Historical Figures You Have Platonic Respect For

[AnarchistCatalan]

Which Historical figures do you have Platonic respect for?

My Shorthand List:

Cicero
Agrippa
George Washington
Alexander Hamilton
Benjamin Franklin
James K. Polk
Abraham Lincoln
Anne Frank

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

Does Jimi Hendrix count?

[Jaded_Railman]

Platonic respect? Is that like the kind of respect you can hold and hit idiots over the head with?

[Dure]

Not sure what Platonic respect is but here are 10 historical personages andI learned something from each of them

• Passionaria – Spanish Republican, dismissed the International Brigades
• Daniel Mendoza – Prize fighter
• Paul Robeson – Singer/political activist
• Helen Keller – IWW activist
• James Connolly – Officer commanding forces of the Irish Provisional Govt. Easter 1916
• James Clerk Maxwell – Physicist and mathematician
• Simon Frazer – Explorer
• Marcus Garvey - Political activist, shipping magnate
• Henry Dunant – Founder Red Cross
• Karl Marx – Journalist and political philosopher

[Citizen]

Why does it have to be platonic respect? I would totally go with Joan of Ark, in a totally non-platonic sense.

[Rush Tarquin]

Originally Posted by Citizen

Why does it have to be platonic respect? I would totally go with Joan of Ark, in a totally non-platonic sense.

Seconded. Then again she might not be having it if you put any stock in the asexual/lesbian theories.

[Gang Gam-Chan]

Originally Posted by Citizen

Why does it have to be platonic respect? I would totally go with Joan of Ark, in a totally non-platonic sense.

Well I'm kind of like that with Anne Frank. (NOTE: For those not in the now I'm GMB and thirteen so this doesn't mean I'm a pedophile)

[catboy637]

Originally Posted by Dure

Not sure what Platonic respect is but here are 10 historical personages andI learned something from each of them

• Passionaria – Spanish Republican, dismissed the International Brigades
• Daniel Mendoza – Prize fighter
• Paul Robeson – Singer/political activist
• Helen Keller – IWW activist
• James Connolly – Officer commanding forces of the Irish Provisional Govt. Easter 1916
• James Clerk Maxwell – Physicist and mathematician
• Simon Frazer – Explorer
• Marcus Garvey - Political activist, shipping magnate
• Henry Dunant – Founder Red Cross
• Karl Marx – Journalist and political philosopher

You know Keller was a deep Communist, right? Then again, you have Marx on there...

[Basileus Giorgios]

Marcus Tulius Cicero
Augustus Caesar
Flavius Belisarius
Constantine XI Palaiologos
Henry VII Tudor
Thomas Cromwell
Margaret Thatcher

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

Originally Posted by catboy637

You know Keller was a deep Communist, right? Then again, you have Marx on there...

Who gives a damn if she was a commie? Oh wait, you think McArthy was a decent person...

[LightInfa]

Originally Posted by catboy637

You know Keller was a deep Communist, right? Then again, you have Marx on there...

Considering he put IWW activist beside her name I'm sure he's well aware of that.

[Cornwall]

This is quite tough and obviously very subjective, but here goes:

Clement Atlee: post-war British Prime Minister
Mary Wollstoncraft: Author of the A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
Michael Collins: charismatic Irish leader.
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poet
Oscar Wilde: Author, Playright.
Gustave Dore: French artist.
Chateaubriand: French writer, politician etc.
Richard Burton: Explorer
Field Marshal Viscount Slim: Commander, 14th Army, Burma WWII

[Snowman23]

Winston Churchill

[TheNordicBrit]

Reasonably Quick List (You're not gonna like it.) :

• Oliver Cromwell
• Thomas Fairfax
• Mary I of England
• Winston Churchill
• Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
• Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
• Oswald Mosley

There, if you want me to explain why I like any of them I will be glad to =]

[Snowman23]

Originally Posted by gamb1993

Reasonably Quick List (You're not gonna like it.) :

• Oliver Cromwell
• Thomas Fairfax
• Mary I of England
• Winston Churchill
• Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
• Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

There, if you want me to explain why I like any of them I will be glad to =]

Churchill needs no explanation, he is the epitome of being awesome.

