But is that his “real name?”
It’s a Monty Python joke from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
“In a few hours you’re getting married to a girl whose father owns the biggest tracts of open land in Britain.”
“But I don’t like her!”
“Don’t like her? What’s wrong with her? She’s beautiful, she’s rich, she’s got huuuuuge… tracts of land.”
The importance of the Mongols lies not in their (small) cultural achievements, but in the damage that they did to those whom they beat.
It is certainly arguable that, but for the Mongols, the Western Europeans would not have enjoyed technological and military superiority over the Islamic and Chinese civilizations.
The experience of being invaded by Mongols (and threat of more of the same) tended to make these civilizations much more inward-focused and conservative than before, as well as doing untold damage to the infrastucture and human populations of these areas. Western Europe escaped the Mongol scourge by a fluke of history.
This would make Ghengis Khan arguably the most important person, in terms of influence. He:
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Unquestionably existed;
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Without him, there is no evidence that his “achievement” would have taken place anyway without him (unlike the achievements of scientists and explorers); and
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His actions certainly changed the course of world history with effects lasting, arguably, for centuries.
I gotta say that’s a pretty compelling argument.
The Caliph Omar (Muhammad’s second successor[li]) deserves a lot of credit: Muhammad united the Arabian peninsula, but it was under Omar that the Muslim armies conquered most of the Middle East and North Africa.[/li]
[*] Or the second usurper who unfairly kept Ali from the Caliphate, depending on your particular view of history.
While it’s not 100% certain that had he acted differently, we’d have had a global nuclear war, the argument is pretty compelling.
On a serious note, if I had to name the most pivotal persons in history, my short list would look like:
Claudius Ptolemaeus (83-168 AD). He wrote on mathematics, astrology, astronomy, geography, and music. What’s important about Ptolemy is not what he invented, but what he got wrong. Unlike most philosophers and inventors, where we might argue that “someone else would have found it eventually,” Ptolemy had tremendous influence in multiple spheres even though he was wrong. His erroneously underestimated figures for the size of the Earth, derived from those of Marinos of Tyre, were probably what prompted Columbus to attempt to sail west to the Indies and discover America, as Ptolemy’s Geographica was first printed (in Latin) in 1477 in Bologna, then again in Italian in 1482. Further, Ptolemy’s earth-centric treatise on astronomy was so influential that it stunted further investigation for over a thousand years.
Emperor Hongxi (1378-1425) of the Ming Dynasty. He didn’t reign very long, but he did so during a critical period and made one lasting decision that has arguably affected every continent for the last six centuries: he withdrew Admiral Zheng He’s treasure ships from their Indian Ocean expeditions in the early 15th century, half a century before Columbus ever discovered the New World. Had the Chinese, already exploring as far away as East Africa, continued their expeditions and applied their military strength abroad, the world could have looked very different today; and yet this one Emperor made the decision to withdraw and focus inward. It’s hard to argue that anybody else would have been in a position to make a similar decision.
The inventors of Refrigeration.
I’d say Jesus.
That’s also irrelevant because as history obscures a real person from our view they become more of an idea. Who we think Napoleon to be is just as mythological as who we think Jesus to be as our ideas of the past are filtered through the biases of every person that passed the information on to us. The idea of Jesus Christ has been incredibly influential, if not as proaction by Christians then by reaction of non-Christians.
Beethoven. Generally, for creating a daunting body of profound, often paradigm shifting music. But, primarily for his magnum opus, arguably the greatest artistic achievement that mankind will ever know—a masterpiece that touches people of all walks of life, in a profound and positive way, crossing cultural boundaries, globally. Every other human achievement is simply fluff, by comparison.
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
Cultural Crossover
(Electricity, relativity, evolution and other silly pursuits would eventually have been discovered by other mortals, but only Beethoven could have created the 9th)
i think he was trying to be funny by alluding to a previous spat between two posters over the real/birth name of Gutenburg that really… as you said… is irrelevant.
I think that the most important person in history is:
you (oneself)
Because if YOU didn’t exist then all the most important people in history wouldn’t matter at all, because then there’d be no one to ever hear about them in the first place.
(Or something like that!)
