NationStates Jolt Archive

Ok, I'm in a thread creating mood today.

I was listening to Copelands "Fanfare for the Common Man" and started thinking about what the common man, or more accurately, the common person really is.

They're ordinary people. And strangely enough, they're the ones who make the differences. Some become well known, most don't. Here's my list.

Mildred Loving
Rosa Parks
Audie Murphy
Alvin York
Phaedippides
A whole plethora of unnamed men and women who worked for - women's suffrage, abolition, civil rights, health care reform.
A large number of anonymous men and women who gave their lives to and for health care reform and the advancement of science.

Some were military, some weren't. There were both men and women. They were of all races.

Basically, these are ordinary people who found themselves in situations and managed to overcome them.

I've given you my partial list.

What's yours?

Hugh Thompson, Jr.
Oskar Schindler
Raoul Wallenberg
Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Zante
Eleanor Roosevelt

Can you get any more plain than Sarrah Palin?

See people keep attacking her and slandering her, when all they really have to do is take her word for it, accept she's your average, dumb redneck, and stop discussing her.

[/threadjack]

I'm a bit confused. Common "men" are the ones that do common things, which would mean a lot of activists are by definition not "common men", since they're doing something to awaken the rest of society.

I'm a bit confused. Common "men" are the ones that do common things, which would mean a lot of activists are by definition not "common men", since they're doing something to awaken the rest of society.

Agreed...they're remarkable in that they are entirely ordinary. Nor will I provide a list, since the people I'd name might not necessarily want their names bandied around on an internet forum.

I thought the point of such a piece is not to single out individuals, but to celebrate our shared humanity, good or bad as it may be.


And the composer's name contains no 'e': Copland.

I'm a bit confused. Common "men" are the ones that do common things, which would mean a lot of activists are by definition not "common men", since they're doing something to awaken the rest of society.

Mildred Loving did a very ordinary thing. She fell in love and got married. The extraordinary thing was that she was a black woman marrying a white man in Virginia at a time when interracial marriage was illegal. They were denied the right to live in Virginia as a married couple. Faced with this, they fought it - and won.

Rosa Parks took a bus home from work, another ordinary thing. The extradordinary thing was that she was a black woman who refused to sit at the back of the bus. She called the attention of a nation to this particular inequity.

Audie Murphy and Alvin York need no explanation.

Phaedippides was the Greek who ran 26 miles after the battle of Marathon to announce the Greek victory. And then he ran again. He literally ran himself to death - as a matter of duty - an ordinary concept.

During a WWII, the Seventh-Day Adventists were conscientious objectors. But they joined the military, as medics - they went, unarmed, into battle to treat wounded. Many of them volunteered as human guinea pigs to test vaccines and disease process - ordinary people showing extraordinary courage.

Ordinary people responding to extradordinary circumstance.

There has been, is, and will be only one common man: Joe Corrie. Who single-handedly hews all coal, tills all soil and builds all houses.

Mildred Loving did a very ordinary thing. She fell in love and got married. The extraordinary thing was that she was a black woman marrying a white man in Virginia at a time when interracial marriage was illegal. They were denied the right to live in Virginia as a married couple. Faced with this, they fought it - and won.

Rosa Parks took a bus home from work, another ordinary thing. The extradordinary thing was that she was a black woman who refused to sit at the back of the bus. She called the attention of a nation to this particular inequity.

Audie Murphy and Alvin York need no explanation.

Phaedippides was the Greek who ran 26 miles after the battle of Marathon to announce the Greek victory. And then he ran again. He literally ran himself to death - as a matter of duty - an ordinary concept.

During a WWII, the Seventh-Day Adventists were conscientious objectors. But they joined the military, as medics - they went, unarmed, into battle to treat wounded. Many of them volunteered as human guinea pigs to test vaccines and disease process - ordinary people showing extraordinary courage.

Ordinary people responding to extradordinary circumstance.If they do something extraordinary, they're not really ordinary anymore.

Your common man is not common at all.

If they do something extraordinary, they're not really ordinary anymore.

