firm believer in the concept that no one person is the singular best when it comes to things like leadership - or, frankly, anything that cannot be judged on a purely objective measurement (e.g., the fastest 100 meter runner). Lincoln was a tremendous President. But, I do not believe he was the only man who could have saved the Union. That's why I chuckle whenever people talk about electing the best person possible or appointing the greatest legal mind there is to the Supreme Court.
Or, to put things in simpler terms, how can we conclusively pronounce someone the greatest President of all time when we cannot even agree who was the greatest basketball player of all time (Oscar Robertson)?
I think it’s important to recognize that in paragraph three you switched from talking about greatness to talking about the greatest, something goat had discussed.
I’m no historian but as I understand it, Edison was focused on DC, whereas Tesla came up with AC. It doesn’t really matter to me if Tesla is the greatest scientist ever or not. Likewise it doesn’t matter if somebody else could’ve come up with alternating current if Tesla had electrocuted himself in an experiment. Tesla’s greatness has profoundly changed the course of history.
Throughout history a lot of people have risen to the level of greatness. Could they have been greater? More perfect? Done better? Behave differently? Who cares?
The basic point of my framing of goat’s question is to put greatness in context. In a sense I think part of Goats question is how to admire greatness without being overawed? Similarly, how to analyze it objectively? And so on.
To me human civilization itself is an act of greatness, conquering barbarity. Continuing to create civilization is an act of greatness. We humans are capable of greatness.
Lincoln's martyrdom is a significant factor. Same with JFK. Much of their "greatness" is viewed through a "what could have been" lens.
Actually, what I was really meditating on - and it was sloppy writing, I admit - is something we've discussed here before (@BradStevens @Marvin the Martian ), which is the Great Man theory of history. Namely, that we mythologize the individuals who represent in our minds pivotal events in history. Augustus transformed the Republic into an Empire. Alfred fought off the Great Heathen Army. Lincoln saved the Union and freed the slaves. That kind of thing. But did these men really accomplish all that, or were they merely the vehicles through which the unmerciful, unstoppable machinery of history did its work?
Was modern Arab history shaped by T. E. Lawrence and Prince Faisal? Or was it mostly determined by a bunch of nameless, faceless, paper-pushing bureaucrats and financial planners working in dusty offices in Paris and London?
The History Channel miniseries definitely portrayed that version of Lincoln that was indispensable to ultimate success for the Union. At times, he was the only one who had the vision, who understood what needed to be done. It seems clear from the show that, without Lincoln, the Union either would have failed, or would have resorted to saving itself by compromising on the slavery question. I think that's the version of history that many Americans naturally have. I find it very interesting to think that the one guy who had what it took to win just happened to be the guy we elected just in the nick of time. Seems like long odds.
Then again, since electing him helped kick of the war in the first place, maybe the whole thing was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Last edited:
That's what makes me not put much stock in the Great Man approach. It's similar to the kind of thinking that gives rise to the anthro-centric explanation for Creationism.
I sheepishly admit to being new to this Great Man theory.
My personal view of greatness in human beings appears to be different from the two possibilities you described for Lincoln. My third possibility would be that Lincoln rose to the occasion. The role of the presidency was providing him with the opportunity. That doesn’t exclude the possibility of another person in that role instead also rising to the occasion. It also doesn’t exclude the roles everybody else played at the time. Clearly it was a collective effort to whatever degree.
And I’m aware that I am defining greatness in the context of the north Abolishing slavery. People from the south might dispute that represents greatness at all.
My underlying premise is that what separates us humans from barbarity and all other creatures is our greatness. I don’t take civilization for granted one iota. I think it’s the most remarkable phenomenon imaginable.
I also think each and every one of us can rise to the level of greatness even if only for a moment in our lives. Zelensky is a supreme example of that, inspiring vast numbers of people across the world by rising to the occasion.
