Alexander the Great

[barbarianhorde]

This was no mere general.
The antics of his first campaigns in the Greek peninsula and in Macedon are not comparable to any generals tactics. There is a profound touch of divinity in how he overcame very big numerical and positional disadvantages.

Its not just luck, not just boldness and it is not merely superior insight into the warriors soul. It has a diabolical magic to it.

I can not explain it beter the facts as they unfolded.
Here is, from videomaker Historia Civilis, the playlist about the man who quite clearly did indeed descend from Achilles.

Philip of Macedon



Macedonian Battle Tactics



Alexander the Great: The Balkan Campaign



The Destruction of Thebes



After he had brought Thebes to it's knees and controlled, with a very sane and sound and well rooted alliance underneath and aside him (this is the magical part, the Greek acknowledgement that the king isn't the only power) all of Greece except Sparta. Then wisely, instead of bothering to try to subdue Sparta, he went on to crush Asia.

[barbarianhorde]

I have never been able to explain beyond the mere apparent truth of it the status of Alexander among men.
No just conquerers, but people.

It is said that Alexander when he was dying crawled to the river to slip in and disappear like a God. His wife found him and put him to bed. I have this anecdote from Philip Meyers sublime story The Son. I won't spoil the punchline.

That we know that he did this makes him much more Greek as a psyche than if he had mysteriously disappeared. The respect for the surface which Nietzsche praises as a courage (to stick to the skin, the fold) is epitomized here.

[Meno_]

And he was a mere kid when he died. 32 years old.

[surreptitious75]

He had conquered a quarter of the known land of the world by the time he was twenty five
The British Empire was also a quarter of the world but it was not conquered by just one man

No doubt history has romanticised his achievements to some extent but he was still the greatest conqueror of them all
It may not be politically correct to say such a thing anymore but it can and should be said because it happens to be true

[barbarianhorde]

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Yes, Surreptitious, well said.

[promethean75]

He had conquered a quarter of the known land of the world by the time he was twenty five

the only thing this dude was conquering at twenty-five was his acne. a kid that young has no experience in anything, especially not warfare... not in planning it, financing it, organizing it, or executing it. what we have here is a perfect example (which you somewhat recognize) of the mythologizing of otherwise mundane history. in this case, rather than observing the truth regarding the strength of greek culture - which is owed entirely to its slaves, citizens, workers, soldiers, artisans, scientists - we want to capture the whole of the greek spirit machine in the image of a single person... and a ruling-class aristocratic invalid who'd you not even know was missing, at that. we do the same thing with all the other empire 'legends' we read about in the history books. this kind of nonsense is one of the factors that contributes to our fascination with the cult of personality, excessive individualism, the 'hero', and anything else that draws our attention away from the importance of the collective effort that is behind everything great.

alexander the grape. can a twenty-five year old even use a sword? this kid only just got his license... and you guys are talkin' bout him running armies and shit. fuck outta here.

[barbarianhorde]

He had conquered a quarter of the known land of the world by the time he was twenty five

the only thing this dude was conquering at twenty-five was his acne. a kid that young has no experience in anything, especially not warfare... not in planning it, financing it, organizing it, or executing it.

Nonsense, he was decisive in his fathers decisive victory.

[Meno_]

Well, THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA IS MAMED AFTER HIM, LATER THE PLACE WHERE THE WESTERN HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE WAS FOUNDED.

[Urwrongx1000]

Promethean has a point.

Humanity and History like to sensationalize heroes and individuals, while ignoring all that went into their foundation and underneath them. Could Alexander have done what he did without a lifetime of Philip's work, risk, and rewards beforehand? No. Could the Roman Caesars had done what they did, without their armies behind them? No.

The Masses have a tendency to follow the angles of a pyramid upward to its Apex, focus on the tip-top, and then ignore all the bricks underneath.

[barbarianhorde]

Rather, the quality of leading a great people to accomplish something no individual could have accomplished is what makes a leader.

Humans by themselves aren't capable of building a great deal. Promethean still needs the trees cut down by someone else and the tools for cutting down trees made by yet someone else and the metallurgy for that by yet someone else to do his decks. But he imagines it is him alone doing all the work.

Not Alexander - if you review the history lessons I posted as an introduction here, you see that he was unique in precisely how well aware he was of being dependent on others.

