There's no evidence to suggest that Alexander the Great was gay. None at all. It's simply modern day "liberal" revisionism - Westerners wish to portray their cultural forerunners as being hedonists in order to endorse their own life styles.
It's disgusting really, the way mass media has been used not as a way to spread knowledge, but rather as a means for sinful Westerners to assauge their guilty consciousness' through what amounts to little more than propoganda. If you asked the average American, he'd tell you that the Romans were drunken sex fiends, who sat around all day eating grapes and aborting babies.
Truly we are a disgrace to our great legacy. Unworthy children who've inherited technology far too advanced for puny minds and culture to appreciate. The truth is, Idiocracy didn't take place in the future... it's taking place today.
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OK, so while I do not endorse at all the way you wrote your post, I do think there is some truth in the matter that some historians are rewriting history to fit their own ethical and political beliefs, some of whom are in fact ascribing sexual beliefs to people for whom no evidence of such exists. In truth, I'm completely bewildered by those who suggest that every character in all of Shakespeare's plays are repressed homosexuals; which somehow excuses the villains, or lionizes homosexuality with the protagonists.
However, Alexander the Great is not a good example of this, since he was not any sort of beacon of moral purity to begin with. He was a ruthless conqueror. I'm not going to be offended if somebody in the near future publishes a thesis suggesting he was a gentigamist™ sadomasochist, even if it's ridiculous. Furthermore, he's not a good example of this because even though no ancient sources specify that he had a relationship with Hephaestion, that would have been somewhat normal for his culture. Furthermore furthermore, the Romans did force concubinage on people and also execute their unwanted babies, so I can't really endorse them as a beacon of moral purity that is being corrupted by modern historians either.
I may have something different to say if you were to bring up people like St. Sebastian or Abraham Lincoln.
I disagree. If you look, for example, at how rulers treated defeated people, I'd say that we are living in by far the most moral age of all time. Until really recently, rulers thought that merely enslaving their defeated was merciful. Saying we are the heirs to a moral legacy that we have recently shrugged off seems a bit backwards to me.
And would you say that homosexuality is immoral?
Would you say masturbation is?
Apparently America's historical crimes are awful (which I agree with), but you're okey dokey with sweeping under the rug things that the ancient Greeks and Romans did because they had an overwhelmingly awesome "work ethic, patrioticism or lawfulness". Do you even know what the word "ethics" means?
If it hinders someone's ability to grow and/or reproduce then it's, practically speaking, immoral.
I never said Rome was the epitome of morality.
There's no evidence to suggest that Alexander the Great was gay. None at all. It's simply modern day "liberal" revisionism - Westerners wish to portray their cultural forerunners as being hedonists in order to endorse their own life styles.
It's disgusting really, the way mass media has been used not as a way to spread knowledge, but rather as a means for sinful Westerners to assauge their guilty consciousness' through what amounts to little more than propoganda. If you asked the average American, he'd tell you that the Romans were drunken sex fiends, who sat around all day eating grapes and aborting babies.
Truly we are a disgrace to our great legacy. Unworthy children who've inherited technology far too advanced for puny minds and culture to appreciate. The truth is, Idiocracy didn't take place in the future... it's taking place today.
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Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
That's not what the word immoral means, especially in the context of virtue ethics.
Then what are you complaining about, and why can't it make more sense?
Are you an Easterner or something? Yes, all Western historians are gay and they're twisting history to make everyone gay
Then tell me what it means.
The end of all actions is the happiness of the agent, which is a completion of the human being. Since that requires the person to be fulfilled (which is to say, to "flourish" the best he possibly can), any action that makes the agent a worse person (because it interrupts a good habit, or the making of a good habit, with excess or deficiency) is immoral.
Killing people in lieu of taking care of them is an action of extreme vice, and therefore is deeply immoral.
Actually I'm talking about society in general twisting history, not individuals.
Because you think homosexual actions are immoral, but institutionalized abortions isn't because that's "an unimportant aspect of [ancient Rome's] society," as if the former is much worse.
Aren't you doing the same thing? You don't give any evidence about attitudes towards homosexuality in ancient Greece and you don't mention anything about Alexander the Great's relationships.
If you actually read my posts you would see that historians do no claim that he was gay but say it's likely he had homosexual relations. You seem to think this is just an example of the "decadent West" choosing to portray Alexander the Great as gay for whatever reasons and offer no evidence to back this up. This despite that many historians have held this opinion even in the 1950s and before, long before homosexuality was widely accepted in Western culture.
Bear in mind that I am not specifically saying that Alexander had any homosexual relations because that is not known but I'm saying it seems at least likely and you're saying otherwise and claiming that it's only the bias of a pro-gay culture that suggests it which is ridiculous.
If you want to offer no sources beyond your own narrow minded opinions go ahead but don't expect people to take you seriously.
There is also the great warrior Alexander the Great (who modelled himself after Achilles) and his famous man-boy lovers.