Of the, let's say, hundred greatest individuals of history, however we
may define them, how many had day jobs?  Or, to put it another way,
how many were free to pursue full time whatever it was that set them
above their fellows?  Clearly for a military person such as Alexander
the Great, being a conqueror of the known world was his day job; for a
scientist such as Marie Curie or a composer such as Beethoven, there
was no demand (was there?) to earn a livelihood apart from their main
calling *or* to do the grocery shopping and fold the laundry.  Is this
true of all the greats of humanity?--the authors and poets, the rulers
and statesmen, the artists and inventors, the philosophers and
prophets and saviors, the explorers and discoverers?  Were they all
free of everyday responsibilities and able to spend all their time,
energy, and brainpower doing whatever it was that made them great?  Or
did any of them have to do their special thing after working all day
at something else and doing all their own chores, errands,
housekeeping, and cooking?  I'd just like to know.  The answer should
take the form of a rough number or percentage, with some examples. 
I'm looking for a generality here, so I don't care who you put on the
list; but I'm talking about people like Churchill and Da Vinci, not
football heroes or Hollywood stars.

Dear Apteryx, 

Thank you for asking, since the question intregues me, too: How many
of them had to do the dishes, change the nappies and go to work till
6pm?

First, when we think about "greatest people in history" we tend to
have several problems that limit my answer. The first, is of course,
that the "greatest people in history" is totally subjective and
time/space related. All of your examples (Da Vinci, Alexander the
Great, and Churchill) are Western examples. A Chinese person might
have a completely different list from you. You wouldn't be surprised
if I told I met people with a university degree from China who have
never heard about the Holocaust!?

The other problem, is that the deeper you go, the less information you
have about what this person's life was really like. I can tell you how
Karl Marx spend his life, I can't tell you much "hard facts" about
Jesus (who, you must agree, is one of the most influential people in
history). Your list is also more likely to contain more people from
the 20th century, whose influence in history is not clear, than people
from other centuries, since we still remember these people.

Saying that, there are several things we one can already spot in any
list of the "most important"/"most influential" people in history.
First, that most of them are men. Since women, as we well know, had to
fill the duties mentioned above (change the nappy, make lunch, do the
laundry), they really "worked" while men could have had free time to
muse...

Most of these men were also of upper classes, which means they didn't
have to quit the eudcational system in order to assist their families
- and that's only modern time (because throughout history children had
to work in many cases, unless they belonged to the upper classes).

This site demonstrate what I meant. It lists the 10 geratest people in
history - http://gphp.dhs.org:81/ , a list that could be debated upon:
Socrates - A free man in ancient Greek, where slaves and women did
most fo the work.
Jesus - You know his story. 
Leonardo DaVinci - Worked as an artist. 
Nostradamus - Worked in a courtyard of a king. In my list by the way,
he wouldn't make the most important 100,000 people in history (as I
said, subjective).
Thomas Jefferson - Born to a wealthey family; worked as a statement. 
Abraham Lincoln - Worked as a lawyer. 
Gandhi - Worked briefly as a lawyer. 
Susan B. Anthony - Was a teacher. 
Lucille Ball - Was an actress. Again, she wouldn't made it to my list.
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Worked as a minister. 

Again, you can see: only one woman, two non-whites, and five
non-Americans (only 1 of whom is of the modern era). *Very* subjective
(However, it also demonstrated that these people had works, but mostly
"White Collar" ones, and that they almost all were of elite families
of their times, so they didn't have many financial worries).
 
Another site (this one - http://www.4iq.com/iquest12.html) has a
diffrent list, of 100 people (like you wanted), that is much more
focused (However, it is also centered on people from the 19-20th
centuries, of European origin, or Americans). Of obvious copywrite
reasons, I would not just compy the list, but I'll give you more
examples from it (and of course you can see the whole list in that
site).