It's a quirk of the modern age that someone can be seen as having a point while being demonstrably wrong. Thats a little on the woke side for me. Please pay attention dudes.

(A tangent: last month I showed someones premises to be false, and he responded by saying that there are no such things as wrong or right statements because language can't really mean anything (nice paradox within a paradox))
-

And yes, Alexander did found Alexandria too, a whole bunch of them, you are correct old fellow.
He also laid the groundwork for the development of mathematics by the Arabs by infusing each place he conquered with a legacy of Aristotle and other mathematicians.

He was, all in all, a centerpiece to the great work of humanity. This has been widely acknowledged, but all are in the dark as to what allowed him such miraculous victories against all numerical and positional odds.

[barbarianhorde]

"More and more, before the world of men, the only reaction is individualist. The man by himself is his only aim. All that one attempts for the good of all ends in failure. Even if one still wants to try, it is the norm to do it with deliberate contempt. To withdraw entirely and to play ones game. (Idiot.)"

-Camus, 1940, my translation

[Meno_]

"More and more, before the world of men, the only reaction is individualist. The man by himself is his only aim. All that one attempts for the good of all ends in failure. Even if one still wants to try, it is the norm to do it with deliberate contempt. To withdraw entirely and to play ones game. (Idiot.)"

-Camus, 1940, my translation

And AI needs to speculate on his mode of operation well, if not to offer mere general suicide, out of ignorance of the general blindness.(Jonestown revisited !?!)

[barbarianhorde]

"More and more, before the world of men, the only reaction is individualist. The man by himself is his only aim. All that one attempts for the good of all ends in failure. Even if one still wants to try, it is the norm to do it with deliberate contempt. To withdraw entirely and to play ones game. (Idiot.)"

-Camus, 1940, my translation

And AI needs to speculate on his mode of operation well, if not to offer mere general suicide, out of ignorance of the general blindness.(Jonestown revisited !?!)

Stay in the vicinity of the topic please. I meant only to illustrate that Alexanders eminence is made of the opposite of individualism.
He liked to come out of battle with zero casualties on his side. He respected himself because he led men he respected. But for this he had to reflect something higher than men: he was exceedingly pious because he knew Socrates was as wrong about the Gods as Aristotle was about the ring-sea.
Im sure you have some nice analogies of battles from your proud AustroHungarian place of birth.

[Karpel Tunnel]

All the hagiography makes me want to say the guy had male lovers, just to poke at some of his fans here. He was obviously an incredible leader, but what did he accomplish that we specifically admires as aftereffects`? He did spread Greek culture. I don't know how to weigh what that did for the world. How to compare it what would have happened if greek culture hadn't come to some of the places it did. Once I was in a job center and heard a doctor say she'd been hired and everyone congratulated her. She was hired by a cigarrette company. She seemed like a nice responsible person. Not a genius like Alexander, but a good worker. But are we actually to feel good about her work at a tobacco company? Seems neutral at best. A lot of skill and knowledge going into something at best neutral. So, Alexander won lot of battles, but kept pushing until this no longer worked so well and has a huge conquested area of the work he couldn't maintain control over. He created much more diversity in any of the cultures he contacted. Increasing the number of races and cultural groups that mixed in these regions. I presume that's not a good legacy from the perspective of many.

He certainly did things most people cannot do and with a degree of skill and perseverance rarely seen in any field of expertise. But what did it do?

What makes his use of incredible skill important to you as far as results?

[barbarianhorde]

"All the hagiography makes me want to say the guy had male lovers, just to poke at some of his fans here."

As shocking this may be to you, I doubt anyone here had raised an eyebrow over it. I presume we all knew this when we learned about him when we were 12, it was very common back then, and I am hardly a Christian myself, I have absolutely no problems with it either. It just bothers me when men who are in love with me make too much of an effort to be in my life.

[barbarianhorde]

All the hagiography makes me want to say the guy had male lovers, just to poke at some of his fans here. He was obviously an incredible leader, but what did he accomplish that we specifically admires as aftereffects`? He did spread Greek culture. I don't know how to weigh what that did for the world.

Good question. Mostly, mathematics, and thus the golden age of islam would have been absent. Certainly Islam would not have been as powerful.

