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| Is It The Man Or The Times?
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May 27 2008
A few days ago, Hillary Clinton set off a commotion when she mentioned that Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated at the Democratic Convention, during June of 1968. Let's give Clinton the benefit of the doubt and assume she wasn't signaling that someone should do her a solid by killing off her rival. Her gaffe raises an interesting question anyway. How much of the current enthusiasm among Democrats for positive political change is due to Obama's charisma and how much of it is simply the zeitgeist of the time? To put it another way, is Obama driving this movement because he is some sort of messiah or is he merely someone who is in the right place at the right time?
During the Nineteenth Century, two German intellectuals had an ongoing debate about their conflicting views of history. Karl Marx believed that there were strong historical forces in play that shaped events and that great leaders were merely products of those forces. His rival Max Weber insisted that history was shaped by the actions of charismatic and talented people and not the other way around. From Marx's point of view, if Hitler had never been born, then somebody else would have led the Nazis and little would have changed. According to Weber, the absence of Hitler would have altered history profoundly.
What do you think? If Barack Obama were assassinated, would the Democrats' enthusiasm for change and reform die with him? It's certainly true that the Civil Rights Movement only became stronger after Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. Do people shape events or do events shape people? I'd like to know your opinion.
George
P.S. Please visit my website at www.checkmatefiction.com
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Posted by gjcondon on 2008-05-27 15:30:31 | Rating: | Views: 83
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Well point of order, RFK died in LA the night of the California primary..but on to the question:
It is both
The man drives the movement no matter how powerful the ideas are. Civil Rights with a different leader would have maybe not worked.
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Posted by whiteknight
on 2008-06-03 13:18:25
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Whiteknight,
Interesting comment. Thanks.
George
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Posted by gjcondon
on 2008-06-03 19:34:56
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I think it's a combination of having the right person in place, thrust into action by the right sequence of events. Beyond that history is shaped by gambles won or lost.
"What-ifs" in relation to historical events are one thing, but I'm not comfortable entertaining the notion of what the possible political fallout might be from an assasination of a living person.
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Posted by GhostOfDerekD0min0
on 2008-06-04 11:34:55
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