Re: Message #492

"Had Mr. Gandhi been born Indochinese, he would surely have met his Maker much earlier than he did."

Ho Chi Minh

PsE,

There's a sci-fi short story with a similar theme--if Hitler had gone to India, Gandhi wouldn't have been nearly so successful. People forget that non-violent opposition depends on at least some level of humanity on the opposing side.

But I'd never heard that quote before--good one.

I thought P.Erasmus entered this thread to nominate himself?

Instead, he simply made a comment. Hmm. Too bad. I was just starting to warm up, the way a pianist warms up before the piano...to denounce such pomposity!

PTboya (Message #480)

There is no inconsistency in the two quotes of mine you cited. Einstein's influence was profound but not SUI GENERIS. And my point was to excise those whose contributions were great but whose birth wasn't indispensable to history.

As for the Michelson-Morley experiment and the inability to prove the existence of the aether, you really think that the biggest physics puzzle of the time wouldn't have been solved by someone other than Einstein? Come to think of it, Minkowski came close to a solution, and I don't see why he and other physicists / mathematicians could not have produced the equivalents of Einstein's "solutions".

boohab Message #491:

Please do me the favor of omitting Suharto from any discussion of the great men of the century. He's certainly shown he knows how to destroy a country, and so he does have a great impact on the world's fourth largest nation (and has for 33 years) but I just had my breakfast, and soon will go out and continue trying to survive in an eroding society... it's all a bit too close to home.

FTC:

Tell you what. Send me the stuff, and I'll create a page for it. Thanks for volunteering.

CalGal

> People forget that non-violent opposition

> depends on at least some level of humanity on the

> opposing side.

Many do, but I'm proud to note that my son recently wrote a report comparing the styles of Ghandi and Mao, and made that very point.

Come on, people.

G - A - N - D - H _ I

It's really not that difficult.

Irv,

*I* spelled it right (she said smugly).

And FTC, *you're* the pedantic one and consequently have no excuse.

Tsk, tsk.

And DON'T forget not to mispell

M I S S P E L L..........

Pedants unite!

Irv (and others)

A very tentative OK.

My intention is to have three categories.

1. Legitimate nominations for numero uno.

2. Nominations for top 100 (but not numero uno)

3. Nominations for top ranking in a specific field.

Obviously, #3 will have subcategories.

I intend to include who first mentioned the name, and I am mulling whether all seconds" should be acknowledged. I'm also thinking about the negative nominations (e.g. Madame X? No way), but I haven't decided how to handle it.

I realize some of the nominations, particularly the early ones, may not be clear on how they fit in, but we can take a stab and let people clarify if they wish.

CalGal

Funny, it didn't look right when I typed it. But I decided not to spend the time to check it because I had more important things to do.

Irv

sorry

As my mother would say, ten lashes with a wet noodle

FTC:

Wrt the spelling... it isn't just you. There are probably half a dozen who have misspelled Gandhi in this thread, including two on this page.

As for the nominations, I suggest:

• List all names nominated, and fit them into the categories you listed.

• Keep track of how often a name is mentioned (ie, how many different people agree on a particular name). This is better than merely keeping track of seconds.

• Ignore posters who disagree about a particular name ("no way!)... these people usually propose an alternate at the same time anyway.

Good luck!

FTC,

I don't think it's terribly relevant who first suggested any names. This is a group project where many people have been mentioning various candidates. Ultimately a vote will have to be taken on the nominees anyway, so perhaps it isn't even necessary to keep track of the number of times a name is mentioned right now. Save yourself some work where you can.

I agree with wabbit that you don't need to keep track of who mentioned a name, but I think it's important to keep track of how many times a nominated name is mentioned. We can later use this information to cull one-shots from the list.

PE...

"There is no inconsistency in the two quotes of mine you cited. Einstein's influence was profound but not SUI GENERIS." Oh, and Elvis's was? Puhleese!

