What One Person Can Do to Resist and Change History

Did Lee Harvey Oswald change history by himself?  Did the guy who shot Martin Luther King change history?
The graveyards are filled with indispensable men, DeGaulle noted.

We know of attempts to change history by killing a single leader--the plotters who put a bomb in an attaché case next to Hitler thought they could change history with one act. The bomb exploded and killed everyone in the room but Hitler, whose pants were shredded but he was otherwise unharmed.  This was taken by Hitler and those who loved him as a sign of divine intervention: God saved Hitler because Hitler was doing God's work.  Gott Mitt Uns.  Later, this was turned around as divine intervention in the other direction: Hitler was so incompetent as a military leader, had he been killed that day more competent generals would have assumed control and likely won the war and none of those concentration camps would ever have seen the light of day.

The same can be said of President Trump, who, if he were to die tomorrow, would leave behind more pernicious men (Pence, Price, McConnell, Paul Ryan) who can really do some harm. The best thing about Mr. Trump may be he is so incompetent he gums up the works.

None of this helps me. Dietrich Bonheoffer remarked it is not enough to bandage wounds; one must thrust a rod into the spokes of the wheel of tyranny.

It is said the Arab Spring began with the self immolation of a man in Libya. The same has been said of a Buddhist monk who set himself on fire in Vietnam.  A flaming example which captures the world's attention with a single gesture changing the arc of history. Not likely.

The best we can hope for is we might band together and take action which changes our government. That means getting cooperation from a lot of other people. People we may not even like much. People who we think are fools, but who agree with us about  just one thing.

A doctor sits in his office, treating one patient at a time. He has little or no impact on the public health.  But a Fleming notices a fungus in his laboratory petrie dishes and out of that comes penicillin and the masses are saved. There is a huge multiplier effect on the wisdom and insight of one man. That happens in medicine and other areas of science with some frequency. I'm not sure there is any equivalent in politics. Martin Luther King gave one inspiring speech, and he organized events which helped bring about change, but apart from the speech, it was other people who made his work matter.

 

I suppose this is a good thing. If one man could actually change history, there would be a succession of one man efforts to change history. And most of these changes would likely be things we did not want.