Maybe I'm not clear, because, certainly you're not getting my point. These are common people, we are like them. When we realize this, it becomes clear that, if they have the capacity for extraordinary action, so do we. Once we know that, it sort of becomes an obligation for us to realize that capacity. We aren't all confronted with extraordinary situations, but even in our ordinary situations we can behave extraordinarily. Perhaps by the simple expedient of standing our ground when we're right, or admitting when we're wrong, or showing enough strength of character not to follow the crowd just because it's easy. Like Rosa Parks, she was an ordinary woman in an ordinary (for the South of the '50s) situation. She made a choice, perhaps because she was tired and frustrated, perhaps because she knew it was time to make that choice. How many times in the course of a day do we make choices, not because they're correct, but because they're easy. This is really not excusable when we realize that we have the capacity to do what other "ordinary people" have done. I'm not saying we all have to be heroes, but certainly we can all do something to make a difference occasionally.

Maybe I'm not clear, because, certainly you're not getting my point. These are common people, we are like them. When we realize this, it becomes clear that, if they have the capacity for extraordinary action, so do we. Once we know that, it sort of becomes an obligation for us to realize that capacity.
Wut?

These people were pretty courageous and all that. I don't know about you, but I can be pretty spineless at times, especially when whatever dodgy crap is going on really don't affect me much.

Maybe I'm not clear, because, certainly you're not getting my point. These are common people, we are like them. When we realize this, it becomes clear that, if they have the capacity for extraordinary action, so do we. Once we know that, it sort of becomes an obligation for us to realize that capacity.
Hehe, you sound like one of the bad guys out of an Ayn Rand novel. You know, the ones people say don't exist and were invented by her to serve as strawmen.

The obligation to do something extraordinary doesn't come from other people, it comes from the fact that you're alive. Whether anyone else even exists is irrelevant.

Hehe, you sound like one of the bad guys out of an Ayn Rand novel. You know, the ones people say don't exist and were invented by her to serve as strawmen.

The obligation to do something extraordinary doesn't come from other people, it comes from the fact that you're alive. Whether anyone else even exists is irrelevant.

That's pretty much what I'm trying to say.

Phaedippides was the Greek who ran 26 miles after the battle of Marathon to announce the Greek victory. And then he ran again. He literally ran himself to death - as a matter of duty - an ordinary concept.
sorry to be a pedant, but the whole 'ran himself to death' bit is just a fable, made up centuries later by a historian with a penchant towards hyperbole.


Audie Murphy and Alvin York need no explanation.
well they wouldn't, if we knew who they were...


Another 'common' man who did extraordinary things was Edmund Hillary. Forget Everest, read up what he did after that.

The obligation to do something extraordinary doesn't come from other people, it comes from the fact that you're alive. Whether anyone else even exists is irrelevant.
Nah, our obligations to do anything (extraordinary or not) comes solely from our parents. Without them, I could all just lay in my own filth and work on my alcoholism and caffeine addiction, but that damned guilt complex . . .

sorry to be a pedant, but the whole 'ran himself to death' bit is just a fable, made up centuries later by a historian with a penchant towards hyperbole.



well they wouldn't, if we knew who they were...


Another 'common' man who did extraordinary things was Edmund Hillary. Forget Everest, read up what he did after that.

http://www.audiemurphy.com/welcome.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York

The common man is the guy who does nothing imo. The guy who votes and watches the news and does his 9-5 but nothing special other then that really.

Thats what I think when I hear "The common man".

"The Common Man" is by definition just that, common, in the sense that something is widespread and found in large amounts. These people tend not to fight for something they believe to be right, to hold their ground or display extraordinary courage. Rather, they watch daytime TV, bitch about immigrants, gays and dirty foreigners stealing their women and sleeping with their jobs, whilst getting increasingly drunk, before collapsing unconscious in a pool of their own vomit outside a brand-name pub. It is because of this that the term "common man" is generally used pejoratively. This is "common" in that it reflects a sizable chunk of the population.

People such as Rosa Parks are by no means common, since they display qualities of awareness, courage and dedication far and above that of most people (i.e. the common man), and people such as them are rare. They are "common" only in so much as their family background is undistinguished.

"the common man" is a mythical beast, though there are many ways and levels on which many of us can and do relate to each other.