The Greatly-Leveraged Man Theory of History

I am currently taking a course on English history from 1529 to 1660 (approximately), and one of the main focuses has been on the path of the English Reformation. Right now I'm doing some research for an essay on that topic, in particular by reading about the Reformations in other European countries as points of comparison. And the overall impression I get is that, by and large, the political disposition of a given country followed the inclination of that country's monarch. There are exceptions: Protestantism flourishing in Scotland under Mary Stewart's reign and surviving in England through the bloody years of Mary Tudor, and conversely failing in Ireland despite having the support of the English overlords. But by and large it seems that the personal inclination of the actual monarch played an enormous role in determining the religious fate of each country, that just about everyone in 16th century Europe knew this, and that the exceptions to the rule tend to feature pretty substantial countervailing dynamics (e.g., in Ireland Protestantism became associated with conquest and imperialism, Catholicism with nationalism and resistance).

Now, saying things like this, or for example "the English Reformation was caused by Henry VIII," sounds sort of like the "great man" theory of history, which glorifies (and/or vilifies) a handful of supposedly extremely important people who supposedly changed the course of everything simply by being so Great (or Terrible). The divide between this approach and the antithesis of its approach can be seen in the following analysis of the rise of the conservative Republican Party in America: "the conservative movement succeeded because it had such a formidable champion in Ronald Reagan" versus "the conservative movement was a decades-in-the-making cultural shift that would have found substantial success with any decently competent leader." And "great man" analysis is extremely unfashionable right now, and for basically sound reasons. I'd say in the case of the American political history analysis I just offered, the latter explanation is basically the correct one. It really isn't just kings and princes and Presidents who shape history, the great masses of not-in-power people are at least as important as the handful who rule.

But I also think that there is such a thing as power, and that some people throughout history have had a lot of power and have used it in unusually consequential ways not because they were particularly impressive people but because they happened to have power. Think of it as not being so much about the qualities of the person but about the situation they find themselves in. We can borrow a concept from baseball here, that of "leverage," or the relative importance of each situation to the overall outcome. If Randy Johnson started for the Diamondbacks against the Giants circa 2001, the at-bats in which he pitched to Barry Bonds would've featured arguably the "greatest" possible match-up possible in that year. But the game might have been determined by the Diamondback's weak-hitting shortstop facing some Giants middle reliever in the 8th inning with runners on base and a tie ballgame, or whatever. The cast of characters involved was more mediocre, and the result itself may have been eminently mediocre, an RBI groundout to score the winning run or something instead of a dominant strikeout or a majestic home run. But that result, because of the situation, would become leveraged into a far greater impact on the final victory or defeat than it, in a sense, deserved. But that doesn't mean it wasn't important! Modern statistical analysis of sports has helped de-emphasize the perception of some players as "clutch" just because they happened to do well in one or two extremely high-leverage situations, but that doesn't mean that what happens in those high-leverage situations doesn't tend to determine the game.

Suppose you have a country with a lot of people, each of whom has to choose between Catholicism and Protestantism, and one of whom is the king. We don't need to assume that the king is any different from any of his subjects to see that his decision might be a bit more importance. Certainly broad societal and structural factors play substantial roles even in influencing the monarch's own decision, but that doesn't mean the monarch is entirely constrained. If Queen Elizabeth had happened to die early in her reign, Mary, Queen of Scots would likely have inherited the English throne. And she was a Catholic. And she might well have lived as long as Elizabeth did or longer, and she might well have been able to do what Mary Tudor had failed at and properly restored Catholicism to England. Viewing history as contingent upon the quirks of who exactly happens to be in positions of power at particular times does not force upon us the view that these people were unusually great, or that they in any way deserved or earned their positions of historic influence. They may have done, or they may have been just fortunate to find themselves in their high-leverage situation.

Of course, one neat feature of the democratic age is that it blurs this distinction. Did the structure of American economic policy change forever in the 1930s because of a broad-based social movement, or because of the efforts of those in power? Both! The people in power were there because of the social movement supporting them! Franklin Roosevelt found himself placed in one of these highly leveraged situations because the people of America acting en mass felt it appropriate to place him there. Admittedly this is only of much use when the proposed "great man" is basically the President, or equivalent office; for instance, it doesn't help us resolve the debate over Reagan and the conservative movement. But in general the democratic identity of the government with its people ought to reduce the tension between observing the importance and, yes, in some cases greatness of individual leaders and paying proper respect to the power and importance of the people at large. Bill Clinton was a great leader and a great political talent, and the American people were pretty great in selecting him to lead them for eight years.