Other Runners-Up: Dr. Benjamin Spock, Jonas Salk, Alexander Fleming, Bertrand Russell

Warning...Vorsicht...Pelegrio. I have been off those "Zombie medications" for 5-6 days now and it is becoming more and more obvious that I, Me, Moi am the most important person to show up in any goddamn century!! And if I hadn't missed the spaceship behind the comet well...I coulda' been the most important being to arrive in lots of other places by now, too!! (Gotta' go climb the telephone pole in my backyard again...great aerobic work-out PLUS it flushes out the old Steroids to make room for this new batch from Paraguay yesterday).Yes, I'm also talented beyond measure in the delicate art of Posey. Spring is here in Spades(a small joke for My amusement). Time to set out my Jimson Weed seedlings and Morning Glory pods. Hummingbird feathers are still worth their weight in Cannibis Sativa down Yucatan way...gotta write a few nore MADrigals (another 'bon mot' for fans and friends...my ass...bon mots for the Ages). My shark soufflé is to die for-literally. Stalin, Rasputin, Schikelgrüber...even the Worms are done with the-as in the Diet of Worms...ha,ha,

ha, ha, ha,- I kill me, but after 3 days in the dank, Hell..I'm better than new! Even my 'tan line' goes away..."Now is the month of Maying-

(Maying happens one month earlier in California for the Dazed an Confused)!

When Merry Lads Are Saying---falla,la,la,la

la, la,-fala la, la, la, la, la, etc." End tramsmission! As you were...maybe-Ha!

Is everyone 'Deep In the Heart of Taxes'?

(just payin' for Bill's dry cleaning and a few more aircraft carriers-double Ha)!

Azulu~con los grimas sangre Cristo! O.M.

(Obsidian Magician)

Aztec Cardiologists, Ltd.

Well, here's Time's take on it:

Theodore Roosevelt

Vladimir Lenin

Margaret Sanger

Mao Zedong

Winston Churchill

FDR

Eleanor Roosevelt

Adolf Hitler

Mohandas Gandhi

David Ben-Gurion

Ho Chi Minh

Martin Luther King

Khomeini

Margaret Thatcher

Lech Walesa

Ronald Reagan

Mikhail Gorbachev

Pope John Paul II

Unknown Rebel

Nelson Mandela

To the best of my memory, we only missed Mandela, the Rebel, Ben-Gurion, and the Pope. Everyone else was mentioned, I think.

They're splitting it up in categories, too. This is leaders and revolutionaries.

CG...

Very nuanced list, no?

Cal

Sent you a missive, but I am truly lost in this medium. Let me know if it did not take, and I'll try from work tomorrow (where I have a computer person who helps me with my fingers and thumbs). Good nite for real, Xena.

Stumbo: I almost mentioned Marshal Zhukov, but I have read less of his military expertise than I have of his political behavior. The other ones I know at least a little about. (Though any man with the guts to tell Stalin to stop meddling and let him get on with conducting the war probably had something going for him on the battlefield). His tactics, though, besides at Kursk, I'm not read up on.

CalGal:

We got Ben-Gurion and Mandela. Look back and see. Does Time have any order to their list?

Verdeazul, Message #518

I *wish* it was Maying here in upstate NY -- it won't happen here until June!

Irv,

Sorry, I was relying on memory. I just thought it was interesting that Time is doing the same thing we are.

Pseudo is ahead of the curve again. (I'm assuming he was throughout most of his educational career).

Irv,

No, there's no order and I *hate* it when Time does these stupid interactive click here shit.

(thus speaks a programmer, too).

It's very hard to read. I have to go home pretty soon this evening, so if I can get it figured out before then, I'll post about any order I see.

WabbitMessage #524

True. But if you manage to 'book' a Lake George Island for late May a week or two ahead of the Hordes...well...many years ago I counted 17 meteorites one night before falling asleep (interesting phrase. I must have 'fallen' several miles before morning without a scratch).

Thanks for your note. It would seem that people DO read my posts. I'm kinda used to being ignored because I've been here before. It must be awfully tough on 'lurkers', though. Many may have special insights to share but have been wounded by silence in the past.

(MAO by 4 lengths-$12.40, $8.00, $3.80).

Yep, verdeazul, you were certainly right about Mao's importance.

