My commentary here follows a small fraction of the thoughts philosopher Bernard Williams expressed in his essay 'Formal and substantial individualism', 1984. Go to my main channel th-cam.com/users/VladVexlervideos Go to my second channel, Vlad Vexler Chat www.youtube.com/@VladVexlerChat/featured You can now support Vlad's work on Patreon! www.patreon.com/vladvexler Support Vlad via PayPal www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB
I love your philosophical musings, Vlad. I also understand that for health reasons, you can only do this so often. Regardless, I will say I think your videos are a bit rambly and informal, and could greatly benefit from more prescripting and structure. I’d of loved to hear you talk about actual philosophers’ takes on this fascinating topic, including Bernard Williams who you mention here. What about Hegelian phenomenology, or Sartre’s thoughts on infinite freedom and personal responsibility? Just my two cents.
Fascinating! Now, if I may, I'd like to add a different perspective, from Native American philosophy, that might add some nuance to the discussion. (This is identity, if you will, in that it's my group, but not hyper-identity, in that I'm adding my group's perspective to the overall mix instead of competitively keeping it apart and saying that it's the best or only perspective, rah rah rah for my team.) I'm just feeling this out as I go, influenced by Vlad's words and seeing where they might take me. To preface, the European-based perspective appears to see reality as things, and change as a sort of flip-book of static pictures or stills in a movie. The indigenous American perspective is that reality is primarily a flow, and our individual currents are part of larger currents that in turn feed larger currents, and nothing is ever really static. In this perspective, there are overall patterns of flow that have a very strong current behind them, and if you don't give it much thought you will naturally flow wherever they take you, for better or for worse. But ultimately, since we are sentient parts of that flow, we can exert some control over where we go on the river of life. Most of the time we go with it, and sometimes that's the best course. Sometimes a bad current can overwhelm us; attempting to resist means drowning in it--a circumstance which many conscripts in Russia face. Sometimes a person's individual current of personality is so strong (and so insightful of the nature of the currents) that he or she can go against them and wind up somewhere else, letting most of the river flow where it's going without her consent or condoning. But then sometimes there's a very strong person who goes against the current and bends the current with him. For this to happen, he has to be in the right place at the right time, and have others near to him more amenable to being pulled out of the main current than most, to add their strength to his. And he has to know himself and how best to direct the flow of his own nature. In these terms, both Trump and Putin were products of the natural flow of their respective countries. Trump is someone with sufficient wealth and ego to make him a good vessel for the madness sweeping America--he didn't invent it, he just rode its current, and if he had never been born, someone else like him, from a whole pool of wealthy narcissists, would have taken his place. Putin similarly embodies a strong current of tyranny running through Russia since the days of the Golden Hoard. It's not irresistable, but it would really take the right person at the right place with the right backing to change so established a current, and Putin was simply someone smoothly streamlined to flow right with it. Now, Zelenskyy was an unlikely president who didn't fit the natural flow of the politics of post-Soviet nations, though in his early days of presidency he went with the flow in both good ways and bad. Most of his life, though, he trained as a comedian, not a politician, and his populism made him flounder in the beginning--but his background also made him shift the flow! A comedian trains to watch for ways to give everything an unlikely twist--humor shifts the flow of our thoughts at least, if only for a second. (This is why Sacred Clowns are important to so many tribes of Indigenous Americans.) When you think about it, the iconic words that shifted the entire course of the war, "I need ammunition, not a ride!", is a punchline, a joke with deadly serious consequences. Zelenskyy took his personal current--to find unexpected perspectives on reality--and, with the backing of lots of people who didn't want to be subjected to Russia, used it to knock the flow of Ukraine (a flow along a deeply and bloodily gouged channel) onto a different course. And the influence of that perspective, of looking for the unexpected twist, has changed the overall current of Ukraine from a traumatized country still struggling to shake off Soviet influence, to amazing innovators, famous for their rapid adaptations and unorthodox solutions. Like taking what had previously been toys--jetskis and drones--and combining them into a brand new kind of weapon against which the Russian Navy had no good defense. Or improvising inflatable structures similar to bouncy-castles and turning them into Invincibility Points that kept their people taken care of through a winter of constant bombardment of their infrastructure. And as this current grows, Ukraine's influence now tugs atg others, like Bashkortostan, helping them to flow in a new direction. So, while many historical figures merely flowed with the currents of history, for better or for worse, some historical individuals can direct their own current in a way that changes that flow for many besides themselves. Why this matters: When you think in terms of the flow, you can ask important questions like, "Where is this likely to flow? Where would I like it to flow? What will it take to shift that flow? What would be the optimum flow? Do I talk to people in a way that takes their natural currents into account? Am I trying to flow uphill when I could achieve the same end by flowing around the hill?" etc. Anyway, it's been fun playing with this idea.
I believe it is obvious individuals often greatly shape history by their own characters. The harder question is: how much are those characters shaped by social circumstance?
If we are to believe Nietzsche, very few men are not shaped by circumstance. The true self made men are can be counted on 1 hand. We all know their names. Alexander the great, julius caeser, Napoleon. They were born to have power. Napoleon wasn't even french. I can imagine various outcomes where he became emperor of another European country instead.
@@he1ar1 Alexander the Great is not at all a self made man, lol what. His dad literally made the most powerful army on the entire planet and was assassinated and replaced by Alexander on the eve of his expedition. The fact you name Alexander the Great at all shows you have little awareness of what a self made man actually is. Even Julius Caeser is questionable. His most famous campaigns are composed of him taking what was already the most powerful army on the planet, finding some of the best generals on the planet, and then repeatedly pillaging and geocoding a much weaker disorganized group who largely didn't want war in the first place. Julius Caesar is not nearly as good a commander as people think he is, his real talent was identifying other people who truly excelled and promoting them. And being fair, identifying capable people and winning their loyalty isn't an easy task, it's a skill that most people never learn, but it's not as great a skill as people think Julius Caesar had. Especially when people are forgetting his most famous campaigns were against enemies that generally were far weaker than Rome. Look at his campaigns in England and you see how being put on the backfoot he no longer can wipe the floor like he did in gaul. Napolean was a masterful commander, but his issue is while he could win the war, he had no clue how to win the peace, and that was his downfall. And all of these people were born to wealthy and noble families. Which are kinda the opposite of self made. One could argue that Napoleon's family was on the lower end of the noble caste, but one could also argue that in the revolution the fact he was a lower nobility ended up helping him.
This discussion could be recommended as a useful follow up for those who might have watched a recent video by Beau and feel philosophically curious. In the video he addresses lack of personal agency within the context of world events (and emotional/informational burnout). That video is titled "Staying informed, and whether you should..."
What if, somebody on a tiny council changes the speed limits for cows and as a result, Beethoven doesn't get trampled at the age of 4? Does that make a large scale different now?
One great example of a single individual changing things on a big scale but not (at all) how he intended : king Louis the XVI who tried to fled revolutionary France in order to start a war with foreign powers and regain control of the country. He was caught a few kilometers after he left Paris, was arrested and brought back to the capital. Only then a majority of the Assembly decided to execute him, for treason, and therefore to get rid of the French monarchy for good. Huge change for the country, definitely not what he set up to do !
A possibly apocryphal story holds that Louis was recognised by an individual official who then reported him. Had a different official been there, the king may have escaped with his life. Alternatively, a slight shift in the identites or descisions of the king's judges would have resulted in a 'not guilty' verdict.
Interesting talk. With your story about the CD-player in mind - I came to think of decision making. The "handing over"-moments after you lend it out must have been done after less significant decisions in Tonga (compared to more "Europe-influenced" societies). Behind every decision there can be one or more decision makers. If every comissioner but one stands behind a decision that leads to catastrophy - has the one decided history (or at least a part of it)? Regardless of outcome - back in time the head of state often became the one to blame/honor for the decided history. It might not be so in the future (maybe Mike Johnson is deciding history right now? How will we remember him in the future?)
My prior belief is that individuals make a big difference, in a distinctive way, in accordance with their intentions -- but rarely. The conditions have to be right, with other factors being more-or-less balanced, before something like "I need ammunition, not a ride" can make the difference as big as it seems to have made in this case. And even when the Great Man Theory of history seems to be pretty strong, the great man has a limited set of options. It's not clear to me that there's a big difference available to be made, in some of these cases. If I had really wanted to send my kids to a private school, I presumably would have done so. But how different would that have been? And how much of the difference would really be attributable to the fact that I would have sent them to a private school, rather than to the re-shuffling of the effectively random aspects of the situation? They would have made different friends, but they would also have made different friends if I'd done my apartment shopping on a different day and thus wound up living in a different place. If the most prominent work of art in a particular medium from a particular era hadn't been made, there would still have been a most prominent work in that category. The idea of the "no big difference" position isn't that it would have been the same work. It's that the counterfactual world with a different most prominent work would have been similar. The themes addressed in the most prominent work would still have been addressed in various works, even if the alternate-world most prominent work didn't address them. The events that were influenced by that work in the real world would have been influenced about as much by the other works as they would have been by that work in a different alternate world where the work is made but a lot of minor decisions get re-randomized.
I honestly fail to grasp the relevance of that counterfactual. Sure, it's clear that if some specific and very influential art piece wasn't made, the category of "very influential art piece" would still exist. But I don't think it follows that the counterfactual piece that would occupy the vacant position of most influential art piece would necesseraly be influential in the same way, nor that it would be essentially equivalent to the not-created work. Had Shakespeare never published anything there would probably be another person that is held in a similarly high esteem, but that person would not be Shakespeare and they would influence the English language and culture in different ways. Cervantes in spanish and Goethe in german could be thought of as more or less equivalent figures (at least roughly) to Shakespeare for their respective languages, and they're clearly very different creators that impacted the world in different ways.
I'm sure there's a lot of related topics that can be discussed, but the one that comes to my mind is role models. You've discussed how much actions of individuals matter, but what of their image being mimicked by other individuals in position of great influence, who find themselves with few peers to learn from and turn to history? "There's no one to talk to since Gandhi died", conquerers mimicking past great conquerers, artists mimicking past great artists. A legacy of Feynman isn't just his education and physics work, it's also alive in the work of Carl Sagan, then Neil deGrasse Tyson. Many aspire to examples of philosophers and religious leaders. Influence of action isn't the only individual influence that can leave a mark on history.
Here's one take on the subject from Carl Jung (from 'The Undiscovered Self'): “A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally short-sighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hand of a single madman.”
In another passage he talks about the flaw in averages.. 'if you had a pebble bed in which each pebble weighed on average just 5 grams, what would be the odds of picking up a 5 gram pebble from the bed of pebbles' (or there abouts) I think this applies too.
I would say every individual is born in a collective framework left by our ancestors. Many of our options to change history, or the direction thereof, are limited by how concepts of “pathdependency” or “organizational inertia” work. Much of an individual’s influence over history can be seen as a continuation of our ancestors legacy. But if the question boils down to the ability to break that trajectory I’d say that leadership is extremely important. Leaders are able to effectively rally and organize support, help creating momentum, in order to succeed and make history.
It's through this line of thinking I came to realise there are no individuals proper, and that individualism as a ideology is one grounded in serious mh problems.
@DJWESG1 yes and no. Reality is complex. Concepts have meaning depending on a specific context. Be careful not to apply a specific meaning of a concept too broadly. Are you familiar with Dabrowski’s work on “positive desintegration”? You’ll find there’s plenty of potential room for individuality to explore, in a specific context that could probably apply to you.
