[FRIAM] great man theory

[Steve Smith]

While I find the great (wo)man theory fundamentally problematic, I don't
think criticisms like this list which reduce those who might be held up
as such to diminished caricatures of themselves much more than snark.  

There is a big (overwhelming) component of ego involved in these
people's success and each of our own tiny egos is threatened by any
other ego finding success (especially spectacular success).   But *we*
are the ones who build the foundations on which giant towers of ego are
built.   *We* (the peoples) are the ones who project our own ego-needs
out in such a way that the various measures of success and opportunities
for accumulation of power (e.g. wealth, influence) end up building the
scaffolding to elevate these people whom we so much love to hate.  

I suspect what makes these "great (wo)men" figures such good targets for
resentment is that we see our own tiny egos reflected in their inflated
(by attention/fame/wealth) egos?

I "grew up" with Michael Jackson in perhaps a different way than
others.   I ran a night-time Pop-Rock show at my local AM station during
his rise to fame.  He was one year younger than me.   The Rock Stars
(Stones, Beatles, etc ad nauseum) of the time were already young
adults... in many cases a decade or more older than I, and I could defer
to their fame more easily.   Michael Jackson had just hit it big with
his single - "Ben" which some of you may remember as being the theme
song to a hollywood movie about a Rat named "Ben".   The movie was
sweet, the song was sweet, etc.   I liked the tune and I had a guarded
respect for someone "my age" being so capable vocally.   I was also
tapped into the industry chatter about "young stars" and Jackson was a
unique phenomena in many ways, coming up out of the shadow of his
brothers' Jackson 5 to eclipse them.   The stories of the family dynamic
that seems to have ultimately crushed him into the caricature of a pop
star he became (whilst still churning out good work) were already afoot,
alongside the other rising (and oft dysfunctional) pop phenomena of that
time (Carpenters, Donnie&Marie, Cap'n&Tenille, etc.)  Many 60's rockers
were already (dissolved, self-destructed, OD'd, but this younger cohort
of wholesome(ish) pop/folk/rock singers were growing up with their older
siblings/mentors as cautionary tales, or perhaps in a more extreme
crucible with the exploding budget of boomer teens/young-adults for
their music.   I mildly resented Michael's (and many of the others)
success, but I also had a hint of his pain and knew I wouldn't trade his
rising fame for the dysfunction that drove/shaped it.   Karen
Carpenter's death-by-Anorexia and other events of that genre/era attuned
me to the price many (all?) of these people were paying.  

There might be a notable exception in Linda Ronstadt who was a few years
older than me but from the nearby city of Tucson and struggling/fumbling
*her* way through the same waters.   I really didn't appreciate it until
after she had lost her voice to Parkinson's a decade ago and I saw a
documentary on the arc of her life, how dedicated to her art she was,
and how much of that transcended the pop-rock I knew her (most well)
for.   It might be acutely notable that while she had some fairly
high-profile relationships (e.g. Gov. Jerry Brown, Steve Martin, Jim
Carrey, Mick Jagger, Bill Murray, Aaron Neville, George Lucas, etc...) 
she managed to not let any of those famous men eclipse or deflect her
from her own professional arc, though I am sure they all influenced her
arc in some way.  

I'm sure someone could give Ronstadt the same snark-treatment if I held
her up as "a Great Woman", and maybe it is equally fair to note that few
probably hold her up in that way beyond simply appreciating the great
work she has done along the way.   I also believe to support a "Great
Woman Narrative" that she was highly influential among her peers and
younger musicians (especially women) and in the domain of modern
(80s-90s?) country-rock (with a dash of mexican-hillbilly ranchera)
thrown in.

