Have you noticed that, as much as we all say that we would like our politicians to be honest, we attack them when they are or, at the very least, consider them to be naive. Honesty is not a plus. In fact, I have little doubt that some of you will be angry with me, as politics isn't restricted to elections and public offices. For example, a while back, the news media spent at least a week attacking Trump for referring to Putin as a great man. Of course, they phrased his comment in such a way as to make it appear that Trump found the need to praise the Russian leader (because, of course, he was colluding with him). In reality, he was asked the question and he answered the question honestly because, of course, someone who can hold power over one of the most powerful countries in the world is a great man. Once reported, of course we're supposed to accept that saying someone is a great man is the equivalent of saying that he agrees with and supports everything that he does. Of course, he was a great man. Adolf Hitler was a great man. He wasn't born a ruler, nor did he inherit wealth, yet he went from being a failed artist and a dispatch officer in the German Army in World War I to becoming the ruler of a large part of Europe in only a few years. He was an evil man, and someone to be despised in nearly every way, but he was still a great man. Seventy years later, nearly everyone on earth knows his name. The media has repeatedly done something similar with John McCain. They ask Trump a question designed to get the honest answer about what Trump thought about John McCain. He answers the question, and then they act as though he just decided to attack McCain again. Along the same lines, I think it was during the Bush Administration that it was decided to refer to suicide bombers and school shooters as cowards. Of course, to a radical Muslim, a suicide bomber is a martyr and a great man. To the rest of us, a suicide bomber might be a lot of things, but can you honestly say that it is is a cowardly act to strap a bomb onto your chest? Is that really cowardly? School shooters are despicable human beings, sad in some respects, and certainly not people who most of us would look up to with anything resembling respect. But can you honestly say that it's cowardly to bring a gun into a school, killing a bunch of innocent people, but having every reason to believe that your own life is going to be ended, either by your own hand or by the police? Again, I would say that these actions are a whole of of things that I despise, but they are not cowardly. In the political arena, it is common to hear demands that a politician apologize for one thing or another, and if the media picks up the demand, they usually do, despite the fact that the furor is generally over something that has been deliberately misrepresented by the very people who are demanding an apology. Yet, they apologize. When an apology follows a political demand, is it really an apology? Does anyone ever accept the apology? Of course not and, in my opinion, the apology just makes them look weak on top of stupid for whatever it was they were apologizing for.
I think often times, the news media just needs a topic to fill up a time slot. It's even worse when they get a whole panel together and each is trying to be wittier than the other discussing a subject that is total nonsense to begin with.
I totally agree with this, and if you notice (and I'm sure you do), Trump never seems to apologize for his words even when it seems that he should. I was certainly disappointed in Biden's apology for his past work with segregationists, his apology to women, his apology to the immigrants rights group for the deportations under Obama, and ... yadda, yadda, yadda. Personally, I want a strong leader in the white house, not some weak. pandering panty-waist who is always "sorry". Brush off the criticism and be your own person. And is it just me, or do the Obamas seem oddly uninvolved in Joe's quest for the presidency? (There I go... wandering off topic again. "Sorry." )
@Ken Anderson: Of course, he was a great man. Adolf Hitler was a great man. Hitler was a despicable human being. He was a powerful leader.
Agreed. He also fits within the definition of great. great [ɡrāt] ADJECTIVE 1. of an extent, amount, or intensity considerably above the normal or average. "the article was of great interest" · [more] synonyms: considerable · substantial · pronounced · sizeable · significant · appreciable · [more] 2. of ability, quality, or eminence considerably above the normal or average. "the great Italian conductor" · [more] synonyms: prominent · eminent · preeminent · important · distinguished · august · [more] 3. used to indicate that someone or something particularly deserves a specified description. "I was a great fan of Hank's" synonyms: enthusiastic · eager · keen · zealous · devoted · ardent · fervent · fanatical · [more] 4. (in names of family relationships) denoting one degree further removed upward or downward. "great-aunt" · [more] NOUN 1. an important or distinguished person. "the Beatles, Bob Dylan, all the greats" · [more] synonyms: celebrity · famous person · very important person · personality · name · [more]
So true. As regards a "great man": As often, such an attribution (if someone is considered "a great man") tends to be either utterly subjective i.e. being void of any criteria other than emotion or it's based on algorithms as Skynia and Ward did in their book "Who's bigger?". I, personally, would prefer some criteria that I consider important. Yet there are few who would bother to explain what they actually mean by a "great man". Interestingly, among those few who do, the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt described a "great man" as someone "who keeps on being cherished as an ideal while being of great value for the world and for their nations in particular by welling up emotionalism, giving them an object of enthusiasm..." Would someone like Hitler be covered by such a definition? It seems to me that "greatness" can only be a fictitious category that could at best enable us to approximate a historical individual. I'd also tend to have a different view on cowardice. For me, suicide bombers and school shooters are cowards because they know that, while they are killing innocent people who can't defend themselves they, in all likelihood, won't be attacked and, thus, act in an underhand manner having scene control. They avoid fighting on a level-playing field.