I would add Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Teddy Roosevelt to my list.

[IndigoYeti]

Originally Posted by gamb1993

Reasonably Quick List (You're not gonna like it.) :

• Oliver Cromwell
• Thomas Fairfax
• Mary I of England
• Winston Churchill
• Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
• Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

There, if you want me to explain why I like any of them I will be glad to =]

Why Cromwell? And I'd be interested in hearing about Mary too.

[TheNordicBrit]

Originally Posted by IndigoYeti

Why Cromwell? And I'd be interested in hearing about Mary too.

Cromwell because he was a great political leader, great military leader, he wasn't as bad as he's portrayed to be, I just like him as a person. I know there's obviously the Irish thing but he actually did give lots of people more rights and freedom that didn't come along again 'till the 1800's.

And Mary because I feel sorry for her and think that she was a good person and wasn't a bad person. She was a product of a bad childhood and I think she deserves more respect in history. She was a nice person, and was a strong lady but could never show it with an unloving husband, and an unloving father.

[Cornwall]

Originally Posted by gamb1993

Reasonably Quick List (You're not gonna like it.) :

• Oliver Cromwell
• Thomas Fairfax
• Mary I of England
• Winston Churchill
• Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
• Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

There, if you want me to explain why I like any of them I will be glad to =]

I'd go along with Wellington, his victory at Waterloo, often overshadows the achievement of victory in the Peninsula,which was a vicious war on all sides. It wasn't just a military victory, although that was great enough; but a victory for his political efforts in maintaining support for the war at home and abroad. He must have been a special type of man to cope with the mental strain of it all. You only have to look at Goya's portrait of him of 1812, the man looks gaunt and tired. But coped he did, and without him Waterloo may have been a different story.

Winston Churchill: I may not agree with his policies all the time, or his Imperial stance, but for a while he was the only one determined enough to fight the Nazis to the bitter end. He stood up against fascism......and for that he was an inspiration.

I'd have to agree to differ in regard to Cromwell though. It maybe be the Irish Catholic in me, but his conduct in Ireland, especially Drogheda was inexcusable. Even for the time, and for the nature of Irish conflict it was a little 'over the top'. Cromwell's successors began dispossessing Cathollics of land and began the deportation of thousands of Irish to Barbados and Jamaica. Even Churchill saw the legacy of Cromwell's record in Ireland as one of the reasons for the creation of impassable divisions between Irish and English and Catholic and Protestant. His campaign in Ireland scarred the nation. That's just my opinion, I appreciate many in the UK see him as a great man though.

[TheNordicBrit]

Originally Posted by Cornwall

I'd have to agree to differ in regard to Cromwell though. It maybe be the Irish Catholic in me, but his conduct in Ireland, especially Drogheda was inexcusable. Even for the time, and for the nature of Irish conflict it was a little 'over the top'. Cromwell's successors began dispossessing Cathollics of land and began the deportation of thousands of Irish to Barbados and Jamaica. Even Churchill saw the legacy of Cromwell's record in Ireland as one of the reasons for the creation of impassable divisions between Irish and English and Catholic and Protestant. His campaign in Ireland scarred the nation. That's just my opinion, I appreciate many in the UK see him as a great man though.

I understand this point, but then again sources have obviously been maximized or minimized by certain parties. I think Ireland was OTT but then again it could be argued that at the time if citizens took up arms against an invader at the time it was deemed acceptable to kill them. Obviously women and children died but I'm not entirely sure what Cromwell's stance was on this. I can understand how it scarred Ireland but I think that there was always going to be constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics with or without Cromwell. Personally I think Ireland will always be a scar on Cromwell but in the UK he did great things to benefit the citizens IMO. But you are entirely allowed to have that opinion of course and I totally understand why =]

[Citizen]

Originally Posted by gamb1993

• Oswald Mosley

The fascist Oswald Mosley?