Verdeazul:

As you know, I always read (and enjoy) your posts. Mao definitely has a place on our list, but not the top spot.

CalGal,

In reference to your Message #519, which was the Time magazine list, we have mentioned everyone on the list, I think. My posting of Message #347 got them all except Margaret Sanger, Ho Chi Minh, and Khomeni. And resonance mentioned both Ho Chi Minh and Khomeni (and other military leaders) in Message #467.

Which msg mentioned Sanger ?

I think "The Unknown Rebel" is a cop-out. :-)

Oops. Correction. Upon looking at CalGal's note of the Time list again, I also missed Eleanor Roosevelt (I got FDR though).

Had we mentioned Eleanor earlier in our discussion?

Here's one that my fiancee says I should post: Dorothy Day, the founder of social work and the Catholic Worker Movement.

Here's what my Cambridge Biographical Encycl. has to say about her:

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) Writer and radical social reformer, born in NYC. A life-long Socialist, she worked in the NYC slums as a probationary nurse. Converted to Catholicism in 1927, she co-founded the monthly "Catholic Worker" in 1933. Under the influence of the French itinerant priest Peter Maurin (1877-1949), she founded the Catholic Worker Movement, which established 'houses of hospitality' and farm communities for people hit by the Depression. A pacifist and a fervent supporter of farm-worker unionization in the 1960s, she helped turn her Church's attention to peace and justice issues.

Does she warrant a slot somewhere in the Top 100?

One more thing. If Mandela gets on the list, does F W de Klerk get on there somewhere, too? What about Yassir Arafat and Itzhak Rabin? Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin?

Hey all,

I went and looked at the Time magazine page. From CalGal's note, I thought their choice of "The Unknown Rebel" was just a generalization of rebels of the century. However, on their Web site, they are specifically referring to the man who stood in front of the line of 17 tanks, alone, during Tienammen Square. Allegedly, his name is Wang Weilin, according to the article, although his eventual fate is unknown.

Hey,

I just wanted to say "thanks" and "cool!" to all of you for this discussion. I must say that I've learned a few new things as different posters have mentioned different choices for either Person of the Century or someone to go into the Top 100, that has forced me to go back and read up on some of these people, and thus increasing my knowledge and sense of history.

Very cool. I guess that's what the Internet is for, eh?

So, anyone ready for the Person of the Millenium debate? :-) :-)

peartree:

Margaret Sanger and Eleanor Roosevelt have been widely discussed in this thread, and the general consensus seems to be that they have been the two most important/influential women of the century.

If Sadat, Begin, Arafat, and Rabin haven't been mentioned, they should have been.

Let's not get started on the Person of the Millennium... we aren't done with this debate yet.

Irving:

If somebody like Eleanor Roosevelt, whose only real accomplishment in life was being an independent-minded, impressive president's wife, figures as one of the century's great women, then I think we can conclude that it has been a pretty empty century in terms of female representation in the historic stakes. (By the way, I'm still waiting to hear from you about the great female philosophers of the 20th century....)

Why have you chosen Arafat, Begin, Sadat and Rabin for the century list? Much as I liked Rabin, I don't see that any of them have been especially important one way or the other. Surely one has to go back to Ben-Gurion, Dayan or Nasser to find a crucial Mideastern figure.

Verdeazul, Message #527

Reading #518 was like a fraywalk through the mind of Molly Bloom!

Mao to show.

MrSocko:

I am no expert on Eleanor Roosevelt. Why don't you direct your question to the many who have nominated her in this thread?

I think the major players in the Mid-East peace process deserve at least an honorable mention when we're talking about the movers and shakers of this century, and I don't see how you can conceivably justify omitting them from consideration. Anwar Sadat in particular overcame great odds to achieve what he did.

Your earlier question to me was silly. I said that with increasing opportunities, we would find leading women in the fields of Math, the Sciences and Philosophy. You asked me who. Well, lacking a crystal ball, I can't tell you. But you can look at the faculty at any major university, and I am certain you will find women in each of these departments. I would also guess that women are publishing in academic journals in these fields as well.

