You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: "Behind Great Minds" (poem) >>> A Tribute to Those Who Teach Our Children
You have pointed to some great teachers indeed but oddly all of them Greek. Not sure of Alexander in their company. What of eastern philosophers, or even more modern ones?
@prydefoltz,
Hi Pryde.
My poem required a lineage.
A teacher (Socrates) taught a student (Plato), who became a teacher, who taught a student (Aristotle) who became a teacher, who taught a student (Alexander The Great) ... who unified the "Hellenic World," defeated the armies of the largest empire on Earth (Persia) despite being massively outnumbered ... and thereby was responsible for the worldwide spread of Hellenic ideas and the foundation of "Western Civilization"- which changed the world.
To the best of my knowledge, no such cause-and-effect lineage exists anywhere else in history.
Alexander was a psychopathic megalomaniac who brought death and suffering where ever he went. Perhaps Greek philosophy has spread and persists because it holds value. There is no powerful general forcing it on us today. I think Socrates would drink hemlock all over again if he thought he were in some way responsible for the likes of Alexander. Guilty by association only perhaps. I'll give you the Aristotle connection. By the way Aristotle was a rotten physicist. LOL
I do not like Aristotle and Alexander ... no, I do not.
@prydefoltz,
I can see that.
Boys will be boys.
Pryde, I do not even know where to start. You seem quite down on conquering hordes.:-)
Or ... is it Western Civilization?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I'd be willing to bet that if you took a poll of historians, less than 1% would concur with your assessment of either Alexander The Great or Aristotle.
When reading history, there is always a temptation to view events through a modern lens ... projecting personal moral sensibilities (biases) upon historical figures and events. The problem is that this strips history of its context ... and context is everything. Conditions that we take for granted today, they couldn't have even imagined.
I notice that you're into Eastern Traditions (yes, Pryde, I actually READ your stuff, including the comments and replies). Genghis Khan ... that's as Eastern as it gets. Shall we talk about Mongol brutality? China and Japan ... incredible histories, but a lot of dead bodies too. Right? The "Art of War" (properly translated, The Art of Strategy) is Chinese.
Aristotle ... I'm going to let you spank your own bottom on that one because, knowing your sense of humor, I suspect most of that was joking. Aristotle was brilliant.
I think violent death and rape has always been frowned upon in 'civilized' company. And plenty of historian have looked beyond the 'glorious' retelling associated with the telling of Alexander's tale to reckon the suffering he inflicted. Social history is a pretty big movement these days. History viewed from the point of view of the everyman or woman and not the Nietzsche uberman types.
Count me in with diplomacy and not conquering hordes. Neither a fan of Kubla nor Genghis, Napoleon nor Hitler. Yes, I am fan of eastern philosophy but that being the Tao Te Ching specifically and not the Art of War. You will find Taoist concepts mirrored in the philosophies of most religions, including Christianity and Islam.
I am also quite a fan of Socrates and Kuhn. They both knew that they did not know. Then we can go into the Big E Enlightenment and the likes of Descartes.
Aristotle wasn't all bad. I like a good syllogism as much as the next girl. But he was a misogynist and an elitist and had some outright flawed ideas about how things fell. Plato was also a tad anti-female, but he did ponder some interesting ideas on the metaphysical.
Alexander actions led to the death of approximately 70 000 to 120 000 people. Given the population of the world at that time ... that is significant. Even if you don't see the number as significant in its own right.
No, I do not celebrate or admire bloody ambition. Even if one cleans up after the blood-letting.