Of course, I wouldn't ordinarily choose to describe people like Adolf Hitler as a great man, at least not without an explanation, because I know that most people will consider that to be a compliment or as an expression of admiration, and not want to grant that to someone as evil as Hitler. However, by the very definition of the word, there are a lot of great men and women whom the world would have been better off without.
I think it's the word "great" that can cause you a headache because it's not precise enough. It's a word often used in everyday speech if you want to roughly and swiftly categorize someone and describe his achievements or deeds but I don't think it really fits the bill. Yet I know it's also used by people who should know better and we also know why they don't or didn't use a different word. They needed a commonly used word in order to be understood by everybody immediately. And, probably, they didn't want to do without a certain shade of meaning. We have an equivalent in German as well although it does not have exactly the same meaning. While in English the word "great" indeed implies that you are supposed to - largely - and kind of - identify with someone great (otherwise you'd use a different word), our word/equivalent is more neutral since it lacks that connotation of identification. Why not use the word influential or powerful also for people like Hitler? That's what they were and there wouldn't be any indication of supporting what they did. Ironically, these two words are also used to describe other, more recent and sometimes sinister people and societies. When it comes to them, the word great is not used. Any idea why not? Because people do know how to use their language and they use it thoughtfully and purposely.
Great pertains to good (honorable, memorable, very good) or size. No one would say Hitler was a good man, or a big man,or honorable. Putin would not be considered a good man, or honorable, or large either. To say Hitler is a great man because he acted out of rage against Germany losing a war (WWI), and keeping in mind that Hitler did have a mental illness--he would go into trances (much like catatonic depression--Henry VI most likely suffered from it as well) is incorrect. Hitler had the gift of charisma, much like Charles Ponzi and Jim Jones. John McCain was an honorable man, thus he was a great man. Most of what you have said here is personal opinion. You think Hitler is a great man, people think school shooters and terrorists are cowards. These are merely opinions. People rarely deal with context properly. I agree with your take on the press. There is usually someone who latches onto to something that should not even be mentioned in the news, but if you think about it, most of the people doing that are opinion writers for news sources and cable news shows who are competing for ratings. They jump on the hasty generalization fallacy (making a mountain out of a mole hill) and if the person does not respond, they proceed to trial by public scrutiny and can do irreputable damage to that person. I do not watch TV news, and when I read news online, I try to steer clear of the gossip pages (opinions)... although... there are some that beg for a good verbal bashing and who am I to deny them.
I quoted the definition above. Yes, great can be used to express something that you think of as good, and that's why some people object to using the word to describe people like Hitler, but the idea of being good is not even its most common definition. So it is well within the dictionary definition of the word to refer to both Putin and Hitler as great. When words don't mean anything anymore, it's difficult to have a discussion. To my way of thinking, at least, we greatly stunt our ability to communicate when we object to the use of a word according to its dictionary definition just because we don't want to use what might be considered a good or a strong word to describe someone we disagree with. As for John McCain, he pretty much had success handed to him, and he was anything but honorable, but I wouldn't quarrel if you wanted to consider him to be a great man, although I wouldn't use the word to describe the man. He was elected to the US Senate and remained there for the rest of his life. If you widen the pool of people who you want to consider great, I suppose you could include him.
Don't you think that he promoted that rage in other people, using it, not because he was necessarily in a rage himself, but as a means of manipulating people and gaining power? You're making some great points, by the way. Please don't consider my disagreement as being anything but complimentary.