Who are the great minds? What makes a great mind? Thought? Action? It’s a question I think about a bit. There are many people that are looked up to in our society but they are not worthy of a place of reverence in any shape what-so-ever. Christopher Columbus jumps to mind. It is taught even today what a great man he was because of his exploration of the “new world”. What is ignored is that the motive for this exploration was greed and he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands and the complete erasure of certain indigenous societies. When I started to read more about Columbus, in various history books, I quickly came to the conclusion that he was not a great man in any stretch unless of course you also identify Adolph Hitler as a great man. This also points to the fact that we Americans (I can’t really speak to the propensities of other cultures) tend to make sweeping judgement based on narrow circumstances. As an example we equate “discovering America” with greatness. Never mind the fact that people already lived here when Columbus arrived or the fact that the Chinese, among possible others, probably knew about the North American continent long before Columbus was even born. We don’t take any of the other facts of Columbus’ actions into account when identifying him as “great”.
I think we should stop applying a sense of good or evil into words that are meant to relate size or magnitude of impact. Words do matter and we should spend a little time learning about there meaning. One of our problems today is relating to times when people did understand the minute differences in words and how to use them properly. We have this problem with the documents that founded this very country. Debate goes on and on about what these documents (The US Constitution for one) mean. The “great” men that wrote these documents had a different command of our language than we do. Yes, it is true that over time words can and do take on different meanings but we aren’t talking about stuff that was written a thousand years ago. Not only did these “great” men have a more proficient knowledge of our own language but they were also flawed human beings. Thomas Jefferson was not only the architect of the Declaration of Independence but also a slave holder and some might say a hypocrite because of that fact. Greatness here in this case comes more from Jefferson’s impact on the formation of the United States than any sense of innate goodness in him. Any one of the founding fathers could easily get caught in this paradigm. We equate goodness were our real idea is one of impact and our own perspective of worth in some of their deeds. I’m sure King George III thought of our heroes as revolting bastards.
What does all of this mean? I have no idea. As with all things based on opinion, this has no greater or lesser worth than the rants of any other moron with a blog on the internet. I can only hope that if nothing else, this becomes the impetus of learning for myself or someone else. Not that I am some learned statesman with a wealth of knowledge to share but that I have some knowledge that may be correct or incorrect and if I don’t share what I think I know there is less of a chance that I will be able to learn more about it or anything else for that matter. I try and use the exercise of writing to not only practice writing but to also help myself figure out my own thoughts on certain subjects. It is the times that I speak aloud or write and idea down that it dawns on me just how stupid that idea might be. I generally like those times to be as private as possible since I don’t like to reveal to the general public just how big of a dumb-ass I can be at times but circumstances being what they are I have little control over where and when I discover my own propensity for dumb-ass-edness. Is that a word?
Random thought for today. If you think violence in music is a new thing, it isn’t. Ever listened to the words of “Mac the Knife”? Yes, yes, there are much older examples of this sort of thing but it’s just one of those songs that has such upbeat music that I think people don’t even realize what the song is about.