Without committing to either side, I think a possible answer from the "individuals don't matter" side when it comes to artistic works is that the artists are products of the trends and general cultural gestalt of their time. While another individual wouldn't have produced exactly the same works, it's probably not unreasonable to presume that somebody would have been in a similar place, with similar inspirations, producing something similar ENOUGH that the broad impact on larger history would have been about the same. To take Shakespeare because I'm more familiar with him than with Beethoven or Picasso: Shakespeare didn't create the surge in the popularity of theatre of his time, he was one of a number of playwrights, he was just the one who's works were considered the best. If it wasn't for him, it's likely that one of his competitors would have been the best instead, or someone else might have received the break he did and come into theatre with a similar worldview. Our hypothetical Fakespeare might not have been as good as the Bard, or might actually have been better, but they would have been drawing from the same histories, folk stories, and current events, and likely would have produced a series of works which had similar enough messages and themes that Fakespeare's overall impact on world history would not have been significantly different. A similar "the details are different, but world history doesn't look that different" approach could also happen with world leaders. There's an argument to be made that one of the causes of World War 1 was the Kaiser pretty much scuttling Bismarck's careful foreign policy... but there's an argument to be made that the historical trends were such that some sort of war around then was inevitable, and while with a wiser Kaiser the alliances might have been different, there would still have been a loser in the end that was resentful enough to start World War 2. Similarly, perhaps a major war in the 2020s or 2030s was inevitable with or without Putin as SOMEBODY was inevitably going to test the perceived decline of the West, but it might have been someone else like China or Iran who would have thrown the first stone if Russia hadn't already shown how badly that could go. Or, to flip the script, if Zelensky hadn't been President of Ukraine and whoever was chose to take a ride and Ukraine collapsed, then Ukraine might simply have been a prelude to the big war rather than being the big war itself, or Russia might still have ended up being bogged down in an insurgency war in Ukraine rather than a conventional one. Again, I'm not saying I agree with either proposition, but I think at least some of the flaws in the "individuals don't matter" argument can be resolved by the theory that sure, individuals can change the details, but if you zoom out enough, the end results are about the same. On the flipside, of course, the details could only get so large before history gets flipped into a different track altogether. Putin getting bogged down in Ukraine is probably (hopefully?) a very different historical path than an easy victory in Ukraine giving him the confidence to go into the Baltics.
V.V. ... you do an excellent job of explaining your divergent thoughts as a coherent whole. While I can over-talk most people because they aren't able to carry a conversation, if we talked the conversation would be tilted towards you. Not because you -- by force of will -- push your point, but because you have thought through the details and that presentation combined with those details are a force by themselves. More ... of course ... if you are interested. If not, my appreciation of you remains the same.
Regarding the CD player: Anarchists often make the difference between private property and personal property. When they say "private property", what they usually mean is the private property of the means of production and say that should be abolished. The CD player would be personal property. It's like your car, the house where you live, and your toothbrush. That is not the kind or property that anarchists want to abolish.
My feeling is the fool following a fool is most foolish. Anyone can be a fool...but it seems double foolish to follow a fool...that action implies the person too is a fool and goes a step further towards foolishness by following another fool....🤣 kind of like "which came first the chicken or the egg."
I love these philosphy videos. I wish I had more time to meditate on them carefully. I suppose I should make the time for things like this... I suppose I shouldn't make stream of consciousness TH-cam comments... but I do.
Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises go's into these topics. It is a superb book. He's one of the founders of "Austrian Economics" which is the school of economics the Argentinas new president Millie follows.
I experienced the permeability of personal property in families (many times probably but the one that comes to mind is) when my sister came home and. Actually drank out of the mug w my name on it! The audacity! Lol. I've since become more tolerant, since it isn't going to hurt the mug any. To me it seemed a bit in your face but I don't think it was really meant that way. It's interesting how I feel a bit more attached to personal property than my youngest sister, perhaps bc I was 4 before i had a younger sibling and had a longer time to think "this is mine" (I remember being verrrry upset when I thought a daycare kid broke my toy horse). Im not sure if it goes both ways-- they can steal my things but they'd get upset if I took theirs. My younger sister seemed to "borrow" things most often from both of the older sisters. This sort of borrowing seemed more acceptable to her, thus I shouldn't have been surprised she casually drank out of my name mug from Yellowstone (it was special to me and I was a bit worried she would break it I suppose.) anyway this doesn't have much to do w the main discussion but your explanation in the beginning sparked an example from my own life which in turn helps me recognize and understand a little better if I see such phenomena in the real world.
Vlad, I really really loved this talk. Thank you so much for your service! ❤❤❤❤❤ From the dozens of books and studies on human behaviour I've had a chance to read it's obvious to me that free will is overrated (R. Sapolsky would even convincingly argue there's none of it). I.e. humans are in much larger extent vehicles of converging processes than drivers. Combination of natural predispositions and surrounding environment, rather than free independent agents. The evidence is stunning once you start looking deep into it. It is absolutely no coincidence that many highly influential historical figures have (had) significant mental abnormalities and they climbed to power in periods of big social disturbances. Take Hitler, Lenin, Stalin...
Individual action matters in the context of the actions of all individuals. Some individual actions make a great deal of difference in the circumstances that lots of actions have combined to set up.
Cheers Vlad! That's a tasty cud to chew on. It reminds me of something a professor of political science said thirty years ago. Proposition #1: "There are no nations, only insecure humans and those who wish to exploit them. There are communities, who may be cohesive and work closely together or be divided and vexed by suspicion and distrust. There are administrative systems and bureacracies which may or may not benefit economically or socially those whom they claim as chattels." Proposition #2: "There are only nations. Individual consciousness is an illusion born in the nucleus of the atom. The electron may consider itself independent but it manifests itself only within the cosmic prime movement. When the atom needs a kick, it manifests a punk. The nation’s eternal existence is intrinsic to itself." Proposition #3: "There are both individuals and nations. The billowing steam of consciousness is the by-product of their conflicting symmetries. Their lot is to marry water and heat in the furnace of competition. Synonymously pulse and wave, their ebb and flow create the illusion of harmony but they are as far apart as night and day or death and life." All the best to everyone.
Maybe a better statement of the denial of distinctive individuality would be "Without Shakespeare, our literary cannon would have different authors but equally moving and important" which, granted, is still a bit of a stretch.
I agree, it would be possible to hold the opinion that we would just have different great art. There would still be a fantastic mural painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chappell, it just wouldn't have been painted by Michelangelo. Maybe it wouldn't be as good, but it would still be wonderful. Maybe it would be better, maybe some other painter would have stepped up and had an opportunity history actually denied them. It's an open question how consequential the specifics of particular works of great art are in history.
In some sense there's the important question of: "Do historians determine what are considered historical events? Or, do events determine what historians can categorize as significant types of historical forces?" In my rather inarticulate way of asking, " Do the questioners decide what is a valid question or is it the answers that determine the validity? "
On the topic of Beethoven and Picasso and their individual expressions being examples of individual incluence: I think a reasonable person could reject the significance of the parts of those contributions that are individualistic. For example: if Beethoven were trampled by a cow, we might not have orchestras playing his symphonies, but they WOULD be playing something else, and we'd think that the something else was cool and important in the way that we currently think Beethoven's work is cool and important.
In other words, I think a reasonable person could think something like "to the extent that these things are examples of individual expression, then that part isn't impactful"
That misses the point, I think. They would not be listening to Beethoven. I could throw any number of hypothetical structural changes at you and still say "Yeah, but people would still be living in some form and would still be breathing air, so how different is it really?" The problem with all these arguments is that they rest on a shared undertanding of what can be considered important, but there is never going to be total consensus to a subjective question. If I did not exist, then you would be completely uneffected, but I certainly would be! I would consider that important though you would not.
The level of agency one has within a (hierarchical) social structure is mediated by where one is placed within that structure. (In our societies most structures that have decision-making power are hierarchal). While a head of govt may have enough individual agency to affect change those at the bottom of the institution would struggle to make any difference as individuals.
Interesting ti also explore how the major individual driven changes in history are often done by individuals with some kind of psychological / psychiatric disorders, like narcissistic magalomenia and yet they drive entire nations behind such complexes. Like Idi Amin fx.
I think of some things as voids that would need to be filled by SOMETHING. Obviously only Beethoven can compose a Beethoven piece; but had he not been there, someone else would have emerged probably around the same time, writing things that are somehow different, that would however take up that same spot in our cultural tapestry, and in the grand scheme of things, little would change. Sure Putin made the decision to launch this or that invasion personally, but wasn't it also... if not fated, then extremely likely, that an individual of Putin's mindset and type would have emerged as russia's leader for the same period of time, that would have taken similar decisions and would have also invaded Ukraine? That Gorbachev was there to try to reform Soviet Union because he was needed? And Al Gore could have had to run an Iraq war, perhaps against his better judgement. But there are various degrees here of "it could have gone differently". It could have gone the same in spite of different individuals as well, we're not in position to run that sort of experiment.
I would like to respectfully challenge this view. I agree that in the absence of Beethoven there would have been other composers but given how few genuinely achieved his level of creative contribution throughout history, let alone his lifetime, I feel his absence would be a loss. Okay, humanity would not be aware of this loss but we would still not have that great music. In the genuinely few I include Vivaldi. If memory serves, his music was “lost” for generations but rediscovered by accident. I love Vivaldi. I would struggle to name any of his contemporaries. I think this is an example of a big contribution, on a big scale that was truly distinctive. Thanks for the lecture Vlad. Really appreciate it.❤ From Brissie
I have been reading WWI history, and it is amazing how much of a difference Woodrow Wilson (US President) made on a personal level. When the British starvation blockade of Germany was started it was illegal on a number of counts. Wilson could have easily have insisted on neutral rights for the US, which would have scuttled the blockade and drastically changed the war. Instead he fully supported Britain. This was a choice; his choice was actually the extreme choice and not the expected choice.
Not quite. Wilson was under pressure by nervous Americans who had lent billions, principally to France and Britain to finance their war. An Entente victory was the only way that America would have any chance of getting its loans repaid and it’s also why Wilson and Congress ordered the seizure of every German asset in America, including interestingly, the patent for Asprin. It was the loss of the American assets that utterly crippled Germany’s economy.
@@edmundfreeman7203 America protested the blockade until 1917. To alleviate the problems America was facing the British purchased their German cargos which kept everyone happy, except the Germans of course.
@@seanlander9321 I'm going from the book 'The World Reborn' by GJ Meyer. According to him, any protests were minimal at best. Wilson was fundamentally supportive of the British war effort, even early on.
@@seanlander9321 What we are doing here is a great example of Vlad's video. You are arguing that societal forces were so powerful Wilson did not matter at all; any US President would have been forced to bring the US into WWI and history would not have changed. I am arguing that Wilson's personal characteristics had such a huge and distinct effect that his decisions, of which he could have easily decided otherwise, radically changed history. I think Wilson is a great test case of which view is reasonable for understanding actually-existing humans.
I think that individual intention does shape history, the more social stuff in more like the weather of history. I also believe that on the shorter time scales the more the individual decision matter. On the longer time scales the collective stuff matters more.
Questions: Absent the Holocaust of the Second World War, would the modern state of Israel exist? Did Hitler create Israel? Actions and intentions...reactions and results. Have fun!
I think that, in order for a Genghis Khan to emerge, conditions have to be such that there is a niche for such a role. These conditions exist on a vast, civilizational scale, not those of the individual. However, whether someone happens to be in a position and chooses to take advantage of such a niche is of course up to chance. How this chance turns out is what we call an "individual's impact on history" - so, if there was no specific individual Temujin, then it's quite possible that there would not have been a Genghis Khan, and history would have turned out quite differently.
I don't think anyone would argue that somebody else would have written Shakespeare's plays had he never been born, but I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that society as a whole would have latched onto some other playwright to celebrate for centuries to come instead.
The "Boys from Brazil" would suggest the opposite however, that wider social forces are much more determining of historical effects, even when it is attempted to repeat the same individual with a similar personal history.
I know it's dated a bit, but Tolstoy's initial pushback on the great man of history theory is still my favourite polemic/novel on the matter. The "trends and forces" ideas leave us feeling more apathetic. But of course it's not a black and white issue.
Couldn’t you argue that everything, including the war in Ukraine can be proximately explained in terms of things like the modern world, capitalism, religion etc which then, in terms of ultimate causation, in turn depend on many individual choices? Which institution, movement etc can be explained outside of human motivations and intentional states? Any written text like the constitution, for example, or the Bible as another example has been written by humans with intentional states; the buildings that all decisions are made in are built, architected etc by humans with intentional states. It appears that all events are ultimately explainable in terms of human intentional states.
There is also a weaker proposition: Picasso couldn't have pained Guernica if he had lived, say, in the time of Michelangelo. And if Al Gore had been President, he would have had an army of advisers and a cabinet of ministers and secretaries and a party of some 40 million members whose opinions would have been incorporated in the decision. The decision to go to war wouldn't have rested therefor only on one single man.
