[FRIAM] great man theory

[Prof David West]

Is there such a thing as a “good” or at least “benign” great (wo)man e.g. Chouinard of Patagonia and the mission statement to save the planet. OTOH — they are just as much a prod of circumstance as a Bezos, but the seem, at least superficially, qualitatively different towards the “good.”

Or is this just an instance of billionaire-asshole; millionaire-maybe?

Davew
On Fri, Mar 12, 2021, at 1:17 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> To be clear, recognizing that all models are wrong, some are useful 
> isn't nihilistic. My favorite conception is (what I think I got from 
> Kierkegaard), the leap of faith from obsessing about how wrong our 
> models are, to something akin to "shut up and calculate" is what gets 
> us out of analysis paralysis.
> 
> The trick, I suppose, is *when* to pull the trigger. How much do I have 
> to empathize with Jeff Bezos before I can just get on with pointing out 
> that his effluvium is destroying culture, market, and planet; and any 
> "effective altruism" he may engage in will never offset the damage his 
> effluvium's done.
> 
> How much do I have to empathize with Michael Jackson ... or Trump ... 
> or whatever fictitious caricature (false but useful model) we might 
> choose, in order to get on with the consequential task of mitigating 
> their impact?
> 
> 
> On 3/12/21 11:58 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> >>  To look at our victims as full-blown humans gets in the way of our progress.
> > 
> > I don't know if Nietzsche said that first but it does seem like it could
> > be a paraphrase of one of his nihilistic piths.
> > 
> > I am inspired by the anti-Othering movement,  it serves my own
> > recovery/respite from a lifetime of participating in zero-sum
> > victim/victor games as offered by our popular culture as (sometimes? or
> > am I imputing again?) "the only game in town".
> 
> 
> -- 
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
> 
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