<shaking my tiny fist>

- Steve

On 3/12/21 9:48 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Fantastic rundown! Thanks. I had intended to post a rant on the abuse of the word "analog" in contrast to "digital", given the news about the antikythera <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/12/scientists-move-closer-to-solving-mystery-of-antikythera-mechanism>. Now I feel that rant would be way too lame and couldn't follow this.
>
> EricC suggested I watch "Leaving Neverland", which was interesting. But I also watched the Oprah interview afterward. Up to that point, I hadn't realized what a self-aggrandizing know-it-all she is. I'm now glad I haven't spent much time watching her shows or consuming her products. I suspect, however, she's evolved, like all of us ... like Michael Jackson, even. Maybe at one point, her contribution was of a higher quality. I won't know one way or another.
>
> On 3/12/21 8:18 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>> Nothing serious, just something that reminded me of topics in threads and, I think, glen's acerbic comments about "great men / geniuses."  Jessica Wildfire's list (not so ironically making herself exactly what she is decrying - absent billions of dollars of personal wealth)
>>
>> 5 most overated persons:
>>
>> Steve Jobs:
>>     Steve Jobs didn’t invent the computer. Steve Wozniak did. He also didn’t invent smartphones or touch screens. These technologies already existed. In fact, Jobs almost stopped Apple from releasing the first iPhone. A covert team developed it in complete secrecy from him, in order to avoid his caustic skepticism. So you might say the iPhone happened despite Jobs, not because of him.
>>
>> Elon Musk:
>>    Elon Musk has been promising us an affordable electric car for over a decade now. He’s used that promise to win billions of dollars in tax breaks and seed money, while actively undermining any green projects he sees as a threat to his own enterprise. Basically, he’s the biggest example of corporate freeloading you could imagine. What the world admires about Elon Musk isn’t his intelligence, or his environmental conscience. It’s his ego, plain and simple.
>>
>> Jeff Bezos
>>    Bezos conducts a masterful public relations campaign that allows customers to believe Amazon isn’t completely destroying the environment, or working its employees literally to death. In fact, it is. Despite Amazon’s recent pledges to save the world, its carbon footprint has grown 15 percent since the pandemic began. At best, the billions that Bezos spends will partly undo the damage he’s caused. If that weren’t enough, Bezos and his company use every underhanded tactic known to civilization in order to cheapen its labor costs and avoid taxes. They’ve literally been caught stealing tips. Bezos himself pays almost nothing in state income tax, while the rest of us are forced to make up the difference. He cuts health insurance from his employees, then has the audacity to say in public that he has no idea how to spend his immense wealth, other than moving to Mars or cloning himself.
>>
>> Oprah Winfrey
>>    Oprah isn’t a hard-hitting journalist. She isn’t profound. She caters to the lowest common denominator, the suburban housewives of America, who need to feel special and important because nobody else treats them with any respect. Oprah figured this out early on in her career. They’ve been her core audience from the start. Oprah rode to fame on satanic panics and woo-woo spirituality. She’s a chief architect of the magical thinking that now fuels QAnon-style conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine movements. Oprah has spent a lifetime coddling intellectual fragility, while manufacturing controversy and outrage for profit. 
>>
>> Tony Robbins
>>    The more you learn about Tony Robbins, the more you find out his real secret. He only knows how to succeed if you’re a big, good-looking white guy like him. Otherwise, his advice doesn’t work. Of course, the worst thing about Tony Robbins is that he apparently spent most of his career telling people to stand up for themselves, while preying on women and bullying them.
>>
>> What these people have in common:
>>    So, apparently these are the five most successful people in the world. They have the most money. They have the most influence. They’re kind of awful. If we’re honest with ourselves, we can see how we’ve created a mythology around these individuals. We tell stories about them that never really happened. We ascribe pithy quotes to them they didn’t really say. We turn them into mirrors of our own personal desires. In case you missed the last few thousand years of western civilization, the most powerful people in the world aren’t nice. They’re not fair. They don’t play by the rules. They’re brutal. They cheat. Often, they’re simply in the right place at the right time — and they exploit that to their advantage, often at everyone’s expense.
>>
>> for entertainment purposes only.
>>
>> davew