Fintan O'Toole: The idiocy of greatness
Irish cultural critic Fintan O'Toole delivers a lecture at the NYPL on the political mythology of national greatness and how populism weaponizes nostalgia.
Why we picked this
O'Toole is one of the sharpest political essayists alive, and this lecture takes direct aim at the mythology of national greatness — a timely subject delivered in one of the most fitting rooms in New York.
Fintan O’Toole, one of Ireland’s most celebrated cultural critics and political essayists, comes to the New York Public Library’s Schwarzman Building to deliver a lecture titled “The Idiocy of Greatness.” The talk examines the political mythology of national exceptionalism — the recurring narrative that a country was once great, has fallen, and must be restored.
O’Toole traces how this mythology operates across history and geography, from nineteenth-century imperial nostalgia to today’s populist movements. He is particularly sharp on how the language of greatness functions not as aspiration but as exclusion — defining who belongs and who doesn’t.
O’Toole brings the kind of historically grounded, rhetorically precise argument that has made him essential reading in both the US and Europe. Available in-person and virtually.