Something people often say is "Sure, individuals can make massive differences but they are moulded by their environment". This is true, but I do not see how that matters so much. Societies are made up of individuals and individuals shape society. The two concepts cannot be completely seperated no matter how hard we try. As usual, the extremes are absurd since saying that individuals/society has no/all of the effect is nonsense. Maybe this is simply a disguised free will debate. The one claim that I intensely dislike is that individuals are interchangable because they are shaped by society - this is the typical criticism of 'great man history', which I don't believe actually exists, at least in the way it is typically described. Individuals are, perhaps by definition, not interchangable. Could any man in France in the 1790s actually do all or even most of what Napoleon did? Sure, a dictator was likely to emerge, but the individual identity of that dictator-turned-emperor was absolutely critical to the development of French, European, and world history ever since.
I am in the club (however small) who does not accept that the actions and intentional states of individuals people are "impactful" on any outcome whatsoever. Why? Two reasons. Because (1) this way of interpreting reality presupposes the individual person to be the necessary unit of analysis without giving any justification. Human individuals can just as easily be seen as conduits for behavioral or informational memes that travel betweeen and play their parts in constituting the individual, and serve as a lower scale unit of analysis that is the true center of explanatory power in a causal explanation. The intentional states aren't magically created nothing in the mind of the "individual" afterall, so if causality were to be traced, it would have to be traced to the extraindividual geneses of the intentional states. Likewise, one could also say the human individual is only a unit a larger type of social entity, current or dynamic, which organizes the intentions and actions of individuals according to their larger scale logic. The person from your example is after all, not the only person who chooses to have coffee that day after all; why do so many people choose to do functionally the exact same action when under similar circumstances with alternatives are possible? There's a case to be made that the causality behind the action of that "individual" rests on a scale larger than that person. I think the unquestioned acceptance of the individual, embodied person as a unit of analysis is the result cognitive bias, based on the fact that our sensory organs are located on the individual person level. This masks the fact that the human person as a unit of analysis without justification is arbitrary. Because (2) an individual person intentional state is only a proximate cause to the action they take. Its conveniently collocated in close physical and temporal proximity to what takes place, such that if we're not intellectually vigilant, we can fall into naturally and easily accepting it as the true and ultimate cause of whatever followed, without realizing that our "cause" itself is not uncaused by any indefinite number of things tracing backward an indefinite period of time, over an indefinite number of scales. It's basically a heuristic shorthand to take the proximate intention to be the final statement of the cause of an action that followed without the need for further examination, and that may serve practical purposes in daily life, but this extremely simplified, closed understanding of cause and effect is empirically false under thoughtful examination, and thus without qualification or apology, inadmissable philosophically serious attempt at interpreting the given phenomenon.
I think both things I said still apply to that situation; its possible to shift the unit of analysis smaller than humans to memes and information passing between and composing them, or larger than humans to social processes, structures and dynamics constituting and organizing who they are and what they do, and find equal or greater explanatory value at either or both of these scales for the scientific political processes and decisions related to the bomb. You could also trace backward what lead to the relevant developments, decisions and actions indefinitely backward, to various external stimuli (and actually internal too) that each formed a piece of the puzzle over time to create the condition where those people in those positions had those intentional states, making the intentional states once again, only proximate - and not ultimate - causes of the outcomes the world witnessed. @@Britishpersun
The Napoleon Complex. This is often sited, about many leaders. Napoleon may have been as tall as 1.7 meters. He was certainly not short for his time. Zelensky, may be bit on the short side. Churchill, Hitler, Putin and Stalin may often come under this Complex. None of them, where that short. Rather, currently people are tending to be too tall due to, modern nutrition.
@VladVexlerPhilosophy Is it not more cogent to say, "ought' when you mean ought, and 'is' when you mean is ...rather that leaving the listener to decode the us of the term 'normative' by the context of the discussion? IME, the word/term 'normative' as caused much more confusion than clarity, for philosophy students. (Just imagine what is doing to the casual listener. I'd bet they hear what my cat does when I use the word.)
I don't think that a person arguing for the type of individualism you cite would have to claim that Guernica would have been perfectly created by another artist, just that any artistic movement was bound to emerge at roughly the time and place that it did and come to focus on broadly the same themes and evoke broadly the same sentiments such that the subtraction of any single piece of art or artist would not have had a significant influence on the world. While Italian Futurism may have been significant in shaping Italy and the world, something roughly equivalent would have emerged no matter what and no piece of art, just like county speed limits or whatever, rises to significance. War is, I think, the much better example, near nobody else would have invaded Ukraine is much closer to a shut case.
Now I remember my problem with philosophy. They explain something that is fundamentally very simple in such a way that it is difficult to follow. I remember Timothy Snyder explaining the problem in a few sentences to his students in his lecture series "The making of Modern Ukraine" (or somewhere else but I think it was this one). Yes without Hitler the second world war would not have started but without the specific circumstances in his time he would never have risen to power either. The extremes are absurd and you can not expect that the circumstances are always the same. So the influence of individual actions will vary. Individuals are just one of the factors that shape history. That is how I remember it.
I don't have a firm position either way, but I don't think the examples given quite hold up. The argument wouldn't have to be, for example, that Gore would have to start the Iraq war but rather that, had Gore been elected, it would indicate a different social landscape in the first place.
It may be hard to believe, that someone else would have created the exact same musical, artistic or even scientific masterpieces. But I don't find it hard to believe, that someone else would have created something similar at a similar time.
I am not sure the argument of the objectors to individualism is fully reflected here. (I know I know, it probably is and I am wrong but that's where I stand). Beethoven, for example: Beethoven wasn't the only composer of his time. Had he not written his music, we would name the 2nd best composer as the best. Shakespeare wasn't the only playwright, we would discuss others. (In fact I am certain that there are nerdy circles who will say "xyz is so underrated, he was better than Shakespeare and Beethoven combined").
Isn't there a difference between saying what an alternate leader would in fact do is broadly the same & saying a leader could not have made vastly different choices ?........Are there not moral or ethical choices we make ? Are there not opportunities we see & deductions we make when we think deeply ? Are we not sometimes careless ?.......I'm pretty sure all those things exist because as I write this I am thinking : "I don't want to come across as too confrontational, or too arrogant.....I don't want to make a fool of myself by not listening to your points or misunderstanding" ....& even thinking, "maybe I shouldn't say anything at all, because like you mentioned it could end up having the opposite effect that I want....(whatever that is)"
The way I see it is that it's all individual choice: what we call social and economic forces are just an aggregate of millions or billions individual choices. But those choices are not independent either. Just like the constituents define the aggregate, so does the aggregate shape the constituents. There's a perpetual feedback loop between them. you give the example of Beethoven, but how much of the way Beethoven expressed himself was condition by the society he was born in? I'm certain that had the man been born today, he'd still be a composer, but probably part of some metal band. Or on the other hand, had Hayao Miyazaki been born in Shakespeare's place he'd be and equally impressive playwright.
This boils down to a nature vs nurture debate and perhaps our views with regard to non-dualism and the such. Humans on the basis of their nature and the environment around them, have some affordances, some things they can do while interacting with their environment. Society influences those affordances and possibilities and favours some things while dis-favouring others, to some extent. Humans, setting aside the free will debate, have either their free will or unique DNA and gene expression which gives them a will even if unfree, that affords them with certains capabilities which are further influenced (encouraged/discouraged or expanded upon) by their interplay with societal and environmental influences. In this context, what would we say is an example of individuals deciding history and what would be a counter-example? It doesn't make much sense to me in this context. Let's add the point vlad made on individuals to society as well, by that I mean that, society does not only push and achieve its stated goals or realise its stated values (as vlad said for individuals), rather society can be thought of as inadvertently creating a number a things, including it's own counter-culture, exactly due to the way it is. If it is so, how can we say that going against the current is an example of individuals deciding history?
I heard that one historian claimed that Columbus did not discover America; the Santa Maria, the Nino, and the Pinto did. The point is that, once ocean-crossing capable vessels, combine with the ability to navigate out of sight of land became available, the discovery of America was all but inevitable. Columbus was merely the one to do it. Had Columbus not been around, the discovery would have certainly been delayed, maybe well into the 16th century. But it was going to happen. With or without Columbus. Likwise with the invention of the airplane. I think it can be argued that the internal combustion engine invented the airplane. Because the internal combustion engine allowed the necessary power to weight ratio to make an airplane possible. Had the Wright Brothers not been born, airplanes would have certainly appeared anyway. We may have had to wait well into the 1910s to see it. My point is that almost all historic events were inevitably. But their actual timing is determined by individual actions.
May I use your wonderful quip, "Pub level nugget" I will attribute it to you of course. I may never find the opportunity in my conversations, but I can hope for it. Glad my algorithm brought me to this discussion. I have been thinking about how one man or woman has changed the course of history, by their intent and action. Of course Putin, Zelensky, Hitler and possibly Netyanahu comes to mind, with his refusal to work toward a two state solution for over 16 total years, which persists today. What will be the continued consequences for Israel and the Palestinians? Not too good for either, as history is showing us in this very minute. It is unlike how Ukraine has responded to aggression against their country. The differences, they have a state, a government, self determination. Palestinians have none of these protection, only chaos and less chaos on any particular day in their life. And, Ukraine has not subjugated an entire people to their will, as has Netyanahu done to the Palestinians and Putin to his countrymen. Zelensky and his country have consciously chosen life without Russian influence. How much did Ukraine's collective consciousness to fight, hinge on their Presidents decision to stay? We will not know this but we do know what actually happened as a result. The actual result of Zelensky's choice was a prelude to how Ukrainians showed their bravery and innovation, and that resulted in the coalition that rapidly came to Ukraine's aid. Perhaps there will no longer be people like Putin who act passionately but not rationally specifically because of Zelensky's decision to stay and fight. Apartheid is obviously another story another issue. From the philosophical point of view where we, as humans, having this thing called consciousness, seems lead to the notion or realization of there being a 'mass consciousness' and even a more impactful - a "country consciousness" - which may help explain both Ukraine and Russia and the responses from other countries as well. We may be all interconnected and effect the future with our mass consciousness but we directly affect events with our "country consciousness." We aid or cause destruction on a mass scale...for instance...climate change...and with an inability to collectively decide on how to have a planet without the possibility of war. But our "country's consciousness' is making our lives either better or worse by our actions which directly follows our state of consciousness. The future with our evolving "country consciousness" will influence our actions and the actions of despots and autocrats here and worldwide. The story is not written but it is influenced by us.
Robert Sapolsky has a lot to say about decision making and free will. It's pretty interesting to me but might sound like nonsense to someone who strongly believes in individual agency. I try not to put all my eggs in one basket. On the one hand, emergent behavior is a thing we have observed. On the other, systems tend to behave in ways irrespective of individuals. While I'm not a fan of the Great Man approach to history, it can be hard to deny individual actions. If it had not been Shakespeare, it would have been another and we would have different 'classics' of the ilk. If Newton had not made calculus, someone else would have. We have no way on knowing. These "poles" are not mutually exclusive to me, unless we make an artificial distinction. Sometimes individuals do, and most of the time they don't. My question is, how do we have this magic homunculus in our heads that makes decisions, when the rest of the universe is deterministic. If every effect has a cause, how do we not
Actually, "If Newton had not made calculus, someone else would have" is one of the few questions here that we do have a definite answer to. Leibniz also independently invented calculus at pretty much the exact same time that Newton did, to the extent that it would probably be fairer to describe them as simultaneous inventors than giving exclusive credit to either one. If Newton had taken a year longer, we'd give Leibniz the credit.
Nice talk overall. Still on behalf of all anthropologist, archeology, economists, linguists and political scientists (and I guess even sociologists - but not communication scientists for I refuse to accept them until they finally explain, what their fields distinctive feature is supposed to be): up yours, bro.
Also, I think you're strawmanning a bit. No serious person would argue had Picasso not painted the Guernica it would have been painted by Mondrian. The argument in that case would more likely be that our reception of Picassos work and the impact he possessed would not have been radically different ceterum censeo, but without the Guernica. More interesting case would be, if Picasso had not existed or died as a child. Well then obviously no one else would have painted his paintings. The argument which is still concieveable would than be, that another artist would have been given the chance to occupy the space and cultural significance, which is in our timeline preoccupied by Picasso - thus in the grand sheme of things, nothing changes. I believe these claims are shaky at best, as they are, so their really was no need to reductio ad absurd them. Also if you add the part of intentionality to the individual, they become stronger, for it is really hard to argue that Picasso was able to will the Guernica into the cultural icon it became with full intent and purpose. That was clearly up to others, he painted a picture - the rest was society.
Sociology sits atop the pile, it's mixed methodology allows it to both traverse all the field's while aslo offering legitimacy in its findings. Only torys hate Sociology and the social sciences.