But so was I standing there in the water at the University pool when my younger sister had swum the entire width across and on her way back, underwater, gave one last push and then coasted to the wall. Her head surfaced at about one and a half stripes then submerged. Her head gently touched the wall halfway down. And she began to sink. I said aloud, what are you doing? And I realized this was not good. I dove under, lifted her head out of the water but I could do no more. I yelled for the lifeguard. She came and whipped her out of the water with one strong pull. Her lips were that grayish blue color. I put my head down. Lifted it up a moment later and she had come to after one breath of artificial resuscitation. That was my moment of greatness. Opportunity but I rose to the occasion. A friend on the other side of my sister stood there opaquely and did nothing.
But so was I standing there in the water at the University pool when my younger sister had swum the entire width across and on her way back, underwater, gave one last push and then coasted to the wall. Her head surfaced at about one and a half stripes then submerged. Her head gently touched the wall halfway down. And she began to sink. I said aloud, what are you doing? And I realized this was not good. I dove under, lifted her head out of the water but I could do no more. I yelled for the lifeguard. She came and whipped her out of the water with one strong pull. Her lips were that grayish blue color. I put my head down. Lifted it up a moment later and she had come to after one breath of artificial resuscitation. That was my moment of greatness. Opportunity but I rose to the occasion. A friend on the other side of my sister stood there opaquely and did nothing.
If you liked that.... read this. It's an amazing story.
In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette Amazon product ASIN 0307946916
GW along with his wife, owned possibly the most slaves in the colonies, (and thus was perhaps the richest person in the colonies), and got his cred for leading the revolution by slaughtering native Indians, and stealing their land, and executed his conscripts if they didn't do his bidding, no different than a Putin does..
and the original Constitution let the states decide who could and couldn't vote, and many states gave voting rights to only white male landholders.
so just how much a devotee of "freedom", or self rule, or "equality" was this GW guy really, or the other ratifiers of The Constitution?
and was the American Revolution really about "freedom", or taxation, or self rule, or was it possibly about the rich white slave owners who wrote and signed the Declaration Of Independence, maintaining the "freedom" to own slaves?
who's to say for sure, but history is written by the winners, and GW and the other rich white male slave owners, were who they were..
saw "The Betsy" (movie), back in probably the late 70s.
"A" list cast, but haven't so much as seen it ever on tv in probably the last 40 plus yrs.
really needs to be shown again on a premium channel where nothing is cut, now that we have DVR's and "pause".
a friend of mine wouldn't mind catching the Kathleen Beller pool side scene again on DVR.
on that note, did anyone else see Wonder Boys at the theater, or in the yrs immediately following it's release on HBO or Showtime.
it plays on HBO and other premium channels fairly often these days, but i swear there's been an integral scene involving Katie Holmes that's been cut.
wondering if it's just my imagination or not on that. (and wondering if Tom Cruise didn't have something to do with it, if i'm not imagining it).
"A" list cast, but haven't so much as seen it ever on tv in probably the last 40 plus yrs.
really needs to be shown again on a premium channel where nothing is cut, now that we have DVR's and "pause".
a friend of mine wouldn't mind catching the Kathleen Beller pool side scene again on DVR.
on that note, did anyone else see Wonder Boys at the theater, or in the yrs immediately following it's release on HBO or Showtime.
it plays on HBO and other premium channels fairly often these days, but i swear there's been an integral scene involving Katie Holmes that's been cut.
wondering if it's just my imagination or not on that. (and wondering if Tom Cruise didn't have something to do with it, if i'm not imagining it).
I think we Americans love the great man theory, but I am a little skeptical. If Ukrainians really didn't care about Russia, they wouldn't fight. Germany had fought the world almost to a standstill once before under a decidedly not great man, Hitler wasn't what caused them to do it again
A great man has influence around the margins. They might better focus what is already there. But Lincoln was not why the Union won. He helped, but so did Grant, Sherman, and a host of others.
Trump did not create the populist movement, he just tapped into it. Someone would have, Bernie was painfully close. Had Trump not happened in 16, Bernie could have been the winner in 20.