And if all you wanted was a philosopher, why didn't you say so? Hannah Arendt is a prominent 20th century philosopher, and was the first woman professor at Princeton, Columbia and Berkeley.

Just a minute, Irving.

In your Message #187, you opined that there were -- present- and past-tense -- leading women in each of the fields I mentioned.

Since you obviously knew what you were talking about -- and since the point of this discussion is to find the century's greats -- I asked you in Message #325 if you could provide names. Remember that we're looking for century leaders, not merely individuals who were very good in their field.

What's so silly about that?

Wrt the Mideast -- given that the "peace process" has neither produced peace nor a process, I'd respectfully suggest that it's a little premature to number Arafat and Rabin as two of the century's greatest figures. And Anwar Sadat, bold though he might have been, was only making "peace" with a state his own country had repeatedly lost wars to. In any event, Egypt and Israel are only at peace in the technical sense of the term -- and that peace, such as it is, has never been seriously tested.

Finally, it's highly debatable whether Hannah Arendt was either a significant philosopher or a particularly important thinker.

Question to all: Could somebody explain to me why Eleanor Roosevelt is supposedly one of the 20th Century's greatest individuals? I've scrolled back through the thread and all I see repeated, mantra-like, is that she was a great person because people think she was great. Can anyone offer a few more specifics as to why she should be reckoned in the same breath as Stalin, Churchill, or for that matter her own husband? Or even Amy Earhart?

MrSocko:

First of all, It's *Amelia* Earhart.

Wrt my Message #187, I don't see how the word "are" indicates past tense... you subsituted the word "were" when you paraphrased me in Message #540. I was talking about the current state of affairs, in which you will find women active in each of the fields that you mentioned, and I indicated that this will only continue to grow in the future. I repeat my earlier observation Message #539: "you can look at the faculty at any major university, and I am certain you will find women in each of these departments. I would also guess that women are publishing in academic journals in these fields as well."

I am not speaking of people of the century in this instance, since women have not had these opportunites for very long. But at present and in the future, you will find women excelling in this fields.

I stand by my citation of Hannah Arendt. Please tell me why on earth you would find her achievements debatable, besides the fact that she had the temerity to excel in what was formerly a man's field.

Yikes! I've been reading too many Stan Gorsian posts!

...in these fields.

IRv --

You-d beter jenewfleck wen you even say STan-s name, you Turk. This is you last warinning.

Mrs. HC says Checkov should be the playwright of the century. (Just between you & me, I looked it up, he only wrote one play after 1900.)

Poor Mrs. HC.... We won't tell. But she has opened up a whole new topic for discussion: playwright of the century.

I nominate Samuel Beckett. (That's Samuel Becket to you, Socko.) Any other nominations?

Morning All

Calgal, that was a good list to post. Seems we are ahead of the curve here.

I also thought of another important thinker that influenced the struggle for civil rights: W.B. DuBois.

Socko

I mentioned Eleanor Roosevelt as an example of one of the few women who could even be considered as an influential figure in the 20th century. I'm not sure she meets the test when compared to some of the men we are discussing, but she is one of the FEW women who even get a possible mention.

I'm also not certain whether her influence was mainly cultural or political. I don't know enough about her political impact to say.

To justify Message #546:

No playwright fused the notions of modernism and absurdity more convincingly or affectively than Beckett. He showed us how language can be totally void of meaning, how individuals are needlessly interconnected, and how the mythos of history begs to be questioned.

With his celebrated silences...well, perhaps it's best to leave the rest unsaid.

dan -- I like Williams.

Certainly, Jacques Cousteau belongs in the top 100.

NASA. Apollo 11. The Moon.

JG -- The category is "persons" not "events". Armstrong would be the obvious pick, except for the fact that ever since, he's done everything he can to be uninfluential.

Holden is right that Jaques Cousteau should be in the top 100.

As should Anne Frank.

Coral -- I'm taken with your nomination of Anne Frank. Yes, for a number of reasons. The most important being the mere mention of her name takes the stench of dictators and murderers out of this thread.

Somebody tell me that M. Mead has already been mentioned!