@@DJWESG1 Is Tori hate of Sociology a thing? I'm outside the UK and didn't notice that. German conservatives are more anti science in general, as is their US counterpart - so I'm curious about this UK divide.
Individuals certainly direct history. An outstanding example is the Australian, Howard Florey who dedicated himself to giving the world penicillin, something that almost instantly changed the world.
Scientific achievements are very problematic in terms of individuals changing the world. Penicillin was there; Florey was just part of a large team that made it vastly more useful. I think is is quite reasonable to believe that the penicillin advancements would have happened without him. and another would have stepped up to leadership.
@@edmundfreeman7203 Not at all. There was a team, entirely assembled by Florey. It was Florey who nagged his way into ensuring that penicillin was developed, no one else was interested or had the dedication. All discoveries of course eventually happen, but Florey takes the credit for saving millions upon millions of lives and transforming every society. The penicillin we have today is still derived from Florey’s culture of an American Rock Melon, it’s simply astonishing that it’s still essentially the same batch as 1945.
There are patterns and cycles of history which are scarily naturalistic. The work of Russian/American historian Peter Turchin shows the way here. Or look at Philippe Fabry. We are talking about big scale causation determined by geography and the probabilistically predictable developments of kinds of state and society, because these empirically, one could say scientifically behave in broadly predictable cyclical patterns. Individuals can still have agency, even great leaders of these societies, but if Muhammed didn't appear in his time, it was very likely another warrior prophet would have appeared at roughly the same time to attempt very much the same as he did, for example. History as a humanities subject is narrative or biography, an archival and journalistic study. This can be more or less narrative or analytic ie Herodotus vs Thucydides. History as ( social) science can be more patterns, cycles and geographic determinism in other words theory and comparative empirical data. More Polybius than Thucydides or Herodotus, with modern historians having available to them more data mining tools, archaeological data, textual resources and analytical techniques.
Let's see if I can steel man the idea that individuals don't make a difference. Make a difference at what level? Zelensky staying in Kiev makes a difference at the level of Ukraine in 2022, but does it make a difference today to economic opportunities for recent graduates in Birmingham Alabama? Even Putin invading Ukraine is arguably a local conflict at the global and long term historical level. Vlad used the example of the Ukraine invasion, but didn't mention the war in Tigray in which hundreds of thousands have died and millions have been displaced. Arguably the history of the 20th and 21st centuries in Europe are of a violent end to imperialism in the world wars, the cold war, the post cold war period, and ever greater economic and political integration across Europe, and the advancement of globalisation. Have the actions of any individuals at any point in that period actually altered the overall course of what I described above? Let's look at Vietnam, the US took part in a bloody conflict there in the mid 20th century, but that hasn't stopped the US and Vietnam cosying up together now to face off against the common threat of China. Arguably that's the inevitable forces of history and geopolitics re-asserting themselves on top of what seemed highly consequential events at the time, but ultimately haven't changed the course of history. Vietnam became Communist anyway, they fought a war with China anyway, they have continuing maritime disputes with China anyway, which pushes them to align with US interests. The Ukraine war is just a blip at that level. I don't mean to marginalise the real and horrific impact on individuals and the nation of Ukraine, of course. Our human lives occur in the chaotic froth of statistical noise within the arc of history and are absolutely affected by the choices of individuals, for which they are responsible. I think there are a few points in history at that level when individual choices did arguably make a difference. Hitler in the 1930s. If he hadn't happened I think there is a good chance there would still have ben a world war, Japan would still have wanted dominion in the Pacific for example. The Soviet Union would still have existed in some form, possibly even without Lenin, and even without the Bolsheviks it could still have been a similarly expansionist autocratic imperial power of some form. Maybe Kennedy made a difference over the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there were several times when a horrible nuclear weapons incident could have pushed things a different way. On the other hand individuals try to force a change in macroscopic trends and fail. The Red Army Faction was trying to force the West German government, which they saw as a fascist successor state to Naziism, to reveal their true nature by imposing authoritarian measures. That didn't work. The IRA fought for decades for the unification of Ireland, and eventually just gave up. Hamas' bloody attack last year hasn't altered the balance of power in the Middle East, and it's probably just a bloody blip on the road to the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world. Such blips are arguably inevitable but won't actually stop it happening. Did the World Trade centre attack change the course of history? Sure, it changed the history of Afghanistan which was occupied by the US for a few decades, but did it change the course of human civilization? I think people arguing for the 'people don't make a difference' position are just looking at a different level of abstraction. We have to define what we mean by a consequential difference.
It's a chilling thought that Mr. Putin will have to go nuclear in order to make the consequential difference that will earn him the place in history that he craves. Dark humour aside: Intuitively I would argue that the timing of the invention and adoption of technology has been determined by individuals. If electrical battery technology had evolved faster, combustion engines might never have become ubiquitous and thus climate change might have been postponed ...
I would say, no with a slight caveat. It depends on social organization. I tend to think history is deterministic, but individuals do have a casual role IF the social organization favors them having that role. Case and point, if Russia weren't an autocracy, Putin wouldn't have the influence he has. The reality of that form of social organization is determining that outcome.
I have learned that to grow or change there may be pain. With that in mind I am blaming you for my cognitive dissonance. My perception of “Ethnic Russians” is divorcing my understanding of “Cultural Russians”. Stereotypes are easier to understand.
I guess none of those artworks or history would matter at all if it weren’t for the large audiences for them. So individuals don’t matter, but large numbers of them do? Zelenskyy wouldn’t be able to decide to leave Ukraine without roads, planes, cars, trains and he wouldn’t be able to decide to fight if he didn’t have command over other people.
Some do, some don't. Genghis Khan, Mohammed, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zhedong, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill definitely did.
The criteria should be questioned first. Identify what a individual is. In doing so (how you identify a individual) it answers the question. Re-read that until you understand. I am checking back again. This year 3 ? I'll just mention again i think the ukraine b.s. and politics is clouding your mind? Or perhaps this is your philosophy? If it's not wisdom you seek. Clarity. Then i do not understand what you are doing. Just political philosophy? How very limiting. And benal. Edit. Good day or evening, good night, whenever or if this message finds you .
I agree that there is a failure to properly define the individual and the collective in this video. I like Vlad but I tend to find that when he presents his philosophical views there are a lot of unsaid assumptions and an expectation that the things he finds obvious are agreed upon. For example, the argument that no one actually thinks that individuals do not make decisions/ have impact is wrong. Biological determinists or any other macro-scale determinist will argue, with complete sincerity, that an individual biological machine is entirely a product of its context and does not make choices but merely follows the path as dictated by the circumstances it finds itself in and the genetic, epigenetic, social, etc, programming it has received. Maybe this can be explained with a definition of the individual that is something other than what I intuitively default to. Which is why I think a basic framework of where he draws the lines between the individual and the collective and aspects of each would have been beneficial.
Don’t you think it’s much more practical if the social science see themselves as science? It would be a mess if they completely gave up on the idea. And philosophers would have to deal with a plethora of mediocre philosophical works all of a sudden.
@@DJWESG1 After two years of side-remarks I’m curious what Vlad actually has to say. But a video about this niche topic would probably kill his channel in the algorithm for ever.
Hello dear you. My view is that the social sciences are ineliminably interpretive. Though this falls slightly differently on the different social sciences. My view is the same as Charles Taylor’s in a paper of his from 1971 called Interpretation and the Sciences of Man. - sorry for the gendered title.
@@VladVexlerPhilosophy Hi Vlad : ) I don’t disagree, I just suspect you underestimate the extent in which interpretation plays a role in the other sciences too. And I believe the quality in social sciences is higher if they locate their disciplines in science and measure their work with scientific tools, at least from time to time. If the public is presented with a science-science product, it looks as if it was built on science, and the big overhead of interpretations and decision-making after every step (and social dynamics, politics, motivations, beliefs, institutional circumstances, money, and so on) becomes invisible. But it had a huge influence on the outcome and on what we see as science. Would you count medicine as a science? You know what I mean. For example even if it’s proven countless times that a disease kills women in the same percentage as it kills men, medicine students will still learn to diagnose women with the symptoms x times more often with a mental disease instead, based on a scientific process, neatly documented, but with studies which are flawed by interpretation already in the setup. Even physics demands interpretation, and in areas where interpretation of the subject plays a smaller role, the other factors, which the social sciences tend to be aware of, distort the outcome. It doesn’t matter, in German every fifth word is gendered, it’s tragic but also funnily awkward, esp. in connection with social sciences. I’ll look it up. 🧡
Haha! You thought I was too dumb to subscribe to the philosophy channel, eh? Well, here I am, pretending to know most of these words. Better watch out - I'll subscribe to the classical music channel next...
The Al Gore vs George W Bush example is a bit of a straw man. Of course many things would be different if Al Gore had been president in 2001 because they represent very different factions of two different parties. But if another Republican was president and similarly positioned between the evangelical and business wings, would much change? Probably not. Sure, individuals can polish off the details but they are empowered or limited by collective support. Wannabe strongmen dictators exist everywhere all the time, but they don't gain power unless various social, political, economic, etc forces provide the means and opportunity. Without those forces, the wannabe strongman is stuck shouting on the street; maybe he can put together a small cult or climb the corporate ladder, but he doesn't get to high political office without other factors aligning. For example, far right evangelicals have been setting up to take over the US for decades; Trump is just a conman opportunist who accelerated the plan by about 5-10 years. Imho, individuals are less "great men" with great individual influence and more interchangeable mascots that represent specific groups. You can swap individuals from certain groups without changing much. It's really the team underneath them and how they function that makes the difference (thus, I think the push for term limits in the US won't actually help much). When it comes to art, the question isn't whether someone else would create that specific piece, but how much of this great work is the result of the one special credited artist vs how much is many other people who had influence on the work? How much of Shakespeare was truly the work of one great man and how much is actors, stagehands, other writers, etc? The plays weren't even compiled in one cohesive script until much later (believe after Shakespeare's death); the people who collected and compiled all the individual lines deserve much credit for the plays we now have today.
Quick question: Why don’t Ukraine purchase the US equipments that USA don’t have the budget to give to Ukraine… As any other question asked by laypeople I am not considering everything obviously… But the USA would be in no need of budget allocation for selling the equipment in my naive understanding… I understand that it is more complicated than that maybe it also needs to be approved by the same process and I don’t know if USA can offer lending assistance or financing for the project but it would seem the best way from my inexperienced point of view it would imply that we would find alternatives solutions also for anything I am not accounting for here 🌻💙💛СУ🍉🫡🇺🇦🇨🇦
![PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Introduction to Theory of Knowledge [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/r_Y3utIeTPg/mqdefault.jpg)
My commentary here follows a small fraction of the thoughts philosopher Bernard Williams expressed in his essay 'Formal and substantial individualism', 1984.
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Free will?
I love your philosophical musings, Vlad. I also understand that for health reasons, you can only do this so often. Regardless, I will say I think your videos are a bit rambly and informal, and could greatly benefit from more prescripting and structure. I’d of loved to hear you talk about actual philosophers’ takes on this fascinating topic, including Bernard Williams who you mention here. What about Hegelian phenomenology, or Sartre’s thoughts on infinite freedom and personal responsibility? Just my two cents.
@@ohmss069It’s part of Vlad. Love him as is, that we do!
:) Half of me says "eat my shorts", and half of me says "tell me more, master"... I nevert expected life to be THIS difficult to figure out!
Fascinating! Now, if I may, I'd like to add a different perspective, from Native American philosophy, that might add some nuance to the discussion. (This is identity, if you will, in that it's my group, but not hyper-identity, in that I'm adding my group's perspective to the overall mix instead of competitively keeping it apart and saying that it's the best or only perspective, rah rah rah for my team.) I'm just feeling this out as I go, influenced by Vlad's words and seeing where they might take me.
To preface, the European-based perspective appears to see reality as things, and change as a sort of flip-book of static pictures or stills in a movie. The indigenous American perspective is that reality is primarily a flow, and our individual currents are part of larger currents that in turn feed larger currents, and nothing is ever really static.
In this perspective, there are overall patterns of flow that have a very strong current behind them, and if you don't give it much thought you will naturally flow wherever they take you, for better or for worse. But ultimately, since we are sentient parts of that flow, we can exert some control over where we go on the river of life. Most of the time we go with it, and sometimes that's the best course. Sometimes a bad current can overwhelm us; attempting to resist means drowning in it--a circumstance which many conscripts in Russia face. Sometimes a person's individual current of personality is so strong (and so insightful of the nature of the currents) that he or she can go against them and wind up somewhere else, letting most of the river flow where it's going without her consent or condoning.
