In this solo lecture, Connor Beaton introduces Thomas Carlyle’s 19th‑century Great Man Theory, which claims that history is driven by rare, innate individuals whose vision and will shape civilization. Beaton outlines Carlyle’s two core assumptions: (1) great leaders are born, not made, emphasizing nature over nurture; and (2) imitation—conscious emulation and refinement of a predecessor’s traits—is the engine of historical progress. He likens this process to reusable code that is copied, improved, and adapted. Shifting from theory to practice, Beaton urges viewers to deliberately select and study role models, both historical (e.g., Marcus Aurelius) and contemporary (e.g., Dewey Freeman), to inform their own development. He stresses that heroes need not be perfect; studying them with nuance and discernment allows one to adopt their strengths while recognizing flaws, preventing blind idolization. Throughout, he frames the discussion as a masculine self‑improvement guide, concluding with a typical YouTube call‑to‑action.
Chapters
Today we are going to be talking about the Great Man Theory. And instead of talking about who the great men throughout human history are, I'm going to be giving you a guide to the men that are worth studying and kind of form a case for why you should study them and how, how to go about identifying this and really taking a deeper understanding of how the men that you have admired throughout your life have fundamentally formed Your view points to a little bit more of a controversial but powerful idea, in my opinion, known as the Great Man Theory of History. And it's an idea that was proposed by the 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle, who argued that the history of the world is at its core the biography of great men. Now, that might immediately ruffle some feathers, and that might immediately cause you to squirm or dislike, uh, what has just been said. But remember, we're talking about a historian's perspective. You don't have to buy it. But let's keep going. According to Carlyle, history isn't shaped by the anonymous masses. It's shaped by rare individuals, heroes we might say, whose vision, will, determination, and genius have moved and influenced civilizations forward. But this isn't just a history lesson. So what makes a great man? This is something that Carlyle was very, very interested in. Carlyle built his theory around 2 core assumptions. The first is that great leaders are born, they're not made. Now, this is something that is kind of flies in the face of today's perspective, right? He emphasized nature over nurture. He didn't believe that exceptional men were sort of honed and fostered and developed. He actually believed that these men possessed innate traits, vision, courage, decisiveness, that allowed them to act when other people would hesitate. Carlyle's other point was that imitation is what really moves history, and imitation and kind of modeling is part of the masculine psyche, is maybe the terminology we'd use today, but it's an important aspect of male development, both individually, socially, and culturally, right? Alexander the Great reshaped warfare for centuries. Napoleon revolutionized artillery and made military strategy in ways that still to this day have defined modern war. These men didn't just act, they weren't just random, they created and set standards and patterns that would permeate through culture, society, and would really influence men for years, decades, and sometimes even centuries to come. And those patterns were copied. Those patterns get refined. Those patterns get repeated. And Carlyle believed that imitation was really the engine of history, right? This is where you can kind of think of, uh, in programming, you have a code, you have a base foundational code that can get imitated but then improved. It can get repeated, uh, but then sort of adapted into a new manner that gets improved on. So it's not blind copying, but it's conscious emulation and a drive to improve on the greatness of successors, of the people that are sort of predecessors, the people that have come before you. So the question isn't whether or not heroes exist. The question is, which ones are you studying by default, and what are you learning from their lives, because whether you choose them consciously or not, you are becoming someone by having studied them. So you have to choose wisely. So how do you implement this? What do you do with all this information? I think the big piece is my encouragement for you is to go out and study some of the greats. I remember in university reading Marcus Aurelius, and here was a man who, you know, Had a very interesting life, very interesting course. And his way of being, his thought process, his self-reflection, his ability to, you know, his sort of dedication to the expansion of awareness, of trying to really understand the complexity and the nuance of the human experience in his writing, was something that fundamentally shifted who I was as a man. And I remember reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and thinking to myself, wow, I really hope that when people are interacting with me later on in life, when I'm in my 70s and my 80s, that I have the level of depth and I have the level of nuance and sophistication in thought. And I have the level of self-reflection to be able to know and have a deep grasp of what is happening inside of me, why I think that way, why I made that decision. And I hope that that comes across to people, that the life that I've lived has moved me in that direction. And it actually gave me an aim to point towards. And I've had many different versions of that. There's a man in my life right now, he's 75 years old, his name's Dewey Freeman. I've had him on my show, I've co-facilitated weekends with him. He's supported my development as a practitioner. And he's somebody that I remember watching him work the first time. And he kind of took on a heroic figure in my life because I immediately saw that he was living his life I immediately thought to myself, same thing, wow, I hope that when I'm 50, 60, 70 years old, I have the level of skill as a practitioner that this man does. So we have to be able to develop some relationship with heroes in our life, real-life men or men of history that we can study and that we can learn from. And again, it's not about them being perfect. I think this is the biggest thing. Whoever you look up to, In your life, whatever men you have in your life, whether they're online, whether they are in real life, whether they're men from history, it's not about them being perfect. It's actually good that you're able to study them with nuance. You're able to study them with a kind of discernment to really have reverence and admiration for the aim that they can create for you as a man, that there's something about them. Yeah. their stability, their genius, their influence, their level of success, whatever it is, that it creates a trajectory for you as a man, but that you do not blind yourself to their imperfections. This is why, you know, constantly I'm trying to talk about my own imperfections, because I never want people to put me on a kind of pedestal and imagine that I don't have flaws, that I don't have imperfections, because that's just not true. It's just not how that works, right? I'm still human. I still make mistakes. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And as always, until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.
