Why ‘great man theory’ is a bad idea – even for men

For hundreds of years, men had a monopoly on preaching about the meaning of life. It is perhaps no coincidence that the goal of outdoing one’s neighbour holds a strong grip on the collective imagination.

From Alexander the Great to Steve “Do great work” Jobs, we have popularised the notion that the very point of our existence is to muscle ourselves into positions of pre-eminence. What would our world look like if we listened to more women philosophers?

Valerie Tiberius gives us a hint in her book What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters. While she is quick to point out that belief systems are not gender-specific, there is a dearth of books “about living a good life that is from a woman’s point of view”, she writes.

“When I’ve heard white men talk about a midlife crisis, for example, it tends to be about coping with not being the Great Men they were told they would be. No one ever thought I would be a Great Man, so this hasn’t been an issue for me.”

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Tiberius, a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, analyses the subject with cheerful informality and wit. Hers must be the only work of philosophy that quotes not only Immanuel Kant but also Popeye the Sailor Man. Her basic theory is that people are “goal-seekers” and that this creates internal tension, as our goals conflict with one another. The solution is to focus on higher goals, or what she calls values. “Conflict among goals prevents us from fulfilling our values and therefore from living good lives. I want to show how identifying our values helps us to manage our conflicts so that they don’t hurt us.”

This rather humble approach contrasts with the all-too-common assumption that “winning at life” is about building empires or blowing things up, either with actual weapons or by being a “disrupter”. It should be said that the “great man theory” – the idea that exceptional individuals matter more than the rabble – has both male and female proponents: Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand are probably the two most prominent of modern times.

Rand’s books are all about fighting against the crowd and doing battle with lesser beings. Instead of war metaphors, however, Tiberius turns to gardening, whereby “life is a garden, our goals are plants, and our values are the plants we care most about”.

[ If you saw a person hurt lying on the ground, would you be a good Samaritan or, like many, walk on by? ]

There is a tradition of writing about the meaning of life, associated with certain male philosophers, that promotes the goal of achieving greatness. Has that skewed our approach to the topic?

Valerie Tiberius: “I don’t think there’s a separate theory of wellbeing and meaning for men and one for women. I think at a certain level of generality it’s the same for all of us ... but I do think, what you say about ‘the great man theory’, there certainly have been some women who that tradition resonates with. But I think there are a lot of women for whom the thought that what you do in life is to achieve greatness in one thing, and leave your mark on the world, that [idea] is a little bit foreign.

“The truth is it’s not [all] male philosophers who have written in that vein but rather a pretty specific set of men. They have been, by and large, white, English speakers, fairly privileged, wealthy, well educated. So it could be that there are a lot of people in the world that ‘the great man theory’ doesn’t resonate with terribly well.

“One thing I would say about how that [theory] leads out is it doesn’t give enough importance to relationships. So you can leave your mark on the world, as many artists have, and sacrifice your family to those goals, and I think for a lot of people in the world – maybe especially a lot of women in the world – that’s not a good life.

“The other thing is, for a lot of people trying to accomplish these goals, there is a struggle because the world is not helping you.”

Your approach seems to be almost a reverse of the ‘great man’ philosophy. Instead of emphasising stamping one’s authority on others, you advocate trying to avoid hurting oneself – such hurt being caused by neglecting one’s values. It seems a modest philosophy, if that’s the right word.

“I like that word. I couldn’t say that about myself, obviously, because that would be very immodest. But I take that as a compliment. Thank you.

“Some people find it quite disappointing because I often get this response: people say, ‘If value fulfilment is the ultimate goal, shouldn’t we just pick the values that are easiest to get, and to deal with conflict, just cut out all the others?’ And I want to say: that just misses the point. Because the goal is not to achieve everything you can with respect to one valuable thing but to take the values that you have and make them liveable for yourself, which often does mean at least modifying, maybe lowering, your standards in certain domains so these [different goals] can fit together in a life.”

[ The Good-Enough Life: Stop trying to be great in your work, relationships and politics ]

You describe this tension between goals in your own life, and identify a desire to please others as a ‘hidden goal’ that can be problematic. How do you know when a particular goal or value should be revised?

“I think sometimes what you realise, when you are engaged in that sort of process, is that you’ve put too much stock in one value. You realise what I’ve been telling myself I value – pleasing other people – that’s not really it; that’s not compatible with my other values. What I really value is being a nice person, or being kind or considerate or listening to other people; that’s something I can work with and can weave into the fabric of my other values without too much conflict.

“So sometimes you realise it’s a matter of priority but other times it’s a matter of giving the wrong picture of what it is that you really care about.

“Also, I should say in lots of my previous work I talk about the importance of not being too reflective. It’s not a good thing to constantly second-guess yourself all the time and ask ‘How are my values now?’ or ‘How am I doing?’ because that can become pathological, and prevent you from actually doing the things it takes to fulfil the values to get any joy from them.”

Is there a danger this all collapses into relativism? If my goal is to scam other people out of their money, for example, how can you make a case I’m on the wrong path?

“There is some room for making a case that you’re on the wrong path but that room is always going to be connected to you ... I can point out internal inconsistencies. So I can say: you want to scam people but you also have these relationships with people who you care about – can’t you see there’s a tension there?

“For me the critique of another person’s values has to be relative to that person. So it is a relativistic theory in that sense – what’s good for your sake. But if we’re talking about what’s morally good that’s a whole different question, and then things aren’t relativistic.”

What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters, by Valerie Tiberius, is published by Princeton University Press