How to compare it what would have happened if greek culture hadn't come to some of the places it did. Once I was in a job center and heard a doctor say she'd been hired and everyone congratulated her. She was hired by a cigarrette company. She seemed like a nice responsible person. Not a genius like Alexander, but a good worker. But are we actually to feel good about her work at a tobacco company? Seems neutral at best. A lot of skill and knowledge going into something at best neutral. So, Alexander won lot of battles, but kept pushing until this no longer worked so well and has a huge conquested area of the work he couldn't maintain control over. He created much more diversity in any of the cultures he contacted. Increasing the number of races and cultural groups that mixed in these regions. I presume that's not a good legacy from the perspective of many.

Yes, that is fair.
And indeed it is (even) rather Alexanders extraordinary powers at warfare that make him so interesting to me than the fact that he impregnated Asia with Euclides and Aristotle.

He certainly did things most people cannot do and with a degree of skill and perseverance rarely seen in any field of expertise. But what did it do?

What makes his use of incredible skill important to you as far as results?

He ensured the survival of mathematics, if I think about it, by bringing it to Asia before it got lost for some centuries in Europe (from 500 to 1000 or so much was lost).

[barbarianhorde]

Christians can be exceedingly dumb even if they have very high IQs. Likely it has to do with the abnegation of the feminine.

Why do Scotsmen wear skirts? Why did the ancients? Why do clowns and courtiers wear tights?
"letting it hang" is very important for the testosterone.

[barbarianhorde]

Christ had some very dear lessons. Still does.
But to presume it is the only or even the most important lesson is such craziness it leaves a man sick to think of it.

In this light too the Anciens, those luminous ones especially, are so wholesome to study and contemplate, and to an extent, imitate.

"4. The Masters of the Earth

958 (1884)

I write for a species of man that does not yet exist: for the "masters
of the earth . "

Religions, as consolations and relaxations, dangerous: man believes he
has a right to take his ease.

In Plato's Theages it is written: "Each one of us would like to be
master over all men, if possible, and best of all God." This attitude
must exist again.

Englishmen, Americans, and Russians"

[Artimas]

You can't be dependent on others in this world. It's what may kill you. Not to mention Alexander was tutored by Aristotle and took his education serious, you can't compare todays youth to then, it would be unbelievably foolish. At 20 back then, you were probably realistically 40-50 in mental age. Age is a number, doesn't mean shit, what you do with the time you're here is all that matters, and it shows in the history, he had no intent of wasting his, which he didn't. A kid can conquer the world and a kid today can build atom smashers in his garage, don't be so skeptical on the brilliance of a "child", especially when our deep mind isn't our own but instead an infinitely old archaic intelligence that feeds the conscious mind.

[barbarianhorde]

Painful as I might be to admit it but the homosexuality in Greece and Rome and in the Arab world flows from a profound contempt of women. They weren't and aren considered valid life companions, not able to discuss in the fine manners of logical enterprise.

Now of course somehow the mother is always exempt from this. She is revered as a goddess of wisdom and the ground to meaning. And mothers discuss amongst themselves - and define by their intrigue the mores and punishments of the city, but one place where they are not needed is war. The direction of forces at peril of loss of life and civilization, this game is too chaotic for women to multitask their way through. Too much is at stake on a single-mind. Here is where Alexander excelled, he had his eyes always as clearly on his purpose as no other man had, he was born and raised in an ascending political momentum at the crux of which he excelled and proved his valour. Somewhere the name "first over the wall" was attributed to him, and he is recognized by the Rams horn. Astrologically this happens to coincide with the culmination of the age of Aries.

[barbarianhorde]

You can't be dependent on others in this world. It's what may kill you. Not to mention Alexander was tutored by Aristotle and took his education serious, you can't compare todays youth to then, it would be unbelievably foolish. At 20 back then, you were probably realistically 40-50 in mental age. Age is a number, doesn't mean shit, what you do with the time you're here is all that matters, and it shows in the history, he had no intent of wasting his, which he didn't. A kid can conquer the world and a kid today can build atom smashers in his garage, don't be so skeptical on the brilliance of a "child", especially when our deep mind isn't our own but instead an infinitely old archaic intelligence that feeds the conscious mind.

You'll go far kid and I appreciate the contextualizing to the present of our hero.