HC:

She may have been on one of the fraud lists, where she belongs.

Irv -- Sorry, I was thinking of her influence; I didn't know "authenticity" was a requirement.

"Jaques Cousteau should be in the top 100." I nominate Rachel Carson for the list At least as influencial as Cousteau.

Emmy Noether is considered a great 20th century mathematician by 20th Century Standards by many in her field. Her field was Abstract Algebra. As far as I know her work had no practical application that would have gotten her mentioned in a newspaper. I do not think her work had a a major effect on society or altered the direction of mathematical research. I would like to be corrected if I am wrong on this.

Does no one think DuBois worthy? If need be I can make a case, but I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm.

Snodgrass, Message #542:

"I stand by my citation of Hannah Arendt. Please tell me why on earth

you would find her achievements debatable, besides the fact that she had the temerity to excel in what was formerly a man's field."

Well, pretty well everything she did was debatable. _Eichmann in Jerusalem_ is a shitty little book that for years has been roundly condemned by the Israeli scholarly community. This allegedly great Jewish work has never even been translated into Hebrew, and with good reason.

Ya'acov Lozowick, director of the archive at Yad Vashem, Israel's major Holocaust memorial, has pored over myriad documents that have survived from the infamous Department IV B 4 (which Arendt wrote about) and came the conclusion that the woman is a fraud and without merit in terms of being an historian.

This view is shared by Hans Mommsen, a professor emeritus of history at the University of the Ruhr, in Bochum, Germany. He says that she often got most of her facts wrong. She was not a trained historian. She lacked even the rudements of a methodical approach.

Arendt most famous phrase -- "the banality of evil" -- was cribbed from an editor at one her publishing houses, according to the Israeli historian Tom Segev.

Richard Cohen, a professor of Jewish history at the Hebrew University, has said that Arendt, in _Eichmann in Jerusalem_, presented her thesis "in a vicious and Manichaean way."

Do you really think that those of us who dislike Arendt are simply motivated by sexism? I mean, really, have you read her?

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the invention of the transistor. I would hesitate to nominate the actual inventors (Bardeen, Bratain, and Shockley), as this is probably one of those cases where somebody else was bound to make the discovery if they didn't. But I think the invention of the transistor should be considered the most important technological achievement of the century.

As to scientists, I think I would still side with Einstein. The importance of the discovery that mass inherently is energy and therefore can in principle be transformed into energy is one that has had enormous consequence for the 20'th century. Although he didn't embrace QM in its final form, his contributions to its initial development were quite significant.

Rick:

Carson has been nominated... a most worthwhile candidate.

lazygeorge:

Noether has been discussed... also a good choice.

Msit:

WEB Dubois certainly deserves consideration.

HC:

We have created the "frauds" category, which includes a number of people of exceptional influence.

rickc -- Rachel Carson has been mentioned, she's definitely one of the most important women of the century. However, as PE noted, would environmentalism have been inevitable anyway?

cllrdr -- yes, and I would put her high on the list myself.

Msit – WEB DuBois? Yes, I think he rates in the top 100, certainly above peartree's Milton Berle. ;)

George Orwell is up there, in literature, with the broader definition of literature, not just fiction.

Message #559 Noether's theorem, which essentially states that any conservation law is associated with symmetry and visa versa, is absolutely central to much of modern theoretical physics of the later half of this century (e.g. Standard model, Supersymmetry). But again, I suppose it would be argued that if she didn't come up with it, someone else would have.

If Hannah Arendt is to be entered into the pantheon of Women Of Achievement, then I nominate Bill Bryson for Most Distinguished Linguist.

(For anyone unfamiliar with Bryson, the above message was a joke.)

Here's a different way to slice the pie:

Icons: Unimpressive per se, they stand for something big: Anne Frank, Bill Gates.

In the Right Place at the Right Time: Or "Lucky", or "Historically Inevitable", but they seized the moment: Henry Ford, Ronald Reagan.

True Genius: Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein.

Anne Frank was not unimpressive. She was a budding great writer with true literary talent who's diary was expurgated and simplified in order to turn her into the towering symbol she became. If she lived, and her diary had not been found and used, it is highly likely she'd still be famous now.