Gregor Mendel, listed as one of the great scientists, was a monk (and
taught in a catholic school). This is not uncommon - monks, priests
and similar vocations, leave you lots of time to expand yourself -
someone else is taking care of your more immidiate needs. If you take
philosophy in Europe during the Middle Ages (St. Thomas Aquinas, for
example who is also in the list), it was done by monks. The origin of
medicine in Europe came from monastries. More here
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Gregor+Mendel+

Jean Jacques Rousseau is listed as one of the greatest philosophers.
nlike many mentioned before, he didn't have it easy and "He earned his
living during this period, working as everything from footman to
assistant to an ambassador" (source:
http://www2.lucidcafe.com/lucidcafe/library/96jun/rousseau.html). More
here - ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Jean+Jacques+Rousseau+&btnG=Google+Search

Piotr Tchaikovsky is listed as one of the greatest composers. He
worked first in a non music related job (Ministry of Justice) and then
he began to teach music privately and in the Conservatory. However, it
must be noted that he "...was contacted by a wealthy widow, Nadezhda
von Meck, who admired his music and was eager to give him financial
security..." (source: http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/tchaikovsky.html)
see moer here ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Peter+Tchaikovsky+&btnG=Google+Search

When discussing political leaders, we must remember that until the
modern period, they were not "elected", rather they were part of some
aristocracy or monarchial system. Most leaders listed in that list,
adhere to this concept. They didn't work (unless you consider the
statemenship itself as work) a minute during their lives, and
inherited their reign. It doesn't mean that we can't see names like
Oliver Cromwell, who was a member of the parliament. See more
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Oliver+Cromwell

Time magazine, as you probably know, had done a list of the 100
greatest people *in our century*.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/index.html This list contains people
from all walks of life. Their man of the century is Albert Einstein.
Einstein had lots of problems finding a job after graduating from
university, and his first jobs were teaching jobs in highschools...
Later, by connections, he got a job at the Patent office in Bern. Only
after about 8 years working for the patent office he became a
university professor and could devote most of his time to the research
of his interest. here is a bit more
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Einstein.html
and also see ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=albert+einstein

I hope that answers your question, although the answer is
inconclusive: most of them had easier life than the most of the other
people of their era - they came from well off families (if not from
aristocracy); most of them worked for a while (usually in "white
collar" jobs such as teachers, lawyers and clerks), sometimes even in
unrelated jobs, and as we get to the modern era, we see more people
who worked, and more women/minorities, who couldn't do that before.

More search terms: 
://www.google.com/search?q=%22greatest+people+in+history%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=n&oq=%22geratest+people+in+history%22
://www.google.com/search?q=%22hundred+greatest%22+history&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=50&sa=N

I hope that helped, please contact me if you have any further
questions.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by apteryx-ga on 24 Jul 2002 20:31 PDT

Thanks for your efforts, Politicalguru.  I'm afraid I don't see that
you've really given me my answer since I stipulated at the beginning,
"The answer should take the form of a rough number or percentage, with
some examples."  You've also made a presumption about my limited list
by saying, "All of your examples (Da Vinci, Alexander the Great, and
Churchill) are Western examples. A Chinese person might have a
completely different list from you."  I specified, "however we may
define them," and stated, "I'm looking for a generality here, so I
don't care who you put on the list."  So it was you who limited it and
not I.  If I were making my own list, I would probably include
Lao-Tzu, Shakyamuni Buddha, and "Veda" Vyasa, for example.  The names
I mentioned were just chosen for a presumed shared recognition so they
would serve their function as exemplars.  I am still interested in an
idea of proportion, a numeric value of some kind, even if only an
estimate, and not just a list of particulars.  Is your answer "100%"?

---

Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 25 Jul 2002 01:01 PDT

Dear Apteryx, 

I apologise if my analysis, which also contained an analysis of the
occupations of 10 personas did not satisfy you. Here's a little more.
I went to the list of the 100 personas mentioned before and checked
their biographies. About 78% percent are "part timers", especially if
you consider teaching or university research as a part time job, and
many (in previous era) received a hefty subsidy from their rulers so
they can continue work.

