2 days ago
Progressives' Disdain of Genius Is a Problem for the West
In his great book, On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841), Thomas Carlyle raged against the levelling spirit of Victorian Britain. 'This…is an age that as it were denies the existence of great men; denies the desirableness of great men,' he complained. Show the critics a great man, he said, and they will ask you to 'account for him,' 'take the dimensions of him,' and otherwise 'bring him out to be a little kind of man.'
The levelling spirit is far more powerful today than it was back then. Any history student who is foolish enough to argue, as Carlyle did, that 'the history of the world is but the biography of great men' would be guaranteed a stern lecture on the importance of 'social forces' and 'economic factors.' This is particularly pronounced when it comes to the notion of geniuses.
