A ‘Great Man’ is Not Necessarily a Good Man

Back in the 1980s, Louis Farrakhan — the leader of the Nation of Islam — was cancelled for calling Hitler a ‘great man’. The word ‘great’, which is often used synonymously with ‘good’, sounds like a positive description — but is it? Is a ‘Great Man’ a good man?

Farrakhan later clarified his comment in an interview with Phil Donahue (which I have clipped below). ‘Hitler’, he said, was ‘no friend of black people’ and if he had his way, ‘he would have killed all black people also’. He explains that he was not being laudatory of Hitler, he was simply making a ‘statement of fact’:

Let’s put that in context okay. Some Jewish leaders likened me to a black Hitler, I took umbrage at that remark. I said the only way you can compare me with Hitler is that Hitler rose Germany up from the ashes we’re trying to rise black people up from the ashes but don’t compare me with your wicked killers. That’s what I said […] the Bible calls Babylon great but Babylon wasn’t good. Pharaoh was great but he wasn’t good. Hitler is a great and consequential man but not a good man (Farrakhan)