I watched a documentary that Q followers started with Bernie
I revisited this post of yours today. Now I want to get it straight. Does believing in the great man theory mean you believe that we mythologize or that you believe there are such great men who actually performed great deeds?
Okay, never mind. It’s the latter.
Seems like the problem is trying to pigeonhole different historical individuals into a theory. To me there is no doubt that some individuals have vastly greater influence on the events of their day than others. Compare Nikola Tesla to a bum on the street.
Civilization is based on ideas and help. Great leaders unite people (help) under a common purpose (idea). They clearly have an outsized influence compared to the individuals they unite. That doesn’t mean those individuals don’t contribute.
The question isn’t did trump create the populist movement. What’s interesting is what did he create? He clearly created a very large following and has united them perhaps more than any politician in recent times.
Well done.
I was a lifeguard for seven years, and I never saved a single person. Almost did once, but another kid had already pulled the struggling kid to the wall by the time I got out of my chair. Had to call 911 once when a kid fell off of the 3 meter board onto the cement. But then canceled the call after he got up and walked away with only a few scratches.
Thanks and thank you for your service! I am forever grateful to lifeguards one and all.
After I posted that I was thinking it was really the lifeguard who exemplified the question goat was discussing. This lifeguard had the opportunity to save my sister’s life and seized it. This was a moment of greatness for her as well. Would every other lifeguard have seized the moment? Probably. One could say it was just their job. But I imagine that lifeguard carrying that moment forward with her for the rest of her life. As well she should.
My sister was very proud and it was only years later that she revealed to me the agony in the women’s locker room she spent coughing her lungs out for about an hour. She had inhaled two lungs full of water. Ironically, before that breath of artificial resuscitation came in she said she was in a pleasantly euphoric state.
I have been considering who might be the biggest contributor to "Great Man". I discount religious figures because we might have a long debate on the board about reality v myth. So I will go with two. Genghis Khan and Napoleon. Both seemed to overperform any possible expectations in controlling both an empire and a military. That said, Khan introduced a host of political reforms we would really see as modern (religious freedom, abolished torture, created a postal system) but the areas he conquered largely lost much of that over time. The Napoleonic Code is still around. His military strategy dominates military thinking to this day. And some of Europe's 20th-century wars trace to Napoleonic wars. Napoleon's ability to get to Moscow probably helps reinforce Russian paranoia about Ukraine today. So I suspect while living, Khan was the quintessential great man, but for modern influence I would put Nappy.
I am not sure most of our "greats" really stack up. I am not discounting Lincoln and Washington, both played an oversized role in US history and I would certainly consider them great, With Lincoln, there is a question, if he had lost the election would we have needed a Lincoln?
IANAH but the Napoleanic Code seems to argue against the Man Theory in that he evidently didn’t write it:
“It was drafted by a commission of four eminent jurists and entered into force on 21 March 1804.[2] The Code, with its stress on clearly written and accessible law, was a major step in replacing the previous patchwork of feudal laws. Historian Robert Holtman regards it as one of the few documents that have influenced the whole world.”
His military genius would be part of his greatness, I assume.
I think a strong argument could be made for Buddha. His civilizing influence still affects Asia to this day I think. And I don’t mean in a religious sense but in a civil and social sense.
We are two episodes into 1883, what an orgy of blood. The death count is slightly ahead of Saving Private Ryan.
But so far some of the characters have redeeming value. In Yellowstone everyone was a Putin, or worse, I gave up because I just did not care about any of them so there was no reason to sit through it's orgy of blood.
But so far some of the characters have redeeming value. In Yellowstone everyone was a Putin, or worse, I gave up because I just did not care about any of them so there was no reason to sit through it's orgy of blood.
Which time is that? Time has issues, I have it on good authority 23 hours from now it will be 24 hours from now.
A time when the world was more cultured and thoughtful. My stoker and I started the new season of Mrs. Maisel. I like everything about the show but her. Her personality is kind of grating to me. Not sure why
My wife had the same problem so we only saw the first 3 episodes.