But then sometimes there's a very strong person who goes against the current and bends the current with him. For this to happen, he has to be in the right place at the right time, and have others near to him more amenable to being pulled out of the main current than most, to add their strength to his. And he has to know himself and how best to direct the flow of his own nature.
In these terms, both Trump and Putin were products of the natural flow of their respective countries. Trump is someone with sufficient wealth and ego to make him a good vessel for the madness sweeping America--he didn't invent it, he just rode its current, and if he had never been born, someone else like him, from a whole pool of wealthy narcissists, would have taken his place. Putin similarly embodies a strong current of tyranny running through Russia since the days of the Golden Hoard. It's not irresistable, but it would really take the right person at the right place with the right backing to change so established a current, and Putin was simply someone smoothly streamlined to flow right with it.
Now, Zelenskyy was an unlikely president who didn't fit the natural flow of the politics of post-Soviet nations, though in his early days of presidency he went with the flow in both good ways and bad. Most of his life, though, he trained as a comedian, not a politician, and his populism made him flounder in the beginning--but his background also made him shift the flow! A comedian trains to watch for ways to give everything an unlikely twist--humor shifts the flow of our thoughts at least, if only for a second. (This is why Sacred Clowns are important to so many tribes of Indigenous Americans.) When you think about it, the iconic words that shifted the entire course of the war, "I need ammunition, not a ride!", is a punchline, a joke with deadly serious consequences. Zelenskyy took his personal current--to find unexpected perspectives on reality--and, with the backing of lots of people who didn't want to be subjected to Russia, used it to knock the flow of Ukraine (a flow along a deeply and bloodily gouged channel) onto a different course.
And the influence of that perspective, of looking for the unexpected twist, has changed the overall current of Ukraine from a traumatized country still struggling to shake off Soviet influence, to amazing innovators, famous for their rapid adaptations and unorthodox solutions. Like taking what had previously been toys--jetskis and drones--and combining them into a brand new kind of weapon against which the Russian Navy had no good defense. Or improvising inflatable structures similar to bouncy-castles and turning them into Invincibility Points that kept their people taken care of through a winter of constant bombardment of their infrastructure. And as this current grows, Ukraine's influence now tugs atg others, like Bashkortostan, helping them to flow in a new direction.
So, while many historical figures merely flowed with the currents of history, for better or for worse, some historical individuals can direct their own current in a way that changes that flow for many besides themselves.
Why this matters: When you think in terms of the flow, you can ask important questions like, "Where is this likely to flow? Where would I like it to flow? What will it take to shift that flow? What would be the optimum flow? Do I talk to people in a way that takes their natural currents into account? Am I trying to flow uphill when I could achieve the same end by flowing around the hill?" etc.
Anyway, it's been fun playing with this idea.
Thanks for sharing this.
❤
I believe it is obvious individuals often greatly shape history by their own characters. The harder question is: how much are those characters shaped by social circumstance?
If we are to believe Nietzsche, very few men are not shaped by circumstance. The true self made men are can be counted on 1 hand. We all know their names. Alexander the great, julius caeser, Napoleon. They were born to have power.
Napoleon wasn't even french. I can imagine various outcomes where he became emperor of another European country instead.
Thank you
@@he1ar1 Alexander the Great is not at all a self made man, lol what. His dad literally made the most powerful army on the entire planet and was assassinated and replaced by Alexander on the eve of his expedition. The fact you name Alexander the Great at all shows you have little awareness of what a self made man actually is.
Even Julius Caeser is questionable. His most famous campaigns are composed of him taking what was already the most powerful army on the planet, finding some of the best generals on the planet, and then repeatedly pillaging and geocoding a much weaker disorganized group who largely didn't want war in the first place. Julius Caesar is not nearly as good a commander as people think he is, his real talent was identifying other people who truly excelled and promoting them. And being fair, identifying capable people and winning their loyalty isn't an easy task, it's a skill that most people never learn, but it's not as great a skill as people think Julius Caesar had. Especially when people are forgetting his most famous campaigns were against enemies that generally were far weaker than Rome. Look at his campaigns in England and you see how being put on the backfoot he no longer can wipe the floor like he did in gaul.
Napolean was a masterful commander, but his issue is while he could win the war, he had no clue how to win the peace, and that was his downfall.
And all of these people were born to wealthy and noble families. Which are kinda the opposite of self made. One could argue that Napoleon's family was on the lower end of the noble caste, but one could also argue that in the revolution the fact he was a lower nobility ended up helping him.
@@he1ar1Alexander the Great was a nepo baby lol. I say this as a proud Greek
@he1ar1 no one believes him or his sister.
Am I the only one curious to what happened to the Walkman from the beginning?
Great topic, thank you.
🌻
Time to again say thank you Vlad, for your superb channels. 🧡
You're a great man, Vlad! A whole institution.
Man, you just X-ray the positive energy outside on us in each of your stream, do love to hear "beautiful community"!
I discovered recently your channel,thank you for what you are doing. Respect mate from an Italian in London ❤
Vlad. My latest two years of following you have made me so much smarter. I am Swedish, historian and speaks good czech.
So grateful to have you!
It’s a privilege to have you! I haven’t spent time in Sweden since about 2000! But I used to spend summers in southern Bohemia.
Man, i love your argumentation skills
I enjoyed the vignette at the beginning. Thank you.
This discussion could be recommended as a useful follow up for those who might have watched a recent video by Beau and feel philosophically curious.
In the video he addresses lack of personal agency within the context of world events (and emotional/informational burnout).
That video is titled "Staying informed, and whether you should..."
What if, somebody on a tiny council changes the speed limits for cows and as a result, Beethoven doesn't get trampled at the age of 4? Does that make a large scale different now?
One great example of a single individual changing things on a big scale but not (at all) how he intended : king Louis the XVI who tried to fled revolutionary France in order to start a war with foreign powers and regain control of the country. He was caught a few kilometers after he left Paris, was arrested and brought back to the capital. Only then a majority of the Assembly decided to execute him, for treason, and therefore to get rid of the French monarchy for good. Huge change for the country, definitely not what he set up to do !
A possibly apocryphal story holds that Louis was recognised by an individual official who then reported him. Had a different official been there, the king may have escaped with his life. Alternatively, a slight shift in the identites or descisions of the king's judges would have resulted in a 'not guilty' verdict.
Interesting talk. With your story about the CD-player in mind - I came to think of decision making. The "handing over"-moments after you lend it out must have been done after less significant decisions in Tonga (compared to more "Europe-influenced" societies). Behind every decision there can be one or more decision makers. If every comissioner but one stands behind a decision that leads to catastrophy - has the one decided history (or at least a part of it)? Regardless of outcome - back in time the head of state often became the one to blame/honor for the decided history. It might not be so in the future (maybe Mike Johnson is deciding history right now? How will we remember him in the future?)
My prior belief is that individuals make a big difference, in a distinctive way, in accordance with their intentions -- but rarely. The conditions have to be right, with other factors being more-or-less balanced, before something like "I need ammunition, not a ride" can make the difference as big as it seems to have made in this case. And even when the Great Man Theory of history seems to be pretty strong, the great man has a limited set of options.
It's not clear to me that there's a big difference available to be made, in some of these cases. If I had really wanted to send my kids to a private school, I presumably would have done so. But how different would that have been? And how much of the difference would really be attributable to the fact that I would have sent them to a private school, rather than to the re-shuffling of the effectively random aspects of the situation? They would have made different friends, but they would also have made different friends if I'd done my apartment shopping on a different day and thus wound up living in a different place.
If the most prominent work of art in a particular medium from a particular era hadn't been made, there would still have been a most prominent work in that category. The idea of the "no big difference" position isn't that it would have been the same work. It's that the counterfactual world with a different most prominent work would have been similar. The themes addressed in the most prominent work would still have been addressed in various works, even if the alternate-world most prominent work didn't address them. The events that were influenced by that work in the real world would have been influenced about as much by the other works as they would have been by that work in a different alternate world where the work is made but a lot of minor decisions get re-randomized.
I honestly fail to grasp the relevance of that counterfactual. Sure, it's clear that if some specific and very influential art piece wasn't made, the category of "very influential art piece" would still exist. But I don't think it follows that the counterfactual piece that would occupy the vacant position of most influential art piece would necesseraly be influential in the same way, nor that it would be essentially equivalent to the not-created work.
Had Shakespeare never published anything there would probably be another person that is held in a similarly high esteem, but that person would not be Shakespeare and they would influence the English language and culture in different ways. Cervantes in spanish and Goethe in german could be thought of as more or less equivalent figures (at least roughly) to Shakespeare for their respective languages, and they're clearly very different creators that impacted the world in different ways.
I'm sure there's a lot of related topics that can be discussed, but the one that comes to my mind is role models. You've discussed how much actions of individuals matter, but what of their image being mimicked by other individuals in position of great influence, who find themselves with few peers to learn from and turn to history? "There's no one to talk to since Gandhi died", conquerers mimicking past great conquerers, artists mimicking past great artists. A legacy of Feynman isn't just his education and physics work, it's also alive in the work of Carl Sagan, then Neil deGrasse Tyson. Many aspire to examples of philosophers and religious leaders. Influence of action isn't the only individual influence that can leave a mark on history.
Lots of love Vlad. ❤️ I hope you keep on getting better. 🌄
Thank you so much
Here's one take on the subject from Carl Jung (from 'The Undiscovered Self'): “A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one. Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally short-sighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations, though one would think that the world had seen more than enough of what a well-disciplined mob can do in the hand of a single madman.”
In another passage he talks about the flaw in averages.. 'if you had a pebble bed in which each pebble weighed on average just 5 grams, what would be the odds of picking up a 5 gram pebble from the bed of pebbles' (or there abouts)
I think this applies too.
I would say every individual is born in a collective framework left by our ancestors. Many of our options to change history, or the direction thereof, are limited by how concepts of “pathdependency” or “organizational inertia” work. Much of an individual’s influence over history can be seen as a continuation of our ancestors legacy. But if the question boils down to the ability to break that trajectory I’d say that leadership is extremely important. Leaders are able to effectively rally and organize support, help creating momentum, in order to succeed and make history.
It's through this line of thinking I came to realise there are no individuals proper, and that individualism as a ideology is one grounded in serious mh problems.
@DJWESG1 yes and no. Reality is complex. Concepts have meaning depending on a specific context. Be careful not to apply a specific meaning of a concept too broadly.
Are you familiar with Dabrowski’s work on “positive desintegration”?
You’ll find there’s plenty of potential room for individuality to explore, in a specific context that could probably apply to you.
Thank you for this interesting conversation and contemplation on these interesting questions.
Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦✊🇬🇧🏴
Without committing to either side, I think a possible answer from the "individuals don't matter" side when it comes to artistic works is that the artists are products of the trends and general cultural gestalt of their time. While another individual wouldn't have produced exactly the same works, it's probably not unreasonable to presume that somebody would have been in a similar place, with similar inspirations, producing something similar ENOUGH that the broad impact on larger history would have been about the same.
To take Shakespeare because I'm more familiar with him than with Beethoven or Picasso: Shakespeare didn't create the surge in the popularity of theatre of his time, he was one of a number of playwrights, he was just the one who's works were considered the best. If it wasn't for him, it's likely that one of his competitors would have been the best instead, or someone else might have received the break he did and come into theatre with a similar worldview. Our hypothetical Fakespeare might not have been as good as the Bard, or might actually have been better, but they would have been drawing from the same histories, folk stories, and current events, and likely would have produced a series of works which had similar enough messages and themes that Fakespeare's overall impact on world history would not have been significantly different.
A similar "the details are different, but world history doesn't look that different" approach could also happen with world leaders. There's an argument to be made that one of the causes of World War 1 was the Kaiser pretty much scuttling Bismarck's careful foreign policy... but there's an argument to be made that the historical trends were such that some sort of war around then was inevitable, and while with a wiser Kaiser the alliances might have been different, there would still have been a loser in the end that was resentful enough to start World War 2. Similarly, perhaps a major war in the 2020s or 2030s was inevitable with or without Putin as SOMEBODY was inevitably going to test the perceived decline of the West, but it might have been someone else like China or Iran who would have thrown the first stone if Russia hadn't already shown how badly that could go. Or, to flip the script, if Zelensky hadn't been President of Ukraine and whoever was chose to take a ride and Ukraine collapsed, then Ukraine might simply have been a prelude to the big war rather than being the big war itself, or Russia might still have ended up being bogged down in an insurgency war in Ukraine rather than a conventional one.
