Marx by Kieran Allen

Author:Kieran Allen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786802026
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)

The Great Man theory cannot explain why the mass of people sometimes respond and sometimes do not respond to ‘great leaders’. Contrary to an image of the dumb masses, most people do not respond like the spellbound followers of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and instead weigh up what they hear. They often look to particular individuals to express powerful moods that have developed in their ranks. Hitler, for example, was originally regarded as an eccentric living in a hostel in Vienna and even by 1923, when he launched his failed putsch, he acknowledged that ‘They always said I was crazy’.10 But after the economic crash of 1929, the terrible anger of a large part of German society found its expression in this odd character. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Irish republican leader Eamon de Valera was so honoured that he was the subject of children’s songs which were recited for decades. Today, however, a different generation regards him as a symbol of boredom and conservatism. The social context is all when it comes to the effects of ‘charisma’.

Another conservative view of history is that nothing ever really changes but simply repeats set patterns. This was most clearly expressed by the Enlightenment philosopher David Hume:

Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.11

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