I think the question could have been handled more productively and
that an answer could have been given that taught me a little more; but
I am willing to share the responsibility with the researcher for a
question that might have taken a bit of a stretch that not everyone
might be prepared to make.  The researcher's own assumptions,
including entirely unfounded assumptions about me (for instance, "Your
list is also more likely to contain more people from
the 20th century"), seem to have got in the way of an enlightening
response.

I would think better of politicalguru's answer if she or he had paid
at least a little attention to spelling.

I know this is unnecessarily pedantic, but Aquinas was a Dominican
friar, not a monk.

I was struck by that top ten list that Politicalguru cited - it's SO
American - I haven't even *heard* of Susan B. Anthony, and I'm pretty
sketchy about Lucille Ball. I agree that no way should Nostradamus be
anywhere near such a list - how could anyone rank him above, say,
Plato or Mohammed? - and no way should Lincoln be in the top ten
either... he might be important to Americans, but not to anyone else!

Plotinus, the defects of the list of 10 are obvious, but not because
it's American, simply because it's ignorant--not, after all, the same
thing.  It also makes no claims to be anything but a personal top-10
for the person who posted it.  It's just some guy's list of his own
personal choice of greats, with no criteria other than the
idiosyncratic behind it.  It isn't to be faulted for that--a person
might put his granny on his own list of personal greats, and he
wouldn't owe anyone an apology, nor would it be an international
offense--but it was, for that reason, a very silly choice to use as a
basis for the answer to my question.  Part of what I was hoping for
here was a little bit of discrimination and thought along with
research and not just a riffling through loose web pages and a seizing
on the first likely candidates that came along.  So I am not too well
satisfied, but I don't think this responder is going to be able to do
much better.  No doubt it's my own fault for asking too ambitious a
question.

Dgnichols, careless spelling does detract from credibility, doesn't
it?  I agree, I expected a bit more care.  I even went to the named
site to see if it really listed Jefferson as a "statement"; but that
was Politicalguru's contribution.

Good topic.

My weigh-in:  teaching University or being a Franciscan IS pretty much
to be on retainer from the Court metaphorically speaking, so I say
throw these people into the full-timer pile.

PS  The vedists are very proud of their working saints, but I don't
see too many of them.  Plus, here's some controversy:  to workschedule
in India is different than the workschedule of a contemporary
wageslave American

PPS  What about my one and only favorite example of the partime
working Genius :  Wallace Stevens ?

Nayna, it was thinking about Wallace Stevens that prompted me to
ask!...that and an exploration of the notion that perhaps it is the
overhead of things we have to do every day, do and do over again--the
quotidian--that bars so many of the potentially great from real
achievement.  It occurred to me that so long as we have to stop every
little while to eat, to sleep, and to minister to our other human
bodily needs, we can't sustain attention to any one thing for very
long.  (Is this what keeps us from being gods--or is it simply that we
define gods as being rich in whatever we lack, such as time unto
immortality while we can't go for more than a few hours without a rest
stop?)  But two ways to maximize our ability to sustain attention to a
single pursuit are to have done for us everything that we don't
absolutely have to do for ourselves (like sleep) and to create for
ourselves a *virtual* longer day by controlling the hours of people
other than ourselves in a day's time:  employees, soldiers, slaves.  A
person who controls, say, 100 slaves in a 12-hour day has, in effect,
1200 person-hours at his disposal in addition to his own working hours
to perform works on a grand scale (the pyramids come to mind); but raw
hours aren't enough--there must also be the single vision.  That's
why, alas, it isn't so easily done with employees.  Hence the
speculation that most of those who achieve greatness in some culture
and era or another are people of privilege with leisure to concentrate
on their goals and/or people of power who control the expenditure of
others' time.  But Politicalguru's answer seems to say otherwise.  So
my theory isn't good or simply isn't well formulated.  Meanwhile,
without slaves or employees or a staff, I look to Wallace Stevens for
inspiration.