History often presents progress as a procession led by “great men”— the inventors, the visionaries, the pioneers — without whom, we are told, civilisation would still be stumbling in the dark, guided only by instinct and stars.
It is easy to believe in the myth of “greatness” because it offers us someone to look up to. A singular figure onto whom progress can be projected. Over time, these men become symbols guiding civilisation from perceived darkness toward imagined light.
There is truth in this reverence. But reverence has a way of blurring judgment. When achievement hardens into myth, what happens to accountability? And how much are we willing to overlook in the name of greatness, acts that would otherwise be deemed unacceptable if committed by someone ordinary?
The “Great Man” myth reduces history to a handful of towering figures, crediting progress to their intellect, ambition, and force of personality. It treats success as proof of virtue and influence as evidence of merit. In doing so, it quietly shifts the moral equation, where contribution outweighs conduct, and the scale of achievement determines how much transgression can be absorbed.
The myth reveals itself most clearly in the way we remember men after their achievements have been canonised. Pablo Picasso is celebrated as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, his genius dissected endlessly in museums and textbooks. Far less attention is given to his well-documented misogyny and treatment of the women in his life, details often dismissed as personal flaws, irrelevant to his art.
Similarly, George Washington is revered as a founding father and the first president of the United States, a symbol of liberty and nationhood. Yet his legacy is inseparable from his role as a slave owner, an uncomfortable truth frequently softened or relegated to footnotes.
Closer home, Mahatma Gandhi is remembered as the Father of the Nation, a moral compass for India’s freedom struggle. But his views on Africans, women, and even modern medicine complicate this reverence, raising questions that are now increasingly being met with reflection rather than defensiveness.
The danger of the “Great Man” myth is not that it celebrates achievement, but that it shields the influential. Once greatness is accepted as fact, scrutiny begins to feel like sacrilege.
a. Achievement as alibi
Achievement often becomes an alibi. When a man is credited with steering civilisation toward progress, his moral failures are reframed as necessary trade-offs, and the harm caused is softened into “collateral damage”, regrettable, but rarely disqualifying.
Consider Winston Churchill, widely remembered for his leadership during the Second World War and for rallying Britain against Nazi aggression. That legacy, however, exists alongside far less examined decisions- most notably during the Bengal famine of the 1940s, when policies under British rule contributed to widespread starvation in colonial India. The deaths of millions are often treated as a tragic footnote to wartime leadership rather than as a moral failure deserving equal scrutiny.
b. Legacy over life
“Think of what he’s done for the world” is often the first line of defence when scrutiny begins to surface. Legacy becomes a shield, invoked not to contextualise harm, but to outweigh it. The sum of a man’s achievements is presented as greater than the damage left in their wake, as though contribution grants moral credit that can be endlessly drawn upon.
In this framing, lives affected by abuse, exploitation, or neglect are reduced to unfortunate deviations in an otherwise remarkable story. Harm is minimised, postponed, or reframed as insignificant when measured against innovation, leadership, or nation-building. The question quietly shifts from what was done to what remains and legacy is allowed to speak louder than lived experience.
What gets lost in this exchange is not history, but humanity. When remembrance prioritises monuments over people, greatness is preserved at the cost of accountability and the individuals who bore the consequences are asked, implicitly, to accept erasure in service of a larger narrative.
c. Proximity bias
The closer someone stands to power, the more implausible accusations against them begin to feel. Reverence dulls suspicion. Doubt is replaced with disbelief. This is the quiet work of the “Great Man” myth or, more accurately, the myth of greatness itself, which extends beyond men to anyone elevated beyond ordinary moral scrutiny.
Consider Mother Teresa, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and one of the most venerated humanitarian figures of the twentieth century. Her legacy is built on compassion and selfless service. Yet accounts from former volunteers, journalists, and medical professionals describe conditions in her care homes marked by inadequate hygiene, lack of basic medical treatment, and the deliberate discouragement of pain relief, rooted in her belief that suffering brought one closer to God. This, despite the millions of dollars her organisation received in donations.
These critiques rarely enter mainstream remembrance. They are often dismissed as irreverent, misinformed, or hostile because questioning someone so close to moral authority feels almost profane. And so accountability dissolves, not through denial of harm, but through the sanctification of intent.
Behind every enduring myth lies collective belief. The “Great Man” narrative does not survive on achievement alone; it is sustained by generations who accept it, repeat it, and pass it on through textbooks, biographies, films, and folklore, until it settles comfortably into both history and imagination.
The romanticising of “greatness” is often what prevents deeper scrutiny. Stories are curated to inspire, not to interrogate. Contradictions are softened, omissions justified, and discomfort edited out in favour of coherence. Over time, this selective storytelling transforms individuals into symbols, and symbols into truths that feel too foundational to question.
In this process, critique begins to feel like disruption rather than inquiry. To question a revered figure is framed as cynicism, ingratitude, or an inability to appreciate nuance. And so the myth persists, not because it is wholly accurate, but because it is culturally convenient. It offers clarity in place of complexity, heroes instead of systems, and admiration instead of accountability.
What we inherit, then, is not just history, but a carefully polished version of it, one that asks us to remember greatness, while quietly teaching us what to forget or overlook.
The cost of greatness is rarely paid by those celebrated for it. It is borne by the powerless, through the erosion of dignity, and sometimes through the loss of life itself. Their suffering is not accidental; it is absorbed into systems that prioritise outcomes over individuals.
This logic is not new. The Manhattan Project, often remembered as a triumph of scientific brilliance that helped bring an end to the Second World War, is inseparable from the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of them women and children, bore the consequences of a breakthrough they neither chose nor consented to. Their deaths were framed as tragic, yet necessary; their lives folded into a narrative of progress, victory, and inevitability.
When harm is justified as “collateral damage,” humanity is reduced to abstraction. Lives become numbers, suffering becomes strategy, and moral responsibility is deferred in service of a greater good. This is where the myth of greatness becomes most dangerous- when it teaches us to accept devastation not as a failure of ethics, but as the price of advancement.
But myths do not remain intact forever. With time comes distance, and with distance, perspective. What once felt untouchable slowly becomes examinable. The reverence softens, the urgency fades, and questions that were once dismissed as inconvenient begin to surface.
It is in this distance that the skeletons emerge, not as acts of betrayal, but as long-delayed truths. Narratives shift because the world shifts with them. What was once defended at all costs can now be interrogated without fear of destabilising the present. The achievements of the past, though still significant, lose their immediacy; they no longer feel revolutionary enough to justify silence.
In this moment of reckoning, societies often congratulate themselves for finally confronting uncomfortable histories. But the question remains: when accountability arrives only after relevance has faded, after power has diminished, and after those harmed have lived entire lives without redress, can it still be called justice?
Perhaps the real danger is not that great men get away with everything, but that we mistake greatness for exemption, then and now. We fail to question power when it matters most, when there is still time to correct wrongs and when justice could still reach those who bear its absence. In choosing reverence over scrutiny, we defer accountability until it is no longer disruptive.
By the time admiration begins to fade, the structures built around it are already firm. And power, once consolidated, does not simply dissolve when belief weakens. When reverence is no longer enough to sustain authority, something else steps in to hold it together.
To find out, read here- The Politics of Fear
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