Since it has not come up, I really like season 2 of Picard but I know I should not. The story is too derivative of other Trek work.
Really? She finds her annoying too? Incidentally that's where I am: 3 episodes and ready to be done. And again I love the setting and the supporting characters.
Exactly, in team sports like basketball and football the supporting cast makes all the difference in the world. Of course there are some really great players but saying they are the greatest of all time is really subjective. For example, the NBA has changed a lot since MJ played... there wasn't very many tall players like Kevin Durant that could shoot 3 pointers back then.
Maybe should you stick to reruns of Little House on the Prairie and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.
Thanks for your recommendation, I am sure you know all about both and that is why you can recommend them.
Yeah you wonder how they would be viewed today if they hadn't been assassinated.
Used the early games to also finish Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock, which I picked up a few months ago when I was at B&N for unrelated reasons and discovered they were running a 50% off all hardcovers promotion.
This book was definitely a bit tighter than his previous efforts. Maybe still a little too wordy during the exposition phase, but as the story dug in, it was pleasantly fast-paced. A few things still bug me about his writing. He still has trouble figuring out how to drop plot devices in and out gracefully. And he still has a strangely cartoonish understanding of sex; the Queen's flirting is especially groan-inducing. But these are ultimately minor nitpicks. Overall, it is a very well-crafted story.
Essentially, it's the story of a world that eventually just gives up on fixing the human behavior that causes climate change, and instead embraces mitigation strategies in the form of geoengineering (think Futurama, when Leela remarks that global warming was gratefully cancelled out by nuclear winter). The heroes of the story are partially driven by noble impulses, and partially driven by finding a climate fix that doesn't require them to give up their private jets. As the story is set in the near future, he splices in some hyperbolic extensions of some modern problems, such as our collective social media addiction and American political dysfunction, in humorous ways. A couple of the supporting characters are especially interesting; I'd love to see a sequel based entirely on Willem and his family in Papua.
Overall, despite the fact that it's a little less unwieldly than, say, Seveneves, I would still recommend the latter as the better novel. This one just seems not to take itself quite seriously enough, almost like it's partially intended to be satire, but the satire doesn't really land, because it's a bit too simplistic, and that takes away from the main speculative storyline. All that said, it's still a proper story, and I'd give it a thumbs up, although if you aren't already a huge fan, maybe wait for the paperback, which, come to think of it, should be coming soon, if it hasn't already.
This book was definitely a bit tighter than his previous efforts. Maybe still a little too wordy during the exposition phase, but as the story dug in, it was pleasantly fast-paced. A few things still bug me about his writing. He still has trouble figuring out how to drop plot devices in and out gracefully. And he still has a strangely cartoonish understanding of sex; the Queen's flirting is especially groan-inducing. But these are ultimately minor nitpicks. Overall, it is a very well-crafted story.
Essentially, it's the story of a world that eventually just gives up on fixing the human behavior that causes climate change, and instead embraces mitigation strategies in the form of geoengineering (think Futurama, when Leela remarks that global warming was gratefully cancelled out by nuclear winter). The heroes of the story are partially driven by noble impulses, and partially driven by finding a climate fix that doesn't require them to give up their private jets. As the story is set in the near future, he splices in some hyperbolic extensions of some modern problems, such as our collective social media addiction and American political dysfunction, in humorous ways. A couple of the supporting characters are especially interesting; I'd love to see a sequel based entirely on Willem and his family in Papua.
Overall, despite the fact that it's a little less unwieldly than, say, Seveneves, I would still recommend the latter as the better novel. This one just seems not to take itself quite seriously enough, almost like it's partially intended to be satire, but the satire doesn't really land, because it's a bit too simplistic, and that takes away from the main speculative storyline. All that said, it's still a proper story, and I'd give it a thumbs up, although if you aren't already a huge fan, maybe wait for the paperback, which, come to think of it, should be coming soon, if it hasn't already.
