Posted on 04/20/2013 7:55:55 PM PDT by MNDude
There are probably many people in history who have received more credit than they deserved. Excluding any US Presidents in the past century (that would be too easy), what three historic figures do you think are the most overrated?
Oh; wait!
Let’s not forget....
CRAP!
I’ve used up my three wishes already.
But I haven't!
You are Number One - you big blowhard!!
--MormonDude(Thank GOD y'all have left all the Osmonds out!)
Sorry, I meant to say HATEFUL blowhard...
Something I've been saying for years.
MLK
Katharine Hepburn, the emptiest of empty vessels
Frank Sinatra, a more boring, characterless voice doesn’t exist
Marcel Proust, Please, please just stop.
Elvis opened the door, so to speak.
And we lower flags for them now, too, so I figure they’re eligible.
Others here apparently thought so, too.
SMH.
I said James Madison, who had his finer points and was not “bad” per se, was overrated due to being acclaimed “Father Of The Bill Of Rights” when in fact George Mason did the actual work and paid a price for his dogged insistence, both personally and historically.
Mason was regarded as one of the greatest legal minds of the Founding era, if not the greatest. Few at the Convention were his equal. He is underrated to the point of being known as "The Forgotten Founder" in some circles.
Steven Hawking
Abe Lincoln
Stalin
Jefferson
Napoleon
B-B-But I LIKE Pythagoras!
When I teach scales to my music students, I mention him, and when kids say “Who?” I say, “The Triangle Guy”.
Since we can’t include any 20th century presidents, my 3 most “Overrated” would be (IMNSHO):
MLK
Che
Mandela
And Now, for the three people who have done the most damage to western civilization I nominate:
Freud
Darwin
Marx (Not Groucho!)
Why should I at least “admit” it? It is my opinion, and I am not afraid of backing it up.
Good God! If anything, Christopher Columbus was an amazingly underrated man!
I understand why he would be underrated, since the general impression modern people have of him is a guy who just stumbled across the new world.
He was pretty amazing. I believe he was the first European mariner to actually divine the warning signs of a hurricane and avoid it...all the others to that point had just stumbled into them.
Another story about him that I find funny, yet is a prime example of his resourcefulness, is the time he and his men were in desperate danger of starving, they were nearly out of food, and the natives didn’t want to help him out (because they had previously cheated and stolen from the natives.)
He knew enough about astronomy to know that a lunar eclipse was going to happen, and he timed it with an hourglass and told the natives that God was going to give them a sign at a certain time, and...voila! They gladly gave him the food!
A great book about him is by Samuel Eliot Morison, “Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea”. Very well written.
(I love this thread...lots of things we can agree and disagree about things without really ripping each other to shreds...not like pure politics!)
Galileo
DaVinci
Henry Hudson
Great book! Hornfischer is an excellent writer, I think one of the most entertaining (if you can use that word in reference to his subject) in his style. My favorite is ‘Neptune’s Inferno’. He manages to convey the essence in a way that even someone like Morison (whose work I like, but acknowledge he was an insufferable snot) did not do.
+1 for Krugman.
47, grew up on Zeppelin - every song every album - after learning the depth and bredth of their plagerism I know longer hold them in high regard. Simple as that. Huge Zappa fan - have majority of catalog. Fan of Spirit, Procol Haram.
Originality is not the benchmark for underrated. No, but it is for overrated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvLsutfI5M
There are plenty other videos documenting those they ripped off. The beginning of communication breakdown is lifted from Little Richard’s Keep a Knockin’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcJrExewkYA
I have read it...don’t misunderstand me.
To be overrated, in my opinion, one does not just have to be a low-life who a lot of people think is pretty good.
I think one can be overrated if he is pretty good and people think he is a military diety.
I appreciate the things he did. He simply was not flawless, and is often treated as if he were.
And I do think he did a great job in Japan. Many Japanese thought so as well, which says something.
Was Che a person? I thought the definition of Che was 1. term used to describe the worship of communist murderers 2. style of T-Shirt. /sarc
MacArthur himself admitted in his life that he was a sinful man, and looked to the Almighty for guidance.
I think too often others get carried away and make caricatures of those men who were historical figures. We merely need to look at the worship status people bestow on the likes of the Kennedys, Clintons, Presley, Beatles, etc. Too often it is the reporting or image making that is in overdrive that blurs the reality of what is.
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