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In Plato's Theages it is written: "Each one of us would like to be
master over all men, if possible, and best of all God." This attitude
must exist again. "

[promethean75]

Painful as I might be to admit it but the homosexuality in Greece and Rome and in the Arab world flows from a profound contempt of women.

this is true, but here's where what is believed to be the healthy expression of intellectual love shared among men in the manner of sexual intimacy, is actually a form of degeneracy. in believing that something as profound as matters of the intellect and soul can produce a love between men that can be expressed and represented by a base profanity such as sex, the value of it is reduced and depreciated. no amount of physical intimacy can qualify or enrich a shared ethos between men, and in fact only serves to vulgarize it. so any man who feels the compulsion to become sexually intimate with another man has already violated the genuine value of agape with the erotic. greek soldiers on long war campaigns were encouraged to be sexually intimate with their fellow soldiers; this was thought to build solidarity and commitment between them, which in theory would make them better fighters (more inclined to protect each other). but here, although as a matter of expediency, the reason for an honorable commitment to one's country in battle is reduced down to camaraderie and motivation merely to protect one's lover. this is analogous to what i mean when i might say the 'idea' is vulgarized by the physical... that the reason for the collective commitment to a grand idea, an ethos, is grounded in and expressed by something profane by contrast.

sex can never be a means to express intellectual love and should only be relegated to the erotic and for the purposes of reproduction. this is why, and how, only the woman is appropriate for the man in these matters. and a real man does not 'make love' during sex; there is nothing sacred about physical intimacy. it's as mundane as eating or sleeping. erotic sex should be for the purposes of pleasure and release of libidinal energies... so that once the man is satisfied he can regain his composure for the more serious matters of statecraft and politics. in my world real men never have to busy or worry themselves trying to get laid. this was a natural right and something provided by willing females who feel privileged to provide such service. and the thought of sex with another man is an unquestionable abomination. if you were caught even looking at another man with that gleam in your eye, you were immediately demoted to a career in interior design.

and another thing. women today are as capable of intellectual agape as men are... only back then they weren't educated as much as men, so obviously they were held in contempt. but the same conditions apply for the relationship between men and women; their intellectual love can't be expressed in the erotic, either. sexual intercourse and intellectual intercourse are mutually exclusive matters.

no. today, homosexuality between men that is not a condition of genetic physiology and instead something that has been generated psychologically and though nurturing, betrays a subtle degeneracy of character and weakness of soul. notice today the general attitude of men who become gay; 'the world doesn't understand us' or 'i have more in common with men than women', etc. these are reactive expressions that have evolved as mechanisms to compensate for failure... while genetically inclined gay men, who haven't 'become' gay but always were, are responding to their natural instincts (becoming aroused by the pheromones of other men, for example). there is a world of difference here concerning the quality of the homosexuality. one is natural, the other is a contrived role.

[promethean75]

... and if you want to know what turned all the dudes gay, i'll tell you. it all started in the seventies when rock-n-roll stars with long hair and pooched out, succulent lips began appearing in publicity photos that young, unwilling male consumers fell victim too. frank explains:

observe terry bozzio (the helpless drummer), mad with desire!



a cleaner version featuring don pardo as narrator:

[Urwrongx1000]

Graeco-Romans weren't "Gay" in the sexual sense. That's something written-in by Jews, to pervert and slander the Graeco-Roman history and accomplishments.

It's as Promethean just wrote... homosexual sex is vulgar and demeaning, and never something practiced by great men throughout history. To buy into such common lies and slander, is also a sign of vulgarity and baseness. It also demonstrates how easily manipulated the history books are.

[promethean75]

Graeco-Romans weren't "Gay" in the sexual sense.

they were gay, but not 'gay' gay, if you know what i mean (not yet, anyway). the feminine demeanor usually developed within the high ranking aristocratic classes. the greater your access to luxury, your power to command and order people about, and your avoidance of having to do any real labor, the softer you got... and the less masculine you felt. you find most of these fruitcakes among the royal families, priests and educators (philosophers). and what enhances even more that feminine spirit in these dudes is their secret envy of the masculinity of those men of the lower classes; soldiers, athletes, farmers, tradesmen, merchants, etc. this envy gave them greater joy in the privilege of being able to control them.

a great example would be that pansy commodus in 'gladiator'. you can literally feel the seething self disgust this guy secretly felt... especially when rejected by that one chick (forget her name): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5tM3FOjTZc

anyway this was typical of a lot of aristocratic dudes back in those days.