I left off "Frauds".

HC:

I like your categories... let's keep 'em.

Bill Bryson was historically inevitable.

WRT - Playwright of the Century

I think a case could be made for Chekhov even though (as has been noted) only one of his plays was written in the 20th Century.

Just to quibble a bit first, my sources say that The Three Sisters received its first performance by MAT in 1901. So while it was written just prior to the turn of the century it was not performed until after. Also, Uncle Vanya was first performed (as Uncle Vanya) in 1899. So one could say that, technically, three of his plays belong to this century even by strict definition.

But beyond all the dating, Chekhov is arguably the most significant playwright (in terms of the influence he has had on succeeding playwrights) since Shakespeare. His influence has certainly been wholly felt in the 20th Century and so his nomination is appropriate.

FWIW - on Beckett. He is certainly the apex of the convergence of existentialist thought and the drive to strip theatre down to its "essential elements" and as a representative of the absurdists he stands up very well. I would include Ionesco (with Beckett) for two reasons. First, his major works precede Beckett's by a few years. Second (and more importantly) Ionesco did not display the same brilliance of dialogue as Beckett and yet his stage images are just as powerful. IOW, Ionesco was just as capable of smacking the audience directly in the forehead as Beckett, but he did it with action and situation much more than he did it with cleverly written thoughts.

And as much as I love Tennessee Williams, I would never include him in the same company as Chekhov, Beckett or Ionesco.

If we want influential or important people from the arts, the winner should probably be Steven Spielberg. His movies have reached more people throughout the world than the Bible!

Not that I would call Spielberg the "Person of the Century" by any stretch. But he certainly must overshadow any playwrite, novelest, poet, or composer.

This brings up an interesting aspect of the Stalin / Hitler / Lenin discussion. It seems to me that we cannot count one historic figure's influence on another historic figure. For example, the contributions of Stalin or Lenin that were enabled by Hitler must be credited to Stalin or Lenin as appropriate. We must assume that a person's effects are on the world that gets dumpen in their lap, no matter who did the dumping.

This in mind, I would put Hitler ahead of any of the other "bad guys" just as much for his failure as for his success. Consider the successful transformations Hitler worked when he took over Germany, and the world we might live in today if he had not turned into a lunatic. The mind of Hitler probably shaped the 20th century more than any other.

"Not that I would call Spielberg the "Person of the Century" by any stretch. But he certainly must overshadow any playwrite, novelest, poet, or composer."

Hopefully the knowledgeable vote won't be based on revenue generated.

Person of the Century?

How about Jonas Salk? Or Thomas Edison?

Another top-100 person -- along the lines of Cousteau and Frank -- might be Bertrand Russell.

Hey Ms -- I'm with you on DuBois. But to continue with Anne Frank a moment, it seems to me she did something no one else has managed --to truly defeat Hitler. Her words conquer death, and continue to bring life to us all.

I'd like to add a category....influential religious leaders

I'd like to place two names in nomination first Pope Pious XXII and second mother Theresa........pope pious for his modernization of the Catholic Church and Mother Theresa for her amazing works of Charity.

DocBrown: do you think it makes a difference to Hitler's individual importance if what he did was actually the product of a growing trend in Germany and not wholecloth of his imagination?

The richest American just got richer Friday, surpassing the $50 billion mark.

A surge in Microsoft Corp.'s share price pushed Bill Gates' net worth to $50.37 billion, based on the number of shares in his possession as of the company's 1997 annual report. Microsoft closed at $93, up $1.68.

From ZDNN News www.3.zdnet.com

Coral, cudos on the Russell mention. However, to me the most influential person has to be either the Arch Duke Ferdinand, or more likely, the guy who assassinated him. The assassination touched off WWI; the Treaty of Versailles which ended it was so onerous to Germany that it brought about the conditions in which Hitler could thrive. So (anyone know the assassin's name?) it seems the trigger man of the Arch Duke becomes the most influential.

sorry typo in my post #580 that should be pope pios XII

he was instramental in helping many jews escape the nazi regime...it was estamated that over 1/2 a million jews were helped to escape by the catholic church in fact the world jewish council gave a large donation to the church in appreciation after the war, the pope himself housed many jews in castle gonholf.

jews

Jewish people around the world wrote letters of thanks.......He should be acknowledge for his leadership in trying to save the Jewish race from extinction ..........short of raising an army he could not of done more.

