Globally, who is the most revered political figure of the present era?
If you ask this question of a random sample of Americans, Americanized Europeans, etc, etc, a significant percentage will say: “Nelson Mandela.” Moreover, and more important, almost all of those who chose someone else will agree that, yes, “Nelson Mandela” is a perfectly good answer to this question.Try this experiment: get a friend of yours to agree with this statement. Then say: “okay. Now, pretend I’m an alien. To Planet Earth, I have just now come! And I don’t know anything about Nelson Mandela. Really. Nothing at all. You say: Nelson Mandela is the most revered figure of the present political era. So tell me: who was Nelson Mandela? And what did he do?”
Although this objection may produce some elaboration, the odds are overwhelming that the first answer you receive will be phrased in entirely magical terms. For example, your friend might say: “Nelson Mandela led his people to freedom.”
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Surely, if Mandela is the greatest political leader of the era, through his own personal initiative he must have brought much better government to millions of people. Surely, if one sought an objective determination of the effect of changes in government on some group or groups X, you would say: did group or groups X experience better government under the old regime, or the new regime? Furthermore: was this result, if surprising, surprising to the entirety of humanity? Or were there some predicted it? If so, who were these accurate predictors?Anyway. Nelson Mandela is not the subject of this post. But the point is: your friend actually knows nothing about Nelson Mandela, the historical figure. He cannot answer any of these questions.
What he knows is Nelson Mandela, the magical figure. He is experiencing history via magic. Nelson Mandela is not really a historical figure to him; Nelson Mandela is simply a saint in his TV-age religion, which like all major religions practices magical thinking. I urge you to cease and desist from this practice. It is detrimental to the neurons. You will feel much better when you are all done with it.