(This all seemed to make sense at the time!)
During the 70s (I believe) a book was published asserting that Napoleon was a solar myth.
The book became quite famous (though I don’t know if many people actually read it), but I never read it and I don’t really know if it was written seriously by a loon or if it was an hoax mocking the historical literature of the time.
Am I getting senile? I don’t recall this among the miracles. Cite please, I’d like to know more.
Correction : after a quick search (I wanted to see if it was an hoax or not) it seems that it wasn’t a book published in 70s but a short piece written in the 19th century (except if the piece inspired later a book, but I suppose not). It looks like a clear hoax or joke.
The same one Paul is accused of having made up from whole cloth. Either Jesus was a real person whom Paul preached about, or Paul made him up. I tend to go for real person because the teachings of Jesus seem to have a different emphasis than the teachings of Paul. That and Paul was very down on women, and Jesus had women for friends, which seems unlikely if he was just a fiction of Paul.
As much as I love the 9th above all other music, it doesn’t make Beethoven the most important person in history. And I think that most people who suffer from deafness, as Beethoven did when he wrote the piece, would think you nuts for making the claim. Personally, I like the 9th enough to think you have cojones for making the claim.
While I’ll agree that the 9th may be the greatest work of music ever written, Beethoven merely walked the road Bach paved.
Balderdash, my good fellow…
…to be more precise, Beethoven built an off ramp from the road Bach paved to a launch pad to the stars. I’ll give J.S. his due; he was, IMHO, the second greatest of the The Three B’s (in between Bowie and Burt Bacharach:)). No man is an island—Beethoven was certainly influenced by his predecessors, but what great person wasn’t? Did not great folks like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Tesla and P.T. Barnum lay down sturdy asphalt for Einstein to saunter his genius upon?
Bach simply adhered to the Baroque form that was developed by his predecessors, he in turn begat son, Christian, who greatly influenced that prodigy of the Classical period, Mozart, who, along with other contemporary composers, influenced Beethoven—as did Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Revolution, the ideals of the Enlightenment and chronic flatulence(2nd symphony, 4th movement). Beethoven straddled two periods in musical history, Classical and Romantic (question: is the 9th symphony a result of the Romantic period in music, or visa-versa?)
Well, to date, I can’t think of anyone who has had an effect on everyone on the planet (e.g. to the best of my knowledge even the great Alexander’s spread of Hellenism had little to no effect on aboriginal Australians). The deaf, however, may benefit from an indirect trickle down effect from the 9th symphony. Listening to this music inspires me to embrace my humanity and do good for others—so next time I’m near someone hard of hearing, I’ll play the 9th on my iPod and let them reap the benefit of my inspired benevolence.
So, in what arena of human endeavor should one pick the Most Important Person in History?
Philosophy? Though I mean them no disrespect, philosophers, for the most part, are self-indulgent bags of wind. Talk is cheap and irrelevancy has little value.
Sports? Even the greatest athlete of all time won’t be able to air Jordan his legacy past a few more decades before dribbling off the radar screen. Besides, the testosterone-riddled bio-technological athletic monstrosities we create in the future will make the testosterone-riddled pure-biological athletic monstrosities of today seem downright puny.
Business moguls? The Microsoft’s and Trump Towers of today will be the Woolworth’s and Leaning Towers of Pisa’s of tomorrow. You can buy fame and power, but not greatness.
Explorers? First man on the moon? Was it Neil or Lance Armstrong? First man in space? Was it Yuri Garagin, Yuri Geller or Joe Garagiola? See, we’re already forgetting the names of these icons and it hasn’t been that long ago! We’re more likely to remember the first dog in space, Laika, who alas, unlike Lassie, did not come home.
Entertainment? Who are the royalty of entertainment? The King of Television, Milton Berle? the King of Pop, Michael Jackson? Jeesh, the length of infamy of even the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis, won’t even measure up to the alleged length of Uncle Milty’s penis.
Science?