Again, I'm not saying I agree with either proposition, but I think at least some of the flaws in the "individuals don't matter" argument can be resolved by the theory that sure, individuals can change the details, but if you zoom out enough, the end results are about the same.
On the flipside, of course, the details could only get so large before history gets flipped into a different track altogether. Putin getting bogged down in Ukraine is probably (hopefully?) a very different historical path than an easy victory in Ukraine giving him the confidence to go into the Baltics.
V.V. ... you do an excellent job of explaining your divergent thoughts as a coherent whole.
While I can over-talk most people because they aren't able to carry a conversation, if we talked the conversation would be tilted towards you. Not because you -- by force of will -- push your point, but because you have thought through the details and that presentation combined with those details are a force by themselves.
More ... of course ... if you are interested. If not, my appreciation of you remains the same.
Vlad what an amazing video
Regarding the CD player: Anarchists often make the difference between private property and personal property. When they say "private property", what they usually mean is the private property of the means of production and say that should be abolished. The CD player would be personal property. It's like your car, the house where you live, and your toothbrush. That is not the kind or property that anarchists want to abolish.
Thanks for the video....my brain does not do well with abstract thinking...but I will give it a go. 🤣🤣🤔
“Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?”
Is the quote that comes to mind. From a long time ago.
My feeling is the fool following a fool is most foolish. Anyone can be a fool...but it seems double foolish to follow a fool...that action implies the person too is a fool and goes a step further towards foolishness by following another fool....🤣 kind of like "which came first the chicken or the egg."
I love these philosphy videos. I wish I had more time to meditate on them carefully. I suppose I should make the time for things like this... I suppose I shouldn't make stream of consciousness TH-cam comments... but I do.
Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises go's into these topics. It is a superb book. He's one of the founders of "Austrian Economics" which is the school of economics the Argentinas new president Millie follows.
I experienced the permeability of personal property in families (many times probably but the one that comes to mind is) when my sister came home and. Actually drank out of the mug w my name on it! The audacity! Lol. I've since become more tolerant, since it isn't going to hurt the mug any. To me it seemed a bit in your face but I don't think it was really meant that way. It's interesting how I feel a bit more attached to personal property than my youngest sister, perhaps bc I was 4 before i had a younger sibling and had a longer time to think "this is mine" (I remember being verrrry upset when I thought a daycare kid broke my toy horse). Im not sure if it goes both ways-- they can steal my things but they'd get upset if I took theirs. My younger sister seemed to "borrow" things most often from both of the older sisters. This sort of borrowing seemed more acceptable to her, thus I shouldn't have been surprised she casually drank out of my name mug from Yellowstone (it was special to me and I was a bit worried she would break it I suppose.) anyway this doesn't have much to do w the main discussion but your explanation in the beginning sparked an example from my own life which in turn helps me recognize and understand a little better if I see such phenomena in the real world.
Vlad, I really really loved this talk. Thank you so much for your service! ❤❤❤❤❤
From the dozens of books and studies on human behaviour I've had a chance to read it's obvious to me that free will is overrated (R. Sapolsky would even convincingly argue there's none of it). I.e. humans are in much larger extent vehicles of converging processes than drivers. Combination of natural predispositions and surrounding environment, rather than free independent agents. The evidence is stunning once you start looking deep into it.
It is absolutely no coincidence that many highly influential historical figures have (had) significant mental abnormalities and they climbed to power in periods of big social disturbances. Take Hitler, Lenin, Stalin...
I'm very excited for this topic
Individual action matters in the context of the actions of all individuals. Some individual actions make a great deal of difference in the circumstances that lots of actions have combined to set up.
Cheers Vlad! That's a tasty cud to chew on. It reminds me of something a professor of political science said thirty years ago.
Proposition #1:
"There are no nations, only insecure humans and those who wish to exploit them. There are communities, who may be cohesive and work closely together or be divided and vexed by suspicion and distrust. There are administrative systems and bureacracies which may or may not benefit economically or socially those whom they claim as chattels."
Proposition #2:
"There are only nations. Individual consciousness is an illusion born in the nucleus of the atom. The electron may consider itself independent but it manifests itself only within the cosmic prime movement. When the atom needs a kick, it manifests a punk. The nation’s eternal existence is intrinsic to itself."
Proposition #3:
"There are both individuals and nations. The billowing steam of consciousness is the by-product of their conflicting symmetries. Their lot is to marry water and heat in the furnace of competition. Synonymously pulse and wave, their ebb and flow create the illusion of harmony but they are as far apart as night and day or death and life."
All the best to everyone.
This is a great video, I really enjoyed it thank you
Thank you!!
Maybe a better statement of the denial of distinctive individuality would be "Without Shakespeare, our literary cannon would have different authors but equally moving and important" which, granted, is still a bit of a stretch.
I agree, it would be possible to hold the opinion that we would just have different great art. There would still be a fantastic mural painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chappell, it just wouldn't have been painted by Michelangelo. Maybe it wouldn't be as good, but it would still be wonderful. Maybe it would be better, maybe some other painter would have stepped up and had an opportunity history actually denied them. It's an open question how consequential the specifics of particular works of great art are in history.
In some sense there's the important question of: "Do historians determine what are considered historical events? Or, do events determine what historians can categorize as significant types of historical forces?"
In my rather inarticulate way of asking, " Do the questioners decide what is a valid question or is it the answers that determine the validity? "
On the topic of Beethoven and Picasso and their individual expressions being examples of individual incluence:
I think a reasonable person could reject the significance of the parts of those contributions that are individualistic. For example: if Beethoven were trampled by a cow, we might not have orchestras playing his symphonies, but they WOULD be playing something else, and we'd think that the something else was cool and important in the way that we currently think Beethoven's work is cool and important.
In other words, I think a reasonable person could think something like "to the extent that these things are examples of individual expression, then that part isn't impactful"
Some ppl have never heard or listen to classical music in any form. Or wish to do so. However, function as music producers nevertheless.
That misses the point, I think. They would not be listening to Beethoven. I could throw any number of hypothetical structural changes at you and still say "Yeah, but people would still be living in some form and would still be breathing air, so how different is it really?" The problem with all these arguments is that they rest on a shared undertanding of what can be considered important, but there is never going to be total consensus to a subjective question. If I did not exist, then you would be completely uneffected, but I certainly would be! I would consider that important though you would not.
Thank you.
The level of agency one has within a (hierarchical) social structure is mediated by where one is placed within that structure. (In our societies most structures that have decision-making power are hierarchal). While a head of govt may have enough individual agency to affect change those at the bottom of the institution would struggle to make any difference as individuals.
Interesting ti also explore how the major individual driven changes in history are often done by individuals with some kind of psychological / psychiatric disorders, like narcissistic magalomenia and yet they drive entire nations behind such complexes. Like Idi Amin fx.
I think of some things as voids that would need to be filled by SOMETHING.
Obviously only Beethoven can compose a Beethoven piece; but had he not been there, someone else would have emerged probably around the same time, writing things that are somehow different, that would however take up that same spot in our cultural tapestry, and in the grand scheme of things, little would change.
Sure Putin made the decision to launch this or that invasion personally, but wasn't it also... if not fated, then extremely likely, that an individual of Putin's mindset and type would have emerged as russia's leader for the same period of time, that would have taken similar decisions and would have also invaded Ukraine? That Gorbachev was there to try to reform Soviet Union because he was needed? And Al Gore could have had to run an Iraq war, perhaps against his better judgement.
But there are various degrees here of "it could have gone differently". It could have gone the same in spite of different individuals as well, we're not in position to run that sort of experiment.
I would like to respectfully challenge this view. I agree that in the absence of Beethoven there would have been other composers but given how few genuinely achieved his level of creative contribution throughout history, let alone his lifetime, I feel his absence would be a loss. Okay, humanity would not be aware of this loss but we would still not have that great music.
In the genuinely few I include Vivaldi. If memory serves, his music was “lost” for generations but rediscovered by accident. I love Vivaldi. I would struggle to name any of his contemporaries. I think this is an example of a big contribution, on a big scale that was truly distinctive.
Thanks for the lecture Vlad. Really appreciate it.❤
From Brissie
"..if Beethoven was trampled on by a cow in the age of four.." 😂😂😂 hahaha
Humor is healthy for the brain, specially in these times🙂
I have been reading WWI history, and it is amazing how much of a difference Woodrow Wilson (US President) made on a personal level. When the British starvation blockade of Germany was started it was illegal on a number of counts. Wilson could have easily have insisted on neutral rights for the US, which would have scuttled the blockade and drastically changed the war. Instead he fully supported Britain. This was a choice; his choice was actually the extreme choice and not the expected choice.
Not quite. Wilson was under pressure by nervous Americans who had lent billions, principally to France and Britain to finance their war. An Entente victory was the only way that America would have any chance of getting its loans repaid and it’s also why Wilson and Congress ordered the seizure of every German asset in America, including interestingly, the patent for Asprin. It was the loss of the American assets that utterly crippled Germany’s economy.
@@seanlander9321 This decision was in 1914, when the blockage was first declared, before any war loans were taken out.
@@edmundfreeman7203 America protested the blockade until 1917. To alleviate the problems America was facing the British purchased their German cargos which kept everyone happy, except the Germans of course.
@@seanlander9321 I'm going from the book 'The World Reborn' by GJ Meyer. According to him, any protests were minimal at best. Wilson was fundamentally supportive of the British war effort, even early on.
@@seanlander9321 What we are doing here is a great example of Vlad's video. You are arguing that societal forces were so powerful Wilson did not matter at all; any US President would have been forced to bring the US into WWI and history would not have changed. I am arguing that Wilson's personal characteristics had such a huge and distinct effect that his decisions, of which he could have easily decided otherwise, radically changed history. I think Wilson is a great test case of which view is reasonable for understanding actually-existing humans.
Would you at some point tackle the topic and use of the term metamodernism?
I think that individual intention does shape history, the more social stuff in more like the weather of history. I also believe that on the shorter time scales the more the individual decision matter. On the longer time scales the collective stuff matters more.
Questions: Absent the Holocaust of the Second World War, would the modern state of Israel exist? Did Hitler create Israel? Actions and intentions...reactions and results.
Have fun!
Afaik Zionism was already pretty popular before the 1930s but he certainly helped the cause
I think that, in order for a Genghis Khan to emerge, conditions have to be such that there is a niche for such a role. These conditions exist on a vast, civilizational scale, not those of the individual. However, whether someone happens to be in a position and chooses to take advantage of such a niche is of course up to chance. How this chance turns out is what we call an "individual's impact on history" - so, if there was no specific individual Temujin, then it's quite possible that there would not have been a Genghis Khan, and history would have turned out quite differently.
I don't think anyone would argue that somebody else would have written Shakespeare's plays had he never been born, but I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that society as a whole would have latched onto some other playwright to celebrate for centuries to come instead.
Society is the critical mass, but individuals can be the catalysator.
Individuals can make a large difference in history. I realised that after watching It's a wonderful life
The "Boys from Brazil" would suggest the opposite however, that wider social forces are much more determining of historical effects, even when it is attempted to repeat the same individual with a similar personal history.
I know it's dated a bit, but Tolstoy's initial pushback on the great man of history theory is still my favourite polemic/novel on the matter. The "trends and forces" ideas leave us feeling more apathetic. But of course it's not a black and white issue.
Couldn’t you argue that everything, including the war in Ukraine can be proximately explained in terms of things like the modern world, capitalism, religion etc which then, in terms of ultimate causation, in turn depend on many individual choices? Which institution, movement etc can be explained outside of human motivations and intentional states? Any written text like the constitution, for example, or the Bible as another example has been written by humans with intentional states; the buildings that all decisions are made in are built, architected etc by humans with intentional states. It appears that all events are ultimately explainable in terms of human intentional states.
There is also a weaker proposition: Picasso couldn't have pained Guernica if he had lived, say, in the time of Michelangelo. And if Al Gore had been President, he would have had an army of advisers and a cabinet of ministers and secretaries and a party of some 40 million members whose opinions would have been incorporated in the decision. The decision to go to war wouldn't have rested therefor only on one single man.
