On Thomas Carlyle

[N]ot a philosopher I'd really want to study{}. You might do better studying Descartes or Locke, or even Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, or Adam Smith. Carlyle was the Grandfather of fascism. A brilliant man... a Polymath... but like all Polymaths, he grossly overestimated the capacity of one man to rule. Democracy is actually far more stable than Monarchy. It produces the most amount of benefits for the most amount of people, for the longest amount of time.

I'd say it did begin with Modernism. That's for sure. Most of our philosophical traditions have been bad for going on 200 years now. That was a reaction to World War I and the French Revolution, they were both so bad, it spurred a counter movement, which to be frank... the Romantic School, the Enlightenment School, and Christ's Moral Clarity were already the counter for. We had it right for about 50 years, from 1950-2001. There was a budding romanticism, checked by realism. Which was really the culmination of the Enlightenment's and Christianity's values. Not Modernism's.

What you do have to understand about him, is he lived right through one of History's most tumultuous times. He saw the effects of the French Revolution--which was very ugly--and it wouldn't look good to him. But, we know the effects it would have were actually good.

Like all things, history goes in cycles. There's period where men are filled with sin, then they get frustrated because that sin causes them to suffer, and then they move to war. And Carlyle saw one of those bad times in history and romanticized the Peace England was feeling. As Dickens had a reason for saying, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." So do individual civilizations.

What's true, however, is Free Markets are better for people, that have restrictions for the public's [safety]. And so are Democracies better for people, because it puts more minds to the task of figuring a thing out, which 1000 lay people can outthink one 200IQ genius.

So, generally, the "Great Man Theory" is wrong. We see that happening in America right now, that hundreds of interests are at play, and the real movements are top to bottom and middle and all over. Tolstoy actually wrote about that. That kind of historical analysis is more valid, I'd think, than Carlyle's. It's just true, the individual in a collective has far more power than any one man can or ever will. And really, you're doing the right thing, by influencing people to see their own responsibility in the picture. Every one of us has a responsibility to cooperate and do what's good.