The story of Winston Churchill is a pretty withering retort to all that malarkey. He, and he alone, made the difference. There has been no one remotely like him before or since. So what else do we have in the mix of Churchill’s psychology? There was the father, no doubt about it: the pain of Randolph Churchill ’s rejections and criticism, the terror of not living up to him, the need after his death both to avenge and excel him. Then there is the mother, who was obviously crucial given the way she pushed and helped Churchill—his glory being at least partly her glory, after all. There was also the general historical context in which Churchill emerged. He was born not just when Britain was at her peak but also into a generation that understood that it would require superhuman efforts to sustain her empire. The sheer strain of that exertion helped make the Victorians somehow bigger than we are now, constructed on a grander scale. And then there was the natural egotism, shared to a greater or lesser extent by every human being, and the desire for prestige and esteem. I have always thought Churchill had a secret syllogism in his head: Britain is the greatest empire on Earth; Churchill is the greatest man in the British Empire; therefore Churchill is the greatest man on Earth.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 00:48:31 +0000
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