In addition to his other accomplishments, harry truman also integrated the US armed forces.

racially integrated, that is.

Everybody should be 'person of the century'. That way, *nobody* loses!

The assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a Serbian separatist named Gavrilo Princip (I may have the spelling a bit wrong).

However, that seems to me to be going back a bit far into minutae. Surely WWII was the defining event of the entire century in that it absorbed everything that went before it and set up the circumstances that influenced how everything happened after it. Now, while the Allies' shortsightedness after WWI certainly created many of the conditions that led to Hitler's rise to power in the late 20s and 30s I don't think it could be argued that WWI *by itself* made WWII inevitable.

BTW - I agree with those who have argued that Hitler was the most influential person of the century - for good or bad - but only because he was so instrumental in making WWII come about and it was that war which defines this century.

However, I would prefer that a single choice of person of the century reflect a more positive influence.

Um, just curious, Doc: at what point, by your estimation, did Hitler "turn into" a lunatic? (Message #575)

Re. 590 -

Before he wrote 'Mein Kampf' in 1925 or so, I'm sure.

I don't think Hitler rates being the most influential person of the 20th century. First of all, to say he is requires a pretty Eurocentric attitude. I would actually put FDR or Stalin ahead of Hitler, in the political arena.

I think it was in 1945, when he allowed Goebbels to requisition troops from the front to work as extras on the enormously expensive epic "Kolberg." Berlin was surrounded by the time the film premiered. Prints had to be dropped from the air. After that the film wasn't seen again until the Reich ended. Talk about your Kevin Costner bombs! Slaughtering 6 million Jews, which came a bit earlier, was rather rash of him as well.

Oh yes, and another thing. Do you know about "Titanic"? No, not the bane of Kenny Turan, but the 1943 Third Reich epoch starring Sybille Schmitz (the prototype for Fassbinder's "Veronika Voss") and sort-of directed by Herbert Selpin. I say "sort of," because three quarters of the way through production, Selpin was overheard saying something politically incorrect about the Gestapo. He was arrested on the set, taken away, and hung. Talk about your "creative differences!"

Those who had to clean up the mess left after Hitler, and put things back together, probably deserve the most consideration as person of the century.

Undoubtedly Hitler turned into a lunatic when Dick Shawn (aka LSD) was chosen to play him.

"Goebbels, Goebbels... where's my little Joe!?"

JoeZ -

I have repeatedly trumped your nomination of Spielberg with my own nomination of Walt Disney, who is surely Speilberg's most important influence in terms of artistic content, marketing, and style and greatly supercedes him in terms of icon-making, wealth and influence, not to mention the influence that the Disney theme parks have had on architecture and urban planning. FWIW, I think his influence is mostly perfidious, though certainly not monstrous on the Hitler/Stalin level.

I repeat my challenge for any fraygrant to name a more influential artistic/showbiz figure.

Phil:

In light of your challenge, I'll posit the Lumiere Brothers for inventing the motion picture camera, and changing the mediascape immeasurably. Granted, their invention was a scant few years before 1900, so it may not count.

Good one, Kurt, although we may have to DQ on a technicality. What are the rules for acheivements before the century turned that had immense effect on how the century turned out? The Chekov contraversy doesn't seem to have been resolved, or we could take that as a precedent.

FWIW, I think that if it is decided in favor of Chekov for Playwright of the Century, the Loomies will definitely take the media/showbiz category.

Personally, I think Hitler needs to come down a peg or two here, not for the reason that it's all too easy to mass murder. When you look at the world today, the way it is, who's ideas have prevailed? Truman set the stage for the peace and Americanization we now take for granted.

Oh, and he also started GATT.

back
next

home