flâneur

Reflections on Praxis - Justin

justinwen.substack.com · 1,893 words · saved by 1 readers

My disoriented ponderings about the future.

It’s been almost 2 years since I first read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and seriously grappled with his criticisms of the Great Man theory: When actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of “greatness.” “Greatness,” it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the “great” man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a “great” man can be blamed. Tolstoy’s criticism of Napoleon (and other so-called “great men” of history) seems particularly salient today. For instance, what is the promised…

saved by

related reading