Something people often say is "Sure, individuals can make massive differences but they are moulded by their environment". This is true, but I do not see how that matters so much. Societies are made up of individuals and individuals shape society. The two concepts cannot be completely seperated no matter how hard we try. As usual, the extremes are absurd since saying that individuals/society has no/all of the effect is nonsense. Maybe this is simply a disguised free will debate.
The one claim that I intensely dislike is that individuals are interchangable because they are shaped by society - this is the typical criticism of 'great man history', which I don't believe actually exists, at least in the way it is typically described. Individuals are, perhaps by definition, not interchangable. Could any man in France in the 1790s actually do all or even most of what Napoleon did? Sure, a dictator was likely to emerge, but the individual identity of that dictator-turned-emperor was absolutely critical to the development of French, European, and world history ever since.
I am in the club (however small) who does not accept that the actions and intentional states of individuals people are "impactful" on any outcome whatsoever. Why? Two reasons.
Because (1) this way of interpreting reality presupposes the individual person to be the necessary unit of analysis without giving any justification. Human individuals can just as easily be seen as conduits for behavioral or informational memes that travel betweeen and play their parts in constituting the individual, and serve as a lower scale unit of analysis that is the true center of explanatory power in a causal explanation. The intentional states aren't magically created nothing in the mind of the "individual" afterall, so if causality were to be traced, it would have to be traced to the extraindividual geneses of the intentional states. Likewise, one could also say the human individual is only a unit a larger type of social entity, current or dynamic, which organizes the intentions and actions of individuals according to their larger scale logic. The person from your example is after all, not the only person who chooses to have coffee that day after all; why do so many people choose to do functionally the exact same action when under similar circumstances with alternatives are possible? There's a case to be made that the causality behind the action of that "individual" rests on a scale larger than that person. I think the unquestioned acceptance of the individual, embodied person as a unit of analysis is the result cognitive bias, based on the fact that our sensory organs are located on the individual person level. This masks the fact that the human person as a unit of analysis without justification is arbitrary.
Because (2) an individual person intentional state is only a proximate cause to the action they take. Its conveniently collocated in close physical and temporal proximity to what takes place, such that if we're not intellectually vigilant, we can fall into naturally and easily accepting it as the true and ultimate cause of whatever followed, without realizing that our "cause" itself is not uncaused by any indefinite number of things tracing backward an indefinite period of time, over an indefinite number of scales. It's basically a heuristic shorthand to take the proximate intention to be the final statement of the cause of an action that followed without the need for further examination, and that may serve practical purposes in daily life, but this extremely simplified, closed understanding of cause and effect is empirically false under thoughtful examination, and thus without qualification or apology, inadmissable philosophically serious attempt at interpreting the given phenomenon.
I think both things I said still apply to that situation; its possible to shift the unit of analysis smaller than humans to memes and information passing between and composing them, or larger than humans to social processes, structures and dynamics constituting and organizing who they are and what they do, and find equal or greater explanatory value at either or both of these scales for the scientific political processes and decisions related to the bomb. You could also trace backward what lead to the relevant developments, decisions and actions indefinitely backward, to various external stimuli (and actually internal too) that each formed a piece of the puzzle over time to create the condition where those people in those positions had those intentional states, making the intentional states once again, only proximate - and not ultimate - causes of the outcomes the world witnessed. @@Britishpersun
Individials or sociopaths and what is lacking in their subordinates lives so much that they are compelled to comply
Yes. Cf Germany's Aims in the First World War, and yes it was Julie C who decided to cross the Rubicon.
The Napoleon Complex. This is often sited, about many leaders. Napoleon may have been as tall as 1.7 meters. He was certainly not short for his time. Zelensky, may be bit on the short side. Churchill, Hitler, Putin and Stalin may often come under this Complex. None of them, where that short. Rather, currently people are tending to be too tall due to, modern nutrition.
@VladVexlerPhilosophy Is it not more cogent to say, "ought' when you mean ought, and 'is' when you mean is ...rather that leaving the listener to decode the us of the term 'normative' by the context of the discussion? IME, the word/term 'normative' as caused much more confusion than clarity, for philosophy students. (Just imagine what is doing to the casual listener. I'd bet they hear what my cat does when I use the word.)
I don't think that a person arguing for the type of individualism you cite would have to claim that Guernica would have been perfectly created by another artist, just that any artistic movement was bound to emerge at roughly the time and place that it did and come to focus on broadly the same themes and evoke broadly the same sentiments such that the subtraction of any single piece of art or artist would not have had a significant influence on the world. While Italian Futurism may have been significant in shaping Italy and the world, something roughly equivalent would have emerged no matter what and no piece of art, just like county speed limits or whatever, rises to significance. War is, I think, the much better example, near nobody else would have invaded Ukraine is much closer to a shut case.
Now I remember my problem with philosophy. They explain something that is fundamentally very simple in such a way that it is difficult to follow. I remember Timothy Snyder explaining the problem in a few sentences to his students in his lecture series "The making of Modern Ukraine" (or somewhere else but I think it was this one). Yes without Hitler the second world war would not have started but without the specific circumstances in his time he would never have risen to power either.
The extremes are absurd and you can not expect that the circumstances are always the same. So the influence of individual actions will vary.
Individuals are just one of the factors that shape history. That is how I remember it.
I don't have a firm position either way, but I don't think the examples given quite hold up.
The argument wouldn't have to be, for example, that Gore would have to start the Iraq war but rather that, had Gore been elected, it would indicate a different social landscape in the first place.
😅😢 Yes Vlad,individuals decide history,however it is often written by the collective
It may be hard to believe, that someone else would have created the exact same musical, artistic or even scientific masterpieces. But I don't find it hard to believe, that someone else would have created something similar at a similar time.
I am not sure the argument of the objectors to individualism is fully reflected here. (I know I know, it probably is and I am wrong but that's where I stand). Beethoven, for example: Beethoven wasn't the only composer of his time. Had he not written his music, we would name the 2nd best composer as the best. Shakespeare wasn't the only playwright, we would discuss others. (In fact I am certain that there are nerdy circles who will say "xyz is so underrated, he was better than Shakespeare and Beethoven combined").
Isn't there a difference between saying what an alternate leader would in fact do is broadly the same & saying a leader could not have made vastly different choices ?........Are there not moral or ethical choices we make ? Are there not opportunities we see & deductions we make when we think deeply ? Are we not sometimes careless ?.......I'm pretty sure all those things exist because as I write this I am thinking : "I don't want to come across as too confrontational, or too arrogant.....I don't want to make a fool of myself by not listening to your points or misunderstanding" ....& even thinking, "maybe I shouldn't say anything at all, because like you mentioned it could end up having the opposite effect that I want....(whatever that is)"
The way I see it is that it's all individual choice: what we call social and economic forces are just an aggregate of millions or billions individual choices. But those choices are not independent either. Just like the constituents define the aggregate, so does the aggregate shape the constituents. There's a perpetual feedback loop between them.
you give the example of Beethoven, but how much of the way Beethoven expressed himself was condition by the society he was born in? I'm certain that had the man been born today, he'd still be a composer, but probably part of some metal band. Or on the other hand, had Hayao Miyazaki been born in Shakespeare's place he'd be and equally impressive playwright.
Sometimes the individualistic society leads to more collectivist decisions. And collectivist societies to more impact of an individual decision.
Any thesis always produces its own antithesis.
Yes they do. To some extent. But not entirely. There are so many other influences that may change over time.
This boils down to a nature vs nurture debate and perhaps our views with regard to non-dualism and the such.
Humans on the basis of their nature and the environment around them, have some affordances, some things they can do while interacting with their environment.
Society influences those affordances and possibilities and favours some things while dis-favouring others, to some extent.
Humans, setting aside the free will debate, have either their free will or unique DNA and gene expression which gives them a will even if unfree, that affords them with certains capabilities which are further influenced (encouraged/discouraged or expanded upon) by their interplay with societal and environmental influences.
In this context, what would we say is an example of individuals deciding history and what would be a counter-example? It doesn't make much sense to me in this context.
Let's add the point vlad made on individuals to society as well, by that I mean that, society does not only push and achieve its stated goals or realise its stated values (as vlad said for individuals), rather society can be thought of as inadvertently creating a number a things, including it's own counter-culture, exactly due to the way it is. If it is so, how can we say that going against the current is an example of individuals deciding history?
What are your thoughts regarding Marx's view on the subject? To what extent is history decided by the dominant mode of production?
I heard that one historian claimed that Columbus did not discover America; the Santa Maria, the Nino, and the Pinto did.
The point is that, once ocean-crossing capable vessels, combine with the ability to navigate out of sight of land became available, the discovery of America was all but inevitable. Columbus was merely the one to do it. Had Columbus not been around, the discovery would have certainly been delayed, maybe well into the 16th century. But it was going to happen. With or without Columbus.
Likwise with the invention of the airplane. I think it can be argued that the internal combustion engine invented the airplane. Because the internal combustion engine allowed the necessary power to weight ratio to make an airplane possible. Had the Wright Brothers not been born, airplanes would have certainly appeared anyway. We may have had to wait well into the 1910s to see it.
My point is that almost all historic events were inevitably. But their actual timing is determined by individual actions.
May I use your wonderful quip, "Pub level nugget" I will attribute it to you of course. I may never find the opportunity in my conversations, but I can hope for it. Glad my algorithm brought me to this discussion. I have been thinking about how one man or woman has changed the course of history, by their intent and action. Of course Putin, Zelensky, Hitler and possibly Netyanahu comes to mind, with his refusal to work toward a two state solution for over 16 total years, which persists today. What will be the continued consequences for Israel and the Palestinians? Not too good for either, as history is showing us in this very minute. It is unlike how Ukraine has responded to aggression against their country. The differences, they have a state, a government, self determination. Palestinians have none of these protection, only chaos and less chaos on any particular day in their life. And, Ukraine has not subjugated an entire people to their will, as has Netyanahu done to the Palestinians and Putin to his countrymen.
Zelensky and his country have consciously chosen life without Russian influence. How much did Ukraine's collective consciousness to fight, hinge on their Presidents decision to stay? We will not know this but we do know what actually happened as a result. The actual result of Zelensky's choice was a prelude to how Ukrainians showed their bravery and innovation, and that resulted in the coalition that rapidly came to Ukraine's aid. Perhaps there will no longer be people like Putin who act passionately but not rationally specifically because of Zelensky's decision to stay and fight.
Apartheid is obviously another story another issue.
From the philosophical point of view where we, as humans, having this thing called consciousness, seems lead to the notion or realization of there being a 'mass consciousness' and even a more impactful - a "country consciousness" - which may help explain both Ukraine and Russia and the responses from other countries as well. We may be all interconnected and effect the future with our mass consciousness but we directly affect events with our "country consciousness." We aid or cause destruction on a mass scale...for instance...climate change...and with an inability to collectively decide on how to have a planet without the possibility of war. But our "country's consciousness' is making our lives either better or worse by our actions which directly follows our state of consciousness. The future with our evolving "country consciousness" will influence our actions and the actions of despots and autocrats here and worldwide. The story is not written but it is influenced by us.
No, but some individuals represent the feelings and views of the many and are thus held up higher than others.
Robert Sapolsky has a lot to say about decision making and free will. It's pretty interesting to me but might sound like nonsense to someone who strongly believes in individual agency. I try not to put all my eggs in one basket. On the one hand, emergent behavior is a thing we have observed. On the other, systems tend to behave in ways irrespective of individuals. While I'm not a fan of the Great Man approach to history, it can be hard to deny individual actions. If it had not been Shakespeare, it would have been another and we would have different 'classics' of the ilk. If Newton had not made calculus, someone else would have. We have no way on knowing. These "poles" are not mutually exclusive to me, unless we make an artificial distinction. Sometimes individuals do, and most of the time they don't. My question is, how do we have this magic homunculus in our heads that makes decisions, when the rest of the universe is deterministic. If every effect has a cause, how do we not
Actually, "If Newton had not made calculus, someone else would have" is one of the few questions here that we do have a definite answer to. Leibniz also independently invented calculus at pretty much the exact same time that Newton did, to the extent that it would probably be fairer to describe them as simultaneous inventors than giving exclusive credit to either one. If Newton had taken a year longer, we'd give Leibniz the credit.