Here’s the way I see it:
Great scientific discoveries and the creation of unique paradigm shifting technology may certainly effect mankind in profound ways and those responsible should be regarded as great people. However, not to tarnish their well-deserved shine, aren’t they really just responsible for getting there first, a little ahead of the curve, saving mankind, typically, an insignificant period of time before the next egghead stumbles upon this better mousetrap? I can’t think of any discovery or technology that would not have come to be, if not for the existence of one person. Heck, I believe even Bill Nye, the Science Guy would have stumbled upon the Theory of Relativity by now.
I’ll concede the premise that their bringing it about earlier than others could certainly have a significant effect on civilization for a period of time, but those consequences fade over time. Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, created when it was, changed Western Civilization a great deal. But what if it wasn’t developed until Police Academy actor, Steve Guttenberg, came along? Well, life between the 15th and 20th centuries would have played out much differently, of course—with a fading ripple effect extending a couple more centuries, perhaps. But, in a couple of millennia, there will surely be no lingering affect from the delay in printing. The same could be said for any other major scientific or technological discovery: They have a profound effect on civilization at the time of their discovery and beyond, but the lasting effects resulting from the time shift from when discoveries are actually made until the time they would inevitably be made by someone else, is insignificant.
The same goes for politicians, despots, warmongers or saviors. They may effect the world in very significant ways in their day and a little beyond (a “little beyond” may be a few millennia). Geographical borders change, shifts in populations occur, wars are waged, allegiances and alliances vacillate, religions come and they go. Civilization is resilient and is kept in check and balance by homeostatic mechanisms often entirely out of our control. The effects of Alexander the Great, Jesus, Attila the Hun, Hitler and George Bush will be mere footnotes in the History of the World Volume II, middle school history primer of the 10th millennia AD.
So…what’s left?
Art!
Art can be unique, it can last and it can be great. Art can touch people profoundly. Great art can touch great numbers of people profoundly for…ever. There’s a glut of art, an abundance of good art, a fair amount of great art. The greatest works of art, woefully, are in short supply. Can we even identify the very best in the world of art? Would I not be incredibly naïve and preposterously pompous to claim that I, Tibbytoes, can identify the single greatest artistic achievement known to mankind? Yes, Indeed, I would.
…I can, however, identify the three greatest artistic achievements known to mankind: Shakespeare’s, Hamlet; Michelangelo’s, David and Beethoven’s 9th symphony. I can also say, with authority, that the 9th symphony is the best of the three. Not only that, but in a thousand years Hamlet will be so out of context, it’ll be inconsequential; *David *will be rubble in ten thousand years…but, we’ll be in awe of the 9th well after we’ve speciated into beings barely recognized as ancestors to humans.
If an intelligent being from another planet asked me to demonstrate the best…of anything…our species had to offer, I would rummage though my man-purse (or whatever you call a big bag we he-men are allowed to carry), pushing aside the Koran and Bible (while explaining mankind’s contagious susceptibility to great deception), brushing aside the Holocaust tapes (while admitting mankind’s capacity for great barbarism), past copies of *Origin of Species, Principia Mathmatica, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, De Humani Corporis Fabrica *and *Relativity: The Special and General Theory *(while rhapsodizing over mankind’s unquenchable thirst for scientific truths); past schematics of a printing press, rocket ship and computer (while bragging of mankind’s nerdish proclivity for tinkering with marvels of engineering); I’d even toss aside a photo of Picasso’s *Les Demoiselles d’Avignon *and copy of *Richard III *(while describing mankind’s universal attraction to and woefully infrequent creation of great art—that thing that really transcends us from the beasts and makes us human, in the best of ways); I’d reach for my iPod, flipping past Britney Spears, John Tesh, the whole New Age Music genre (while lamenting mankind’s too frequent fetish for lowbrow gimmicks posing as art), click on Classical Music/Beethoven/Symphonies/No. 9/4th Movement, I’d place the earbuds into the alien’s ear canals, then click, “play”, saying, *“this is the best we’ve got, bub” *(I’m banking on it being ok to address alien beings informally). Assuming I don’t get raygun zapped for mistaking his ear canals for twin ani, I would fully expect the alien’s translated reply, after wiping away what I hope are it’s tears, to be something like, “yeah, that’s some awesome shit…we’ve got to wade through a lot of your crappy top forties broadcasts to find that one…who’s that conducting, Karajan?"