"Great Man Syndrome"

[Alice Bosley]

One of the ideas that stuck with me the most from our India seminar was an idea that Professor Carson brought up during one of the speeches on Martin Luther King that he gave during the trip- the idea of ‘Great Man Syndrome’. There’s a tendency for us to remember the “great man” that was at the head of a movement rather than the grassroots movement that occurred simultaneously. This has happened for Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, and it definitely happened for Gandhi and the freedom movement in India. Are we only remembering a very small part of the picture, or does a strong leader need to exist in order to have such effective nonviolent movements? Are we, by making these leaders into legends, making it impossible for this type of movement to happen again?

While I do believe that these leaders were instrumental in bringing about change, I think that the way our history books have remembered them makes it impossible for us to have another movement like it. By entirely forgetting the grassroots side of the operation, and by giving all of the credit to seemingly unworldly leaders, the history books have made it nearly impossible for other nonviolent movements of the sort to occur again. When asked whether they thought another nonviolent movement would be ending untouchability anytime soon, the Gandhian men at Gandhi’s ashram replied that no, only Gandhi could have made that happen. I’ve heard the same thoughts echoed when talking about poverty in cities and Martin Luther King Jr. Instead of initiating change, people are waiting for a great leader to come and initiate change for them. The freedom struggle and the Civil Rights movement were nothing except illustrations of how large groups of people working together can bring about huge changes in society, but the only thing that we focus on today are the faces of the movement- by doing so, we are crippling our own ability to enact change in the world.