Television was also independently invented in the US and USSR using basically the same physics, @@michael14195 or so I have heard
Yeah, a 20 yr soldier with a gun can change history
Nice talk overall. Still on behalf of all anthropologist, archeology, economists, linguists and political scientists (and I guess even sociologists - but not communication scientists for I refuse to accept them until they finally explain, what their fields distinctive feature is supposed to be): up yours, bro.
Also, I think you're strawmanning a bit. No serious person would argue had Picasso not painted the Guernica it would have been painted by Mondrian. The argument in that case would more likely be that our reception of Picassos work and the impact he possessed would not have been radically different ceterum censeo, but without the Guernica. More interesting case would be, if Picasso had not existed or died as a child. Well then obviously no one else would have painted his paintings. The argument which is still concieveable would than be, that another artist would have been given the chance to occupy the space and cultural significance, which is in our timeline preoccupied by Picasso - thus in the grand sheme of things, nothing changes.
I believe these claims are shaky at best, as they are, so their really was no need to reductio ad absurd them. Also if you add the part of intentionality to the individual, they become stronger, for it is really hard to argue that Picasso was able to will the Guernica into the cultural icon it became with full intent and purpose. That was clearly up to others, he painted a picture - the rest was society.
Sociology sits atop the pile, it's mixed methodology allows it to both traverse all the field's while aslo offering legitimacy in its findings.
Only torys hate Sociology and the social sciences.
@@DJWESG1 Is Tori hate of Sociology a thing? I'm outside the UK and didn't notice that. German conservatives are more anti science in general, as is their US counterpart - so I'm curious about this UK divide.
Individuals certainly direct history. An outstanding example is the Australian, Howard Florey who dedicated himself to giving the world penicillin, something that almost instantly changed the world.
Scientific achievements are very problematic in terms of individuals changing the world. Penicillin was there; Florey was just part of a large team that made it vastly more useful. I think is is quite reasonable to believe that the penicillin advancements would have happened without him. and another would have stepped up to leadership.
@@edmundfreeman7203 Not at all. There was a team, entirely assembled by Florey. It was Florey who nagged his way into ensuring that penicillin was developed, no one else was interested or had the dedication. All discoveries of course eventually happen, but Florey takes the credit for saving millions upon millions of lives and transforming every society. The penicillin we have today is still derived from Florey’s culture of an American Rock Melon, it’s simply astonishing that it’s still essentially the same batch as 1945.
There are patterns and cycles of history which are scarily naturalistic. The work of Russian/American historian Peter Turchin shows the way here. Or look at Philippe Fabry. We are talking about big scale causation determined by geography and the probabilistically predictable developments of kinds of state and society, because these empirically, one could say scientifically behave in broadly predictable cyclical patterns. Individuals can still have agency, even great leaders of these societies, but if Muhammed didn't appear in his time, it was very likely another warrior prophet would have appeared at roughly the same time to attempt very much the same as he did, for example. History as a humanities subject is narrative or biography, an archival and journalistic study. This can be more or less narrative or analytic ie Herodotus vs Thucydides. History as ( social) science can be more patterns, cycles and geographic determinism in other words theory and comparative empirical data. More Polybius than Thucydides or Herodotus, with modern historians having available to them more data mining tools, archaeological data, textual resources and analytical techniques.
Trampeled on by a cow? 😅
Let's see if I can steel man the idea that individuals don't make a difference. Make a difference at what level? Zelensky staying in Kiev makes a difference at the level of Ukraine in 2022, but does it make a difference today to economic opportunities for recent graduates in Birmingham Alabama? Even Putin invading Ukraine is arguably a local conflict at the global and long term historical level. Vlad used the example of the Ukraine invasion, but didn't mention the war in Tigray in which hundreds of thousands have died and millions have been displaced.
Arguably the history of the 20th and 21st centuries in Europe are of a violent end to imperialism in the world wars, the cold war, the post cold war period, and ever greater economic and political integration across Europe, and the advancement of globalisation. Have the actions of any individuals at any point in that period actually altered the overall course of what I described above? Let's look at Vietnam, the US took part in a bloody conflict there in the mid 20th century, but that hasn't stopped the US and Vietnam cosying up together now to face off against the common threat of China. Arguably that's the inevitable forces of history and geopolitics re-asserting themselves on top of what seemed highly consequential events at the time, but ultimately haven't changed the course of history. Vietnam became Communist anyway, they fought a war with China anyway, they have continuing maritime disputes with China anyway, which pushes them to align with US interests. The Ukraine war is just a blip at that level. I don't mean to marginalise the real and horrific impact on individuals and the nation of Ukraine, of course. Our human lives occur in the chaotic froth of statistical noise within the arc of history and are absolutely affected by the choices of individuals, for which they are responsible.
I think there are a few points in history at that level when individual choices did arguably make a difference. Hitler in the 1930s. If he hadn't happened I think there is a good chance there would still have ben a world war, Japan would still have wanted dominion in the Pacific for example. The Soviet Union would still have existed in some form, possibly even without Lenin, and even without the Bolsheviks it could still have been a similarly expansionist autocratic imperial power of some form. Maybe Kennedy made a difference over the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there were several times when a horrible nuclear weapons incident could have pushed things a different way.
On the other hand individuals try to force a change in macroscopic trends and fail. The Red Army Faction was trying to force the West German government, which they saw as a fascist successor state to Naziism, to reveal their true nature by imposing authoritarian measures. That didn't work. The IRA fought for decades for the unification of Ireland, and eventually just gave up. Hamas' bloody attack last year hasn't altered the balance of power in the Middle East, and it's probably just a bloody blip on the road to the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world. Such blips are arguably inevitable but won't actually stop it happening.
Did the World Trade centre attack change the course of history? Sure, it changed the history of Afghanistan which was occupied by the US for a few decades, but did it change the course of human civilization? I think people arguing for the 'people don't make a difference' position are just looking at a different level of abstraction. We have to define what we mean by a consequential difference.
It's a chilling thought that Mr. Putin will have to go nuclear in order to make the consequential difference that will earn him the place in history that he craves. Dark humour aside: Intuitively I would argue that the timing of the invention and adoption of technology has been determined by individuals. If electrical battery technology had evolved faster, combustion engines might never have become ubiquitous and thus climate change might have been postponed ...
I would say, no with a slight caveat. It depends on social organization. I tend to think history is deterministic, but individuals do have a casual role IF the social organization favors them having that role.
Case and point, if Russia weren't an autocracy, Putin wouldn't have the influence he has. The reality of that form of social organization is determining that outcome.
I have learned that to grow or change there may be pain. With that in mind I am blaming you for my cognitive dissonance. My perception of “Ethnic Russians” is divorcing my understanding of “Cultural Russians”. Stereotypes are easier to understand.
what if she gave a war and nobody came?
I guess none of those artworks or history would matter at all if it weren’t for the large audiences for them. So individuals don’t matter, but large numbers of them do? Zelenskyy wouldn’t be able to decide to leave Ukraine without roads, planes, cars, trains and he wouldn’t be able to decide to fight if he didn’t have command over other people.
read War and Peace
Some do, some don't. Genghis Khan, Mohammed, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zhedong, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill definitely did.
Change medicine
divine central authority unity for world
The criteria should be questioned first. Identify what a individual is. In doing so (how you identify a individual) it answers the question. Re-read that until you understand.
I am checking back again. This year 3 ? I'll just mention again i think the ukraine b.s. and politics is clouding your mind? Or perhaps this is your philosophy? If it's not wisdom you seek. Clarity. Then i do not understand what you are doing. Just political philosophy? How very limiting. And benal.
Edit. Good day or evening, good night, whenever or if this message finds you .
I agree that there is a failure to properly define the individual and the collective in this video. I like Vlad but I tend to find that when he presents his philosophical views there are a lot of unsaid assumptions and an expectation that the things he finds obvious are agreed upon. For example, the argument that no one actually thinks that individuals do not make decisions/ have impact is wrong. Biological determinists or any other macro-scale determinist will argue, with complete sincerity, that an individual biological machine is entirely a product of its context and does not make choices but merely follows the path as dictated by the circumstances it finds itself in and the genetic, epigenetic, social, etc, programming it has received.
Maybe this can be explained with a definition of the individual that is something other than what I intuitively default to. Which is why I think a basic framework of where he draws the lines between the individual and the collective and aspects of each would have been beneficial.
Don’t you think it’s much more practical if the social science see themselves as science? It would be a mess if they completely gave up on the idea. And philosophers would have to deal with a plethora of mediocre philosophical works all of a sudden.
Philosophers have no place criticising the social sciences in any form.
@@DJWESG1 After two years of side-remarks I’m curious what Vlad actually has to say. But a video about this niche topic would probably kill his channel in the algorithm for ever.
Hello dear you. My view is that the social sciences are ineliminably interpretive. Though this falls slightly differently on the different social sciences. My view is the same as Charles Taylor’s in a paper of his from 1971 called Interpretation and the Sciences of Man. - sorry for the gendered title.
@@VladVexlerPhilosophyCharles Taylor must have been really (anti-?) woke before anybody else 😅
@@VladVexlerPhilosophy Hi Vlad : )
I don’t disagree, I just suspect you underestimate the extent in which interpretation plays a role in the other sciences too.
And I believe the quality in social sciences is higher if they locate their disciplines in science and measure their work with scientific tools, at least from time to time.
If the public is presented with a science-science product, it looks as if it was built on science, and the big overhead of interpretations and decision-making after every step (and social dynamics, politics, motivations, beliefs, institutional circumstances, money, and so on) becomes invisible. But it had a huge influence on the outcome and on what we see as science.
Would you count medicine as a science? You know what I mean.
For example even if it’s proven countless times that a disease kills women in the same percentage as it kills men, medicine students will still learn to diagnose women with the symptoms x times more often with a mental disease instead, based on a scientific process, neatly documented, but with studies which are flawed by interpretation already in the setup.
Even physics demands interpretation, and in areas where interpretation of the subject plays a smaller role, the other factors, which the social sciences tend to be aware of, distort the outcome.
It doesn’t matter, in German every fifth word is gendered, it’s tragic but also funnily awkward, esp. in connection with social sciences.
I’ll look it up. 🧡
Haha! You thought I was too dumb to subscribe to the philosophy channel, eh? Well, here I am, pretending to know most of these words.
Better watch out - I'll subscribe to the classical music channel next...
Ha ha ha 🌻
How in heaven's name did you end up in Tonga, and better yet, on the side of a mountain? Please do tell.
The Al Gore vs George W Bush example is a bit of a straw man. Of course many things would be different if Al Gore had been president in 2001 because they represent very different factions of two different parties. But if another Republican was president and similarly positioned between the evangelical and business wings, would much change? Probably not. Sure, individuals can polish off the details but they are empowered or limited by collective support. Wannabe strongmen dictators exist everywhere all the time, but they don't gain power unless various social, political, economic, etc forces provide the means and opportunity. Without those forces, the wannabe strongman is stuck shouting on the street; maybe he can put together a small cult or climb the corporate ladder, but he doesn't get to high political office without other factors aligning. For example, far right evangelicals have been setting up to take over the US for decades; Trump is just a conman opportunist who accelerated the plan by about 5-10 years.
Imho, individuals are less "great men" with great individual influence and more interchangeable mascots that represent specific groups. You can swap individuals from certain groups without changing much. It's really the team underneath them and how they function that makes the difference (thus, I think the push for term limits in the US won't actually help much). When it comes to art, the question isn't whether someone else would create that specific piece, but how much of this great work is the result of the one special credited artist vs how much is many other people who had influence on the work? How much of Shakespeare was truly the work of one great man and how much is actors, stagehands, other writers, etc? The plays weren't even compiled in one cohesive script until much later (believe after Shakespeare's death); the people who collected and compiled all the individual lines deserve much credit for the plays we now have today.
Great men are interchangeable
It's a new year now.... let's leave "great man theory" in the past.
Quick question: Why don’t Ukraine purchase the US equipments that USA don’t have the budget to give to Ukraine… As any other question asked by laypeople I am not considering everything obviously… But the USA would be in no need of budget allocation for selling the equipment in my naive understanding… I understand that it is more complicated than that maybe it also needs to be approved by the same process and I don’t know if USA can offer lending assistance or financing for the project but it would seem the best way from my inexperienced point of view it would imply that we would find alternatives solutions also for anything I am not accounting for here 🌻💙💛СУ🍉🫡🇺🇦🇨🇦